Liaison Call 1/3/19 Minutes
Liaisons on the Call: Rob Gregson, Clara Jenkins, Joe Houle (Lincroft), Georgianna Hart (Montclair), Sally Gellert (Paramus), Nick Mellis (Washington Crossing), Jamie Evanini (Washington Crossing)
Welcome and Introductions (7:00 – 7:05pm): Rev. Rob Gregson
New Year Check-in “Fear and Hopes for Social Justice” (7:05 – 7:22pm)
Liaison/Congregational Updates (7:22 – 7:46pm)
- Washington Crossing took the holiday “off” from their Social Action table. Looking for new inventive ways to get people involved. Performed a survey of congregants and will share results.
- Nick Mellis asked if UUFANJ could do a letter writing campaign encouraging the Governor to sign an Executive Order to decriminalize marijuana possession effective immediately.
- Joe Houle mentioned the Solitary Confinement Virtual Reality headsets owned by Lincroft.
Legislation Update (7:30 – 7:55pm):
UUFANJ is powering through and working hard on:
- Marijuana legalization
- Driver’s Licenses for immigrants
- Minimum wage of $15 per hour without any carve-outs
- Solitary Confinement – Jan 24 hearing and an op-ed published.
UU FaithAction NJ is actively engaging in find a LAP replacement for Gary Nissenbaum. We are looking at attorneys, paralegals, researchers, students etc to help aid us in pushing legislation forward. Gary will oversee any current legislation that we had in place until a replacement is found, but will not be initiating any new initiatives.
FaithAction had a highly productive 2018 and have been very active thus far in 2019. We were very instrumental in the death of the gerrymandering. We must have a democracy with integrity. People are very interested in fair districts and there is some consideration to creating an ad-hoc task force.
The next Liaison Call is scheduled for Thursday, February 2nd.