[Peace] Anti Panhandling Protest

[ISO Champaign]

To our friends in opposition to Ordinance 2011-07-80 Regulating Panhandling,
Greetings.

We want to start by saying "Thank you" to the many of you who have attended
the Urbana City Council meetings these last two weeks in opposition to this
mean-spirited ordinance. The fact that so many of us turned out has meant
that this ordinance has stalled and may be near death.

Criminalizing the poor and those seeking help will not lead us out of this
recession or improve the quality of life in Urbana.
We need to stop accepting the idea that it is up to the working class and
the poor that has make do with less. We need to demand that national, state,
and municipal priorities are shifted away from giving tax breaks to
corporations and the wealthy so that profits can be increased and money can
be wasted on war. We need that money put back into our public
infrastructures, and used for social programs and job creation.

It may be possible to finish off this ordinance with just a bit more public
pressure. To that end we are suggesting a couple of actions that turn up the
heat.
    1) Saturday July 23: Petitioning and Leafleting against the Ordinance at
the Farmer's Market and/or in the Philo Rd Business area
        (Some of us have tables at the Market regularly on Saturday. We
could dedicate this week to building opposition to the ordinance.)

   2)  Monday July 25 6:00 pm: Informational Picket at Urbana City Council
Committee of the Whole meetings
       (The idea is give us a platform outside the Council chambers and to
attract the attention of other citizens of Urbana)

   3)  Monday July 25 6:30 pm: Register Opposition to 2011-07-80 in Council
Chambers
        (Opponents would go in to Council Chambers and sign one of the
yellow slips, checking opposition to 2011-07-80, but not checking to speak.
Then the large stack gets read into the meeting minutes and becomes part of
the public record.)

   Given the ordinance is not passable in its current form, it might be best
to have a small handful of us stay for the Council meeting, to keep an eye
on deliberations and speak out again. It would be better than having 20 of
us sit through another 4-hour-long war of attrition as we had on Monday. (We
will have to play this by ear, based on attendance by those who might
support this ordinance.)

It could also be powerful (and annoying to the council) if instead of
handing petitions to the recording clerk, if those of us in opposition used
our 5 minutes to read a page or two of names and then handed the pages to
the next speaker.

Further, it may be a good idea to keep copies of petitions in the future, so
we know who we can call if we need to organize against future ordinances.

Also, it might be a good idea if our groups, members, and allies write
letters of opposition into the News-Gazzette and DI over the next few days.

Well those are our thoughts and suggestions for action. We would like your
feedback.

Best to you,
Leighton and Josh,
for the International Socialist Organization


-- 
********************************************************
ISO Resources:
isochampaign.org
internationalsocialist.org
haymarketbooks.org
socialistworker.org
isreview.org
********************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/attachments/20110723/af460aea/attachment.html>