Mike Musick meet and greet

Your intrepid blogger is here at the Golden Eagle, blogging live from the scene of a political fundraiser/gathering for Mike Musick, who is running for re-election to borough assembly. (The election is October 6.) Mike arrived a few minutes ago and is looking cheerful, chatting with Joe Thomas (that's state senator Joe) and Maggie Billington. I'm not close enough to eavesdrop, but I can step away from the computer and butt in on the conversation, I think. Northern River is tuning up for their next song--wait, they've started. Hoo! Great stuff. Beth is going to town on the fiddle.

Spoke briefly with Joe Thomas about the Ester library plans (new and improved).

So: who's here? Don DeWitt, Ray & Jill Cameron, JD Ragan, Nancy Burnham, Bob Grove, Charley Gray, Bob Siftar, Kate Billington, Jeff Stepp, Pete Bowers...Mike is out there mingling.

Aha. Mike Musick has just come over and I plan to query him on a few items (seeing as I didn't get to this for the Republic).

(Don DeWitt) Q. Have you heard about the plastic bag that dissolves in sunlight?

A. No. I'm not setting policy. I'm just working on setting up a recycling commission; I'm sure they'll they'll be happy to look into that.

(DeWitt and Musick discussed the relative merits of photodegradable plastic bags, on whether the degraded product--a powder after four months, according to DeWitt--is toxic or not)

This question related to the one I planned to ask him, as a Facebook user was curious about how he had voted on the plastic bag fee/tax ordinance and why.

Musick: I really wanted a grassroots, bottom-up recycling movement so I voted [against the ordinance] because I understand this community and that this would create a divisive situation...

[Musick said that he wanted to address the questioner directly about this (the bag ordinance and the fee). Mike has been instrumental in reviving the recycling commission (not yet officially voted on). I spoke with Layne St. John, a former assemblyman and chair of the Solid Waste Committee about this earlier--Hans and I ran into him and Janice at the Blue Loon earlier tonight where we had gone out to dinner. Layne described how the recycling commission/program idea has resurfaced over the years again and again but has never been able to stick. We talked about land fills, municipal composting, and methane gas reclamation from landfills, and the economics of recycling in such a small population base. I believe we need to get this thing in gear; shipping raw materials outside ends up being too expensive, but perhaps we can do the ol' value-added product thing.]

Okay, time to do a little mingling of my own. Will be back shortly.