[OccupyCU] township items

[Stuart Levy]

And... we may yet have a Champaign special meeting to re-consider the 
free speech proposal.  There was some real argument over it -- a 
deliberate-looking block of right-leaning people sitting on the left 
side of the audience voted No on every question, and then left at the 
end of the township meeting, as though they'd come specifically to 
oppose those referenda.

One woman, Stephanie Williams, said she would have supported the 
referendum if your amended version had passed, but thought its language 
too vague in its original form.

*But*, after the amendment (barely) failed, this same woman argued for 
proposing *another* Township meeting to consider a revised amendment. 
After brief research the city attorney confirmed that we can call for a 
special meeting if a mere 15 electors sign saying they want it.

So ... we can do this again, and may yet get the free speech referendum 
on the ballot in Champaign!  We gathered a dozen signatures on the spot 
to call for a followup meeting.   I assume that we'd need to specify the 
proposed meeting agenda at the same time we submit the signatures.

If we're game (I am!), I think it'd be good for all interested to meet 
-- including Ms. Williams, now on this list -- to tweak the text to be 
as compelling as possible.

Other sparks flew too.  Several of us (Karen, Martel Miller, Eva Jahle, 
and I) spoke during public comment about Champaign Twp's provision of 
general assistance - a tiny amount of money, intended by state standards 
to be provided to a very limited set of people who have no other source 
of support (including people awaiting decisions on Social Security 
disability, those not eligible for TANF, etc.).  We criticized from 
several points of view - that the reports don't indicate how many people 
were served or requested assistance; that the paperwork required for 
applicants to prove eligibility is very burdensome in 
time/mobility/expense; that Champaign, though nominally using the same 
eligibility standards as Urbana, is much stingier about actually handing 
out money; that fully $50K of the incoming general-assistance tax money 
went *unspent*, compared with about $70K actually handed out, plus a 
presumably-larger amount spent on paying the Supervisor and staff to 
administer this miserly support.  And other stuff.


At the end of the meeting, Karen brilliantly lit another spark.  We were 
set to approve the township expenditure reports for the year, which 
would normally be approved pro forma.  She got up to say that the 
general assistance portion of the report was incomplete: it should 
detail how many people had been served by general assistance, and how 
many rejected.  Martel spoke too and concurred.

Result?  The right-leaning left half of the room voted to approve the 
expenditure report, and the left-leaning right half voted to reject.  We 
*won*. *The report was not approved.*    Pam Borowski, who had run for 
Twp Supervisor on a platform of not providing services for the poor and 
has clearly worked to keep her promise, looked mad, and (I trust) was 
professionally embarrassed.  Yay, Karen!

[FYI, the Twp does put out quarterly reports detailing general 
assistance, including total expenditures, numbers of people served, how 
many are newly in or newly out of the program, how many transition onto 
Social Security, etc.   One sample -- Oct-Dec 2011 -- showed about $14K 
paid to 52 people.  That'd be about $90/month if those 52 people were in 
the program for that entire quarter.  If they're getting more than 
$90/month, and they should be (state standard is well over $200/mo), 
then actual numbers served at any given time are even smaller.]

Not entirely what we could have wished for, but not at all bad, and 
definitely a lively night.  Direct democracy can be fun.



On 4/10/12 10:39 PM, Ian K wrote:
> And, in the end, two votes were not registered at the Champaign 
> meeting due to early departures (kids have bathroom needs). We should 
> have won all four contests. Well done!
> IKD
>
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 8:57 PM, Melanie Sivley 
> <melaniesivley at gmail.com <mailto:melaniesivley at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Citizens United passed by a large margin, 20+ for & 12 against.
>     The second one failed by 1 vote. And yes, thanks for all the hard
>     work!
>
>     Melanie
>
>     Sent from my iPhone
>
>     On Apr 10, 2012, at 8:55 PM, Michael Weissman <mbwmbwmbw at gmail.com
>     <mailto:mbwmbwmbw at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     > Both our items passed unanimously in Cunningham (Urbana). 25-0
>     and 28-0, I think.
>     > Any news from Champaign?
>     >
>     > And once again, thanks Colan!
>     >
>     > --
>     > Michael Weissman
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