Point Loma & OB Dems - Notes from February Meeting - Money in Politics

February 28, 2021

You can watch a recording of the meeting on our YouTube channel here.

Ruth Rollins presided, first thanking Merrin Muxlow for 2 years of service as President. All positions were elected by acclamation.

Treasurer’s Report: Angela Hawkins, gave balance of account, number of members, and thanks for Sustaining Members Les Williamson, Marilyn Gibbs and Mandy Havlik.

Secretary’s Report: Minutes of January Meeting approved by unanimous consent (M: Angela Hawkins)

Bring to the attention of this club is an awareness of the jail deaths in San Diego County. 80% of jail deaths are from our black and brown communities. San Diego county jails are known as having the highest rate of inmate mortality of the six largest county jails in the entire state of California. And of those 80% that have died in custody from our black and brown communities have not been convicted of any crime. So essentially, jail has become a death sentence for them. And as a result, because of negligence on the part of the sheriff, millions and millions of dollars of taxpayers dollars have been paid out. Instead of going to proactive and preventative programs to incarcerate incarceration, we really don’t know what’s going on inside jails right now. The County Law Enforcement Review Board also known as CLERV announced the formation of a subcommittee recently to look into the jail deaths. However, this is the same CLERV board that dismissed 22 jail death cases without investigating, because they were overwhelmed with the number of jail death cases. And also have in mind that they don’t have the expertise, nor the staff to do any type of in depth investigation into the type of jail investigations that we need. Right now, what I what I’m asking is this club to participate in a resolution sent to our local or our state representatives asking them to conduct a state audit, a state audit similar to the hepatitis A outbreak here in San Diego, that our new mayor Todd Gloria asked for, specifically to what is occurring in our jail system. And what are the fixes? And I would ask that, you know, as a community, we don’t want to be known as the town in which you’re seeing the highest rate of inmate mortality deaths anywhere in the state of California and we could do a better job.

Great presentations but at the end of the day, the only way we are going to stop corporations from making unlimited donations. The independent expenditures committee to spend as much money as they want on any race at the local state or federal level is to overturn Citizens United. And that’s going to take a constitutional amendment. And there are two of them right now that have been proposed in Congress. So I thought to get a local working group to lobby our congress members here in San Diego County, to ask them to sign on to support these constitutional amendments. Because, yes, it may seem impossible to pass a constitutional amendment, but it’s what needs to be done.

Please sign up for this meeting on Friday and call your representative to support HR1 it’s super important.

San Diego Group to Overturn Citizens United & End Corporate Personhood - Friday, March 5th at 4:30pm - Facebook Event

As you know as a club we voted to support the recall Jen effort at our last meeting. And although what we’re doing over this meeting and the next two is to provide you with more information that will presumably help you decide, if you want to sign the petition that is now circulating. Some of us in the club, have those petitions, and we are willing to come to your house to have you signed the petition so that you don’t have to try to find somebody who’s doing it at the grocery store. And so we will provide that information to you if you are interested where you can email one of us and we will do it in a safe COVID appropriate way to allow you to sign in front of us as we’re collecting the signatures. So, just wanted to let you know and more information on that will come forth. Just contact the club at info@pointlomadem.org

California Teachers Association is having a virtual rally on Wednesday, March 10. At 4:30pm. It’s basically talking to a teachers at four different charter schools.

And on a lighter note…