clemenzas.com

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Several candidates have announced their intent to run in the special Flint, Michigan mayoral primary election scheduled for May 5, 2009. The primary election was called to fill the remainder of resigning Mayor Don Williamson‘s term ending in 2011. The two candidates with the most votes will face off in the August special general election. Each candidate will need to collect at least 900 signatures of registered Flint electors in twenty day to qualify for the May 5, 2009 ballot.

On the first day petitions were available, the City Clerk’s office handed out petitions in the morning to Aron Gerics, Dayne Walling, Sheldon Neeley and Brenda Clack. Gregory Eason, Waseem (Sam) Fakhoury, Theodore P. Jankowski, Eric Mays, Devona Watson and Darryl Buchanan picked up petitions later in the day. Stephanie Robb Martin, a Flint Board of Education Trustee was one of eight more potential candidates that pick up petitions since then.

Darryl Buchanan, former City Administrator and “Deputy Mayor”, announced he is the running for the office of Mayor on Tuesday February 17. Williamson just replaced Buchanan as City Administrator on February 4, keeping him from succeeding Williamson as Temporary Mayor upon his resignation. Buchanan served as the city ombudsman and councilor before becoming city administrator. He believes he has good relations with the city council and was critical of Williamson’s combative relations with the council.

Buchanan supporters believe that Buchanan has the experience for the position of mayor. While some residents and a political analyst, Bill Ballenger, editor of Inside Michigan Politics, believes that his role in Williamson’s administration and their friendship hurts his candidacy.

Sheldon Neeley, current city councilman for Ward 6, announced his candidacy. Neely stated he will open three offices last week. Already, Sheldon Neeley has returned his petitions Thursday with 1,100 signatures to the City Clerk’s office.

Dayne Walling, who narrowly lost to Don Williamson in the 2007 general election, previously announced that he was running if the recall election against Williamson was successful. On Thursday, Walling officially announced he was running at a “Working for Change” rally at the YMCA.

Genesee County Commissioner Brenda Clack served as Michigan 34th District State Representative from 2002 to 2008 switching positions with former Flint Mayor Woodrow Stanley.

Aron Gerics, a Mott Community College student and a Mott’s Workforce Development Program program assistant, intends to run for mayor. As a write-in candidate for the 2008 49th District House seat election, Gerics lost to Lee Gonzales, D-Flint Twp, the incumbent.

Gregory Eason is a former CEO for Jobs Central Inc. and a Williamson critic. Eric Mays is a political activist. Devona Watson is retiree and long time resident. Theodore P. Jankowski served in the Marines and produces a show for public access television.

City Administrator and Temporary Mayor Michael Brown stated that he will not run as he wants to focus on city business, and is slated to deliver the annual state-of-the-city address.

“He’s not just keeping the seat warm until someone else takes over,” Brown’s communications director Bob Campbell said. “There are some difficult decisions ahead, most notably in the area of the city’s finances. He’s all about the revival and renewal of the city of Flint.”

Additional public officials are considering entering the race including former County Commissioner Raynetta Speed and Councilman Scott Kincaid. State senator John Gleason D-Flushing is pondering a moving into the city to run.

On Tuesday, March 3, Darryl Buchanan, Brenda Clack and Gregory Eason all turned in their completed nominations to the city clerk’s office.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Venezuela’s government has opened a granite processing plant in the state of Bolívar, with the intention of providing about 25% of the granite required nationwide.

Ricardo Menéndez, vice president of the Productive Economic Area, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has yearned for the creation of this project to empower Venezuelan construction. Granito Bolívar is reportedly the most modern Venezuelan granite plant, not consuming community water or electricity, and is also the largest, with a daily capacity to supply enough material for use in construction of about 820 houses.

Menéndez said, “These granite blocks are the natural resources of our country, are the wealth we have as a country and often [some] simply decided to remove this richness from our country and take them to other countries” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?Esos bloques de granito son la riquezas naturales de nuestro país, son las riquezas que tenemos como patria y que muchas veces sencillamente esas riquezas decidieron sacarlas de nuestro territorio nacional y llevarlas a otros países}.

According to Menéndez, with the help of a state plan, Venezuela intends to exploit its 40,000 million cubic meters or more of granite reserves, generating a set of factories. “[T]he central theme is that these plants, all these factories, are for the construction of socialism; that means using our potential, develop the value chain within the country and of course that yields benefits from the point of view of the production system’s organization…. [Granito] Bolívar is not only the vision that historically we had of exposing richness, but the industries, basic industries we have, that level of our workers in the basic industries and in addition the development of the potential we have in the state” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?el tema central es que estas plantas todas estas fábricas son para la construcción del socialismo, eso significa utilizar nuestras potencialidades, dessarrollar la cadena de valor dentro del país y por supuesto que eso genere beneficios desde el punto de vista de la organización del sistema productivo … Bolívar no solamente es la visión que históricamente se tuvo de exponer las riquezas, sino que son las empresas, las empresas básicas que tenemos, ese nivel de nuestros trabajadores de la empresas básicas y adicionalmente el desarrollo del potencial que tenemos en el estado}.

For the construction of the plant, supplied by 23 quarries, the government of Bolívar provided about 30 million bolívares (US$4.7 million) and the national government €2.3 million (US$3 million). Bolívar reportedly has reserves of about 40,000 million tons of red, black, pink and white granite, sufficient for domestic demand for 200 years.

Friday, November 3, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Scarborough-Agincourt (Ward 39). Two candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Wayne Cook, Mike Del Grande (incumbent), Samuel Kung, Lushan Lu, Sunshine Smith, and John Wong.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

On the back of new restrictions being imposed on eBay users in the United Kingdom requiring that sellers offer PayPal payments for all sales, eBay Australia is mandating that only PayPal payments will be acceptable as of June 17. PayPal is a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay, and charges a 30¢ transaction fee, plus a commission between 1.1% for high volume traders, and 2.4% for low value or low volume traders. These higher costs will be passed onto buyers.

Cash payment on pick up will be the only other payment option, and it may only be offered in conjunction with PayPal.

eBay has brought in this restriction under the guise of improving customer protection, bolstering its “Paypal Buyer Protection” insurance programme to allow claims up to A$20,000 instead of the previous maximum of $3,000, however as of June 17 many of the items which would exceed $3,000 are no longer covered by the programme, such as services, vehicles, real estate and businesses.

eBay Trust and Safety director Alastair MacGibbon said this change was not in response to the once-off fund established in March to refund eBay buyers who lost their non-existent holiday accommodation packages from the Melbourne eBay seller Robert Kobis. Mr MacGibbon said “It is part of a much larger initiative”.

In addition to these measures, Paypal will be withholding funds from some sellers for 21 days

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has held discussion with eBay, but declined to comment. The Australian Consumers Association spokesman Christopher Zinn said the unique use of PayPal could give rise to competition issues, however if the costs charged stayed as they were, they had no further concerns.

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Chicago city inspectors closed the landmark Lithuanian restaurant Healthy Food on Thursday, after finding mouse feces on the meat slicer and cutting board, and a dead mouse in the cooler.

The restaurant has operated at 3236 S. Halsted, on the south side of the city in the Bridgeport neighborhood, since the 1930s.

Wikinews reporter David Vasquez placed a call to the restaurant to inquire if they were open. The call was answered by a woman who said, “No, we’re closed. There’s some technical difficulties. I’m sorry. Thank you for calling.” A second phone could be heard ringing in the background.

Streets and Sanitation spokesman Matt Smith told the Chicago Sun-Times, “To reopen, they’re going to have to present us with a revamped game plan for not only rodent control but also housekeeping, they’ll have to make all the corrections that our inspectors point out,” he continued, “and pass a very stringent follow-up inspection.”

Patrons have praised the restaurant’s sauerkraut soup and other dishes over the years. Before it was closed, the restaurant had a lot of traffic from the nearby Cook County Circuit Court. The restaurant was once voted “Best Ethnic Eastern European Restaurant in Chicago”, according to New City.