[OccupyCU] township items

Wed Apr 11 15:16:00 UTC 2012

I am difinately game!!! 

Sandra 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Stuart Levy" <stuartnlevy at gmail.com> 
To: occupycu at lists.chambana.net 
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 1:04:47 AM 
Subject: Re: [OccupyCU] township items 

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 > wrote: 

<blockquote>
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 > 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 
> _______________________________________________ 
> OccupyCU mailing list 
> OccupyCU at lists.chambana.net 
> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/occupycu 

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