Bill Jacobs to speak at July 9th meeting
by adamBill Jacobs, the Chair of the Montgomery Green Democrats Caucus will be speaking at our next July 9th meeting at 6pm. His speech will be entitled “Fresh Blood: Important Work For Greens”. (I haven’t added this to the meetings webpage, but I will be real soon now.)
Do we have questions for him?
Discuss.
5 Responses to “Bill Jacobs to speak at July 9th meeting”
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June 27th, 2005 at 9:05 am
I assume they’re opposed to the ICC. We could ask what alternatives they support to reduce traffic congestion–lowering fares on bus and rail? What do they support in the way of alternative fuels such as biodiesel or plug in hybrids? (Have they heard of the CalCars initiative? http://www.calcars.org/ )
What do they support in the way of smart development in the suburbs? Have they heard of the New Urbanism?
I may think of others…
Tim
June 28th, 2005 at 9:27 am
Can someone explain what the Montgomery Greens Democrats Caucus is and how their perspective might differ from the MCGP in general?
June 28th, 2005 at 10:04 am
In general terms, the Montgomery Green Democrats are about as green as a Democrat can get without actually leaving the party.
–Nathan
June 28th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
Well, then, isn’t the title of Mr. Jacobs’ presentation a little condescending if he’s not actually a GP member. Anyway, I cannot come to the July meeting, but I would be interested in learning how much effort the Democrats are going to put toward the following issues:
1) Reintroducing the Four Pollutant Bill (nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, and carbon dioxide) to control power plant emissions. This will have a direct impact on the Mirant Plant in Dickerson.
2) Reintroducing the Cleaner Cars Bill, which would require Maryland to follow the higher vehicle emission standards that have been successfully adopted by eight other states, including New York and New Jersey.
3) Reversing the insane cuts to child and maternal health benefits made by the Ehrlich Administration, and addressing the severe cuts to foster care funding for at-risk youth.
4) Giving small businesses in Maryland tax-relief for healthcare expenditures and small, Maryland-based farmers tax-relief for marketing and selling fresh food products in under-served communities.
5) Insuring that Maryland gets voting machines that provide verifiable printouts of each vote (one receipt for the voter and one for the election judges to check against the computerized talleys.)
6) A living wage paid to all state contractors and subcontractors working on public projects.
7) State legislation that defines the limits of the state’s right to take private property for redevelopment purposes.
And everything that Tim said.
July 19th, 2005 at 1:44 pm
A quick reply in case anyone reads older Blog entries…
The GreenDems traditionally restrict their views to environmental activism.
We are against the ICC and generally support mass transit, intersection improvements, and HOV/HOT lanes as both greener and more cost-effective alternative methods of traffic congestion relief. A smaller number support limited road widening.
Alternative fuels are all supported by GreenDems, not just for cars but power plants as well, to include solar, ag-fuels, biomass, and wind power.
Smart Growth is strongly supported though some of us have expressed concerns about what I suspect is the inevitability of high density development around mass transit centers.
The title of the talk wasn’t condescending as much as it might have been presumptuous. Where do I get off telling Greens what constitutes “Vital Work”? I can’t and didn’t expect to. I simply hoped you might agree. The talk suggested the potential synergy that could be achieved by higher visibility of third parties (including Reform and Libertarian) in civic groups that are suffering from domination by Democrats. Groups such as Sierra Club, Democracy for America (DFA), MoveOn, and Common Cause would benefit greatly from ideas brought in by third party members, open the Democrat members’ minds to the benefit of third parties in general, raise the profile of the third parties thereby garnering interest by the general public, and giving these worthy organizations support when accused of being little more than mouthpieces for the Democratic party.
What do Democrats in general plan to do about the issues raised in the previous log entry? Not a whole lot, I’d wager. The Montgomery Green Democrats supports all the environmental items mentioned, but too often the Blue-blood Democrats worry about getting the L word attached to them and they slide to the back-burner. Efforts to right our party’s course have been thankless and difficult.
Due to our focus on environmental issues, the Green Democrats, as a group, express no opinion about living wage bills, healthcare issues, support for the needy, or eminent domain issues (outside those that destroy greenspace.)
While Green Democrats does not take a stand on voting machines, every member to the last supports verifiable paper receipts. After all, what good is it to vote for environmentalists if Diebold decides who wins?
Our meetings are 7:30pm every 4th Monday at Davis Library in Bethesda. Everyone is invited and it would be great to see you, but going back to the first point, I’d really love to see Greens popping up everywhere. DFA is close to my heart and I fear it is withering from too much fealty to the Democratic party and risks losing its roots as a group dedicated to furthering progressive causes, not just parties that pay lip service to those causes.
Thanks for your time on July 9th, it was great to meet everyone.
–Bill Jacobs