** Our website: http://www.africanassociation.org is currently out of service.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
In the meantime you can visit: http://www.madison.com/communities/aam/ **
Below is a briefing about the Madison Common Council vote on the
Madison-Rafah Sister City proposal. The majority were in support (9/8,2)
but the Council did not approve the resolution as it required eleven votes
for adoption.
Although the Council did not approve, it was very rewarding to witness the
courageous determination of the supporting alders who made a strong
statement for fairness and justice in the face of overwhelming wanton
accusations and intimidations. For their valiant and unflailing
determination they deserve our great appeciation and admiration. These
courageous alders are:
Brian Benford, Tim Bruer, Austin King, Brenda Konkel, Jean MacCubbin, Judy
Olson, Matt Sloan, Michael Verveer, and Robbie Webber.
Thank you!
Peter Munoz
From: Madison-Rafah Sister-City Proj <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Last Night's Council Vote, General Meeting of MRSCP 6:30 pm Sunday
July 25
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 21:54:52 -0700 (PDT)
Dear Supporters of MRSCP,
As most of you know by now, at Tuesday night's council
meeting, the vote on the resolution granting us
official status was 9 in favor, 8 against, 2
abstentions and 1 absent. Therefore, we did not pass
because we needed 11 votes.
The debate lasted nearly five hours and we did not get
out of there until 2 am. (I've attached the Capital
Times article, which is mostly accurate, in case you
haven't seen it.) While registrations and speakers
were about even for both sides it was obvious that our
support is broader and includes very significant
representation within the Jewish community.
As we have always said, we will continue as an
unofficial sister city, focusing now on our
humanitarian and educational activities and will
decide sometime in the future whether to reapply for
official status.
THIS COMING SUNDAY NIGHT, JULY 25, AT 6:30 PM WE WILL
HOLD OUR REGULAR GENERAL MEETING AT IMMANUEL LUTHERAN
CHURCH, 1021 SPAIGHT STREET. The main topic will be
to review the council campaign and to discuss where we
go from here. PLEASE COME AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE
DISCUSSION. (We will also have to make concrete plans
for the "Stop the Wall" national tour which will be in
Madison on Tuesday, August 10.)
The City Council vote was obviously disappointing, but
not unexpected. We feel that we made enormous gains
through this campaign, getting much farther than we
(or the opposition!) would ever have imagined.
We have gotten five years worth of publicity in about
two months, and have been written about or reported on
by: New York Times, Christian Science Monitor,
Ha'aretz, Maariv, Jerusalem Post, Milwaukee Jewish
Week, Voice of America TV/Radio, WHA Radio news, Fox
News, and AP last night. Besides news articles, There
have been two sets of competing editorials in the Cap
Times and State Journal and an editorial against us by
Channel 3, which also had us on for a debate. All
local TV stations have covered our project multiple
times.
The issue even came up on Stu Levitan's radio talk
show, when one of us happened upon opponent Lester
Pines holding forth and called in, turning a monologue
against us into a lively debate. WORT, if course,
deserves special mention as we were on many times.
More important than the interest generated in us has
been the interest generated about Rafah itself. While
the attention has not been nearly as great as we would
like, we now have the basis to talk to many more
people in Madison and beyond about the conditions in
Rafah and the need to both address causes and
alleviate suffering.
All this was made possible by the enormously positive
response we received from you, our supporters, and we
are deeply grateful, especially to those who attended
the council meeting and spoke or registered on our
behalf.
Again, hope to see you at the general meeting on
Sunday. If you can't make it, please forward any
comments or suggestions you have.
Barb O.
ps--Those who voted for the resolution were Alds.
MacCubbin, King, Konkel, Webber, Benford, Olson,
Sloan, Verveer and Bruer. Abstaining were Holtzman
and Golden. Rosas was absent. All others voted no.
Feel free to contact your alder with the appropriate
(civil) comment. Those who supported us especially
need to be thanked; it took great courage to stand up
to that onslaught. Mayor Dave spoke against us,
although the two abstentions saved him from having to
fulfill his promise to veto.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail – Now with 25x more storage than before!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
<< CapitalTimesArticleRafahbidfallsshortby2votes.doc >>
_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee®
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, visit:
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/aam.html
AAM Website: http://www.africanassociation.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
