Thursday, January 05, 2006
SWOP homepageSWOP25 update
karlos says: Happy New Year, all.A lot is happening around SWOP this January. Among other things, folks are getting ready for our 25th anniversary celebration, which will take place on January 21. That reminds me, there's still time to send in a solidarity statement ($30 for 20 words) for our 25th anniversary commemorative program and ad book.
- Jovenes Unidos, our cultural youth group, are preparing to perform at the event with plenty of rehearsals scheduled between now and then.
- This evening swop's anniversary committee will meet to discuss the final push.
- The history retrospective is still being put together, and folks are going through old documents, flyers, posters, images, photos, etc. (Email me if you want to participate.)
- The commemorative adbook is also being laid out - send me your ad requests through the above link!
- Pajarito residents are turning up the pressure on state and local governments to afford the residents the basic services they so deserve. Meetings with state officials, county officials, lawyers, engineers and residents occur seemingly daily. (I'm really hoping to get a little more in depth report on this - the work is amazing.) There's also water rights negotiations taking place right now.
- Organizers were also gearing up around our solid waste work, until a hearing taking place this week was postponed. Testimony was to take place from communities (Wells Park, South Valley, etc.) affected by an overabundance of landfills in their neighborhood. The hearing was postponed after landfill administrators asked for it after the state environment department was slow in getting their paperwork together. The hearing will take place in May 2006.
- Youth organizers are meeting on a weekly basis to decide what to do for the year.
- Our economic justice campaign is also getting ready to come out with some workshops designed to make it easier for folks to understand taxes. There's also meetings with Bern. Co., orgs and others to come up with a comprehensive, accountable corporate tax and IRB program.
- Our participation in the state-wide fair wage legislation (raising the state's minimum wage to $7.50 an hour) is also amping up. We'll be targeting communities in ABQ and Eddy Co. with phone calls, door-to-door blockwalking, direct mail and some radio buys.
