Present: Peter, Ellyn, Glenda Rae, Rey, Lois, Wanda, Galen
Old business
1. Approval of Minutes for February 12: The minutes were approved as written. One typo was corrected.
2. Progress Reports:
a. Topic of the Month: Why we oppose nuclear weapons. No one did anything this last month. Peter will try to incorporate the Wikipedia discussion into the current statement. Wanda will try to send ideas for a Point of View column about nuclear weapons to Ellyn after Easter. Lois has ideas. We continue to ask ourselves "How could things in our country get worse," and Trump continues to find ways to make them worse.
b. Memorial Day Parade: Lois has contacted Iraq Veterans against war at their Chicago office and learned of Vince in Michigan City who has now joined Vets for Peace. She called but has not received a return call, There was a marine who sat with Lois at the 2016 MLK Day celebration, Lois is trying to contact her. She has talked with a vet named Bob from Mishawaka but he is not interested. Rey suggested that he rent a truck to decorate for the parade. The treasury has enough for this after Bernie's generous donation. We approved this suggestion. Peter will attend the required meetings to get our parade application accepted.
c. Book of the Month report: Wanda read a novel based in the history of nightengale, a person who was part of the WWII resistance and made 27 trips across the Pyrenees from France to Spain to rescue allied soldiers. The book was very sad. On April 9, folks met at the library to discuss the book, "Distance Between Us."
d. Immigration Coalition: There was a good crowd at the Bethel gathering of conservative christians, but not many were Bethel students, but there were a lot of young people in attendance. There was a march wth 50 college students to pressure Walorski to bring bill HR 3440 up for discussion in the house. They have not been able to get a meeting with her. We know that she received $11K from the NRA for the last election.
e. Tax Day plans: We will hold tax resistance signs at the April 16 vigil.
3. Treasurer's Report: $196 with $30 in petty cash. Bernie gave a sizeable donation.
New Business
1. What do we (can we) do next? We incorporated this topic into other discussion
2. Topic of the Month: Why we oppose nuclear weapons. We will continue to investigate this topic. See above.
3. Earth Day plans: Earth day celebration is on Saturday, April 21st this year at Roseland park behind the Irish Apartments off 933 on Cripe St. from 10 to 2. Ellyn contacted Diana who said she moved it from Potawatami because the city was charging $800 for insurance. There is a nice pavilion at the park. Peter and Lois will decide whether to set up an MPJC table.
4. Other Topics and Issues: The Republicans will be at Fiddlers Hearth 11-12 on Dyngus Day. (This was not correct. The Democrats were at Fiddler's Hearth.)
Casa is looking for partners to provide spaces to issue City IDs. The idea is to have a wide range of people obtaining and using these IDs so undocumented folks will not be easily identified. The cost is $25. Data shows that Foreign households in St Joseph and Elkhart counties contribute 5% of the economy.
The Mosque will host a gathering of all political candidates for office on April 15. The League will have an event for the candidates every Tuesday in April
SURJ wants us to see a "Wrinkle in Time," because it is directed, produced by people of color. In addition, the major actors are people of color.
The legislature will come back for a special session in May. Students will pressure them to pass responsible gun legislation, i.e. raise the purchase age to 21, no bump stocks, universal background checks, etc. There is concern that a law allowing police to remove guns from people who should not have them could target black people.
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5. Next meeting: Monday, April 23th, at 2:30pm at Lois' assisted living center. We will send the directions in the meeting announcement.