[mgj-announce] Minutes of MGJ general meeting - 5/4/2005

[basav at igc.org]

MGJ General Meeting
5/4/2005

A. Reportbacks and Discussion

1. Fundraising: 

Working on a houseparty fundraiser with *suggested donation* at the door,
music (may be live if we can get someone to perform for free), and drinks.
Need to keep costs low so we can make $$. 

Suggested date: Friday June 10. Since it's the weekend before Biodemocracy,
we should have materials promoting Biodemocracy as well, and a fun
"vegetable theme".

Place options:
·	Andy looking at possibility of his house.
·	Katy looking into possibility of her brother's house.
·	Tia looking into possibility of basement of Larry's Lounge (18th and T
St.).

2. Biodemocracy
June 18-21 protest against biotech industry annual conference in
Philadelphia. MGJ wants to participate. Organizers in Philly have asked us
to help with:
·	Local teach-in. We consensed to do this at the last meeting.
·	Teach-in in Philly. Unclear what kind of help they need with that. Tia
will talk to them on a conference call on Tuesday and determine what help
they need, and we'll discuss at next meeting based on this information.
·	Local solidarity action on June 21. At the last meeting, we had expressed
some misgivings. At this meeting, we decided to do small-scale media stunt
type event.
A biodemocracy working group has formed, with Chris, Julia, Tia, Larissa,
Catherine, Keith, and Basav. Details on local teach-in and local solidarity
action will be discussed at working group meeting. (See WG announcements
below.)

3. Z Magazine and Spark articles:
Hope working on Z Magazine article reporting on mobilization (due Tuesday,
possibly later). Basav and Zein El-Amine have already submitted article on
global-local connections to Spark.

4. Local-Global Strategy Group
There's interest in showing the documentary film "Thirst" as a follow-up
event to the teach-in. Michelle Tingling-Clemmons, a local environmental
justice activist, has agreed to lead the discussion after the film. Next
steps for the group are not decided, but are likely to include more
awareness-raising efforts.

5. Student activism celebration
We are doing this jointly with DAWN. 
Date: Saturday May 7
Time: 5 - 7 pm
Place: GWU quad on H St. next to Marvin Center.
We'll definitely have students from GWU, Georgetown, Howard. Not sure of
other campuses (AU, UDC, UMD, etc.)
Language for the statement of appreciation for Georgetown Living Wage
Campaign was refined during the meeting, and will be refined further over
e-mail by Chris, Tia, and other interested people. Contact Chris at <chris
at ceo4u dot com> if you are interested in being involved in finalizing the
language.

6. June 1st - Wolf Out, Wolf In!
June 1 will be the official first day of the reign of Wolfowitz as
President of the World Bank. Several NGOs are talking about doing something
theatrical/media-stunt-like on the lines of the One-Horse Race event.
Next conference call on this will be on Tuesday, May 10, at 9 am. Julia
will represent MGJ. If you have any ideas, send them to her at <juliazone
at aol dot com>.

7. Tax the Bank

The basics: WB, IMF, and Interamerican Development Bank own $1.4 billion of
property in Washington DC and pay $0 in property taxes.
They make $4 billion in annual profits and pay $0 in corporate revenue
taxes.
Foreign nationals working at the institutions don't pay income taxes to the
city (even though they're among the highest-paid "public servants" in the
area, they certainly make more money than most Federal Govt. officials).
But foreign nationals working as janitors, security guards, etc. at the
institutions do pay income taxes, because they are technically contract
employees, not direct employees. (And they don't make a living wage.)

Well, we're outraged and we want to do something about it!

The idea is to get the WB/IMF/IDB to pay Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs).

Our (long) discussion about it is summarized below:
·	Soren/50 Years have been trying to get a Tax the Bank campaign off the
ground for years but weren't able to. No group had the energy to bottomline
the project.
·	While that is an important caveat, now there IS a group willing to
bottomline the project, namely MGJ.
·	The earlier incarnation of the Tax the Bank coalition came up with very
useful research, such as the numbers cited above on property taxes etc.,
and a breakdown for how much could be raised for specific things like
schools, health care, housing, etc. through PILOTs. So we have a base of
research to build on.
·	Need to strategize about how MGJ will approach community groups in DC.
·	Can start with some of the groups we are already working with on the
Local-Global Strategy Group. There's interest in Tax the Bank on the part
of some of them at least. But the group as a whole will probably stick to
awareness-building and analysis-building rather than any specific campaign.
·	Basav's conversation with local environmental justice activist Michelle
Tingling Clemmons was very instructive. On her own, she mentioned Tax the
Bank as one of two key issues that make the film "Thirst" relevant to DC.
(The other issue is the creeping privatization of the DC Water and Sewer
Authority, which has very little direct oversight from City Government even
though it's on paper a public agency.) The fact that Michelle T-C brought
it up on her own shows that there is awareness and interest in this issue
on the part of local activists.
·	It's critical to build a coalition of labor, women's groups, immigrant
organizations, neighborhood groups, etc. to win something like this.
·	To build such a coalition effectively, we need to figure out different
levels of involvement, so groups can support the campaign at different
levels depending on their capacity and interest.
·	Ideally, some groups in the coalition will feel ownership of the
campaign, so it's not just a MGJ thing that they've added their name to.
·	At the same time, it's important that MGJ play a key role in the
campaign, since it's an important ongoing activity for us so we don't just
live from mobilization to mobilization. Also because it's a way for us to
make our work locally relevant.
·	Two years ago, the campaign made contact with Councillors Kathy Patterson
and Phil Mendelson. Soren does not recall what their response was. Would be
useful to ask someone who might remember. (Roger Newell?)
·	We should also get in touch with Adrian Fenty, who is running for mayor.
·	Caveat: all the international organizations in DC are tax-exempt, so this
could be a tough sell. We might get serious counter-lobbying by everyone
from the OAS to embassies, afraid that they may be next.

Decided to set up a Tax the Bank WG. Details of meeting in WG meeting
announcements below.

8. Archiving/institutional memory.
Jazmin has a wonderful suggestion, reproduced in it's entirety below for
those not on the mgj-outreach listserve.

hellooo outreach!
given that:
one hopes that mgj will one day be unnecessary. in the meantime, a little
organizational growth would
be beneficial, i think. a few people doing everything is educational but i
don't think it's the best way to
go in terms of long term sustainability and effectiveness.
and:
a physical memory of mgj's happenings would be rewarding for us, too, and
interesting to people plugging in. a nice little tool for spreading the
word about mgj would be a scrapbook of what mgj has been up to. we could
include the flyer of an event, a synopsis, some pictures, and bust the
thing out when appropriate should someone want to know more about what mgj
does. at events or when tabling. a web version would be good, too.
i'm willing to collect various pieces and put the thing together, ideally
with someone else's input, if anyone is interested.
thoughts?
-jaz

We all loved this idea, and will talk about it more in the retreat.

Also, Peter Hollin will come to an MGJ meeting one of these days to talk
about the website.

9. MGJ retreat!!!

·	A straw poll was conducted to finalize the date -- June 4 and 5.
·	Location will be somewhere pretty and relaxing (and close by) like the
Shenandoah Valley!
·	Morrigan, Jon, (may be Kendra, Catherine?) are working on location.
·	Morrigan is compiling an agenda. Send her ideas at <phipco at riseup dot
net>.
·	Other details such as food etc. will need to be worked out.

B. Proposals
Fundraising proposed a fundraising houseparty (details earlier). 
Consensed.
Date: most probably Friday June 10.

C. WG meetings.

1. Biodemocracy WG
Saturday 5/7, at 1 pm in the Asylum, 18th St. NW very close to Columbia in
Adams Morgan. Near several Metro stops (Columbia Heights and U Street on
Green Line, Woodley Park and Dupont Circle on Red Line). More info: Tia
(swettalthea at yahoo dot com).

2. Tax the Bank WG
Tuesday 5/10, at 7 pm. in 50 Years is Enough office (3628 12th St. NE),
near Brookland metro stop on Red Line. More info: Soren (soren at igc dot
org).

3. Fundraising WG
Immediately before general meeting. Wednesday 5/11, 6:30 pm, St. Stephen's
Church, 16th and Newton St. NW (near Columbia Heights metro stop on Green
Line). More info: Keith (kjohnson at riseup dot net)

4. Next general meeting
Wednesday 5/11, 7 pm, St. Stephen's Church, 16th and Newton St. NW (near
Columbia Heights metro stop on Green Line).
Catherine and Julia facilitate. More info: mgj at riseup dot net


Finally, a disclaimer - for those who were at the meeting and don't
remember seeing me (Basav) taking notes, and in fact, seem to recall me
facilitating -   you weren't dreaming. I was facilitating. I was not taking
notes. I'm just typing and sending out the notes that Catherine wrote!

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