At the General Assembly of Occupy Boston, Saturday, November 12, 2011, Occupy Boston passed a proposal to secure space at Encuentro Cinco for the Occupy Boston Media team and other working groups.  We have agreed to rent the space for the next four months, at a cost of $400 per month.  Encuentro Cinco is one of Boston’s prominent activist centers, and they have been lending us workstations in their collective shared workspace at no cost in the last few weeks. We are honored to have been offered space in their extremely overburdened facility.  Securing workstations and meeting space at Encuentro Cinco will allow Occupy Boston to store valuable and temperature sensitive equipment, and will permit groups and individuals to do work that is most productively and securely done offsite.  Occupy Boston looks forward to contributing  to the Encuentro Cinco community.

Click here to read the full proposal as passed by General Assembly.

Occupy Boston achieved consensus on the following  proposal in the General Assembly of November 12th, 2011:

Occupy Boston stands in solidarity with MAAPL against predatory lending and illegal foreclosure processes. Currently, Massachusetts allows mortgage companies to operate on the honor system. These corporations have proved themselves to be less than honorable and should be brought into court to prove ownership of the mortgages they seek to collect.

Furthermore, these corporations should not be allowed to arbitrarily evict people from their homes, leaving vacant homes that not only damage the families affected but also the neighborhoods at large.

The following resolution was passed by consensus by the General Assembly of Occupy Boston, November 3, 2011. It was distributed along with a list of grievances against Paul Carnes and copies of receipts from various transactions paid for with Occupy Boston funds.

[Download the original packet as a PDF]

November 3, 2011

Proposal to Ban Paul (Fetch) Carnes and Sydney Sherrell from Occupy Boston and the General Assembly and from Representing  Occupy Boston.

Whereas Carnes and Sherrell have previously been banned from the Financial Accountability Working Group (FAWG) for inappropriate handling of funds and unsavory behavior, and

Whereas Carnes and Sherrell have already been brought before mediation and were asked to cease and desist actions on behalf of Occupy Boston, and

Whereas Carnes went to Occupy Cleveland, claiming to have been sent from Occupy Boston, and to be a representative of the National Lawyers’ Guild, and attempted to claim vertical leadership there, much like he did here, and

Whereas Carnes and Sherrell passed out a flyer at camp dated November 2, 2011 that was not approved by the GA, the Media Working Group that issues releases, or any form of consensus with the movement, which read: “Occupy News: Occupy Boston Resolves Legal Dispute. Last night the General Assembly welcomed Paul Carnes and Sydney back to Occupy Boston with open consensus-hands followed by an announcement by the Financial Accountability Working Group (FAWG) of Occupy Boston. The announcement stated that Carnes and Sherell have reached an agreement with members of the financial working group on behalf of Occupy Boston to work out their differences after weeks of a communication break-down and an intensive mediation lead by the attorney David Kelston. Over 150 news articles and blog post were written about this issue alone… When Carnes and Sherell took the stage at General Assembly, it was clear that lessons have been learned, their motives were pure at heart, and they truly care about the occupation… The goal is to unite together and fight for what we believe, in solidarity for the good of us all. Both Carnes and Sherell came to an agreement with Occupy Boston to do just that. All is live and well in Occupy Land,” and

Whereas Carnes and Sherrell have set up a series of fundraising sites purporting to be for Occupy Boston among other occupations but are not part of FAWG, and

Whereas Carnes has attempted to remove previously published information about his unsavory activities from the Occupy Boston website, and

Whereas Carnes and Sherrell have shown repeatedly that they have no respect for horizontal democracy, of the wishes of the General Assembly, and are still attempting to manipulate both Occupy Boston and the people outside of the movement,

Therefore, this ad-hoc group of concerned individuals propose the General Assembly of Occupy Boston agree by consensus to not allow Paul Carnes to represent Occupy Boston in any capacity. Should Paul Carnes or Sydeny Sherrell attempt to speak for the movement or Occupy Boston again, further releases and proposals will be issued to make it clear they are not representatives of Occupy Boston. We will continue to disseminate this information about Paul and Sydney to the entire global movement including Occupy Together as well as individual occupations.

Paul Carnes and Sydney Sherrell are also hereby removed, which means they are no longer allowed at Occupy Boston sites.

[Point of Information/Correction: On the second page of the list of grievances against Paul Carnes, it reads that Carnes forced FAWG to allow him back in as a bargaining chip. FAWG points out that this is not the case, and this is false. See agreement between Carnes and FAWG for more information.]

This following resolution is summarized from the minutes of the November 3rd, 2011 General Assembly:

The Legal Working Group reached consensus with the General Assembly on November 3rd, 2011 to allow the National Lawyers’ Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union to begin preparing legal action ensuring the future of the Occupy Boston camp. The proposed lawsuit would request an injunction protecting the 1A constitutional rights of members of the Occupy Boston community and preventing the camp’s removal from Dewey Square. A representative of the NLG clarified that the suit will not be filed at this time but will be made ready and maintained in case of possible developments for which the injunction would be appropriate.