City Times Staff

Park Ridge Village Trustee Bob Gifford has announced his candidacy for District 10 of the Portage County Board of Supervisors.

The district encompassed an area east of Minnesota Avenue in Stevens Point, south of Main Street, Park Ridge and parts of Town of Hull east of Park Ridge.

“The unifying issue of this campaign is sustainability for our area,” Gifford said in his campaign announcement. “This term is the basis of the ‘eco-municipality’ movement to which Stevens Point subscribed in 2007. In a sustainable society you don’t allow systematic inequality, poverty and permanent joblessness; you don’t constantly encroach on nature, and you don’t build up pollutants in your environment.”

Gifford said he will pay particular attention to well water issues in Hull.

“I spoke with Town of Hull Chair John Holdridge and asked what issues concern Hull residents, and the number one issue was groundwater protection.,” he said. “The situation with Well #11 should not have developed, had the two municipalities been cooperating and thinking sustainable and holistically about what’s best for our citizens. On his suggestion, protection of private wells is a key issue for the County Board to address. It’s absurd to have system of real estate development dependent on home ownership with private wells, if you can’t even protect the water quantity nor quality in those wells.”

Another issue Gifford wants to address included “the loss of local control, power and autonomy for our counties, our cities, villages and towns.”

“The one-party rule in the state capitol has done nothing but usurp local control and powers and centralize them in a scheme run by big government corporate bosses,” Gifford’s statement read.

He also asserted something he called “community rights over corporate rights”.

“Corporations must not be allowed to abuse our local communities for their own benefit, the trend since 2010. The corporate agenda—whether unlimited agribusiness high-capacity well usage, frac-sand destruction of farmlands, railroad blockage of community roads, or toxic tar-sands pipelines like Enbridge’s– is unsustainable. Corporations are not people. Money is not free speech,” his statement reads.

All 25 seats on the Portage Co. Board will be up for election in April.