GA Meeting Minutes • 9-7-15 Occupy Eugene GA Minutes

In Solidarity with #Occupywallstreet Minutes Of The 9-7-15 Occupy Eugene General Assembly

1) Committee Reports

2) Statements

3) Gabor Mate

4) Process

5) O.U.R.S.

6) Announcements

7 people present

Facilitator – Art

Note taker — John T

Committee Reports:

Art – Library Committee: There are lots of books on hand. Will have a huge book sale.

John T Gave a report on his selling activity and informal contact points on Saturdays. Not much to report, except that I got the runaround from the City and the Saturday Market people about exactly how or if I could get a permit to sell just any old thing even if it is not my own creation on the sidewalks downtown.

Art — Saturday Market is full of misinformation about permits for selling stuff downtown.

Jan — Finance Committee: PO Box fee has increased. Need people to inform Jan of which credit union deposits are theirs.

Jack — Newsletter Committee: Running out of newsletters before the next issue comes out. Pitching for more underwriters to sign up. $50 or more per issue will get you a listing as an underwriter. The new sidebars make the newsletter more appealing. We could buy racks for $25 each to distribute the newsletter.

Action — John Abbey is into Flood The System committee.

Discussed joint actions between economic justice and climate actions.

Revive the Actions Committee?

Civil disobedience about the environment?

Anti Racism Statement:

This statement represents a commitment to confront all forms of racism and the political and economic structures that normalize it.

Occupy Eugene is opposed to all forms of discrimination and racism, both explicit and implied through beliefs and actions that categorically dehumanize people, including but not limited to, Blacks, Latinos, Palestinians, and other Arabs, Muslims, Jews, gender minorities, the socioeconomically disadvantaged including our homeless, women, alter-abled, children and elders and indigenous peoples worldwide.

Motion to approve the anti-racism statement: One stand aside. Approved by sub quorum consensus. One more sub quorum approval is required at the next GA to get this statement to be formally adopted by Occupy Eugene.

Gabor Mate:

This person has a life affirming way of looking at tasks normally performed by social services. He isn’t always nagging people to quit their drug habit. In BC Canada there is a supportive community housing program that does not require people to be clean and sober. The war on drugs is a war on the people.

Jack — Salt Lake City gives people housing unconditionally and this saves about 40%.

Mariah — We would need to have funding to have Gabor Mate as a speaker. Let’s have a Q+A with GM. On Sept 27th there will be a conference call that costs $50 with Gabor Mate. I don’t want to spearhead him as a speaker.

Jack — 90% of the low income housing cost for the homeless housing project is covered by the federal govt.

Anon – Is this the same thing as the Housing First thing?

Jack — Yes

Anon – HACSA (Housing and Community Services Agency of Lane County) Jacob Fox is leading an initiative for Housing First initiative in Lane County. Something disturbing about it is that the law enforcement and the court system is one of the stakeholders. If there are only 50 units of housing and other people from other places fill the slots — then what.

Jack — 15% are chronically homeless. 85% are transient. Most of the housing is for transitional housing.

Mariah — Does anyone want to be on the conference call?

John T — Would you be able to have more than one person be on speakers phone for the $50?

Connor — I could ask Sue if she wants in.

Art — I could send a link to a copy of the book Hungry Ghost in pdf to OE Contacts.

Connor — If Occupy Medical people want to participate, they have their own funding.

Process:

What is the process for approving something at a GA?

2 blocks, 3 stand asides or one block and 2 stand asides and the motion fails.

Is there a sense of satisfaction?

Jan — Yes

Not happy with consensus model as it is practiced here.

In Bolivia there is a different consensus process.

Every person should participate. There has to be encouragement for people to continue to participate.

The problem with Occupy Eugene is that we are so open that we are vulnerable to provocateurs. Often we don’t agree until we get our way.

There is a huge need for Occupy — looking at the conditions on the street.

People who were committed to Occupy left because they were frustrated.

The process should be rethought.

The process has crippled us.

Jan — Lives in a neighborhood that is run by consensus. 50 people meet every quarter to talk about stuff. Consensus is not the problem. There are lots of ways that the GA’s fell apart. Facilitators often were incompetent. I would leave Occupy if we abandoned consensus. The neighborhood has 700 households, but they are less diverse than Occupy.

Problem with Occupy: Our culture is broken.

Occupy is too easy to infiltrate and there are so many broken people that we need to make it more protected so that it takes a percentage to block.

Jan — One solution is to delegate authority to committees. I was really sad that the Action Committee went defunct.

Some people who are really committed just can’t tolerate the process anymore.

Jan – The answer to that is having good facilitization. There is no formal authority to limit discussion.

Mariah — Occupy is supposed to represent the 99%. The 99% won’t put up with our process as it is currently. Should we have an online process? Some people show up with an agenda to block a proposal. If one person has a concern, that person should be addressed before going through a whole stack.

Connor — In Occupy Medical people who have been here a long time also got frustrated with our process. Occupy Medical had a bit of a crisis when some people tried to block all business getting done unless they got their way.

Find a way to allow diverse groups to participate effectively. How can our ideals be made effective. Many of the broken, smart and motivated people aren’t being represented here.

Jack – Whole sections of society aren’t represented here.

Anon — The day of the week or the process may not be the real issue.

Mariah — I wanted us to unite under UDHR and racism statement. We are so few that we are all burnt out.

Jan — Occupy Eugene has one of the few Occupies left in the country. Our energy tends to get scattered when we hit the wall. Eugene isn’t doing that badly. Maybe the other organizations that grew out of Occupy will now take over.

Jack — One function of Occupy would be to support each other’s organization.

Connor — Implementation may be more to blame than any one process or phenomenon or technology.

Mariah —- Are there other Occupies that decide things differently?

O.U.R.S. (Occupy Universal Right To Sleep) Camp

Art — Spent last night there. Protest camp. Lots of publicity about police harassment this week has inspired people to get involved.

Jan — The finance committee has a small amount of money to give to O.U.R.S. The Library Committee just needs to ask for it.

The local clergy have committed to getting people involved. There is now a perfect storm of co-incident events. But there isn’t much of a buzz at various meetings. Do you know of anything that we can do to galvanize people to take action?

Connor — The Unitarians might help.

Jack — Find out the motive and strategy of the police harassment? Get a delegation to visit the police chief.

The $1000 tickets came from ODOT, not from EPD. The City is pressing ODOT to not allow camps to stay on rights of way.

O.U.R.S. Is poking huge holes in paradigm to get rid of homeless people.

Connor — Theft of services ticket example.

Art — Theft Of Services gives them legal control over people.

— River cleanup programs and quality of life discussion

— Homelessness Court

— Homeless shelter expose

Anon — There is very little info on homeless court. They are working on quality of life labeling.

Jack — 15 years as comm therapist. Group of homeless people are showing that you can’t really force people. The people who are causing this are not being made uncomfortable enough. Spiritual leaders, etc need to get together and make the powerful uncomfortable.

Mariah — We are overrun trying to fix things. Next up — it will soon be illegal to panhandle to/from a vehicle.

Jack — The City has volunteers doing stuff for them that should be done by the City.

How can we galvanize people?

Art — International capitalism is now moving in. Discomfort works.

Jack — Demonstrate on MLK Blvd on Game Day?

Who do we contact to find out who is coming to Eugene next and ask them to boycott Eugene?

Jack — Just have people lay down along MLK blvd every Game Day.

Jan — On Game Day open containers are allowed in the parking lot.

How to galvanize 400 people with 50 people willing to get arrested?

John T — Flood The System?

Mariah — Education is the key.

Jan — You need an event that galvanizes people. But we need to network first.

Art — Community Circle?

Mariah — Make ¼ sheets to invite people to come to the GA’s.

Jan – People aren’t interested in coming to GA’s. They have given up on meetings because they don’t produce results.

Connor — Socialism for the banks was the issue that got people to the 2000 people march.

Jack — 350.org and health care for all have big meetings. Citizen United meetings have only 6 people.

Mariah — How can we grow the movement?

Jan — We won’t reactivate Occupy until we have an event to get people motivated.

What is the process for approving an action?

Jan — THERE IS NONE. A meeting is often not the starting place for an action.

Anon — Isn’t there a process for OE Media to publicize something?

Connor — I use common sense to decide what to post.

Jack — Next meeting — What is an action? Petition circulating? Education? Civil resistance such as O.U.R.S. Camp — we should all be doing it. We could do more lobbying. We need to be lobbying every day.

Jan — If we had an Occupy Lobbyist that would be an action to take on.

Announcements:

Connor — Feedback says that GA event should not be on a holiday.

— This Sunday there will be a $15 Now rally at 2PM at the Free Speech Plaza,

Anon — First Fall meeting of Occupy Interfaith Group, 1PM-3PM Sunday, Unitarian Church at 13th Ave and Chambers

—- THRIVE — Housing Redefined For A Vital Eugene is a new group starting in Eugene.

Art — Occupy has a good name with Unions. There are other groups in Oregon.

— Sept 17th 6PM-7:30PM at Growers there will be another Flood The System meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 8PM

Statistics: Posted by pagesincolor — Sun Oct 04, 2015 3:03 pm — Replies 0 — Views 1

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Source: https://occupyeugenemedia.org/discussion/viewtopic.php?t=1563&p=3339#p3339