American Kitchen –

Busy Sunday Day.  So take a depth breath before reading this post because it will be almost the same size as  food portions they serve here in USA 🙂

Woke up, and along with Faller family went to West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church to have my presentation on  fracking and what is happening in Romania regarding this issue. A large number of people attended which made me a  little bit nervous.

The presentation went very good, and I had a lot of questions from the public, as they were  really interested to find out about Romania history, about the legislation we have on fracking, about political  context and what  role European Union is playing. Nickie J Antonie, State Representative of 13th House district  atented the presentation, along with Food and Water Watch Members. Also, an american with Romanian roots, John Pais,  from the Communities for safe and Sustainable energy was there at the presentation.

Afterwards, FaCT – Faith Communities Together (for Frac Awarness)  had a meeting to establish next steps for the  antifracking fight. I will write you a small fragment of their mission :
„As members of faith communities in Ohio, we will work together to protect God’s creation from the hard caused by the  extraction of resources as oil, natural gas, coal, and other non-renwable sources of energy. We will do this, by :
-working to educate the public about these hards
-working to end the exploatation of workers and landowners involved
-encourage faith communities not to lease their faith community-owned lands for fracking and to warn their members
-mobilizing faith communities to help pass federal, state and local laws with protect our water and air, as well  as human health and safety”.

What resulted from the meeting :
-need to network/collaboration with other organizations
-create media stories in order to gain more publicity on the issue
-educate : address the health care arena
-leadership meetings across North East Cleveland – organize in order to gain more power
-stop the leasing process – CELDF
-look at NY experience (Governor Cuomo extented the moratorium, as health issues need to be addressed)

After the meeting finished, this interesting man,Greg Coleridge, from American Friends Service Committee, grabbed me  for lunch, as a good excuse to introduce me in American Constitution history and about the role corporation plays in society, and how their  influence must be stopped. He explained me the differences between laws and grounded rules. He explained me about how
corporations have the right to get involved in politics by hiring lobbyst to influence legislators  to vote for or  against differentlaws  or by money. In this way, Companies have the power to envade the communities.

So, after the Citizens United Act, they started Move to Amend (movetoamend.org), that is a project of the Campaign to  Legalize Democracy. In citizens United v FEC, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the wealth elite against the interest  of the American People. Corporations can now spend unlimited money to buy the elections. The Court has legalized  corporate bribery of ellected oficials.

So they Proposed the following amendament :

I’ve got from Greg a really nice souvenir that says „A corporation is not a person. Money is not speech”. I’m thinking  to do the same with our fracking campaign back in Romania.It’s a very good idea. :)He finished his speech by telling me a quote from Henry David Thoreau :” For every 1000 people hacking at the branches,  there is 1 striding at the root”

Dan Phillips picked me up from the meeting had with Greg. On our way to his home (as he and Kathy, his wife are hosting me for the next 3 nights), he told me lots of things about what is happening in Painesville, about the Ohio State budge crisis, and also explained me how the budget thing going on. Didn’t get yet to take some pictures of their beautiful old house that is close to the woods. But I promise tommorow I’ll do that.

After I left my lugage went with Dan to meet, Mark Citriglia, from Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. (www.neorsd.org).Mission ? : ” to serve our customers by leading effective wastewater and stormwater management that  protects the health and environment of our region while enhancing quality of life.”Mark is living the same neighborhood with Dan. What they did, was to test the water before the fracking process  starts. They did this in couple of location, and by now everything is ok with water. If the process of fracking will start,  they will do another round of tests, to see if the water status will be the same or it will change. Afterwards, we’ve been and see another abandoned vertical drilling well, that was 500 feet away from his property.

We came back, and took Kathy and went to help St Vincent Organization, from Saint Mary Catholic Church to run down packages of blankets for homeless people. All went fast, as many volunteers attented. I took advantage of being there  and learned more about the activities  they are doing there with hispanic communities : english lessons, computer lessons, assitence and help in any problem they confront.

Broadview Heights and Downtown Cleveland

Broadview Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. Dorothy Faller, my host family took me there to meet Tish O’Dell, from Madison (Mothers Against Drilling in Our Neighborhoods).
As you can see, we have another town where another organization  is struggling with natural gas issues. So what is the problem here ?

Well, in the city and the surroundings , as Tish was telling us, there are approximately 90 wells – that means that 25% of the City surface area is occupied by Oil/gas wells (well sites are at least 20 acres and are not perfect squares).

Most well sites include their own storage tanks.  The city has vested interest or total owner-ship in about 15 wells

I’ve got one flyer from Tish that says the following : „Over 75 years ago, our Supreme Court held that communities have the RIGHT to enact local laws to protect „public health, safety, morals and general welfare”.  What Broadview Heights citizens want is to take back control on their city.

They proposed a Bill of Rights – Issue 29, that citizens of Broadview Heights can vote for during the general elections. YES for the Bill. What is the Bill about ?

Shall Article II of the Charter of the City of Broadview Heights be amended to add a Community Bill of Rights which provides for the right to pure water, clean air, peaceful enjoyment of home, the existence of natural communities, a sustainable energy future and self goverment by banning most commercial oil and natural gas extraction as well as the storage, transportation or depositing of oil and gas drilling waste products within the city of Broadview Heights ?

YES is the answer 🙂

We talked about many other issues that the community is  confronting, what is the local authorities position on the issue, and how different companies  have strategies in order to facilitate the process of drilling in communities. They  are very smart ! They go first to schools, churches and townships to ask for leasing land. They know these institutions need money, and also know that once they convinced them to lease, it will be much more easier to convince the ordinary people.

This is how I found out, how natural gas is extracted right close to churches or right in the middle of the picnic area of high schools. Personally, it was a shock for me.

After meeting Madion, I went the Dorothy and Dolph downtown Cleveland where  I got the chance to visit the new building of MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland). Afterwards I’ve been with Vanessa from Neogap and her husband to the Cleveland Orchestra.

It is said that the Cleveland Orchestra is one of the best in the world. Well, I got this evening to listen to STRAVINSKY – Pétrouchka, PAULUS – Violin Concerto No. 3 (WORLD PREMIERE)
and RAVEL – Rapsodie espagnole! Impressive ! Not to mention the beautiful art deco hall !

 

MOCA.

 

 

 

 

Day one. „We don’t want to wear you out”

Diary

Day one. „We don’t want to wear you out !”

Few days before going to USA, at the Professional Fellows programe  of the US State Department,through the Great Lakes Consortium for International Training and Development.

As it is an informal storytelling process, patterns of describing my experience encountering American culture willbe slightly different. and very complex patterns, as I’ll have the opportunity to find some quite interesting American people. And quite a lot. 🙂 And NEOGAP is responsible for this. 🙂 Thank you !

In a more concrete way part of the experience in Cleveland area will include :

-Short speaking engagement at the West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River, Ohio.
at the „Morning Forum” – informal remarks about the Romanian context in regard to fracking.This will include : parts of legislation (law 544/2001, HG 2004 – governamental deciision that give licence to Private Companies to start processes of exploration and exploatation of shale gas, about local authorities and the encountered problems.The informing campaign that Vira Ngo started was with lot of learnings) – October 14.

My disertation paper coordinator would laugh reading this. in his belief fracking is a very complex process, thus the process of getting the information and digesting it should be carefully managed. and his question, how can you translate this complex process to ordinary people that never heard of fracking? and now I’m asking myself a similar question : how can I address the encountered process of learning in frackingto people living in the rural area of Vaslui county? community organizing might be an answer. but how does it work community orgazing in a village, with mostly old population living in poverty? Based on national data, Vaslui county is the poorest in the country(population density 86/km2).most of the people in the rural area work agriculture (subsistance). Almost 400 villages take their water supplies from  ground water supplies through  their 21000 wells, through traditional wells. must I mention that this year was a drought season?

– Gwen, is planning something in Portage County – on 18th of October, mentioning that „this is a time when Ohiois in the midst of the shale gas boom”. I am wondering how it is to be in the Ravenna City Park of Dreams.

– On the schedule there will be some spending time with Broadview Heights group, Madison, who have  started a ban on fracking. Don’t ask for more details. More surprises and knowledge to come soon.:)

– Door to door informing campaign.Talking with people about fracking.

-Township Trustee meeting- Monday October 15 at 7:00. soon i’ll have some minutes from a prior meeting.I remember of Bucharest township meetings, with Oprescu mayor, an independent candidate, that keeps citizens in a separate room, connected with plasma and cameras at what is happening at the meeting. Call this democracy and participation? And this is happening in Bucharest, european capital.

– Saturday , October 13, might go see „Koch Brothers Exposed ” film.

But first I have to experience all this and tell you more. Keep you updated!

Community Organizing

Community organizingis characterized by the mobilizing of volunteers. Staff roles are limited to helping volunteers become effective, to guiding the learning of leaders through the process, and helping to create the mechanism for the group to advocate on their own behalf. Community organizing almost always includes confrontation of some sort. When the people who want something get themselves together to ask for it, often the people who could give them what they want get jumpy. Community organizing strategies include meeting with corporate or government decision makers to hold them accountable for their actions, designing programs for others (not the group) to implement that meet the needs of the community, and aggressive group action to block negative developments or behaviors (for example, highway construction that leads to neighborhood destruction).

Community Organizing:

People Power from the Grassroots

By Dave Beckwith

The Needmor Fund

dbeckwith@needmorfund.org

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