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<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'>Meeting called to order 2pm at the Ft Bragg Library community room.<BR>
Present: Richard, Mark, Agnes, Linda, Sheila, Ann, Russ, Dan, Amanda & Robert, Irene, Howard.<BR>
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1). Homeless Issues<BR>
Amanda reported on a forum on the homeless she & Robert attended on Jan 31. There was a complaint about homeless people going to the bathrooms and finding them closed, even when they were supposed to be open. Then when people go potty in public outside, they are looked down on as a health hazard. The meeting was at Safe Passage, but homeless people could not speak. The folks in charge of managing the homeless make them pay 1/3 of their salaries to get housed, and then have all sorts of rules they must obey, and they are not motivated to help the homeless get out of their situation because they are making a living "managing" homeless. Amanda suggests that Occupy get a consortium to go together to buy some of the vacant hotels or houses in town and rent them to low income people. We are not equipped to do this, but we agreed we can go to the City Housing Authority and ask them to look at utilizing vacancies or finding out if there are foreclosed properties which could be used for low income rentals. We know that Mayor Dave Turner is concerned about the homeless, and we can ask for a meeting with him to discuss alternatives, and to have the issue put on the Council Agenda. Meg Courtney is also a member of the Council we can approach.<BR>
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2). Foreclosure Issues<BR>
a). Sheila and Agnes met with Marty Lombardi about starting a Mendocino Public Bank. Marty is experienced in banking, but does not feel we are ready to do a startup now. The County Treasurer, Sherry Shapmire will have to advise us how to use the power of eminent domain and how to have enough of a cash flow to startup. We need the help of a lawyer, and Steve Antler may be available when his case is finished, maybe sometime in April. <BR>
b). Before today's meeting a Foreclosure Committee consisting of Agnes, Richard and Ann met and created a petition we can get signatures of citizens to ask that our Recorder, Susan Ranochek start demanding any suspicious documents be sent back to the big banks for an Affadavit of Authenticity. It cites penal code 115, which includes a penalty of perjury, and CJ says that many banks will not sign these when they have robo-signatures. It also cites the newly passed Homeowners Bill of Rights. We wrangled over the wording for this for over an hour, but finally got a good petition.<BR>
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3). Publicity- <BR>
a). KNYO radio has a radio show from 3-5 on Tuesdays with John Ridman that will let an Occupy representative speak or do a show. <BR>
b). Peace & Justice group offered us a $500 donation, and would like us to rent a storefront, maybe with other groups, that could be a place to hand out information and literature, get out the publicity about what we are doing, demonstrate permanence, and be a presence in the community. Ann, Dan. Amanda & Robert all offered to help staff, we could have donations of furnishing and computers, etc but we need to have enough funding to avoid overextending ourselves, and it will cost a lot for telephone and internet services, even with donated equipment. If there are enough other groups going in with us we could pull it off.<BR>
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4). Fundraising <BR>
The letter we sent out is starting to get results, but since Jessie was not at the meeting we do not have a figure for the Treasury Report. We passed the hat and took in more $.<BR>
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5). City Council<BR>
We want to get on the agenda when we get enough signatures on our foreclosure petition. Maybe the 3rd week in April. Issues we wish to discuss are the homeless and we want to submit our petitions.<BR>
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6). Caspar Event<BR>
On Friday March 15 there is a meet & greet of the League of Women Voters where Occupy can have a table with our petitions, and the LWV women are very much activists. Jane Person is the president of the group, and the event starts at 5pm.<BR>
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