Scott County KFTC members made a good start to the new year last night with a powerful chapter meeting, gearing up for the General Assembly, as well as a kick-start for the local curbside recycling campaign. 

Throughout much of 2011, we worked with city council members and others to find a path forward in providing curbside recycling, but officials have been less enthusiastic in recent months and we've decided to go back to a grassroots strategy of building public support and making sure people contact their city council members. 

Our January Recycling plans are to:

1. Mail a letter to people who have already signed our recycling petition by Jan 12th.

2. Phone-Bank to follow up on the letter at 7pm on Jan 17th.  We'll call from Alison’s home at 109 West Chopin Way in Georgetown (859-229-8286).
3. Petition Drive at Recycling Center - Saturday January 21st , 9-11 AM
4. Bring out lots of people to the City Council Meeting Monday January 23.  Have several people sign up for citizen comment, with as many as possible showing up in support.

We could use extra volunteers at every point in this process, so please come out and join us - especially for the January 23rd council meeting. 

Talking points for City Council:

• Increasing volume keeps city from losing money on recycling.  We lost about $$80,000 last fiscal year, but cities with higher volumes made profits. 
• Other small towns (Midway, Versailles) have it, why not us, too?
• If it takes some investment up front, no problem!  We are willing to pay for good public services.  There are things we can and should do together, and responsible care of our land and environment is one of them.
• Personal stories, especially those shared at the meeting.

Other Scott County Updates:

- Grassroots Citizen Lobbying Training:  Come to Lobbying Training in Lexington (Friends Meeting, 649 Price Avenue) 6-9 PM Monday, January 9th.  Scott County KFTC members will be coming up to Frankfort a lot during the session.  Much more on this later. 

- Watch the KFTC Calendar for updates about the local MLK Day March on Monday Jan 16th.  We hope to bring out lots of members to participate.

- Sign our petition so that we can let the mayor and city council know you support curbside recycling.  You can also help us circulate the petition amongst friends and neighbors. 

- Write a letter to the editor to the Georgetown News-Graphic in support of curbside recycling.  Even a small, simple letter can reach thousands of people and the entire city council.
Georgetown News-Graphic 1481 Cherry Blossom Way Georgetown, Kentucky 40324
You can also submit a letter online at Here.

- Join us at the next Kentuckians For The Commonwealth Meeting – on the 1st Thursday of each month from 7pm to 9pm at the Scott County Public Library, 104 S. Bradford Ln, Georgetown.

- Contact the Mayor and City Council to let them know you support curbside recycling.   A quick, polite phone conversation, email, or letter could show public support for recycling.

Mayor Everette Varney   - Email Form -   502-863-9800

Georgetown City Council
David Lusby   - Email Form -   502-863-2663
Kelly McEuen   - Email Form -   502 867-3835
Brad Penn   - Email Form -   502-863-4918
Larry Prather   - Email Form -   502 863-0350
Mark Singer   - Email Form -   502-867-1948
Bonnie Skinner   - Email Form -   502-867-6942
Connie K. Tackett   - Email Form -   502 863-2699
Marvin Thompson   - Email Form -   502-867-1415

All city council members are "at large" so each of them represent each Georgetown resident equally. 

Printable Materials:

- Petition

- Handout

- Sign/ Clipboard-back

Members from Letcher and Knott counties joined the Perry County chapter members Tuesday night in Hazard at the Perry County Public Library for a Holiday feast and screening of I Was There in the Library's theater.  Around 25 people brought family, friends, and food to celebrate the upcoming holidays, another powerful year of grassroots organizing in east Kentucky, and the 79th birthday of the 2011 KFTC Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, McKinley Sumner of Montgomery Creek, Vicco.  

During the party, the Perry Chapter sold two 30th anniversary DVDs, two green KFTC t-shirts, and 5 members renewed their dues to support our final fall fundraising push!  After folks filled their bellies with the spread of fried chicken, sides, and desserts, we filed into the Library theater for a group viewing of  I Was There: The First 30 Years of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth.  For many, this was their first viewing of the film, complete with stove-top popcorn!  

With a group from three counties, ages 4 to 79, and from varying walks of life, this was a great finale to the Perry chapter's work this year, our 30th anniversary of action for justice.  See if you can spot any familiar faces below and see even more pictures on our flickr, here. 

This week, members of the Madison County chapter welcomed a special guest to their monthly meeting. State Representative Rita Smart of Madison County visited the chapter for a lobby meeting, where KFTC members asked Representative Smart to support a number of legislative proposals ranging from fair tax reform and clean energy legislation to voting rights for former felons. Rep. Smart was reluctant to commit to many of the proposals suggested by the KFTC members present, although she promised a follow-up meeting with some of the members to discuss clean energy legislation in more depth. Above all, the members of the Madison County chapter hope that Rep. Smart will take a bold stand in supporting legislation that will have a positive impact on the future of Kentucky.

Last night Harlan chapter members geared up for KFTC's statewide fall fundraising campaign and election day voter turnout, and submitted their photos and stories to the Kentucky Deserves Better Tumblr site. Together, the chapter went through a list of all local members and prospects and identified targets for fall fundraising!

Folks identified a good chunk of people to ask to become sustaining givers or new members, to renew their memberships, or to make special contributions this fall. Chapter Chair Roy Silver wrote a letter to a past members inviting them to once again support KFTC's work. Everyone took a stack of voter guides and made plans to distribute them across the Tri-Cities this weekend.

Then, after a report on the Kentucky Deserves Better campaign from Stanley Sturgill, chapter members wrote down their stories and posted pictures of themselves holding their stories and messages to U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers! Check them out HERE and "Add Your Voice" while you're there!

During their monthly chapter meeting, KFTC members used their time to focus on the Kentucky Deserves Better campaign and mobilizing voters to the polls.

Eight members wrote letters about how Rep. Hal Roger's actions in congress are ruining any possibility of a bright future for Kentuckians. The focused on his actions to cut Pell Grants, access to Head Start Programs and to limit the EPA's authority in protecting our air and water.

During the second half of their meeting members divided into groups to plan for mobilizing voters to the polls. On group focused on distributing the KFTC voter guides out to the community, another on letters to the editor, and the third group actually called KFTC members to remind them to get out and vote on Nov. 8th.

Tonight Perry County members spent the last half of our monthly chapter meeting calling local members about voting, volunteering, and coming out to upcoming events!  

Election day is just a few weeks away so we started our voter turnout push with our local membership, who we already know vote far more often than the state percentage.   Tonight, exactly 3 weeks before election day, we have already contacted 50% of our chapter members!  

offered rides to get folks to the poles, and directed people to www.kentuckyelection.org.  More turnout calls are in store for the coming weeks and we hope to contact everyone our chapter registered to vote this year!

Last Wednesday evening the chapter's local local economic justice committee met and it was incredibly productive. Two of the committee members who are also graduate students at the university of Kentucky wrote up an analysis of the surveys that members collected over the previous months. Of the three communities where they did the most work the responses were pretty varied. Members heard stories about police harassment, inability to afford basic upkeep on people's homes, lack of quality public transportation, lack of access to quality education, little support from local government, poor infrastructure etc. Committee members plan to dig a little deeper and conduct another round of surveys in the Ayelsford, Ohio-Walnut and Fairlawn precincts.

Thursday evening the chapter held their annual new member meeting. Over 25 folks came out and participation was great. Attendees turned in lists of the organizing skills/issue education they'd like to learn about and the chapter will be using them to determine what trainings and workshops to offer over the next months.

 To wrap up the week the chapter held a yardsale fundraiser at Third Street Stuff coffee shop. The weather was beautiful and folks had a really great time. In addition to raising over $100 they registered two folks to vote and gained a new KFTC member.

Late last week, we had a productive Scott County KFTC meeting.  Usually, meeting attendance drops off a bit in the summer, but we had a strong turnout, several new people, and got a surprising amount of work done on a number of key issues.

Voting Rights - We proposed the next statewide Voting Rights Campaign meeting in Scott County for Sunday, August 28th starting at 3pm.  The plan is to have several hours of action-focused statewide planning followed by some field work in Scott County spearheaded by the local NAACP and KFTC chapters.

Membership Recruitment and Fundraising - In addition to Rosanne Fitts Klarer and Tim Klarer's Houseparty scheduled for later this year, we're scheduling a houseparty/ ice cream social on the afternoon of Saturday, August 20th called "I-Scream For Social Justice."  It's a joint houseparty hosted by Homer White, Marylou White, Mat Doolin, Heather Drake, and Filly Tierney.  Several members also made solid pledges to try to recruit one or two new KFTC members between now and the next chapter meeting.

New Power Leaders - We scheduled a series of 1:1 meetings with our New Power Leaders to talk strategy and develop list for our innovative two-way communication model.  

Curbside Recycling - Perhaps most exciting of all, we had a few breakthroughs in our curbside recycling organizing, deciding to circulate a petition at community events and at the recycling processing center.  We've scheduled our first shifts at the recycling center on Saturday July 16th and Saturday July 23rd, each 9am to noon.  Expect more information about this in another blog entry in a couple of days. 

Members are also coming out to upcoming statewide events like Fancy Farm on August 6th and  KFTC's 30th Anniversary celebration on August 27th.  

  

As natural gas drilling becomes more and more abundant in Letcher County, the folks in that chapter have become as educated as possible on the issue.  Nitro-Fracking is the preferred method of fracking in the region, which has been more difficult to understand because most natural gas drills in America tend to use Hydro-Fracking.

Gasland, the documentary by Josh Fox, was recently nominated for an Academy Award and has really helped shine a light on the recent struggles that communities all over America are facing to keep clean water.  While the film is based around Hydro-Fracking, many of the problems are the same.  Much like other extraction industries, the natural gas companies have used fear to try to silence concerned citizens, and put money in the pockets of elected officials to turn a blind eye to what is happening.

Last Thursday, the Letcher County Chapter gathered for a screening of Gasland.  One member in attendance, Celeste Johnson lives in the community of McRoberts where natural gas drilling is quickly consuming the hillsides, leaving much of the community frustrated with the constant noise of drilling and fracking, not to mention fear over the safety of their water.  “I felt like it was scary, not knowing what the nitro-fracking is doing here, whether or not it’s destroying our water the same way as in the movie,” said Celeste.  Currently there are two gas wells within 100-200 feet of the community’s water plant.

The central Kentucky chapter of KFTC met last Thursday for their monthly chapter meeting. Their focus was to examine their role as concerned citizens and the opportunities to do meaningful organizing work around economic justice issues in Lexington.

Members began by sharing stories of how they have been affected by economic issues. Folks talked about times where they were unable to pay their bills, struggled to buy food, were living without health insurance or savings and about their family and friends dealing with the same problems.

Afterward everyone broke down into small groups to think through what kind of positive impact they could have in Lexington around these concerns. The discussions revolved a lot around what role they should play as Lexington residents in making the city a better place for everyone. The chapter agreed they should focus on encouraging people to share their stories about economic injustice, work to remove the stygma surrounding poverty, educate themselves about policies that affect the community and organize within Lexington neighborhoods to identify community needs. Each small group also discussed some possible opportunities for moving forward with this work. An economic justice work team was formed to look more closely at the recommendations and to develop some next steps.

The next CKY economic justice work team meeting will be held on Thursday December 9th at 7pm. If you'd like to be involved then contact the central Kentucky organizer at ondine@kftc.org