Election Day, Gainesville -- Traffic Should Guide Voting

Today is election day in Gainesville, Florida. One issue should be on the mind of all local voters -- traffic. This is very much on all our minds, because we have to deal with it every day, at least twice a day. And the fact that the current mood of the government of Gainesville tends toward inducing traffic problems should tell you that they need to go. And where you dont have the opportunity to vote them out of office, you should take advantage of any opportunity to replace them with people who do care about improving traffic in the city. Honestly, I recently had the displeasure of being in downtown Tampa at rush hour and the traffic moved faster than Gainesville traffic. The short version is that Tony Domenech should be your candidate. He has former city commission experience, but that should not be a decideing factor (I think my mechanic, Bill, would be an admirable candidate based on his stance that government should not be used to make people's lives miserable). Domenech has stated on many occasions, including on his campaign web site, that releiving traffic congestion is a very important issue for him. Not so for his opponent, Jeanna Mastrodicasa, who is in favor of narrowing Main Street. She is under the erroneous impression that this will somehow make driving easier. I beg to differ -- there is a reason I avoid Main Street on weekends, and that is because they artificially narrow it already by closing the outer lanes and increasing gridlock.

The bottom line is that the City of Gainesville is creating difficulties on purpose to annoy us into not driving (this practice is probably why they approved repaving projects on no less than 4 major thouroughfares at the same time, instead of one at a time, like any considerate person would have done). We, the voters, need to get it through these people's thick skulls that the servant government is supposed to serve, not dictate. That is why we need to vote for Tony Domenech.

FreeFAC City Commission Candidate Questionnaire for 2006 -- At Large Gainesville Candidates: Jeanna Mastrodicasa v. Tony Domenech

Alachua County Voting Precinct Finder. Polls are open from 7am until 7pm EST

Alachua County Supervisor of Elections

I haven't been able to find much on the east Gainesville candidates, since not everyone in Gainesville can vote for them, coverage has not been that great. Neither seems to have a discernable stance on traffic, but no one has asked them, so I don't know. If I found myself in an east Gainesville district, I would write my own name in, personally. Not enough information is available. Here is an article from the Sun about Scherwin Henry and Barbara Sharpe; the city commission candidates for east Gainesville.