ER - Local Solutions endorses Meserve for City Council

Local Solutions endorses Meserve for City Council
by Rebecca S. Bender, 8/30/2006

Local political action committee Local Solutions announced Tuesday that it had plucked one candidate from the pool of eight in the Arcata City Council race for its endorsement: incumbent Dave Meserve.

“We need leaders who will take us into the next era — leaders who will lead,” Local Solutions spokesperson Dennis Huber explained. “We made a point of endorsing Dave because he’s been kind of a lightning rod... and we just wanted to reaffirm our commitment to leaders who are willing to stand up and speak out on the major issues.”

The announcement didn’t exactly send shockwaves through the community.

Meserve, who first joined the council in 2002, has in the ensuing years introduced resolutions rejecting the U.S. Patriot Act, calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and demanding the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, among many other things of both local and broader scope.

Tuesday afternoon, Meserve received the endorsement announcement with pleasure.

“I definitely intend to focus on local issues, but it’s undeniable that national policies affect us here,” he said. “We need to be prepared to address, if not the causes of those policies, at least the inevitable consequences of those policies.”

He said that two of his priorities, developing local energy sources and supporting food independence, address exactly those things.

“We need to be prepared locally,” he emphasized.

The Local Solutions board — Huber, Patrick Riggs, Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap and Alice Woodworth — sat down for interviews with each of the eight candidates last week.

Two seats are open in the November election, and Meserve and incumbent Mark Wheetley are being challenged by Bobby Harris, Nick Page, Dana Quillman, Jeffrey Schwartz, Alex Stillman and Michael Winkler.

All of the candidates were “enlightening,” and strongly committed to public service, Huber said.

“We couldn’t make a decision on how to choose among those other seven candidates,” he added. “I think whoever is elected, Arcata’s going to get two very good council members.”

Local Solutions announced endorsements in the Eureka City Council race last week, backing Larry Glass, Ron Kuhnel, Nancy Abrams and incumbent Peter La Vallee for the 1st, 3rd and 5th Ward council seats and the mayor’s seat, respectively.

(Rebecca S. Bender is the Eureka-Arcata political affairs reporter. She can be reached at rbender@eurekareporter.com.)
Copyright (C) 2005, The Eureka Reporter. All rights reserved.

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