Monroe County Green Party Meeting - March 20, 2001 Place: Ballantine Hall Room 005 Indiana University Campus Bloomington, IN Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm Attendance: Heather Drake, Jeff Melton, Daniel Logan, David Ploskorko, Milton Fisk, Peter Drake, Julie Roberts, Isabel Piedmont, Mike Englert, Chris Stafford, Jason Flickner Facilitator: Julie Roberts Secretary: Heather Drake The meeting began at 7:07pm. The agenda was approved and the minutes of the 6 March meeting were approved. * Technology Coordinator Report Peter encouraged people to continue adding to our calendar any events that might be of interest to our members. You can see the calendar from the web at: groups.yahoo.com/group/btowningreens/calendar * Treasury Report Isabel reportec that she now has $113.00 in the treasury. She has also expended $10 as the deposit for our Earth Day table and about $3.50 for receipt books. She also has the Tax ID form ready to mail to the IRS. Once we have a tax ID number, she will be able to establish a checking account for MCGP. * Adopt-A-Road Since our last meeting, Isabel noticed that a sign had been posted on our stretch of road, but it gave credit to the wrong organization. She lodged a complaint and was told that the sign would be fixed. She promised to email the group when they new ones are up. * National TV-Turnoff Week Peter reported that Harmony School agreed to sign on as a co-sponsor. We will use their gym for the Family Game Night venue. The group unanimously approved reimbursement for the $40 rental cost. Peter will submit his receipt once more dues have been collected and the T-shirts have been paid for. Harmony School will also run an add for our events in their next newsletter. Bloomingfoods is also writing an article about our events in their April member newsletter. Isabel has been in touch with a representative from Bloomington Parks & Recreation who is willing to lead our Nature Walk at Lake Griffy. It will be held on Wednesday, April 25 from 5:30pm to 6:30pm. The meeting location will be the Lake Griffy boathouse. Isabel was also working on finding additional sponsors for this event. The group decided it would be best to make one flyer that would advertise all of the week's events as well as a series of flyers to advertise each individual event. Peter and Isabel volunteered to put something together. (Secretary's Note: Peter has put the overall flyer on the web site as a .pdf file so you can print and distribute them if you so desire. Take a look at: www.freespeech.org/mcgreens/tv/tv2.pdf) Peter was also still trying to get in touch with someone at SEAC to see if they would be interested in cross-advertising their Earth Day festival with TV-Turnoff Week. * Announcements Julia Butterfly Hill will speak at 7:00pm on Tuesday, March 27, in the Whittenberger Auditorium at the Indiana Memorial Union on the IU campus. The League of Women Voters will have a panel discussion on the National Motor Voter law at 7:00pm on Wednesday, March 21, in the Monroe County Public Library Meeting Room 1-C. The next Critical Mass Bike Ride will be held on March 30. Meet at 5:30pm at the Sample Gates on the IU campus. This is a regular event that occurs on the last Friday of every month. A number of groups have organized several activities as part of a Week of Resistance March 30-April 5. You can find a complete schedule of events to print at: www.angelfire.com/journal/secretsailor/resistance/wor.html * Earth Day Several events are being organized by other groups in conjunction with Earth Day. On April 20, a tree planting is scheduled from noon to 5pm on Sycamore Land Trust land at Bean Blossom Bottoms. People interested in helping out should contact Mike at 336-0462. There are also events, including a parade and booths, being scheduled for April 22. Julie volunteered to contact the organizer, Katie Wolf, to find out how we could get involved. * Fundraising Chris is trying to coordinate a workshop on canvassing. Several full-time canvassers from the Hoosier Environmental Council have agreed to come to Bloomington for at least one, perhaps two, Saturday training sessions. Chris will send more details about these events to the email list. Chris also dispatched our T-shirt order to Goods For Greens. They should arrive shortly. The MCGP share of the bill will be about $250. We plan to reimburse him as quickly as possible as more dues are collected. Farmer's Market will begin in May. Although we cannot sell merchandise at the community group tables there, we can set out a donation jar. * Charter Peter promised to add the charter to our web site before the next meeting. * Dues Isabel presented a draft of procedures for handling dues collection. After discussion, the group agreed on several key points. First, all dues for the first year should be paid in full by the May 1 meeting. Only members who have paid their dues will vote in the election of coordinators. January through December will be the standard dues year. New members who join in mid-year will pay pro-rated dues based on the quarter during which they join. A person who joins in July, for example, will pay $10 for 1/2 year of dues. No dues will be pro-rated this year until the third and fourth quarters. The group also agreed to institute two levels of dues. Full dues will remain $20 for the year. Hardship dues will be $5 for the year. People are, of course, able to contribute more if they so desire. * Membership Form It was also pointed out that we need to prepare the membership form for new members to sign. Heather volunteered to draft a form and send it to the discussion list. If there are no objections, she will print a stack of them to bring to the next meeting. * Privatization of Bloomington Water/Sewer Management Milton brought to the group's attention the recent call for proposals by City of Bloomington Utilities to privatize the management of our waste water treatment plants. He thought that opposition to this plan would be a great issue for MCGP to take up because it touches on many of our values. The main concern is that turning over management to an outside company makes CBU less accountable than it is if it reminas in local hands. One of the companies with a strong bid is a France-based multi-national! People have also worried that a private company will simply cut staff, let the facilities deteriorate, pocket the profit, and then leave town while the city has to deal with the mess left behind. Milton mentioned several other communities that regretted their privatization contracts and others that defeated privatization proposals. The lack of response from the board to citizen concerns has also been distressing. It's even unclear who will decide if one of the bids should be accepted. Milton asked that people inform themsleves about the issue and attend the meetings of the Utilities Service Board. The next meeting will be held at 5:00pm at the Utilities Service Building on the corner of Henderson and Miller. The board normally meets every other week. People also suggested calling in to WFIU's "Ask the Mayor" program on Wednesday to make him explain why he supports this plan. Jeff promised to make a point of at least emailing a question about this to the program. * I-69 Jason Flickner, from the Hoosier Environmental Coalition, asked if MCGP would agree to be listed as an opponent of the new terrain route for I-69. Another roud of public hearings is coming up in the near future, and opponents of the route are trying to deepen and broaden the opposition across the state. The group agreed unanimously to add MCGP to the list of opponents. After a review of commitments, the meeting adjourned at 8:46pm. ************************************************************************ The next meeting will be held at 7:00pm on Tuesday, April 3, at the Environmental Center (116 1/2 S College - above the dance studio). Chris volunteered to serve as facilitator. He will send a tentative agenda to the discussion list several days prior to the meeting date and post an announcement of the meeting at the Monroe County Public Library bulletin board. ************************************************************************