Urgent: Endorsements Needed for a Public Bank of Santa Rosa

Hi folks,
Happy New Year! As you are probably aware, even though the camps at Standing Rock are gone, Native American leadership continues to urge divestment from fossil fuels. Our divestment team at Sonoma Solidarity with Standing Rock ​has joined with Public Bank Santa Rosa to urge the City of Santa Rosa to start a public bank as it is the ONLY way for the city to divest from Wall Street banks.

Now this proposal takes on a new urgency - as the city attempts to fund the rebuilding of infrastructure destroyed in the fires. A public bank offers many financial gains:

1. It will help cut the cost of rebuilding Santa Rosa infrastructure after the fires IN HALF. This can be achieved by financing through the city's own bank, eliminating interest paid on bonds and returning the earned interest to the city's own operating budgets.
2. It will save millions in banking fees to Wall Street banks.
3. It can offer lower interest loans to home owner wishing to rebuild after the fires.
4. It will help keep money in our city and county.
5. It's the only way the City of Santa Rosa and other cities and institutions can truly divest from Wall Street banks which invest in fossil fuels.
6. Profits can be used to finance clean energy projects and green, sustainable, more resilient rebuilding.

We urge all community organizations to endorse our proposal. Also, please attend this Tuesday if you can. This is crucial to institutional divestment and to the rebuild of Santa Rosa. The link to the endorsement form is below.

Thank you!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shelly <info@shellybrowning.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 7, 2018 at 7:36 PM
Subject: [Climate Activists-SC] Urgent: Endorsements Needed for Proposed Resolution to Create a Public Bank of Santa Rosa

Dear Friends of Public Banking,

A very warm and Happy New Year’s greeting to you all. The Friends of Public Banking working group has been diligently working away and we have created a Proposed Resolution to Create a Public Bank of Santa Rosa. We ask for your immediate support in endorsing this Proposal. We are asking that the city fund a feasibility study for a Public Bank of Santa Rosa. You may read the Proposal in full and endorse it on our website at the following link:
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http://www.publicbanksantarosa.org/endorse.html

If link does not work, try: http://publicbanksantarosa.weebly.com/endorse.html
 
You may further show your support by signing our online petition, which also asks the city to support our recommendation to fund a feasibility study for a Public Bank of Santa Rosa.

http://www.publicbanksantarosa.org/petition.html or:  http://publicbanksantarosa.weebly.com/petition.html
​
These requests are urgent due to the fact that the Santa Rosa City Council will be conducting their annual Public Hearing for 2018/2019 Budget Priorities at their regularly scheduled city council meeting this Tuesday, January 9th at 5:00pm at City Hall on 100 Santa Rosa Ave.

We would like to present a long list of supporters of both individuals and organizations for the Proposal at this meeting. It would be excellent if you could attend this meeting in solidarity to show resounding support in the request to fund the feasibility study this year. The more people who attend and speak to this request, the more likely it is that the council will approve the feasibility study. If you can attend, wear green and speak to the items in the Proposal that resonate most strongly with you. You can find the full city council meeting agenda at the following link for the January 9th meeting item #16.1 https://santa-rosa.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx

May 2018 be the year that the City of Santa Rosa takes strong and direct action to establish a Bank of Santa Rosa.

To our collective best always,

Shelly Browning
Friends of Public Banking Santa Rosa

"The tallest oak in the forest was once just a little nut that held its ground." ~ Unknown