Wednesday, May 7th, 2014
Liaison Conference Call Minutes
Attending:
Craig Hirshberg (Executive Director), Nick Mellis (Washington Crossing), Lorraine Wearley (Summit), Cecilia Costa (Montclair), Denise (last name/congregation?), Ann Perry (Somerset Hills), Frances Prestianni (Princeton), Peggy Woods (Wayne, Lakeland)
Action Alerts current as of May 7: Liaisons are asked to promote these in their Congregations
1. Send letters to legislators to oppose repeal of Realty Transfer Tax. View Action Alert
2. Liaisons—please send to Craig letters you’ve collected to ask Sweeney and Prieto to support Bail Reform legislation. View Action Alert
3. Work with municipalities for gun safety features by manufacturers. View Action Alert
Congregations’ Highlights
- Washington Crossing: climate scientist will speak on Monday night (May 12) and will video for Princeton public TV; a new minister has been chosen, Rev. Kim Wildszewski
- Summit: had second of three lectures on gun violence; programs broadcast to Montclair and Morristown UU congregations; full house and very active discussion went on to 3 pm; topics included safety of fire arms and rules of hunting, safety course
- Princeton: good response to bail reform; 50 letters to each Legislative Leader.
- Montclair: good response to bail reform 90 to Sweeney and 75 to Speaker Prieto
- Wayne: Peace, Shalom, Salaam which is designed to promote dialogue on Israel and Palestine conflict; 2 congregation members went to DC to rally against Pipeline
- Craig was part of a group who spoke with Senator Menendez on immigration.
- Gave testimony at the first meeting of COAH; new rules have been released; there will be a public meeting in July on these regulations.
- Participated in news conference on immigration issues-how to control phone rates for telephone calls inside NJ; it can cost $17 to make a simple call inside the state; will submit request to Board of Public Utilities which regulates these rates.
- Bail reform issue may come up in a legislative committee next Thursday, May 15, 2014; this has been a major issue for UULM through the Criminal Justice Reform Task Force.
Report on Plenary
High attendance, almost 80 people; 19 of 21 NJ congregations were represented which is very good; this was the 5th anniversary celebration; raised almost $4,000 which is a record for fund raising at statewide meetings; Gordon MacInnes gave a wonderful talk on budget issues is NJ; task forces had very active discussion; we will be providing a list of Task Force issues.
Craig’s Activities
New Action Alert-Economic Justice Task Force: Action to ask Legislature not to repeal the realty transfer tax; a portion of that tax goes to affordable housing trust fund used which is used to maintain current housing and build new housing.
New Action Alert on Fracking: A bill which will ban storing fracking waste in NJ will come up at environmental committee on Monday, May 12. Action Alert asking for letters will be sent.
How to add people to our Salsa Lists: the question is how do we get more people on the list. Suggestions: create a flyer on UULM giving information and asking people to give us contact information; put sign-up sheet at Action Table and ask people to sign up; Summit has started doing this; Princeton has used this approach for a number of years.
More visibility for UU ideas: Nick Mellis talked about creating more visibility for UU and UULM ideas; he suggested working through Princeton community TV to create programming; this will create more awareness of our faith within the community; Nick is willing to work on this; Princeton community TV is open to new programming and over the past two years, has scheduled our UULM programs on immigration reform and Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision.
Next year’s schedule for Craig preaching: has commitment to speak at every congregations every two years; Next year will be busy next year since Craig spoke at many congregations two years ago; it would be helpful for liaisons to speak to the worship committee or the minister to suggest that Craig speak at the congregation next year (2014-2015); these requests should be submitted quickly since congregations tend to set up this schedule way in advance; there was general agreement that this is a very good way to make UULM more visible and support local UULM congregational activities.
The Next Liaison Conference Call – Wednesday, June 4, 8:00pm. For more liaison information about how to be included in these calls, please contact Executive Director Craig Hirshberg.
Thank you for your participation!