On March 1st, several Arcadia High School Students attended an SOC meeting to document our quest for justice.  SOC will be featured today, March 17th, in their high-school English honors project.  The following is a quotation from them expressing their gratitude and admiration.  

"Our documentary is undergoing final editing and we will be presenting on Friday.  This project has been an eye opening experience, and we could not have done it without the help of you and all of the Save Our Community leaders.  Your warm gestures and smiling faces put us at ease and earned us some great interviews for the documentary.  I will keep you posted as to when it will be done so our group can send SOC a copy.  Please let all of the SOC fighters that we appreciate your openness and what the group does!  Keep fighting for your right.  Once again, from Ben, Lisa, Iris, and myself, Thank you."

I've attached [in Word format] a handout I prepared for the February 7, 2006 protest, "Funeral for Democracy."  Figured as long as I have this stuff laying around, I might as well post them.  The protest is long-done, but the issue remains.

This protest was the first of three demonstrations we held during the month of February.  Around 60 people participated for at least part of the protest.  As with all of our protests, it was peaceful.  But we did have a mock coffin to dramatize the death of democracy in Rosemead.  We stood with our signs on Valley Blvd, in front of Rosemead City Hall, and reminded our neighbors that February 7 was supposed to be our election day.  It's the day that Jay Imperial and Gary Taylor should have been kicked out of office, and the day that the people of Rosemead would finally take back control of their city.  It's the day that Rosemead would finally enter the 21st Century.

The attached document is a work in progress.  It's hard to anticipate every possible lie that can be told by Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart sock puppets, but here are a number of their more frequent lies.  The responses are my own, and do not represent the views of every member of the group.

For any questions, you can e-mail me at the address news@saveourcity.us but instead of the city part of the address, think community, instead [all one word, no spaces].

At the February 14, 2006 city council meeting [the day that David Perea moved on to the next world], Gary Taylor said something that just had to be challenged.  He commended Jay Imperial for performing a "service" for the people of Rosemead in suing his own city to stop the recall election.  Taylor said that he had read the law, and that the law was clear:  citizen-initiated petitions needed to be circulated in multiple languages.

The Wal-Mart sock puppets, who place getting a Wal-Mart in Rosemead above any consideration of fairness, democracy, or ethical behavior, cheered the death of democracy in Rosemead a few weeks ago. They were happy that a recall election that 4,800 people asked for by signing one of two petitions seeking the recall of city council members Gary Taylor and Jay Imperial was postponed by Judge Klausner. Jay Imperial and Gary Taylor, of course, joined them in celebrating the outcome. But, apparently, not even they bothered to read the judge’s order. Because, at the city council meeting on February 28, 2006, when I pointed out a few inconvenient facts about the judge’s order to Mr. Taylor and Mr. Imperial, they were speechless. And, as you know, with those two, that’s quite unusual.

Thanks to all of you who turned out to our rally on Saturday, February 25. A media report placed our crowd at "between 50 and 200." In actuality, I estimate 300 people joined us for at least part of the festivities. There were never 300 people at any one place at one time, but we did spread ourselves all over Rush Street, Walnut Grove, Angelus, Delta, and the Rice Elementary School field. And the event lasted for three and a half hours.

Charles Schmidt, a dedicated and generous SOC volunteer, passed away.  He contributed to our recall campaign, and we will miss him dearly.  We send his family our love.