A Call to Action: Follow This Calendar to Participate in All Important Events Feb. 14 – 21, 2017

by Melissa Diane Smith, author of Going Against GMOs

The momentum of the movement of everyday citizens against Monsanto in Pima County has been building for months. Large, often standing-room-only crowds attended public meetings about Monsanto. Educational events have been consistently packed. A showing of SEED: The Untold Story was close to sold out – with almost 500 people! – at The Loft Cinema on Super Bowl Sunday!

Now, it all boils down to this week. Next Tuesday, February 21, the Pima County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on whether or not to give Monsanto foreign trade zone status and a tax break, and a large group of concerned citizens in concert with GMO Free Arizona have a week of action planned to say a collective NO to the supervisors about that idea.

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Bill McDorman, Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance and former Director of Native Seeds/SEARCH, is a key subject in the film documentary, SEED: The Untold Story, which will be showing at The Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway in Tucson, this Sunday, February 5th, at 2 pm — be sure to come early starting at 12:30 pm on the patio to get more information about the grassroots movement against Monsanto — and McDorman will lead a discussion following the film. Don’t miss this special event!

McDorman wrote the following letter to urge the Pima County Board of Supervisors not to support Monsanto’s application for Foreign Trade Zone status for its property in Avra Valley. Please share the letter far and wide, and encourage other leaders in organizations and businesses to write letters to the Board of Supervisors or, better yet, to attend and speak at the all-important Feb. 21 board meeting!

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by Melissa Diane Smith, author of Going Against GMOs

Pima County residents were given less than a week’s notice about the “public” meetings about Monsanto, but that didn’t matter. Five meetings took place in the time frame of just 11 days, but that didn’t hold people back either. Grassroots efforts, with help from some of our national non-profit organization partners, got the word out about the meetings, and the community did a fabulous job of responding! All five meetings were very well attended, and a few were packed with standing-room-only crowds. At each meeting, roughly 90 percent of the crowd was against Monsanto, and people came with powerful statements, pointed questions, colorful signs, and a lot of passion!

View the photos in this photo gallery from the District 2 (Supervisor Ramon Valadez’s) meeting on Thursday, January 19, 2017. You can click on each photo to see a larger image of it. The photo of the large crowd at the meeting was taken by Amira Van Winkle. All others photos are ©James F. Palka. Many thanks to both for capturing the flavor of what went on in the last meeting — a meeting that mainstream media didn’t even cover.

We need this same “Say No to Monsanto” community response at the February 7th and February 21st Pima County Board of Supervisors meetings at 9 am at 130 W. Congress Street!! Please make plans now to come out and join us to give us overflow crowds at these two meetings! The meetings are our times to powerfully stand up to the supervisors, come with creative signs that get the supervisors’ attention, and tell them all the reasons they should say NO to a tax break for Monsanto! Consider skipping school or work for half a day to join people from many different walks of life who want to protect Pima County against Monsanto! Then let’s blow the supervisors away with the amount of people who show up, speak up, and say no to Monsanto!!

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Need to get up to speed on Monsanto’s plans in Pima County and on what we can do about them? Be sure to attend “What You Need to Know about GMOs & Pesticides: The Local Movement Against These Threats to Our Health” at the Hoff Building at 425 East 7th Street (behind the Food Conspiracy Co-op) this Sunday, January 15, at 3 pm. It will be the first info session on this topic in the 4^th Avenue area of Tucson, and the last information session before public meetings about Monsanto in Pima County take place for Districts 3, 5, and 2 next week.

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Three more district public meetings about chemical giant Monsanto’s plans to develop property in Pima County for the purpose of developing experimental corn with experimental chemicals will take place January 17-19, 2017. Learn what you need to know in preparation for the meetings at a “Stand Up Against GMOs and Pesticides” presentation at Natural Grocers on Saturday, January 14, 2017, at 1 p.m. This will be the first info session on this topic on the southeast side of town.

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Don’t Want Monsanto in Pima County? Use This Schedule to Attend All Important Educational Events, Board of Supervisors Meetings, and Open Public Meetings This Month

by Melissa Diane Smith

It’s the new year, and it’s time to hit the ground running in a full-court press against Monsanto establishing a facility in Pima County.

If you don’t like the idea of Pima County rolling out the red carpet for a chemical corporation that has a notoriously bad record in the communities it takes hold in, be sure to attend as many events and meetings as you possibly can this month and make your voice heard against the outrageous idea of Pima County giving a tax incentive to the corporation.

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The first of five open public meetings for the Pima County supervisors to receive more public input about chemical corporation Monsanto’s proposed plans in Pima County begin at 5 p.m. on Monday, January 9, 2017, at the Oro Valley Public Library. Other than a mention on Supervisor Ally Miller’s Facebook page, information unfortunately has not been advertised to the public, so most people know nothing about the open public meetings.

If you don’t know about the meetings, what Monsanto is, and what it wants to do in Pima County, or if you simply need more information, be sure to attend “GMOs & The Future of Tucson’s Food and Environment” on Saturday, January 7, 2017, at 2 p.m. at Tucson Waldorf School, 3605 E. River Road. This free and open-to-the-public community meeting will be the last educational event to take place before the open public meetings begin. Come to the event and get all your questions answered so you can be up to speed on the information and prepared for the open public meetings.

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