More on critical Public Regulation Commission primary elections and an announcement of a potluck Community Conversation about Retake’s emerging proactive strategy to advance progressive policies in Santa Fe. We’ll break bread, create time for all to comment on our strategy and our platform, prioritize the policies within the platform, and make friends. Join us.
Reminder: Opportunity to support KSFR, your local public radio station. It is Pledge Week at KSFR and those donating $100 will be able to attend a food and wine reception at our house with special guests, Sen. Peter Wirth, Councilor Romero Wirth (I think there is a connection there, perhaps) and Mayor Alan Webber. I am told there are just 3 slots remaining, so give KSFR a call at 428-1393.
Retake Our Democracy Potluck Community Conversation: Discuss & Prioritize Our 24 Policy People’s Platform: A Path to Equity in Santa Fe. Thursday April 5, 5:30-7:30pm at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, 555 Camino de la Familia, Santa Fe, NM 87501. Enter from the backside (not facing the railroad tracks.
It took almost a year to develop, but now we have a 24-policy People’s Platform (developed in collaboration with a host of local and state ally agencies). It translated into Mayoral and City Council voters guide that was used by over 800 readers. Now, an action team is planning for how best to use the platform as a framework for advocacy. We are holding a potluck, Community Conversation to hear what you think of the policies and to share with you how we plan to build support for the most important of these policies. El Museo will be encircled with butcher sheets for each policy. You can nibble and nosh while touring the room and reviewing our platform. After we’ve had a chance to mingle and mull the policies, we will allow 1-2 minutes for everyone who wishes to speak about any one of the policies or to point out something we have missed. After all have spoken, you will be given colored stickies with which to vote for the policies that resonate most with you. We’ll leave time for the group to ruminate upon the priorities identified.
The development of a People’s Platform, the activity of the Local Action Team, the Mayoral and City Council Voting Guide and this opportunity for Community Conversation are all linked in an effort to create a forward-thinking agenda with a broadening base of support that will allow Retake to inform the City about policies that can advance equity rather than simply reacting to what the City proposes. We want this to be a constructive relationship and process, so Retake will share information with the Council proactively. Many Councilors taking the survey indicated a need for more information on some of the policies so we are doing the research and have already sent the city information about affordable housing approaches employing Community Land Trusts and we have sent them information from yesterday’s post about the small houses linked to social and job supports that operates in Austin to address chronic homelessness. Click here to read yesterday’s post that described the Austin-based program. Amazing.
Working proactively with the City is a process that will continue. We will also schedule meetings with Councilors with constituents from the Councilor districts leading those meetings. In this way, we hope to forge relationships based on respect, trust and the common goal of using research and best practices to inform policy formation. If you want to become part of that process, please join us for the pot luck. And please also ask a friend or two to join you. The Community Conversations potlucks will be an ongoing activity that will promote surfacing new ideas and generate relationships and community within Retake. Click here to RSVP via Facebook or write to me at Paul@RetakeOurDemocracy.org.
A Path to a Progressive Public Regulation Commission: Really! 
Meet Two Tremendous Candidates for Public Regulation Commission and Find Out How You Can Support Their Campaigns. April 9, 5:30-7pm. Santa Fe Modern, 1222 Flagman Way C, Santa Fe, NM 87505, map provided to make it oh-so-easy. A reception and Q&A with Janene Yazzie and Steve Fischmann, two very eco-friendly candidates for PRC Commissioner who are running against two Commissioners, Sandy Jones and Lynda Lovejoy, who have a history of voting with PNM and ignoring the strong recommendations of PRC Hearing Officers.
Retake feels that these races are almost as important as the race for Governor. The PRC plays such a pivotal role in determining our energy policy and it has been ‘owned’ by PNM for years. Electing Yazzie and Fischmann would flip a switch in ways that are almost unimaginable. Instead of PNM getting its way on every energy decision, suddenly they would be strongly opposed and pushed to completely reverse course. We are providing food and drink and so we need a pretty good head count, so please click here to RSVP on Facebook or write to me at paul@RetakeOurDemocracy.org. I really hope you can join us for this reception. Roxanne and I mean it when we say this is an opportunity that will not come again soon. We need to seize it and make sure both Janene and Steve are elected to the PRC.
Retake Our Democracy at Netroots Nation? Roxanne and I will be taking a Road Tour from mid-June through the end of August. We organized the tour around plans to be in New Orleans the first week of August so we could attend Netroots Nation, as it is the largest annual conference for progressives, drawing nearly 3,000 attendees from around the country and beyond. As we looked at their website we noted that they were accepting applications to present and we thought that this would be a great venue for describing our 2018-2019 Election and Legislative Strategy, so we submitted an application to do a training on how the Roundhouse Advocacy Team developed that strategy. Click here to review the strategy.
Whether we are selected or not, we’ll be there to soak up how other advocates throughout the nation are advancing justice and equity. A part of the selection process is online voting that goes from now through April 3. You can vote every day, too and it only takes about 30 seconds to do. Less after the first time you do it. Click here to vote for our training. click the box for trainings and then write “Retake” in the search box and our training is the only thing that comes up. With over 450 applications, there are no guarantees we will be selected and the voting isn’t the only factor in the selection process, but it certainly is a factor. So if we get significant support from, the judges may be influenced.
If you haven’t taken the Speak Up New Mexico! Legislative Priorities survey, please do so today to tell your legislators what bills you want to see become law. Click the blue button at left to take the survey. And if you want to get involved with our 2018-2018 Roundhouse Advocacy Team, we meet on Thursday from 4:30-6:30pm at New Energy Economy, 343 E. Alameda. To RSVP, just write to me at paul@RetakeOurDemocracy.org. If you want to read about our 2018-2019 Election and Legislative Strategy, click here. We are quickly approaching 1000 survey completions!
Categories: Election, Political Reform & National Politics
I strongly support Mr Fischmann. His progressive speaking truth to power is evident if you know him. He is poised intelligent passionate compassionate approachable thoughtfull sees the big picture and plays the game with dignity and an eye on long term results the benifit the the people rather than line the pockets of the pay day loan companies and large corporations that seek to profit rather than serve the public good.
I hope you plan to attend the event on the 9th. You will be equally impressed with Janene Yazzie. Thanks for your comment. If you do decide to come on the 9th, please bring friends.
“It’s the economy, stupid.” If you remember, it is a phrase used during the Clinton campaign in 1992. But the truth is that it was not used as an opening to understand the continuous creation of socioeconomic class differences in our ‘democracy’ as well as the continuous creation and nurturing of the super rich class, plutocrats. Or the continuous impoverishment of the bottom 80% of us, especially those living on minimum wage, or below, as LEGISLATED by the federal, state, and city governments of our ‘democracy’. As far as I know the highest minimum wage in the nation is Seattle’s which is set at $15 an hour. However, I challenge myself and everybody else to attempt to live an emotionally and physically HEALTHY life on 15 dollars an hour!.
Our People’s Platform has the same aim as the much older people’s platform or the “Omaha Platform” (1892) http://www.robmacdougall.org/9050/OmahaPlatform.pdf
Question. Why, after almost a century and a half, are we still threading the same waters the neglected (by our ‘democratic’ governments) and disadvantaged did before us?
Answer. “It is the Economic Model, … my friend!
As we have been saying for decades, we need a PARADIGM change. But which paradigm? The one we were all born into, the one our parents and foremothers and forefathers, were born into. The paradigm that created the Phrao’s empire, the Roman empire, all the European empires, the British empire, and of course, the most powerful and largest of all empires so far created by homo sapiens, the US empire (now in decline).
As your humble messenger I can tell you that there are at least a dozen different economic models sponsored by an equal number of people who have been studying this very issue. And, we can easily find on the internet many hundreds of on the ground experiments attempting to implement humane and sustainable economic models that work for Main Street not for Wall Street, as capitalism and neoliberalism do.
The challenge for all of us, all born into this inhuman economic model, and here I include our new city government, is to take up the challenge and create a new economic architecture designed specifically to END POVERTY IN SANTA FE. We need to stop taking poverty for granted -as we do with our passive acceptance of the plutocracy that feeds on the rest of us.
eduardo