Economic and Social Justice IOT MInutes, July 14, 2012

PDA Tucson, Economic and Social Justice IOT,

Saturday, July 14, 2012, 10 AM – Noon,

Ward 6 Council Office

Minutes

Members Present:  Richard Brodesky, Warren Deming, Jim Hannley, Leslie Hunten, Phil Lopes

1. General Matters

    Approval of Minutes--approved

    Announcements:

          Priceless on July 17 at the Hotel Tucson, St. Mary’s and I-10

          Solar Energy 101

         Letter Drop on July 19—PDA Tucson will be delivering a letter to Ron Berber.  It is being drafted.  Richard will contact the Tucson International airport to see how Barber’s vote on recent airport subsidies affects TIA.  He will report to Phil. 

2. Follow-ups

    Article about Phoenix and Banking from Star 7/13/12 http://azstarnet.com/business/local/phoenix-to-pour-up-to-m-into-local-banks/article_a1e67dce-9eb6-5b6b-96ec-7a77681ba186.html

Phoenix will be investing $50 million in local banks.  This may be a preliminary step towards a municipal bank.  Phil has called Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton to get further information. 

    Meeting with Councilperson Uhlich        Jim, Phil

The meeting went well, especially with the help of Marc Armstrong, the Executive Director of the Public Banking Institute, who participated via telephone.  Phil recommends that Marc be asked to “sit in” on all such subsequent meetings.  Councilperson Uhlich was quite receptive and discussed possible intermediate steps.  She asked for information which Jim has since sent her.  It will be crucial to stay in touch with her assistant David Higuera. 

    Steering Committee Meeting                  Jim, Phil

We are looking at participating in an effort to educate people about the Affordable Care Act. 

3. Continued Collaboration with Rep. Fillmore

    He asked us to be ready to join him in the late summer. 

          Let’s see if he wins the primary.  If so, we’ll contact him after Aug. 28^th. 

4. Messaging

          We understand that messaging is very important.  We brainstormed some effective ideas and will discuss messaging at every future meeting. 

5 New Projects

          We will be looking at the Financial Transaction Tax, The recent Oregon Tax Initiative, and even a possible Junk Food Tax. 

          We are concerned about Pima County Community Services Dept.’s failure of a performance objective concerning older youth.  We will be looking into this and the implications, if any. 

          We also discussed the minimum wage / living wage.