Monroe County Green Party Meeting - November 1, 2000 Place: Monroe County Public Library Auditorium Bloomington, IN Time: 7:00 - 8:30pm Attendance: Heather Drake, Marge Steiner, George Brooks, Ken Rogers, Sean Bagley "Steps to Freedom", Mike Strezewski, Peter Drake, Michael Berndt, David Ploskorko, Ann Marie Burkhart, Stephanie Kimball, Mary Wyman, Danna D'Esopo Jackson, Paul Colbert, Vic Kalser, Jeff Melton, Marc Haggerty, Isabel Piedmont Facilitator: Peter Drake Scribe: Heather Drake The meeting began at 7:03pm with a round of introductions. The agenda and October 25 minutes were approved unanimously. * Email Report There are 60 members on the announcement list and 21 members on the discussion list. Peter reported that bigapplegreen has been banned from btowningreens. Several list members complained that this user was forwarding news articles to the announcement list rather than the discussion list. When Peter tried to email the person to tell them to move the posts to the discussion list, the email bounced back as an invalid address. At that point, he banned the bogus account from posting to btowningreens. * Green Halloween The Green Halloween party was held at The Cellar Lounge on October 31. The Marc Haggerty Blues Band performed. The volume was a bit loud for prolonged conversation. Jeff collected money at the door which was split with the bar owner. No one present knew the total collected. Heather struck up a conversation with a social studies teacher from Aurora High School who was interested in possibly having someone from the Greens speak to his government class on Monday. Michael volunteered to speak. * Press Release The Write-In Ralph Nader press release was completed and emailed to about 50 Indiana newspapers (daily and weekly) by Dave on October 27. After discussion among the people involved with this project, they decided to email the press release in the interest of getting the information out as quickly as possible. Only two of the email addresses on the original list bounced and Dave was able to find alternative addresses for those newspapers. The press release focused on A) making people aware that Nader is a write-in and B) offering tips for voting write-in. Contact information for Jeff and the Nader campaign was also included. Dave will post the press release final draft to the discussion list. * Media Report Jeff was interviewed by the Herald-Times today about the Nader as spoiler and Nader dropping out issues. He drove home the point that it's Gore's own fault if he loses. * Conference Call with Nader On Monday afternoon, Ken participated in a conference call with Nader and the other state coordinators across the nation. The two points that Nader stressed were the importance of 1) getting out every vote on election day and 2) continuing to build the Green infrastructure after the election. Ken thought that Nader's innocence and energy came through well during the call. * Rally for Justice and Equality Members were reminded to attend the Rally for Justice and Equality tomorrow, November 2. It will be held in Alumni Hall at the Indiana Memorial Union on campus from 7:00pm - 9:00pm. The Monroe County Green Party will staff a table at the rally. Peter and Heather volunteered to bring a stack of literature and campaign materials to hand out. Dave, Steps, and others volunteered to sit at the table during the rally itself. Tablers plan to meet at 6:30pm to set up. Isabel will be chalking sidewalks on campus tomorrow morning to help advertise the event. Anyone who would like to help out should meet at the west entrance of Ballantine Hall at 7:00am on Thursday morning. * Indy Protest Michael inquired if anyone had information about a protest planned for Friday, November 3, in Indianapolis. Ken reported that he had heard the protest was originally targeting the state election officials who removed Nader's name from the ballot. He had suggested to the organizers that a better target was the statute that required the officials to remove Nader, but has not heard if they decided to shift the focus thusly. People who might be interested in attending the protest should keep watch on the ingreens mailing list for developments. * Election projects 1) Post Nader Yardsigns at All Monroe County Polling Places Heather called the Voter Registration office and found out that they have a list of all the polling places, with addresses, in the county. She will obtain a copy of this list tomorrow and coordinate via email an effort to post a Nader yardsign at every polling place in the county. She will email the list of addresses to btowningreens and ask for volunteers to put up a few signs. Signs can be picked up at her house (342 S Madison) on Monday evening until 10pm or at another time by prior arrangement. It was suggested that we mark the top of each sign with WRITE IN in large, black letters so that people will remember that they have to write in Nader rather than look for his name on the ballot. If locating stakes becomes difficult, it was suggested that people acquire lathe at a lumber yard to cut up to make stakes. Signs have to be posted at least 50 feet from the polling station doors. The easiest way to determine the appropriate location will be to follow the trend set by other candidates. It was also suggested that it would be better to post the signs very early Tuesday morning rather than Monday evening as signs posted Monday evening might be stolen. If people have to post signs Monday evening, it would be good to verify that they are still there on Tuesday morning. The polls in Indiana open at 6am and close at 6pm. 2) Nader Volunteers Work as Many Polling Places as Possible Ken volunteered to coordinate the volunteers who wish to stand at the polling places on election day. People can work full days or put in a few hours as their schedules allow. Anyone interested in assisting this effort should get in touch with Ken (krogers745@aol.com) so he can add your name to the list of volunteers. Ken will also develop and print a flyer for poll workers to hand out to voters. It was suggested that the flyer emphasize that for progressives in Indiana, Gore is a throw away vote because Bush will win the state's electoral votes. The only way to keep your vote in Indian is to vote for Nader. Marc Haggerty also asked this his write-in campaign for congress be included on the flyer. More information on picking up flyers and working the polls will be sent out via the email list. * Supreme Court Flyer Danna volunteered to put together a flyer that addresses the Supreme Court argument for not voting Nader. She will post the flyer to the email list when it is ready. * Election Night Parties Marge as well as Stephanie and Vic volunteered to host election night parties. Ken also reported that he had reserved the upstairs room at Nick's as a possible venue. After considering the possibilities, the group decided to go with the two member locations. People can attend the party of their choice, perhaps the one closest to them, or visit both. Marge is located at 409 Vernon Drive (near the stadium). Her festivities will begin at 7:30pm. She will provide some snacks and suggests that people bring their own beverages and perhaps snacks to share. Her phone number is 331-0631. Her email is msteiner@indiana.edu. Stephanie and Vic are located at 6480 Viking Ridge Road (about a 10 minute drive from College Mall). Their festivities will begin after the polls close at 6:00pm. The celebration will be potluck. Their phone number is 333-9324. They will post a map to the email list. * Post-Election Activities Peter opened a discussion of things we can do and places we want to go after the election in building the local Green infrastructure. Many suggestions were offered: - Host monthly issue debates. - Supply shock troops for other groups in town as to help with their demonstrations and activities. Try to organize events with other groups. - Reach out to minority groups, perhaps starting with the Afro-American Cultural Center on campus. - Election reform. The local League of Women Voters will also be tackling this over the next few years. - Events to tie in with the current crisis in the Middle East. - Affordable housing and the economy shift to low wage jobs. - Film nights. - Alternating between organizational and educational meetings. - Members reach out to other community groups that are in line with their own interests and then keep the rest of the Greens informed of that group's activities. Members should feel free to post announcements about other groups' meetings, protests, and other events to btowningreens. - Contribute to a state Green effort to get legislative reform of the election laws. - Run candidates for office. Secretary of State will be key for ballot access. Local candidates are also important, especially because Bloomington might be the "Greenest" city in the state. - Connect with area unions. Perhaps leaflet at plants during shift changes. - Host regular meetings, monthly or biweekly. * Check-Out The meeting ended with a check-out in which everyone state what they planned to do for the campaign between now and the next meeting. The meeting concluded at 8:25pm. *********************************************************************** The next meeting will be held at 7:00pm on Tuesday, November 14, at the Meeting Room of the Monroe County Public Library in Ellettsville. Jeff volunteered to serve as facilitator. He will send a tentative agenda to the discussion list several days prior to the meeting date. *********************************************************************** Notes submitted by Heather Drake