Notes from the
Occupy Delaware
General Assembly (GA) Meeting
2012-04-18
Grace Church, Wilmington
Occupations and assemblies are the basis of
a new global justice movement
to confront a global crisis.
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Meeting started: 1912 hr
Breakout sessions? Just do it. Stack for topic:
1) Philly’s Jun 30-July 4 National Gathering
2) Bank sleeping
3) Corporate tax, pros, cons
4) National Gathering, start thinking about it.
5) What we want as demands, expedite a list
6) Public education, privatization
7) Spreading the Movement
Vote: 1) 10
2) 5
3) 3
4) same as 1)
5) same as 1)
6) 8 (withdrawn)
7) withdrawn
Discussion topic: National Gathering
We remained as one group instead of breaking out, for 10-minute discussion.
At Independence Mall, we’re looking for planning help from everywhere. Ideas, ways to sponsor/fund groups to get to Philly, in order to have a diverse demographic. Need to reach out for medics, food…Get in on the Occupy calls, email Brandi, etc.
The 99% Declaration is using the Convention Center. The National Gathering is NOT that. This has support from many, many Occupy groups. Occupynationalgathering.com
Is the process we discussed, the visioning process, still going to be used? Yes. It’s described on the Web site. Will start to travel to GAs to bring the proposals to them.
The 99% Declaration has tons of money. We’re convening the National Gathering at the same time to provide exposure to what Occupy is really about.
The Spring Training, put on the 99% Declaration, last week was good. We don’t want to be adversarial. Last week’s training was the MoveOn training, not the 99% Declaration. It was 99% Spring. That’s different.
What is the goal of the National Gathering? To bring a lot of people together to develop a vision for Occupy. It’s not a GA, no decisions will be made. Priorities will be established.
Who’s funding the 99% Declaration? “Continental Congress 2.0″ the99declaration.org Trying to influence the US Congress or form a 3rd party. They’ve raised $6600.
What would we like to take to the National Gathering, issues that are important to us?
Theme months, for Occupy. Each month all the occupations focusing on a single issue. Bring this idea to the National Gathering.
Healthcare and education. Food, the current state of how we get our food. Our food supply is in very real danger.
The demands we have created are local and national. We’re looking for more national demands. Let’s bring in national demands and discuss them. Instead of coming directly from the Demands committee, it’d be more expedient to discuss several issues at a GA and choose one for a demand.
Occupy nationally, internationally, to come up with 3 key things we can focus on.
We should come up with a National Gathering working group to move proposals forward, which would report to GA. (See Bruce, Jen after the meeting.)
End of discussion.
Report-Backs
Actions
Good Delaware Avenue action in the rain today, 2 people from DSU came by with cameras and interviewed us. They were psych students, and asked how our backgrounds had an effect on us being activists. They’re going to NYC for the May 1 May Day events.
Lot cleanup/garden outreach; the Van Buren and Read St site after being bank-owned since 1982 it was sold to a private person. However we met with Nzinga at 5th and N Harrison in Hilltop, near LACC, we’re moving forward with that site. The main concern, which had been used a couple years ago as a garden, is the fence. The fence needs to be fixed up and will need some funds. There’ll probably be a proposal next week. The property owner has reportedly given permission to garden it. Beverly Bovell wants to secure permission before they help with funding. NCC Department of Land Use. Hopefully they will contribute funds and manpower, and on working with Occupy Delaware on a future project. Wilmington in Transition has opted in to participate. We’re also looking for free mulch from the city.
We’re still moving forward with the May 5 target date. We haven’t filed yet with the city for Community Day. We’ll move forward with this site, cleanup and mulch. The fence is the first objective.
Media
We got a call today from Esteban Parra of the News Journal re a couple people who identified themselves with Occupy Delaware who were arrested. The police are paying attention to the camp. Any questions from the press should be referred to the media team. Say nothing unless they truly understand you’re speaking for yourself.
There are concerns that this may be the “just cause” to take the camp down. A press release may be in order, making it a community awareness issue.
We can emphasize the success of the camp, and the drug problem is due to wider societal failures.
The police know we are taking all of this seriously and we have handled incidents, enforcing our regulations, and calling in the police to help. We have no problem with law enforcement helping us and us helping them.
We will talk with Loretta Walsh and the Media committee will decide if a press release is in order.
Call a Peace Resolution Team (PRT) meeting to deal with any camp issues. There will be a PRT meeting after the GA. We need a quorum of 10.
We attended the 99% Spring Training last Saturday. A very nice occasion, talked about the civil rights movement tactics and strategy. Got a really nice Powerpoint presentation. Could to a teach-in about civil disobedience, tactics, philosophy. We’re doing a lot of these things already. We injected Occupy actions into the training. Ruckus Society, Greenpeace, 350.org were there. We have no problems working together with these groups.
Fiducias
Please give receipts to us to start getting reimbursed. We need someone to replace Steve. Please see Steve after the GA.
HHS
We won’t be able to continue with cooking outreach, but we have canned goods at SsAMs church, and would like to hand off the leadership of this work.
We could try to change the days we have access to the kitchen. Thanks to Arnie for the great love he’s provided with his cooking for us.
Last Sunday, Wilmington in Transition showed the first part of Crash Course, it was excellent! A great summary of the banking system, Federal Reserve, Treasury. Tomorrow at 7 pm and part 3 Sunday at 3:30. Economics, Environment, Energy. At Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pensylvania Avenue and Rodney. Come for the discussion.
The videos are available at chrismartenson.com
Announcements
Saturday will be the Green Party fund raiser at IBEW, 7 pm, Andy Groff and the School of Rock adult band will be there. On Basin Rd. FYI, this coming Saturday, yours truly [Andy Groff] will be performing with the School of Rock adult band at the IBEW Hall on Basin Road (rte 141) at 7:00PM. This is a free concert so come out and let’s make a Green Party party out of it! GP and campaign donations will be gladly accepted. There is a cash bar available and we’ll be rockin out the tax week.
https://www.facebook.com/
Trebs is having a bonfire at her place Saturday the 21st at her place. All are invited. Go to Jen’s house to follow her to the place. Or email/phone Trebs. Trebs will be at Shenanigan’s tonight.
There’s a 95% chance that on May1 there will be a bus to NYC. Leave here at 10 am to get there at noon, and leave NYC around 6 pm. It’ll be posted on the Web site, please coordinate with Ray.
On May 1 there’s a national call for a strike across the country. If Occupy Delaware wants to be a part of it, it’s no-work-no-school.
We have posters for May 1 to post around the city.
Demands committee is still scheduled for 12 Saturday.
CEDP is hosting a speaking/movie event at the site 4 pm on Sunday.
This Sunday there will be another Economy teach-in, 4:30 at Hanover Church.
Proposals
Proposal 1: Demands Committee, local proposal in response to the effort to remove the Rodney bus hub.
We demand that DelDot and state leadership do not change the DART route to avoid the primary Rodney Square hub for the state. This would make service to the public less efficient and represents difficulties for everyone. Since the working poor, disabled, and economically oppressed Delwareans depend on this service, DelDOT’s change is in defacto class warfare. The state has not provided an acceptable reason for this change; furthermore public transportation is a fundamental human right.
Facual Information
I went down to Rodney Square last week to pass out flyers for the public hearing, there are a lot of people who feel this is targeting poor and working class people to get them out of sight, to disempower them.
As a bus rider we’ve seen the proposed routes and you’d have to cross a big area to transfer, and the timing is difficult.
The buses have been at the square for 50 years. The buses are too big for the proposed stops. This would be very bad for the disabled and seniors.
There are very few transfer points, Rodney Square is the largest. Transfer times are frequently 1 or 2 minutes. If they buses are separated more than they are now no one would be able to make their transfers. People have been trying to break up this hub for 10 years. We could educate the public on who and why this proposal is being made.
Gerry Fulcher [Al Mascitti?] on his radio show on WDEL got into the issues. Studies that have been done have shown that buses would have to jump curbs and obstruct lanes in the proposed scheme.
Clarifying Questions
Can you clarify “transportation is a right”? In our society you have to be able to get around to live and work, you can’t walk. If you don’t have a car you need the buses. For life to be fair this has to be considered a right.
Is DelDOT private, or is it state funded, where does it get its money? The state highway budget, from taxes.
Concerns
If we want this to pass, we’ll need to rally a large amount of the people who are affected as follow up.
Getting this policy out there gives us freedom to speak out on it, gets us all on board together.
We have put out a press release on this issue, and have had some actions, ahead of the demand.
The phrasing “transportation is a human right” can be misconstrued. It should be changed to “our tax dollars are paying for it and we should get our money’s worth.”
The opposition to the Rodney Square issue doesn’t really care about the 99%..
Call it a basic necessity.
Article 25 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: We’re reiterating several UDHR issues.
This is directly related to corporate personhood, a real 1% vs. 99% issue. This connects very directly with our stated mission.
Amendments
Amendment 1: Change the last sentence to add the word “access” or “access to”, “Access to public transportation is a right of the people.” Seconded.
“The State has not provided an acceptable reason for this change and access to public transportation is a right of the people.”
Amendment 2: instead of “human right” say “necessary social services” congruent with the UDHR. “According to the UDHR adopted by the UN in 1948…transportation is a social service paid for by the taxpayers od Delaware…”
Amendment 3: Quote, cite the UDHR in the demand. Seconded.
Amendment 2 was withdrawn in favor of Amendment 3.
Amendment 1, revised: The state has not provided an acceptable reason for this change and as public transporation is a necessary social service and a right of the people according to Art. 25 of the UDHR.
Factual Information on Amendment 1
We have 2 ands in the sentence and it’s a bit of a run-on sentence. Change it to 2 sentences, or semicolon.
Quick breakout to copy edit the amendment.
“The state has not provided an acceptable reason for this change; furthermore public transportation is a necessary social service and a right of the people according to Art. 25 of the UDHR.”
Proposer adopted the change.
Re-read:
“We demand that DelDot and state leadership do not change the DART route to avoid the primary Rodney Square hub for the state. This would make service to the public less efficient and represents difficulties for everyone. Since the working poor, disabled, and economically oppressed Delwareans depend on this service, DelDOT’s change is in defacto class warfare. The state has not provided an acceptable reason for this change; furthermore public transportation is a necessary social service and a right of the people according to Article 25 of the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) adopted by the United Nations.”
Straw Poll: unaminously in favor
Binding Vote: unaminously in favor
The proposal passed.
Last-minute Announcements
Reminder there will be a PRT after the GA. We need 10 people.
While we’re representing Occupy Delaware maintain proper ediquette…
We’ll make a proposal next week to get Occupy Delaware t-shirts. Also for people to get reimbursed for travel.
We will be registering 5th and Harrison for May 5 Community Day so everybody show up! There will be an after-party presented by the city at 12:30 at the City-County building!
237 years ago tonight was the Midnight Ride.
Meeting adjourned: 2044 hrs.
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