From: Roth, Abigail [mailto:abigail.roth@...]
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 4:09 PM
To: ct-livable-streets-discussion@...
Subject: [CT Livable Streets discussion] Notes from the 12/8/09 RLC meeting

 Notes from the December 8, 2009 RLC meeting

Hello.  Below are notes we wrote up last night after our meeting.  However the "to do's" are on temporary hold because today we found out that the CT Police Chiefs Association has been drafting their own version of RLC legislation (and that the CT Conference of Municipalities has been speaking with the CPCA and supports the effort.)   Laoise King from the Mayor's Office is coordinating outreach to these groups, to discuss coordinating our efforts.  So some of the "to do's" that we discussed may change a bit, but I wanted to circulate them so that folks would know what we did discuss - especially because many of them almost certainly will still be "to do's" regardless of how things move forward with the CPCA/CCM.

1. Write letters (on letterhead and email) from the CT Livable Streets Coalition to House/Senate leadership, the co-chairs of the 4 relevant committees, the New Haven delegation, and the people on the relevant committees who voted against RLCs last session - basically telling them about the proposed bill and asking to meet with them.
* A group of us will meet at Doug's house/office on the morning of Sunday, December 20th to work on this.  Please let us know if you want to join in.  Doug just let us know where/when to meet!
* Natalie will draft a sample letter before December 20th.
* We can send the letters/emails on 12/20, and follow-up in early January with phone calls.  We will need to divvy up who makes the calls.
*On 12/20 we may also write some letters to groups who we are hoping will support the legislation.

2. Create and circulate a petition to get a list of supporters for our bill.  We want the petition to ask who is willing to not only support the bill, but contact their legislators.  We therefore will include language in it such as "We need constituents to set up meetings with key legislators.  We're happy to help with all the leg-work and attend the meeting, but would you be willing to contact your legislator and set up a meeting?  If so, let us know and we will contact you."

* Mark has software to create a petition and Kirsten will help with the text.
* We want to ask for ZIP codes, so that we know which supporters live in key districts.

3. Get the entire New Haven delegation on board.
* After sending the letters/emails on December 20th, we must be particularly proactive in early January contacting the New Haven delegation (especially Senator Looney) and getting them to support (and hopefully advocate for) this bill.  Thanks to Lisa Kereszi for initially reaching out to Senator Looney and asking to meet with him!

4. We need to increase the number of people/organizations who support the bill.  Some ways we are going to do this include:

* Kirsten will keep following up with the legislative folks for YNHH; she is also investigating getting support from some other medical groups
* Natalie will talk to the Med School Dean about whether Yale Medical School is willing to be listed as a supporter
* Mark will ask Erin about her contacts at the PTO -- it would be great to get the support of the NH Board of Education (we perhaps can see if they have contacts in other municipalities)
* Rob will get leads on who to contact from a statewide group that advocates for gay rights (there have been privacy concerns expressed in the past that we'd like to diffuse)
* Abby will follow up with Holly about joining forces with folks at UConn.  We will think of reaching out to Trinity College and Wesleyan as well.
* Pete will contact the Mayor's Office in Stamford because he found information on their webpage suggesting they are supportive of traffic safety measures
* Abby will report back once she hears if the South Central Chiefs of Police voted to support the bill - and find out the next steps to get statewide Police Chief support
*Erin has found out that CT DOT generally supports the bill and is asking for their official support
* Pete will follow-up with Mike Morand - though Yale will probably want to wait until other supporters are listed before joining the list
* Rob is going to see if AAA would support this
* We will list the City of New Haven and the NHPD separately as supporters
* Abby has contacted Mothers Against Drunk Driving - but hasn't heard anything back yet
* Doug will ask Laoise King in the Mayor's Office about if we should/how to loop in the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities
* Mark/Rob will raise the proposed legislation at the ECC Board Meeting, and see if they can get official support for the bill.
* We will continue to try to generally try to find groups/constituents in key jurisdictions to partner with.  (Abby's Stamford contact fell through . . . ).

5. Set up our webpage/Facebook page so that we can list supporters on the page.  Doug is going to work on this.  If we can have a "vanity name" for our Facebook page now that we have 25 fans, we should change the name.

6. Erin's Resolution on December 17th.  Mark is going to ask Erin if it is worth having people testify (Natalie has some medical residents who are willing to), issuing a press release, and having us all attend the committee meeting.  If so, we will follow-up accordingly.  If not, we will take these steps when the resolution is voted on by the full Board of Aldermen in January.

7. PR
* Mike Jones has found out that the YDN is willing to cover this in January.  We'd love if Mike could write an op-ed piece after the story is published.  We'd all be happy to help him with it. Maybe that will get some more Yale students interested - who might be willing to show up at a hearing in Hartford.
* Erin will continue to investigate getting an op-ed in the Hartford Courant, which likely is the most important newspaper for us to focus on.

8. Procedural issues
Doug will investigate if we  need a representative (as well as Senator DeFronzo) to introduce the bill.  He also will talk to Emily Byrne about contacting Senator DeFronzo, because we believe she is the one who told us he would introduce the bill.

9. Nomenclature
Rob made the good point that we should all be referencing the proposed legislation in the same way.  Until it is introduced and has a bill number, we thought it was best to reference it as:  "Proposed Legislation for Red Light Cameras."  If Erin finds out that the mom whose son was tragically killed is interested in having the bill named after him (sort of like "Megan's Law") we could think about doing that if we felt comfortable that it wasn't at all exploitive.

10. Gary Holder-Winfield
We want to be sure we are looping Gary in to what we are doing - and find out what he is doing.  We weren't clear if Mike or Erin was taking the lead on doing this.  We need to clarify who will be updating him.

Just a few other odds and ends:

* Rob is going to check in with the CCLU to see if they had any comments on the proposed legislation.
* Mark is going to contact Brian Tang to see if he'd have time to help us with our long "to do" list since he's such an enthusiastic safe streets person
* Justin raised the idea of "ranking" legislators based on their traffic safety votes
* Perhaps Mike could follow-up with Senator Harp one more time before the holidays re: Coleman and the Judiciary Chairs - and also ask if she is willing to be listed as a supporter of the legislation on our webpage.








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