March 2015 SCNY call – agenda (additions from the last Agenda) The phone number is 530-­‐881-­‐1400, participant code 978895. 0. Sarah Marie Levin (Sarah@secular.org) is the new state coordinator for SCA. We want to welcome Sarah and thank Diana for all the help she has provided. 1. NECSS update. The North-East Conference on Science and Skepticism (http://necss.org/)
will happen from 9 April to 12 April 2015. • John registered and will share tabling with Mathew on Saturday and/or Sunday (but also help with SHSNY &RNY) • Update on arrangements to get materials for the conference from Sarah & Mathew o Key issue handouts, fliers, give aways, banner, a few copies of the secular policy guide, a way to collect names and E-­‐mails & ???—Reports from Sarah and Mathew • They are in a new location and vendors will be outside the main hall • We may have to pay for the table and I arranged to split the cost with the SHSNY by sharing a table with them 2. We added additional key Issues (Thanks to Sarah, John, and Matthew) • The ‘Boss Law’ which addresses reproductive freedom. • Support of Science based climate change policy. • Gov. Cuomo’s proposal to create a New York “Faith-­‐Based-­‐Office.” 3. The Secular Policy Institute (http://secularpolicyinstitute.net/) is continuing to contact free thought groups in NYC. 4. There is an organizing effort to create a coalition in NYC around affiliation with the UCoR, i.e, United Core of Reason (http://unitedcor.org/national/page/home), and the SCNY has been invited to join. John is trying to lean what this would involve and will report when he knows more. 5. We sent out an action alert about the Educational Tax Credit bill and John sent out individual letters to key officials form the SCNY. • Possible update from Michael and discussion of strategy • There are ads supporting this bill, so there is clearly an effort to pass it. o Ads to run in support of school tax credit ahead of Albany budget deadline (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ads-­‐air-­‐support-­‐school-­‐tax-­‐credit-­‐
article-­‐1.2158906) o New York’s Proposed Education Investment Tax Credit And What It Means For Yeshiva Parents (http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/new-­‐yorks-­‐proposed-­‐
education-­‐investment-­‐tax-­‐credit-­‐and-­‐what-­‐it-­‐means-­‐for-­‐yeshiva-­‐
parents/2015/03/18/) o http://www.lohud.com/story/money/personal-­‐finance/taxes/david-­‐mckay-­‐
wilson/2015/03/12/education-­‐tax-­‐credit-­‐tied-­‐state-­‐budget/70243208/ o http://www.lohud.com/story/opinion/readers/2015/03/20/education-­‐tax-­‐
credit-­‐costly/25091293/ What additional actions should we take about this? 6. Gay pride celebration in NYC (http://www.nycpride.org/) is coming (23-­‐28 June) and we should make plans to participate. Will SCA be participating in the NYC event? Sarah? 7. Lobby day: dates (30 April 2015), description, and participation by members of the SCNY executive committee. https://www.secular.org/content/2015-­‐lobby-­‐day 8. Creating Alliances. Nothing new to report. 9. Creating a SCA alert system to create city specific alerts for major cities-­‐an update. • John collected contact information for Manhattan. 10. Reports and White papers in process • We are in the still final stage of developing position papers on the NY practice of allowing churches to hold services in public schools. • Kenneth Bronstein, president of the New York City Atheists, has actively working on a white paper on water and sewer tax policy. John is now helping with this. 11. Other issues? Action items? 12. Date for the April Call—15 April ? or 22 April ? Note Lobby Day at the end of the month.