Minutes, Orange-Chatham Region of the TAGP

18 February, 2006

Attendance:

Recorder: Wayne Turner

Agenda:

  1. Local political races in 2006
  2. Ideas for a Green event in March
  3. Orange-Chatham Adopt-a-Stream or Adopt-a-Highway
  4. Anything else anyone wants to talk about

This was the first regional meeting of the Orange-Chatham Greens, an interest group within the Triangle Area Green Party.

We only got through items 1 and 2.

Ed King filled us in on the Chatham County races. There are two races of significance in Chatham County. One of these is a seat for the Chatham County Commissioners. The other is a state Senate race.

The first seat has a candidate George Lucier. George would be an asset to the current board, which consists of three politics-as-usual candidates and two candidates supported last year by the Chatham Coalition. The Chatham Coalition is a progressive coalition in Chatham County fighting the spillover sprawl from Wake and Orange. Their last year's candidates campaigned as opposing the uncontrolled growth espoused by the politics-as-usual crowd.

George is running in a district in which no Greens reside, and there are no other county seats up. We decided to help George Lucier, and work through the Chatham Coalition to do this. Wayne Turner will take the lead in contacting the Chatham Coalition and seeing how we might best plug into that effort. Ed King is an active member of the Chatham County coalition. Jerry Starkweather, head of this group, has been given a copy of the Green platform by Ed, and Ed expects that we will be welcome to participate. If possible, we need to also work to support the campaign of Bob Atwater, who is running for a state Senate seat in the 18th district.

There are several races in Orange County. Most of the candidates are progressive or progressive friendly. However, a Republican seeks one county commission seat. Jerry Surh is going to look into the Orange County elections procedures, and we will discuss further the possibility of helping to defeat the candidate.

Another local effort we need to plug into is the opposition to Wal-Mart's plans to build a store in Chatham County on the Orange-Chatham line. The proposed store has elicited opposition from Orange residents as well as Chatham residents, with Dan Coleman (also a recently appointed Carrboro alderman), showing an interest. Mark Barroso is the leader of this effort.

Yet another effort we can participate in is NC WARN's opposition to the new Shearon-Harris nuclear plants. An organization called Chatham Alliance for Sustainable Energy is sponsoring a discussion meeting at Northwoods High School on Thursday, March 30, at 7pm. Ed suggests that we co-sponsor this, which we agreed to put to the local.

We also discussed ideas for the tri-greens event for March. Susan knows of a documentary she has seen about current energy production techniques and their impact on the environment. With the NC WARN event coming up, this would be a timely Green function. There is also the Pilgrimage for Peace and Justice walk across NC. We could provide walkers or a walker for this for a day on April 14th and/or 15th, which is when the campaign will be in the Triangle area. We could also co-sponsor this event, and could make a contribution to it in the interest of party-building.

Elena told me in phone conversation that another event has been scheduled for March. This suggests to me that the Orange-Chatham greens should hold the documentary screening as a local event (Susan's idea).

Jerry pointed out another possible Aero protest event coming up in May. I would also like to acknowledge (although we didn't discuss it) that we have also been invited to participate in upcoming meetings in Chapel Hill, with David Price, and with possible challengers to David Price. This invitation is very specific from Michael Pollock, and was posted by him to the tri-greens listserv. We should discuss this online, since all the meetings are in Feb and March.

So to summarize, the Orange-Chatham Greens have the following local efforts to choose from:

  1. Candidacy of George Lucier for County Commissioner
  2. Participation in the Chatham Alliance for Sustainable Energy effort to stop the construction of new nuclear reactors at Shearon-Harris and documentary screening in support of this effort
  3. Supporting the Bob Atwater re-election bid
  4. Possible opposition to the Republican candidate in the Orange commissioners race
  5. Chatham-Orange efforts against Wal-Mart store

We also have, as either Tri-greens or Orange-Chatham Greens the following possibilities:

  1. Support of and participation in the grassroots impeachment movement
  2. Sponsorship and participation in the Pilgrimage for Peace and Justice walk
  3. Participation in the event Elena described, and will hopefully describe in more detail online.

Meeting adjourned at 5:50 PM

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