[OccupyCU] [Discuss] township items

[John W.]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 9:35 AM, Brian Dolinar <briandolinar at gmail.com>wrote:

Thanks for the wrap up Stuart - and to Karen and Martel for speaking out.
>
> The impoverishment of the Township by Pam Borowski, a former real estate
> agent, is one of the biggest untold stories in CU.


Hmmm....  Do I sense an upcoming article in the public i?  :-)




> She ran her campaign on keeping taxes low for property owners, to the
> detriment of the poorest of poor in the community. PB's predecessor Linda
> Abernathy was increasing the amounts of funding and numbers of people
> served. CUCPJ launched its Unity March a few years ago at the Township
> office to bring attention to Linda's work. A change in the township office,
> in my mind, would do more to improve the lot of those in our community most
> hurt by the current economic Depression than any of the referendum issues.
>
> BD
>
> On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 1:04 AM, Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>  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:
>>
>>> 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
>>>
>>
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