[imc-st.louis] "Leadership Meeting" for Elston K. McCowan for mayor of St. Louis

[Don Fitz]

The next "Leadership Meeting" to develop a campaign platform for Elston 
K. McCowan, the Green Party candidate for mayor of St. Louis to replace 
Francis Slay in the April 2009 general election will be at...

10:00 am, Saturday, October 18, 2008

1020 N. Taylor [2 or 3 blocks north of Delmar]

F.I.R.E. [Firefighters Institute for Racial Equality]

Below are Barbara Chicherio’s notes from the Oct 4 meeting, which will 
be a basis for modification to create the program and strategy. Please 
send proposals for other areas which you are working on but do not 
appear below.

Also, please let me know if you can come on Oct 18 and what area of the 
program you can work on.

You should post comments and suggested modifications on 
greensstl at yahoogroups

Solidarity,

Don Fitz, fitzdon at aol.com

10-04-2008

Interested individuals and individuals representing several 
organizations met to draft a proposed platform for the GGA that will be 
used in the spring mayoral campaign. Below are main points for the 
platform and some discussion/suggestions related to those points.

#1. Passing a civilian oversight bill with subpoena power to insure 
police accountability. (Agreed upon by consensus)

#2. Local control of St. Louis police making officers more responsive to 
neighborhoods (agreed upon by consensus)

Discussion pertaining to #1 and #2:

-Stop police harassment of immigrants and people of color

-Decriminalize and/or reduced sustenance for small amounts of drugs and 
nonviolent crimes

-Expand recreation and after school activities to keep kids off of the 
streets and engage them in positive/productive activities

-Full employment for adults

-Focus on corporate crime as the #1 source of crime

-Focus on government crime; ending wars that steal oil and divert money 
from rebuilding cities

-Mayor Slay has remained silent as violence has increased in North and 
South St Louis.

I suggest that monies allocated for corporate tax breaks as well as 
property tax abatement could better be used to fund community policing 
as well as opening 24 hour community centers. These community centers 
should be professionally run with well paid staff including social 
workers and teachers. This staff c ould mentor kids who have nothing 
better to do at midnight.

These centers would not only serve kids but could also serve all 
residents in the City of St Louis. A well run community center could 
also help parents who feel overwhelmed taking care of their kids. 
(suggestion from MJ Maroney)

-Fred Raines statement (which he is going to e-mail me)

-Alternative programs for legal consequences to crime (like drug court)

-Support collective bargaining for rank and file police with binding 
arbitration

#3. Schools: The mayor should support the elected School Board. (agreed 
upon by consensus)

Discussion pertaining to #3:

-Public schools should be fully funded. St. Louis Public Schools are 
losing funds because of tax abatements.

-Moratorium on any new Charter Schools

-Stop school closings

-Pay kids to go to school (there is NOT consensus on this point)

-Charter Schools must adhere to the same testing as Public Schools

-Stop all outsourcing

-Transparency is necessary (financial?)

-Support improved nutrition for school lunch and breakfast programs 
(farm to school programs)

-Opposition to vouchers

-Opposition to No Child Left Behind

-Strong emphasis on early childhood education (starting at age 3)

-Zero tolerance for disruptive behavior

-Smaller class sizes

-Increase the number of magnate and vocational schools

-Offer parenting classes

#4. Roll back past tax abatements and deny future tax abatements to 
businesses in order to increase the tax20base to fund public education. 
(agreed upon by consensus)

#5. Improve health care in the City of St. Louis. Increase healthcare 
services that are free or on a sliding scale related to income. These 
services will include urgent care, health maintainence and prescription 
drugs. (agreed upon by consensus)

Discussion pertaining to #5:

-Faith based initiatives for health care

-Health maintenance (eye, teeth, hearing, etc) offered through the 
public schools

-Promote Community Schools and the Community School Model

-Offer good sex education

#6. Improve and expand public transportation through public funding. 
(agreed upon by consensus)

Discussion pertaining to #6:

-Free public transportation for the elderly, the disabled and pregnant 
women.

-Bus shelters at every bus stop

-Fares should not exceed 10% of the minimum hourly wage.

-Create priority bus lanes with green light priority given to buses at 
all intersections.

-Improve handicap accessibility

-Look at expanding routes

-Explore improved metro-link/bus route linkage

-Reform bi-state management structure to be more democratically accountable

-Increase the number of bike lanes and bike racks

-Only purchase energy efficient city vehicles

#7. We support a living wage of $10 per hour with health care coverage 
or $14 per hour without health care coverage. (agreed upon by consensus)

Discussion regarding #7

-Support pay increases and retirement for city workers

-Negotiate in good faith with city workers

-Support full employment by creating a public works program to rebuild 
our infrastructure 9parks, schools and roads)

-Insure all contracts are union,

-Support a 30-hour workweek to create more jobs

-Create job-training centers

--Support progressive taxation

Right to Full Employment

• For a crash program of public works to rebuild St. Louis: Rebuild our 
infrastructure, housing, schools, parks, roads and community facilities. 
These public works jobs to be 100% unionized and to pay a living wage.

• Create Hiring Halls & Job Training Centers, starting in those areas or 
Wards where unemployment is the highest. Institute trade union control 
of hiring and firing. • For a 30 hour work week with no loss in pay, to 
open up new positions in employment.

Fund these policies by instituting a system of progressive taxation, and 
by cutting the "gordian knot" of corporate tax abatements, exemptions 
and loopholes. (David May suggestion)

#8. Parity for city contracts regarding employees. All contracts should 
be 50/50. (agreed upon by consensus)

#9. Offer affordable housing to all St. Louis City citizens. (agreed 
upon by consensus)

Discussion pertaining to #9: -Support homeless citizens (and homeless 
veterans) and stop harassment of homeless citizens by police and city 
agencies.

-Use vacant lots for creating city gardens

-Moratorium on mortgage foreclosures and shutting off=2

0of utilities

-Lead free housing

-Moratorium on all demolitions and support rehab of existing structures

-Explore the old $1 for abandoned housing program

Right to Quality Housing

• For a universal moratorium within the city limits on all home 
forclosures, evictions and utility disconnections.

• Federal, State and City investment in free and/or low cost, quality 
public housing.

• Fix all rents and mortgage payments at no more than 10% of wages or 
household income. (from David May)

#9. Reinstate Sherman George as Fire Chief. (agreed upon by consensus)

There was a suggestion that we talk about adding the Establishment of a 
New Department of Civic and Social Responsibilities but we ran out of 
time to discuss this.

We decided that Black and Green Wed. from now until the elections will 
focus on platform issues.

Our next meeting to discuss the platform will be: OCT. 18th at 10 AM at 
the Retired Fireman’s Hall

Zaki and Elston will finalize subcommittees to work on specific portions 
of the platform.

Please feel free to add items that I might have left out, Barbara Chicherio