First Published: Berkeley Barb, June 14-20, 1968.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Bay Area Peace and Freedom organizations, winded by the primary elections, and by the disorientation caused by the Robert Kennedy slaying, and by their habitual in-fighting, are pushing to get the PFM show back on the road.
Two meetings during the past week moved the new party at least one step nearer to being an organization representative of state-wide opinion.
The Berkeley and San Francisco county groups selected members to the Council of Delegates, which will act as the policy making body for the California PFM as a whole.
The Council of Delegates will meet for the first time this weekend in Fresno.
A two-day convention of the San Francisco Peace and Freedom Movement last weekend reconstructed the county organization and established its priorities from among a few dozen suggested projects. Debate polarized around arguments for centralization with emphasis on national issues and national organizing, versus decentralization with emphasis on local issues and local organizing.
The decentralists won. Under the adopted structure, the County Central Committee of the P&F PARTY can act only under the direction of the County Council of the P&F MOVEMENT. The County Council consists of two representatives from each San Francisco neighborhood group.
Seven items were given top priority for PFM efforts in SF: local contact work to solidify the PFM base in the neighborhoods, police control projects, education on the Huey Newton issue, rent and tax control programs, summer draft resistance, PFP electoral campaigns, and opposition to current urban renewal programs.
In Berkeley and Alameda County the Peace and Freedom energies will focus on mobilizing a massive demonstration for the Huey Newton trial next month, resistance in the armed forces, and community control of the police in Berkeley.
If the PFM can gather 5,500 valid signatures on a petition, the November city ballot will include a proposed City Charter amendment which would establish two police commissions in Berkeley – one in the uplands and one in the ghetto flatlands. Police agencies in the two areas would be responsible to their respective citizen-elected commissions.
At the Wednesday night Alameda County meeting, the PFM members discussed various ways to strengthen the movement without sacrificing a radical stance. They then elected 13 representatives to the statewide Council of Delegates.
The delegates are Bobby Seale, Dennis Creek, David Rynin, Leo Seidlitz, Dave Kotz, Barbara (Israel) Stevens, Bob Avakian, Andy Truskier, Bob Fitch. Ken Paff, Joe Frantz, Nancy Hassler, and one person from the south county whose name was unknown at BARB press time.
The meeting decided to hold another election of delegates before the second meeting of the statewide governing body, expected three months from now.