On June 8 in Springfield there will be a rally in support of raising taxes on rich people and giving the money to public schools and publicly-run buses and passenger trains. On average, even electric cars are worse for the environment than buses and trains, on a per-traveler basis. The rally will be outside city hall at 6 p.m. Details are at:
https://actionnetwork.org/events/springfield-for-the-fair-share-amendment
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Before Covid there were 130 workers at the company that runs vans for handicapped people, under contract to PVTA, the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority. “Now we have 88. We'll get back to 130 when Covid is over,” Jeanie Steel predicted in a May 22 voice phone interview with the Valley Post. For 21 years, she has been a driver for the various companies PVTA has hired to run the so-called para-transit service. She still drives for the latest company, National Express. Steel was one of the leaders of a successful recent effort to form a union.
On May 18 in Brattleboro about 50 people attended a rally to call on local, state, and federal politicians to do more to address the series of racist murders and assaults against Asian Americans that have occurred around the USA in the past few months. Emma Allen grew up in the Brattleboro area and is now a student at the University of Vermont. She told the crowd gathered at Plaza park, “This month, we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage....
Two years ago, 17 people were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience at Wendell, Massachusetts state forest near Greenfield. The goal was to stop logging of 80 acres of 110 year old oak trees on publicly owned land. The USA is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development every day. Stopping logging on publicly owned land forces logging companies to buy their own land. If the loggers want to grow new trees after logging, the land can't be paved.
The USA is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development every day. In Easthampton, Massachusetts, people are saying “enough.” Easthampton borders Northampton and Holyoke. “When you cut out a good section of forest and replace it with houses, you've disrupted the environment, period! Anything you do after that to mitigate the situation never makes up for the habitat you destroyed in the first place,” John Bator told the Valley Post in an email. He's president of an Easthampton group that has a web site at www.pctland.org. Details about the battle are below.
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In a major victory for bicycle and pedestrian activists, construction is underway on proper sidewalks and physically-separated-from-cars bicycle lanes in two cities, both of which border Springfield. The work is happening in the cities of West Springfield and Agawam. Springfield is home to 154,000 people, 69 percent of whom are people of color.
“This area has been a desert of bike infrastructure,” Galen Mook told the Valley Post in a voice phone interview on March 1. He runs the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition.
The group Northampton Abolition Now organizes to move money from the police department into programs that make the community safe. On February 13 and 14, the group held a rally in Northampton. Dozens of people attended. A contact person for the group, Mary Jones, can be reached at (512) 413-5592 and mary.m.jones12@gmail.com.
She told the Valley Post, “We hope Mayor Narkewicz will shift the resources we now pour into policing, directly into community initiatives whose core aims are helping, healing, and sustaining people, rather than controlling them.”
The group has a web page at:
In Greenfield on February 6, there was a Black Lives Matter rally. It was one in a series of weekly rallies at the town common. For every 100,000 black men in the USA, 2,306 are in prison. For every 100,000 white men in the USA, 450 are in the prison.
No nation keeps such a high percentage of its people in prison as the USA. Europe's rate is a third of ours.
This is the most recent data available. It's from www.PrisonPolicy.org. Nine people were at the Greenfield rally. The rallies happen every Saturday at 10 a.m.
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About 250 people attended a Black Lives Matter rally in Putney, Vermont on July 22. Putney is about 10 minutes from Brattleboro by car. Vermont has the nation's most racist prison system, which may help explain why it is one of the whitest states. Vermont sends prisoners to a private prison in Mississippi.
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A Latina police officer in Springfield was fired for posting in support of Black Lives Matter on Instagram. Florissa Fuentes was fired on June 19, 2020. Yolanda Cancel ran for Springfield mayor last year. She won the endorsement of Planned Parenthood. Tanisha Arena runs the Springfield group Arise for Social Justice. Arena referred the Valley Post to Cancel. In a July 1 interview with the Valley Post, Cancel condemned the firing. Cancel provided the Valley Post with the below photos and comment. Also below is a photo of Cancel from her campaign web site.
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