News & Notes, February 2021
News & Notes has been on hiatus for a few months as DFA writers focused on several longterm writing projects. But there is a lot going on and it’s time to update people on DFA and a few other groups.
Government Accountability Task Force
After four years of the Trump Republican Party's assault on democracy, DFA's Government Accountability Task Force decided to re-focus its activities for 2021 on "Saving Democracy in America". This overarching goal includes several more specific goals:
Raise awareness about Pennsylvania constitutional amendment proposals to gerrymander the state courts and reduce the governor's emergency authority;
Identify ways our elected officials are subverting our democratic processes and pressure them to stop;
Identify and oppose legislative efforts to restrict voting rights;
Advocate to expand voting rights with, for example, legislation to allow no-excuse absentee ballots;
Advocate for fair and non-partisan redistricting and oppose gerrymandering;
Advocate for reforming or abolishing the electoral college.
On the local level, the Task Force is looking to find the right balance between local government approval of massive industrial projects like the Mount Joy Solar Farm and accounting for local citizen input. The Task Force is also exploring ways to improve our public communications.
Health Care Task Force
In the weeks leading up to the November election, our task force focused on a letters-to-the-editor (LTE) campaign, educating the public about the healthcare stances of candidates and the two political parties’ radically different responses to the COVID pandemic, with Mastriano in PA dangerously leading the charge of the Party of Trump, making “mask-wearing-or-not” a political statement and promoting freedom without responsibility. After the election, we decided to continue on a similar path: political engagement to save our democracy, while supporting President Biden’s COVID-relief package and healthcare reform efforts, especially those related to the social determinants of health and the need to expand and improve public health measures.
Jeanne Duffy’s January op-ed (“Healthcare—a Look Back at 2020 and Moving Forward”) examined the role that the Affordable Care Act and its Medicaid expansions have played as a safety net during the pandemic, the roll out of PENNIE (Pennsylvania’s first exchange on the ACA), and the encouraging outcome of the first Supreme Court hearing of the Red-state case that calls for the trashing of the entire ACA. In February, Duffy’s LTE “Pass Rescue Plan” was followed by Mary Fran Colvin’s Op Ed, “What the American Rescue Plan Means for Healthcare.” In future weeks, guided by the Pennsylvania Health Access Network, we will look at ways of engaging with state and Federal legislators on getting important bi-partisan legislation on lowering drug costs and surprise medical bills finally passed.
Education Task Force
The goal of the Gettysburg Area Democracy for America Education Task Force is to keep Adams County residents informed about issues affecting their schools. This is done through bimonthly Op-ed page articles in the Gettysburg Times.
The task force members meet to discuss a wide range of education topics. Topics the task force has monitored in the recent past include: property taxes, Cyber charter schools, schooling during the pandemic, at risk students and the achievement gap, and technology education. suggest and discuss possible topics. Out of these discussions, the group identifies a topic to address in an op-ed. Usually someone volunteers to draft an article, which is then edited and discussed by the group before submission to the Times.
Also the members frequently try to solicit guest writers from educators who have experience or expertise about a particular issue.
The last two articles of 2020 were submitted from outside the task force. For October the two state senate candidates responded to question crafted by the task force on state/school issues. In December a Gettysburg area administrator explained how their system was adapting to the pandemic.
Project Gettysburg Leon
Gettysburg’s active, ongoing international connection with Nicaragua reached a highpoint in January, 2021 with the final stage of the installation of a fresh water system for the hillside community of Talolinga in the Department of León. This final stage was the delivery, organized by Project Gettysburg/León's in-country Program Director, Greg Bowles, of 75 ceramic water filters. Each family will have a filter connected to its water pipe, thus making sure that the water is clean and clear. The families also received instruction on the use and maintenance of the filters.
Meanwhile PGL continues its many years of support of the school for the arts, Taller Artistico Xuchialt. In January PGL helped plan an all-day workshop in which Xuchialt will hold classes in art and dance for a school, Nicafoto, located outside of León. Schools in Nicaragua do not offer instruction in art, music and dance, so this extra help from Xuchialt is of particular benefit.
Another ongoing connection between Project Gettysburg/León and schools is the support of a gardens program. PGL offers financial assistance for instructors and materials for the teaching of youth, in a kind of after-school program, how to grow vegetable gardens and how to use bio-intensive gardening methods. The virtue of the program is not only that of teaching the young people how to grow gardens, but provides them with a range of vegetables which they otherwise would not have at their meals.
One more international connection—and this is unusual and fun to report! PGL’s Assistant Program Director, a young, local, León gentleman, Francisco Diaz, made an acquaintance in Nicaragua with a young woman from Minnesota. Their friendship and love led to plans to marry at the end of January in Minnesota. Luckily Francisco was able to fulfill all the regulations for a flight to the U.S., so the marriage could go on as scheduled. PGL congratulates them very much!
Gettysburg Rising
The February meeting involved a presentation about housing insecurity in Adams described the problems with affordable housing in our area and the programs the @Home coalition is working on.
Sherri Alms provides us with the following update: the eight members of the Gettysburg Rising Police Accountability Task Force have been working since June of last year with a mission to promote partnership between community members and the Gettysburg Police Department by fostering trust, transparency, accountability, and the highest standards for the police force. Since we started work, we have researched the policies and practices of the Gettysburg Police Department, issues related to policing in our community, and what community policing is and looks like in action. We recently invited representatives from other community organizations to join us as part of an organizational coalition to work toward a more positive, transparent, and open relationship with the Gettysburg Police. If you have information or suggestions for the Gettysburg Rising Police Accountability Task Force, please email shalmsgm@gmail.com.
Political notes
Election laws. Our local elected officials, most notably Dan Moul and Doug Mastriano, but also John Joyce and Scott Perry, seem to be in a contest to see who can do the most damage to the district and to our democracy. State senator Mastriano was a leader last summer of the “Love a Neo-Nazi” campaign and has also worked hard all year to make sure the pandemic lasts as long as possible and kills the maximum number of people, by campaigning to reopen regardless of conditions, refuse to wear masks and take other safety precautions, and refuse to take vaccines. As if he hadn’t disgraced himself enough already, he was also a national leader in the campaign to spread the lie that the election was stolen. Now, he is part of the emerging thrust of the Pennsylvania Republicans to destroy our election process – he has introduced legislation to ban no-excuse absentee balloting. Dan Moul apparently he wasn’t being irresponsible enough and introduced legislation to ban dropboxes. It is only a coincidence, of course, that it was primarily Democrats who used these capabilities. Our former congressman, Scott Perry, earned permanent infamy by aiding Trump’s campaign to replace the acting AG Trump had just appointed with a low level DOJ official who would be willing to violate his oath of office by intervening in the vote count in states such as Georgia with an inconvenient number of blue voters.
Run for something. Local elected positions (boroughs and townships) will be on the ballot this fall. In recent years there has been a real shortage of Democratic candidates running for local offices. This is important – this year’s supervisor and council candidates are the state senate candidates four years from now. Just as baseball teams need a strong “farm system", it’s important to have a strong set of candidates for local offices, in part to develop subsequent candidates for higher office.
Sign petitions. Some people find the need to gather signatures to be a deterrent to running for office. ACDC is working to make that job easier this year. They are sponsoring a petition-signing event for state judicial and local candidates at Hoss’s steak house, from 11 am to 8 pm on Friday, February 19. They encourage people to order a takeout meal and when they come to pick up their meal, step into the large back room to sign petitions. (Obviously, you don’t have to order to sign.) If you do place an order, please cite ACDC’s number 124874 so ACDC gets credit.
Fundraising
SCCAP auction. In place of its Winter Banquet, SCCAP held a midwinter celebration and silent auction on February 4. More than $40,000 was earned.
PGL auction “Nicaragua Night.” In Gettysburg PGL’s major activity every January, one that always attracts hundreds of people, is the annual, festive fund-raising auction, "Nicaragua Night". However, due to the pandemic the auction had to be postponed until May, 2021. Even so it will be an interesting virtual event featuring ways to view the items being auctioned, making bids, and submitting one’s winning offer. Normally the auction brings in PGL’s major amount of annual income, so this winter, while maintaining its program in León, PGL has been careful to reduce somewhat the budget for its projects there. The auction committee is hoping, of course, to be creative enough to attract a huge, virtual audience and bring in something like the usual $40-$50,000. Soon the committee will be sending out information about how people can participate.