The Northwest Indiana Green Party (NWI) is getting ready to start the new year and the impact we are prepared to make throughout the region. We are kicking off our year of environmental activism and Green action at our Annual Meeting on January 8, 2023. This is the perfect time for you to get more involved with our movement, so plan on joining us to strategize and grow our campaign for a greener, more sustainable region.

The 2023 Annual Meeting of the Northwest Indiana Green Party will be held on Sunday, January 8, 2023 starting at 2pm.  You can either join us in-person or virtually.  The in-person location is the Portage Public Library's 1st Floor Conference Room at 2665 Irving Street, Portage IN 46368. To get to the conference room enter into the main room of the library and immediately take a right along the wall, past the audiobooks at the outside window will be a door to your right into the conference room.

You can also join us virtually via ZOOM. There will be two ways to connect to the meeting - via the internet (meaning a computer, tablet or smart phone with a microphone) or by calling in on your phone. If this is your first time using Zoom it will need a few minutes to install, it is free to install. If you have a camera on your computer you can also stream from your camera.

To join the meeting via a computer, tablet or smartphone connected to the internet that has a microphone or headset with microphone (it doesn't work too well if we can't hear what you have to say): https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7828858504

To call into the meeting as a conference call 

dial: 312 626 6799 and enter the meeting ID: 782 885 8504

If you have any difficulties getting connected, please message us on Facebook, or email [email protected]. Any updates to the meeting information will be posted on Facebook.

2023 Annual Meeting, Business and Elections

The main item for our Annual Meeting will be theelection of officers for 2023. Any member of the NWI Green Party is eligible to be nominated for any of these positions. If you would like information about becoming a member, see the links below. The positions up for election at the meeting are Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary and Treasurer and your NWI Green Party is looking for new faces to fill these important rolls for 2023. We have several people in our party leadership who will be focusing on their election campaigns and having someone like you step forward to take on our Party's administrative and financial responsibilities will move us towards a better planet with more sustainable and just communities.

Elected Party Positions Descriptions

• Chair - The Chair of the NWI Green Party is the principal officer in accordance with Indiana Elections requirements. They guide our monthly meeting agendas and are key in keeping our focus and action directed throughout the year. This is an important leadership role where we are interested in getting a motivated activist involved.
  
  
• Vice-Chairs - The two Vice-Chairs of the NWI Green Party assists the chair in the management of movement and steps in to guide meetings when the chair is not available. This position is a great for learning leadership in our various strategic goals around our large three county region.
  
  
• Secretary - The Secretary of the NWI Green Party creates the stability of administration in our Party through keeping minutes and records. 
  
  
• Treasurer - The Treasurer of the NWI Green Party handles the financial aspects from general bookkeeping to Indiana campaign finance. The books for the party are not complicated, they just need a person dedicated to basic checking account maintenance, keeping up with all required filing deadlines and preparing a treasurer's report.

In order to be considered for an executive position you will need to be a member in good standing. Membership information is below, you can complete either online or at the meeting. Elections will be held by rank choice voting.

Other business for the meeting is to hear reports from the activities of the NWI Green Party this past year and to organize for the very busy 2023 local elections. 

Become a Member Today

Support your Northwest Indiana Green Party by making a contribution to our green movement. Contributions can be made through our secure square site at nwigreenparty.square.site. While you are there consider becoming a member of the NWI Green Party. Annual membership are $10 for adults, $5 seniors and students. You can join by clicking on the appropriate membership to add it to your cart. Your contributions will help us to engage the political machines in our region and to promote Green candidates in the upcoming election cycles.

Make a Contribution

Consider making a contribution to the NWI Green Party. Your support for our local grassroots movement right here in the region will empower us to get our issues out and our candidates on your ballot. Become one of the many people making Northwest Indiana the Crossroads of Green America.  Click on the button to make your secure, online contribution through Square. 

Discover Memberships

If you would like to pay your membership with cash or check, you can bring your dues to the upcoming meeting. The NWI Green Party also wants to make membership feasible for those who have financial restraints, please contact us about the option for free membership. You can reply to this email or fill out the contact from on our website, https://nwigreenparty.org/contact-us/

Contribute Today

Contributions to the NWI Green Party are not tax-deductible and subject to restrictions established in Indiana Campaign Finance regulations.

Connecting Greens

Are you interested in becoming more involved in environmental, social justice and democracy advocacy in your local community? Then reach out to us to begin a dialogue of how you can promote our Green Values in your area. From local projects to parades, from city meetings to advisory boards, from door-to-door canvasing to the comfort of your computer desk there is something you can do to help your Green Party right here in Northwest Indiana. Reach out to us or join us at our next meeting to discover how we can work together for a Greener NWI.

Interested in Running for Local Office in 2023?

The time is now to explore your run for local elected office in 2023 and your local Greens are here to help. The Northwest Indiana Green Party is getting candidates resourced for getting on their ballot. We have three people with campaigns ready to go and we want a lot more candidates running to turn the region Green. Have you been considering make a value-based run to place our environmental, social justice and democracy platform on the ballot? Then this is the time begin to build our coalition in Northwest Indiana! So reach out to us by replying to this email, contacting us through our website (www.nwigreenparty.org), messaging us through Facebook or attending our monthly meeting. Our region needs you to run as a Green in 2023.

A Message from Joe Conn, NWI Green Party Chair

I first got involved with the Green Party in 2016 after Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign was sabotaged by the Democratic National Committee, leaving the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein as the only remaining presidential candidate supportive of a national, single-payer, universal health insurance system.

Dr. Stein earned my vote and the Green Party my support.

So, unsurprisingly, I’ve been involved with Northwest Indiana Medicare for All (NWIM4A), a cross-partisan educational organization, since its founding in December of 2017.

The mission of NWIM4A is to educate voters about the moral and fiscal superiority of switching to one, single-payer, government-run and financed, universal health insurance system, what we now call Medicare for All.

On the issue of Medicare for All, the goals of the Green Party and NWIM4A are the same, to improve the quality of life for all Americans by making top quality health insurance affordable and available to all residents of the United States.

In the health care section of the Green Party’s national platform for 2020 is a declaration that healthcare is a human right, not a privilege, and one way to ensure that right is to support “single-payer universal health care and preventive care for all.”

A study in June revealed 300,000 of the 1 million Americans who had died thus far in the COVID-19 pandemic perished needlessly simply because they lacked adequate health insurance. Pre-pandemic studies have indicated as many as 45,000 Americans die needlessly each year for lack of health insurance.

Our Green Party platform calls out the problem, saying, “Our current health care system lets tens of thousands of people die each year by excluding them from adequate care, while its exorbitant costs are crippling our economy. The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world without a national health care system.”

This past summer, as part of its educational mission, NWIM4A conducted a historic, door-to-door poll, reaching approximately 325 households of registered voters in the Highland precinct of 1st District U.S. Represenative Frank Mrvan, a Democrat. It is believe this was the first time any group has polled NWI voters to get their opinions on national health insurance issues. Pollsters received 100 written responses.

Here are the highlights:

The poll reveals there is broad support for Medicare for All (76%)across all party affiliations and among those who declared themselves to be politically independent or indicated no party preference.

Support dipped somewhat (62%) when voters were informed that providing Medicare for All coverage would mean giving up their own private health insurance. But most of that change was not to opposition to M4A, (those who selected “opposed” on the poll rose by just 4 percentage points) but to “unsure” (which rose by 9 percentage points.)

Seeking refuge in uncertainty indicates NWIM4A supporters and NWIGP members have more work to do educating our friends and neighbors, since no one should be uncertain about switching to Medicare for All. The benefits packages in both M4A bills now before the U.S. Senate and House would greatly improve almost everyone’s coverage at lower cost than they’re paying now.

Three more points likely to be of interest to Greeners jump out from the data.

1. Better than 1 in 5 polled respondents (22%) disclosed that in the prior 12 months they’d put off needed healthcare care due to concerns over cost. All but one of these respondents were insured, indicating that their health insurance wasn’t doing a proper job.
   
   
2. One person (1% of those polled, well above the national average) indicated they’d filed for bankruptcy due to healthcare bills. The person was uninsured at the time, though he/she had obtained insurance by the time they took the poll.
   
   
3. Forty-nine percent of those voters polled had no political party affiliation. The two “major” parties represented just 46% of the people polled, with Democrats accounting for 31%, Republicans 15%, while Libertarians accounted for 5%. This confirms for me there is substantial voter dissatisfaction with the two-party system.

Here’s wishing all NWI Greeners a happy and prosperous New Year.

Joseph Conn
Chairman, NWIGP

Portage Approves Three More Home Based Gun Exchange Businesses

Three people requested of the Portage Board of Zoning Appeals variances from the home occupancy standards to allow for businesses that facilitate the transfer of guns purchased online. NWI Green Party member Rev. Michael Cooper spoke against the three requests. The Board unanimously approved all three requests. Below is transcript of Rev. Cooper's speech to keep the streets of Portage safe from the business of gun sales and transfers

The petitioners are here this evening because they need to complete their applications for a Federal Firearms license (FFL). Specifically question 20 a) that states “The business/activity to be conducted under the Federal Firearms License is not prohibited by State or local law at the premises shown in item 6. This includes compliance with zoning ordinances. (Please contact your local zoning department PRIOR TO submitting application)”

We are not here this evening to debate the 2nd amendment. The Federal Courts have already ruled in Morgan vs ATF which was a case out of Michigan involving the 3-year renewal of an existing FFL operating out of their home that was determined by the town after years of operation to not be an allowed use. The court upheld that the best interpreters of the local zoning laws is the local municipality and not the ATF or even the federal courts themselves. 

You are our interpreters tonight. Interpreters for not only the opinions of the residents of this city like myself, but also interpreters for what is in the best interest of maintaining the safety, integrity and quality of three neighborhoods in our city.  These type of commercial transactions, the exchange of firearms purchased online for which the FFL receives a fee for services tendered, are not the type of transactions that should be taking place in residential neighborhoods. Portage currently has three commercially zoned business where those types of exchanges can, in my opinion, more safely occur, those are PawnKing on Willowcreek, BassPro in Ameriplex and Star Uniform on Melton Road. If you include the one remaining residential FFL not up for consideration this evening and located directly across from Woodland Park, Portage has plenty of existing locations to meet any demand that there may be, then when you factor in the 14 others around the county, I would say access for any resident of Portage wanting to exercise their second amendment right is not limited. 

The placement of commercial exchanges of firearms on the streets where families walk their dogs and children ride their bicycles creates a significant safety and quality of life concern. The integrity of residential areas relies on the exclusions of in-person sales, which given the unique and changed characteristics of gun sales in the US, the service for a fee provided by these petitioners falls under umbrella of a sales transaction even as they are acting as third-party transfer. I have no issues with the petitioner this evening opening their business in one of the many commercial properties around our city and if they do they could initial question 20a without the special exception being requested this evening.  Keeping these business limited to the many commercial areas of our city also mean they will meet the occupancy and safety requirements required by our code for businesses uses, they will maintaining commercial insurance and they will be paying the commercial property tax rates to cover any public safety expenses incurred by the city.

I ask the Board of Zoning Appeals to deny this petition and help keep the residential streets of Portage free from the commercial sale and exchange of firearms.