March Meeting Minutes

[Scott on the Spot]

Common Ground NYC: Minutes of March 26, 2011 Meeting

7 members in attendance
20 or so additional attendees

2 guests: Richard Biddle, Andrew Mazzone

President Scott Baker presided, conducting the meeting according to
the agenda that was distributed. All items were covered and
discussion was thorough and lively on all topics.

The President began with Round Robin introductions of all in
attendance. He then reviewed basic meeting guidelines and appropriate
behavior in discussion.

SB summarized the growth of the chapter in the past year and referred
to Rita Rowan, past president, to provide a brief history of the
founding of the chapter. He then reviewed the year’s accomplishments.

Of great interest was the nuclear power issue. Toby Lenihan presented
some data and urged the group to oppose extending nuclear power in
NYS. She will head up a subcommittee to determine the position CG-NYC
should take on this and on closing down the Indian Point Nuclear
Reactor which is 35 miles from NYC.

Alisha Ritt announced a meeting taking place March 28, to close down
Indian Point.

This topic was provocative and somewhat controversial. Details of the
discussion follow.

Ron Rubin, Chairman of Outreach subcommittee, presented some ideas on
how to proceed in forming this committee. His suggestions were to (1)
define issues, (2) develop materials, specifically a 1 page abstract
of the problem with possible solutions on the back of the page and (3)
to develop power point presentations on land issues and monopoly/money
issues/, recruiting members to make the presentations.

Simon Whelan offered to help with writing up the issues and proposals.

Allen Smith will head a subcommittee to create a website design. He
asked for some non-technical people to join, mainly to provide
critical review. A number of suggestions were made by attendees.

There was no volunteer for a Media subcommittee. The item was
tabled. However, Cay repeated his offer to reach Harold Channer to
get Scott on his show.

Scott would like a member to research the CAFR issue. It will need to
be someone with computer skills as this is highly technical. There
were no takers. Rita suggested we seek a volunteer through the net as
Alanna Hartzok did to work up her Earthrights course.

Scott reviewed the work done on the Rosenthal bill. Rita will
continue to follow-up and collect current status information.

Andrew Mazzone spoke on forming a Georgist political party. He
presented parts of a paper explaining why our economic problems keep
recurring and therefore a new party is needed to affect change.

This proved to be a complicated issue and an extended discussion will
be needed. Scott will schedule a separate meeting to discuss the
issue.

His main idea is that a neo-georgist party will stand for taxing all
monopoly and return the surplus to the people.

Andrew agreed to draw up a shorter statement of principles.

Scott reviewed his own paper on the subject of forming a political
party. Scott feels we will need a subcommittee to put up a mayoral
candidate and set up a section of the city to organize.

Guest Richard Biddle talked about the Landlords Game and provided some
personal experiences. A short bit of the movie: “Under the Boardwalk:
the Monopoly movie” was shown, which Biddle saw for the first time and
commented upon.

T-Shirt orders were taken by T-shirt committee Chair, Ralph Rivera
during the break.

A 30-minute film, “One Way to Better Cities,” (1969) was shown the
last half hour of the meeting. The film covers Land Value taxation and
was produced by the Schalkenbach Foundation and features some
prominent Georgists: Mason Gaffney, etc.

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Details of the nuclear issue discussion:

Toby cited Henry George. All natural resources belong to everybody
and every generation to come. Nuclear toxicity goes on forever,
threatening future generations, depriving them of the use of the
earth. She provided these Henry George quotes: “Clear the decks” and
“A free field and no favors”

Toby added that nuclear energy is too dangerous even insurance
companies won’t insure the industry and investors won’t invest. The
government is saddled with providing guarantees to the industry.
Henry George in Social Problems insisted that government must own all
the natural monopolies.

Alisha reported that plants are built for calculated obsolescence –
the plants are purposely fragile and will break down according to
plans. She added that there is serious danger of leakage from buried
waste. It can already be seen.

Ralph Rivera pitched for pursuing safety precautions. He claims that
better safety systems are in the experimental stage already.

Eric Johnson feels that the 30 billion dollars needed to build new
plants, if put into wind technology, would provide ample energy plus
safety.

Simon claims the Left is ignorant of energy realities – we are at
“peak oil” and need nuclear energy before we can come up with enough
new safe energy technology. This effort takes 40 years. Simon
insists that the real solution is to reduce the use of energy.
Eric asked how we can do that.

Richard Biddle commented that Georgists need to speak with a common
voice on nuclear energy issues.

Marty Rowland suggested a visit to Indian Point to get first hand
information.

Scott concluded the discussion with the comment that Common Ground-NYC
needs to research the issue further if we are to take a stand on
nuclear energy. Toby will head the subcommittee to do this research.