From Brookhaven Town Council 5th District Green Party Candidate Pauline Salotti

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

Pauline Salotti, 39, is a Patchogue resident, activist, musician, and radio show host on WUSB 90.1fm. She’s taking the next step in servicing the community by running for a seat on the Brookhaven Town Council - 5th District. Election day is November 3rd.

Water Is Everything
The first great thing that we can do is enact a comprehensive plan to take care of our waters – pollution of both the drinking water and estuaries have been drastically increasing for the last six decades, due to a lack of proper infrastructure and exponential population growth. Now I don’t mean to reinvent the wheel here, though the idea is to stay vigilant and see the ongoing projects completed. State funds have been granted to expand sanitary sewer service and I want to make sure that these funds aren’t squandered once more.
New developers should pay for their own wastewater treatment, rather than be a taxpayer burden.
Combined with a massive outreach in public education on the causes, consequences and prevention of pollution, we can reach a five year water protection goal to quit turning our aquifers and bodies of water into giant cesspools, restoring the coastal biodiversity we once had.

Real Candidates
Local elections are run by one party with two faces, which determines what candidates will win. This causes too many citizens to feel hopeless and excluded from the electoral process because they don’t believe that they can make a difference. I want to establish an independent, progressive opposition party to the bipartisan establishment, and let the disgruntled rank and file members of those parties know that they have real choices for candidates. I believe each candidate should only have one line on the ballot.
This should benefit the transparency, and also the “checks and balances” of the office, by avoiding an oligarchy.
An ongoing project is to setup a complete campaign method to assist future candidates and seek out for those individuals.

Economic Freedom

Another goal is to setup the Brookhaven Town Bank, owned by the residents, which will collect all town revenues and then loan out some of the money to Brookhaven sole proprietors, to residents who want to form cooperatives, also for student loans. The Bank will take deposits from Brookhaven Town residents and give them interest.

North Dakota has almost the same population as our town, and they have the country’s only state-owned bank, which survived the economy recession with flying colors. Operating independently from the Federal Reserve, we can provide an alternative to Wall Street bankers and establish our sovereignty to create as many jobs as we need.
This bank will work in partnership with smaller retail banks, not against them.

Also related, since the major banks got 16 trillion in bail out, I find it perfectly reasonable that we restructure this town’s debt.

Community Supported Agriculture
This is a concept already successfully proven on Long Island (see Hamlet Organic Gardens), which I want to see widespread through our neighborhoods and if taken to heart, will provide sustainability, great improvement to our quality of life, and generate jobs. Residents pay a fixed amount for the season and get to pick up their share of fresh, organically grown vegetables once a week, on site.
The town can help these cooperatives take place by donating parcels of vacant land. Directed by experienced organic master gardeners, every age group from local schools to senior citizens will have a chance to learn self-sustainable agriculture by experience. Additionally, it’s a stellar way of rescuing kids from the socially-ill epidemics by giving them a sense of purpose in a productive society.
One or more central vacant buildings could be made into year round farmers markets, whose settings may inspire and connect residents through cooking, and other groups.

Water Eco-Park + Renewable Energy = Jobs
Providing that we don’t spend $5 billion on Caithness II and simply continue our efforts toward renewable energy by installing solar panels to offset the Super Summer Peak (less than 100 hrs. per year) needed for extra power, we can think of fun and safer large-scale projects that bring our community together, rather than divide us with controversial enterprises such as fossil-fuel plants or gambling facilities.
Imagine a water park which utilizes the ocean water flowing through it to the Bay, replicating the positive ecological effects of Fire Island breaches, with renewable energy sources powering the site while enhancing ecology awareness...
This project could be a Public/Private Partnership, which I envision to take place on Fire Island, and can generate a colossal amount of both jobs and revenue!
Also, a long term goal would for us to develop Brookhaven’s own Renewable Energy Power Plant, saving people money and moving toward a pollution free environment.

I appreciate your time, and hope to have your support on Tuesday. Thank you!