Ric Powers - facilitating. David McDonald – timekeeper. Marcia Mullins – notetaker
24 organizations and neighborhood groups were represented. 61+ people in attendance
Introductions, followed by a reading of the Points of Agreement opened the meeting.
BLACK BOX VOTING – Andy Stephesen reported on his efforts to pass a resolution in the State House of Representatives (HR2978) which would require all voting machine devices to have a paper ballot. He stressed the importance of the paper ballot rather than paper trail. More information on this is available at blackboxvoting.org or at andystephensen.com. The League of Women Voters and the ACLU have expressed disagreement with the tenets of the resolution out of concern to help the handicapped. This appears to be somewhat of a red herring.
Andy said that Sam Reed also has a bill in front of the house which allows use of internet voting and gives people only 10 minutes to vote. The lack of accountability when voting by machine and the clear ability to manipulate votes are the major areas of concern.
BYLAWS REVISION – There being a semantics error in our present bylaws, we practiced our new voting procedure (3 votes for representatives of member organizations and one vote for individuals) to make the correction. The area of the bylaws being addressed was the Points of Agreement. Ruth Yarrow explained the revision which included deletion of the phrase "by the U.S. and/or any other country" in the "We oppose" section. Ric reviewed the voting procedure. The motion passed with no opposition.
MARCH 20 COALITION – Tom Barnard and Ellen Finklestein reported on the recent meetings of a group trying to bring together a coalition of organizations which would facilitate a major event on March 20, the anniversary of the most recent U.S. attack on Iraq. It was reported that negotiations at initial planning meetings had been difficult in the representatives of some of the other organizations, particularly relative to the tone of conversation both in the meetings as well as the tone of the slogans which some of the groups were wedded to using. At the most recent meeting there had been a proposal from the agenda committee that there be 2 main slogans: End Occupation of Iraq/Jobs & Human Needs, Not War. It was further proposed that the following issues be addressed from the stage as well: End Occupation of Palestine, End U.S. Aggression Abroad, Defend Civil Liberties/Civil Rights and End Military Recruitment in Schools. It was proposed that individual groups could carry whatever messages on banner they liked.
The discussion about where the issue of Palestine would fit into the program became the main point of contention at the most recent meeting. It was reported that at the most recent meeting of the nascent coalition, most in attendance felt that it would be important not to push the issue of Palestine aside but that if it were front and center, the highlighting of it would not overwhelm the other issues.
It was further reported that a proposal was made the "sponsoring organization" be the ones which fronted the money and, therefore, were given voting power over how the money was spent. Other organizations could participate in votes on other issues.
The question before us, given the contentious nature of the meetings with the nascent coalition and the sense of many of the SNOW people who had attended the last one that there were going to continue to be efforts to push the event in a direction that was not consistent with the mission of SNOW, was how to proceed in a way that gave evidence that we want to be cooperative and to work in coalition but that we have a "bottom line" in terms of principles beyond which we cannot, with integrity, move forward with the group.
Several proposals were put forward. There was much discussion and then some voting. It was ultimately agreed that 8 volunteers would represent SNOW at the next coalition meeting. They were charged with communicating the fact that we were interested in working in coalition but that we wanted the issue of Iraq to be central to the event, given the fact that it is on the anniversary of the US attack of Iraq. Basically, they were charged with supporting the above proposal from the agenda committee. It was further agreed that they would reiterate SNOW’s commitment to our principles of respect and nonviolence. Finally, it was agreed that SNOW will work to make the 3/20 event one which emphasizes the neighborhood and community base of SNOW.
The meeting adjourned at 10:00 PM.
Minutes by Marcia Mullins