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VOTER EDUCATION MEETING PLANNED
NEWS RELEASE
September 23, 2002
A “voter education” meeting, aimed at providing “pro and con” information
about two hot topics on the November ballot, is being put together by the
newly formed Ozark Liberty Alliance (OLA). “Animal Cruelty” and “Ax the
Tax” ballot initiatives are set to be the topics of an October 24, Public
forum.
“I want to be informed
and make my own decisions,” Lula Holeman, a retired school teacher from
Formosa, spoke her mind at the OLA meeting. “I want to know what I’m
voting for… or against. And why.” Holeman’s comments drew nods of
agreement.
“I want to know what’s
in the fine print. What’s the truth about what these bills say? What are
they going to do to my life and my community? And I just don’t know enough
about any of this to cast an informed vote,” Holeman said.
Holeman’s words drew
considerable discussion, spawning the plan to set up the October meeting
and get representatives from both sides of each issue to speak their
piece.
People from the Arkansas
Cattlemen's Association, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Farm
Bureau, and Citizens for a Humane Arkansas are being contacted to address
the Arkansas Animal Cruelty Act which will appear on November ballots as
Initiated Act 1 and has generated a considerable amount of debate.
“This important reform
seeks to upgrade penalties for extreme acts of cruelty to animals,” said
Lyndon Poole, coordinator of the Citizens for a Humane Arkansas campaign,
which strongly favors the bill. Yet according to Anita Orpin, making the
point of the Arkansas Cattlemen's Association, many organizations are
against passage because its "exemption for farming and hunting practices
is far too vague and leaves people open to lawsuits.”
On the controversial
food tax issue, representatives of the Chamber of Commerce and the
Municipal League are being solicited to explain why it is important for
voters to defeat the proposition. Officials from the Libertarian Party of
Arkansas, the organization forwarding the measure to remove sales tax from
all medicine and food, have already accepted the opportunity to tell their
side.
“Sales tax is regressive
in that it burdens poor people disproportionately, especially when applied
to necessities,” wrote John Brummett, columnist and reporter for the
Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock, in the September 15, 2002, edition of
the Log Cabin Democrat. But “without replacing the money, state government
and cities and counties would lose about a half billion dollars a year,”
Brummett continued, calling this “a cut so deep and wide that services
from trash pickup to health services to public education would be
imperiled."
“Not so,” alleges Robert
Reed, Vice-Chair of the Libertarian Party. “They are using scare tactics
to distort the facts.” Reed asserts. “We want to clarify the issue and let
the voters vote.”
A location for the
October “voter education” meeting had not been confirmed by press time,
however OLA organizers say they are as determined as they can be to ensure
that the meeting takes place.
“I was surprised at how
eager everyone was to come together in agreement and work everybody’s
ideas in,” Holeman said of the OLA meeting. “I had never been to a public
meeting that I didn’t come away from feeling like my time would have been
just as well ‘wasted’ sitting home watching a dumb TV show,” she said.
“But this was different. Something happened. I’m looking forward to
October,” she smiled.
For more information
about OLA organizational activities including the planned “voter
education” meeting, contact Christine Weiss,
editor@gozarks.com, 501-723-4322, who is temporarily serving as the
group’s media liaison.
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news
release prepared and distributed by:
Christine Louise Weiss
POBox 211, Shirley, AR 72153
HomeOffice 501-723-4322
editor@gozarks.com
Gozarks: Everything Ozarks
http://www.gozarks.com
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