General Assembly Meeting Notes 11-6-11 Facilitator: David Note taker: Carrie M Facilitator: There was an emergency meeting today related to violence and drug use. Desire to address and discuss those issues, maybe we won't follow normal GA procedure today. Do we want to discuss the problems we are facing now? TEMP CHECK: positive Man (Bryan) objects: I have announcement of proposal for event on Friday Pioneer Square on 11th 2nd objection: other proposals to bring Facilitator: We could hear the first proposal and then discuss emergent issues TEMP CHECK: positive Facilitator explains hand signals and proposal procedure 1st proposal: Bryan with Action Committee Proposal is that GA Supports event for peace and goodwill ceremony, commemorating armistice of WWII 11-11-11 at 11am, Pioneer Square. Veterans for Peace Bryan reads statement about the event. Clarifying Questions: CQ: Do you have what you need publicity-wise on the website? A: Yes if you approve, we will have it on wiki page as approved event by GA CQ: Where can we volunteer besides the kitchen? A: This is off-topic, check with info CQ: Do we have to talk to city about a route to take? A: No, no parade, just meeting at Pioneer Square CQ: I am concerned that you should organize people to march from here to pioneer square, so more people know about it. A: I might go through camp and call it out ahead of time around 10am. Stand asides: 2 Serious objects: 0 Favor: 90%+ agreement PROPOSAL PASSED Facilitator: Now we can have a continuation of the discussion that has been happening this afternoon into the evening. Crowd member: People who met last night called the meeting at 4pm today, I have notes for that. Taking stack: 1. This discussion started last night by Gina approached by Dennis. The problems are a free drug space that has been created and also a child prostitution ring that has been going on, and one of the FBI's most endangered children here. A solution list was made: discussions included a press release that went out at 5am and was announced at 4pm today. Also taking down tarps for large tent areas, safety issues were intended for that meeting earlier. I hope we will focus on that. Direct response: nobody knows who these people are, they ran their own undercover operation on us, so how do we trust them. That's an alleged accusation. CQ: Out of all things listed on here, if we do have a child that is on the FBI endangered list, then we need to deal with that now. A: that was the info given to me CQ: where's the info? A: we don't know the specific person, or any more info right now. We may not have the info, but hopefully we can still discuss. 2. I would like to address this lady's response. I said that congruence would be best on safety. You know how bees work? If something endangers the hive, they all respond. If there's a little girl in danger, this works. Anything that can hurt us; the collective, we have the same deal. Power, sanitation, safety. We should make a working group for Processes Procedures and Analysis. Instead of GA going blah blah blah, we want to make this group that can bring something to GA that you can thumbs up or thumbs down. We will get shit done. C Q: How do you get in the group? A: Talk to me CQ: What does the working group do? A: If the Gen Assembly wants something to happen, they get the volunteers or materials; they get stuff done. Facilitator: do we have any questions for moving forward? 3. Hi, I've been here since high school, love this city, somehow this occupation has come into focus as a last best hope to turn things around. We are a community and we are learning to become the new paradigm. Be here now, birth is always messy; it can look that way easily and we can be afraid, but we need to not be afraid we need to listen to our hearts. Stack for problems to be addressed. 1. Hi I'm Patrick: tonight something bad happened; people got upon the statue and got up in the kitchen and people were "occupying the kitchen" people without gloves need to be ten feet away, I was told "fuck you". We feed 3,000 people a day. Dysentery isn’t democratic. The last thing I need is somebody from Janzen Beach to tell me the kitchen is bullshit. CQ: can somebody get us up to speed on what happened? Facilitator: we can address this in a minute; give a recap. 2. I have a personal issue that is symptomatic of how we make decisions. I have been a part of this since the beginning and its my home, where I have been living for a month. On Tuesday morning I was here. On Thursday I came back and all of my stuff was moved. I didn't even get the courtesy of a note. I had literature on the table, and its all gone. I brought my kids here to the new spot, it was not a safe place to be; not safe for my kids and we need to be a safe place for children here. Direct Response: The fire marshal made us move things because of regulations, my stuff was moved too. 3. I was a witness to the emergency meeting last night and also here at 4o'clock. I am not on any committees; just there to be informed, Not completely surprised, but people were saying things were pretty bad in camp. A guy was stabbed, people getting poked by hypodermic needles, women getting solicited. There was a lot of talk here at 4pm. We have a violent element here in camp we need to deal with it. The solutions are not new. We have a lame duck mayor and he supports us. The police chief wants to throw his hat in, but he wants us out. I want to trust the social worker here, but this report is going to be damning, We need definitive solutions and we need them sooner, rather than later. New Stack 1. I had a personal experience with Janus Youth and they are legitimate. Child prostitution is never ok. I came here back from Oakland and the camp has take a negative turn while I was gone. We should disband and tell the city we are doing so. We should leave and let the cops deal with the rest of the issues here. 2. I think we have some serious issues like kids issues; we should focus on the most serious issues. 3. All we heard was about some people meeting without consensus. I have kids and they need to be protected. There are allegations going around and there are people who want to destroy this movement, The reason people were talking today because the GA is a complicated system and people get butted out. To accept all this on face value isn't smart. People started investigations and brought them to the public before they brought it here, to the GA. I have concerns that there are people that are trying to destroy the movement. They probably get city funds; what if somebody told them to investigate us, or their funds would be in jeopardy? Direct Response: Janus Youth is a nonprofit that doesn’t get city funds. 4. I have a 16 month old boy and I don’t feel any less safe here than in the outside world. I don’t see how people would be shocked by what we are seeing. How much of the violence that we are seeing is between factions, individuals and groups that have existed for ages and have supplanted here. I am operating under the assumption that we aren’t having random acts of violence, rather the kind of violence that is usually hidden by walls we don't have here. 5. Why, if the FBI knows we have some child that is on the endangered list, how come they aren't here? How come I haven’t seen a flyer or had an officer talk to us? Direct Response: The FBI can't come in without a warrant because they are treating this like a home. Why don't they get a warrant? Facilitator: Right now it is 8:10, to reiterate; we have had agreements on guidelines that discuss all this behavior. What are actions we can take to enforce those guidelines; relationships we can build within this camp? Should we reserve tomorrow's space to continue this discussion? Think about addressing issues. 1. I've been on peace and safety for 3 weeks now, been to mayors office mtgs, park dept, discussed ways to keep things safe. They can't really do anything for us. If we have somebody stabbed, they will come in. If we have a fistfight they cant do anything. They told us we have to move the tarps over the tents. We need to remove those tarps that give people safety for illegal activity. We need to talk to people, know their stories. Make friends with them, maybe they will stop doing drugs. Eventually we will have to move to inside space, We are here to fight corporations and government; that's why we're here. We have to find resolution to go out into society and say we have the answers. We can't do that until we discuss this. We should go and talk about it and get real solutions. The child prostitutions thing his name is Dennis, most of his clients come here for sanctuary since we don’t have any rules here. For years he's been fighting this. All those years is for nought because we're allowing this to happen. That's the face of the movement . After I brought the proposal to move and legally occupy a bldg., a reporter asked me if I was changing the "face" of the movement. 2. Saying they aren’t here is alienating because there are a lot of people that are "they" or actually us. I want to say that I trust someone who worked in the field, but they also have a bias. They aren’t going to look at this space as a place to reach out. I also have a point of process; I like your guidelines David, but they are better said by someone in the crowd. We need to take ownership of this conversation. 3. I have a suggestion, but first I need clarification. Is this an open movement, or was it mainly set up for people who are involved in the politics? 1. I think its inclusive, but on peoples mind that alcoholism isn't the right frame of mind for a revolutionary 2. I like what the gentleman had to say about being supporting. Harm reduction model like Vancouver is an effective model. I don’t think this movement is capable of giving them all the help they need. So we need rules for safety. 1. This is about an intentional split of this movement, cleansing or filtering. not about race or gender or political stance, it has to do with caring for progress or being a toxic agent and being competitive in nature. When we kick people out of here, they have an alternative. R2D2 homeless camp in china town. They have drug problems, too. Oh, they're sober? Ok, scratch that. 2. We are inclusive, but there are actions that are detrimental to the movement. If someone calls me out, I am accepting of that, because I am only part of the whole movement. 3. I am a Christian to get that out of the way. I would say it's inclusive. If you push people away that are alcoholics, it's fine, but if you push people away its not good. [disruption] I forgot what I was saying. Facilitator: Can we come back and let you finish your thought? (Agreement in crowd). 3. So my rhetorical question is: these people with problems; are they benefitting or being detrimental to the movement? What do we do about it? My solution is: sign up with identification process. We aren't qualified to help these people. If we can get them to a better place it would help. We have a huge PR problem. 1. Unrelated topic: somebody stole lantern in kids' camp. I made an announcement and within 3 hrs.; it was returned. Don’t quit; we can do this. Don't quit. 2. Security says people just keep coming back after they are kicked out. Maybe we could have a shame wall. What are your feelings? If someone keeps causing problems they have their picture taken and put up on the wall for the community to see. 3.The gentleman said we have a PR problem. I can tell you, as someone who live here in Beta camp, this is NOT a PR problem; it is a personal safety issue. I have had my tent robbed, all my stuff taken, my allergy medication taken. I have witnessed people doing drugs and being drunk and breaking bottles outside of my tent. I want to be inclusive, but we need to have standards about how people act. 4. I understand this idea of inclusivity is idealistic; there are limits to that. To include some people we are dis-including others. I slammed dope for 30 years; I can speak to this issue. I also have an 11 year old daughter now. She donated a heater and used to come down here. I came down to see if the space heater was here the other day. Some fool was puking his guts out in the street, and his friend is laughing at him. I can tell you we lost support right then to anybody walking or driving by. We can help this guy out, but we lost support that day. We need to tell people that this is not appropriate. POP: Speak to crowd, not facilitators (speaker from earlier) As a Christian its inclusive to the fact that I believe there is stages in life, as far as druggies breaking bottles, you need to push them away so you are not temped, and not hurting other people. It is confusing. Business and leaders are connected. We keep thinking that we can include everybody in the beginning. You have to start now, pick certain leaders if you need it, people are gonna drop off. 1. So, I can only speak for myself, I haven't done this yet. I said that I am willing to talk about the problem, so I am willing to participate in the solution. We did pass at GA some Guidelines for dealing with that. There are a lot of behaviors in the world. Fear can damage our movement just like anything else. We need to talk about concerns less visible, not just the ones that are more obvious. 2. I see a lot of sloppiness of grouping of people; like users of drugs, the people endangering safety of others. Because someone is houseless doesn't mean they have a drug abuse problem. Just because someone is a drug user doesn’t mean they can't be a part of this. 3This is a symptom of what is going on out there. 4. I asked Occupy DC how they enforce drug and alcohol. They have numbers on their tents and sign a drug and alcohol free pledge. Facilitator: Should we continue on this discussion, or focus on solutions? Solutions temp check: mostly positive Random thought temp check: partially positive 1. For those with addictions I'm sorry, its a difficult space to be in. There's a revolution going on. If you needed a reason to be clean and sober; this is it. 2. Today I received a flyer that said Janus Youth says all of their kids are here. We should work with Janus youth so they can get their kids back for their head counts. If you can convince the kids to show up for the head count they (Janus) would probably want to help because of their funding. 3. I gave a tour of Janus Youth here, and there were people doing drugs and smoking pot. So it's hard to convince people that we are here doing good things. Greeters: I think it's a great idea to have people at the entrances, welcoming committee, more structure of "zoning" and organize our processes. So drug use isn't occurring next to medical and kids camp. 4 Community agreements, right? Without consequences based on clear criteria is a wish. We need specifics, i.e.: interrupting processes is taboo [disruption]. That is what I'm talking about. So if I'm a committee, the criteria is don't interrupt the process. If you can't control your mouth, then observe, if you can't control your body than you have to leave. In terms of people using drugs in front of me; you need to do that outside of camp. I can have my boundaries and I like the tent count idea. Facilitator: Do we want to continue this discussion tomorrow? Do we want working groups? 1. How the police are treating area as a hands off area, I think that is false information. People get arrested there. We wouldn't need to talk about the police free zone otherwise. If police aren't coming in, they aren't doing their job. I agree with the DC occupy, tightening the area up around where we sleep. But there are services we provide like food that shouldn't come with signing your name or having I.D. or giving your social security number or saying your income. 2. Peace and Safety knows where these behaviors are taking place. There needs to be more eyes, and this means that we need to watch more. The cops can't enter the tents., and this is where a lot of the behavior is happening. We need to self-police first and then bring in police. Attempting to get a permit for the park. The people here to party can deal with police. 3. I was struck by what the note taker said earlier about the PR implications and the experience of people living here. People who are not living here are afraid to come down here now. We can't turn people away based on whether they are homeless or drug dependent. We need to focus on behavior. There isn’t going to be food in the kitchen if these problems exist. These resources were donated to occupy the movement, not the partiers. CQ: How would that be done? A: Not sure, don't have all answers 4. In my opinion this movement is in vain if we aren't willing to make a sacrifice to our comfort. We should be putting our full ability of dealing with these issues ourselves. We need to make the sex offenders known, and putting a warrant out for their arrest. We need to restructure the community and offer more NA and AA services to help people on drugs. Because if we ignore them and sweep them under the carpet, our movement will be in vain. Facilitator: How about taking more concrete steps. Do we want to continue to talk now? Are we going to do this again tomorrow? Vote on that? Temp Check on doing the same thing tomorrow: Some support. CQ: Instead of GA? Facilitator : Whether we call it a GA or meeting it doesn’t necessarily help. What needs to happen is action. Just consensing on something doesn’t make a difference. Facilitator: Do we want to continue focusing on this issue tonight? Less support. Continue this issue has most support. CQ: Can it be both/and? Facilitator : Anything is possible; it was tonight. 1. A bunch of tweakers running rampant in B camp. We're all gonna get stabbed with dirties by tweakers. We need solutions. We can't drive them all out. I think we should run them all out. 2. Earlier someone proposed earlier, there are a bunch of enclaves with tarps over them and we need to get rid of that. 3. There is no way to change behavior from the outside. We need to create pressure as a group to create change from within. It is up to us to self-regulate. There are going to be service agencies pushing out people and send them to us to destroy the movement. I lived right in front of the justice center. When people start getting drunk and climbing the tree I cant get out of my tent and put myself in the way of drunk violence. I would be willing to get a smaller tent to put a few others near me. This is a microcosm of what we deal with in the real world. We need to grow or we will die; there is no staying the same. It's bumming me to rehash these issues in camp, and I want to turn it around. We need ground support for the Bagdad comedy show and get some money in the coffers, its Tuesday, so help out. 1. I have a solution that's really frigging simple. Tell people that their behavior is not ok. Find a way to say its not ok, don't be combative, if you get a "fuck you" keep walking. 2. Can't get them to not do drugs. We're not going to fix their problems. Do we have to move them out? Do we need to get the cops? Ask the street kids. 3. For an entire moth we have been discussing this issue with inclusive ways to address it. If we accept that it will not be solved soon, but is a process. Stop serving food, period. I have reservations about it. If we want a camp that does not attract users, either we embrace them or stop serving food. 1. I think there are two things happening: 1 is a political action 2 is ad hoc social services. I disagree we will be having these problems happening no matter what. We should address security questions, maybe move into a new camp, maybe move to a building. 2. The lady who spoke about the tents, we could make numbers for tents, show ID, and then problems in camp can go to police. GA ending because Facilitator wants to wrap it up before people lose interest and walk away. Working Groups forming at the center of Terry Schrunk plaza to talk more about solutions to bring to GA next time. We are talking about problems and solutions. End of GA 9:28