Acting Locally

Student Greens Organize!

Although students on campuses across the state have long been part of the Green Party, only within the last year have these groups begun to contact each other and establish themselves as bona fide locals of the GPMI.

Student Green locals are active at Wayne State University, Universities of Michigan at Dearborn and Ann Arbor, Albion College, Oakland Community College, Central Michigan University, Grand Valley State University, and Northern Michigan University. Other campuses have had groups in the past, but are no longer considered active.

Working on diverse issues (from affordable housing to environmental justice to bicycle sharing to the National Missile Defense System), Michigan Campus Greens have started pooling ideas and resources, with the eventual aim of tackling state-wide Green student issues.

Michigan Campus Greens have also recently affiliated with the National Campus Greens organization, an umbrella group boasting over 100 chapters of student activists nationwide. Many of the above-listed Michigan locals will be sending delegates to the National Campus Greens founding convention this August, in Chicago.

Attendees will participate in a weekend of workshops and panels focusing on organizing skills. In addition, they will be able to hear Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke (among others) speak at a SuperRally.

For more information on the National Campus Greens convention, please contact Rob Haug at rhaug@umich.edu

If you are a student and interested in starting or reorganizing a group at your school (or finding an already-established group), please contact Juscha Vannier at jvannier@umich.edu or (734) 665-2186.

Betsie Watershed

Here's what has been happening with the Betsie Watershed Greens. After the National Election fiasco, three people from Benzie County noticed that more than the national average number of people had voted for the Green Party in Benzie county. They called a meeting in January of all people interested in the Green Party.

Twenty four people came and decided to form a chapter of the Green Party of Michigan. They decided to meet twice a month, the second and fourth Wednesdays, one meeting being formal and the other informal.

We invited Tom Mair of the Traverse Bay Watershed Greens to speak and give us background on being a chapter of the Green Party of Michigan. Attendance at our meetings varies from ten to forty people, averaging fifteen.

We formed a by-law committee and after two revisions the by-laws passed. Officers were selected by consensus: Party Coordinator, Tim Volas; Treasurer, Randy Bond; Archivist, Julie Petersen and Membership Coordinator, Kay Bond.

We had a showing in March of a video on the WTO demonstration in Seattle and discussion of the FTAA with forty people attending. This helped inform people about the FTAA. As a result, some people took part in a demonstration in Traverse City on April 20th with over 125 people protesting. We also sponsored training in non-violence prior to the demonstration with 19 participants.

On April 16th, Tax Day, we held a "Penny Poll" giving people ten pennies with which to vote their tax dollars in the five major Federal Budget categories. We had volunteers at five post offices and 477 people participated. The results were sent to all the Federal and State government representatives, asking for their response.

Two members attended a four session training put on by the Chamber of Commerce on becoming political candidates. We formed a Watchdog Committee that obtained the meeting date, time and place of all political bodies in the county. These are posted on our website and people have been attending various meetings to determine their areas of interest and areas of potential Green Party activity.

We have a Committee researching and suggesting actions concerning development of condos in the Village of Elberta where some residents are feeling their homes are being threatened with condemnation. This may result in a listening project.

Tamarack

We have about 20 people on our E mail / address / phone list. We have had up to 10-12 people at a couple of meetings.

We organized, solicited and ran last fall's GPMI Auction fund-raiser. We supported a local (Friends) conference on Living Lightly by providing the lunch for the event this spring. We had an announcement in the local paper when I was elected to the SCC. (Publicity opportunity for SCC member's locals everywhere.) Our monthly meeting is listed in the local weekly paper calendar. We hope to get a presence at the Chelsea Farmer's Market with the Light Bulb educational/fund-raiser project this summer, and we are discussing soliciting the community organizations for nominees of local people they feel demonstrate the Green "10 key values".

Up North

Following is a summary of the activities of the Up North Green Party (UNGP), founded last summer. For the early history including details of the Beemon campaign, see the "victory" report on our website, http://upnorthgreenparty.org.

Other activities since the Beemon campaign:

1) On April 22 we held an Earth Day Kite-In in Boyne City. Four to five hundred people attended, including as I recall the mayor of Boyne City. There was music. Seventeen kites were flying at one point, and later a hot-air balloon lifted off. A television crew came and produced a 2-minute piece for airing that evening. We expect shortly to have an article including that TV clip posted on our website.

2) In early May (I don't have the exact date noted) our chapter put an op-ed piece in the Petoskey News-Review opposing a shopping mall development near Petoskey. A couple of days later a township board held a public meeting on the issue. Two hundred attended including two of our members, one of whom was recognized, along with many other community members opposing the development. The board voted 3-2 to reject the development plan. UNGP is pleased with the role it played in achieving that result, and the op-ed piece and a story will go on our website.

3) Our Listserv now has 64 members.

Metro Detroit

During the 2000 petitioning and campaigning, Metro Detroit Greens (Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland Counties) was the only Green Party local. After the election, six new locals were formed in the tri-county area. The Ness campaign offices became the Green House. Many former MDG members put their time into these new organizations. As the dust settled, MDG had about thirty nominal members left, of which eight or ten could be expected to attend most meetings.

We struggled with issues of reorganization, discontinuing weekly meetings in favor of monthly ones to reflect the generally reduced level of activity. We decided to keep the name of Metro Detroit Greens, to maintain our web site, and to continue a regional organizing role. We also decided to relocate our meetings away from the Green House, and generally to operate independently of it.

We co-sponsored a public speech in Detroit by Ron Daniels on electoral disenfranchisement just before the inauguration of Bush. Shortly after the inauguration we held a "pot luck" dinner at UAW Local 417 in Troy to discuss the future of the Green Party. There were about fifty attendees.

In March, we invited a Libertarian Party and NORML activist to our meeting to help us get started on PRA petitioning. Individual members carry on with petitioning as opportunities arise.

In April, we co-sponsored the "Beyond the War on Drugs" Conference at Wayne State University Law School. (Again with the National Lawyer's Guild and others. See report on page 5) Also in April, some members participated in the anti-FTAA demonstrations at Hart Plaza in conjunction with the Labor Notes conference at Cobo Hall.

County committees for nominating local candidates in accordance with state election laws have been established for Wayne and Oakland Counties. In July, we held our monthly meeting in Mount Clemens, the county seat of Macomb County, to see if we could get a Macomb local and county committee organized there. The meeting was publicized by e-mail, by mailing of about 60 posters to contacts, and by an ad in the Detroit Metro Times. It resulted in four new members for the state party, and we are returning in August to solidify a great start.

The August meeting will be at the Macomb Community Center, 300 N. Groesbeck Highway, from 7-9 PM. It's on the corner of Lafayette and Groesbeck. A map will be posted on the Web site.

West Oakland Watershed

The West Oakland Watersheds Greens meet the second Monday of each month in the conference room at the West Bloomfield Library.

Eric Borregard, one of the WOWGreens founders produces a cable TV show in Farmington Hills called "In the Green", with co-hosts Marilyn MacDermaid and Matthew Abel.

The format is political interviews and environmental discussions. We are always looking for more guests, especially Greens who are candidates for office.

Our group has recently participated in the Rouge River Clean-Up, and in a letter writing campaign and demonstration in support of ending U.S. sanctions on Iraq.

Huron Valley

Monday evening, the Ann Arbor city caucus of the Green Party of Michigan nominated Mike Nowak to run for city council in the fourth ward. During the nomination process, Mike said that he planned on making council member's interactions with their constituents, affordable housing, and instant run-off voting issues in this fall's campaign. Mike's candidacy is going to receive a lot of focus from the state's largest local, and should get a lot of members experienced with the nitty gritty of a campaign who have never been involved with one.

This caucus constitutes the first official county or local caucus of GPMI in the state for nominating candidates. Ann Arbor used to have IRV back in the 70's with the Human Rights party, and national advocates for IRV would like to see Ann Arbor get it back, as a test case for redeveloping it, and for symbolic purposes.