AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

of Champaign County

Steering Committee

October 1, 2009

Present: Bill Brown, Elaine Gehrmann, Paul Debevec, Carol Inskeep, Stuart Laird, Carol Leff, Esther Patt, Stephen Portnoy, Richard Schnuer, Shirley Stillinger, Marsha Woodbury

The meeting was called to order at 7:03 p.m. by the chair, Esther Patt. The minutes of the September meeting were approved as distributed.

Old Business

a) Esther reminded us that the Safe Schools forum will be November 2. She and Stuart are in charge of publicity for the event. The steering committee voted to allocate up to $100 for the event, if needed.

b) Material for the newsletter needs to get to Bill Brown by October 16; the mailing party at Shirley’s is October 22.

c) Fall gathering: Richard passed around a check list he had prepared for hosts. We added that food would be provided by the steering committee.

Esther reported that our local membership has dropped by almost 100 households in the last year.

New Business

a) Unity March: the steering committee decided not to be a co-sponsor; because, while we personally support the goals of this march, the issues are not part of our mission of protecting civil liberties.

b) Speaker for annual meeting: there was discussion of possibilities. Marsha and Stuart agreed to contact Coleen Rowley and Glenn Greenwald.

c) Political Science intern: Carol Leff reported that the U. of I’s political science department has agreed to assign an intern to the ACLU in the spring, if a student is interested. The committee agreed that it was worth a try. Possible issues an intern could work on: surveillance cameras, racial profiling, sentencing disparities.

d) Esther and Elaine reported that a new Illinois FOIA takes effect January 1, and the new law provides less privacy protection.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:30.

Respectfully submitted,

Shirley Stillinger