Minutes for MPJC meeting for August 1

Present: Peter, Glenda Rae, Rey, Lee, Caroline, Matt, Kamaria

Old Business

  1. Approval of Minutes for July 11: The minutes were approved as written.

  2. Progress Reports
    1. . Town Hall Meeting to showcase alternatives to Bush ideas (Ellyn): Ellyn had to work and we decided to wait until September to plan for this forum.

    2. MPJC statement on Immigration Reform (Caroline): Caroline had send a draft of the statement to the list and we approved the draft with only typo corrections. Peter will resend the statement to the list and put it on the website after a week for comments or objections. We decided to link the FLOC and Mexico Solidarity Network statements to our statement.

    3. CLAP project (Carol): Carol had another meeting and could not attend. She asked Kamaria, a ND student member of CLAP to come. Kamaria asked if we had any questions about the group and if we had ideas for actions off campus to let the ND administration know that it is not only students who are concerned about the staff at ND. CLAP is asking for a starting salary of $12.10 per hour with an annual COLA increase. They have published a report, the CLAP Living Wage Report, which can be found on their website www.campuslaboractionproject.org . Kamaria also gave us some names and email addresses of students who will be active in CLAP this coming year. (Nick at nkrafft.nd.edu, Casey at cstanto2@nd.edu, and Katie at khoover2@nd.edu. They plan to push for the creation of a task force of students, faculty, administrators, and staff to investigate all sides of fair treatment of workers, and then pressure the task force to complete its task.

    4. Questions for Candidates: We approved the list of questions prepared by a subcommittee (Peter, Ellyn, Rey, Caroline) with several additions. Peter will distribute the questions to the list serve, and then put them up on the website if no one objects. The yes/no questions will be used to bird-dog Chocola, and the open-ended questions will be asked at a meeting with Donnelly which Caroline will attempt to arrange as soon as possible. Lee will contact Dustin to ask for his assistance in arranging this meeting.

    5. Literature Table at the Artist Festival: The West Side Art Faire will be held on Saturday afternoon, August 12. Lois will be in charge. Anyone who can help between noon and 6pm should contact phoebe22_98@yahoo.com We will have counter recruitment literature. Rey suggested some good provocative literature designed to grab young people and we decided to copy it for the table. Peter will look into copyright issues. (Actually the literature has a note at the bottom that copying and widespread distribution is encouraged). Peter will copy it for Lois to bring to the table. We agreed to give a $25 donation to the Faire in exchange for table space.

      We also suggested having updated voting information at the table, especially the necessity for bringing official ID when coming to vote and the process, including cost, for obtaining the ID. We should put a link to this info on our website.

    6. Hiroshima/Nagasaki Day Vigils: Lois was unable to attend, but she has things well underway. Rey and Glenda Rae will get a roll of paper to Lois. Ron is making the stand. Peter will prepare a master for a half-sheet form for folks to write comments to Bush and Chocola. Peggy's husband will make new signs. The main thing is to get lots of folks out for both the noon actions on August 7-9 and also the expanded Monday afternoon vigil from 5-6.

  3. Treasurer's Report: We have $169.30 in the bank and $16.52 cash on hand.

New Business

  1. Planning for Fall Activities: We will be very busy with the Fall elections through November 7. We can plan future activities once these are over. ND students may organize a rally shortly before the elections at which we could speak. We need to keep in touch with our CLAP contacts to know when the rally will be organized.

  2. Topic of the Month: We decided to discuss a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza along with Israeli withdrawal from those two areas. Lee will construct a draft statement and send it to the list for comment.

  3. Other topics and issues: Caroline will call Becky to request that we be informed earlier for any future actions by the Arab-American community, like the one on Sunday. The notice came too late for most of us to attend. If we hear about another event at the last moment we should call MPJC members we are in touch with.

  4. Next meeting: We will meet on September 5th at 1036 N. Niles Ave.