[Platform] next meeting 6-10 & draft minutes 6-03

[Mike Heichman]

ABWG Telecon--Tuesday, June 3, 2008 (Draft Minutes)

Present: Lawrence Fine, Steve Randall, Mike Heichman (recorder), John 
Andrews (chair), Dave England, Bill Cunningham

NEXT MEETING ON TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 8:30

I. Ballot Questions

A. Foreclosure/Predatory Lending: The Rainbow Caucus met on Saturday. 
They will not be working on any ballot question. Instead, they will be 
working on 3 pieces of legislation.

B. Health Care Question: The health care volunteers are very close to 
agreeing on the final language, will finish it in a couple of days and 
send it to Peter Sacks. Steve read the almost completed language. ABWG 
approved this proposal, knowing that there may be some minor changes. 
(Either “affordable” or “equitable and comprehensive”) Steve will post 
the final language. They have not established a legal committee yet; 
Steve will raise it with the group. In addition, we suggested that they 
think of a webpage. There is a plan to begin gathering signatures at an 
event on June 13. Jill and Steve are our contact people for this campaign.

C. IRV/Rank Choice Voting: Dave said that he is willing to withdraw the 
proposal for this year. He had hoped that people would be willing to 
gather signatures for it while they worked on their primary question. We 
agreed to put it on the shelf for a couple of days just in case someone 
expressed interested.

D. Secure Green Futures: The ballot question was revised and shortened 
to take into consideration the advice of Peter Sacks. It is now 65 
words. We discussed whether the language should say “low-income” 
communities and our group didn’t think that it was a good idea. Lawrence 
agreed to be the Treasurer and John agreed to be the Chair of The 
Committee for a Secure Green Future. On June 13, there will be a 
training session in Lexington to which both SGF and health care 
volunteers are invited.

II. Minutes of 5-27 Meeting accepted (see below)

III. We had a brief discussion of our potential webpages to support the 
SGF and HC questions. We discussed whether or not the pages should this 
be “housed” on the GRP website or on websites of our non-partisan 
coalition organizations such as MCHC and MassCare. It was stated that 
there might be an advantage to using a nonpartisan host so that the 
questions would be presented in a nonpartisan way. Regardless, it is 
essential that it would be kept up-to-date. John will invite Eli 
Beckerman to attend our next meeting to provide computer advice.

IV. Training Session—On June 13, there will be separate events in 
Lexington (Eastern MA) and in Northampton (Western MA). There will be a 
discussion of the issues and on gathering signatures. As of now, it 
looks like the Lexington event will primarily focus on the Secure Green 
Futures question and the Amherst event, which is a fundraiser for local 
single-payer groups, will focus on the Health Care question. Mike 
suggested that both events contact Eli B and ask him to send the most 
recent “short” membership leaflet so there will be GRP literature at the 
event.

V. Dave will send blank petitions to Steve Randall.

VI. We discussed what would happen to the volunteer list of people who 
help in the districts and the list of people who sign the petitions. Our 
suggestion is that the GRP will get all of the lists and will merge 
them. We will later work out who else will receive access to the lists.

VII. Organizing Districts

A. Mike reported on the Boston chapter meeting. The chapter decided that 
it only had the resources to work on the foreclosure legislation (end of 
the 2008 legislative session on July 31).
B. There have been very little phone calls to members of StateCom and to 
Local Chapter Activists and very little response so far from our e-mail 
messages.
C. We are working once again by the “seat of our pants”. We have been 
busy crafting the language of the questions and identifying potential 
coalition partners and potential legislative districts. Very soon, we 
will focus our efforts on getting the signatures. We need to figure a 
way to recruit members and establish/strengthen chapters. A major 
priority of this project is to work with other coalition partners to 
advance our issues. For our party, we want to start new chapters and 
strengthen existing locals.
D. We need some forums/events in relation to the campaign. These can be 
places where people can be asked to make longer term commitments to the 
GRP or to our coalition partner organizations.