For full disclosure, the author of this article, Susan Galloway, was one of the litigants against the Town of Greece in the SCOTUS case, Town of Greece vs Galloway and Stephens.

On Sept. 16, 2014, at the Greece Town Board meeting citizens spoke out about the new written prayer policy.  Some of the criticisms of the policy were lack of transparency, the infuence an outside organization had on authoring legislation and policies, the lack of notification that the policy was being voted on at the town board meeting and lack of community involvement in creating the prayer policy.

After the citizen, Susan Galloway, addresses the Town Board during the public forum part of the meeting, the Greece Supervisor, Bill Relich, makes the comments, " The hypocrisy,  we won the lawsuit.  We are allowing Atheists to come and pray because they want us to be tolerant, but they're not tolerant of Christians, their not tolerant of others, the hypocrisy".

Here is some back ground on the issues  addressed in this video.  On  August 18, 2014,  at the Greece Town Board meeting, the board passed a written prayer policy,  which had no citizen input and was almost word for word from an outside organization, Alliance Defending Freedom.  Here is the link to a line by line break down of ADF model pprayer policy compared to the Town of Greece's new prayer policy. http://rochester.indymedia.org/node/104024  This organization is a fundamental Christian Organization that's website states, "We must continue the fight for religious liberty,  so that the life-changing message of Jesus Christ can be proclaimed and transform our culture.  Each win for the Body of Christ is a loss for the opposition.  It’s that black and white."  The written prayer policy adopted by the town of Greece, NY is almost word for word the ADF's model prayer policy minus a couple of lines.  ADF represented the Town of Greece in the SCOTUS case Town of Greece vs Galloway and Stephens.  They have also filed lawsuits on behalf of plaintiffs national and internationally against equal marriage for gays and lesbians, and women's reproductive freedom including abortion and birth control, and separation of church and state, Also, for school prayer, public education funds going to private schools and religious schools, and the ability to discriminate against LGBTQ people.  This is only a sampling of the type of lawsuits they have filed.

In the SCOTUS lawsuit, Town of Greece vs Galloway and Stephens, the litigants argued that the town of Greece violated the establishment clause of the constitution and aligned itself with Christianity with regard to their opening town board meetings with overwhelmingly Christian sectarian prayers for over 10 years.  During those 10 years, only 3 token non-Christians ever gave the prayers , which coincidentally occurred at the time the lawsuit against the town was being filed. This new prayer policy will effectively make two of the three token prayer givers ineligible, despite the town holding up these tokens as examples of how open and inclusive they are during the lawsuit.  The town of Greece did win the lawsuit in a 5 to 4 decision.  Which Supervisor Relich states during his comments after Susan Galloway spoke. 

Comments made by Linda Stephens at the Oct. 18, 2014

LETTER TO D&C OPINION PAGE 8-26-14

THE CLOSING OF THE POLICE GARAGE TO THE HOMELESS

Last Thursday night Sister Grace, from the House of Mercy, Rob Benazzi , on staff at St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality, and myself, a Catholic Worker at St. Joseph’s House, stayed overnight at the Civic Center (police) Garage. The management told us that as long as we are paying customers we could stay as long as we want. My purpose in staying was to experience one night and get an idea of what homeless persons go through, understanding that some stay for weeks and months. In talking to some of the old-timers who have stayed in the garage, one mentioned he stayed in the late 70’s and another in the 80’s. So the homeless have been using the garage as a shelter for almost 40 years. Under Article 17 of the New York State Constitution, Monroe County has a legal obligation to care for the needy. I am appalled and ashamed that, for so many years, the County has looked the other way and allowed the police garage to be a shelter. I am ashamed that I didn’t say anything about this situation before now. Staying in the garage was nasty. I got about 3 ½ hours of sleep - on the cement floor with a sleeping bag under me as a cushion. It was warm and I was concerned about car exhaust fumes throughout the night. The maintenance man ran the power cleaner most of the night. It was very loud and reminded me of a miniature street cleaner . He would go outside several times a night to get fresh air to counteract the fumes and the dust, but we were stuck inside. Finally, there is no bathroom in the garage. In the meetings with Mapco, the company managing the garage, one of their complaints was the smell of urine and feces. We have suggested several times to put a porta-potty in the garage as a simple solution, but the management refused. So going to the bathroom for myself and Sr. Grace was an embarrassing experience. In sum, I thought the overnight experience was dreadful and would not suggest it even to my worst enemy. I think now of the” works of mercy”, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless… Is this how we should shelter our brothers and sisters who happen for whatever reason to become homeless?

For the last 14 months the House of Mercy, St. Joseph’s House and other groups have been working on getting a building to house the homeless once the garage is closed off. It is disturbing that the County has not taken a leadership role and has not worked with the City to solve this problem. It appeared clear from the garage meetings that a building was needed in the center city where homeless persons congregate and that both the County and the City would have a big part to play in this effort, . with the County, needing to fund the purchase and operations of the shelter and the City to provide a variance to the zoning (since shelters are not allowed in center city).

I did read the editorial last Saturday written by Mike Hennessy from Open Door Mission. Mike said that Open Door had a lot of success by setting certain boundaries and requiring homeless person to accomplish certain goals in order to maintain their bed. Many were able to get their apartment through Department of Human Services (DHS) and those with addictions many were successful in their rehab program. I do want to say that the population in the garage is generally much more difficult to work with due to chronic addictions and mental health problems. Many of them would have neither the desire nor the ability to work with DHS or to get into a rehab program. I agree with Mike that we must address the root causes of homeless; however, the root causes (which include the steady increase in economic inequality, the continued high unemployment rates, the rental housing crisis, the decline of union under corporate-funded attack, and our country’s incredible mania for invading other countries, which produces homelessness both in the countries invaded and among a substantial number of returning US veterans) are not problems that can be fixed immediately. We can, in the mean time, provide immediate relief by providing a downtown shelter open to all, which has only the minimum rules necessary to ensure a safe sleeping environment.

The leadership of the County and the joint cooperation County and City is paramount to resolve this problem.

Sincerely,

Tom Malthaner

Catholic Worker, St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality

Related Stories: County Suddenly Breaks off Dialogue With Homeless Advocates | Open letter to Brooks regarding homeless crisis | Sit-In Support at the Civic Center Garage against homeless lock-out | Sister Grace and CW of House of Mercy | 13 Rochesterians | Precarious housing for homless continues at county garage... | "The Throwaways": discussion after the screening | The Deplorable, County-made, Reality of Burials Without Dignity

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This is an audio interview (with stills pulled from the internet) conducted by members of Rochester Indymedia and the Flying Squirrel Community Space collective via speaker phone with Ricardo Adams from Ferguson, Missouri on Monday, August 25, 2014. He arrived in Ferguson on Saturday, August 23, 2014.  Adams gives his impressions and experiences from the heart of the organizing and protests against police violence that have been going on for over two weeks. On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed, black, eighteen-year-old was murdered by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.

Thanks for listening, and remember, don't hate the media, be the media!

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Rush transcript:

Transcript with Ricardo Adams in Ferguson, MO from August 25, 2014

Ricardo Adams: It's been a very interesting thing down here. I've never seen a better public relations machine than what I've seen here. It's all nonsense; trying to pretend that everything is kumbaya but nobody is going for it except for the media. Nobody on the ground is buying into any of it. Out of a little respect people are not marching today just because Mike Brown's mother and his father asked that of the people and so many other people asked them that but this is not the end, this is the beginning because the people are not buying into it. They want the arrest warrant, then they want a conviction, and then they want some reparations, man, for what they call PTSD—post traumatic stress disorder because they feel victimized. They sympathize with Michael Brown's family, but they said that he's not what really created the situation here; they say it's the response of the community here is what made this situation what it is. There's a lot of other victims and they all feel like they're victims. Jesse Jackson today in the parade the community members was on both sides of the car yelling in there calling him all kinds of unpleasant things. He had to roll up the window. He had to put a guy out there to try to spin it. Nobody's going for that here. Nobody is buying that but they're painting it like that. They left Michael Brown's body in the street for five hours before they took it; they left it uncovered for about three and a half hours. People feel that Michael Brown's family is kind of been like I don't know if it's [bought out? Maybe?] or scared to death but they not feeling this no protesting. It's because they want they voices to be heard. You know, there meetings going on—I'm at a meeting right now, at a forum right now—they got the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) guy there who's really messing this forum up; they got Martin Luther King Jr.'s son there—he didn't do too bad but he really didn't do that good either. They have three or four other speakers here that really brought it home, called a spade a spade. I personally have been working with some young people here, staying with them young people here and trying to get them working together. They're having a big meeting Wednesday to gather these young people to try to develop some leadership. None of them believe in the old time leadership. The NAACP and many other groups. They got a lot of groups coming down here trying to take the lead on everything and community members recognize it and they're not accepting it and I don't think there was a single community member here that was more than one inch away from wanting to jump on the people—the Revolutionary Communist Party people (Revolutionary Communist Party A.K.A. RCP). They've really gone over heads here and stepped on everyone's toes. What else?

Ted Forsyth: What's the militarized police situation like? When you drove into town what did you see first?

RA: Those big—they don't say ARMY, but that don't mean they're not military—they say POLICE but they military vehicles, man. But they do say POLICE armored vehicles. Police everywhere. I mean, an unbelievable amount of police everywhere. The day we came, I didn't actually see—they didn't gas us. I got here Saturday and they hadn't done any tear gas. They arrested a couple of people that Saturday night. I believe they was from that Revolutionary Communist Party thing. They may have done some work elsewhere, but they've done nothing but create a problem here. They really have. You know, as far as the community members here feel. All the community members feel that. That's all I've been doing is going to meetings with these people. And they all feel like that. I've had to almost—two fights I had to break up. Guys getting ready to jump on them, man, because they trying to create situations that the people felt was unsafe. They got their kids out here. They don't want to be experiencing the chemical warfare that's been going on. They don't want to experience that again, unnecessarily. And yet these guys are—see that's what it appeared they wanted. There's been a lot—almost all the focus was on them for like a day. Just on them guys. There were people who forgot about everything and were just focusing on them. And they were even concerned about them at the funeral because they had got inside the church itself and people were really—so they started to actually confront them and told them don't do what they planned to do. So, I don't know—it didn't go down but people shouldn't have been focusing on them. You know? It's been like 97 degrees every single day—and I'm talking about high 90's. I've drank more water than I drank all year. Just trying to get through this. I wish I didn't have to pick up my daughters because I'd probably would stay here three or four more days. Because the youth in the community are doing their own thing. They're having a big meeting tomorrow night, another rally Wednesday, they're going to be apart of a press conference tomorrow at 1:00PM to send a letter to Obama. You know, I'm probably gonna stay here for that before I leave. I don't know—it's just a media circus here. I've never seen so many media people here. I've been learning. I'm trying to learn from these people because they've done something that I've been trying to do for 10 years. Ignite the people. And these people found a way—this community found a way of doing it, man. This is history down here. And this is just the beginning. Nobody's marching right now. They'll probably come back out a little bit tonight. But believe me, this is just the beginning. Don't pay attention to the news with all that public relations nonsense. Every single business in this town has an “I love Ferguson” sign. Every single business. And just about every single house has “I love Ferguson” sign on their lawns. Obama on his best day didn't have this many signs up. These people are public relations wizards. It's obviously—it's like you're drinking sugar and people are trying to tell you it's salt. And they just keep telling it to you until you actually believe it—even though your mouth is—your tooth is falling out from tasting so much sugar. I really wish I could stay about three or four more days, man. I don't know what else to tell you,

TF: Well, Ricardo, we're going to take a few questions, so hang on a second, alright?

RA: Oh what? Ok.

TF: Yeah—Mary first? Mary, go ahead.

Mary Adams: First of all, you can stay. And we'll talk about that later. Lynn wanted to extend the girls to Saturday. So you can stay. But we'll talk about that later.

RA: Is that my wife?!

[group laughter]

MA: But I do have a question. You've said you've learned a lot and my question is do you feel like your skill set for working with young people has been expanded now—like are you interested in working with more like teenagers and young twenties young, men now?

RA: Yes, I really—cause I'm not working with any kids here—when I say young men they're like 18, 19, 20, 21, 22—they just a lot younger than me. And if you keep it real with them, man I'm talking about on every level, man they'll listen. For me, the reason they listening is I'm doing more listening then they have to do. You know I'm not pretending like I know it. And it's been a building experience for me. And I think it's really done me lots of—because I've always been tentative about the older teenagers. I thought that they were set in their ways and they are! Don't let me get that twisted. It's a lot of things that they ain't changing because they feel they don't need to change. It's a lot of leaders—older leaders—they no respect for the NAACP, Jesse Jackson, the other guy—Sharpton—none of them are impressed with them, man. None of them. They really don't want to hear from them, man. They feel like they out of touch, they doing what they need to do, to protect they community. I am yes, I am definitely, definitely learning some stuff from them and just how to communicate with them. That's the biggest thing for me—I'm learning how to communicate with them. And it's great!

TF: Ok, we got Susan next.

Susan Galloway: Yeah, what have you found that the outside of Ferguson, like other parts of St. Louis, are also coming together in unity or is it pretty much Ferguson and the people that are really outside outside?

RA: No, don't get me wrong, people from outside of the community—some of them are putting in some fabulous, fabulous work. I know these people from California that are putting in fabulous work; they got people from Florida, Chicago—not all of them is putting in good work—because some of them are—they have to follow an agenda of their own and this type of stuff. But a lot of them is bringing their support.

SG: I guess I was asking if St. Louis in general or the larger St. Louis has come together. Or is it pretty much Ferguson?

RA: No, no. I would be not telling the truth if I told you the larger group was—there's a larger group coming together but it's not who you think it is. There's influential people—this guy David Banner, Rev. Rivers, these are other, like me, organizers. Rivers is actually a medic here. They got some lawyers here. They really putting their money where their mouth is trying to make these dudes come together and take the lead because nobody knows everybody knows we can't do or stand down here if people really aren't marching out in the cold too much and so they trying to get them a space—a permanent space—we have a temporary space here at the church here where the forum is because there's actually more than the church—they have the church; they have a big school in this building; a gym—it's like a complex. But they need their own space to start organizing. One of the guys—three of the guys that actually gonna start working. Paid. Friday, Friday. Three guys are going to have an income! It's called a stipend but it's a start. But it's not just a stipend, they gonna get—they've already given them some cameras, one guy got a laptop, they giving them tools to be effective. You know what I'm saying? And that's what these kids respect. They don't really—they get it and so they don't need a whole lot of rhetoric. They need to see some support. And some groups are doing just that. I can't even think of the names of these groups because these are like—these are not the big name groups. This ain't like the SEIU (Service Employees International Union)--they're here. All those people are here. But it ain't their organizing that's having the affect on these people here. These other groups on the down low just really being supportive instead of dictative. That's my take on it. I probably got—I probably had about 15 to 20 dudes who won't let me go down the street without coming to give me some love! Young people from this community. Young people—about 15 to 20 of them. I was over there with them instead of over with the cameras and I'm trying to take pictures of them instead of the big shots—instead of Jesse Jackson and all that. And that's what they respect, man. That's what they respect. In fact, the dude on MSNBC [indistinguishable] he came over near me today. [indistinguishable] MSN Chris Haven I know yer name I said but you don't even know this guy's name. I told him who he need to be talking to. And he did talk to that guy. And then he was talking to another guy and I had one of the young brothers over there stand by him and I interrupted him and said this is who you need to be talking to. And that's [indistinguishable] and there's a lot of respect in this community and that's probably why I got so many kids giving me some love. He's giving me love, he's like a hustler in the community, I'm gonna be honest with you, he said, but he got it. Before he stopped hustling they got to show him that it's going to count for something. There's are organizations in here that are making a difference but it ain't the ones that you think it is. The dude from Occupy the Hood is doing fabulous work and there's not a t-shirt that says Occupy the Hood, there's not a pin that says Occupy the Hood—I don't think nobody knows that he pretty much started Occupy the Hood! He ain't here for his own agenda, man. It's a nice group of people here for that. Doing that, man. And they the ones making a difference. [indistinguishable] I'm so wiped, I don't know what to do. I'm getting about three hours of sleep, and it's enough. I'm just feeling good.

TF: Alright, Andy's up next.

Andy Dillon: Yeah, hey Ricardo! Let's see, I was wondering if there were pre-existing youth organizations that you think made a difference. And then the second question is this group that is starting to be able to pay organizers—is that a new group? And how would we support that?

RA: The group that—those organizers are trying to support the new group—the people that are actually support them—they're not a new group. And I'll have that information later on because we have another meeting—gathering

MA: May I chime in?

RA: with them tomorrow morning at 10am. And I've actually been with these two ladies that representing that group and I just don't have their cards. But I need to collect that information just for documentation purposes.

MA: Hey Ricardo. The Organization for Black Struggle raised like $30,000 to hire organizers online in a couple days. Does that ring a bell?

RA: OBS! That's OBS! Yeah, OBS is one of them. There's actually four—no there's three other organizations that are actually doing that—it's not just OBS. And those are the meetings that we're going to. They had a fundraiser over at Plush—this place called Plush last night. That's where we went to. But there's three organizations—it's not just OBS. But they may be the one recording—saying that they're doing the thing for the job hiring because the guy—I'm working with [indistinguishable] the one that I keep with me all the time—Jeff Hill—but he's taken on a new name Dhoruba. He's actually one of the people getting a job—getting a job. One of the jobs. So I do definitely know about them. So there's three organizations and they're not big name organizations, like I said. That's why I know the name.

TF: What can we do here, Ricardo?

RA: Huh?

TF: What can we do in Rochester—what can the Flying Squirrel do? What do you see as a need or what have you heard is a need?

RA: I'm gonna try to bring back in my mind and everything as much documentation as I can and actually Yusef (Detroit community organizer and author Yusef Bunchy Shakur) is going to get a GoFundMe.com (crowd sourcing website—for the campaign, see: http://www.gofundme.com/b86u9k) for three guys really. These same three guys because [indistinguishable] one of the guys is homeless—he's homeless and he ain't homeless. He's not sleeping outside, he's sleeping in a storefront with another guy and three Pit Bulls. You know, he don't [indistinguishable] Him and his Pit Bulls [indistinguishable] they're all sharing the storefront. Which, that's homeless. A storefront is just a storefront—like a big box. And he's not been there the last couple days because he's been sleeping in a hotel where we sleeping at. At some point, within the next four or five days, Yusef will have something up—Yusef and Aziri (not sure of spelling) another guy from Detroit who does spoken word. And it's also affiliated with the St. Louis. Been here quite a lot. In fact [indistinguishable] lives here. They're doing that part of guys from and so the best I can tell you in answer to your question would be just wait a day—a couple days—and there'll be a website up and you can look at it and determine if what you want to donate a dollar—because that's all they asking for—maybe—not trying to raise a whole lot of money; they're goal is to raise you know between one thousand and two thousand dollars. Try to get him out of the storefront because the OBS and all that—they have a process they have to go through and it sometimes may go a little slower and we don't really want to leave him out here discouraged or you know not in a more stable position. So once again, the answer is, in a couple days I'll have an answer.

TF: Alright, thanks a lot Ricardo. Anybody have any last questions?

SG: Yeah. I wanted—this is Susan—I wanted to ask regarding are there attempts to try to break up the organizing going on?

RA: In this forum just now, a lady who had a video of people being given a lot of [molotov?] cocktails so there were actually a whole lot of cocktails involved but they followed—they filmed somebody giving these—passing them out—they also followed them. They went back to the police—headquarters—it wasn't the police station, they had an area set up for where they all meet—I'm not sure what the right word is for that—it's the base—like they have them all over Rochester—they went back to that. So they automatically knew that they had these agitators in there. And then from what I understand is they're saying outside people—agitators—but the people that they arrested—every single one of them had Ferguson addresses. You know? And so then they had community members running up to people asking them “Where you from?” and then instead of giving a response, they would run away. So yes there is all kinds of infiltration. All kinds of infiltration here. They raided this space that we use all the time where we have the OBS meetings at. People realize now that they didn't really come in here to take out—they didn't really care about taking out the Maalox—they had to pretend to take something. Everybody kind of figures that everything we say in there is monitored. And I believe it, you know? We reluctant—we be in the meeting talking and everybody be like trying to find one, but we know it's there. The phone is—sometimes it works sometimes it don't. Depending on the web tech we kind of go to computers breaking down—they working they technology round here and that is no lie.

Lucy Szalay: Ricardo is there any reaction in the community of the killing of last Tuesday of that young man that was caught picking up a couple of pops without paying for it?

RA: The one that's supposed to have mental health issues?

TF: Yes.

RA: Yeah, people are just talking about it in the form of it's just another killing that the police have done. This is nothing new. They talked about one that happened in 2012 where they had a video— something that had happened right here in 2012—this lawyer that lives here said he had a video of a guy that was beaten up and the one guy there's a recording of him saying “Stop resisting! Stop resisting! Don't grab my gun!” but it so happened that somebody called for an open file thing and got the recording from another police car that was coming that way and the guy wasn't even involved in the beating of the dude that got beat down really bad. He was just over there saying that into the thing to set it up to justify the beating. They had to immediately throw that out. But—so all of that type of stuff is what set this up for people to say “Enough is enough,” man. Enough is enough. I can't stress that enough, man. Everywhere I go around here—not everywhere because they got a group of pastors that are—and that's with most of the pastors that are local—most of the pastors that are local are going along with Jesse Jackson stuff—I'm just telling you. There's about three—the one that runs this place where I'm at, and two others that are in here on this panel and they calling it like it is man. And they're out there every night—even last night when you probably thought there was nothing going on, they had like about twenty kids—just young kids—besides they probably wasn't going to school. Some of them was definitely under eighteen. Marching and doing their own chants in front of the police. There was a lot of police still out regardless—they got even people out--

SG: Are you away from the phone? It's getting harder to hear you.

RA: Oh. No. No, I probably put my hand over it because I was walking over here close to the—where the forum was so I could see this one lady who was so amazing. I need to tell her, “Thank you,” for just telling it like was, you know? Because she brought up the fact about when Rodney King got beat there were three colleges that had students that told the mayor they wanted a rally. So the mayor said yeah you can do the rally and when they come up to the police station to get the permit—they all marched to the police station and got there and the mayor of Lost Angeles was not not there and the lady told them, “No, it takes—it's a three day process, if you march anywhere you're going to be arrested.” Bah bah bah. They said “Well, the mayor...” She said, “Well, I'm just telling you the process.” So they went back and tore up part of the campus. She said they really tore it up and the spinning the media did was that people who live near the campus came in and tore up the place. Even though it was the college students from these three major colleges over there. And she said all that to say don't let the media spin this like this. You know? Don't tone it down. Yeah, don't tone it down. It's been really good over here. I am more hyped than I've been in a while.

TF: Any last thoughts you want to leave us with Ricardo?

RA: I have a t-shirt for my wife and I have a t-shirt for the Squirrel. I am going to start a new thing. Hang them way up on the ceiling—a good t-shirt. I got one for the Squirrel one for my wife. I'm probably going to do an interview thing for indymedia when I get back and I've got a commitment to Dhoruba also known as Jeff Hill when things get going I'm gonna bring him over here to my house and stay a week and let him come over there and just meet the people that made a difference in my life which is at the Squirrel. Because he wants to come over there and maybe I can hook him up and he can just do—reach them young kids and make a difference. He want to do the right thing, man. It ain't going to cost us nothing. Absolutely. He got lifted. I've done some little things for him but for him it's like the world. It's like the world. I don't know. And just keep me in your hearts—like I said things could change. Tomorrow this could all change. In fact, tomorrow I think it is going to change. I don't want it to get to the extreme but it's definitely going to change. The tone over here's going to change again tomorrow.

SG: Well, we love you. And be safe.

MA: Not as much as I do.

[laughter]

SG: And in a different way Ricardo.

[Laughter]

RA: I love you guys!

[good byes]