CHAPTER REPORT

ASSABET RIVER VALLEY GREEN-RAINBOW PARTY CHAPTER

4th QUARTER, 2019

Date: January 4, 2020

Chapter Officers Co-Chairs: Barbara Clancy and Danny Factor Secretary: Tar Larner

Meeting Information

Our chapter has had three in-person monthly meetings this quarter. Our meetings take place on third Thursday of the month, 6:45 to 8:45 p.m. at the Acton Memorial Library or Acton Town Hall. We also sometimes have a chapter teleconference once per month in which we check progress on our work between in-person meetings. Attendance at our meetings range between 3 and 7 members. Chapter Activity Our main activity this quarter has been our monthly two hour standout in front of the Concord Massachusetts Correctional Facility at the Concord Route 2 Rotary to protest lack of health care, mental health care, addiction treatment,voting rights, ballot access, and for ending prisons as we know them and standing up for human rights. This standout originated about a year ago with our chapter and over time, we've been joined by a few local friends of the chapter in this effort.

Chapter members successfully originated and supported grassroots efforts to block a proposed Acton sewering project. The sewer project, originally highly popular with connected town officials-- and expected to pass easily--- was an attempt by a narrow group of wealthy parties to over-develop West Acton thereby causing irreparable harm to the environment, exacerbate climate change, threaten small businesses, all while charging unfair betterments that would harm economically vulnerable homeowners, many of which would not even be connecting to the sewer for decades or ever at all. Due to the grassroots campaign to defeat the project, which originated in our chapter and grew to include a majority of voters at town meeting, this measure was soundly defeated at Acton Town Meeting on December 3, 2019.

We continue to have one chapter member holding an elected position on the Concord Housing Authority, Tar Larner. Tar continues to advocate for more low income housing in a wealthy segregated community, and organize low income tenants with help from the Mel King institute.

Our chapter successfully collected sufficient signatures to place chapter member Danny Factor on the GRP March, 2020 ballot for GRP State Committee.

GRP member Jim-Snyder Grant is making his second run for Acton Selectman in March of 2020. Jim fell 31 votes short in his last attempt and has even a better chance of winning this time around against his expected opponents. Jim is not active in our chapter but allies with us in various issues in the citizens group Green Acton in which Jim and two other chapter members are board members. Our chapter will shortly be deciding whether we will endorse Jim and plan out the nature of our activity in this campaign. Meanwhile, we have not yet received a ruling from a Superior Court judge in a lawsuit in which two chapter members and one other Acton citizen represented by chapter member attorney Steve Ballard have asked a judge to order chapter member Danny Factor onto the Acton Planning Board. The citizen/chapter member plaintiffs allege that the Acton Board of Selectmen circumvented the law in an effort to corrupt the appointment process and prevent Acton from moving in a more just and sustainable direction.

Our chapter also expects to be involved in supporting the Ranked Choice Voting ballot initiative in 2020 as this is an issue that our chapter deems important to democracy and our party. We have not previously worked as a chapter on this issue during this past signature gathering time period. In addition we will be evaluating whether we are able to run any candidates for the state house from our chapter during the early part of this year.

Our Chapter this quarter by consensus has taken a strong stance in favor of all 8 current candidates for the Green Party presidential nomination to be placed on the Massachusetts primary ballot, and informed our State Committee of its position prior to the State Committee taking up this matter. Our chapter by consensus opposes the decisions made by the GRP State Committee, Administrative Committee, Candidate Development and Legal Committee and Presidential Campaign Working Group which opposed placing all 8 presidential candidates on our ballot. Our chapter also opposes the Green Party Presidential Campaign Support Committee's certifying only two of the eight presidential candidates nationally. Our chapter believes that these actions disenfranchise Green Party and GRP voters who are now not allowed to see and vote for their preferred candidate on the ballot. To remedy this matter and prevent other instances of voter disenfranchisement from happening in the future, our chapter supports any or all of the following measures: 1) our State Convention censuring and/or removing from their positions any or all GRP officers and committee members that played a material role in denying ballot access resulting in potential or actual disenfranchisement of voters. 2) A proposal to our state convention similar to the wording contained in what was proposed to the State Committee by our chapter member Danny Factor, which would allow beginning in the 2024 election cycle for all Green Party presidential candidates to be included on future GRP primary ballots so long as a) The candidate is a Green Party member b)The candidate is committed to the Green Party's Ten Key Values c)The candidate is in substantial and general agreement with the GPUS Platform, while being allowed and encouraged to advocate for some changes as the GP Platform is an evolving document. 3) A proposal to give the GRP State Convention more of a voice in creating the presidential primary ballot or directly choosing our presidential candidate 4) Our state Convention voting to author complaints to both the GPUS and the Secretary of the Commonwealth about said GRP actions that disenfranchised voters.

Our chapter this quarter formulated positions on the Winter State Com proposals as follows: 1) Remove David Rolde from State Committee and other Committees: The chapter by consensus opposes this proposal and adds that David has been a valued contributor to our chapter's work. As an example, this quarter, David was instrumental in collecting signatures for Danny Factor’s candidacy for GRP state committee, ensuring that we had at least two State Committee candidates running statewide. 2) GRP Ban 5G: Our chapter by consensus supports this proposal. Even articles in mainstream publications such as Scientific American have stated that 5G is so potentially dangerous that it should be banned. 3) Ban Mandatory Vaccinations: Our chapter has nor reached a consensus in regard to this proposal.