Monroe County Green Party Meeting - December 19, 2000 Place: 409 Vernon Drive Bloomington, Indiana Time: 7:00pm - 8:45pm Attendance: Heather Drake, Peter, Drake, Isabel Piedmont, Marge Steiner, Jeff Melton, Ken Rogers, Paul Colbert Facilitator: Paul Colbert Scribe: Heather Drake The meeting began at 7:15pm with approval of the amended agenda. The 5 December 2000 minutes were approved. * Media Report Jeff recorded a piece for Speak Your Mind on the topic of the death penalty. It should air in the near future. * Email Report Peter reported that we have 62 members on the announcement list and 25 members on the discussion list. He also brought up a problem with the current structure of area email lists for Greens. Currently, the btowningreens messages are automatically forwarded to the campus lists. If a person wants to receive one copy of all messages from both groups, they need only subscribe to the campus lists. Unfortunately, these people, who are not members of the btowningreens lists, cannot post to them. A temporary fix for this problem is to subscribe to the btowningreens lists and set the reading option to Web only. This will prevent duplication of messages, but still allow people to post to the lists. This solution will need a better remedy in the future, but Peter suggested and the group agreed that we wait to do any more list changes until we find out if Vic will be able to host the email lists for us. If so, we can combine all of the changes at once for a minimum of disruption and confusion. It was also suggested that we create a printed contact list of members that includes email and/or phone information. Heather volunteered to send out a message to btowningreens to ask for this information and prepare a printed list to hand out at the next meeting. * Legal Report Paul received some detailed information from Tom Brown of the St. Joe Valley Greens about their group's formation. They chose not to apply for non-profit status because of the restrictions on political activity. He will post the message to the discussion list so that everyone can read the detailed information. * Treasury Report Isabel has received the application for a tax ID number from the IRS. The form requires, among other things, a mailing address, the name of a contact person, and the group's founding date. The group decided to wait until the charter was adopted to fill out the form so we can use that date for our founding date. * League of Women Voters Holiday Meeting Several members attended this meeting on December 14 at Meadowood. Peggy Welch and Mark Kruzan discussed the major issues in the coming session, including the budget, redistricting, property tax assessment, and gambling. Peter submitted the election reform petitions. They seemed open to the ideas. They mentioned that a bill to change Indiana's electoral votes to proportional allocation would be introduced and probably pass the Democrat-controlled House, but will certainly fail in the Republican-controlled Senate. Kruzan also addressed Ken's question of getting utility regulatory reform in this session. He thought there was a good chance of getting fining authority for abuses like the Ameritech fiasco earlier this year. Both Welch and Kruzan emphasized that constituent opinions greatly influence the consideration they give to particular pieces of legislation and encouraged people to contact them with any issues or concerns. Welch can be emailed at H60@a... and Kruzan can be emailed at H61@a.... Ken also spoke to Kruzan after the meeting ended on the topic of the death penalty. Kruzan opposes it, but didn't think it would be likely to end in Indiana in the foreseeable future. He thought it might take the death of an innocent person to turn public opinion in the state and legislature. * Charter Since many members who had expressed concerns about the charter draft at the last meeting were not in attendance, the group decided to table discussion on the charter until the January meeting. * Electoral College Forum Stephanie was not present to give us an update on the plans for the forum. * Adopt-A-Road Isabel told us that we need an address to submit on our Adopt-A-Road application. She will send it in as soon as we have one. (See PO Box below.) * CAC Dinner The members present who were able to attend the CAC dinner reported that Nader gave a good talk. He addressed the corporatization of American and displayed a great sense of humor. They were also able to speak with him personally after the dinner at a book signing. * Martin Luther King Jr. Activity Michael was not present to report on possible activities for the MLK Jr. holiday on January 15. * Mumia Video & Pamphleting A group handed out flyers along Kirkwood and elsewhere for several hours on Human Rights Day. In the afternoon, a video on the Mumia case was shown to a group of about 30 people at the Monroe County Public Library. * Death Penalty As Garza received a stay of execution, no vigil or demonstration was held in Terre Haute. Marge promised to keep the group informed of other death penalty-related activities. * State Green Party Ken reported that the organizational meeting of the state Green party decided to hold a convention sometime this summer in Indianapolis. They also chose interim coordinators to serve until the convention can be held. Neil Smith will serve as coordinator. Bethany Hayes will serve as vice-coordinator. Ken Rogers will serve as bylaws coordinator. Their next meeting is scheduled for January 13. Ken will forward the meeting minutes to the discussion list as soon as they are submitted. * PO Box Isabel suggested that our group rent a post office box soon. We will need an address for the checking account, Adopt-A-Road application, and other uses in the near future. Isabel found out that a small box (3" X 5 3/4") at the downtown Bloomington post office costs $22 for six months. Ken told the group that boxes at the Stinesville post office are much cheaper -- $2 for an entire year. The group decided that this was a much better deal and Ken will try to arrange for a box there as soon as possible. * Inauguration Day Demonstrations Ken had been in touch with Neil Smith about the possibility of organizing a demonstration on inauguration day (January 20) in Indianapolis. The proposed theme would be that we have a sham democracy in the US. Ken will keep us posted as plans develop. The meeting concluded with a review of commitments and adjourned at 8:45pm. *********************************************************************** The next meeting will be held at 7:00pm on Tuesday, January 2, at the Monroe County Public Library in Room 1-A. Isabel volunteered to serve as facilitator. She will send a tentative agenda to the discussion list several days prior to the meeting date. *********************************************************************** Notes submitted by Heather Drake