General Assembly Full Notes 10-16-2011

Due to the extensive amount of information, we are publishing the full notes instead of the condensed.

PDF and Text versions can be found here. Please refer to the Live Stream for specific information that may not have been captured in the notes. Note-taking is a best-effort undertaking. Please direct all discussion to  the new forums.

16 October 2011

 

(Start Time 7:07PM)

I. Consensus Model and Hand Signals Explained

 

II. Committee Announcements (7:14PM)

1. Jordan from Media: We are trying to address some of the concerns of the internet community since some of them cannot be here. Two specific concerns is that the voice of the internet is not being represented. We are going to try an put a system in place where we can poll them. Second, the agenda for the GA is not available online so if people join in it’s difficult for them to understand if their not there from the beginning. To try and address this we are going to try and get the agenda up on the web b4 the GA

2. Jack from Goals and Stance: One of the most common criticisms is that we don’t stand together with common goals. We are trying to rectify that and come together and put goals and stances together that will eventually be proposed to the GA.

3. Will rep’ing “Needs be Met” (houseless advocacy): we’ve done outreach and we are trying to get tents for them and expand our current community. We are also trying to get food supplies – reaching out to missions and new seasons. We are going to try and get legal aide for them because they are disenfranchised and harassed by the police.

4. With info: Few reminders – any committees that are created please register at the booth so we can have all the info because we have a lot of people coming up and asking to join, but we don’t have the information. Second, the goals and solutions is awesome and i know there are other committees that have the same idea so you can merge and be one big committee. Another friendly reminder – any events or meetings that your committee is having, come to info and we’ll put in on the internet. Make sure to become 10 mins b4 the meeting and get a bull horn to go around the camp and announce.

5. Josh from Safety: 1st – those that are taking pictures be cognizant that there are epileptics. There is a woman in safety named Liz who is interested in starting a veterinary committee. She has numbers and such.

::::Run through of agenda::::

 

III. PROPOSAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. Cameron: I propose a morning GA be held at Terry Shrunk Park that is camp related and an evening GA that would be at Pioneer Square that focuses on local, global and national political issues. We are having a meeting 4PM under the burnside bridge.

CONCERNS:

i. You said 7PM at Pioneer Square

ii. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it

iii. My issue is with the naming. If it’s going to be a camp meeting, it should be called a camp meeting, not a GA bc that GA has specific meaning.

iv. Is he talking about a diff meeting, or moving this meeting?

POP I was under the impression that this is announcement time, not C? time.

Facilitator – yes, that is normally the order, but i was looking for people who can’t make their meeting to have a voice.

v. My concern is that some people would probably want to attend both.

DR That’s fine.

 

2. We all love these parks, they are wonderful. Being in these parks has done a little bit of damage to the sod and potentially the tress. Tomorrow at 3PM I would like to meet here to discuss a parks fund that would discuss repairing them if we ever choose to return them to the city. This would be separate from the general donations. Notes: OWS was almost evicted over the condition of their park so establishing a fund like this would show that we take that issue seriously. The city is currently compiling a list of parks damages. It would be great to show the city that we’re aware of the issues.

i. are you aware of the budget that actually is set aside by the city for the parks?  for instance, $59,000 is set aside by the city for the reseeding of the waterfront park.

ii. i think it would be nice if we had a routine of cleaning and sweeping the park every so many days and that might make so that the person that is looking at the damages, those damages could be erased and it would be easier at the end of our occupation to be ahead and be clean.

iii. i wanted to propose that my personal take is my that focus wouldn’t be so much money as it is commandeering time as it is for the green areas.

 

III. PROPOSALS

A. Illona and Alejandro for Collective Agreement on Guidelines for Community Safety and Wellbeing:

This is in direct ref to occupy portland camps.

Background: there are safety issues that affect us all. We are working for a new system in which we wish to live. we need to be welcoming safe and we are doing it. this was crafted out of the care the people in this camp. Principals of safety, wellbeing and solidarity. The Second component is dealing with steps to take for safety.

The principal is in safety and solidarity. We pledge to recognize our respect for the community. We are a weapons free zone.

:::Speaker going too fast::::

Steps for dealing with safety and wellbeing pending on the escalation of the situation. If you observe a threat (violent/dangerous behavior occurring in the camp, or any disregard for the guidelines), it’s important you asses your personal safety. Know you are empowered to speak with the disruptive person. If the behavior is unsafe, and you don’t feel comfortable intervening, you can mic check “peace keeper.” If you approach the person and threat continues, ask for community support NOT A MOB. the focus is to address the behavior. you will repeat the request kindly and continue to offer alternatives. if escalation, mic check PEACE KEEPER. while providing support, stand aside and be observer, allow the safety volunteer to deescalate the situation and use their discretion. our community empowers and supports our volunteers to have police called in. as a community we cant have trauma and tragedy. if a person is asked to leave the camp, we will act together as a community and ask the person to leave.

CLARIFYING QUESTIONS:

1. Can you say more about the part with the cops?

DR The goal of the proposal referring specifically to cops is for safety to use their discretion.

2. When you are escorting somebody who doesn’t want to go, this can involve touching which can be seen as violence. Please clarify on that. Is that when to call the police?

DR This came up many times all throughout our conversations. We won’t be able to cover all the examples that come up. The spirit is to prevent any violence/aggressive by subduing somebody. We want to make it clear that if after the 3 steps, then they decide whether or not they call the police. It gets tricky on touching, we don’t have a clear guideline. The spirit is to prevent escalation and calling the cops. There are degrees of things. We don’t know exactly what will work because we can’t go through all the examples. We want to prevent police being called.

3. I have been kicked out of the camp and feel it was unjust. I feel like in America, under the constitution, i have a right to face my accuser. Is there a process for that so I can return to the park?

DR We’re trying to create a guideline that address behavior, not people. We cannot recreate a society that is the same as the outside society because we don’t have the resources and maybe we don’t want that.

Facilitator – I think these are very important, but right now our process is to deal with the guidelines themselves, not individual cases. In the interest of time, i would suggest that this be flagged outside the GA.

4. How do you honestly prop to enforce anything you just proposed because there is already a smoking area and there has been people kicked out who keep returning. Putting that in to the safety committee turns them in to police which they do not want and we do not want.

DR The 1st part is how do we enforce? We are not interested in doing any formal enforcement other than empowering us as individuals and speaking up when these guidelines are broken.

DR The idea is that we’re moving in to providing information for everyone and having it available and visible. We don’t have the structure to come after the possibilities that are coming up. Information is going to create social pressure and awareness.

Person – Just because people have deescalation training does not mean they are capable or even know how to use it. So what you are proposing isn’t necessarily going to work.

Facilitator – This is not a clarifying question, it a concern. Let’s move on to clarifying questions and then when the concern part comes up i propose using that time with a constructive criticism.

5. How do you ensure to check peoples marijuana card?

DR Portland doesn’t enforce marijuana except for a ticket, so it would be kind of irrelevant.

DR In a tent is OK. That is how the state has it written out – “out of the public’s eye.” There is a court case that holds precedent and that smell cannot be a reason to arrest.

6. Is there a minimum or maximum number of the grouping of people who witnessed or were present at an incident/violation? For Instance, if this man wanted have retribution on his accusers, is there a process?

DR That is for a different proposal.

DR These guidelines are the starting point.

7. My understanding is if this is life threatening, the police will step in?

DR The police will step in even if it is not life threatening. Our language specifically states we can call in the cops by the discretion of the safety team.

8. If you have a marijuana card and have it with you should you be able to smoke it as freely as you smoke a cigarette?

DR Not at all – law clearly states out of public eye.

9. My concern is something that keeps get brushed away We have a problem with people constantly returning who are severely not welcome here and nothing is being done and it’s starting to get on my nerves. what can i do when they’re asked to leave and they do leave but come back and leave again and so on.

DR I don’t have an answer for that. What i propose that because we are creating conditions here that are not in the city people are going to show up for diff reasons

Person – this is the odd thing. you can tell him straight to his face that he is not welcome here. but the funny thing is that they dont have to leave. can i please punch him in the face? I wont…i just want to.

Facilitator – so looks like we’re getting in to discussion and concerns. before that i want to go to a temp check.

TEMP CHECK: We’re going to move in to concerns.

Facilitator – I would like to encourage people who have concerns try to think of a way to address your concern. In the spirit of looking for consensus.

CONCERNS:

1. I have a response, to our friend who is no longer here. Perhaps he’s in the back. I think we could possibly offer an arrangement for people to leave this space and come back after they’re grounded.

2. I’m in complete support of the spirit. My concern is relating to enforcement. Let’s take safety out of the language, since we’re all peace keepers. Instead of signs, we should have 4-8 volunteers as human signs and greeters that this is not a big party, but political action.

3. Two things: 1. addressing the gentleman that is no longer here. though i would like to continue to voice because its applicable to everyone. if there are people that are asked to leave repeatedly and continue to come back and cause disturbance maybe calling the police and having them arrested would encourage them to stop or not come back, there is a solution right there that’s already addressed in the proposal. Second, in response to this gentleman, i have no idea what my second idea was, but it’ll come back to me if you remind me what you said. (GREETERS) This is another proposal solution, i propose that we not only greet people, but have current occupants sign that they understand and will abide these guidelines so we will have a current understanding of occupants , signs posted upon entering and greeters as well.

4. We’ve only been here about a week and a half so i’m personally in high support of this. and i really just wanted to point out that we are supposed to be working on good judgement and common sense which in good faith we hopefully all have. so i think a lot of these guidelines will evolve and we are doing the best we can and we don’t have answers for every single thing, but we can only do the best we can do.

5. my concern is that our peacekeepers, at least one, would like to punch people in the face. i don’t have a solution for this because if i were in their position, i probably would too.

6. i do have a solution for this, its what they use on Wall St. When there is someone who everyone in the camp doesn’t want around, they just keep shouting at them until that guy leaves.

7. i don’t know i hear you all talking about cops and rules against stuff, you guys cant control what other people want to do. alcoholics are guna bring alcohol, and potheads are guna bring pot.

8. i think it could be cleaned up better for sanitation reasons for obvious reasons. i propose people help out a lil more with the hygiene in the restroom.

9. I’d like to address a lot of peoples points and get us all being educated and aggressive about helping others to be as educated as we are can help more than being aggressive towards others. the police have to be very patient in dealing with people who keep getting kicked out. if they can be patient, i’m sure we can do better.

10. i understand the concerns with safety drugs and alcohol. my biggest concern is that this is a public park. we cannot enforce our personal preference even though we’re occupying. while we may want to remove, we have no right to do so. i feel this proposal is well warranted with one exception: i don’t feel that anyone in camp, including peace keepers, should use force. i would like to find out a temp check on how many people here are more comfortable utilizing internal means with these safety concerns as opposed to when that finally comes.

::::Back to Illona and Aljeandro::::

In terms of signage, any new people entering the park will be confronted by these signs that say they agree to these conditions. This is in response to going around and asking people to sign. That would cause a lot of legal problems.

I want to remind everyone that we are here creating a world in this space. In one realm, yes it’s public, but on the other we are occupying and we are trying to create a community that we want. We are going to add amendments – in adding greeters by alerting everyone of the guidelines. I will take personal responsibility.

EVOLUTION/DISCUSSION:

1. I just wanted to speak in favor of this proposal. I think there’s a lot more to be done, but this is a really good first step. And most importantly, it builds solidarity as we act to enforce these guidelines together.

2. i propose we add language stating that we don’t condone unwanted touching.

DR The language that addresses that specifically is, “we are non-violent and we will not tolerate violence.”

3. I want to speak in favor in the proposal because i work in the medic tent. we have highly qualified and dedicated volunteers and we need them to feel safe, as we need all to feel safe and welcome.

4. i would suggest putting all guidelines in every social network we have. including the website, facebook, twitter, everywhere.

5. i believe its too long however. i understand the spirit and in that sense i’m willing to support it. my amendment is semantic. i would like verbal and physical violence to be changed to verbal aggression and physical violence. because i feel the term violence in relation to words is something that has used against radical movements to portray us as violence when we’re not.

6. I’m offering this evolutional proposal on behalf of Colin who’s doing our livestream but had to step away. his proposal is that we use verbal tactics before physical tactics. specifically singing and shouting.

- waiting for original person to talk this through

7. My amendment is that if a person is deemed to be unwelcome in the camp that they be barred from the kitchen and the coffee shop and otherwise barred from participation with anything else in the camp because i feel physically removing is an unenforceable rule to make. the only real thing we can do is to socially ostracize them.

Temp Check: we will add.

8. i would like to expand on Colin’s proposal because it’s the ideal step next to what i wanted to propose. step 1: as stated should be, asking the person to stop. step 2: should be, as stated, getting other people, 2/3 to participate. i propose step 3; involves the consensus of the community in responding with some chant that we decide means to leave. that we all unanimously chant to resolve it. if we cant resolve then peace keeping gets involve by facilitating further action such as calling in the police. i do not believe we should ever authorize to put their hands on anybody.

Temp Check: Step 3 (chanting) and peacekeepers not to touch unless life and safety is in danger…..yes on 1, no on 2.

Illona – in the heat of the moment, what your amendment is suggesting is that our safety team is never allowed to touch the individual and we as a GA are going to prevent them from taking autonomous action to touching people.

person – there are safety issues that cannot prevent touching. but if we’re going through these steps, that’s clearly not the case and therefor touching them is not going to be an ER situation.

9. instead of chanting, maybe also agreeing with the police having some people who are trained in this stuff but having people remove them from the camp.

::::proposal re-read with amendments::::

DECISION: 3 stand asides; 1 concern; rest in favor (overwhelming majority)

 

B. Instant Run Off Voting

This is for OP. The GA of OP chooses for a ranked method for run off voting. Eliminates the spoiler effect. We’re looking for 20 people to join us. This is to adopt city run off voting for city elections. Directly challenges 2 party system, eliminates spoiler effect. It empowers people to vote for the candidate they truly believe in by still voting for the most electable candidate. At the same time it reduces cost of campaigning and elections.

CLARIFYING QUESTIONS:

1. Can you provide a resource to recommend to educate oneself if you don’t understand.

DR I have a work group here that can talk to you right now. But we’re looking for a decision tonight so we can go to city hall on tuesday and have the voice of OP behind us to have success.

2. This is for a political statement from the GA endorsing a system where more voices can be heard and more choices to be had instead of the same BS paradigm?

DR IRV is a tool to reach those eventual goals.

DR To further clarify – the proposal is very short.

3. Are there are any negative consequences that you have come across with regards to IRV and how does the proposal address that?

DR The only consistent concern is that it’s too hard for voters to figure out, that they’re not smart enough. I think we may do OK if it’s visually explained.

CONCERNS:

1. The common complaint of IRV when implemented in VT was that there was a politician elected who was not the majority of first ranked politician.

2. One of my main concerns is that has been a lot of people speaking we cant be heard. No one is using the stuff that is being used.

DR (to #1) in his case he did negative campaigning which turned people off as a second and third choice. he didn’t understand how the system worked and that negative campaigning didn’t work. he didn’t have the majority as defined with IRV.

3. I like this prop my only fear is there’s not very many people here. i don’t know if this group just really likes the proposal or if were missing some important portion of the GA.

4. i’m in favor of this proposal, but to address this gents point perhaps we would like the person who’s moderating our livestream what the sentiment is from those watching online.

5. i have an opinion for and against. against the proposal: it’s the political system that currently exists, including the electoral process, that screwed my country. for: if we have more parties that are able to be heard maybe that would be an improvement. so i’m ambivalent.

6. i too like this proposal, but i am curious how this proposal will help to move our movement forward.

7. without the disconnection between corporate ties between our government, i don’t see how this kind of election can work.

TEMP CHECK: a lot of non participation

DISCUSSIONS/EVOLUTION:

1. my amendment i would suggest we add strong words denouncing the two party system the coup, essentially, of wall st with this two party city. we should repudiate the two party system and wall streets illegal coup of the system. specifically citizen united and how specifically this assembly is against that.

2. i would be against the added language. i think it can come with other proposals and to address separation between corporation and governemtn would also be another proposal. when we a part of the tool we can learn how to challenge corporatehood. if we don’t decide now we  wont get it on the ballot. we need the support of OP

3. online voices agree with the proposal

4. i think this proposal is a pretty good idea and way for this group to have a very small victory and allow us to show this area that we’re here to actually do something that affects the community.

5. i would like to have some strong language in the proposal admitting that this is not sufficient, but we will take small steps as well as large ones.

TEMP CHECK: general agreement as amended to proposal

6. i believe that you cannot separate the 99% from 1%. i believe that this group should take efforts to let love flow to the 1% that were protesting. i don’t think we should protest anything and that we are all one.

7. i worry that by endorsing any part of the electoral system we’re just perpetuating the problem.

8. i would like to say that tearing down the current system immediately is not practical. it is much more practical to tweak the system until it works for us.

9. i’m concerned that if we back this proposal and it fails on the city level, it will look bad for us.

10. i speak in favor as a first step for some substantive electoral change. i don’t think we need to be concerned as to whether something is successful. we cant let those fears stop us.

11. my sentiment is along the same lines. if we are to have a successful movement, it has to start one step at a time. we’re not going to have this all resolved in one night. this is a great start.

DECISION: 1 stand aside, 0 concerns, over 90% agreement.

630PM this tuesday for this working group.

Final Proposal: “This is a  proposal that the GA of OP advocated for ranked choice instant run off voting (IRV). Understanding that this step is in itself insufficient, but we will take small steps as well as large.”

 

 

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

1. too fast for me to even understand her. something about condelessa rice and vegan food.

2. josh (rooster) i am representing multnomah meeting of friends. we are a bunch of quakers: we support economic justice and OP and other non-violent protests

3. grant swanson. something too fast to understand. labor tent at corner of 3rd and main.  open to all labor unions.

4. united performing arts collaborative. theater as a message of unity to the masses. we provide outreach and social services. we meet every day at 3 at the library. contact me.

5. thank our facilitators

6. someone stole my backpack. please let me know if you’ve seen it. thanks.

7. remind us that community does not end at the edge of these park blocks. invite them.

8. my friend and 40 other people were arrested at occupy pheonix and the cops took their house keys and their cells. they have no where to go. come talk to me if we can help these people.

9. came from a convention. the lecturer said thank god for the occupy movement.

 

 

 

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