Minutes of the SNOW Coordinating Committee Meeting

Date: Monday, July 29, 2003

Attending: CC Members: Ric Power, John Bito, Ann Buzaid, Mike Yarrow, Linda York. Brenda Collier, SNOW Treasurer; Spencer Sundell, SNOW Webmaster

Visitors: Tim Gerth, Dick Burton, John Burbank, Ellen Finkelstein, Gunnel Clark

Meeting Start: 7:00 PM

Dick Burton and John Burbank presented the Initiative 77 Early Learning and Care Campaign, which if passed would levy a 10 cent tax on espresso drinks that would then be directed toward early childhood learning programs.

Proposal for SNOW CC to endorse as a justice issue and a grassroots campaign.

Proposal voted on and passed with 5 members voting for and 1 abstaining.

John Bito introduced a discussion of the need for a process for SNOW (CC and general membership) to start looking at actions that SNOW could create/sponsor and agree on the actions that we will take.

Consensus reached in discussion that we would send out a call to the neighborhood groups (NGs) to bring ideas for a fall action to the next General Meeting (GM) on 8/18.

Ellen Finkelstein and Gunnel Clark presented their thoughts about having SNOW make a major campaign out of having local government pass resolutions to specifically not comply with the USAPATRIOT act. The Seattle City Council has already done this.

Proposal was made to have supporting committing SNOW resources an initiative campaign on the agenda for the next GM on the 18th and have the general membership vote on whether to approve this effort.

Discussion centered around whether this should be one of the proposals that the NGs bring to the GM on to vote on.

Consensus was that it will be one of the possible actions/efforts on the list to choose from at the GM.

A proposal was made to have SNOW endorse the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride. Passed unanimously.

Spencer presented a vision/proposal for a resources and linking policy for the web site. It included the following elements:

• A "fairly liberal" linking policy to make the the Resources section of the site more like a Web portal, with lots of links to useful resources.
• The SNOW Points of Agreement would not be a litmus test for whether another site would be linked to. The usefulness of the content will be the primary factor and the links page will include a prominent disclaimer that SNOW is not implying endorsement of another group's views by linking to their website. The Points will be used as a guideline, however.
• CC approval of which sites to link to is not necessary – creates too lengthy of a process to add new, exciting links.
• Links to political campaigns for specific candidates will not be included ­ occurs like an endorsement and is too polarizing of an issue.

Much discussion ensued, with much agreement on the point about not including political campaigns, and in the end the proposal was to adopt the link policy as Spencer proposed it.

Proposal passed unanimously.

A question was raised as to what happened to the SNOW Vision/Mission/Message document which the CC had reviewed and edited at an earlier meeting. Mike Yarrow promised to follow up, find it and send it out to the general membership.

Facilitators for the next GM, to be held in West Seattle, will be Jay Gerring and a TBD representative from the West Seattle SNOW group.

Jay Gerring presented a proposal for SNOW to sponsor an event/forum with Charles Swan on the Platform for Progressives.

Proposal failed approval, 4 voting for, 1 against, and 1 abstaining. (5 votes required to pass)

There was a quick discussion regarding G.W. Bush's upcoming visit to Seattle and what SNOW's response to that should be. The consensus was to discuss this at the next CC meeting on the 11th.

Meeting adjourned at 9:05 PM

Minutes by Jay Gerring.