Neighborly actions, now with more neighbors
Help a family after a fire, demand green jobs with the Rescue RI Act, help limit the power of police to steal your stuff, and learn more about a couple of City Council candidates.
Hi, everyone. Here are some things to do with and for our neighbors as we move into the coming week.
ASAP: The apartment where Daniel’s mom and siblings live caught on fire, and they need funds to get them through the emergency (there’s a list at the link of what they’ll use the money for). Daniel organizes with PrYSM to make Rhode Island a more just place for RI residents of color, particularly young people. This is a chance to hold him and his family up through a terrible time.
TOMORROW, 5/24, BY 4pm (to sign up) / 5/25, 4pm onward (to testify): The RI House versions of the Rescue RI Act are up for a hearing on Tuesday, which means we need to sign up by Monday. Bill numbers and what they cover are below! You can sign up for one and then get your testimony in support of all three in there. These bills meet many of the needs of our state—safe and energy-efficient housing, cleaner air and water, a steady food supply, and ways to earn money making those things happen. Sign up here to testify aloud, or send written testimony to housefinance@rilegislature.gov by 1pm on Tuesday. There’s also a testimony training for this, Monday 6-8pm, if you want to be part of a unified strategy, and a written guide to testifying.
House Bill 5955 protects food security and food sovereignty, and creates agricultural jobs & opportunities with the goal of creating food security.
House Bill 6074 creates jobs in housing construction, specifically affordable and low-income housing, green and solar energy jobs and programs for low-income people.
House Bill 5674 would stop the expansion of polluting industry and start cleaning up Environmental Justice Communities. This would stop the expansion of the Liquid Propane Gas in the Port of Providence (see below for more about that).
TOMORROW, 5/24, BY 2pm: We missed the spoken testimony deadline on this one, but I’d like to see a lot of people sending written testimony in support: RI Senate Bill 732 tightens up the rules on “asset forfeiture.” Current RI law allows police to seize houses, cars, money, etc., that they claim is connected to a crime, especially a drug crime, and sometimes they can seize these assets without even taking you to court. Under current law it can be difficult to get your property back even if you're innocent, and if you don't get it back, the police and/or other government agencies get to keep the assets or sell them for their own use. This bill says that seizing a person's assets requires a judge's order and can happen only after the defendant was criminally convicted. It also has sections increasing the protections against excavating graves and burials, aimed at protecting sites sacred to Narragansett and other Indigenous people. This is very definitely a “let’s walk back how bad we let things get” kind of bill, but of that kind, it is a good one. Send your testimony in support to senatejudiciary@rilegislature.gov. Thank you to Randall for the tip and the explanation.
5/28, 5pm, remotely: This is the extended deadline for those comments on the liquid propane expansion proposed for the Southside! Please email them to emma.rodvien@puc.ri.org. Here is the one I sent, if anyone wants to bootleg it.
Anytime this week: If you live in Providence’s Ward 3 or Ward 15, there are city council candidates you may want to keep your eye on: Casandra Inez is running in Ward 15 and Sue AnderBois is running in Ward 3. This is not an endorsement necessarily, but an invitation to learn more about these candidates and their positions on questions of justly distributing the ability to live well in our city.
And finally, some good news:
Thank you to all who supported this effort in whatever ways were available to you, and to FANG members inside and outside for their work and courage.
With love,
Kate