Portage County: Bob Gifford Sustainability-based Campaign for District 10 County Board Seat
Adamant Green Party Member Bob L. Gifford has declared a local and sustainability-based campaign for residents of Portage County, Wisconsin. He is targeting his outreach to his wonderful community as he engages within government for the supervisory district 10 county board seat.
The unifying issue of this campaign is sustainability for Portage County, WI. This term is the basis of the "eco-municipality" movement to which Stevens Point, WI subscribed to in 2007; endorsed by the Wisconsin Green Party in that year. In a sustainable society you do not allow systematic inequality, poverty or permanent joblessness. You do not constantly encroach on nature- building up pollutants in the environment.
Bob spoke with Town of Hull Chair: John Holdridge, asking which issues concern Hull residents. The number one issue was groundwater protection. The situation with Well #11 should not have developed, had the two municipalities been cooperating and thinking sustainably with emphasis on environmental precautions regarding the best in mind for our citizens. On his suggestion, protection of private wells is a key issue for the County Board to address. It is administratively sloppy to have the current system of real estate development dependent on home ownership with private wells, given the reason of the current official inability to protect water quantity and quality in those wells.
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Report from the WIGP Fall 2015 Gathering
The Wisconsin Green Party had another successful Fall gathering in Milwaukee in November. Thanks to everyone who came and to our hosts at UW-Milwaukee and Community Uprise!
We elected a full slate of new officers, including Jose Contreras and Bruce Hinkforth as our new Co-Chairs; Mike McCallister as Recording Secretary; Dace Zeps as Corresponding Secretary; and Bobby Gifford as Treasurer. Dace Zeps, Greg Banks,and Bruce Hinkforth will continue as National Committee Delegates, and George Martin will continue as an NC Alternate Delegate. Congratulations and thanks to our new (and continuing) officers!
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WI Green Party 2015 Fall Meeting in Milwaukee Sat. Nov. 7
The Wisconsin Green Party Fall 2015 State Membership meeting will be held in Milwaukee on Saturday, November 7th.
At the meeting we'll elect new officers, set our 2016 Presidential nominating process, and discuss opportunities for Wisconsin Greens to advance our core principles of grassroots democracy, social justice, nonviolence, and ecological wisdom.
For more details and to RSVP, check out the 2015 Fall Meeting event page.
Green Wisconsin Newsletter: Spring 2015
The Spring 2015 Green Wisconsin newsletter is here! The new issue features articles on the proposed tar sands pipeline expansion, ending police brutality and mass incarceration, and Green candidates running in local elections. See the Spring 2015 issue of Green Wisconsin online.
Milwaukee Greens Endorse Wendell Harris for School Board
The Greater Milwaukee Green Party endorses Wendell Harris for Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) Director, District 2.
Wendell Harris’s life and work have embodied Green Party principles – among them social and economic justice, non-violence, diversity, and grassroots democracy.
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Four Lakes Green Party endorses local candidates for 2015 election
The Four Lakes Green Party has endorsed seven candidates for local office in Madison and Fitchburg.
Help us elect more Greens to local government by volunteering, making a financial contribution, and voting April 7th!
Samba Baldeh (Madison Alder District 17)
Samba Baldeh is a software engineer and community activist in Northeast Madison. He is running on a platform that includes expanding community policing and addressing the shortage of affordable housing. See Samba's website here.
Rebecca Kemble (Madison Alder District 18)
Rebecca Kemble is a worker-owner at Union Cab and President of the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives who lives on Madison's North side. Her platform includes neighborhood-oriented development, access to affordable healthy food, keeping neighborhood schools open, preserving green spaces, and more. See Rebecca's website here.
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WI Greens in the news - January 2015
The Vernon County Broadcaster recently published a feature on the Wisconsin Green Party, titled "Green Party looks to get past labels, grow locally". Read the article at the Vernon County Broadcaster.
Also, UW-Stevens Point student paper The Pointer published an article on a student trip to a frac sand mine near Black River Falls, as well as a town meeting where developers were proposing a new sand mine. The trip was co-sponsored by the Green Party, and WIGP treasurer Bob Gifford was quoted at length. Read the article at The Pointer.
Wisconsin Greens call for moratorium on tar sands expansion
Enbridge Energy, the corporation responsible for the largest inland oil spill in American history (dumping an estimated 1 million gallons of tar sands sludge into the Kalamazoo River system), is attempting to expand its pipeline system in Wisconsin to carry more tar sands than the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
On Tuesday January 27th, the Dane County Zoning and Land Regulation Committee will decide what conditions to place on the zoning permit for the proposed Line 61 pump station near Marshall.
The WI Green Party urges citizens of Wisconsin to call on our local governments to demand: -An Environmental Impact Study (EIS) for each county where the pipeline expansion runs.
-Environmental impact liability insurance in place before any further expansion in pipeline capacity or any additional lines.
-A moratorium on this expansion until all the details are properly legally secured, and residents of the affected counties have been fully informed of the potential health and environmental impacts.
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WI Greens: Re-Investigate Dontre Hamilton Killing, Stop Police Brutality and Mass Incarceration
From Michael Brown in Ferguson to Eric Garner in New York City to Dontre Hamilton in Milwaukee, there is an epidemic of police violence against unarmed Black men in the United States. In Wisconsin in recent years, we've also seen white men like Michael Bell killed by police, and white vigilantes kill Corey Stingley for shoplifting in suburban Milwaukee. This systemic pattern of excessive force has caused a sense of fear among Blacks even in routine encounters with officers, eroding the trust in law enforcement that is essential to keeping our communities safe. The problem of police brutality is inextricably connected to Wisconsin’s runaway mass incarceration of people of color, showing an urgent need to reform our criminal justice system.
These deaths are preventable. Measures can be taken to solve this problem. Among them include:
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Wisconsin faces threat of expanded tar sands pipeline
Most Wisconsinites probably don’t know that Wisconsin has a pipeline (Enbridge Line 61) that will be conveying more tar sands crude oil than was ever intended for the Keystone XL pipeline. And chances are most people haven’t heard of Enbridge, the pipeline company, or of its Kalamazoo River disaster of 2010. So let me fill you in.
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