March for Our Lives St Augustine FL: Honored, humbled and in awe of our students

Indivisible St Johns, Women's March St Augustine, Ponte Vedra United for Progress and the Democratic Party of SJC were proud to provide some small measure of assistance to our remarkable students who put on the most successful March we've ever seen. We were happy to see members of ISJ out in force to support and march with them. They were covered by all 3 local TV stations. There'll be lots more to come but for now, check out this huge, heartening and hopeful event:

March for Our Lives St Augustine 3/24/18

Save the Date! 4/5 at the UU in St Augustine to meet and greet progressive candidates for Rutherford's seat. Preview below:

On March 18, 2018, our three candidates running for CD04 Rutherford's seat participated in a forum at Coastal Oaks Clubhouse in Nocatee. All three have confirmed to do the same at our general meeting at the UU on Thursday April 5 at 7PM. Take a look at the video from last Sunday and bring your questions and concerns for our candidates.

https://youtu.be/lfRK-bPDGkE

Student sign making and candidate forum Sunday night at Ponte Vedra United for Progress. You gotta love the students!

Last evening, PVUP hosted a sign making party for students in preparation for their march on 3/24, which they are supporting along with Womens March, the Democratic Party and Indivisible St Johns. Mia Cleary, student organizer spoke about the logistics for the march. Afterwards a candidate forum was held for 3 candidates vying for Representative Rutherford's seat: Monica De Paul, Joceline Berrios, and Ges Selmont.

First of all, you have to appreciate this hat:

And here's Mia. She's going to be a great leader one day:

And here are our candidates for CD 04:

Ges Selmont (speaking), Monica De Paul, (seated)

Joceline Berrios

All three candidates are scheduled for our 4/5 General meeting at the UU at 7 PM. Bring your questions and concerns and hear what they have to say. The Blue Wave is coming. It may just turn us purple but that counts!

Get ready to rumble! Other FL Indivisibles are doing this. We can do this too!

No seat in our district should be unopposed! We know our members are savvy and experienced. Help us find them.

Indivisible St Johns is seeking candidates for the Florida State House for whom we can enthusiastically campaign. No office should stand unopposed. Currently a progressive candidate is needed for FL House seat 17 to run against Cindy Stevenson, the incumbent who is currently unopposed. The incumbent who voted last year for the horrible education bill, did it again this year and refused to debate gun control when the students went to Tallahassee to plead with our legislators.

We are also seeking candidates who would like to launch their public service on the local level, as members of county or city governments or local school boards.

The candidates we seek are vigorous people with a record of achievement, an engaging life story that will tell well in our area, and the ability to connect well with people from all walks of life.

Are you such a person? Do you know that person? Do members of your family or social network know that person? Please have them contact us: indivisible.st.johns@gmail.com

Your local Indivisible groups offer a very strong network of more than 1,000 enthusiastic activists, eager to work hard to elect great candidates.

This is the year! If you have ever thought about running for a public office, now is the perfect time to put those thoughts into action.

#VoteThemOut STATEWIDE DAY OF ACTION 10 AM - 8PM Saturday March 10

We hope you can spare a few hours. Calls taking place at the Democratic Party HQ

71 South Dixie Highway, Suite 6 

St. Augustine, FL 32084  

                                                   Telephone: 904-825-2336

#VoteThemOut DAY OF ACTION

Statewide Virtual Phone Bank

Florida Democrats across the state will join in a virtual phone bank from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM on Saturday March 10.  Our goal is to educate likely voters on how Governor Scott and Florida Republicans once again sold out Florida families in order to appease the gun lobby and their donors and secure a commit to vote through the #IWillVote program.

Click Here to Make calls:                Click here for Talking Points

Show of Support  

We are looking to display a massive show of support and have hundreds of elected officials, DECs, Democratic clubs and caucuses and community leaders sign our #IWillVote pledge and stand with FDP and gun violence victims in our #VoteThemOut Day of Action.

Click here to take the Pledge

Spread The Vote! Here's what you need to know to do this well funded GOTV!

Hello Indivisibles!

A member of NEFL Indivisible (our coalition of 11 NEFL Indivisible Groups) went to the Spread the Vote training. Here's what he posted on Facebook for those of us who do not use that platform. We're looking for a couple people to take on a small campaign. Check it out and reply to Kat if you're interested:

This past Saturday Spread the Vote (STV) representative Kat Calvin (kat@spreadthevote.org) held a training and information session in Jacksonville. There she shared the following:

THE PROBLEM:
Mandatory voter ID is spreading, and many Americans lack photo IDs.
Currently there are:
34 Voter ID States
21 Million Eligible voters w/o Photo IDs
21 Strict Voter ID States

HOW IT WORKS:
STV sets up volunteer chapters in strict voter ID states to build partnerships and get IDs for local voters.
Starting a chapter in your area only requires 2-3 people willing to volunteer a few hours a week.

STEPS TO SPREAD THE VOTE:
Partner with local service orgs (partnering one on one, table events etc)
Get them IDs (documents, fees, transportation)
Voter Plan (education and GOTV)

Here's the thing, they seem well financed and are able to cover the cost of all the fees involved with making sure people get the appropriate IDs. Reimbursement occurs within 24 hours.

We are looking to setup chapter all across NE Florida and in need of Chapter leaders and volunteers.

A Spread The Vote NE Florida group has been created with detailed information and training materials.

Check us out below!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/208214289732377/

Look what we talked about at our Indivisible St Johns monthly meeting 3/1/18!

GENERAL MEETING

MARCH 1, 2018

Minutes

Deb Willis read the Two Indivisible Principles and described the mission and goals of Indivisible St Johns. She welcomed new faces, explained our ongoing need for donations as we are supporting the March for Our Future students on March 24 and working on postcards for voters for our amazing postcard group. We now have a DONATE button on our Facebook page if people want to set up recurring donations or just give one time. Every dollar counts.

Deb also gave a call out for volunteers to help us with media/PR and fundraising. Anyone interested can email indivisible.st.johns@gmail.com

Vicky Oakes, SJC Supervisor of Elections, walked us through the ballot trail in our county. She noted that nationwide, there are 109,000 polling places with 700,000 pollworkers. Statewide there are 5900 polling places with 6500 pollworkers and in our county, we have 46 precincts with 38 polling places and 350 pollworkers. She emphasized the convenience and security of our mail in ballots which is popular in our county.

Security wise, Vicky noted our system is not connected to the internet; the tabulation (counting) system is considered a “closed” system. Elections supervisors in FL are taking the threat of hacking very seriously. In 2016 firewalls and update for the defense of our networks were completed. She stated we are now on offense.

She explained what happens on election night: pollworkers close the polls and print 3 results tapes, one of which is hung on the door of the polling place so the public can check. The tabulator results are also backed up on flash drives and the paper ballots are counted to make sure the total voter count matches. The poll worker modems the results to our communications server over a private network. Results are uploaded to the website after tabulation.

The statewide voter registration system servers are monitored 24/7/365. New security updates will be done here approximately May 1 for the 2018 election. All state election supervisors are on board with all the upgrades and are currently planning for any contingency. Equipment is tested, open to the public, prior to the election. In 2016, 28,000 voters voted by mail. The office is open to the public on election night as well as during any ballot recounts. We now have standards to determine “voter intent” and paper ballots are kept for 22 months after an election has been certified.

She also noted Gov Scott has requested $3 million for cybersecurity which will go to the updates mentioned above. On a question about hacking the network, Vicky stated they’ve hired an excellent IT security person and we have access to federal assistance as well. In response to a question about the voter registration database, she said the state is going to have them monitored and moved off the internet. She mentioned that when online voter registration came online in October 2017, $2 million was spent to secure that system. In response to a question about an article stating FL was one of 7 states affected in 2016, Vicky hadn’t investigated that yet but planned to. She also noted that voter rolls are public records (excluding certain fields: drivers license, last 4 SSN and signature) while drivers licenses are not and that Election Supervisors are against this but Tallahassee is not. She said Representative Stevenson has been working on this but it doesn’t look good.

Stephanie Scarborough, Immigration Attorney representing the SJC family facing deportation, spoke next. With the family’s permission, she gave a few details: they came here in 2008 with 2 children from Bosnia on visas seeking political asylum. Under Obama, criminal deportations took precedence over others and gave families time to “normalize” their status before their visas expired. This family reported in to ICE and got discretionary treatment until Trump stopped Enhanced DACA with his executive orders. This family has no recourse now as they cannot get green cards without a legal status, they lost their court case in 2013 because Bosnia was considered secure and there’s simply no pathway now for them to stay. Their daughter will graduate with honors in May this year and it’s expected they will be deported soon after. There are no immediate relatives here to sponsor them and they missed DACA eligibility by 8 months.

She gave ICE stats from February 2018:

                Removal/detentions are up 42%

                Only 12% of these are criminals (and that’s a loosely defined term)

She also noted the recent Supreme Court ruling that allows for indefinite detention with no periodic hearings and no status checks. Under the 287G program, allowing local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE, about 187 sheriffs in Florida have signed on.

What we can do:

                Contact our MoCs and insist on a clean DREAM Act

                Start helping people without status (papers) normalize such

                Read the talking points and background sheet soon to be posted to the blog

Deb Willis then went over the Indivisible St Johns survey that was sent out which got a good response but we need more. It will be posted again with the next calendar at the top. This helps us plan actions our members support. We need that input

.

Dennis Gorlick noted the St Augustine City Commissioners will take up local gun control options including regulation of guns, background checks. This will be on March 12, 2018 at 5 PM in the Alcazar Room at city hall and public comments are welcome.

Warren Clark spoke of the tremendous effectiveness of the postcard group. Each week they have 3-4 topics with background and talking points. He mentioned gun control as an upcoming topic. Each card to legislators combines points and ends with an “ask”, a vote or a position statement. He wants to have more of these around the county and if anyone is interested, please contact him. If his email is needed, please email indivisible.st.johns@gmail.com and we will pass it on.

Deb Willis noted our monthly social March 9 at 7-9 PM at the Growers Alliance on Anastasia Blvd. They are great people and are staying open late for us. Please try to come and unwind with like minded people.

Deb also reminded everyone we are having general meetings the first Thursday of every month, currently at the UU on A1A from 7-9 PM. Everyone is encouraged to bring their ideas and to bring a friend.

Mary noted the large number of well written letters to the editors and OpEds that have been published. She encouraged members, if appropriate to the piece, to try to put Indivisible St Johns in the body so it will appear. Associations after signatures do not seem to make it into the paper.

Joan McGinnis announced a new Indivisible06 dedicated to turning our southern district blue and encouraged everyone to go to their Facebook.

Meeting adjourned 9PM

New Senate Education bill is worse! Need to call Senator Hutson 850.487.5007

Please see below for our update from the Florida Teachers Union:

New version of HB 7055 FAR WORSE than the existing bill.

Will the Senate get played again?

Tallahassee— After a week of committee hearings, a plethora of amendments and hours of debate it appears it all was merely a HB 7055 ‘dog and pony’ show to quiet senators still stinging from last year’s HB 7069 debacle.

Now the Florida Senate is set to vote on a “delete-all” amendment filed last night by Senators Passidomo and Galvano that brings forward a new version that is FAR WORSE than the existing HB 7055:

• Decertification of “instructional personnel” unions;
• A sales tax sourced voucher program for unaccountable private schools;
• Expands to statewide the Principal Autonomy Pilot Program Initiative without any evidence of efficacy;
• A new undefined “franchise school model.”

“This is the leadership of the Florida Senate caving once again to House Bully Richard Corcoran.  They are surrendering their leadership duties and trying to force through a bill that has always been a wish list of Corcoran’s priorities — with NO SENATE INPUT,” said Florida Education Association President Joanne McCall.

“There is still time for the senate to stand up to the speaker.  Let’s hope they don’t get played again,” McCall said.

# # #

The Florida Education Association is the state’s largest association of professional employees, with more than 140,000 members. FEA represents pre K-12 teachers, higher education faculty, educational staff professionals, students at our colleges and universities preparing to become teachers and retired education employees.