We are residents of Cherrydale and nearby neighborhoods. Many of our children are directly affected by the middle school overcrowding crisis facing Arlington County Public Schools. We join other Arlington neighborhoods in opposing a 1300-seat school at the Wilson site, and we urge the School Board to find solutions that relieve middle school overcrowding in the near term, not 5 or more years from now. We propose a set of guiding principles that we believe the School Board, the Superintendent, and the broader Arlington communities should use going forward in our collaborative efforts to address overcrowding. We want schools that are: 1. RIGHT-SIZED: Our schools should be sized and designed to suit the programs they house as well as the sites they occupy. 2. GREEN: Our schools should be environmentally beneficial in their siting, construction, and use, preserving and enhancing green space, promoting walking, and improving our local environment. 3. DIVERSE: Arlington County is one of the most diverse communities in the country. Our schools should reflect this diversity. 4. WELL-PLANNED: New schools and additions should be carefully thought out, subject to a full community engagement process, with the programs they will house determined prior to asking taxpayers to approve funding. We encourage all interested parties to consider these principles as they chart the path forward to address the overcrowding crisis facing our county’s middle schools. We welcome the opportunity to work with the School Board and everyone else with a stake in this process.

1. Allow HELCO to invest in and/or partner with installers of distributed PVBBs, so that no willing home or business is “left behind” without solar panels 2. Update NEM (Net Energy Metering) contract terms for home or business PVBBs under 20 kW, to require at least 2.5 hours of "active" on-site storage for its associated peak PV output. Example: 2-kW x 2.5-hrs = 5-kWh battery for a 2-kW PV 3. Encourage new building / electric code to include PVBBs 4. Approve higher FIT (Feed-In Tariff) rates for PVBBs than PVs because distributed batteries help stabilize the grid. The rationale for high penetration of distributed PVBBs is to: • Provide electricity generation that is renewable, affordable, low-maintenance, long-life, environmentally benign, pono, and secure • Provide the On-Site Battery Backup needed to level peak demand periods, avoid PV-caused grid overload, cut transmission losses & oil imports, and preserve a viable grid-based utility business. • Retain such gid business for Secondary Backup as a low-maintenance option (rather than on-site generator sets) and for managing PV surplus energy • Achieve low transmission losses, high grid reliability and uninterrupted user energy and • Reduce the need for the present triple transmission redundancy (under sea & on land) as detailed further in http://AlohaFuels.pbworks.com/f/PB-12-WHT-HELCO-IRP-3-950.pdf and http://AlohaFuels.pbworks.com/f/VG-13-PVBB-Security.pdf

On October 17 2012 Cesar A. Castaneda Jr. passed away at 3 months after a rough week in Intensive Care. He had choked on his formula milk while sleeping. The first hospital records showed that his lungs were swollen and he had fluids in his brain which made him pass. When he was born on July 07 2012 he was in intensive care for 5 days due to him not being able to catch his breath. He got better and they realeased him but before this tragedy happened Jr was already sick he kept throwing up his milk and all the doctors did was change the formula. When my brother woke up from their nap Jr. had already passed he was purple nd was not responding, my brother tried CPR to bring him back pressed on his little chest and nothing.. He was gone. I want this petition to prove the innocence of Cesar A. Castaneda to the state of Indiana that he did NOT kill his son. He loves his kids nd he would never do something to harm them they are his priorities! He will never harm a human being he created. The state of Indiana is nonsense they are charging him with homicide because of what the autopsy says, he had Pneumonia in the autopsy and a broken neck we have all the records and this case will not end like this! Cesar A. Castaneda is innocent!

We the undersigned call upon our elected officials to endorse the Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constituiton which would: 1. Require public funding of all state and national elections and ban all other monies (not only from corporations, but from political parties, non-profits, and and individual)--in short a real Money out of Politics amendment. 2. Require corporations with incomes above $50 million/yr to get a new corporate charter once every five years which would only be granted to those that could prove a satisfactory history of environmental and social responsibility to a panel of ordinary citizens (after hearing testimony from people all around the world whose lives have been impacted by that corporation's products, services, advertising, treatment of workers and workers in firms to which the corporation sub-contracts, and environmentalists). 3. Requiring environmental education (including teaching empathy, generosity, and environmental sustainability) for every grade level from k-through graduate and professional schools). 4. Preventing corporations from moving their assets out of the places where they have been employing more than 500 people until they have compensated the communities they are leaving for the environmental, economic and/or social damage they are causing by moving those assets. 5. Overturning all parts of the US Constitution that are deemed by the Supreme Court to be in conflict with this amendment, but only to the extent that they are in conflict (so those parts are hereby modified to not be in conflict with this amendment, but in other respects are still in force).

Discussions about banning assault weapons, and improving background checks, as well as closing the gun show loop holes, are great. But we need to look very hard at the fact that there is not nearly enough deterrent for crimes that utilize guns. Many of the deaths that arise from shootings in the U.S. occur during a crime, whether it be robbery, home invasion, or a crime of impulse such as assault or murder. Currently, a criminal who commits these offenses may look forward to a stint in jail followed by parole. The risk to the safety of our community must be considered when sentencing occurs. Imagine the thought that would go into the decision of picking up a gun when planning a burglary, for example, if the perpetrator is aware that there will be a mandatory life sentence applied if he is caught - as opposed to a 2 to 5 year stint if he does not use the gun. We aren't asking for tacking on 10% to the current recommendations. That's just lip service that few will even become aware of. We need to make the penalty huge. We need to make a statement. The NRA cannot fight a move that penalizes those who use a gun in the commission of a crime. They can and will succeed in watering down our attempts to reduce access to guns. And there is no way to effectively reduce the number of guns already on the streets, and in our homes. The only way to significantly reduce the danger these firearms present to our society, is to make it well understood, that using them improperly will result in the perpetrator losing their own life - by spending the rest of it in jail.

We're residents depends on privitized Nassau Inter County Express operated by Veolia Transportation, French-based company is not doing very good job with operating safe public transportation in Nassau County. After Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano break contract with Metropolitan Transportation Authority state agency which once ran Nassau Bus, however new company NICE Bus has serious problem due to lack of budget from Nassau County and Veolia's budget. NICE Bus has serious problem. 1. Broken down. 2. Buses leave early than timespoint or very late. 3. New inexperience drivers behind the bus and sometimes I caught one of female driver talking on her cell phone while driving the bus which is STATE-WIDE LAW. 4. Wheelchair lift/ramps often broken down as they're used by disabled riders in Wheelchair or lift which is ADA violation. 5. New drivers are not PASSENGER COURTESY. 6. Lack of maintaince by Veolia Transportation. 7. Employees at many business in Nassau, Suffolk and eastern Queens are losing business due to problem with NICE Bus. 8. Able-Ride paratransit often gets delays due to combine trip and sometimes short trip could go 1-hour or 2-hour. 9. Many business employees are forced to take off expensive taxi as result of missing buses or broken down buses. 10. Many business are getting fire due to NICE Bus.

Congressional Reform Act of 2012 as detailed by Warren Buffett 1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office. 2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the. American people. It may not be used for any other purpose. 3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do. 4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. 5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. 6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. 7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 12/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women. Congress made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Don't you think it's time? THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!

November 15, 2012 Petition to: President Obama, House Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Re: The US Postal System - Request that the President and Congress Act to stem the flow of losses and red ink from the US Postal System. Request: 1. President Obama issue an Executive Order in effect until Congress acts on behalf of all American people to curb costs. Request the Executive Order to End Saturday Mail Delivery as a cost saving measure. Request that postal rates go up by 10% on all Junk Mail mail (which most Americans find obnoxious, a waste of resources and trash immediately). Request that all Post Offices reduce hours by 10% as a cost saving measure. Request that the US Postal System stop wasting tax payer dollars advertising in all forms of media their very basic services. 2. Request that Congress start earning their pay by taking steps to collaboratively reduce costs and increase revenue of the US Postal System at their earliest possible date . J. Pierce – Anthem, AZ From Bloomberg: U.S. Postal Service on a ‘Tightrope’ Lost $15.9 Billion By Angela Greiling Keane - Nov 15, 2012 8:50 AM MT Play U.S. Postal Service Faces Default Without Action The U.S. Postal Service said its net loss last year widened to $15.9 billion, more than the $15 billion it had projected, as mail volume continued to drop, falling 5 percent.

The election is a day old, and already some politicians are spinning the reasons why the majority voted the way it did, and they're getting it wrong. So let's be clear: 1) We voted for the most privileged in our society to pay their fair shares of taxes, beginning by allowing the Bush tax breaks for the rich to expire. 2) We voted to reward companies who create jobs at home instead of those who import them to other countries. 3) We voted against redefining rape and curbing women's rights by bringing personal morality into governance, crossing the sacred line between religious preference into religious dominance. 4) We voted against privatizing social services such as Social Security, Medicare, and FEMA. 5) We voted for our students to have access to affordable education and be prepared for the job market upon graduation. 6) We voted for access to health care that puts people's well-being ahead of corporate bottom lines. 7) We voted to use the power of the federal government to help in the creation of jobs for Americans, be it by helping private companies or through needed social services, such as the repair of our aging infrastructure. 8) We also voted for many other reasons, but by this petition, we demand that you, those we recently elected or kept in power, to tend to these issues urgently, representing our views instead of your personal preferences. I hope we now are clear as to what we have hired you to do at this time.

We urge Darden to adopt greener menus that support the well-being of its customers, its workers, farmers, animals and our environment. Specifically, we urge Darden to eliminate the use of routine antibiotics from its meat supply and ensure at least 20% of its food purchases adhere to the Good Food Purchasing Principles by 2020*. These include supporting: 1. Local Economies: by purchasing food at fair prices from local and regional small and medium-sized food producers; 2. Environmental Sustainability: by reducing meat and dairy purchases by 20 percent, including serving smaller portion sizes and adding meat/dairy-free entree options; sourcing from organically certified food producers (including, no factory farms/CAFOs); 3. Animal Welfare: by sourcing meat from producers that adhere to verifiable high-welfare standards: Animal Welfare Approved, Global Animal Partnership (at least step 2) and/or Certified Humane Raised and Handled; 4. Good Nutrition: by including generous portions of fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains; and by reducing salt, added sugar, fat, and red and processed meat; and 5. A Valued Workforce: by ensuring fair compensation and sustainable working conditions, both in your supply chain and for all the employees in your restaurants. *These principles, which were approved by the LA Food Policy Council in and LA Unified School District in 2012 govern those entities purchasing (including 127 million meals at LAUSD).