Monroe County Green Party Meeting - September 26, 2000 Place: Monroe County Public Library (Ellettsville Branch) Meeting Room Ellettsville, Indiana Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm Attendance: Heather Drake, Peter Drake, Jeff Melton, Ken Rogers, Paul Colbert, Karmyn Guthrie, Joseph Osborne, Marge Steiner, Benji Loudermilk, Elaine Jen Facilitator: Ken Rogers Scribe: Heather Drake The meeting began at 7:10pm with unanimous approval of the agenda and the 5 September 2000 minutes. * Treasury Report Treasurer absent - no report. * Media Report Jeff has recorded two of four spots on health care topics for WFHB as a representative of MCGP and a single-payer health care group he is pulling together. The topics include: health insurance, abortion rights, medicare, and prescription drugs. He will post a message to the announcement list with air times as soon as he finds out when they will air. He also has scripts available if anyone would like to read them. Peter has submitted a letter to the editor on the topic of Nader not being a throw-away vote. It has been published in the IDS. He has also received a confirmation email from the H-T, so hopefully it will appear there soon. Ken has also given interviews for several articles in the H-T and Independent. Heather and Ken were also interviewed for an Independent article on ballot access in Indiana. * Legal Report Paul is getting the required forms from the IRS for filing our non-profit political status. The booklet is about 50-60 pages in length. Once we receive this status, we will be required to file tax returns every year to maintain our status. * Voter Registration Report Michael was not present for a report on voter registration. Peter noted that several voters have been registered at the Saturday Market table. Ken also shared information that October 10, not October 4, is the voter registration deadline for the November 7 election. No one knew if a form postmarked, rather than delivered, on October 10 would be accepted. The group agreed that it would be good to recommend that people not push their luck -- it's better to submit the form in good time. It was also pointed out that you can get forms to register many voters on the same sheet. * Merchandise Report Karmyn has asked a friend who is a graphic design student to work up a few possible designs for our t-shirt. She should receive the designs within the next week or so and will post them to the discussion list for people to view and comment on. Once the design is approved, it should probably take about a week to get them produced. The production time will partly depend on how many shirts we order. It was agreed that we could decide on a number for the initial order after we have settled on the design. * Web Report The group web page can be viewed at www.freespeech.org/mcgreens. Heather has a picture of the Saturday Market table to add for some visuals. Other contributions are welcome of content are welcomed by Joseph. One suggestion was to create a Local Press page that would include scanned media clippings or links to articles about MCGP and Green activities. * Email Report There are 41 members on the announcement list and 15 members on the discussion list. Ken and Marge reported some problems sending and receiving messages. Attachment files seem to be one of the hang-ups. * Campus Report Several members attended the first campus mass meeting. Publicity did not go well. Sidewalk chalking was washed away by rain the day after it was drawn and flyers were taken down soon after they were posted. Another mass meeting is being planned for Sunday, October 8. There has been some discussion of tabling for voter registration at the Indiana Memorial Union. Student members will encourage the student group to post announcements and details about their meetings and activities to the email lists. The student group also discussed the possibility of organizing a group to share transportation to attend various rallies and protests. The main focus is on the October 17 Supper Rally in conjunction with the presidential debate in Saint Louis at Washington University. There is also a rally set for October 5 in Danville, Kentucky, for the vice-presidential debate. More debate and protest information can be found at www.votenader.org. The students are also trying to file for status as an official IU group. The next hurdle is finding a faculty sponsor. It was mentioned that Milton Fisk had volunteered to serve in this capacity at a previous meeting. * Bush Fundraiser Protest in Indinapolis on September 6 Jeff and Marge attended the Bush fundraiser protest in Indinapolis. They reported that 50-60 people attended and that the press coverage was decent. The fundraiser was $1000/plate. The group sang and chanted slogans such as "Just $1000 a plate - You can buy a candidate". The protest location was very visible to attendees as they left the dinner as well as to the large amount of regular traffic passing by. Ken also mentioned a very sympathetic, in-depth column about one of the protest participants that appeared in the Indianapolis Star. * Hostettler/Perry Debate Protest in Bloomington on September 9 Many people at the meeting attended the Hostettler/Perry protest. The group of about 20 people wore duct tape over their mouths or gags and carried signs including "Let Nader Debate", "Don't Muzzle Third Parties" and "Support Resolution 373". After the debate, Peter was able to talk to Hostettler and received his promise to vote for Resolution 373 if it came to the House floor. Press coverage of our presence was not great. The protest received a few sentences in the debate articles written in both the H-T and IDS. Had it not been for Bobby Knight's firing the next day, the IDS coverage might have been greater. It was suggested that future protests should include an advance press release to inform the local media about the protest's purpose and promote better coverage. * Charter Research Michael was not present to report on his research into a charter. * Nader Write-In Status The Nader campaign did submit the form required to become a certified write-in candidate by the September 18 deadline. Later that week, the state elections office notified the county clerks that Nader is an official write-in candidate and that his votes must be counted. Ken reported that, to his knowledge, there are three possibilities for write-ins in the state. 1) Voting machines with a space on the machine for writing in a candidate. Monroe county uses this system. 2) Paper ballot with printed list of candidates followed by a write-in space. 3) Separate write-in form that you must request in addition to the regular ballot. It was suggested that we encourage people to take their own pens to the polls and to print Ralph Nader's name clearly. Ken has also requested a sample write-in ballot so that we can view it and perhaps photocopy it as part of our write-in education efforts. It was suggested that we should consider posting Nader signs at polling places on election day. We might also consider handing out literature and write-in instructions at polling places on election day. It was also suggested that we issue a press release informing the Indiana media of Nader's write-in status. We could drum up a little coverage for the campaign as well as give information on write-in procedures. (Waiting for the national campaign to do it for us may not be a good ideas as they are swamped.) Joseph will contact the St. Joe Valley Greens to see if they would be willing to issue the press release jointly. He thought we could get a response within the next few days. In the meantime, Heather will find copies of the H-T article about Nader's write-in status to include with the press release and Jeff will draft a press release. More information will be posted to the discussion list as the project develops. * IGCC September 23 Meeting The formal IGCC meeting was cancelled because most people were not able to attend. A small group met informally and notes from their discussion will be posted to the ingreens email list. * Indiana Coordinator Ken has accepted a position with the national Nader campaign as the Indiana Field Coordinator. His main task at the moment is identifying campaign coordinators in each county. The group agreed that we would not identify a single coordinator for Monroe County because it would be redundant of work MCGP is already doing. We can also appoint someone at a later date if a name is necessary. * Debates It looks like the CPD debates will not be opened to include any third party candidates. Rumors are circulating that Fox may put together some kind of program on which Nader will be able to answer the same questions posed to Bush and Gore during the debates, but no details have been announced. We will continue to collect signatures on the "We Want REAL Debates!" petitions at Saturday Market until the October 15 deadline printed on the form. A .pdf file of the petition can be found at www.egroups.com/btowningreens under the Files section. We will also hand out the debate postcards for another week. * Media Outreach An Indiana group, Alliance for Better Campaigns, is urging people to write or call Indiana TV and radio stations and ask them to broadcast 5 minutes/day of free time to political issues. This time would be separate from news coverage and political ads. Their web site is www.bettercampaigns.org. The group agreed that we should submit more letters to the editor. Some concern was expressed that the H-T has guidelines about what kinds of political letters will be printed. Jeff volunteered to research the policy and send the details to the announcements list. * Leafletting It was suggested that we try to leaflet area events between now and the election. The leaflets could have Nader campaign information on one side and write-in instructions on the other side. This activity would help raise the campaign's visiblity and assist in educating voters about the write-in process. Heather and Peter volunteered to develop a flyer by Saturday for use at several events this weekend. The group decided that half-sheet size would be best. They will bring a large stack to Saturday Market. If leafletters can't get to Saturday Market to pick up the flyers, they can contact Heather (hdrake@indiana.edu) to arrange another drop off or pick up time. Group members plan to leaflet at the following events in the near future. If you can join one of these events, contact the person listed for more details on the meeting time and place. Saturday, September 30 6pm -- IU vs. Iowa Football Game -- Jeff Melton (jmelton@indiana.edu) Sunday, October 1 1pm -- 2000 Walk for the Animals -- Paul Colbert (Paulcolbert@excite.com) Tuesday, October 3 5:30pm -- Evening in Deuschland: Oktoberfest -- Benji Loudermilk (benzell@webtv.net) People also suggested that we find out more about the Hilly Hundred and an Evansville fall festival as potential leafletting opportunities. * Chicago Super Rally Ken alerted the group about a Nader Super Rally that will be held at the University of Illinois - Chicago pavillion on Tuesday, October 10. The doors will open at 6pm and speakers will begin at 7:30pm. The entrance donation is $10. Nader, John Anderson, and other speakers are scheduled to appear. Several people expressed interest in attending. Joseph volunteered to discuss carpooling or other transportation (perhaps renting a bus or van?) with the campus group. * Reading Group The MCGP reading group had decided to merge with the Solidarity reading group. The next meeting will be held on Thursday, Octber 5, at 5pm in the Monroe County Public LIbrary. The reading is a chapter entitled, "Representative Government: The Black Experience," from Howard Zinn's book, Declarations of Independence. The IU library and Monroe County library both have copies of this book. Jeff has also placed a copy of the chater on reserve at Secret Sailor Books. * Future Meetings Michael had previously volunteered to schedule the next meeting time for the week of October 9. Peter volunteered to call him to verify that the room had been reserved and the date. Once the details are firmed up, they will be posted to the announcement list. Ken will reserve the Ellettsville meeting room for the next meeting at 7pm on Tuesday, October 24. The following meeting will be held one week later, on Wednesday, November 1, so that we can plan campaign activites for the final weekend before election day and election day itself. Joseph volunteered to talk to the campus group about holding a joint meeting on that date to coordinate our activities. The time and location will be announced on the email list. The meeting concluded at 9:00pm.