THE DUST SETTLES: SHADE IS OUT. TOVO IS IN. WHAT NEXT?
Shade Tovo
Time marches on. Randi Shade is history. Her successor, Kathie Tovo has been ensconced on the dias for over a month now. The question is: What next?
It's a good question to ask. Shade - flush with corporate funding and endorsements ranging from the Mayor to the police and firefighters' unions (even aggressively "green" councilman Chris Riley supported her) - was considered a shoo-in to win despite her unpopularity with the general public. Her defeat, so we hear, has reverberated through City Hall in a shakeup of Council aides that could conceivably work to our advantage. That remains to be seen.
During citizens communication on June 23 Shade's last day on the Council, Linda Greene engaged in a remarkable exchange with Mayor Lee Leffingwell, who, for the first time in memory, treated a Fluoride Free Austin member with a measure of respect. Leffingwell suggested that our efforts would best be employed by gathering signatures to place the fluoridation issue on the ballot in a citizens' initiative/referendum effort. When Greene protested that the Council had a duty to act promptly to protect the public's health, Mike Martinez, a member of the Public Health and Human Services Committee which has been studying the issue, unexpectedly stepped in to announce that he and fellow committee member Laura Morrison had discussed the possibility of bringing fluoridation to a public referendum by vote of the Council, thus sparing us the costly and arduous petition process.
It seemed a triumphant moment for us. However, a subsequent private meeting with Martinez revealed that he has neither the requisite four votes nor any interest in soliciting them. He recommended we lobby other City Council members for their support. Which of course we've been doing for the past two and a half years.
Today, more than a month after Shade's departure, her place as chair of the Public Health and Human Services Committee remains unfilled, while newcomer Tovo is apparently yet without assignments. Mayor Leffingwell seems in no rush to replace Shade, whose name still appears in all her old positions on the City Clerk's site here. It will be interesting to see who will be sitting in Shade's spot when the Committee next convenes on Tuesday, August 16, at 3:p.m.
Although many consider Tovo an unknown quantity, she can be expected to hold many if not most of the same positions as Laura Morrison. Both came to the Council through the same route: leadership on the Austin Neighborhood Council. Morrison's current position on water fluoridation is equivocal: it may have shifted since early 2009, when she informed a leader of Texans for Accountable Government that she didn't have the "bandwidth" for the issue. Things do sometimes change. Meanwhile, we've given Tovo a copy of Dr. Paul Connett's book The Case Against Fluoride and she has promised to read it.
The saga continues.
Posted by M. Rae Nadler-Olenick at 8/2/2011 12:27 PM 
Categories: austin water fluoridation, health wellness environment politics
Tags: fluorie water fluoridation austin fluoride austin water fluoridation tovo politics activism
Categories: austin water fluoridation, health wellness environment politics
Tags: fluorie water fluoridation austin fluoride austin water fluoridation tovo politics activism
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