CITIZENS VOTE TO CONTROL CORPORATIONS
On Tuesday, November 3rd, the small city of Arcata, California, made history. By a vote of 3193 to 2056 (60.83% to 39.17%), the citizens of Arcata left no doubt that they consider the power of large corporations in our society and in our community to be a very significant issue which needs to be addressed in a meaningful way.
The Arcata Advisory Measure on Democracy and Corporations, known as Measure F, was sponsored by Citizens Concerned About Corporations, a spin-off project of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County, which has been active in the local area since 1996.
Measure F calls on the City Council to: ( 1) co-sponsor (in cooperation with the drafters of this Initiative) two town hall meetings in the five months following passage of this ballot measure on the topic "Can we have democracy when large corporations wield so much power and wealth under law?"; (2) immediately act to establish, through the creation of an official committee, policies and programs which ensure democratic control over corporations conducting business within the city, in whatever ways are necessary to ensure the health and well-being of our community and its environment; (3) immediately forward copies of this ballot measure to all of our elected representatives at the county, state, and federal levels, and to members of the press.
We were overwhelmed by the level of excitement expressed by local residents about Measure F. It won local endorsements from the Central Labor Council of Humboldt and Del Norte Counties, Mayor Jim Test, Vice-Mayor Jason Kirkpatrick, City Council candidate Bradley Freeman, the Associated Students of Humboldt State University, two local businesses, and many individuals.
Nationally, it also garnered attention. Three of our favorite citizen activists endorsed it: Jim Hightower (who had us on his talk show thrice), Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky. The San Francisco Bay Guardian also endorsed it on its cover dated October 28, and will be running a major article about it soon. Finally, in Seattle, a group of citizen activists has already begun planning a similar ballot initiative for an upcoming election.
The only opposition we encountered was from the Arcata Chamber of Commerce, which did not organize against us, and from the Times-Standard, the local corporate daily owned by MediaNews Group Corporation, the seventh largest newspaper owning corporation in the country, based in Colorado.
With a steering committee of six dedicated individuals, only one of whom had ever worked on an initiative campaign, we tackled task after task with gusto. We placed over 100 yard signs across the community. We hung leaflets on thousands of doorknobs. We brought Richard Grossman (Co-Director of The Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy) and Dan Hamburg (Green Party candidate for Governor of California) to speak at a major forum entitled "Reckoning With the Corporate Attack on Democracy." We tabled, leafleted, bannered, fundraised, and too much more even to think about. (We're all VERY exhausted!)
Now the real work begins: launching a city-wide democratic conversation on the proper role of corporations in our society and our community. Given our rights as We The People of Arcata, and our responsibilities to protect our community from harms caused by our corporate creations, how well have we been doing?
What would self-governance look like if giant corporations no longer participated in our political and cultural institutions? Did previous generations of Arcatans struggle to keep corporations subordinate to citizens? We intend to engage the entire city in this discussion. As far as we know, this is the first American city ever to attempt such a process.
In January, we will be meeting with the entire City Council to discuss how to begin implementation of Measure F. Our goal is to hold the first town hall meeting by the end of February, but the city's bureaucratic requirements may slightly delay this date. After both town hall meetings are completed sometime in April, the City will create the Arcata Commission on Democracy and Corporations, which will have its first meeting sometime during the summer of 1999.
-Paul Cienfuegos is Director of Democracy Unlimited of Humbolt County
For more information about Democracy Unlimited or its spin-off organization, please send at least $2 to us at POB 27, Arcata CA 95518, or check out our new web site at <www.monitor.net/democracyunlimited>. Or better yet - join our small but busy organization for a mere $25 ($15 low income) and receive four newsletters, and discounts on a plethora of articles, books, and audio tapes.