[Occupymendocino] Minutes of June 15th GA Meeting-- part1

[Sheila Dawn]

Facilitator: Jessie; Secretary Sheila; Stacker; Richard
    Reports:
     Agnes reported recieving an Email from Robin Sunbeam of Occupy Ukiah requesting a needed $200 for filing fees, mailing costs and public education related to get a petition on the next election ballot. A question was raised as to the timeline for the petition procedure. Agnes will follow through by contacting the Registrar of Voters.
    Jessie reported OM's finances are currently at $995. At this time no further plans for fundraising were made outside of the discussion at the May 18th meeting to try to get local stores to sell our hats & T-shirts. Richard, Ann & Linda agreed to contact various owners with Sheila to follow up with the merchandise.
    Public Banking:
    Both Agnes & Jessie reported on the Public Banking Institute Conference(PBI)  they attended June 2-4. Dan Hamburg sat on a local gov't panel. Agnes gave details from Matt Tabbai 's talk where he investigated why oil prices are rising. The short of it is that in 1991, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission allowed numerous letters of exception that allowed banks & financial institutions to speculative standing in the Futures markets well above the percentages of the Roosevelt era.  Future markets include oil, gas, corn wheat, soy & other necessities. More info in Taibbi's book,'Griftopia.'
    A follow up meeting with PBI  is planned to learn how to create an affiliate coalition chapter consisting of OM & OU (Occupy Ukiah) members-- the purpose being to learn how to steer Mendocino County towards establishing a Public Bank. A meeting with Robin Sunbeam will be postponed till late July.
     More on banking news on which to be proactive. 
    Under the name of the Trans Pacific Partnership, (TTP) a move is being made by multinational corporations (U.S. and Pacific Rim countries) to devise a major trade pact that would give corporations the power to sue governments in order to get them to abandon environmental  & other policies that protect the rights of workers. These negotiations are secretive and have the threat of being "fast tracked" to a Presidential approval without an open discussion by the public &  Congress. OM urges a vigorous stand of opposition to prevent this assault on democratic procedure by contacting Congressional representatives on this issue.
    On PBI.org, attorney and author Ellen Brown wrote several articles on a letter between the U.S.(along w/ FDIC) & the Bank of England that instructs the confiscation of savings deposits (a la Cyprus) in the event of a future bank failure. The Dodd-Frank bill prevents future taxpayer bailouts. This would be a practice of "bail-in"
    Richard suggested that OM create a synopsis of these news items to hand out at our street protests and public gatherings.           ( upcoming parades)
    Jessie brought back a selection of Occucards that were given out for free at the PBI conference. They are postcard size summaries on different aspects of the corporate state (health care, A.L.E.C.,corporate media, Walmart, etc.) that would make an excellent educational and funding resource. wwwoccucards.com for more info.
    Discussion took place on whether to recruit candidates to run against the County Recorder and County Treasurer in the 2014 election. It seems the Treasurer is unaware of the turmoil in the banking situation although she did respond to efforts made by the public to divest County money from two toxic businesses.
    KNYO Report
    Jessie, Sheila & Agnes went to the KNYO (107.7) studio on Tues., June 12th and were given an hour of air time to update the Ft.Bragg listeners on the recent activities of OM.  Topics discussed included our foreclosure efforts with petitions to the County Recorder & BOS, Jessie's petition for a fully funded Junior College due to the current lack of services at the College of the Redwoods & the Friday street rallies in front of B of A. We also spoke to the desire to have a storefront with other grassroots organizations. We were invited to return by host, Red John,  in a few months. His show is from 3-5 p.m.
    Sheila will inquire whether the show was recorded. The possibility of showing OM movies acquired at the PBI conference as well as that of sharing the storefront was mentioned. Sheila will follow through with an E mail to the station owner.

    Foreclosures:
    Jed Davis of Potter Valley sent the County Recorder a letter requesting that she ask for an affidavit of authenticity to prevent the filing of fraudulent documents. He also asked for an audit of County records to ferret out fraudulent foreclosures. Davis also wrote to the Calif. Recorders Assoc. to ask support for his requests to the County Recorder
    Agnes reported that Dan Hamburg said it would be about 5 weeks till a budget discussion involving the funding of an audit would be before the BOS.
    Discussion of whether another housing bubble is coming. Housing prices are up 15% this month and have been over 10%in recent months. (NPR News) The report said people are pooling money to buy low market value housing.

    MCTV Update:
    Linda reported an appeal is being filed by Elizabeth Swenson to question mistakes made in Judge Nadel's decision such as the amount of cash assets currently available at MCTV. The appeal will be handled in Nadel's court. Offers of support, such as commitments to appear in court for the hearing in Ukiah were voiced.
    Supervisor Dan Gjerde is on the MCTV Board. More members would be advantageous.
   The decision was made by MCTV not to share space with the TV channel housed in the Company Store.
            To be continued on  Email--part 2
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