Paul’s time in the area kicked off with a weekend workshop on community rights and rights-based ordinances in Decorah, Ia, where they have a very active group (Community Rights Alliance of Winneshiek County) who has proposed the first Rights-based ordinance to their county board in the Midwest.  After his time there, Co-coordinator Forest picked him up and brought him to Gays Mills where he sat down and talked for a couple hours with the CSP board and staff on specifics of the community rights strategy and how to implement one of these rights-based ordinances.  We are glad to have another powerful tool in our chest in this realm, as the threat of forces at the state level eliminating our existing ordinances becomes ever-more real.

Next, Forest and Paul headed up to Viroqua where nearly 80 people packed the three-hour mini-workshop on community rights!  CSP is now proud to announce that a new group will be forming in Vernon County working in the community rights realm and on the issues we care so deeply about!  Their first official meeting will be on Monday, March 17th in the Ark.  This is exactly what we had hoped would come of our organizational efforts in bringing Paul Cienfuegos back to the area.