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Home My WebLink About2001-10-23 Correspondence Marian Karr ( ) From: Field, R. William [bill-~eld@uiowa.edu] Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 5:07 PM To: council@iowa-city.org Subject: Smoking Ordinance Council Members, I am an Iowa City resident and lung cancer researcher (http://expertise.cos.com/cgi-bin/exp.cgi?id=323385) at the University oF Iowa. I strongly urge you to put health concerns first and draft an ordinance that allows citizens of Iowa City to go into any restaurant and not be concerned about their health or the health of their children. I have never smoked in my life, but have numerous health complications including surgery attributable to environmental tobacco smoke. As part of my research, I have spoken to hundreds of lung cancer patients and not one ofthem said that they thought being around smoke was worth the cost. Fifteen percent of these lung cancer patients never smoked a day in their life. A common theme among them was, "I saw everyone smoking when I went out to dinner and I thought I was missing something by not taking part". Believe me, lung cancer is a terrible way to die. I have seen too many people die first hand. And this suffering does not even address the other health concerns such as asthma, cardiovascular problems, etc. Only 50% of people who get lung cancer, make it one year (And only 15% live 5 years). I also urge you NOT to consider a red/light green light ordinance. They are impossible to police. From my own research, I know the aerosols and attached carcinogens From cigarettes stay airborne For long periods of time. Even after depositing, the carcinogenic particles often resuspend with only minimal air movement in a room. Don't be misled, this is a health issue. Much of the support against an ordinance can be traced to the tobacco industry. Just look at the lawsuit by the bars in Ames for some proof. This is not anti smoking. I know many smokers who are considerate of others and do not smoke in restaurants. All we are asking is that people do not smoke while they are in the restaurant. The loss is the ability not to smoke for an hour. The gain is a both a healthy work place and a place where I feel safe to take my family. Drafting of this ordinance has been held up for too long already. I urge the members of the council do not use the Ames lawsuit as yet another invalid reason to wait. I guess we will see tonight. Draft a good ordinance that does not include red/light green light and it will not be successfully challenged (if challenged at all) Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Regards, Bill Field R. William Field, Ph.D. College of Public Health Research Scientist - Department of Epidemiology Adjunct Professor - Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Graduate Faculty - College of Public Health (http://www.public-health ,uiowa. edu/) University of Iowa N222 Oakdale Hall Iowa City, Iowa 52242 319-335-4413 (phone) 319-335-4748 (fax) 10/16/01 mailto:bill-field@uiowa edu From: greg Probst [gpprobst@yahoo.com] Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 1:31 PM To: council@iowa-city.org; gpprobst@yahoo.com Subject: Trash Pickup Dear Council: Attached to my letter below is an excerpt from Coralville's web site. I relocated to the Iowa City area in 97 and still am perplexed why this city does not have some similar program. By not having this kind of program doesn't mean that citizens of IC do not have this kind trash to dispose of. In fact, not having this last spring caused me a flat tire when delivering the small amount of bulk junk to the landfill. Also, I spent an hour this last Saturday reducing a box spring to small pieces to fit into a trash can rather than risk another flat tire. Did this relieve the landfill of one less item? Did this reduce the amount of trash output? Does it make more sense for me to reduce it to pieces with my saw and wire cutters vs. the compactor of a trash truck? Are we any more environmentally better off? People will have the same amount of trash disposal needs for these kind of items regardless of policy. In fact, down the road from me out of city limits, its common to find all kinds of garbage along the road including box springs. Please consider some sort of program like this. If one already exists, then I apologize for not being more aware of it. Sincerely, Greg Probst 4001 Laredo Drive iowa City, IA 52246 319.337.3788 Mayor's Clean Up Week October 1-5, 2001 The following guidelines will be observed on your "regular day" during the Mayor's Fall Clean-up Week. 1) Set out on you REGULAR garbage day; old furniture, bicycles, mattresses etc. Regular garbage must have stickers. 2) Appliances, paint, oil, tires and hazardous material are NOT included in this clean-up. Paint and hazardous materials can be taken to the Johnson County Landfill by appointment. Call 356-5185. 3) Oil must be delivered to the Street Department. Appliances will be picked up by appointment only, October 25 and 26. Tires will be picked up on your regular garbage day, call 351-7999 for an appointment, there is a charge for both appliances and tires. 4) Yard waste will be handled as normal. Bags must have stickers or use cans with an annual sticker. Do not double bag yard waste. 5) Tree limbs and branches will be collected October 25 and 26. They must be tied in bundles of four feet in length and not more than 40 pounds. One person should be able to handle the bundle. 6) No construction or remodeling materials will be collected. This includes items such as drywall, lumber, railroad or landscape ties and other construction materials. Contact: Dave Price, Street & Solid Waste Superintendent Ph: 351-7999 Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com Lisa Mollenhauer From: Lisa Mollenhauer Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 3:04 PM To: 'gpprobst@yahoo.com' Cc: Steve Atkins; Dale Helling; Barb Coffey; Brad Neumann; Judy Sivertsen Subject: Bulky Item Collection Mr. Probst: This letter is in response to your October 12 correspondence to the City Council regarding the Coralville Mayor's Clean Up Week. In an attempt to assist residents with clearing bulky items from their homes at times convenient for them, the City of Iowa City offers curbside collection of bulky items throughout the year. A resident simply needs call 356-5180 to arrange for pick-up of items such as appliances, tires, and furniture. A fee to cover the landfill charge is added to the monthly refuse bill. Please refer to the following section on the City's web site for more detailed information on collection procedures. http://www.icgov.org/garbage.htm#bulky Items are not sent to the landfill for "free." Eventually, someone pays for it. In Iowa City, we've elected to have those who deposit the items into the landfill cover the costs rather than having residents who don't subsidize the practice. We've also found that many residents opt to donate used furniture when a "free" clean-up week is not offered. We encourage our citizens to contact the Furniture Project and like organizations when they have reusable items. Your email will of course be forwarded to the City Council. In the meantime, I wanted to share with you the reasons behind the current bulky item collection policy. We appreciate receiving feedback on this important issue. Lisa Lisa Mollenhauer Adrninistratiw~ Assistant to the City Manager (319) 356-5010 To Whom It May Concern: I am a member of The University of Iowa's Class of '99. I was back in Iowa City recently for Homecoming when I discovered something appalling. After the exciting football game and a nice dinner at a local restaurant, I met up with some of my fellow alum's in a relatively new bar, College Street Billiards. While catching up on old times I ordered a round of drinks for my friends and a glass of water for our designated driver. The waitress informed me that due to a city ordinance, they were not allowed to serve water, that I would have to purchase a bottle. I was shocked! Neither have I been able to find such an ordinance, nor do I understand why one would exist. The waitress explained to me that the goal was to prevent minors from pouring alcohol into their water glasses. However, glasses of pop are still being sold. I suspect that this is just one more opportunity for the bar owners to take money from the students. When I was a student, most of the bars not only gave designated drivers all the water they wanted, but also free pop as a thank you for being responsible. It has been recommended that drinking a glass of water between each alcoholic beverage is a good way to avoid getting too intoxicated. In such a conscious community, I am surprised that this practice has been allowed. If I were still a student in Iowa City, I would boycott any bar that refused to give a glass of water to anyone. I hope those of you that are reading this will do the same. Sincerely, An Angered Alum Andrea Lichtenberger 8532 Maurer Rd #128 Lenexa, KS 66219 913-345-6605 % October 16, 2001 Ms. Andrea Lichtenberger 8532 Maurer Road #128 Lenexa, KS 66219 Dear Ms. Lichtenberger: This letter is in response to your recent correspondence concerning Iowa City's alcohol ordinance. What you describe with regard to purchase of water at College Street Billiards Club and Dell, located at 114 E. College Street is not a directive in Iowa City's recently-adopted alcohol ordinance. If business owners impose such regulations, it is their choice. I have enclosed the ordinance for your review. If you are unhappy with the policy of this particular business, I recommend you communicate directly with the owner of the business, Dave Moore at the above address. Thank you for relaying your concern. We hope you are able to make it back to Iowa City in the near future. Sincerely yours, City Manager Enclosure cc: City Council Dave Moore 410 EAST WASHINGTON STREET * IOWA ('IT*.', IOWA 52240-1826 * (319) 356-5000 * FAX (319I 556-5009 From: John Darnauer [johndarnauer@yahoo.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2001 8:52 AM To: council@iowa-city.org Subject: Iowa Avenue Parking Ramp Dear Council Members: I recently transferred to Iowa City in the financial business downtown. You may think that my opinion doesn't count much since I'm a relative newcomer, but I feel compelled to state my feelings about the beautiful parking structure/office building that is hardly ever filled with cars to any degree. Speaking as a layman, I had the opinion for several weeks that the entire ramp building was for reserved parking based upon my seeing the "Reserved Only" entrance on Gilbert Street arcoss from the Fire Department. It is the most easily read signage on all three sides of the Clock Tower Ramp. I had always assumed that the entrance on Iowa City...once I realized it was there...was also a "Reserved Only" Entrance. I am not exagerating when I say that when I walk to work on Iowa Avenue drivers will stop me at traffic lights and on iowa Avenue and ask me if the ramp is only for reserved parking and not for public parking. (If it does not occur every day, certainly it does every other day.) I have lived in Chicago, St. Louis, Des Moines and Omaha. In each of those cities, drivers will find clearly displayed large, tastefully designed signs fastened perpendicularly above the entranceway stating "PUBLIC PARKING". It makes it so much more user-friendly and visitor-friendly for a driver to take the bold move to drive into a new ramp, knowing that they will not later discover that the ramp is a Private ramp for a corporations or business. I'm bringing this suggestion for improved signage because to you because I've become convinced that there is a problem, and this problem is preventing you from having increased revenues from that tastefully designed structure. Please consider my suggestion, at least in discussion. We all will be winners as a result---visitors, residents wanting to shop downtown and you, the City! Thank you for your time. Cordially, John Darnauer Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com Lisa Mollenhauer From: Lisa Mollenhauer Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 10:35 AM To: 'johndarnauer@yahoo.com' Cc: Joe Fowler; Jeff Davidson; Chris O'Brien; Barb Coffey Subject: Tower Place Signage This note is in response to your October 10 email to the City Council regarding signage at Tower Place and Parking. It appears we've done an excellent job of camouflaging a parking garage, so much so that it is not obvious it is a public parking facility. Members of City staff have been working with a sign company for several weeks and are in the process of finalizing plans for improved signage. Thank you for your feedback. We share your concern and look forward to the new signs providing clarification for use of the facility. Lisa From: CWatsonl09@aol.com Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2001 10:32 PM To: council@iowa-city.org Subject: Are you interested in visiting a high school classroom? Dear Council members, My name is Carrie Watson. I am the social studies teacher at the Senior High Alternative Center in Iowa City. I am currently teaching State and Local Government and am seeking individuals involved with local government who would be interested in sharing their experiences and knowledge with the students in my class. Last week my students followed the primary ejections for the 2001 Iowa City Council. The student showed interest not only in the individual candidates but the issues addressed during the campaign. There are several issues the students feel are padicularly important to them. We would welcome any or all of you to visit with our students at your convenience. We will also be inviting the candidates for the upcoming election and other members of city govenrment. The classes are held in the afternoon but an alternative schedule could be arranged. I can be contacted several ways: eraall: watsoncarrie@iowa-city.k12.ia.us Wk: 688-1035 (3 - 4 pm) Hm: 354-7760 (evenings) I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, Carrie Watson 10/15/01 10-23-01 3g(6) T,E OF FI!._ED 2OOI OCT 15 AHII.'{+9 Cl'Pf CLERK October 10, 2001 IOWA IOWA Mayor Ernie Lehman and members of the City Council City of Iowa City 410 E. Washington St. Iowa City, IA 52240 Dear Mayor Lehman and members of the Council, Greetings. I know that you are quite busy, but I would like to invite you to an event that is being sponsored by the Graduate Program in Urban and Regional Planning as a part of the University's Ida Beam Visiting Professorship program. The event is a presentation by one of the nation's leading experts in local governmental law, Professor Gerald Frog of the Harvard College of Law. Drawing upon his recent book, City Making, Professor Frug will be talking about a topic that you will recognize as being interesting and important, namely the relationship between gnvemmental tmits within a region, the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City region, for example. But he will put his own thoughtful and stimulating spin on that topic. A primary feature of contemporary regional development patterns is that cities tend to compete with one another, seeking to attract new business investment or new residents who will add to the tax base while not increasing the demand for schools and other public services. But while these cities compete with one another, they also have to cooperate if they want to deal effectively with their shared transportation, environmental, economic development, and housing challenges. Frug's presentation, "The Geography of Community," will focus directly on these matters. In it he will present his idea of "community building" as a way of increasing the capacity of residents in a metropolitan region to live with people who are different from themselves. Fmg's presentation will take place on Friday, October 26th, from 4:00 to 5:30 PM in W151 Pappaj ohn near the Pentacrest. Please come if you can. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at j ames-thro mnorton(i, uiowa. edu or (319) 335 -0037. Best regards, JsZ~A.'Throgmorton Associate Professor Graduate Program in Urban and Regional Planning Graduate Program in Urban and Regional Planning 347 Jessup Hall Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1316 319/335 -0032 Marjan Karr From: james lee [ilee5500@sylvaninfo.net] Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 2:03 AM To: council@iowa-city,org Subject: George W. Bush Has Committed Murder UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI WALTER LEE P.O. Box 92 Warsaw, VA 22572 Plaintiff v. Civil Action No. THOMAS LOTT 245 East Capitol Street, Suite 226 Jackson, Mississippi 39201 {601) 965-4644 or FAX: (601) 965-4007 (In his capacity as Senate Republican Leader, as well as the sole trier of facts w/regards to trying Impeachment Proceedings) Respondent COMPLAINT The Plaintiff comes before this Court in all humility, and informs the Court that the Plaintiff is an unlearned Man, proceeding Pro se and Informa Pauperis without benefit of competent legal counsel in order to address a wrong that has been committed against him by Federal Judicial Officers of the Court. For the reasons set forth in Walter Lee v. United States Government, the Plaintiff maintains that on 11 Dec 00, the United States Supreme Court knowingly aided and abetted Federal and State Officers of the Court in committing numerous (heinous) felonious criminal acts (High Crimes) in order to deny the Plaintiff disability benefits. The criminal acts the Plaintiff cites that have been knowingly committed by the United States Supreme Court are Aiding and Abetting the Conspiracies to Commit: (13) Counts of Perjury, (2) Counts of Fabricating Evidence, and (13) Counts of Obstructing Justice, (not all-inclusive) which the Plaintiff maintains are all High Crimes and therefore Impeachable Offenses. The Plaintiff maintains that under Art. 1, Sec. 3, cl 6 of the United States Constitution, the United States Senate has sole power and authority to try all Impeachments, and therefore, the Plaintiff can not seek a legal remedy unless it is through the United States Senate, and the Plaintiff maintains that as the Respondent represents the Republican Leader of the United States Senate the Respondent has the power and authority to hear evidence supporting such a serious and alarming allegation. Wherefore, the Plaintiff demands a Jury Trial in which to present the physical evidence in a competent Court of Law which includes (1) Court Testimony, (2) Medical Records, and (3} Official Correspondence (not all-inclusive}, that categorically and irrefutably proves the merits of the Plaintiffs complaint. Wherefore, the Plaintiff requests the Court to Appoint him Competent 1 Legal Counsel in which they can glean over the evidence and present the same with legal clarity to the Court and the Jury in a legally recognized manner. Wherefore, the Plaintiff requests an immediate hearing on this matter due to the fact that when the Plaintiff's merits have been validated in a full, fair and open hearing, the Court will have sufficient evidence to declare the ruling in Bush v. Gore, as unlawful, and therefore, making any order from George W. Bush unconstitutional. Wherefore, the Plaintiff maintains that this matter now becomes a matter of life and death, because if the evidence supports that the United States Supreme Court committed Impeachable Offenses on 11 Dec 00, then George W. Bush was not lawfully Elected to the Office of President as is required by Art. 2, Sec. 1, cl 3. Wherefore, the Plaintiff extrapolates that for George W. Bush to order Servicemen and Woman to risk their lives in defense of this country against enemies foreign and or domestic, especially with regards to retaliation for the horrific and tragic events that transpired on 11 Sep 01, this would be tantamount to committing Murder, if one Bomb or one Weapon was fired that caused the loss of life, and the United States Government would be willing co-conspirators to said Murders Wherefore, the Plaintiff further extrapolates that the United States Government would then become liable for monetary damages of Monumental Proportions to the deceased relatives and to the Governments who suffered any loss of life and or damage to their Country and or Resources respectively, when it is determined in a competent court of law, that the United States Government had prior sufficient and overwhelming evidence to support that they were fully aware of the criminal acts that led to this tragedy and ignored such evidence by their continual and corruptive abuse of power by consistently denying the Plaintiff's Civil Rights to something as simple and so fundamental to our Justice System and its Judicial Process as a full, fair and open hearing on the merits of his complaint, and such a hearing has been denied for nearly 6 ~ years. Wherefore, in the event that there is any problem with this complaint being processed, the Plaintiff maintains that as a result of the criminal accusations contained herein, the parties involved, and the ramifications of the Plaintiff not being allowed to present his evidence in a full, fair and open hearing, that this should underscore enough justification for this Court to immediately appoint the Plaintiff competent legal counsel. Mr. Walter Lee, Pro se United States Citizen ~POST SCRIPT (05 Sep 01)~ The following is a paraphrasing of the public statements issued by Tom Daschle, Senate Leader on or about 3 Oct 01 on C-SPAN2. There are unfortunately a number of our Republican colleagues who apparently are unwilling to give any help to unemployed airline and airplane manufacture workers. They were the hardest hit, for them we are not in a recession we are in a depression. They are out of a job, they have no ability to get healthcare in some cases, no ability to get unemployment compensation in some cases, and they joined the ranks of the unemployed which as you saw just last week hit the biggest record in nine years. Some 528k people signed up for unemployment last week for the 1st time, that is a huge number, that is almost two-thirds of the population of South Dakota. So I think there is ample evidence to suggest that we need to address this issue as constructively and as forcefully and as 2 immediately as we possible can. We should have done it when we passed the "Airline Bailout" bill that was just done. We attempted to work with our "Republican Colleagues" in fashioning legislation that address the immediate needs of Airline Workers, and those workers who are directly involved in Aviation with an expectation that as we take up the investment and stimulus package that we will be in a stronger position to provide more help to a more broader array of workers who have been adversely affected. Unfortunately, as a result of Republican opposition we have not been able to bring this bill to the floor. As to unemployment compensation, look if we can bail out corporations we ought to be able to help working families who are facing absolutely the worst economical and financial circumstances of their lives. We have got to be able to recognize there is just as much value for this country to help those families as it is to help those corporations! To: Senator Thomas Lott: After hearing these statements, I almost gagged at the thought of Republicans rushing to pass a 15 Billion Dollar Airline Industry Bailout, only to discover that there are a number of Republicans who does not want to provide the same sort of financial "Stabilization" to the displaced workers in the Airline Industry. I found these statements (if they are true) to be repugnant, and abominable in nature almost beyond any scope of human decency, and I am sure after reading this that you are just as stunned. Therefore, please do what you can to immediately pass the necessary legislation to rush financial compensation to these displaced families to the same degree that was rushed to the Airline Industry, and please provide me with the names of the individual Senators who oppose such legislation, so that I may address them personally myself. Copies To: Sec. Gen, Sen. Ldr, President, USSC, USAG, Associated Press & Others Blar~ From: bobby jett [bobbyjett_2000@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 12:00 AM To: iowacitycouncil Subject: 64-1 a Thank you for your vote of confidence on our project for 64-1 a. I know this was a tough decision. We won't let you down! The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness. - Dostoevsky 10/8/0 1 The Arc of Johnson County T h t~ 1700 First Avenue S. Suite 16 · iowa City, IA 52240 ArC (319) 351-5017 *' FAX (319) 351-6837 Providing services to persons with mental retardation and developmental disabilities. October 8, 2001 City Manager Steve Atkins and the Iowa City City Council 410 East Washington Street Iowa City, Iowa 52240 Dear City of Iowa City: The Arc of Johnson County provides advocacy and services for people with disabilities and their families. The Arc has been providing these services in the Iowa City community for over 45 years. Last year, The Arc applied for funding from the City of Iowa City, requesting $3000 through the Joint Funding Process. Our application was denied, but several Council Members encouraged us to reapply in the future. So, the purpose of this letter is simply to inform you that The Arc has applied for funding from the City of Iowa City again this year. We are requesting $3000 through the Joint Funding Process. Please give me a call at 351-5017 ifI can answer any questions regarding this application. Sincerely, Rod Sullivan Executive Director Arc of Johnson County BANKERS UFE NEBRASKA JOHN L. MAXWELL IOWA CITy IOWA 52240 / BUS (319)646.2471 /,4rd ~ ~ n~ '~ ~ ~1~, ~,~/ From: Carol DeProsse [cdeprosse@earthlink.net] Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 10:25 AM To: jcnews@yahoogroups.com; jpwhite@co.johnson.ia.us; cthompso@co.johnson.ia.us; mlehman@co.johnson.ia.us; sstutsma@co.johnson.ia.us; pharney@co.johnson,ia.us; tneuzil@co.johnson.ia.us; tjneuzil@msn.com; carolt@inav.net; Connie_Champion@iowa- city.org; Ross_Wilburn@iowa-city.org; Dee_Vanderhoef@iowa-city.org; ipfab@avalon.net; Mike_O'Donnell@iowa-city.org; Ernie_Lehman@iowa-city.org; Steven_Kanner@iowa-city.org; iagp-johnsoncounty@yahoogroups.com; icprogs@yahoogroups.com Subject: [jcnews] A few drug stories Politicians Exploiting Drug-Terror Link http://www.drcnet.org/wol/205.html#politicalexploitation Drug War Budgets Unaffected by September Attacks http://www.drcnet.org/wol/205.html#drugwarbudgets Errata: Who's a Drug-Runnin' Terrorist? http://www.drcnet.org/wol/205.html#errata [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ........................ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ........................ > FREE COLLEGE MONEY CLICK HERE to search 600,000 scholarships! http://us.click.yahoo.com/Pv4pGD/4m7CAA/ySSFAA/kjOolB/TM To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: jcnews-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ City of Iowa City MEMORANDUM Date: October 10, 2001 To: City Clerk From: Beth Pfohl, JCCOG Traffic Engineering Planner~ Re: Item for the October 23, 2001 City Council meeting; installation of a NO PARKING HERE TO CORNER sign on the north side of River Street As directed by Title 9, Chapter 1, Section 3B of the City Code, this is to advise the City Council of the following action. Action ; Pursuant to Section 9-1-3A(10), a NO PARKING HERE TO CORNER sign will be installed on the north side of River Street near the intersection of River Street and WooIf Avenue. Comment This action is being taken at the request of Iowa City Transit. On football and basketball game days motorists park their vehicles in this area making it difficult for transit drivers to turn at this intersection. Jccogtp',memos~gameprkg.doc Johnson County "~.> JOHNSON COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH ' I Ralph Wilmoth, M.P.H., M.P.A. ~_ Director October 11,2001 Iowa City City Council City of Iowa City 410 East Washington Street Iowa City, IA 52240 Re: Support of Clean Indoor Air Ordinances to Reduce Exposure to Secondhand Smoke Dear Members of the Council: Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States. In fact, there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke· The U.S. Surgeon General has concluded secondhand smoke "is a cause of disease, including lung cancer, in healthy non-smokers·" Studies have shown childhood exposure to secondhand smoke increases risk of developing cancer as an adult. Passage of ordinances that support smoke-free environments protect employees, children, and others from exposure to secondhand smoke. At its regular meeting on October 10, 2001, The Johnson County Board of Health discussed the Clean Air for Everyone (C.A.F.E.) group's request to support a smoke-free ordinance for restaurants. Upon proper motion, the Board of Health approved a letter supporting efforts to support smoke free environments. Thank you. son ::~ Copy: Members, Board of Health Members, Clear Air for Eve~one 1105 GILBERT COURT e IOWA CI~, IOWA 522~ · PHONE: (319) 356-~ · FAX: (319) 356-~ Marjan Karr From: John Meyer [meyerbadgers@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday. October 23, 2001 2:40 AM To: council@iowa-city,org Subject: water bill Hello City Council. I was charged a late fee for my water/sewer bill which is 5% of the current bill. In addition to this fee I was charged a $20.00 late fee. I would understand this $20.00 fee if I was unreasonably dilinquent. However, I was not even one month dilinquent from the due date (not the date when the 5% is incurred which is one more week past the due date). I would think that I would at least have a month to pay a past due bill. It seems to me that in your search for revenue that you make the poor who cannot pay all their bills on time poorer. It is no wonder that it is so hard for people to get off welfare when there is a penalty inherent in being poor. All that I ask is that the city bill people more fairly and have some mercy on those who may have a rough month. Please address this issue. Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp lielene R. liembreiker 3002 Parkview Ave. Iowa City, IA 52240 power'. lte native ' ~er ~o~ ~ ~,: ' ~er ~"~g a l~ye~ ~C~; ~ 3~7~lTor3~L ~ you ~ ~edc~ Ene~ ~a~ s~ o~ ~ N~ 15; a fo~-y~ ~ion woffid ~ve ~e p~ib~, pl~ ~ ~e d~ ~e ~ ~ ~e f~i- Io~ Ci~ ~.or co~c~ow~.o~ bffi~ of o~ i~ o~ ~Vo~ Horn m~ u~. Io~ Ci~ I~ad~o~- A 1~ ~ ~t ~e ~ ~ on ~ ~de lower ~, ene~ ~t ~l~ we~ put .~, p~y- ~ ~hed, ~d ~me~ ~ C~. Acco~ ~ ~e foyer ;~e~ w~ lowe~ ;,~'~ for el~ ~d o~e for ~. ~e ~m- ~kp~de~i~o~- .~of~ep~t cl .~ ~? ~ ~7 pub~ y ~op~d u~fies ~ Iowa ~ ~ ~ut ~ ~r- 'Cent'lower ~ p~ o~ ~wer ~ ~ o~ ~, ~, low- e~ o~ ~. We wo~d SAFE HAVEN The International Writing Program (IX`VP) at The University of Io~va and the International Parliament of Writers propose to establish Iowa City as a safe haven for writersfa place xvhere writers at risk from their governments can De and xvork in safety and freedom. There are thirty of these havens in Western Europe, and the International Parliament of Writers, under the direction of the American novelist and screen~vriter Russell Banks, is keen to set up safe havens in North America. Iowa City, xvith its long history of hosting, instructing, and providing safe haven for xvriters, is an ideal candidate to undertake this important humanitarian mission. The IXX/'P thus proposes to work with the city council to create a safe haven as a municipal concern in partnership ~vith faith-based organizations, businesses, and fraternal associations. The xvriters at risk will be identified by the Parliament, ~vhich is based in Paris and which secures each writer's escape and transit to the host city. Then Iowa City will provide housing and a stipend for 1-2 years--$2500/month. The Ix,v/p, which will administer the program from this end, will integrate the writer at risk into its autumn residency so that he/she can become part of the community, which no doubt will embrace the writer and his/her family. In addition, there is al~vays the chance that the xvriter will want to teach and take part in community outreach programs. The total annual cost of $30,000 will be parceled out among enough civic groups, businesses, and religious organizations to insure that all of us have a stake in the ~vriter's well being. Indeed this would be a wonderful way for the city to give something back to writers, who have given so much to Iowa City over the years. July 2001 The European Charter oi' Cities oi' Asylum A network against intolerance, for the protection of threatened and persecuted writers. !. TheCharterofCitiesofAsylumwasadoptedbytheCongressof Local and Regional Authorities of Europe {CLRAE) at its second plenary session on 3l May 1995. The Charter was drafted in collaboration with the International Parliament of Writers, which was set up following an appeal launched in July 1993 by a group of intellectuals. This appeal was signed by over three hundred writers from all over the world, sixty of whom. gathered in Strasbourg for the Cartefour des li#t~ralure$ europ~ennes from 4 to 8 November 1993. reaffirmed the need for an international structure, capable or: developing genuine solidarity between writers whose work and very lives were increasingly being put in danger; becoming a forum for reflection and discussion on new forms 3 of commitment frcc from political allegiance and not directed towards the media In November 1993, when Salman Rushdie came to Strasbourg for the rounding of the International Parliament of Writers. the Carre/our des litt~ratures europ~ennes proposed that the City of Strasbourg offer Salman Rushdie the freedom of the city and declare itself a "City of Asylum" for persecuted intellectuals. On 8 November 1993 Strasbourg Cily Council adopted a "Motion regarding Salman Rushdie and his Commitment". In February 1994 Salman Rushdie was elected president of the International Parliament of Writers. 3, In November 1994, in the presence of Daniel Tarschys, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, and Cathcfinc Trautmann. Mayor of Strasbourg, In exchange, thc International Parliamem of Writers undertook: Salman Rushdie launch an appeal for the extension of the Network of Cities of Asylum and Ihc dralting of. a Charter of. Cities of Asylum in to pay a monthly rcsidcncc grant Io each writcr givcn asylum by collaboration with the Congress of. Local and Regional Authorities or a city for one year; Europe. to mobi]isc its mcmbcrs in the city or country of. asylum in order The CLRAE responded to this appeal. On 31 May 1995, the Congress Io help the gucst writer to integrate and pursue his or her work, adopted Resolution 17, together with the text of the Charter appended to encourage the Iranslation and disseminalion of the writer's thereto, and undertook to monitor the implementation of. the Charter and work and to organisc exchanges and dcbates in the city's support the Network of Cities of.Asylum and its activities. On 21 libraries, universities and schools. September 1995, thc European Parliament adopted a Resolution of. the Network of.Cities of.Asylum. The First Congress of Cities of Asylum took place in Strasbourg the 21-22 March 1996. The Imcrnational Parliament of.Writers planned to have some residences quickly put at the disposal of writers in thc Cities of An agreement was drawn up between the Cities of.Asylum and the Asylum, but it had to be possiblc to extend the network in due course 4 International Parliament of' Writers, through which the cities undertook in to other citics. particular: to pay a subscription to the International Parliament of' Writers on 4, The Charter of' Citics of Asylum sets out signing the agreement; condcmn the new threat facing writers all over the world: Ihc to put one, or several, apartments at the disposal of persecuted writers, Charter stresses that it is no longer solely the object of. literary for the period of one year; creation itself which is undcr threat but writers in person who arc pcrsccuted; to guarantee each writer access to municipal public services (such as council restaurants, urban transport networks, libraries and schools); cncourage the devclopmcnt of a Network of. Cilics of Asylum in order to provide suitable protection to threatened or persecuted to approach the competent authorities with a view to facilitating the writers. process of obtaining visas and residence permits. The Charter of the Cities of Asylum I. SECTION I The following international inslrumcnts and treaties, of a universal ur regional nature, all provide for twofold protection of the writer; on the one hand, the right to freedom of expression and, on the other hand, the right to asylum: The Universal Dcctaration of Human Rights signed in New York on 10 December 1948 and the ]ntcrnational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights signed in New York on 16 Dcccmbcr 1966, the Geneva Convention on the status of Refugees signcd on 2g July 1951 and the Protocol signcd in New York on 31 January 1967, >. the European Convention for the Protection or Human Rights and 7 Fundamental Freedoms signed in Rome on 4 November 1950. and its clcvcn protocols, >. thc Declaration on the freedom of expression and information adopted by thc Committcc of Ministers of thc Council of Europe on 29 April 1982. Despite the extent of the rights provided for by these instruments, the thrcats to which wr.crs arc currently subjcctcd call for a reappraisal of the whole situation and an appropriate response. A J THE NEW THREAT TO WRITERS Local authorities. especially cities. have a fundamental role to play in this connection. The European Charter of Local Self-Governmem enshrines tbe The origin of the new Ihrcal Io wrHers is even more sinister than before; principle of subsidiarity. Resolution 23{% { 1992) of the CLRAE, the European whereas censorship was previously imposed by the state, today it is of a Urban Charter, Recommendation 10 (1995) and Resolution 15 (1995) on private nature; writers are being perseculed by groups which support local democracy: a civic project. underline the importance of social and ideas or beliefs founded on intolerance, by people who base their acts political inclusion and multicultural integration, both as principles of civilised and objectives on intolerance, and who find self-fulfilment in this. cohabitation within nation-states and as factors of stability and peace in international relations. These instruments call for collaboration and solidarity This new kind of threat is no longer related to a particular place or between local authorities themselves. and between local authorities and other territory. Its arbitrary nature means that it can emerge in any country, public authorities. both within the individual countries and beyond national and in any place, whether public or private. When it becomes explicit. borders. it results in the banishment and flight of the threatened writer. When Now that the threat has been transformed in this way, it is no longer the object of literary creation itself which is censored, but writers who 9 I I. S E C T I 0 N I I arc threatened and persecuted in their everyday lives. In the past, it was A new kind of intolerance towards literature has emerged in the form of limits, and it is the very life of the writer which is in danger, especially absolute and anonymous censorship, which destroys the freedom of since the punishment is served with no warning and may bc carried out creation and thus the faculty of thought itself. at any time, and in any place. Attacks against writers who consider the imagination to be a source of Attacks against writers are becoming so frequent they are almost literature arc growing in number, becoming more serious, and arc commonplace and their fellow citizens become inurcd. benumbed and increasingly anonymous and transnational. ultimately indifferent to Ihe suffering of Ihc victims. This new lhreal to lileraturc demands a new response. particularly the In fact, it is the very object of censorship which has changed. Now, ~t creation of new forms of hospitality and patronage which consider is no longer opinions considered to bc dissidcnt by the state which arc muhiculturalism to be an essential condition for literary crcation. being ccnsored, but imagination itself. This new censorship is aimed at the faculty of imagination as a potentially creative process, whether it is critical of the established order or not. Literature is a solitary art which requires little in the way orrcsources and can be widely pracdsed. Writers arc consequently weak, and vulnerable to attack. The spontancily of their imagination is their only weapon, and this is sccn as a danger by intolerant minds for the simple reason that it enables the world Io be rcintcrpretcd, created anew. II1o SECTION III B I THE NEIWORK OF CITIES OF ASYLUM , Cities, particularly cities of asylum, provide an answer to ihe new kind of The International Parliament of Writers (IPW) will propose names threat which exists today. a threat which can lead Io death. Censorship of ofthrcatened writers for cities of asylum Io "adopt". Acceptance the imagination, especially when exercised by private groups, requires a implies that the city undertakes to help make the writer feel at new form of prolcction. in an appropriate setting. This can only be home. mobilising the relevant public or pnvalc institutions, whilst provided by a city, a community with an unshakeablc faith in the the IPW will promote the wrdcr's work and facilitate his or her democratic valucs of frccdom and law. integration in the city. But this is not enough. Since threats and persecution have become Direct, continuous monstonng will bc performed by the IPW, in co- international, an international rcsponsc needs to be found. Only a system operation with the cities, for writers who have bccn welcomed by a which is bolh dccentraliscd and co-ordinatcd can mcct this challenge: in particular city. othcr words, a network of cities of asylum. Cities of asylum arc automatically members of the network. Each Eacb city of asylum undcnakcs Io provide hospitality which is based on a city of asylum shall providc accommodation for a period of one year close relationship bctwccn local aulhoridcs and citizens. Writers arc safe for their prot6g6s, and shall facilitate the writcrs' access to public when they live surrounded by ncighbours, in a city which is democratic services. In particular. each city of asylum undcfiakcs to pay a 11 and thcrcforc sate. contribution to the International parliament of Writers which, in turn, will cover the writers' living cxpcnscs. In lhcsc cirics. thcrc is a natural solidarity bctwccn rcadcrs and all those who promole culture, including univcrsfiies, institutions or patronage and cuhurc, and regional and national authorities. The system must bc co-ordinatcd by the writers themselves, in particular by the ]ntcrnational Parliamcnl of Writers. The inlcnsity and urgency of the thrcat rcquirc an immediate, reliable response, which nccds the backing of the wrdcrs Ihcmsclvcs, in compliance with the principles contained in thc Vienna Declaration. All cities should rally thcir fOrCeS, and invite and welcome pcrsccutcd writers. They can rely on the support of the International parliament of Writers and on the Network of Cities of Asylum. The Nctwork of Cities of Asylum could thus become a true "archipelago" of the imaginalmn. by pinpointing tolerance as an essential condition for literary creation. This network will thus bca triumph for art and the mlcllect. The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe (CLRAE), in close collaboration with Ihc International Parliamenl of Writers. shall support the Network of Cities of Asylum and its activities In pafficular. il shall invile European edits to sign this Charter of the Cities of Asylum adopted by ils Resolution 17 (1995) and will provide relevant follow-up. The Charter of Cilies of Asylum. adopted on 31 May 1995 by the Congress of Local and Regional Aulhorilies of Europe (CLRAE), is the result of close co-oporarion between Ihe CLRAE and the International parliament ofWrriers (IPW), and can be considered as the constituent Charter of the Network of Ciries of Asylum. In this text. the Congress denounces violations to freedom of expression and arlisrie creativily, condemns the fact that writers throughout the world feel themselves to be more and more menseed and porseculed becau,,e of their writing and underlines that only a Network of Cities of Asylum wishing to offer true solidarity and "hospilalily which opens up to Ihe proximity which exisls between local aulhorities and citizens', can provide an appropriate response, The nature of the Ihreal to writers worldwide requites the participalion of the greatest possible number of towns. The CI.RAE and the IPW are therefore deeply committed Io enlarging the Nelwork of Cilies of Asylum and to developing its activities. Supplementary jnfonllalion on Ihe Network's acriviries can be obtained I?om the Secfelarials of Ihe CLRAE and Ihe I PW at the following addresses: CONSElL DE L'EUROPE Congr~:s des pouvoirs Locaux el R/:gionaux de rEurope F - 61075 STRASBOURG CEDEX Fax: 33 3 gg.41.27.51 pARLEMENT INTERNATIONAL I)ES ECRIVAINS 120 rue I IC~tcl des Mt>nnaies I all/:c Georges Leblanc B-1060 Bruxcllcs 17_93300 Aubervilliers Fax 32 2 534 4559 Fax 33 I 48.11.61.34 Model agreement between US Cities of Asylum and the International Parliament of Writers (IPW) Article 1 -- Declaration In accordance with the Resolution adopted by the European Parliament on 21 September 1995 calling on the cities of Europe to join the Network of Cities of Asylum set up by the International Parliament of Writers, me City of ........... proclaims itself a 'City of Asylum' and agrees to be bound by the Charter of Cities of Asylum adopted on 31 May 1995 by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe (CLRAE) in its Resolution 17. Article 2 -- Commitments entered into by the City The City of ..............promises the IPW that it will implement the following arrangements: · The City will pay to the IPW upon signature of this agreement, directly or via any other structure, an annual subscription as a contribution to the management of the Network of Cities of Asylum. The amount of the subscription is set by the IPW and can be reviewed each year after consultations with the members of the Network. For the year 2001, the subscription amounts to US$ 3,000 , The City will provide to the writer a grant at a rate of US$ 2,500 (net of tax) per month X 12. This sum will be paid either monthly directly to the writer or annually to the IPW, which will pass it on to the writer; · The City will place at the disposal of the IPW one or more furnished flats for the use of the guest writer(s). The flat(s) concerned must meet comfort and space criteria and must, in particular, be appropriate to the size of the writer's family and to the requirements of his/her work and private life. Shared accommodation shall not be included in this category; · The City will facilitate the acquisition of a legal status (visa, residence permit) enabling the writer not only to reside in the city for the duration of his/her stay, but also to contemplate, if conditions allow, settUng in the host country; · the City will take the following steps to ensure the welfare of the guest writer and his/her family: - fund the journey (round trip) of the writer and his/her family at the beginning of the residence (possible costs of passport and visa included), - provide child care or schooling for the writer's children, - enable the writer to benefit from municipal public services (such as local authority restaurants, urban transport services, libraries, schools. etc.) and facilitate his/her work and meetings between writers. o The City will comply with the terms of the agreement signed with the IPW, in particular: - the choice of the writer is made at the proposal of the IPW, after consultations with the City and the local partners of the project, - the residence is set up for one year, renewable once at the proposal of the IPW, in agreement with the Host City and the local partners of the project. Article 3 -- Commitments entered into by the International Parliament of Writers In return for the efforts which the host city has agreed to make, the Internationa[ Parliament of Writers promises that it will: · pass on in full and monthly to the guest writer in the City of Asylum the amount Of the residence grant laid down in Article 2 of the present agreement; · keep regularly in touch with the guest writers and keep the members of the Network regularly in touch with each other; Moreover, the International Parliament of Writers promises that it will ask the writer in residence to: · take permanent residence in the City of Asylum and to live in the provided apartment for the duration of the grant (he/she has to inform the IPW about any stay away, which will result in non payment of the grant); o take from the beginning of the residence the necessary legal and professional steps to a definitive integration in the City of Asylum if its his/her choice, or to the return to the country of origin; . cease residence at its end, in pursuance of the terms of Article 2 of the present agreement; · write a memorandum about the situation of freedom of creation in his/her country of origin. The copyright shall be assigned free of charge to the IPW; · define a cultural project linked to the activities of the IPW; · perform some literary, cultural and academic tasks; these tasks will be determined in contact with the host City, with the aim of a mutual reciprocity for both parties, and may be remunerated by the City. They can be linked with IPW activities; · support any campaigns of the tPW on behalf of persecuted writers. Article 4 ~ Duration of the agreement The present agreement will be renewed year by year by tacit agreement. Article 5 -- Termination of the agreement During its whole duration, the present agreement can be denounced by both parties, by recorded delivery letter with acknowledgment of receipt, within a six-month notice. Done in duplicate at ........................on .................... Signatures: The Mayor The President of the IPW: Russell Banks or his/her representative or his representative The Parliament of a "Missing People" by Christian Salmon We are well aware of the suspicions aroused when writers make public pronouncements. It turns out that the twentieth century has signalled the death and burial of a certain kind of engagement. In earlier days we had political instrumentalism; today we have media manipulation. When we created the International Parliament of Writers in 1994, we did so mainly to invent new ways for writers to intervene in public life. We wanted to put an end to the pleas, the denunciations, the forums, all the pathos of media- driven indignation with the humanitarian rhetoric displayed in the "fattening up" of language, as Orwell called it when he denounced it in Politics of the English Language: "Clich~s, worn-out metaphors, lazy writing [...] that make the mind go numb and passively accept ideas and sentiments it does not have to examine...., In contrast to this politicization of language we are not afraid to put forward an ethics of language, a politics of literature--such as we see in Kaf'ka for whom art's only justification at a time of triumph for "phantom relations among human beings," was to "make possible real speech from one being to another." Not so long ago Gilles Deleuze called for a charter among intellectuals, writers, and artists, in which these individuals would state their refusal to be domesticated by the media. He also proposed the creation of groups of production that would be able to establish connections between those who have a creative role and people who have neither the means nor the right to speak: "The advantage would be to separate those who claim to be authors, members of schools or commercial ventures, who sell their narcissistic film, their interview, their broadcast and the state of their souls--the present shame--from those who dream of something else. They do not dream, that is something you do alone...." The International Parliament of Writers is a very strange institution, compared to most parliamentary assemblies. The European Parliament, next to which we were formerly headquartered in Brussels, is democratically elected, provided with an amphitheater, a legislative realm, and its members receive a salary and even immunity to protect them, with good reason, against being prosecuted or pressured. Our Parliament possesses none of these attributes: it has no power, no assembly hall, no registrar, and, until now, no great financial resources; the only territories we may be authorized to represent have been described in a text that serves as our Charter: "Writers are citizens of several countries: the well-defined country of observable reality and everyday life, the infinite realm of imagination, the half lost lands of memory, the simultaneously ardent and icy federations of the heart, the united states of the mind, the heavenly and hellish nations of desire, and perhaps the most important of all our homes--the unfettered republic of language." These are the countries that the members of our Parliament are able to represent and their only legitimacy rests in the fact of having been driven from them; their mandate does not come from voters who have expressed confidence in them but from censors who cannot stand what they write. A strange Parliament indeed, this Parliament whose first two presidents, Salman Rushdie and Wole Soyinka, for several years were both hunted by assassins from t~?o states that are members of the United Nations; neither man had the basic rights of the simple citizen. A Parliament of misfortune convened in haste that dark summer of 1993 immediately after the assassination of Tahar Djaout in Algeria.... When we called for the creation of the Parliament we were merely taking note of a situation that had no precedent in the history of literature. During the first six months of 1993 more than a thousand writers were persecuted, imprisoned or murdered. More and more writers, whether Algerian, Iranian, Egyptian, Turkish, Nigerian, or Chinese, were faced with the cruel dilemma that Tahar Djaout had just barely had time to enunciate a few days before his assassination in the middle of the street: "If you speak you die. If you remain silent you die. So speak and die...." In its six years of existence the Parliament of Writers has itself seen several of its members arrested, like the Chinese poet Bei Dao, others hauled into court like Yachar Kemal, or stabbed in the middle of the street like Naguib Mahfouz, not to forget the atrocious hanging of Ken SaroWiwa who was executed with his comrades in the struggle by the Nigerjan dictatorship. Ten years after that sinister day, February 14, 1989, when a novelist was sentenced to death and our first thought was that it was a terrible anachronism, the murder of writers has become almost an everyday phenomenon.... Fatwas are increasing in Afghanistan, Iran, Bangladesh and Algeria and writers and intellectuals have become the favorite target for reckless attacks that bring a lot of attention from the media; we have gone from the censorship of works to the persecution of authors, from censored texts to beheadings. Censorship has changed its forms, its agents, its target; it has become privatized; separated from the State so it can spread throughout society, it has become a state of mind. It no longer strikes just books; it directly attacks authors. Most importantly, it no longer aims at political, religious, or ideological opinions but instead at the whole area of representation. A new crime haunts the night of orthodoxies: the crime of creating, of writing, or imagining. The crime of literature, Ever since the Berlin wall fell, the figure of a central censorship, exercised by totalitarian states that hunted down dissident thought, is coupled with a multifaceted and complex process that goes far beyond mere state control of freedom of expression. In Algeria, during the assassination campaigns against intellectuals, the mere fact that someone was reputedly a writer was enough to put him or her on the blacklist for fundamentalist commandos. It did not matter what that person wrote and sometimes he or she had not even published anything, since publishing houses were no longer functioning. In Iran, for a long time, it has been music as a whole--disseminating, playing, or teaching it--that has been forbidden. And in Afghanistan we saw how the Taliban who went into Kabul burned reels of film, without even looking at them, in public autodaf~s that were broadcast on televisions the world over, The murderous persecution of writers and intellectuals does not constitute simple violation of individual rights to opinion and expression. The target of such persecutions is anything in writing that sketches out a different world, different kinds of relations among people, giving form and voice to the invention of a different democracy. We saw this clearly in ex-Yugoslavia where, before weapons began to speak, the first steps had been to reduce the writers to silence and purge the dictionaries and the Serbo-Croatian language with its thoroughly symbolic hyphen: a mixed language, a bridge language. "Wars are conducted for words on a semantic 2 terrain," said Arthur Koestier. In Algeria, before leaving the way open for terrorists and assassins, Betbet and French were sent packing and a dried-up Arabic was imposed--a wooden language just barely fit for Party bureaucrats, religious fanatics, and army instructors. This is what Hermann Broch, in 1934, called the silence preceding murder. And this spreading silence in Muslim fundamentalist regions must not lead us to take a relative perspective on the dangers brought to bear by Western forms of fundamentalism, a new moral order that is attempting to impose its reasons, its criteria and its limitations on writers and artists. It was not so long ago that in France, after the devastating assaults on Scorsese's film, we heard a bishop assert that the figure of Christ did not belong to the imagination of artists--striking a line through centuries of the history of painting. The new penal code adopted in 1994, under pressure from organizations on the far right pushing "family values," makes it legal to institute proceedings against books or expositions. We did not have to wait long for results: in November 1999, in the land of Rabelais and Voltaire, a novelist was sentenced in court for defamation because of a complaint filed by Jean-Marie Le Pen! The court gave as its reasons that an appeal based on the fact that this was fiction or that the remarks cited by the plaintiff were the opinions of fictional characters in no way released the author of the book and its editor from responsibility, but on the contrary could be upheld against him as an aggravating circumstance .... In the United States certain works by authors including Steinbeck and Richard Wright are banned in some high schools because of pressure from parents' organizations. Profanity, encouragement of debauchery, defamation--there are plenty of arguments for banning, gagging, punishing. All the protections, all the safety latches so cleverly set up since the Age of the Enlightenment to protect the creative space, are in the process of collapsing. Today literature is subjected to violence that has no historical precedents. From Algeria, from Iran, from China, from Egypt, from Turkey, from Nigeria the writers are sending out an appeal. It is a simple appeal, it repeats in every language the same obvious fact: to write is to address oneself to someone, and addressing oneself to someone is the opposite of killing. It is up to us to hear this and respond quickly. Otherwise it is murder that will speak. This is why the Parliament of Writers, from the moment of its creation, has been involved in setting up a network of Asylum Cities that are able to offer asylum to threatened writers and artists. Confronted with the archipelago of international terrorism and the internationalization of repression, we had no other choice in fact than to take back new free territories, flee zones where creation is not merely tolerated but encouraged, where writers can continue to write despite the assassins. An ark or an archipelago for imagination. Since the Middle Ages, cities, being more liberal in this regard than states, have very often welcomed people who had been banished, and protected those who were threatened. We have only to think of Dante, Rabelais, or Voltaire. In the course of this century, surrealism, cubism, and all the great adventures of modernity have united the city with the cosmos, the city with the world. In the strict sense of the word they have been urban adventures, products of hospitality. As we increase the number of Asylum Cities, we will return the key to the city to the creators who have been banned and break through their isolation by creating new solidarities around them. But we will also be asserting a different conception of democracy and citizenship. Five years after its creation there are thirty cities in this network (among them Barcelona, Berne, Binis, Caen, Frankfurt, G6teborg, Lausanne, Porto, Salzburg, Venice...). It extends into Latin America (Brazil and Mexico) and Africa (Senegal, South Africa, Nigeria); entire regions (bringing together several villages or districts as is the case in lie-de-France, Tuscany and Catalonia) declare themselves Asylum Areas, but there are also cultural'centers, such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris that are members of the network. The International Parliament of Writers thus has been able to offer authors--Afghan, Algerian, Burmese, Chinese, Cuban, Iranian, Nigerinn, Uzbek and Vietnamese dozens of places they can live. This very concrete program has saved the "Parliament" from the usual traps of "engagement": irregular participation, narcissism, and instrumentalization. But above all it has allowed us to create a new state of mind: asserting the right to literature and to the space for fiction. Not in a purely declamatory manner but by trying to be inventive, creating tools, permanent networks, new ways of going about things in order to reactivate an exchange that is now hampered by censorship but also by the influence of popular media that has spread widely among both those who write and those who are kept silent. Because there is something far worse today than individual censorship and that is the cultural space that is now becoming established. It is a standardized and homogenized space for culture that is dominated by big media standards and by transnational cultural industries that will leave little room for the expression of any diversity or for linguistic and cultural minorities. "Diversity is threatened in this world," wrote Victor Segalen. And today we are all well aware that the thing we keep on calling censorship, for the lack of a better word, is above all the tyranny of there being just one possibility. These days anything trying to sort itself out, anything unformulated, the unheard-of, the heterogeneous, the diverse--anything being born is hunted down. Our Network of Asylum Cities was conceived not merely as a web of solidarity but also as a measure that will allow diversity to be reintroduced wherever it is threatened by multiplying these asylums for creativity--not oases or reservations where free minds would exhaust themselves in the end, but headlands, points from which to begin again the adventure of thinking. Indeed, there is every indication that the traditional forms of judicial and institutional censorship in totalitarian countries are in the process of giving way before new forms that are less easy to spot, more effective and more diffuse. Shielded from more violent forms, these new types of censorship carefully regulate what will be shown and they carry out the subtle meshing among the societies in control, installing everywhere the reign of homogeneity along with its phobia concerning art and fiction. We are imperceptibly passing from the age of censorship to the age of manipulation. From Orwellian TV-surveillance to Huxley's "best of worlds." From local censorship to widespread deception. "But then," someone will say--and we hear this objection rather often--"if this is your program, then why a Parliament?" Isn't the very word "parliament" a concession to the language of politics just when this language seems thoroughly discredited? After all, the writers in our Parliament were elected by no one, certainly not their peers, they only represent themselves and legislate concerning a right that never will be written down, a right without rights that, almost out of derision for the murders and pressures confronting us, we call: the right to fiction. But what is this right to fiction? A right to blasphemy, as some dared call it at the moment of the Rushdie affair? A right to transgression? But where is the transgression if there is a right authorizing or tolerating it? Great works are recognized by how they throw minds into con/usion; not because what they have at stake is explicit, obscene transgression of prohibitions and taboos, but because they are bearers of a change in perception, a disruption of sensibility.... And because they struggle for another hierarchy of the senses, other ways of 4 perceiving, another subjectivity, other types of relations among cultures and languages .... Far from considering itself as a new power, or even a counter-power, our Parliament on the contrary proceeds from something that has as yet no law and no foundation. If, as Gilles Deleuze has written, one of the functions of fiction is to invent "a missing people" then these are the people we represent, these are the people for whom we must be a parliament: the parliament of people who are missing. There are many ways to represent this missing people: it is, of course, made up of the tribes born of the imagination of writers, Kafka's famous bestiary, Melville's sailors, Broch's sleepwalkers, Boulgakov's ghosts, Joyce's Dubliners .... But these people have no need of our aid.... The people who are missing are also, and above all, the million Tutsis massacred in the Rwandan genocide and the ones who survived it, whose main threat is said to be amnesia and silence; the people who are missing are also the small population of Amazonjan Yanomanis vanishing day by day, sealed off by fires and epidemics with the complicity of our silence; it is the Ogoni people too, whose land and environment are being destroyed by the oil companies; it is also the people of Chernobyl and the people of Sierra Leone, all those, whether Kurd, Armenian, Tibetan, or Palestinian, whose land is missing, and the great refugee people of every race and every country, the displaced persons, the stateless, whose migrations describe the reverse history of wars and conquests .... We want them all to have their turn to speak. It is for them that we have created AUTODAFE. Translated from the French by Betsy Wing International Parliament of Writers Extracts of the press review La gent intellectuelle est bien assez port~e ~. se d~nigrer elle-m~me pour qu'on se prive de pavoiser quand elle rernporte, comme ces jours-ci ~ Strasbourg, une vraie victoire sur ses d~mons, victoire digne de figurer clans son histoire ~ c6t~ du "J'accuse' de Zola (...). Le Carrefour des litt~ratures euro- p~ennes et le Parlement international des ~crivains (...) ont d'abord le m~rite de casser la Iogique du vedettariat et de I'~lectoralisme (...). Ce n'~tait pas une "operation~ Bourdieu, Derrida. Glissant ou Sontag, mais la mise en commun, ~. ~galit~, d'une m~me rage des gens de pens~e devant les scan- dales philosophiques de I'heure, et I'impuissance de leurs Etats respectifs. (...) En tout cas, pour le changement de moeurs op~r~ ~. Strasbourg, un cd de joie nous vient: Vive les intellos ! Bertrand Poirot-Delpech, Le Monde (France), 10 November 1993 After any technological advance, it becomes hard to believe we ever did without it. The new International Parliament of Wdters is surely just such a breakthrough. In times past, writers struggled on without a parliament on their own. In future, people will look back in amazement and wonder how it was done. D.S., The Times Literary Supplement (Great Britain), 4 February 1994 Escritores de todo el mundo unen en Estrasburgo sus esfuerzos contra el oscurantismo. 200 escri- totes han recogido la propuesta, poniendo en marcha el Parlamento Internacional de los Escritores, que estan dispuestos a Ilevar adelante contra viento y marea. Rosa Mora, El Pals (Spain), 5 November 1993 L'action du Parlement international des ~crivains vise un double objectif: organiser une solidarit~ concrete avec les ~crivains menaces dans leur travail ou leur existence; ouvrir un lieu de r~fiexion et d'~changes sur de nouvelles formes d'engagement r~cusant toute all~geance politique et route opt- ration m~diatique. (...) Salman Rushdie, le symbole le plus lumineux de ce que cette initiative cherche ~. d~fendre (...) a r~dig~ la charte fondatrice du padement, dans laquelle il r~affirme de mani~re ~cla- tante le droit -~ la libert~ d'opinion, d'expression et, finalement, ~ la libert~ tout court. Notre journal ~ tenu ~. s'associer ~. cette d~claration du Padement international des ~crivains en publiant cette char- te. Brigitte Sion, Journal de Gen~ve (Switzerland), 10 February 1994 Das Parlament soil kein mond~ner Club sein (...), vielmehr eine mobile Eingriffstruppe, eine Relaisstation zwischen Literatur und Politik, eine kulturelle Guerilla, unabh~ngig, yon niemandem autorisiert, eine Macht, die darauf beruht, dass sie keine hat. (...) Hoffentlich sehen wires wieder. Wit k6nnten es gut gebrauchen. Iris Radisch, Die Zeit (Germany), 12 November 1993 La futura Internazionale degri scrittori dovra impegnarsi in una resistenza su tutti i fronti: contro le logiche di Chiese o di Stati, di classi, di sette, di popeli o di masse, che precludono il diritto aJla libera espressione. Elena Guicciardi, La Repubblica (ItaTy), 3 November 1993 En juiliet 1993, un groupe d'intellectuels appelait ~ b creation d'un Parlement international des ~cdvains. Appuy(~ par la signature de plus de trois cents auteurs du monde entier. celui-ci se dote aujourd'hui d'une instance de d~lib(~ration et d'ex~cution au sein duquel si~.gent Adonis, Pierre Bourdieu, Breyten Breytenbach, Jacques Derdda, Cados Fuent~s, Edouard Glissant, Toni Morrison et qui est pr~sid~ par Salman Rushdie. Le Soir (Belgium). 10 February 1994 Det finns mycket for Salman Rushdie med kolleger art f0rbereda inf6r n~.sta mote i Lissabon september. Finansieringsfr~gan till exempel och m6jligheten art bygga vidare p~ Catherine Trautmanns, borgm~.starens i Strasbourg, tanke i~ fdsffider for f0rf01jda intellektuella. Sglv-~l sffiderna i fffiga sore st6dgrupper fran f6ffattarpadamentet skulle mobiliseras till tv-~rkulturella m6tespunkter. Amsterdam, Berlin, Lissabon och Oslo ~ p~ f6rslag fir vad Edouard Glissant fr~n Martinique kunde kalla en kreolisering av Europa; ett bejakande av det utsatta, det tempor~ra, det flerdimensionella. Kristina Rotkirch, Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), 10 February 1994 Salman Rushdie wurde zum ersten Pr~sidenten des im November in Strassburg beschlossenen internationales Schriftstellerparlaments gew~hlt. (...) Deutlich ist, dass diese Versammlung sich nicht die Sache der Menschheit oder der Nationen insgesamt zu eigen macht, sondern class hier Schriftstelier for die Freiheit ihres Wortes und der Dichtung eintreten. Sie repr~,sentieren nut sich selbst. Dies hat eine unbestreitbare WOrde, die durch die Person des in seinem Leben bedrohten Autors Rushdie beglaubigt wird. Frankfurter AIIgemeine Zeitung (Germany), 10 February 1994 In Straatsburg is gisteren op het jaadijkse literatuurfestival Carrefour des litt~ratures de eerste bijeenkomst gehouden van wat een internationaal schdjversparlement moet worden. Her padement stelt zich tot doel op te kornen voor de belangen van schrijvers en de literatuur. (...} De recente aanslagen op schrijvers en intellectuelen wijzen er volgens de intiatiefnemers op dat de democratie in gevaar is. Reinjan Mulder, Handelsblad (Netherlands), 5 November 1993 A funda~ao de um parlamento como Iugar de resistencia e de luta contra as graves ameac,.as politicas, religiosas, economicas e ideologicas que pesam hoje sobre a vida e a liberdade de numerosos esoritores, sobre o acesso ~, leitura dos seus escdtos e sobre a possibilidade de uma livre irnagina~ao de sentido num mundo que deve inventapse. Tereza Coelho, Pubrico (Portugal}, 8 November 1993 Fond~ en novembre 1993 ~. Strasbourg par une soixantaine d'~crivains pour - organiser une solidarit~ concrate avec les t}crivains persecutes .., et pr~sid~ d~sormais par Wole Soyinka, le Parlement international des ~cdvains s'est r(~uni du 26 au 28 mars; (...) Pendant deux jours, les membres du Parlement ont fait le point sur leurs activit~s. La plus spectaculaire d'entre elles est sans doute la creation en deux ans d'un r~seau de ,, villes refuges .. qui compte vingt-quatre villes ~. travers I'Europe... Antoine de Gaudemar, Liberation (France), 3 April 1997 La Belgique, qui Wen manque certes pas, compte un parlement de plus depuis vendredi. Celui-I.~ n'est pourtent pas ~omme les autres. II n'est pas ~lu mais tire sa I~gitimit~ du seul drojt .~ la parole et ~ I'~cdt. II ne vote pas de lois mais porte aide et assistance, morale mais aussi mat~delle, .~ ceux qui ne disposent pas de ce droit et sont menaces dens leur integritY, physique mais aussi morale, pour la seule raison qu'ils le revendiquent. Le Parlement international des ~crivains a ~t~ cr~ en 1993 dens le contexte r~voltant des premiers assassinats d'~crivains en Alg~rie. II est n~ du sentiment d'urgence rnajs aussi d'impuissance provoqu~ par cette vague de terreur contre les intellectuels d'un pays tr~s proche et cela. au nom d'une intolerance d'un autre ~.ge. Robert Verdussen, La Libre Belgique (Belgium), 20 June 1998 Depuis la chute du tour de Berlin, la censure qui p~se sur les artistes a perdu son caract~re ~tatique et bureaucratique pour prendre des aspects plus diffus et souvent violents. Le Parlement international des ~crivains, cr~ en 1993 et pr~sid~ par le nig~rian Wole Soyinka, pdx Nobel 1986, qui a pds ~ ce poste la succession de Salman Rushdie, se mobilise contre ces nouvelles formes d'atteinte ~ la libert~ de creation. (...) Quand un Etat n'assure plus ta s~curit~ sur son territoire. I'exil devient obligatoire. pour alder mat~riellement ces artistes, I'association a r~ussi .~ impliquer une vingtaine de municipalit~s europ~ennes qui ont accept~ de devenir ,. villes refuges ... Catherine B~darida, Le Monde (France), 14 June 1999 Kosovars, afghans, vietnamiens, iraniens: ~. I'initiative du Padement international des ~crivains, des auteum accueillis dans des ,, villes refuges., tiennent jusqu'~ ce soir un s~minaire ~ Caen sur la ,, r~sistance du langage ,, (...) Cette semaine ~ Caen, les ~cdvains en ville refuge ont compar~ leurs experiences et leurs diff~rentes strategies de r~sistance. (...) Selon Jacques Derrlda, membre fondateur du PIE, ,, il n'y a pas de culture qui ne se d~finisse comme culture de I'hospitalit~ ,.. Une double hospitalitY, selon le philosophe: ,, I'~crivain qui est re(;u dans une ville refuge fait ~. cette ville I'honneur de venir, d'~crire, et id~alement de signer des acres po~tiques qui sont, ~, la fois, le t~moignage et I'enrichissement de I'exp~rience qu'on lui a proposSe ,,. Antoine de Gaudemar, Liberation (France), 17 June 1999 C'est en mars 1998 et en presence notamment de Carlos Fuentes, Alvaro Mutis et Jos~ Saramago, que le nouveau malts de Mexico Cardenas a sign~ avec le Padement international des ~crivains une convention de type rifle refuge. Dirig~e par Alvare Mutis, et comprenant des auteum comme Sergio Pitol, Carmen Boullosa, Jos~ Emilio Pacheco, Juan Viiiore, une association des Amis du PiE a ~t~ mont~e, qui a trouv~ une maison d'accueil au cer3tre de la Condesa, un quartier anim~ de b capitale mexicaine. Une belle demeure construite en 1938 pour abriter alors des r~publicains espagnols r~fugi~s et dont les travaux de r~fection sont sur le point d'~tre terminus. dans deux tools, une libreirie internationale de 4000 titms y sera ouverte, ainsi qu'un restaurant et une salle de conference de 100 places. A I'~tage, se trouvent trois appartements d'accueil pour ~crivains. Antoine de Gaudemar, Liberation (France), 17 June 1999 'a TO be a City of Asylum. it is: ~ · to put a furnished lodging at the disposal of artists and ~ writers in danger; · to provide a grant to the International Parliament of Writers, to be redistributed monthly to residents; ·to facilitate procedures of obtaining visas and residenrp The Charter perm,,sw,,h,he,oca, a.,.or,,,e, and ,o f.nance ,.e writers' travel to the host city; · to ensure the residents a social insurance coverage; of Cities of Asylum · to encourage their integration by guaranteeing the,r access to pubhc municipal services as well as to take up The Charter lists the relevant international texts w the defence of their works through reading, translation, form the legal framework for the protectiol publication. persecuted authors, covering, on the one hand, free of expression, and, on the other hand, the righ In order to develop real poles of solidarity, a region can asylum. Drafted by the IPW, it was adopted by become a Region of Asylum by grouping together several Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europ communes, as is the case already with the ile de France 31 May 1995, and approved by the European Parliar t ! Region, the Lower Normandy Region and the Tuscany in its resolution of 21 September 1995. Region. In this framework, the costs of the residences are divided among the communes and the regional institutions To become a City of Asylum or a Region of Asylum, one must: i' adhere to the principles of the Charter of Cities of Asylum; fulfil the conditions set out by the agreement of Cities of Today, the C~ties of Asylum Network is Asylum; composed of 29 Cities and 3 Regions, among be accredited by the ~PW. which 26 in Europe, 2 in Latin America and 1 in North America, So far, the IPW has been able to offer more tha, 70 an,,a re idenc The Network to writers and artists originally coming from Cities: Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Barcelona (Spain), 19 countries: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Berlin (Germany), Besan~on (France), Blois (France), Ferney Bangladesh, Belarus, Burma, China, Congo, Voltaire (France), Frankfurt (Germany), COteborg (Sweden), Cuba, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Hanover (Germany), Kristiansand (Norway), Las Vegas (USA), Serbia, Sierra Leone, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Manosque (France), Mexico (Mexico), Oporto (Portugal), Oslo and Yemen. (Norway), Passo Fundo (Brazil), Procida (Italy), Sabadell The authors accommodated within the (Spain), Stayanger (Norway), Venice (Italy), Weimar Network are designated by the IPW, based on ' '~ (Germany), enquiries carried out in collaboration with an Regions: international network of contacts Lower Normandy Region (France): Caen, Saint-L8. ~111111~ * ~11 lie de France Region (France): Aubervilliers, Georges Pompldou Centre, Suresnes Tuscany Region (Italy): Certaldo, Grosseto, Pontedera. Executive Director: Christian Salmon Honorary Presidents: ;:!: ~ ::~l::7:!~,i,: International · : ~'¢~ Parliament O ~.,~,,.~,,~,~> ~ "':*: of Writers - ,--..-~,,~ The Cities How oan 7o~ s~or~ the Xnterna~ional ~arliament o£ Writers? The International Parliament of Writers is a not-for-profit association, It is financed by the subscriptions of its members and of the Cities of Asylum; it is supported by the European Commission (Direction of Education and Culture), the government of the French-speaking Community of Belgium, the City of Aubervilliers, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of National Education, and of Employment and Solidarity. Your support is the guarantee of its independence. THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA Christopher Merrill Director, International Writing Pro~am Professor of English I am contributing ............................US$ / ~. to help the IPW' activities 470 English Philosophy Bldg. Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1408 first name / last name: ..................................................................................... 319/335-2609 FAX 319/335-3843 address: ..............................................................................................................Mobile 319/936-1499 E mail: christopher-merrill@uiowa.edu zip / postal code: .....................city / state: ............................................... country: .......................................................................................................... tel ...........................................fax: .......................................................... e-maih .............................................................................................................. 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