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Indiana Green Party Newsletter

 April 1 , 2005

This publication is a work-in-progress, intended to bring relevant information about the state and national Green Party to IGP members and friends. Style and content are subject to change month to month, and suggestions are welcome. If however, at any time, you wish to be excluded from this mailing, simply reply with "Remove" in the Subject box.

FYI - Bill Stant

I will soon be filing with the Indiana Election Commission to be the Indiana Green Party Candidate for Secretary of State in the November 2006 election. The purpose of the campaign is to inject Green Party social and environmental ideas into the Indiana electoral process, and to obtain full ballot access for the Green Party in Indiana in 2008. Our chances of winning may seem slim. But in the event we win the election, I will be qualified for the job, and will be accountable to the Indiana electorate and to the Green Party. If we don't win, we will still stand a better than 50% chance of winning full ballot access for the IGP and the GPUS in Indiana in 2008 if . . .

If we can inspire enough voters to sign our ballot-access petitions to end up with 27,000 valid signatures that withstand review . . .

If we can get on the ballot for 2006, and . . . win 2% of the vote statewide . . .

For this purpose I have already met with groups at Goshen College and Earlham College. I am planning to meet with groups at Depauw University in Green Castle, Indiana State in Terre Haute, and, of course, Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and other campuses and communities around the state. In addition, we already have active locals in Brown County, Monroe County, Marion County, the St. Joe Valley , and Northwestern Indiana. That's 11 potential communities in which to organize Green Party ballot-access petition drives. And I'm adding more places to visit to my list all the time.

27,000 divided by 12 equals 2,250 valid signatures per community. Focusing on your own community makes the task seem more manageable. The more communities in which we can launch a serious effort, the lower will be the required number of valid signatures per community. Earth Day is coming soon! For some communities, Earth Day would make an excellent target date to launch the campaign state-wide.

I am available to go anywhere in the state of Indiana to talk to groups about launching a Green Party ballot access petition drive in specific communities. I hope you and anyone interested will seriously consider promptly extending to me an invitation to visit your community.

Peace,

Bill Stant
Treasurer, Indiana Green Party

P.S. Don't forget our website at http//indianagreenparty.org/ . Please consider a donation.

MINUTES, INDIANA GREEN PARTY Coordinating Committee Meeting

March 19, Coffee Grounds, Terre Haute IN

This month’s meeting had been changed to the Coffee Grounds on Wabash Avenue in Terre Haute in an effort to help build a Vigo County chapter and show Green support at their morning peace demonstration. The meeting was called to order at 1:20 PM. Present were Steps-to Freedom (Sean Bagley), Pam Raider, Bill Stant, Bethany Hayes, Maureen Barlock, Jim Coplen, Richard Herr, Kathleen Petitjean (representing St. Joe Valley Greens) and Sarah Dillon (from Vigo County Greens).

Minutes were read and approved as read. Treasurer reports Treasury now stands at $926.15 after last month’s approved expenses approved were paid. Green pages were on hand and shared with the group. Button parts had arrived and are given to Steps. The bank account charges us $8 a month, Bill requests finding another bank to avoid the service charge. This was agreed to. Sixteen dollars was paid out for Campaign finance manuals to be reimbursed by Committee to Elect Stant. Pam and Bill had agreed to split the any difference over approved amount for computer repairs on co-coordinator’s computer, so there is money owing there. Recent Dues of $100 or so have not yet been deposited. Treasurer reports that he has been in contact with the national campaign office and they advised him not to be a candidate and treasurer of the state party. He may have to be treasurer of his campaign committee and so he would like to resign his position as state party treasurer. Kathleen Petitjean offers to help out. Bill and Kathleen will spend the next month investigating idea of transforming treasury to Kathleen. Bill expects to formally resign as of next meeting. Money is voted for postage for Maureen to forward the mail from the P.O. Box in Marion County.

Ballot Access Report

Bill reports he is already collecting signatures for the ballot access campaign and has approximately 70-100. Sara and Kathleen are collecting as well. He passes out petitions to CC members to begin collecting signatures. He has met with someone in Ft. Wayne who might be a good organizer. The Vollraths have promised to give him a list of contacts in the northern part of the state. Bill has met with the NWIG group and is encouraging Richard Herr to form a separate group in Valparaiso. He will meet with interested people again in Richmond on April 2nd. He asks for help in organizing for these meetings. He would like Pam and Steps to help him by having prepared materials ready for him to take. Also requests that members send to Pam the number of signatures have collected weekly.

Coordinators Report

Steps reports computer is up and running. He now has a DSl line so would be willing to be the phone contact for the Indiana Green Party as he can be on line and still receive phone calls. The CC votes to have his phone number listed as contact on future materials. He will route calls to proper contacts and requests each county to send him name of official contact person.

States that he has been in contact with Richard Winger (national expert on Ballot Access) as a possible speaker to this year's state congress. Suggests that we might want to hold congress in Indianapolis in Marion county due to better press coverage for announcing our candidate. Bethany agrees to begin looking for possible sites.

He now has materials to make buttons again and would like suggestions for possible slogans. Possible list the group comes up with:

Anyone with other suggestions should contact Steps. The bi-fold has been updated and will be available next meeting. Steps would like the platform also in bi-fold form.

Bill states he has the "clean up after other party" ad from the Green Pages in a PDF file for use for local paper ads. He believes it would cost about $100 to run a 1/4 page ad. Group votes to table passing this until later.

Discussion turns to issue of tying the local and state party dues together. Most local groups have not mentioned it to their chapter. Steps proposes if locals want full representation at the state congress they must submit a report with names of current local members to state secretary for credentialing the week before the congress. This proposal will be voted on and accepted as rule at the Congress as first order of business. This proposal passes the CC at this time.

Tech Report

Bill Stant has contacted his website person, Jim Debouski, who could take over designing and hosting our website. He usually charges $35 an hour, but would give us a break of $10. Suggestion made to okay up to 6 hours for design ($150) and no more than 3 hours each month for keeping up site. Kathleen makes motion, Jim seconds, motion passes. Bill will email the mock up of the site to IGPCC for everyone to view and okay.

Other Reports

Bill states his colleague Peter Camejo will be coming bringing before the national Greens a proposal from the California Congress in May regarding one man one vote voting at the National Convention. Also Bill has learned that if our candidate for the Secretary of State race receives 10% of the vote, the party must hold primaries.

Maureen discusses her idea of creating a speaker’s bureau and film library. She has lined up about three members who could speak on different topics. All speakers would be members of IGP and speak on our behalf. They would be available to travel the state speaking to locals for free and other groups for a fee. The group liked the idea. Maureen and Bill will work on a letter to send to various groups and individuals asking when and how much each speaker would be willing to donate. The CC also liked the idea of a lending library of films. Steps suggests that the St. Joe group might want to take over the running of this since they have some experience and already have a list of videos to rent with their Green TV project. Subject to be revisited.

Jim states no important business from GPUS. He requests names of people who would be interested in receiving our state Green newsletter. Also he requests each local to send him a report on their important issues and to list the time and place of their next meeting and a contact person’s name.

Reports from the Locals

Because our meeting took place in Terre Haute around the event of the anti-war rally, and so much business was discussed, local reports were not taken, and only Brown County responded with an email report.

Brown County

The Brown County Green Party meets the third Tuesday of every month at the Brown County Library. Our next meeting will be at 7 PM on April 19th. At that meeting we will be electing our officers for the next year. Saturday March 26th we will have our adopt-a-road clean up event. The Hoosier Environmental Council has received a grant to help clean up the Bean Blossom Watershed which is shared by Brown County and Monroe County. Currently two of our local members serve on the steering committee of a group of citizens formed to oversee the grant. One of our local members, Bill Stant has decided to run for Secretary of State in 2006 in hopes of getting the Indiana Green Party ballot access.

Northwest IN Greens

NWIG April meeting has not yet been scheduled.

Adjournment

Meeting adjourned at 3:13 PM.

Minutes submitted by Pam Raider, Secretary Indiana Green Party

IGP Links

The IGP website is http://www.indianagreenparty.org/, and local websites are linked from there.

Email or PO addresses of local contacts are.

Next IGP Meeting

Howard County South Library, Kokomo, on April 16, 1:00 pm.

News from the GPUS

Greens Call New Oil Drilling a Global Warming Risk, Urge Congressmembers to do Everything Possible to Thwart ANWR and all New Oil Drilling.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party leaders urged members of Congress who oppose oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to do everything possible to stop enactment of the recent vote to allow drilling.

Greens also called on Democrats and Republicans in Congress to oppose all new drilling, and to focus on conversion from fossil fuel and nuclear energy sources to solar, wind, and other safe and clean energy. The U.S. is the world's largest energy consumer and lags far behind other nations on fuel economy and conservation and implementation of renewable energy.

"Like 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry, many Democrats who voted against drilling in the ANWR support increased drilling in other pristine public lands in Alaska and elsewhere in North America, and favor construction of new pipelines through Canada to the U.S.," said Maya O'Connor, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. "Drilling for oil in the ANWR is only part of the problem. The real crisis is our addiction to fossil fuels."

Green Party members noted that new drilling not only threatened local lands and wildlife in Alaska, but also risked accelerating the advance of catastrophic global climate change.

"At a time when we're facing global warming and the approach of a peak in oil production, both of which threaten security and the world economy, it is extremely shortsighted and dangerous to expand drilling operations," said Greg Gerritt, secretary of the Green Party of the United States. "The White House and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are in the thrall of corporate energy lobbies, and their deference to corporate profits is endangering the entire planet."

Indiana Green Party Newsletter