Letter to the editor: Final Five Voting, and more

Posted 9/27/22

 More choices in Final Five Voting To the editor, The election winner is the candidate with the majority of the votes, right? Not always. If, for example, three candidates are on the ballot, the …

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Letter to the editor: Final Five Voting, and more

Posted

To the editor,

The election winner is the candidate with the majority of the votes, right? Not always. If, for example, three candidates are on the ballot, the winner could receive just 34% of the vote. It’s not majority rule if more people voted for SOMEONE ELSE than for the winner.

This is a major flaw in our current system, which allows a candidate to win with a plurality instead of a majority. Final Five Voting (FFV) addresses this flaw through a non-par – tisan primary in which the top five candidates advance to the general election. Voters in the general election then rank the five candidates in order of preference. If a candidate receives a simple majority of the first-choice votes, that candidate wins. If no one receives a sim- ple majority of the first place votes, the can – didate who received the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated. This elimination and tallying process continues until a candidate has received a true majority of votes.

This system gives more power to candidates and voters than to the parties. No more voting for the lesser of two evils — now you have choices. No more throwing away your vote on a third-party candidate whose ideas you like but who you know will lose. Representatives need no longer fear being “primaried” for casting a vote on behalf of their constituents rather than the party.

You can learn more about the Final Five system by visiting groww.org or democracyfound. org. We can upgrade our democracy by giving ourselves more choices.

Maureen Ash T

own of River Falls

The truth about Dems

To the editor, Victimization being promoted by Mandela Barnes is a moldy stale piece of bread.

It’s another approach into slavery for those who take the bait. Democrats have never let go of their infamous southern heritage and for decades are turning the country into a plantation of economic slavery.

Mandela Barnes has dropped the word “progressive” to appear mainstream, but the cat’s out of the bag on his past and his views.

Democrats have abandoned America and Americans in a quest for Marxism with a caviar-eating, champagne-drinking, fossil fueled jet flying Politburo. The cities run by them are riddled with crime. Barnes is making this possible in Wisconsin by releasing criminals back on the streets. He’s got his security detail but wants to defund law enforcement and disarm Wisconsinites.

Democrats opposed the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment to free slaves and make them US citizens.

They enacted Jim Crow laws and poll taxes and were responsible for the lynchings.

Why would anyone especially blacks and other minorities still vote for them? The best answer was given by president Lyndon Johnson himself.

“Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a diuerence… I’ll have them voting Democratic for the next two hundred years.”

You’re going to exchange your American birthright for a bowl of lentil soup on a plan- tation from Mandela Barnes?

Sanjeev Dhawan

Ellsworth

Be informed in order to avoid future surprises

Dear citizens of Ellsworth, I would like to bring to light some topics that I have been made aware of during the time that I’ve been attending Village Board and Community Development Authority (CDA) meetings. As a lot of you probably know, the old junior high building at 254 S. Chestnut St. has been a subject of debate for several years and was recently purchased by the Village for $25,000. In the past it has been sold for as little as $1 but I digress. At the Village meeting in July, it was said that this building “is the number one priority in the Village at this time” when updating our inadequate sewer and water systems was number 3 on the list. I’d think those things would be higher priorities than a building that has sat vacant for many years.

Speaking of the sewer system, at the most recent CDA meeting, it was approximated that in order to update just the area by the old junior high will cost “$1.5 to $2 MILLION.” This is on top of the one quote the board has received for about $1 million for asbestos abatement and demolishing the building. A TID has recently been approved and in my understanding will need at least a $7 million building complex (42-unit apartment building and a few duplexes are the current thoughts) in order to hopefully pay this TID back in the amount of time the Village is allotted. Also, as soon as the TID is used, the clock is ticking. Therefore until there is a plan in place, the building still stands as is.

In my opinion, a majority of the board is taking a “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” approach which should NOT be the case when dealing with millions of dollars— especially when this could potentially fall on the taxpayers if proper steps are not put into place.

When I brought up the land by the former ShopKo building as a place for future residential development, I was told that it is “zoned commercial.” This land has been listed for sale for at least 15 years. Not only that, but I recently learned that 254 S. Chestnut is ALSO ZONED COMMERCIAL and that all it takes to change that is a Village Board vote. If we are in such a housing crisis as I’ve been told multiple times, then why hasn’t that land been viewed as a potential area for hous- ing development? Especially now that once again there is nothing going into the ShopKo building and that land is sitting there, vacant, unlike the area on S. Chestnut that seems to be in limbo once again and (as the Village website states about this area in Crossing Meadows) it has “excellent access to major transportation routes of US Highways 10 and 63, and State Highways 65 and 72.”

Village Board meetings are scheduled for the first Monday of each month at 7 p.m. and CDA meetings are on the third Thursday of each month at 5:30 p.m. Both meet at the Village Hall (130 N. Chestnut St.)

Dawn J. Benoy

Ellsworth

Resumes of Pfaff and Van Orden

To the editor, The 3rd District will have new representation in congress in 2023. Wisconsin native, Brad Pfau, who holds rural economic devel opment related degrees from UW-GB and George Mason University is well known throughout the district. He was elected to represent Wisconsin›s 32nd Senate District in 2020. Before that he worked in administrative roles for several state, federal and 3rd District farm service agencies. His special expertise is in legislation related to agricultural economic issues. He has legislative experience in implementation of programs related to dairy, bean, corn, forest product, potato, and cranberry production. He was raised on a dairy farm and family farming issues appear to be at the core of his advocacy. He is endorsed by labor, conservation, and agricultural organizations.

His opponent, Derrick Van Orden’s background and connection to the 3rd District is more divcult to determine. A Minnesota native, his TV ads emphasize that he spent 26 years as a Navy Seal often in combat zones. According to Wikipedia he served in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa. He retired as a Chief Petty Ovcer. This means he had some administrative, compartmental, operational and advisory duties. A valuable skill set to be sure but acquired in a top-down environment which does not always match up well with the compromise culture necessary in a legislative setting. Combat zones and missions are very loosely defined by the DOD. His ads infer that he was on combat missions, but no record of actual combat action was found. In any event we owe him thanks for his service.

After his military service, Van Orden tried acting where he received training as an actor and participated in several “B” grade military themed/action movies. He has acting or lo- cation specialist credits in the films; “Act of Valor,” “Surviving the Wild” and “Running with the Devil.”

He returned to Minnesota 2015-17 and enrolled in law courses from Bemidji State and the Hamline online jurist doctorate program.

He then moved to Butternut, Wis. where with a $35,000 loan from the village of Butternut he opened the Butternut Cafe. He then relocated to a Hager City area hobby farm and in 2020, he ran for the 3rd District’s congressional representative, on the coat tails of, and with Trump’s endorsement. After losing, his loyalty to Trump superseded his loyalty to the military oath he took to uphold the Constitution, as he used $4,000 of his left-over campaign funds to participate in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection events that led to the anti- American mob attack on the nation’s capital. There is no evidence that he participated in the vandalism of the capitol, but to date he has not publicly denounced that assault on the democratic process, and he still has Trump’s endorsement. He currently is listed as living in Prairie du Chien.

Based on his TV ads, Van Orden seems to be opposed to candidates experienced in government and legislation, supports term limits, and opposes legislators from retiring to become lobbyists. There is not much there about our district’s needs. His dark money supporters spend their dollars attacking Brad Pfau’s “Washington big spending ways,” even though Pfau has never been in con gress. (Ironically, the idea of lobbyist restriction is also in the Democrat’s platform).

Voters of the 3rd District face a choice between an experienced native Wisconsin legislator, well informed on the issues of the district in Brad Pfau, or Derrick Van Orden who has lived in the district for little more than three years, has no Wisconsin roots, has no legislative experience, has a government pension with government healthcare and has collected a massive amount of out of state money to run for congress twice in those three+ years (He has collected more than $1 million to date in 2022 ). However, in his two runs for congress, he has demonstrated little knowledge of the economic or social underpinnings of the 3rd District and seems to be focused on drawing his support by promoting the divisive culture wars that divide our nation.

To date Pfau has challenged Van Orden to three debates. Van Orden has refused apparently trusting his “acting” as a patriotic congressional candidate in TV ads more than his ability to prove his knowledge of the needs of Wisconsin’s 3rd District. After examining the resumes which candidate will you hire to represent our interests in the next congress?

Ron Ginsbach

Elmwood