Metro Organizer: Equitable Development Updates
January 21, 2009
From the Executive Director I Thoughts on the Opportunities and Challenges Before Us
Event I Metro Organizer Networking Session: Learn from Our Organizing Wins
Event I Organizer Roundtable: The Intersection Between Electoral and Issue Organizing
Training I Art for Justice
Training I EXCO Class Registration Now Open
Article I Reversing Laws that Encourage Sprawl
Policy Brief I Building Sensible Communities
Job Opportunity I Minnesota Field Organizer - Transportation for America
Job Opportunity I Community Development Project Manager/Senior Project Manager - Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
From the Executive Director I Thoughts on the Opportunities and Challenges Before Us
Yesterday's inauguration of President Barack Obama was an historic moment, and a victory for people of color and their allies who for decades have been fighting for equity in this country. Yet as we savor this moment, we know that the work is far from done. As President Obama said in his inaugural address, now is the time to begin making the difficult choices about how to put our country back on the right track.
That’s why we were so encouraged last week to hear Obama’s plans for the upcoming economic stimulus package. In a speech at George Mason University, he outlined a plan that called for job creation through strategic investments like retrofitting 75 percent of public buildings and 25 percent of residential homes, manufacturing green and renewable energy technologies, and building new infrastructure. The plan emphasizes creating or saving more than 3 million jobs, jump starting our economy, preserving our environment, and reducing our dependency on foreign oil. We encourage our new president and our Minnesota congressional delegation to push even farther by ensuring that there are guarantees for the stimulus bill to benefit women and minority contractors, to train workers to enter new vocations and to set local hiring goals.
The economic stimulus bill will be an immediate opportunity to achieve these goals, but there will be a number of federal initiatives under consideration this year that can – and should - complement it. Our leaders should look for these opportunities in legislation like the transportation bill and the climate change bill. Changes must be made to make federal funding of transit projects more nimble – so projects like the Central Corridor LRT can be better designed to meet community needs. Back home, the Minnesota Legislature and the Minnesota Green Jobs Task Force should keep working not only to put federal stimulus funds to use quickly, but to use those funds strategically to create jobs, to invest in healthy communities and to benefit people who need it most.
People who share this vision for a healthier Minnesota can take action now. Join HIRE Minnesota, a coalition of community groups led by Summit Academy OIC that is bringing thousands of Minnesotans together to demand that government investments result in healthy communities and living-wage jobs for people of color. I encourage you to come to HIRE Minnesota’s next town hall meeting (Tuesday, January 27 at 6:30 pm at Lao Family Community of Minnesota in St. Paul) to learn how you can become involved in the campaign.
Russ Adams
Executive Director
Event | Metro Organizer Networking Session: Organizing Wins!
3 - 5 pm
Thursday, January 29
Central Corridor Resource Center, St. Paul
The Alliance invites metro-area organizers to our next Metro Organizer Networking Session. Come share your organizing wins from 2008 and join in the discussion on how to build our future organizing strategies from the experience gained from our victories. What did we learn? What’s next? The last hour of the event will be dedicated to informal networking. Bring your cards, program information and date books to set up one-on-ones with other organizers.
This event is free, but RSVPs are required. Light refreshments will be served. Please note the venue change to the Central Corridor Resource Center.
Event I Rethinking Housing: Designing and Building Affordable, Sustainable Housing throughout the Twin Cities Region
2 - 4 pm
Monday, February 9
Dorsey and Whitney, Minnesota Room, Suite 1500, 50 S Sixth Street, Minneapolis
Please join the Family Housing Fund and other partners for an important keynote presentation and panel discussion on rethinking housing in our region. The current regional and national economic challenges require us to rethink how we can deliver affordable and sustainable housing for the region now and in the future, and to examine the assumptions and terms under which we have all been operating for the last 40 years. RSVPs are required and space is limited.
Event I Organizer Roundtable: The Intersection Between Electoral and Issue Organizing
Noon - 1:30 pm
Wednesday, February 11
Alliance for Metropolitan Stability, Minneapolis
Come join in the dialogue about incorporating lessons from recent electoral organizing efforts into planning for issue-based campaigns. Regional leaders will engage organizers in a discussion about their get out the vote efforts in the last election and how they are using the connections they made with community members to develop new organizing strategies and campaigns.
The discussion will be led by:
Amalia Anderson, Mainstreet Project Director
Hashi Shafi, Somali Action Alliance Executive Director
Amee Xiong, TakeAction Minnesota Hmong Community and Political Organizer
Organizers are encouraged to bring a lunch. Organizer Roundtables are free, but an RSVP is required.
Training I Art for Justice
7 - 9 pm
Thursdays, Feb 5 - March 26
Articulture, Minneapolis
Art has been used throughout history as a tool for social change. Using community organizing philosophies and techniques, participants in this class will map individual assets within the group to create a collective piece. Through this experience, participants will learn the basics of organizing and how the arts can be used as a tool for social reform. To sign up, call ArtiCulture at 612-729-5151 or visit www.articulture.org.
Training I EXCO Class Registration Now Open
EXCOtc is a collective of Experimental Colleges in the Twin Cities that shares a vision of a better world, offers free and open classes and is building a community around education for social change. Register online for winter classes at www.excotc.org.
Article I Reversing Laws that Encourage Sprawl
Take any great place that people love to visit. You know, those lively tourist haunts from Nantucket to San Francisco. Or those red hot neighborhoods from Seattle’s Capital Hill to Miami Beach’s Art Deco district. Or those healthy downtowns from Portland, Oregon to Chicago, Illinois to Charleston, South Carolina. What do they all have in common? The mix of uses that gives them life are presently outlawed by zoning in virtually every city and town in all 50 states.
Relaxing zoning codes is the single most significant change that can be made in every town and city in America. It would aid economic development, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, foster healthier lifestyles, reduce dependence on foreign oil, protect open space and wildlife habitats, and reduce wasteful government spending. Read more from Rick Cole's article at citiwire.net.
Policy Brief I Building Sensible Communities
Minnesota’s quality of life is threatened by a lack of convenient transportation choices and sprawling development patterns that force Minnesotans to drive much more than we would like. Unless Minnesotans have more opportunities to live closer to their destinations, the need to drive will continue to increase along with personal costs, congestion and pollution.
Building Sensible Communities (PDF) will give Minnesotans more options to walk, bike, take transit and drive shorter distances to jobs and services—choices that will help citizens and local governments reduce air and global warming pollution, protect water quality and preserve more farmland and open space.
Job Opportunity I Minnesota Field Organizer - Transportation for America
The Transportation for America campaign is seeking a smart and motivated individual to grow a diverse state coalition and field operation as part of a national campaign. The Minnesota field organizer will direct the day to day expansion of, and tasks to build, a diverse coalition of prominent state and local organizations working in key regions of Minnesota to reform federal transportation policy.
Job Opportunity I Community Development Project Manager/Senior Project Manager - Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Are you interested in using your analytical, project management and communication skills to assist low- and moderate-income communities and consumers with problems of unmanageable debt, foreclosure and limited access to credit? The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is seeking a part-time community development project or senior project manager who can help its community affairs department work on bank- or community-led initiatives related to foreclosure mitigation and neighborhood recovery, financial literacy and consumer access to appropriate financial services in the Ninth Federal Reserve District.
To contribute a news item for the next Metro Organizer, please contact Tracy Nordquist Babler at tracy@metrostability.org.
Like the Metro Organizer? Donate to the Alliance. Get this from a friend? Subscribe to the Metro Organizer.
Alliance for Metropolitan Stability I 2525 Franklin Ave E, Suite 200 I Minneapolis, MN 55406 I 612-332-4471
