Summary: New Paltz & Vicinity for Obama Economic Recovery House Meeting 2/8

Dear All,

On Sunday, Feb.8, as many of you know, we held an Economic Recovery House Meeting. Thousands of similar meetings were held across the country. It was heartening to see so many motivated activists at this important time in our history. And heartening too that about a third of the 35ish attendees were new to our group.

At the meeting, we discussed the economic crisis, the ways it is affecting people’s lives, and what we might do to support the Obama Administration’s efforts to turn things around. Sunday’s impressively well informed group had many people who had already been contacting elected representatives urging passage of the economic stimulus bill as President Obama originally conceived it and we voted to support that position as a group.

Barbara Upton, chair of our Economic Justice Committee, reported on the wonderful work she and her committee have been doing. We introduced our other committee chairs whose work also relates to the economic crisis: Al Cook- Health Care Committee, Fran Wishnick- Environment Committee, Lin Sakai- Education Committee. These committees all have ongoing meetings and projects and the “Waging Peace” Committee will be meeting in the near future.

There is a larger progressive coalition forming in the Hudson Valley, to include Obama groups, Women in Black, Arts for Peace and others. As this develops, we will stay in touch with all of you.

Please let me know if you are interested in being part of any of NP & Vicinity for Obama’s issues committees.
Thank you again to everyone who sent me information about Senator Gillebrand. I know some people have requested that I forward some of the info about her that was sent to me. Please let me know if you would like to be on that list, even if you already mentioned it at the meeting, so I can email you as a group.

Big thanks to all of you for being part of this historic movement. It is a pleasure working with all of you in support of our new President. (I still get chills every time I hear someone say “President Obama” on the news.)

Julie Wegener
yo-mom@earthlink.net