Monroe County Green Party
Meeting Minutes
December 4, 2001 7:00pm
Monroe County Public Library, Meeting Room 1-B
Attendance: (17 people) Chris Stafford, Dave Ploskonka, Adam Lederer, Lincoln Merchant, Craig Harvey, Eric White, Heather Drake, Peter Drake, Isabel Piedmont, Julie Roberts, Jeff Melton, Chris Sapp, Larry Meehan, Auden Thomas, George R. Brooks, Mike Englert
Facilitator: Craig Harvey
Scribe: Chris Stafford
The meeting was called to order at 7:01pm
One item was added to the agenda: “Allocating funds for a Nonviolence speaker” was added to Old Business.
The agenda was approved.
The minutes from the previous meeting were approved.
Monroe County's
nascent Living Wage coalition had its first meeting on Thursday, November 15. A group of about 20, including a handful of
local elected officials, heard a presentation from a representative of
Indianapolis' living wage coalition.
Their campaign has been working for about 18 months to educate citizens
about living wage, gather organizational sponsors, build public support, and
draft an ordinance for consideration by the local government. After her presentation, there was some
general discussion of Monroe County's unique situation. The meeting ended with attendees committing
to bring at least one other person with them, preferably from an additional
organization, to the next meeting.
The next coalition
meeting will be held on Thursday, December 6, at 7:00 pm. (Location is still TBA.) The agenda will focus on defining our first
tasks and forming working groups to begin work on them.
This is a reminder to anyone interested that we will be having a Melton for Congress 2002 campaign committee meeting Sunday at 5:30 in Soma. Here, in relatively uncondensed form, is information I've dug up so far on Democrat Baron Hill's voting record (focusing mostly on "bad" votes) in Congress. We need to condense it into bulleted points to put on the Web site, and also to find out his stance on issues such as capital punishment that weren't voted on. Also, in case anyone hasn't heard, there's a strong possibility that the Republican running for Hill's 9th District seat will be our County Council buddy Jeff Ellington. Fun, fun, fun!
Heather said that the League of Women Voters would be having a Question and Answer session with area State Legislators, including Kruzan and Welch. It’ll be Wednesday, December 12, 7pm, at the Meadowwood Retirement Community, lower lounge.
Eric said that he’d be leaving December 12 for Rhode Island, but he’ll be back for the Nonviolence forum and workshops as well as to coordinate the campaign videos for Green Party candidates.
Jeff said that at noon on Friday, December 7th, the IU Progressive faculty Commission would be hosting “What you’re not hearing about the war in Afghanistan”. It’ll be held in Woodburn Hall, room #003.
Peter announced that this Saturday would be a meeting of the Indiana Green Party up in Indianapolis, immediately followed by a Tom Brown for Secretary of State meeting. The IGP meeting will begin at 2:00pm in the Indianapolis Public Library.
Mike said that on Saturday the Housing and Neighborhood Development would be hosting a workshop entitled “Envisioning Neighborhoods.”
Eric said that the group “Grandmothers for Hemp” will be meeting on Thursday.
Mike said that there would be a Living Wage meeting at 7pm on December 6th at St. Paul’s Catholic Church.
Mike also announced that on Tuesday December 11, Mark Stoops and Don Moore will meet with anybody who’s thinking of running for County Council seats, to describe to them the logistics of campaigning.
Newsletter -- No
report.
(I will bring my stack
of extra newsletters and leave it on the table in case anyone did not receive a
copy.)
Shadow Gov't –
USB and City Council are
both currently considering a small water rate increase for the next year. Six percent of the 14.9% increase will fund
increased operating costs. The other
8.9% of the increase will fund the issuance of bonds for several different
capital improvement projects. Most of
the projects are part of CBU's aggressive maintenance program to repair and
replace aging infrastructure before we get into a situation where it might
fail. For most residential customers,
the increase will represent a $1.70 increase in their monthly water bills.
The City Council will
also likely approve a $25,000 grant to WonderLab to help fund the construction
of their gift shop.
BZA (Bloomington)
Heard a request to
rezone a residential lot to allow a satellite of MA’ women’s college to
open. MA’s Women’s College is a
Japanese college. They will be doing
BioTech research.
The board had concerns
about:
Residency and Hazardous pollution
A multi-story apartment
complex is requesting zoning changes to allow construction. The complex would be at 7th and
Lincoln. The presentation attempted to
spin this to a small change in density by stating that the proposed project
will only increase the number of tenants by 9 over the current occupancy rates. Tom Seeber immediately challenged this. It seems that the developer was using
maximum occupancy rates for the current building and minimum rates for their
own.
On the plus side this
will improve the condition of the properties in the neighborhood my removing
two poorly maintained buildings. This
project will better utilize downtown space by increasing the density of these
properties.
The increase in tenants
will probably make the, already bad, parking problem worse.
The board had concerns
about:
The height / bulk of this building
Parking issues
Look and feel
Social Justice –
The Social Justice
Working Group met on
November 13 to begin
plans for the March forum. The forum
will focus on the theme of a living wage for Bloomington and Monroe
County. We plan to invite speakers to
address four topics: cost of housing,
cost of medical care, cost of child care, and the current wage situation in
Monroe County.
By having a better
understanding of the costs of living and current wage climate, we hope to bring
to light the fact that many people in our community are not making enough to
live on and suggest some local program ideas, including a living wage
ordinance, that would help alleviate this problem. Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, December 11, at 8:00pm
at Cappuccino's.
Election Committee
report:
The Election Committee
completed the Platform item discussion.
Discussed setting up
learning forum to explain how to run a campaign. The first meeting will be held on Dec 11, Mark Stoops (and maybe
Don Moore) will be teaching.
<end report>
III.) Discussion topic #1: the Alternative transportation Plan, Specifically the side-paths that will be included in the reconstruction of the Indiana 46 bypass between college and 3rd street.
Comments submitted by Craig in advance of meeting:
The construction of the bypass will add side-paths to both sides of this improvement.
13 acres of mature woods will be cut to provide the land necessary to install these paths.
Discussion at the meeting:
Craig passed around maps and explained what the city’s plan was and what he perceived several problems to be with it. The biggest problem was that in order to have bicycle lanes on both sides of the street, many extra acres of trees would have to be cut down, and Craig questioned whether there was, or would be, enough bicycle traffic to justify having both lanes.
Specifically, he wants the Green Party to endorse a position of questioning the need for bike traffic along the Bypass.
Heather asked who was paying for the expansion, and Craig described how the city had won a state grant for this project and was probably doing it only because it had the money at this time – the project itself was not one that was begged for by the public.
Many people at the meeting had other questions regarding this project, listed below:
1) How many extra acres must be cut down for each extra lane of traffic, as well as for each bicycle lane?
2) How will this affect growth north of the bypass, which the city has gone on record as saying it is trying to discourage.
3) Is this project really needed at this time?
4) Could there be a bicycle lane on just one side? The inside seems to be more useful
5) Do we really want to expand all this at all, considering that it will only increase the speed, and therefore danger, of traffic along the bypass?
Craig volunteered to draft a statement, post it to the discussion list for comments/suggestions, and ultimately submit it to the city. Several people suggested working with neighborhood associations, Association of Monroe County Taxpayers, and other organizations that might have some input.
IV.) Discussion item #2: Supporting the Sheriff
Comments submitted by Craig prior to meeting:
An article in the HT during Thanksgiving stated that the dinner for thanks giving day would be a meal much like most of us would have. The article went on to report that there was a great deal of extra effort by Jail staff and trustees to create this meal. A special emphasis was put on the 42 hand made pies made for this meal so that each inmate could get a large slice.
A more recent article indicated that the sheriff was not going to be tolerant of Deputies that failed to enforce the laws evenhandedly. In this case a Deputy Sargent was found to have made arraignment for an acquaintance of his to leave the scene of an assault and submitted a false report on the events.
The point of this discussion is to provide positive feedback to counter-balance the sometimes-negative responses we have issued in the past.
Discussion at meeting:
Craig said that we ought to publicly thank the Sheriff’s Department for two things. First of all, they provided a hearty Thanksgiving dinner to the inmates. Second, the Sheriff has upheld his decision to fire a corrupt deputy who covered up a crime scene for his friend, even though many have wanted to simply fine the deputy.
Isabel agreed to write a letter-to-the-editor and also to the Sheriff’s department. Many agreed it was always good to thank people when they do something we agree with.
V.) Old Business:
Non-violence Speaker:
The Non-Violence Working Group is seeking funds to bring a RAWA speaker from California. The airfare will probably be around $300, and there will be some other costs as well.
Many people in the group had questions regarding the value of paying this much money to bring a speaker for only half an hour of speaking time. From this, there were questions about the structure of the non-violence public forum and whether it’d be possible either to use many of the talented local speakers we have, or to make sure that the RAWA speaker would have more time to present.
Julie raised the concern that enough time didn’t remain to plan and promote this event enough to justify bringing in a big-name speaker. Several agreed with this position.
After much discussion, Peter made a motion that the Green Party would agree to pay $100 if the group could find other co-sponsors to make up the difference. The motion passed with 15 in favor and 2 abstentions.
Affirmative Action Clause to the Charter:
Eric suggested that we amend the charter to include a statement that we actively seek out members of minority groups to be members of the Green Party.
After much discussion about whether we would, or should, actually change our membership practices or if these would just be nice words in the charter, Eric withdrew the motion.
Craig reported that the City Planners had discussed the 5th/3rd/Adams intersection, and changed the layout of Woolery Mill. They’re planning to petition the DNR to change the floodplain mapping to match how they’d like to develop it.
Election Committee:
Passed around a draft of the MCGP platform, and said feedback was welcome by email or even better, by attending the next Election committee meeting on Monday, December 10. Craig and Isabel asked people to be specific with comments. Isabel will forward it to the discuss-list, and Larry will put it on the webpage.
Nonviolence Workshops will be held on January 12-13.
On Wednesday January 9, Eric will hold a “Kingian” Nonviolence workshop from 7-9pm. He asked the group for $50 to help put this on, and the group said that they wanted more information about it.
Larry reported that things were going well for getting the website autonomous (off of Yahoo.)
Heather agreed to facilitate the next meeting.
After a review of commitments, the group adjourned at 8:56pm.
He wants the Green Party