IMV Meeting Tuesday 6:30 pm in Person

June 11, 2021 Alan Cole

Let's Celebrate Four Years as Indivisible MV

Well, Zoom was a thing, but are so excited to see IMV back together again in person at our June 2021 meeting on Tuesday, June 15th, 6:30-8:00 pm at Cherrywood's outdoor pavilion, 1 Cherrywood Circle, Clinton (on Route 5).

We will have some time to have some cake to celebrate the fourth anniversary of our decision to organize officially as the political activism group Indivisible Mohawk Valley. The rest of the agenda includes:

Plans for Deadline for Democracy events to support Sen. Schumer getting S1 For the People Act passed
Meeting three local Democratic candidates not yet introduced officially to IMV
Community Building: What can we do this year that we couldn't do the past year?
Upcoming events and announcements (Juneteenth tabling and more!)

Please bring a friend, new or returning to IMV, and bring diapers! See below. We can't wait to see you!

Donations and Diapers Needed: Please Bring on Tuesday

Citizen Action of Central New York is embarking on a project to understand childcare needs in Utica, to better advocate for those in need. CA will survey parents in underserved areas of Utica in July and August. Survey locations have been set at Cornerstone Community Church, Tabernacle Baptist Church, and Mohawk Valley Latino Association. Translators are being arranged.

Citizen Action plans to do a diaper giveaway for those parents willing to complete the survey. (Small packages would work best.) Donations of diapers may be delivered to Cornerstone Church, 500 Plant St, Utica, on Mondays from 9:30 am to 11:00 am (ask for Jay) or call Citizen Action CNY at (315) 281-4939 or email carcuri@citizenactionny.org for delivery arrangements. Please watch for notices for additional drop off locations in Utica and Rome, and an online monetary donation option.

The easiest way for you to donate is to contribute at the IMV meeting on Tuesday, June 15th. Betsy Briggs will have her car near the pavilion, so you can give them to her directly and she will deliver them to Citizen Action. THANK YOU!!

Letter Writers Are Scoring Against Tenney, for Democracy

What a week our terrific letter writers have had! Here are the links to these awesome letters if you have not yet seen them:

In "It's Time We Were Told the Truth"  Kathy Wojciechowski calls out Tenney's propaganda mailings with taxpayer money filled with lies and misinformation about her votes, spending votes, and priorities.  Regina Sbaraglia-Kekis expresses similar sentiments in a letter published June 9 in My Little Falls.

Judy Jerome's June 10 letter in the Rome Sentinel advocates for the passage of S1 For the People Act and calls out Tenney for opposing access to voting, the core of what it means to be American. The letter was also published in My Little Falls.

Jackie Leisos' letter in support of S1 and ending the filibuster was published in the print edition of the Rome Sentinel on May 22. In the letter she details the reasons why S1 is needed to protect democracy and voting from state legislatures enacting restrictions on voting rights.

Way to go, letter writers! We're going to need letters in support of S1 and voting rights all the way through the legislative break June 28-July 10, and we'll need lots of people to write letters in support of local candidates after that. If you need any help writing letters to the editor, please reach out to IndivisibleMV@gmail.com.

Do You Know What Happened in Port Jervis?

IMV member Sandy Scofield has been working for months to help plan a memorial walk for Robert Lewis in Port Jervis, NY. IMV was honored to lend our speaker system to the event. Like the recent commemorations of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, the memorial walk in Port Jervis is an example of recovering and recognizing the stories of white supremacy long suppressed and ignored in American history. Robert Lewis was a 28 year old Black man brutalized and lynched on June 2, 1892 by a mob of hundreds if not thousands of white people. Sandy reports that the memorial walk this year was beautiful and meaningful. She has shared with us these photos by Jonathan Hyman.

Deadline for Democracy

Please sign up now for the Virtual Town Hall with Sen. Majority Leader Schumer on Wednesday, June 16th, 7:30-8:30 pm. The event is hosted by the Working Families Party and Indivisible OneNYS is a co-sponsor. Pre-register here: bit.ly/s1schumer. It is critical that we get many hundreds if not thousands of people on this call. Here are the goals for the call:

Unite the progressives in NYS who are fired up about S1 and show up en masse to convey to Sen. Schumer that we won't accept anything less than getting this done.
Have 35+ organizations co-sponsor the event and will recruit participants. Indivisible OneNYS is a co-sponsor! So much energy!
Build the narrative that Schumer is hearing from his constituents about ending the filibuster and passing S1 because we're approaching the deadline for democracy.
Recruit the hundreds (thousands?) of people on the call to attend the S1 rallies planned for Monday, June 28th across the state. (That's right, save that date for a big rally at Oneida Square, 5 pm)

What About NY Health Act and CCIA?

In the coming weeks we're going to hear our state legislators touting all the bills they wrote, voted for, and passed in the Senate and Assembly. Some of these are meaningful efforts in support of the environment, public health and safety, and many other key areas. But it looks like many of our big goals may not have succeeded in spite of well coordinated, sustained coalition activism across the state, and that includes the NY Health Act and the CCIA.

We don't know what will make the deadline as of this writing, but as of yesterday afternoon, a good summary of legislation passed and not passed is printed here. As with the budget fight a couple months ago, we are fighting for the big stuff, and those are hard long fights and sometimes the wins are partial. The big stuff is still worth fighting for. The big stuff always seems impossible until it is done. We won't give up. We will keep calling, keep emailing, keep writing, and keep organizing. Thanks to all those who showed up and did the work. We still have a trifecta for the 2022 session, so...onward!

Now our attention turns from Albany back to Washington D.C., and what Sen. Schumer can get done before the end of July on democracy and voting, progressive economic bills, and everything else that the Republicans are blocking. We need to push together and push hard, and do it now, because we are on a deadline for democracy. Everything hangs on what happens. If there is no Senate bill to stop the voter suppression and gerrymandering legislation that legalizes overturning elections based on nothing except partisan preference that is now coming out of Republican state legislatures, then what we now call democracy, majority rule, could be lost for generations, if not forever.

Please mark your calendar for the IMV meeting Tuesday night (cake, in person!) and the Schumer call Wednesday night, and get ready to rally June 28th. We're on a deadline to save democracy.