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From: Barb Olson Madison-Rafah Sister-City Proj <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Update on Madison-Rafah proposal before the City Council: ACTION
NEEDED
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 21:22:12 -0700 (PDT)
Dear Friends of MRSCP,
This e-mail is to update you on the status of our city
council campaign. It also requests your help in
contacting the Mayor and Alders before July 20, and
asks you to come to the meeting on July 20 (6:30 pm)
to register your support for MRSCP and perhaps speak
if you desire.
On Tuesday, July 6, our revised resolution (attached
showing co-sponsors) came before the Common Council
Organization Committee. After some discussion (we had
several people speak and about a dozen register in
support) it was referred to the Common Council for a
vote on JULY 20 as we had planned. In this meeting,
we picked up one additional pledge of support.
However, the item still appeared on the 6:30 common
council agenda. At the request of alders, we agreed
not to have alot of speakers at the meeting, and only
two people, Jennifer Loewenstein and George Arida, who
will not be in town on the 20th, spoke for MRSCP. A
handful of brave souls from the crowd also spoke in
favor of the proposal.
The opposition however had already done a massive
mobilization within the Jewish community, so a large
number of folks showed up and spoke. (A more or less
accurate article from the Capital Times describing the
meeting is attached. Our opinion is that the meeting
was mostly a shameful display of either personal
villification directed against Jennifer or the
repeated invocation of the word "terrorism". Israeli
TV also covered the event.)
Our concern at this point is that undecided alders
will conclude that they just don't want to approve our
very modest project because the volume of the
opposition is so loud and emotional that they just
want it to go away. In this way, a small vocal
minority can assert a political veto over something
that most people would otherwise be in favor of.
We need to counter this by mobilizing the very broad
and diverse support that we have throughout the
community.
To this end we ask you to:
(1) Contact your alder by e-mail, letter or phone call
and urge him or her to support our resolution. The
vote will probably be very close. Those who support us
need to be thanked for their courage in standing up to
enormous pressure and upholding Madison values of fair
play and open discussion in the face of this
blistering assault. And those who oppose us need to
know they have constituents who disagree. We need 11
votes for passage.
To find out who your alder is and to contact them, go
to http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/council/index.html.
Click on "Who's My Alderperson?". Once you find out
who it is, there's also a box for each alder, click on
that to send an e-mail or get other contact info.
(You can also access this at our website,
www.Madison-Rafah.org, click on "contact your alder"
on the main menu).
(2) Copy your letter to Mayor Dave, or if you aren't
writing to a particular alder, send him his own
letter. He keeps sending out the same form letter to
the effect that it's "too political". Maybe you will
be the one to get a NEW form letter from him.
To contact Mayor Dave, go to
http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/mayor/mayor.html#CONTACT%20US:
Or you can access that from our website as well,
click on "Contact the Mayor" on the main menu.
(3) Show up at the council meeting on July 20, 6:30 pm
in the council chambers of the City-County Building,
210 Martin Luther King Blvd. Come early, it will be
packed. Registration starts at 6:15 and you must be
registered before the item comes up for discussion.
You can register as opposed, in support, to speak or
as available to answer questions on any particular
item.
Letters to the State Journal, Isthmus and Capital
Times are also appreciated.
Again, we appreciate your support. There have been a
series of articles in the Capital Times about Rafah
and about us that you can see on the website
(www.Madison-Rafah.org). I've also attached a copy of
the op-ed that we had printed in the CT.
If you have any questions, such as where your alder
stands, please contact us.
Remember, win or lose (and we prefer to win!), our
project has already made astounding progress in terms
of public awareness of us and of Rafah. We will
continue to grow and develop, and should we not get
official status this time we will be back next year.
Event notice: On Monday July 19 at 12 noon, WORT
Radio (89.9 fm) will sponsor a call-in debate between
Esty Dinur, a member of MRSCP's Advisory Committee and
a native of Israel, and Shirin Ezekial, one of the
main spokespersons for MJCC and an Israeli citizen who
it turns out served her military service mostly IN
RAFAH policing the "natives". LISTEN AND CALL IN.
Thanks,
Barb O.
MRSCP
ps--Related Event Notice: On Monday, July 12at 6:30
p.m., Nan Cheney will give an informal report on her
recent delegation to Colombia and the peace community
in San Jose Apartado, Dane County's sister city. It's
sponsored by WNPJ and called "The Inside Scoop"
because they'll serve ice cream. It is at Bonnie
Block's house, 2237 Fox Avenue, about three blocks
from Edgewood College and near a bus line. For more
information contact Bonnie Block [log in to unmask] or
608-256-5088
_________________________________________________________________
Check out the latest news, polls and tools in the MSN 2004 Election Guide!
http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx
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