Hello,
These are the minutes, the notes, from last night's general meeting. Please read. Pay special attention to the "Needs" section. We need people to step up, to take on one of these roles. We need people to step up and become leaders. That can be you! For instance, we need a head of the Education Committee. Any educators out there? This would be a good fit for you.
350 Chicago General Meeting
Hybrid in person and through Zoom
Monday March 13th, 2023
1. Roll call
Big thank you to Loyola’s Student Environmental Alliance, especially Brian Chui, for setting up this space for us!
In Person:
- Alex (Divestment)
- Rich (Communications)
- Marshall (IL Clean jobs coalition liaison)
- Abby (Communications & Social Media)
- Joseph (Outreach Committee)
- Brian (Loyola)
- Josh (New Member)
-
Zoom:
- Jeff Green
- Babette Neuberger (requests Modelo Especial!)
- Hannah Langhoff
- Nivida (“Nikki”) Thomas (New Member)
- Ricardo Pierre-Louis
- Christine Skolnik
- Alex Bieniek
- Carter Robinson
- Cathi White
2. Updates- Campaigns/Activities
Buildings
Kaitlin, [email protected]
Alex: 2 bills coming up:
- Electric- require new buildings all electric
- Decarb- require large buildings to be more energy efficient
Clean Jobs Coalition working on this.
Chicago, Oak Park, Evanston all have bills in the works.
Divestment
Melissa [email protected]
Main thrust of 350 Chicago. Require pension funds for IL and Chicago to divest from fossil fuels.
Babette: Introduced bill in IL house. Didn’t get out of committee. Have to reintroduce in next session. Time to ramp up divestment campaign. Need to convince state reps to sign on and sponsor. Gaining more sponsors in house. Looking to get parallel senate bill and reach out to state senators. Planning to meet with treasurer to try to change his mind and bring him around as opposed to doing shareholder engagement. Looking to meet with pension boards/ labor allies. We tried to move to hold subject matter hearings over summer. Looking to give tutorial about campaign to senators and representatives over the summer.
Ricardo: History- City of Chicago divested from fossil fuels. It worked at the city level already!
Next Divestment meeting: March 20, 7:30pm (every 2 weeks, Mondays)
ComEd Franchise Agreement
Joseph- [email protected]
Joseph: Renegotiation with Comed. Without a formal contract since 2020, previous contract expired. New proposed contract is sub par. Final attempt to impose this with lame duck session, this Wednesday, City Hall 10:00am March 15th. Please attend or call in- let representatives know this is a bad contract and imposed in un-democratic manner.
Umbrella organization with more information about how to articulate: [email protected]. 312-744-6800 must call in by March 13th to register to call in.
Alex: Should take a vote on joining the Demcomed coalition. Will put a vote to the email list.
Lawsuit vs Fossil Fuel Companies
Jeff Green – [email protected]
In combination Chicago Climate Reality Project. 20+ other municipalities have initiated lawsuits re: damage from climate change or fraud. Andre Vasquez (40th Ward), 6 co-sponsors. Assigned to Health & Human Services committee. Meeting on Friday to talk about next steps. Runoff elections complicates the timeline. Chairman of Human Relations committee will no longer be on council. Currently Stop the Money pipeline representative. How to support: need people to write to alderman and support suit vs fossil fuel companies.
People v Fossil Fuels
Ebonee – [email protected]
3. Updates- Committees
Communications
Rich [email protected]
Reach out to communications to get out. We have multiple resources
- mailing list
- Website
- Newsletter
- social media
- physical media (posters, etc)
- etc.
News from other committees or general news (local, national, etc), let Rich know to include. Need writers. Want to expand scope of what communications committee can do. Example: Watching film on Standing Rock, Speakers, Panel Discussions, using events to encourage new members. Would be useful to talk about issues generally even if not necessarily tied to specific bill or specific action.
Abby: We also should be reaching out to non-members and other associated groups.
Rich: When you get your email in your mailbox, share it with “everyone you’ve ever met.”
* Always looking for writers for our newsletter! It’s not hard and not time-consuming. Let me or Ricardo know if you’re interested in writing something for the newsletter. [email protected];
Fundraising
Kaitlin [email protected]
Working with a consultant to get grants together. Trying to put together trivia fundraiser and recurring donor campaign.
Outreach
Joseph- [email protected]
Joseph: First meeting held, broad agreement for multi pronged approach: pamphleting, tabling at farmers markets, outreach to other organizations. We’ve done one tabling at film festival. Abby in process of producing new posters and 1-pagers to use at outreach events. In process of emailing farmers market and other organizations to determine where we can go.
Question for group: If people have suggestions for cafes or other spaces where we could place materials please email Joseph.
Transportation
Alex Bieniek- [email protected]
Meeting Tomorrow 6:00pm
4. Updates- Coalitions
Clean Jobs Coalition
Marshall: Clean Jobs Coalition liaison. We are a member organization technically. They have been advocating for clean jobs / climate justice for many years, instrumental in passing Climate & Equitable Jobs Act. 200+ Groups: unions, faith based, businesses, etc. Wants to implement the Illinois Climate legislation. Vote on steering committee. Should look to determine what 350 should bring to the coalition and what groups we feel we are aligned with. Other groups petitioning to be added to the Clean Jobs Coalition.
Climate Safe Pensions
Babette:
National day of action 10 S Dearborn, Chase Bank Plaza. March 21 11:00-2:00 vs Chase Bank / Dirty banks financing fossil fuel industry. By third act Illinois. Looking for posters and speakers.
CSPN (Climate Safe Pension Network)- contracted to do analysis, 10 year lookback on how much pension funds have lost due to holding onto fossil fuels. Example: Colorado they have lost billions by holding onto fossil fuel investments. Updating data and analysis soon on funds and pensions.
Multiple divestment actions across country, many states and cities. Babette will circulate summary. CSPN has many resources we can use.
IL Environmental Council
Kaitlin
No updates.
IL Green New Deal
Ricardo: Coalition with Fridays for Future. Climate strike in the loop in middle of hail/snowstorm! 40ish people. Thanks to everyone who attended. Group of enviro justice organizations across Chicago, diverse group. Social housing campaign. Trying to create sustainable, social housing for everyone. Socialist type of housing program, anyone can live there, as opposed to market based housing. Legislation on this will not be introduced until 2024 at earliest.
5. Needs
Alex: Education Committee- Want to restart monthly speaker series.
Participant in state level IL environmental council- umbrella for other environmental groups. Monthly state level calls, we need people to attend.
Want to coordinate with other groups on diversity equity inclusion.
Action Coordinator: Try to coordinate actions with other groups
Let Alex know if any of the above appeals to people: [email protected]
6. New Members
How to involve new members better?
Monthly info session- before education meetings or general meetings. Meetings at cafes to share information about 350.
Invite to tabling at events. Easy way to plug in new members.
Want to make sure meetings shared with listserv / group calendar.
Involve colleges / universities.
Social events are useful.
7. Brainstorming
Collective google calendar (Abby).
Rich: could put more info on website even just about general climate change issues to inform
Abby: Regional specific climate issues (Midwest / Chicago specifics)
Note we need things in the newsletter/social media that is local.
8. Upcoming Events
National day of action 10 S Dearborn, Chase Bank Plaza. March 21 11:00-2:00. Organized by Third Act.
Earth Day actions- keep eye out for various actions
Climate Change Conference- Loyola Lakeshore campus (we will pass out Zoom link), 6-8pm, Thursday March 16th.
Potluck Dinner soon
Next General Meeting in about a month (mid-April likely, no exact date)
