FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- APRIL 7, 2005
Contact: Phil Huckelberry, Chair, phil@mcgreens.org, 309-268-9974
The McLean County Green Party has launched its new website at www.mcgreens.org, hosted by pabn.org (Progressive Alliance of Bloomington-Normal). The new site prominently features information about the Greens' support of an ISU student initiative asking the governor not to reappoint Jay Bergman to the ISU Board of Trustees, and information about the upcoming hearing in Clinton regarding a proposed new nuclear reactor there, which Greens strongly oppose.
Several McLean County Greens are also members of the ISU Campus Greens and ISU Student Environmental Action Coalition, which is holding a press conference on the Bergman issue on Friday, April 8 at 3:30 in the Spotlight Room at Bone Student Center. The McLean County Green Party has come on board in support of its members. ISU SEAC members are circulating a petition asking Governor Blagojevich not to reappoint Bergman to his trustee position due to the many environmental and occupational violations his firm, Petco Petroleum, has committed in Illinois and other states.
Matt Hindman, a member of the McLean County Green Party Coordinating Committee, will represent the ISU Campus Greens at the press conference. "Jay Bergman has given Rod Blagojevich's campaign fund $31,000 in the last three years," said Hindman. "Springfield is supposed to be mandating strict ethical standards. We don't want to see people buying their way onto state boards."
McLean County Greens have long been on record in opposition to a proposed new reactor in Clinton. The April 19 hearing at Clinton Junior High School is the last public hearing prior to the NRC's final recommendations regarding an Early Site Permit. The reactor would not just impact Clinton residents as nuclear plants have far-reaching consequences for people in surrounding counties, and many McLean County Greens are expected to speak in opposition to the reactor on April 19.
"Nuclear power is not clean, not safe, and not cheap. Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous, and expensive," said Geoff Ower, an ISU Campus Green completing a year-long internship with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Philadelphia.
In addition to these efforts, the Green Party will soon appoint its first precinct committeemen in McLean County due to Phil Huckelberry's showing in the November election.
"The McLean County Clerk has little brochures listing Republican and Democratic committeemen available at their front counter," said Huckelberry. "We look forward to the clerk adding a brochure for Green committeemen in the next couple of months."
