News from the 10/8 meeting in Cambridge, and about the unified campaign combining town and city council resolutions, a state hearing and a binding ballot initiative, and about the new website, HomeFromIraqNow.org

The Town Meeting project is a campaign to organize local town resolutions as was done in Vermont (see their web page, www.iraqresolution.org ). Our web page is to help facilitate decentralized organizing. The time is tight, because the deadline to submit resolutions for the town warrants is fast approaching for many towns, and has already passed for some.

How can you help with the Town Meeting Project?

• The best thing you could do would be to take on the task of being the organizer for your town.  This requires printing out the Resolution (below), inserting the name of your town, printing out the Petition Form (below), getting ten or more signatures of town residents, and presenting the Resolution and Petition to your town officials by the town's deadline.
• Another thing you can do is ask around in your town for somebody who is willing to be the town organizer, and have them contact Jo Comerford at the AFSC (584-8975, afsc@crocker.com) office to sign up.
• Another thing is to help at the AFSC office (140 Pine Street, Florence), going through lists of names and looking for people who could be contacted for the job of town organizer.
• If you have references to articles (etc.) that you think might be appropriate as Resources to be listed below, please email them to Roger Conant (conant@ecs.umass.edu) for consideration.
• Contact Jo Comerford at the AFSC office (584-8975, afsc@crocker.com) and ask her what you could do to be helpful.

Background and History of the Town Meeting Project in Vermont

1. Momentum in the Green Mountain State article about "How 60 Vermont Towns Confronted the U.S. War in Iraq"
2. A to-do checklist for town organizers.  This is on the Vermont website and some of it is specific to the Vermont project, but it can be used as a general guide for this Massachusetts project as well.
3. A brochure prepared by the Vermont team - available as .pdf files (small files but cannot be modified: file1 and file2) and as Word files (large files but could be modified for Massachusetts: file 3 and file 4)
4. Final results II.rtf March 2005 Vermont Town Meeting Results

General Massachusetts Town Meeting Project Information

1. A Flyer: The Town Meeting Project: To Bring Home the Massachusetts National Guard: What Can I Do to help bring home the Mass National Guard?
2. A Guide to Massachusetts Town Meetings by AFSC, for people who want to learn more about active citizenry in their own town
3. Recorder article (June 2005) about Town Meetings where the proposal was brought up
4. News and internet articles with information regarding troops mobilized from Massachusetts and the human cost:
   
   • Cost of War Rises for Massachusetts (article, figures, pie chart from National Priorities Project)
   • [Sorry, the title and URL of this article have been lost] Posted Feb. 14, 2005
     Compiled by New Hampshire's Valley News, as a resource for journalists. It does not limit its figures only to National Guard, just saying "soldiers and Marines." It says 7,146 "soldiers and Marines" from MA have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, of which 28 have died, 3.9 per 1000. Also, though, it says MA has 8,958 people, 0.14% of the population (slightly lower than the nation's 0.16% average), serving in the National Guard.
     
   • "Mass. proposes boosting National Guard death payout"
     http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N21482568.htm
     22 Feb 2005, Source: Reuters
     "Massachusetts has sent almost 4,000 National Guard members overseas since Sept. 2001."
     
   • "138,000 Troops to Stay in Iraq Through 2005"
     http://64.177.207.201/pages/8_575.html
     May 5, 2004
     This is an article about plans to deploy "10,000 soldiers and Marines this summer to replace troops in the 1st Armored Division and the 2nd Light Cavalry Regiment." (but note that "this summer" refers to 2004)
5. A collection of articles on the Guard
6. National Priorities figures about the cost of the Guard to MA (see email response here from Anita at NPP)
   
7. National Priorities Project: look up the local cost of the war to many Massachusetts towns
8. Talking Points

Forms, Templates, and Contacts

1. Resolution of the Town of [XXXX] Concerning the Massachusetts National Guard and the War in Iraq (Word file)
   
2. Petition to place the above Resolution on the warrant for town [XXXX] (Word file)
   
3. A Petition Form for gathering signatures (Word file)
   
4. Comprehensive alphabetical list of every town in Massachusetts governed by Town Meeting, both Open Town Meeting and Representative Town Meeting (e.g. Amherst) (Word file)
   
5. Table of the towns listed above, with name/phone/email of the person(s) who is(are) the organizer(s) for each town.
   
6. Grid Updates.doc towns, contacts, results, etc.
7. Franklin County doc raw data about who/what for towns
8. counties4peace.doc Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden Counties: town and phone numbers
9. Text of statute authorizing the mandatory inclusion of citizen petition (of ten or more citizens) warrant articles on Town Meeting Warrants; (Word file)
10. Town Meetings sign-up sheet for collecting names of folks wanting wot work on the project