Not ever wanting to be bored, not having enough to do being a precint committerperson, a chairman of the county’s voter registration committee, teaching full-time, which is never just full-time, and seeing patients, I thought I’d run for office.  But not just any office. I chose an office that is so obscure, yet important, with such a misleading name that I can’t just run for it – I have to fully explain it nearly every time I mention it.

My wife always wanted me to run for office. She was thinking school board. But I know what happens to teachers who run for school board around here. Better win or look for a new job.

I chose Sebastian Inlet District Commission – a commission that is one hundred years old this year and is charged with keeping the beaches and rivers in as natural a condition as possible (after they cut four un-natural inlets into it), restoring them when they are not, with promoting education and conservation, and protecting the lives of the creatures that live in and around them from Vero in the south to Rockledge in the north.  That’s fifty miles, through two counties, of one of the most ecologically diverse waterways in North America.

What they actually do, though, is keep millage rates low so people can afford to buy houses on the beach, and so development can keep moving forward, and business have plenty of rich folks to buy their stuff.

I’m running against a man who believes dinosaurs are still alive and well in Africa. Who doesn’t believe in science. What else am I to do?

I told a local group of about 300 people that I was going to change that. And, if I can’t change it, make the other four people on the commission as miserable as possible for at least four years.  And they know I can do it.

I have worked as an environmentalist in social and direct action for many years.  Since my twenties. From the outside of the Establishment, and sometimes outside of the Law. Now it’s time to do so from the inside.  And, I hope, make my wife proud as well.

For me, this is my dive back into deep ecology and ecospirituality.  In many ways, this may not be quite as exciting as my days with Earth First!, but I hope it will have a deep and lasting benefits and significantly less involvement from the FBI. And it might be safer, although, in this political climate, I might be less dangerous taking my chances sitting in trees and fighting bulldozers.

People who want to dismantle the EPA are the real ecoterrorists, and they are in office.  Time for me to be in office too.

So, if you’d like to help me, I’d love that. Please donate a little bit, or share the link to this, or the link below.

http://bit.ly/adamtritt
https://www.facebook.com/scienceandsustainability