Home - Events - Signs - Links - About - Contact

Meeting Notes - June 28, 2003

Present: Larry, Janet, Kay, Charles, Tim, Eric, Tom, Katherine, Abe and Gunnel

Abe started the meeting by saying this was time for celebrating, because of the Supreme Court ruling on the Texas law against sodomy.

1. 40-50 people attended the General SNOW meeting: Tim said there are too many issues SNOW is dealing with.Ê There is a upcoming peace conference in Chicago.Ê Gunnel talked to Ellen Finkelstein with SNOW.Ê The sense is that other neighborhood groups within SNOW are trying to focus on an issue, now that the war is on.Ê Gunnel talked to Ellen about getting King County to endorse a repeal of the Patriot Act.Ê All in our group agreed this would be a very good idea.Ê Katherine mentioned that the South Seattle SNOW group is focusing on immigrants rights and people being held in jail without char ge under the Patriot Act.Ê Tim said Austin Texas has information on their successful work passing a resolution to repeal the Patriot Act. Tim will post their website.Ê It was expressed that SNOW needs a stronger Coordinating Committee.Ê Gunnel mentioned that SNOW is working quite intensely at this time to become a public entity.Ê

2. The Fremont Forum was said to have been a good gathering where there was a lot of talk about the Patriot Act.Ê Rita Zawaideh, of the American Arab Community Coalition in Seattle was there and spoke.Ê The experience of the Hamoui family who live in Lynnwood and have a small grocery store in Edmonds was shared at the forum.Ê The oldest Hamoui daughter, the Mother and Father were held for over 9 months in the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detention following September 11th, without formal charges ever filed against them.Ê The INS official who finally released them has been demoted as a result.Ê Tim said a l ocal police officer spoke of how he had been demoted for speaking up in support of immigrants.

3. Gunnel contacted Olympic View Church as a place to hold our venue. ÊOur group talked about whether to hold the ACLU talk on the Patriot Act in July.Ê It was agreed that people are not that active to attend big meetings in the Summer and we would plan it for September.ÊÊ A committee was formed for this planning to include Kay, Janet, Tim, Gunnel and Tom.Ê It was agreed to schedule the next Middle East talk by Abe and Tom (The Abe and Tom Road Show) on the 29th of July, since this could be accomplished without as much planning.Ê Tim said he was talking to his friends in the Mercer Island SNOW group about our present ation on the Middle East.Ê He planned to attend their next group meeting on July 10th at 7PM and talk to the whole group about Abe and Tom presenting to them.Ê Eric said we really need to get the word out to other SNOW neighborhood groups to see if they would be interested also.Ê Church groups were also mentioned as a potential audience. It was mentioned that Jack Olive at University Methodist Church is involved in the situation in the Middle East/Israel-Palestine and could be approached.

4. Katherine talked to our group about depleted uranium weapons.Ê She is working to put renewed pressure on Congressman Jim McDermott, asking for an investigation into this issue.Ê She told us the McDermott sponsored bill has died in Committee.Ê Abe and Gunnel offered to add a note about the McDermott bill with the Doug Rokke ?Depleted Uranium? video tapes they are distributing.Ê Katherine offered to put together a FAQ letter about the health affects of depleted uranium (D.U.) to accompany the tales also.Ê Abe was happy to report that 200 tapes were distributed in the past 2 weeks and he had just ordered the additional batch of 100. Ê Eric will add a link to information on D.U. on our website

5. Announcements: A relative of congressman Jay Inslee is working to plan a coffee hour with him at the Shoreline Center at 175th? on Monday July 26th at 7PM.Ê This relative lives in Shoreline and is looking for help planning this event.Ê Gunnel mentioned Kathy Kelly who just returned from Iraq will speak with Gerri Haynes on t he health affects of the war at the University Methodist Church on July 13th at 7PM.