Bay Area Code Pink Actions

Regulating Military Recruiting Coalition

The Regulating Military Recruiting Coalition (RMRC) formed several weeks ago when Sharon Adams, attorney and CodePINK member, decided to write an Initiative to further refine the zoning ordinance to regulate military recruiting in Berkeley.

We decided to take the Initiative to the citizens of Berkeley to broaden the civic discussion about the role of military recruitment in our city. We believe Berkeleyans have worked hard, from the time of the civil rights movement to the present, to form a society that shares core values, including that of assuming an active role as responsible members of families and responsible members of our local and national society.

Other core values we share include:

Negotiation, dialogue, compromise, not violence, to solve problems.
Importance of objective information and critical thinking as a basis of action.
Respect for each individual and differences.
Importance of our role as members of families to nurture and to protect.
Importance of our role as members of communities to nurture and to protect.
Importance of security: access to basic education, economic well-being, health care and other protections necessary to human dignity, without which it is impossible to access society's other rights and responsibilities
Voice: We embrace democracy as a system that depends on the ability of all of us to participate fully in the economic, political and cultural life of the local community and the nation, notwithstanding our station at birth.
Community: We share responsibility for each other.

We cannot and will not sit back and allow any institution that engages in grievous acts of deception, seduction, and enticement of our youth with the express purpose of turning them into cannon fodder and murderers, to operate anywhere it wants to in our great city.

We are a diverse coalition of partners Carole Kennerly, PhoeBe Sorgen, Ying Lee, Sharon Adams, and Zanne Joi.

Carole Kennerly (Davis) is a long time resident of the city of Berkeley. She is a mother and grandmother. Carole has many years of community involvement including Berkeley's first African American woman to be elected to the Berkeley City Council. She was the recent commissioner on the City's Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee; former member the Board of Directors of Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union; member of NAACP, Berkeley Chapter and member of board of managers of Berkeley YWCA. Carole is a retired public health professional who worked on maternal and child health issues including domestic violence as a public health issue.

PhoeBe Sorgen: Voice teacher/Singer, CodePINK activist, Berkeley Peace and Justice Commissioner, KPFA Local Station Board community rep, Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Committee Chair Emeritus, BFUU Board Trustee, co-founder TRANSCEND USA Steering Committee, co-founder ReclaimDemocracy.org Bay Area chapter, mother of a Berkeley High School student.

Ying Lee: Teacher for many years in the Berkeley Unified School District, Member of the Berkeley City Council in the 70's, Administrative Aide to Congressman Ronald V. Dellums in Berkeley and Washington, D.C. Legislative Director for Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Presently a Trustee of the Berkeley Public Library. Ying is also a parent and a grandparent

Sharon Adams is an attorney that worked for several years in land use law, and is interested in the interplay between the use of real property and first amendment rights. She is also an intellectual property attorney, board member of the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, and a parent.

Zanne Joi is a CodePINK activist and truck driver, long-time resident of Berkeley, mother, and has several family members who served in the military: an ex-husband in the Air Force, a father in the Coast Guard, a grandfather in the Army.

Many diverse organizations have endorsed this Initiative and action today including but not limited to:

Idriss Stelley Foundation,
SF Bayview CEDP (Campaign to end the Death Penalty),
Education Not Incarceration SF Chapter,
SF Village Voice Community Radio,
Free the Jena 6 SF Bayview Task Force,
Grandmothers for Peace,
El Cerrito Greens,
Movement for a Democratic Society Bay Area,
BFUU Social Justice Committee;
Mary Prophet, Military Out of Our Schools;
Hatem Bazian, Professor UCB;
Bay Area IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against War),
World Can't Wait,
Berkeley Greens,
Act Against Torture,
CCCO (Center for Conscientious Objectors),
Courage to Resist,
Peninsula Peace & Justice Center;
Dona Spring, Berkeley City Council;
Berkeley Graypanthers
Peace & Freedom Party
Theresa McGhee, Berkeley High Graduate
National Lawyers Guild Bay Area
Watada Defense Committee/API Resist!
CodePINK Women for Peace Bay Area

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