Doug Bruce This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. gazette.com

   www.gazette.com/stories/0522lo - [Cached]

   Published on: 5/22/2002   Last Visited: 5/22/2002

   Bruce said the group, formed in December, won't have meetings but will educate citizens on their civic rights and duties via ACT's Web site at www.ActNow.bz, a newsletter and a hotline still to be established.
   
   "I thought it was time we had an organization that showed individuals how they could become more powerful, effective citizens," Bruce said.
   
   Anti-tax activist Bruce wrote local and state tax limitation measures adopted by voters in the early 1990s. He's also sparred with code enforcement officials over his rental properties and won rulings that public employees illegally spent tax money promoting ballot measures.
   
   Bruce doesn't always win. A Springs ballot measure that would have triggered the sale of city assets failed, as did his statewide tax cut measure of 2000.
   
   But Bruce has demonstrated he knows how the system works.
   
   "People don't have to sit there and take it," Bruce said. "That doesn't mean they have to agree with me on any subject. We're not training robots to do what I say. We're trying to encourage, inspire and show people how to do something they want to do."
   
   Bruce recently blanketed El Paso County with fliers about ACT sent to all 140,000 voter households. Using it as a trial run for an effort he may take statewide, Bruce hopes for a 1 percent return in tax-deductible donations of $25 and more. Membership brings the newsletter and access to a Web bulletin board.
   
   "I'm trying to identify and motivate 1 percent to do things," he said. "One percent of the people make things happen. Four percent watch things happen, and 95 percent of the people ask, 'What happened?'"
   
   The response so far? "I just picked up a wad of envelopes at the post office today," he said Monday.
   
   ...
   Bruce said ACT will not endorse candidates. Although it can support ballot measures, that's not the purpose.
   
   Asked what was in it for him, Bruce said, "I know it's hard to understand doing something just because it's right. Did people say there was some racket for Andrew Carnegie? I'm a philanthropist in that ... I'd like to give people a little less intrusive government."
   
   ...
   Doug Bruce has formed a nonprofit agency, ACT, to impart his knowledge on the political system.
   
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