Occupy Delaware GA

Meeting Notes
Spencer Plaza
2012-05-16

meeting start: 1915 hr

REPORT-BACKS

Actions

At the Wilmington rally on the Delaware Ave. bridge over I-95 we had 4 people and we got a lot of power signs and a lot of support. 4:30-5:30 Wednesdays, there’s always somebody there.

Mayor-Wants-To-Kick-Us-Out Committee

We’re keeping a diary to have a group memory when we go to trial. When officials come to site, send info to Jen. Everyone should have their own journal as well.

There was an L&I person here Friday, complaining that we didn’t have any pallets! L&I (not the fire marshal) is concerned that the tents would blow away. So we went out and got cinder blocks. L&I also wanted documentation on the command tent, we sent them a 300 page report. And we haven’t heard from them since. Our military experience was valuable in this case.

Remember, no direct phone, email, correspondence with officials, all through our lawyer (except conversations, which should be recorded in your journal notes).

Fiduciary/Web

We have a PayPal account set up for donations. And we’ve already had a sizable donation!

We ordered the fire-retardant tarps Sunday night, 5 10×12 tarps, @ $30. We can order more if we want. Delivery should be 5-10 days.

$ Report: We have $581.35 in our DACA account.

Site Activities

2 days ago a guy showed up and said he took pictures of the camp from about 2 weeks ago and he took them to the mayor’s office (“negative” pictures…)

A car last week cruised by and didn’t stop, taking pictures.

Bus Hub

I talked to a lot of people on the street, and if the bus hub is not restored as the hub then there will be hundreds of people willing to boycott.

As a disabled person there are no benches at the new stops. We’ll need benches at Rodney Square.

We will have to file paperwork.

They’re doing 2 sides of Rodney Square by October and the buses should be back then.

There is a movement to start harassing us politically. Because of my activism and registering people to vote I’m being followed (and I’m not paranoid), police and county agents. So don’t let them intimidate, this is free speech and free association. Look for subtle things that they’re doing.

My email was infiltrated 3 times, twice in PA and once in DE. If you think it’s ridiculous, don’t, because they have the technology to screw with you.

When I attended the 99% Civil Disobediance training, there were 2 unmarked cars, and sime bikers. They were in suits and they were at Shenanigans later. They let their presence be known. As did I. Don’t be intimidated. This is what happens.

The bus thing, we need to bombard the newspaper with the people who are complaining. Re ADA, there was no time to talk to anybody. We’ll call them.

The bankers association has allocated money to put pressure on legislators against us. We had a recent disclosure through the FOIA that Homeland Security works closely with fusion centers to coordinate an attack against occupations across the country. They’re probably working with the mayor, wondering why we’re still here.

I have been getting phone calls from strange numbers, 708, 709, 201 area codes. They’ll stay on the line and then hang up when I say something. When I call back the number has been disconnected or doesn’t exist. Daily, or twice a day.

There are many technologies that can be used to invade your privacy. Synthetic telepathy. May sound bizarre, but the government has been known to be tampering with inmates’ thoughts, some of the technology has been patented, it goes back to the Cold War. Look it up. Prisoners have been trying to put together a class action suit against being experimented on. A Stalinist trick that’s been used before.

The garden project, are we still interested in fixing up the fence? We’ll need some money for this. We can take a project description to take to Lowes et al. to see if we can get materials donated. Press release…the certificate we got from the mayor.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

This upcoming weekend is the Grand Prix. Friday it’ll be the Monkey Hill Time Trial, frmo 4-8. Saturday street festival noon to 5:30 downtown. Sunday, finish line at DE Art Museuum 10-2. We can make positive signs to encourage them!

Hannah’s ordination is this Friday, 7 pm. Some of us are going, it’s open to the public. Let’s talk after the GA about carpooling to Phoenixville, where it’ll be.

Today there was an incident with the buses. We were going to Newark to sell some papers and the 33 passed us by, we ran to catch it but it kept going. This happened twice! The driver of the 35 walked by us and ignored us. The drivers were completely arrogant.

I tried to get the 9-12 people to support Occupy. There was some interest! I’m running against Markell as a Tea Party Occupier!

We’re going to have a sign at the next rally that invites people to the GAs. The sign has to be big enough so they can read it! We need more poster board.

DART is not customer friendly. The drivers don’t care how they treat you. And ParaTrasit sucks. The DART buses are unsafe, they need to be refurbished but they aren’t being replaced. Some are taped together. Tape on the floor! These buses are dilapidated, 15 years old. Elderly women slip and fall because the drivers take off too soon. When I lived in NYC the MTA drivers were civil, and followed the law. The buses routinely skip their stops. As a disabled person DART is the only way I can get around. All DART people need to learn how to treat their customers right.

I’ve been registering people to vote, I’ve been hitting the 18-19 year-olds up and we’re getting a crowd of them on site to stay. We’ll show them what it’s like to live on the street. All 18-plus are welcome. This is a start at a regular “Homeless Stay In” to give them a taste of what it’s like.

I miss Steve F*ckin Fox.

I have surplus heirloom tomato plants if anyone is interested (Laura). I’ll bring them by the site Saturday.

Commenting on the bus drivers, I don’t think it’s their fault in all cases as it is the tight schedule they have to keep. Yes it’s unsafe but it goes up above the drivers.

The DART bus drivers, every one, waves to us at the rallies. And they bring us doughnuts. A driver stopped for us between stops and when we got on he told us he’s “one of the good guys.” DART treats the drivers like crap and they communicate that.

Perhaps we need to get a DART committee started. We’ve focused on Rodney Square, but there’s a bigger issue. It’s bus safety. Public transportation is a vital, necessary service. There will be no public transport in or out of Delaware City. It’s state-wide.

Occupy Boston has an Occupy Public Transit. Reach out to that national call to action and have another. Do a quality auditing day.

“Occupy DART” under the Action committee. We can recruit drivers to participate in GAs.

We have the demand that speaks to that. This’ll be the next topic of Action meetings.

Action meetings are at the site, Tuesdays at 6 and Saturdays at 1. We need enough people to plan, research, do the actions. This is a call out to everyone who’s interested in doing these actions come to the meetings. To follow up from the ideas generated at GAs and Shenanigans.

Meeting adjourned: 2008 hrs

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Open Forum GA
Spencer Plaza
2012-05-12

Mtg start 14:05

Bernie August has announced his running for US Congress.

Last Thursday Rodney Square outreach action, general conversations asking people what grievances they have, what they think is unjust. They see the bus issue, it looks like they are trying to run homeless and bus riders out of Rodney Square. Surrounded by banks, duPont Hotel, it’s blatant and disgusting. In the paper today it’s reported that the move of the bus hub has been postponed.

They do plan to take the buses off of Rodney Square this Monday!

It’s a different plan, the landscaping project will take the buses off the square and they won’t come back.  Moved up the schedule to avoid protest. We need to set up a protest right in front of the law offices to tell people that they are the ones responsible for pushing people off the square.

The new plan involves the buses being moved to King St. This will be even worse for elderly and disabled and also less safe. This will also force people to buy cars, which is anti-Green. The buses must be made user-friendly.

Rodney Square has always been a hub, bus or trolley. This is a perfect example of the widening gap between extreme rich and poor and the elimination of the middle class.

Is there a way to leverage people from the ADRC, organizations that help the elderly or disabled. Make a video showing how difficult it’ll be using the buses in the new location. Present this to advocacy groups, churches, to recruit help.

Pushing the move up a month is to prevent any organized protest. The flyers announcing this change came out on Friday.

A video to show how hard it is to get to the banks! Like the parking videos that went around last year, they were very effective in mobilizing change about the ticketing abuses.

Jack Grimes was interviewed about it for the News Journal. The article today just mentioned that the DART plan was moved back, not about the change Monday.

DART has said they’re not going to move forward with the move, and that the renovation is a smoke screen. It’s important to document what is going on (with a video) so that when the change isn’t reversed they can be called on it and moke noise then. We should come up with a plan of how we’ll do this. Start documenting Monday.

Video at 6 bus stops recording the chaos the change will cause.

We could picket showing what the consequences will be. Leverage it.

We don’t need to spread out too far, there’ll be plenty of chaos in a 2 block area.

I didn’t like going to Rodney Square?

The planned change spreads out the stops very far.

I feel safer taking the bus at Rodney Square because there are so many people there.

If we reach out to the business owners who will lose business because of the change and get their support.

Why can’t the bus schedules be made to connect up? Rodney Square is the only central location, and they won’t invest in a purpose-built bus hub.

Monday I’m going to stand in front of a bus.

Wilmington city council meeting is this Thursday, arrive at 5:45 to sign up for public comment section.

I met with Earth Day person, the 20th, draft bill to make Delaware the first state that goes plastic-bagless. This can be presented to city council also on Thursday. Plastic bags are deadly to land and aquatic animals.

Sometimes plastic bag can become a symbol. Educating ourselves about how much we spend on war to get the oil to make the plastic bags, it’s a system. We can educate the group, and I have seen it used as a powerful symbol. I believe it’s a symbol of very huge problem, of our wasteful society and our need to attain a sustainable society.

This gives us more to stand up for, we are for zero-waste living. But this would destroy jobs. But it’s toxic, it’s killing us.

This can be turned into a proposal, or an independent action.

We can create a meet-up, flash action for Monday.

I’ve been doing more investigation into SuperPACs, over a million PACs. Tens of millions of dollars in undisclosed funds.

Biden’s MERS case is coming up in CHancery court– we should be on top of that.

Tomorrow’s race is at the Riverfront, starting at 7 am, so we’ll be there with signs cheering them on. I’ll be on Rodney Square on Monday.

We could also attend the Delaware Heals meetings. Delaware is being penalized by the federal government for not complying with health improvement problems. At this unadvertised Delaware Heals meeting, they gave statistics on all kinds of rates, we were never higher than 32 in any health issue. Delaware is the place to die! And affordable health care was never brought up until I brought it up at the end. There’s a video. No one else had the guts to say that. Why are these closed meetings? When will we talk about healthiness and not just “insurance.” We could so address the disparity issues to find an avenue. deheal.org, very cute, expensive PR stunt that doesn’t give you what I heard in the meeting. How can we get our voice heard in those closed-door meetings? Try to get in there. There are so many lies around water issues.

“I am going to learn to live a zero-waste lifestyle,” all the corporations shake.

“Is my life promoting war?”  Moving out of the city, into the suburbs does not solve our health issues. The built environment and transportation systems are the 2 biggest producers of toxins. “We’ve got to get public citizens to volunteer to solve all these problems” because our government can’t do it, they’re trying to empower the grass roots because they can solve the problems. There is $60 billion of waste in the medicare system and we’re trying to get volunteers to fix the problems of the planet, it’s terrifying.

I’m learning how to live a zero-waste lifestyle, how is the government empowering me to live a cleaner, healthier lifestyle? Learn to live above the insanity by going underground, I have less fear because I have nothing else that can be taken from me. Reduce fear, focus on simplifying your life, keep finding common ground.

Spin out of the game they’re playing, as the mystics say.

Are the 99% going to be empowered to live with more integrity, to live a healthy lifestyle. Is it a backdoor genocide to disempower people so they can never get healthy, live sustainability. Autogenocide to eliminate the poor, a deliberate attempt. We’re just collateral damage like the native Americans were. It’s a global process.

I would love to see some street theater, it’s a powerful tool. Who are the people lying to us, filling us with ego trips and how we portray that in short theater. In South Africa they got very good at it, beautiful theater of justice.

Have the corporatocracy’s children ask them, the CEOs, to be accountable.

I had 20 kids out here asking me so many questions they were so worried about what will happen to them.

Workshop we’re designing for traumatic stress reduction. When children learn the truth they are traumatized. So do you protect them by not telling them the truth? Hand-in-hand with telling them the truth provide stress reduction, ways to handle the truth. We are turning together toward a zero-waste lifestyle, gives us hope, positive change. Empower them to make new choices.

Beau Biden has PTSD, when he came home he was hospitalized for heart problems. Can he be reached?

Meeting adjourned: 1335 hr

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Occupy Delaware

GA

Spencer Plaza

2012-05-09

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Love Your Money (Move Your Money)

Daisy Chainsaw

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Meeting start: 1916 hr

REPORT-BACKS

“The Mayor Wants to Kick Us Out” Committee

Letter from the city fire marshal letter explaining how they’ll come down on the camp tomorrow end-of-business for purported violations.

Guerilla Arts Festival

In Spencer Plaza, aiming for the dates between the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival (Jun e 18-23) and the Bob Marley Festival (July 28). Artists, musicians welcome! (Josh, Julia)

HHS

The food and supplies we had at SsAMS, canned goods, pasta, is available for use, or for soup kitchens. See Arnie.

Actions

Good turnout at Delaware Avenue rally today.

From yesterday’s meeting, we discussed implementation of an event calendar, doing an action around MERS, and around Steve Colbert’s superPAC (Michele is working on a video montage toward that).

Garden Project action last week, 5th and N. Harrison, we worked for 6 hours, a dozen or more people working. The garden looks great and there’s more work to do with the fence. We got a certificate from the mayor, signed, thanking us for participation in Community Day, there’s good video, photos on the sites. We have found artists to work on the mural that we’ll put up on the wall next to garden.

Facilitation

Review of hand signals.

InterOccupy

Occupy NG and Occupy Caravan projects are starting to merge, bringing people from across the country to Philly Independence Mall the weekend of July 4.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Vigil/Open Memorial Service for people who don’t get proper memorials, hosted at the site.

An action tomorrow at Rodney Square, 3 – 6 pm, to engage with the folks there. Do an open forum to get input from people on why they’re angry, at 5 pm.

Education

A corporate front group attempted to insert themselves into a couple boards of education. They failed. The News Journal has been supportive of these (Rodel) people. It’s all about getting rid of the unions.

Talked with Reggie at Occupy the Hood, invited them to join ODE to make us more diverisified. He’s interested.

We’ve been talking with people at Rodney Square about coming to meetings and getting involved. They’re stubborn. We can make an impact with the people getting on and off the buses.

We’re approaching Lowes and Home Depot for fence for the garden.

We’ve been invited by Occupy Baltimore to visit a camp near where the G-8 is being held. Thursday-Saturday while the G-8 is going on. See the Occupy Baltimore Web site.

There may be another bus trip to NY June 20.

Bernie August is announcing his candidacy for US House at the Green Party of Delaware’s annual meeting this Saturday.

On the FB there’s a link to registering to vote.

BoA shareholder meeting in NC was today, a couple thousand people showed up and shut it down. Big march after.

Economics Affinity group meeting after the GA–directly affecting the economic system.

This Sunday, Mother’s Day, a couple foot races the city is sponsoring, for ODE to make its presence known at.

Grand Prix weekend coming up is another opportunity. Brew-Ha-Ha will have a table out there all day. Setting up a water table? They have 3000 runners in this race, a marathon and a half-marathon. Out Walnut St. and back on King St. 3000 runners, 4 cups each, that’s a lot. Instead we can haul the Occupy sign up to King St.

Tomorrow evening, 7 pm, another WiT film showing at Rodney Chapel, come watch and discuss The World According to Monsanto. Westminster Presbyterian Church, Wilmington. Free. Bring friends. This film is highly motivating.

We went to the City Council meeting, no one is complaining! Loretta Walsh was praising us.

We’ve been talking to Loretta today. City Council is out of the loop, a disconnect from the mayor’s office. Loretta, in the Public Safety meeting, had not been informed until we informed her today.

We’ll lie down in front of the DART buses with Mike Brown, June 17, if the bus hub is going to be moved. We should reach out to Mike Brown.

PROPOSALS

Review of proposal procedure.

Proposal 1: Mayor-Kick-Us-Out Committee. Citing us for code violations. ACLU advice based on latest letters from city that we remove the pallets, foam, and tarps by the close of business day tomorrow. If we do not comply and therefore go to court we will very likely lose and judge will require us to remove the things as a condition of staying or kick us out immediately.

We need to decide if we want to comply or not comply.

Factual Information

I was in DC during the Poor People’s Campaign, they solved similar issues.

We’ve discussed alternatives. Some we don’t have time for.

The plaza floods, some of the tents would be soaked. Most tents don’t have full rain flys. We know the tarps are not flame retardant.

There is flame retardant spray. We probably wouldn’t get it fast enough.

The fire marshal was here several months ago when pallets and tarps were in place, he was requested to do a safety presentation. We requested he come to speak to us today, the city’s lawyer declined that. In response the latest letter from the fire marshal was issued.

The city knew about all of this months ago and failed to act on it.

I’ve read the letters and investigated the issues, we have a case to not comply and take them to court. They’re asking for information about the materials that does not exist.

There’s a no-rain window of opportunity for a few days after tonight.

The letter from the city’s attorney implies they want to bring fire code violations against named individuals. It’s a scare tactic.

We don’t know that the names have been sent to the city’s lawyer. If a list had been sent that would have been communicated to us.

For 2 months, all of January, I engaged the city and fire marshal to get them out here, they did ignore us and our lawyer knows that.

I brought all this up to the ACLU lawyer, he said it’s obvious harassment, but the judge will defer to to fire marshal’s statement that the items are a fire hazard.

What is not being spoken here is that we’re not being given redress except within the scope of the city’s accusation. Under the 14th Amendment we should be given redress.

All the Xmas light wires around the site are a fire hazard, put here by they city.

Clarifying Questions

Has our ACLU attorney suggested going to the Federal Court judge and asking for an injunction to stop the city from enforcing these accusations? We will bring this to the lawyer tomorrow.

Complying could put people in immediate harm because of the impending rain.

Are we talking about compliance about all the grievances? Tarps, pallets, foam. That’s the advice from our lawyer. All the rest he can defend against. He’s asking us to comply with tarps, pallets, and foam.

Are these structures not temporary, as they’re supposed to be? Can we get the fire department to spray anything with fire retardant that needs it? That’s a service they provide for Christmas trees. We will ask the lawyer that.

I investigated federal regulations about fire inhibitors, for mattresses, clothing, tarps, all tents, do not have a fire rating, they’re allowed to sell this stuff, and there exists no proof of fire-proofness.

There are fire resistant tarps out there available.

With our repeated asking the fire marshal to come to the camp for advice, I understand about the judge’s position. Should we not take these steps anyway, to have our good efforts documented, and their denials? That will make our case stronger, especially given that they’re trying to violate our 14th Amendment rights.

In the first paragraph of the fire marshal’s letter he used the phrase “appear to be combustible,” can we say that the fire marshal is supposing? Our lawyer says the burden of proof is on us, and we cannot prove that the tarps we have are fire retardant.

What the city is basing this on is a visit on May 2 by the fire marshal, claiming that the fire marshal told one of us that the pallets, foam, tarps had to be removed at that time. The city’s lawyer believes he has communicated with OD. The fire marshal is not allowed to talk to our lawyer, by the city’s lawyer.

Can we comply but add “by the weekend.”? No. Complying means getting rid of the pallets, tarps, foam.

It was not the fire marshal himself who was here.

Scout camps put their tents on pallets. Do we really know it’s a code violation? No, we just know what the fire marshal’s office said.

Concerns

I spent 5 years suing a slum lord in this city which led to a full investigation of L&I. I had 49 code violations, by an inspector who was on the take. It set precedent in DE the AG convicted the landlord for egregious violations. He had thousands of violation, but what got him shut down were the fire code violations. We’re not going to get wiggle room on those.

Weather tomorrow, a little bit of rain, tonight 60% chance of showers, then nothing for the next few days. 30-40% chance of rain Monday, Tuesday. This could give us leeway, to keep us focused on why we’re here. We can comply and we have time to come up with alternatives to keep ourselves dry and out of the water.

I’ve been drafting a press release…

The fire marshal’s job is not to keep people safe, it’s to enforce code.

I think it would be a good idea to remove tarps, pallets, foam and work toward a solution as quickly as possible to maintain the safety of the camp. This is without a doubt an attempt of the city to harass us. If we’re going to be forced to leave it should be a fight over the signs, free speech, because that is why we are here. I realize sleeping directly on the bricks is the reality for the people here, I deeply respect this. If we don’t comply we will be gone and our story is that Occupy Delaware got kicked out because of fire code violations. Not for free speech.

I’m a fireman’s daughter and my dad will rise up out of his new grave and slap me if we’re not fire safe. Can we do it by tomorrow 5 pm?

Yes.

We should do it tonight, with all the people here now.

I don’t think our ACLU lawyer is being dogged enough on our behalf, we need to contact NLG for outside advice.

I’m concerned that if we don’t replace the tarps, etc. soon enough we won’t have people here.

There are high-ground areas, and the command tent is waterproof.

I am concerned for the people here, what will happen if we don’t comply is that we are going to be forced to leave and these people will be screwed anyway.

Our agreement with the city, if we’re going to comply and keep our original arrangement with the city, the camp is a symbol of free speech. The tents are a symbol.

Our lawyer is working within the system, so of course his advice will be the most defensible within the system.

If we’re going to get thrown out let’s get thrown out for the just cause. The fire marshal is following orders from the mayor.

This is a tactical ploy and we’re going to get something like this every week. The goal is to wear us down. We need to be prepared for that.

This is just the first in a long series of letters we’ll be getting from the city.

Clearly their tactic is intimidation and harassment. If we want to see what they have to throw at us, and how far they’ll move the goal post, we have to be here after tomorrow.

I do stay here and I’m willing to stay here further, everything I have I can get again. I say we keep fighting.

If it comes down to me wearing flame-retardant clothes and sleeping on the street I’ll be sleeping here. Delaware is a huge target and so much is happening here and nobody is noticing.

I will vote to comply, the people who have been here are the reason we have the camp. yes it’s a symbol, and a protest, but it’s more than that, these are people.

We can help them get through this.

Amendments

Add that we allocate funds to achieve this, without going through formal process because it’s an emergency. Seconded.

Factual Information for the amendment.

It wouldn’t cost anything to comply with the fire marshal, to remove stuff.

This amendment does not pertain to the proposal to comply or not

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Occupy Delaware
Open Forum GA

Spencer Plaza
2012-05-05

Meeting Start: 1424 hr

6 month anniversary!! We’ll be the oldest encampment in August!

The judge scheduled a court date in Chancery Court Aug. 20, and lifted the stay on our suit against the city. We have the opportunity to get more events going, and happening on Spencer Plaza.

May 18, 19, 20 City of Wilmington is having Grand Prix weekend in Rodney Square and we can participate.

We’re planning an art show on Spencer Plaza.

June 17 is the date for the Dart bus hub change, we’re hearing that the hub won’t be eliminated. Join Mike Brown laying down in front of the buses to redirect the route to Rodney Square. It’s a historical landmark.

Thank you everybody for the great work today at 5th and Harrison garden! It’s beautiful, and the neighbors love us. We got a certificate of appreciation from the city signed by the mayor!! And thanks to Bud Freel for his help and support today.

Photo break.

Wilmington Marathon is coming up in a couple weeks. They’ll be running in front of Spencer Plaza so we can have a water station. And get some Occupy Delaware T-shirts.

Wilmington Sitting Together is Radical microfinancing project is having an event tonight sponsored by Wilmington Americorp group. At Sts. Andrews and Matthews church at 5 pm.

We have a muralist on board for the garden. Debbie Hegedus. If people have ideas for content sketch something

Adopt-a-Block, the city’s program, commit to clean two blocks of street 4 times a year, they’ll erect a permanent sign with our name. We pick a street and it could be in the Hilltop neighborhood around the 5th and N. Harrison garden.

We could pick the mayor’s street! He lives at 8th and N. Harrison.

It’s a wonderful idea but the city is understaffed and they’re using volunteers to do work that professionals should get paid for. And this is the mayor’s last year. Look at what the city has turned into, taking money from corporations for gentrification, not for the people who live here. There are all kinds of things we can volunteer for.

We could adopt a more visible place, where there’s more traffic. It’d have to be in the city limits.

We could do 3 spots, the garden, Rodney Square, and Spencer Plaza, we’d have a way to educate, spread the word, and contribute to the community, helping our case.

Let’s see what our commitment is Wednesday night, how many people are interested.

We could choose the ramp off of I-95 at Trinity Vicinity, Adams St. 7th-10th, we’d get off- and on-ramp I-95 traffic.

We have averaged one month per demand, instead of formulating demands we could come up with a list of issues, which we can bring to July 4, National Gathering. Like what we did to prepare for our meeting with Chris Coons. There is some good stuff there.

Make a big list and prioritize what we take to Philly.

Meeting adjourned: 1513 hr