[Occupymendocino] Clarification of Senior Center dialogue

[Jessie Lee VanSant]

I was looking forward to clarification of Senior Center status during our
GA meeting this Saturday so this is a little bit of a ramble.........

Is the Senior Center a Community Center which can be used by seniors or a
rental facility?

Is there going to be a policy which prevents use by any political
organization -->> like Mike Thompson's spaghetti feed fundraiser?

Do 'service' groups have a political leaning?  (Republican? for example?)
and should 'they' no longer get to use the Senior Center because their
"community service" or membership/recruitment has a right-wing bias?

Got to last Friday SC board meeting late and did not hear anything which
assured me that OCCUPY Mendocino could go back to meeting at the Senior
Center without paying more than the $20 we had been paying by passing the
hat at our meetings...

****Just got a call from someone asking where we are meeting Saturday?
 Where are we meeting?****

I had assumed we were planning to be at the Library cause I was /not/ at
all clear with the Senior Center issues, but have seen nothing confirming
location of Saturday meeting yet (on our list serve.)

Also heard that an anonymous donor had pledged to pay the OM /Senior Center
rental (potentially $50/meeting) for the short term until Senior Center
policies were clarified.  Did that mean OM /was/ going to meet at the
Senior Center?

So - confirmation for Saturday re: location please AND what 'we' think was
said/decided/offered from Senior Center board re: rental policies at the
Senior Center.  We've already decided our meetings are 1st and 3rd
Saturdays but our choice of meeting space is a little unclear right now
because of this Senior Center kerfuffle.

What I 'saw'/heard was that the Senior Center board members (which voted to
prevent OM and Move to Amend from meeting at the Senior Center) got
'busted' for the blatant discrimination and chose to blame Charles Bush for
their efforts.  Other board members were not in attendance at the meeting
which voted for the exclusion policy and disagreed with that vote.

I was given to understand that the board 'heard' OM but I did not hear any
assurance that OM would be allowed to use the facility for a reasonable
donation (like many other groups have done historically/currently.)

Surely, the point is that OM should not be discriminated against by a
right-leaning Senior Center board majority....  Money aside, the SC
policies need to be fair and equally applied.

We (OM) heard a board member ask us to become more involved with the Senior
Center and that person is correct.  If we don't like what's happening and
being decided then we can OCCUPY the Senior Center board and bring OCCUPY
issues and beliefs to the fore.  Bea Erickson was a fantastic activist;
Gloria Liner (SC board member) was Bea's assistant and mentee - lots of
memory and history.  Shall we turn some focus to Senior Center and keep it
a non-partisan, activist, free speech, community-centric resource??

Let's talk patiently please and thank you

Jessie Lee



-- 
OCCUPY MENDOCINO (the Mendocino Coast) and the Global OCCUPY Movement want
government of the *people*, by the *people*, and for the *people* - *not** *of
the *corporations*, by the *lobbyists*, and for the *richest 1%*.
We *stand* with those who have lost their homes, their jobs, their savings,
retirements, pensions, and health insurance.
We *stand* with those who struggle to put food on the table and who now
work MORE for MUCH LESS.
We *stand* with the elderly, vulnerable, veterans, laborers, working
people, students, teachers, unions, children and our planet.
                            *PLEASE JOIN US*
www.OccupyMendocino.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.mcn.org/pipermail/occupymendocino/attachments/20120705/9280a9ed/attachment.html