May 8, 2000 - Denise
Giardina Candidacy Announcement
I would
first like to thank that host of volunteers who made it possible
for me to stand here today. People across the state have been
collecting signatures on petitions to put my name on the ballot
in November. My petitioners have been college students at Marshall,
WVU, West Virginia State, West Virginia Wesleyan, Fairmont State.
They have been retired college professors, community activists,
working people giving up their lunchtimes, schoolteachers working
through precious spring breaks, and shy people forcing themselves
to accost strangers on the street.
Tonight
we will hold a celebration and recognize these petitioners individually,
but this morning I would like to make special mention of three people.
Missy and Gregg Anthony of Buffalo have served as statewide petition
coordinators and done a marvelous -- and totally volunteer -- job.
And this effort quite literally wouldn't have succeeded without
the tireless effort of campaign manager Vince George who since August
has been on the job every day all day.
In a state
notorious for the difficulty of ballot access, this campaign has
been faced with the additional hurdles of needing twice as many
signatures as was required in the past, and of general confusion
among both citizens and government officials over how to interpret
the state's ballot access law. We are this morning proudly turning
in 18,000 signatures to the Secretary of State and I am confident
this is more than enough to cover the required 12,562.
Why have
so many people worked so hard to gain ballot access for a new Mountain
Party? Because they love West Virginia. And because they know this
will be a campaign like no other. I would like now to spell out
for you some of the differences.
Other
gubernatorial campaigns have spent money on ice sculptures and expensive
food at exclusive fund raisers, or on fancy buses with web cams
so people can sit in front of their computers at home and stare
at the interior of the bus for as long as they want. This campaign
is giving money to the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity.
Other
candidates are talking about character education for school children.
I'll be talking about character education for politicians.
Other
candidates will avoid debates and dance around issues. I'll make
myself as available as possible to the people and press of this
state, and I'll try very hard to answer questions directly and
honestly.
Other
candidates will surround themselves with the same party faction
leaders, the same cash cows, the same slate makers, who have run
this state into the ground. They will accept campaign contributions
from the coal industry, the gambling industry, the timber industry.
Saddest of all, they'll do what they're told. I will take advice
from talented and creative people, not political hacks, and I
will answer to no one except the people of West Virginia and my
own conscience.
Other
candidates will brag about their accomplishments, programs that
sound just wonderful at face value -- like school safety hotlines
-- but which have all the substance of a tub of Kool Whip and
waste taxpayers money. I will punch holes in such hot air balloons,
and I will tell hard truths.
Four inter-related
issues in particular I want to bring to your attention, issues
I believe are the key to future progress in this state.
I support
community-based elementary schools. Other candidates have recently
been giving lip service to this issue, probably because their
polls have started to tell them this is important to the people
of the state. I have been talking about community grade schools
for months, and I am the only candidate who will actually propose
steps to ensure that local schools survive, such as limiting time
on school buses, reining in the School Building Authority and
addressing questions of property tax fairness. I am the only candidate
for governor who opposes the spread of the gambling industry.
Maybe that's because I'm not taking money from gray machine operators.
Is it any wonder that those who do take such contributions favor
either legalizing gray machines or allowing current illegal practices
to continue? Gambling is addictive for individuals, but especially
for governments. I don't want West Virginia to become an Atlantic
City or Las Vegas or New Orleans with their crime, their sleaze,
and their political corruption. I will oppose any further development
of casinos or other gambling facilities in West Virginia, and
if gray machines cannot be policed then they should be banned.
Period.
Instead
of closing schools or depending on gambling revenue, I propose something
novel: let's take back our state from absentee landowners. Way
back in 1884 the state's tax commission was told The wealth of
this State is immense; the development of this wealth will earn
vast private fortunes. . . ; the question is, whether this vast
wealth shall belong to persons who live here and who are permanently
identified with the future of West Virginia, or whether it shall
pass into the hands of persons who do not live here and who care
nothing for our State except to pocket the treasures which lie
buried in our hills? If the people of West Virginia can be roused
to an appreciation of the situation we ourselves will gather this
harvest now ripe on the lands inherited from our ancestors; on
the other hand if the people are not roused to an understanding
of the situation in less than ten years this vast wealth will
have passed from our present population into the hands of non-residents,
and West Virginia will be almost like Ireland and her history
will be like that of Poland. (--J.M. Mason, E.A. Bennett, and
Joseph Bell, report to West Virginia Tax Commission, Nov. 22,
1884)
Sadly
this came to pass, and this warning ignored, just as state government
today ignores warnings about the demise of coal. Here is the hard
truth no other candidate will talk about -- West Virginia is poor
because West Virginians don't own West Virginia. Much of our land,
our timber, our minerals, are owned by outside corporations who
don't pay their fair share of property taxes and cart their profits
out-of-state. The West Virginia taxpayer is left to pick up the
burden and would-be state business owners have few resources with
which to work. The West Virginia economy will never, ever be healthy
as long as this situation continues. In the months to come I will
be talking about solutions -- increased severance taxes on timber,
tax protection for small local timber owners, absentee owned land
and coal properties appraised at their true and actual value,
taxes on coal royalties paid to absentee landowners, an excess
acreage tax on landowners holding more than 10,000 acres. Since
I began talking about planning for a "post-coal economy" last
spring, other candidates have begun to use that term. But I will
be the only candidate proposing ways to fund a post-coal economy.
I will also be the only candidate insisting that the coal industry
obey the law like any other small business. I guarantee I will
be charged with trying to kill the coal industry. Nothing could
be farther from the truth. I want to keep the coal industry around
long enough for this state to finally recoup some of the wealth
that was stolen from us. As our famous play says, they have taken
the honey and left us the rock. Whatever honey is left, this state
should keep it and use the proceeds to grow the post-coal economy.
Finally I must speak to the issue of mountaintop removal. It never
ceases to sadden me, this capacity we humans have to be faced
with the most horrific practices, and somehow grow used to them.
We debate mountaintop removal as if it were normal. Our gubernatorial
candidates talk about "responsible mountaintop mining" as if such
a mongrel creature could possibly exist, as if you could desecrate
a church responsibly or run a concentration camp responsibly.
It's impossible.
Our beautiful
mountains are the greatest blessing God has lent us in West Virginia,
rounded gently by His own hand. They cause us to lift our eyes to
heaven. They shelter us from the elements, they lift our spirits
with their beauty. We have grown orchards on their peaks, built
houses on their ridges and slopes. They have given us our very
identity as West Virginians. Now we are told they are useless.
So we are flattening them and filling in hollows, for what? For
thirty pieces of silver.
I would
like to call my niece Erin Giardina to the podium. Erin is a graduating
senior at Charleston Catholic and she's going to sing a song that
speaks to what I've been saying. [Erin sings "The West Virginia
Hills"] That is why I am today announcing that I am the first
but far from last Mountain Party candidate for Governor of West
Virginia.
