David V. Goliath: Colorado Towns Take On Gas Giants To Rein In Fracking

By Tom Kenworthy on October 30, 2013 at 11:59 am

Merrily Mazza, right, asks Lafayette, Colorado voter Kat Goldberg to support a ballot question that would ban drilling for oil and gas in the community.

CREDIT: Tom Kenworthy

LAFAYETTE, COLORADO — On a recent Saturday, buoyed by picture-perfect autumn weather, Merrily Mazza was knocking on doors in her adopted community on Colorado’s booming Front Range north of Denver. The Chicago transplant and retired McGraw-Hill executive is running for city council in next week’s city election and she’s looking for votes.
But her own campaign was not her first priority that day. Her primary assignment was chasing down potential supporters of a ballot measure that would establish a “Community Bill of Rights” in Lafayette — and ban oil and gas drilling within city limits.
Mazza and volunteers like her in Lafayette and three other Colorado cities that will next week determine the fate of ballot initiatives to block oil and gas drilling are at the forefront of what is fast becoming an epic battle. At issue is whether communities have the authority to regulate drilling and fracking within their borders or whether that power rests solely with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
At one of Mazza’s first stops, on South Carr Avenue, Kat Goldberg answered the doorbell. Hearing Mazza’s pitch against the oil and gas extraction technique known as fracking, Goldberg said: “I’m not keen on it. I have three kids and I’d like the environment to be sustainable for my kids and their kids. I don’t think fracking is a good thing to be doing.”
The recent unprecedented flooding in Colorado, which resulted in oil and gas spills totaling more than 40,000 gallons, has intensified concerns among residents and activists about the impact of oil and gas drilling and the state’s ability to safely regulate it.
Less than a year after the Colorado oil and gas industry’s trade association sued the city of Longmont over a similar ban on fracking, and only a few months after the state government run by Gov. John Hickenlooper joined the association in suing that city, activists in four communities in Colorado are nonetheless pressing ahead with ballot initiatives that would ban or impose moratoria on drilling and fracking.
The looming November showdown in those communities reflects mounting concern over a boom in oil and gas development closing in on suburbs and cities along Colorado’s Front Range, the heavily populated region that abuts the foothills of the Rockies stretching from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins. In Weld County, to the east of the four communities that will vote on anti-fracking ballot measures, there are now more than 20,000 oil and gas wells, about 40 percent of the state total.

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ECO-REVOLUTION: GMO Crops TORCHED in America

Reblogged from:      toolwielder

 

 

 

Though the controlled corporate media apparatus is suppressing the story, 40 tons of GMO crops were torched, prompting an FBI investigation. There has been a COMPLETE MEDIA BLACKOUT, outside of local circles has dared to mention it, perhaps because government fears that if the public learns that other people are getting fighting mad (literally), they might join in, and become an actual revolution. It was only reported locally live on KXL Radio and echoed by the Oregonian, where the ONLY web mention exists, hard to find because the headline wording is carefully avoids the most likely keywords for a search.
Here’s what happened — 40 Tons of GMO Sugar Beets were set ablaze in Eastern Oregon, yesterday. FORTY TONS — the entire acreage of two full fields of crops IN THE GROUND were set ablaze over a THREE NIGHT PERIOD OF TIME. That means ARSON.
Evidence is that 6,500 plants were destroyed BY HAND, ONE PLANT AT A TIME. That, in turn, implies A LOT OF PEOPLE were involved: would you want to stick around once a fire was going and wait to be discovered? No, someone (many someones) probably wanted to move as quickly as possible. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A MOVEMENT, a kind of ORGANIZED REVOLT — and this is exactly the kind of retribution that many have warned was coming; when lawmakers and corporations refuse to honor the Constitution and instead engage in ‘legalized’ criminal acts such as enabled by the ‘Monsanto Protection Act.’
More than decade ago, environmental saboteurs vandalized experimental crops across the country in a revolt against high-tech agriculture. Foes of genetic engineering also struck in 2000, when members of the Earth Liberation Front, with roots in Oregon, set fire to agriculture offices at Michigan State University. ELF’s position was that genetic engineering was “one of the many threats to the natural world as we know it.”



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Some Disabled Goodwill Workers Earn As Little As 22 Cents An Hour As Execs Earn Six Figures: Report

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The Huffington Post  |  By Jillian Berman
  Posted: 06/21/2013 10:32 am EDT  |  Updated: 06/21/2013 7:33 pm EDT

Goodwill is paying some of its disabled workers just 22 cents an hour, while the charity’s executives make six figure salaries. A labor law loophole enables the practice.
Some Pennsylvania Goodwill workers who are disabled made as little as 22, 38 and 41 cents per hour in 2011, according to Labor Department documents reviewed by NBC News. That’s because a 1938 law, called the Special Wage Certificate Program, aimed at encouraging employers to hire disabled workers, allows charities and companies to get special certificates from the Department of Labor that permits them to pay disabled workers based on their abilities, with no minimum.
Though other employers take advantage of the same loophole, recent media investigations have brought attention to Goodwill's use of the certificate.
As some workers were making as little as 22 cents per hour in 2011, Goodwill International CEO Jim Gibbons made $729,000 in salary and deferred compensation. The CEOs of Goodwill franchises across the country collectively earned about $30 million, according to NBC.
Brad Turner-Little, Goodwill's director of mission strategy, told The Huffington Post that compensation of Goodwill executives and the wages earned by workers with disabilities aren't "connected." He explained that local Goodwill organizations make independent determinations about what to pay their executives based on what they need to recruit "good talent."
As for the workers with disabilities, their pay is determined through a "rigorous" review process in line with Department of Labor regulations that assess their productivity and other factors, Turner-Little said. Goodwill performs the reviews at least every six months to make sure employees are being paid properly.
"It's not a connected issue, it’s a different kind of job," Turner-Little said.


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Goodwill Exploits Workers With Disabilities, Report Claims

The Huffington Post  |  By Jessica Prois Posted: 05/20/2013 3:52 pm EDT  |  Updated: 05/20/2013 3:53 pm EDT

Is the wage Goodwill pays its employees with disabilities exploitative or empowering?
Investigative journalist John Hrabe recently reported for Watchdog.org that Goodwill pays some of its employees less than minimum wage, when some of its executive team makes more than $1 million -- a practice he calls out as unfair.
Goodwill pays some of its employees with disabilities under the provision called The Special Wage Certificate program. The program allows an employer to pay a person with disabilities below minimum wage when performance is affected. About 7,300 of its 30,000 employees with disabilities receive these adjusted wages, Brad Turner-Little, Director of Mission Strategy at Goodwill Industries International, told HuffPost Live.
Jim Gibbons, Goodwill CEO, addressed Hrabe's concerns in a recent HuffPost blog, arguing that the provision creates job opportunities for people with disabilities that wouldn't otherwise exist:
"While some have called for this program to be eliminated, let's be clear about exactly what that would mean. It would mean that many hard-working people would be out of their jobs. It would mean that even more than 80 percent of people with disabilities would be out of work."
One of the issues Hrabe takes issue with the most is the disparity in pay. 17 Goodwill entities reported executive compensation in excess of $1 million per year. In 2011, the lowest paid Goodwill worker earned $1.40 per hour, he reported.



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Cherokee High School dominates Goodwill competition

By Robert Linnehan

As always, the students of the Lenape Regional High School District came out in droves  recently to help the less fortunate. The high school students at the four schools threw their efforts into a massive Goodwill collection campaign and donated thousands of pounds of used clothing to the non-profit organization.
Lenape Regional High School District Foundation of Leadership students and faculty advisers from each high school organized the community service project benefitting Goodwill. Proceeds from the sale of everything collected fund Goodwill’s job training programs and career services that help local residents with disabilities and disadvantages get to work, Goodwill representatives reported.
Cherokee High School dominated the competition, coming in first place with just more than 11,400 pounds of donated clothing. It collected 6,000 pounds more clothing than the closest high school, Seneca, which donated about 5,000 pounds.
Shawnee High School came in third place with 4,449 pounds of clothes and Lenape High School came in fourth with 3,991 pounds.
In total, the high schools of the LRHSD brought in just a bit more than 25,000 pounds of donated clothing.



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• Goodwill Pays Disabled Workers 22 Cents An Hour While Execs Make Millions; Legal Loophole Says It's Okay [VIDEO] (medicaldaily.com)
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