Believe in Nevada Meeting Notes: 07-12-2020

MEETING DATE: 07-12-2020 START TIME: 5:30pm END TIME: 7:30pm

PARTICIPANTS: 10+

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DEFUND THE POLICE: Mariah brought up defund12.org. Defund12 has an email template for Reno citizens to lobby their elected officials to defund police. Consider modifying this email template to ask your local elected officials to lobby our local legislature for a 2nd Special Session focused on Defunding the Police.

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Non-police Community Resources Document - This ultimately needs to be curated by Believe in Nevada, but it’s an excellent starting resource.

Grassrootslaw.org has concrete plans to help communities defund the police. They have a spreadsheet available (see below) with a list of elected officials to lobby in all 50 states. We will send out this spreadsheet in the coming days.

How-to organize locally: https://docs.google.com/document/d/176TYSFydjPu6x87sRnkH5EFp1QDaMmh44jnt7Lwa7D0/edit?pli=1 Grassroots Law Slack Channel: https://act.grassrootslaw.org/go/glp-slack-invite

Nevada Local Elected Official Contact Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JrzHqtL-BBKx5oHXNiob2F4EQ7lQ6BH5cvXIF5zah24/edit?usp=sharing

Someone in the Black Lives Matter Reno-Sparks Facebook group shared this link to identify your Nevada State Legislators, congressional representative, and NSHE Board of Regents Representative.

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Jan suggested that we look into Norway’s model for policing.

Becky recommended a Vox article on What the Police Really Believe.

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LOCAL LAW/KEY PLAYERS: Nevada Local Elected Official Contact Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JrzHqtL-BBKx5oHXNiob2F4EQ7lQ6BH5cvXIF5zah24/edit?usp=sharing

_________________________________________________________________________ PRESSURE POLICE UNIONS: Jan discovered a police union in southern Nevada, but has yet to find a local police union. Jan still needs to connect with Karina about Karina’s family contact within our local court system. Paula advised that she would hook Jan up with our local ACLU office to further investigate our local police union if one exists.

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REMOVE ICE: The Parr protest to remove ICE from northern Nevada on Saturday 7/11 went well. The organizers have since adopted social media accounts on behalf of their organization. https://www.instagram.com/projectunity_reno/

https://www.facebook.com/ProjectUnityRENO

Organizers suggested a “invite a friend” system for the next protest (date, TBD).

Group members appreciated the community sharing + discussion + townhall-type format that followed the formal protest. As Believe in Nevada continues to grow and considers organizing our own protests, let’s consider prioritizing community discussion.

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JUSTICE FOR MICIAH LEE:

Paula shared an RGJ article about Miciah Lee. Note that the article may not be available to those who don’t subscribe to the paper.

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VISUAL PROTESTS: Natalie continues to post up at Bicentennial Park in downtown Reno (by the river) to produce art for the movement alongside the community. She is there on Monday’s from 11am - 2pm.

Natalie said that Aki has confirmed that Jub Jub’s will donate a wall to our racial justice mural initiative. Natalie also said that she got in touch with Geralda of Art Spot Reno, and Geralda suggested that we contact Joe C. Rock and Traci L. Turner. Joe may be too busy for the Urban Roots mural project, but maybe a collab in the future is possible.

Kaitlin and Kyle (with the help of Sydney) secured about 60 rocks for the group to paint. They plan to wash the rocks before the painting process begins.

Audrey contacted Ace Hardware for possible donations. They directed her to their corporate office.

Kaitlin still needs to contact Sherwin Williams for paint donations.

We are still looking for plywood, paint, paint brushes, spray paint, painters tape and financial donations.

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ART:

Kyle and Jamey collaborated on some graphics and copywriting.

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COMMUNICATIONS:

We discussed the need to “audit” our email contact spreadsheet, Signal groups, Believe in Nevada sub-groups, and our email distribution service.

We also discussed the need for “second requests” when resource materials submitted by group members have not been disseminated to the group at large. This is a labor/time problem, not a desire to suppress anyone’s valuable information and resources.

If you don’t see your material displayed on our website, social media or meeting recap, send a second request to a specific person on the Comm’s team: Audrey, Kaitlin, Kyle or Eiledon.

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GENERAL DISCUSSION:

There is disagreement about the “branding/verbiage” associated with the Defund the Police movement. Some have voiced concern about the verbiage of "Defund" and how accurate that really is. A group member offered a catch phrase that is more descriptive, "Defund the Police. Refund the community."

Many of us recognize the need for a city/county response when citizens need help with violent emergencies. Some type of police may be needed for this purpose. Many police personnel and resources ARE NOT used to respond to violent emergencies. The generalized goal (go to grassrootslaw.org for more comprehensive info) is to take away monies from the police and get that money reinvested in community resources and response teams that actually help people (mental wellness, social work, housing, education, food security, etc.) We discussed that all of us may not have identical points of view on this subject, but that internal discussion and coming together for the common good is important. We also discussed that every group member is free to lobby their local elected officials with whatever messaging they wish.