I-69 News

stopi69.wordpress.com

A new, comprehensive website for resistance to I-69 was launched earlier this year by activists from the I-69 Listening Project and Roadblock EF! While we will continue to publish updates about the highway and news from actions, the new website will be a clearinghouse for people looking to learn more and get involved in the struggle to stop the NAFTA superhighway monster.

Features include:
-A primer on I-69.
-Information about Evansville and other communities where people are organizing.
-PDFs of campaign literature.
-Ways to get involved.
-Organizing updates.
-Upcoming mobilizations as they are planned.
-And more!

Check it out!

We were just sent a new Youtube video about resistance to I-69. It was made as an autonomous contribution to the struggle, and highlights the growing momentum against the construction slotted for 2008.

View “NAFTA Superhighway - Resist I-69 Expansion” here.

10 people demonstrated against Hannum, Wagle, and Cline last week (early September) in Lafayette, IN. They demanded that HWC withdraw from its role in planning I-69 in Pike County.

If anyone has additional information about this demonstration, please email us at i69news@riseup.net. Also, to everyone, please remember to send us information about actions like this!

From the I-69 Updates list:
Proposal for an I-69 Resistance Strategy Consulta
September 14-16

Its a fact that the Indiana Department of Transportation is planning to begin
construction of New-Terrain I-69 in 2008, next year. Despite their rhetoric-
that its a “done deal” and can’t be stopped- we feel that the time is more ripe
than ever before to stop this road for good. After two decades of struggle,
people across our region are getting angrier than ever, especially when
confronted with the reality of mass evictions by the state. But if we are
going to win, we’re gonna need new perspectives, new tactics, and a much wider
discussion.

To that end, we are initiating a consulta process. When we say consulta, we
mean creating a space for discussion, for strategizing, and for the initation
of decentralized organizing. We’d like to show people some of the land and
communities that will be destroyed in the upcoming years unless we can prevent
it.

We’re excited to hear your questions- about the road project itself, about our
strategy ideas, and about the local conditions- and we’re excited to open up
the answers to as many people as possible. We want to hear some of your ideas
and And we’d like to see the emergence of an informal network of people
communicating around southwest Indiana, the Midwest and beyond, who are
planning to resist I-69.

We will release a proposed agenda in the upcoming weeks. This will include
time to run through the basic issues around I-69, as well as updates, but will
also set aside time for focused discussions,workshops, and fieldtrips. Please
contact us if you’d like to contribute proposals for that agenda. Also, please
plan to RSVP if you’re interested in coming.

We hope to see you soon,
Your Friends at Roadblock Earth First!

We’ll be sending an additional update out with an agenda, location, etc. But
please RSVP sooner rather than later.

Activists Drive INDOT Out of Town
by Steve Higgs
The Bloomington Alternative

Bloomington activists shut down an Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) “Community Planning Program” on Wednesday, Aug. 21, after vowing to never let I-69 be built in Bloomington.

After a brief verbal confrontation with INDOT officials and their multi-million-dollar Evansville consultants, about 15 banner-carrying activists walked to the front of the Bloomington High School North cafeteria and brought the dog-and-pony show to a halt.

City and state police converged on the scene and marched to the side of the room, where they huddled with the meeting’s organizers. After extended discussion, INDOT’s Stephen Smith announced the meeting over about an hour after it began.

The audience was sparse, with no one from any of the leading I-69 opposition groups in attendance. City Councilman Andy Ruff showed up 40 minutes after the meeting began, saw what was happening and retreated to the hallway to engage in private conversations. He did not speak to any of the protesters.

The protesters were a mixture of local and EarthFirst! activists, who have been engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience along the I-69 route and in the Bloomington area to call attention to Gov. Mitch Daniels’ ongoing assault on the Indiana environment.

One activist was arrested this week at a tree-sit protest in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest against Daniels’ plans to increase state forest logging by 400 percent for short-term, private-sector profits.

After the I-69 meeting, police followed some of the EarthFirsters to the parking lot, where they said they were investigating a theft during a recent action in Petersburg and demanded identification from each protester.

Also at the meeting were officials from the Evansville consulting firm Bernardin-Lochmueller & Associates, which has received 10s of millions in INDOT contracts on I-69 and has a long history of contributing 10s of thousands to state politicians from both parties.

for pictures and original article
http://www.bloomingtonalternative.com/articles/2007/08/21/8592

Also, Chad from WHFB captured some of the meeting shutdown here: http://news.wfhb.org/news/archive.php?id=721

These public meetings might represent a next-to-last opportunity to speak publically against I-69 and meet up with other opponents of the road in this format. While meetings like these have been an important space for dissent over the past decade or so, there will be very few chances like this in the future, so try to make it out if you can. From a CARR email:

The Indiana Department of Transportation’s I-69 Community Planning Program
is holding four meetings to “plan” for I-69. They are open to the public.
You are invited to attend one of the following meetings:

– Monday, August 20, 2007 at 1:00 pm, at the Indianapolis Power and Light
Company located in the Community Center/ Communications Building at 6925 N.
State Road 57, Petersburg, Indiana 47567

–Monday, August 20, 2007 at 7:00 pm, at Eastern Greene High School at Route
4 Box 623, Bloomfield, IN 47424

–Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 1:00 pm, at the Morgan County Administration
Building at 180 South Main Street, Martinsville, IN 46151

–Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 6:00 pm, at Bloomington High School North at
3901 North Kinser Pike, Bloomington, Indiana 47404

There is going to be an anti-I-69 benefit cafe at the Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley. August 12th from 7pm-11pm with old timey music and info on what folks are doing in Indiana and how to
get involved. There’ll also be general info on the road monster, too.

While I don’t agree that Hoosiers are pacified and that resistance isn’t present, this article is pretty good, overall. The rest of it can be found here.

Evicted for I-69
by Steven Higgs
July 18, 2007

Earth First! activists launched a series of actions in mid-July along the I-69 route from Bloomington to Petersburg. This protest outside the I-69 planning office on Bloomington’s West Second Street led to the office closing for the day. Protests occurred at the downtown Bloomington planning office as well.

The twin specters of I-69-corridor property owners being evicted and Mitch Daniels sinking a spade into the earth and declaring I-69 officially under construction have sparked a new wave of highway resistance in Bloomington.

We’ve heard from a number of places that a day of action against I-69 happened across southwestern Indiana. This is the statement of Roadblock Earth First! but we’ll supplement that by posting media accounts in the upcoming days.

Earth First! July 9th Day of Action Against I-69 Across Southwestern Indiana

For the past several months, the Indiana Department of Transportation has been
attempting to rapidly and covertly move forward with their plans for the
construction of I-69. Eviction proceedings have already begun for half a dozen
families whose homes once lay along the first two miles of the proposed route.
These people have been physically removed from their homes or will be removed in
the coming week, and, unless I-69 is stopped, in the coming years over four
hundred more homes will find themselves similarly replaced by cold concrete.

This afternoon, in solidarity with those families removed from their once lively
homes, actions were taken against the Indiana Department of Transportation across
the state. Two I-69 planning offices (section 1’s in Oakland City and section 2’s
in Petersburg) were themselves the subject of eviction proceedings at 2:30 PM as
“Hayduke’s Moving Company” moved their contents out of the offices and into the
street; The section 4 office on the westside of Bloomington was shut down for the
day after Earth First!ers dropped a banner that read “Stop I-69″ onto its roof and
50 people assembled outside in protest. The downtown Bloomington section 5 office
was the subject of two demonstrations: A small office invasion at 2:30 PM and a
raucus march of 40 people at 4 pm. Additionally, Earth First!ers hung more
banners across Bloomington, one of which read “For our farms, forests and futures-
Resist I-69″.

Until evictions and construction are brought to a halt, individuals will continue
to struggle in defense of their homes and against a superhighway project that will
not benefit any of the communities of southwest Indiana.

In solidarity,
Roadblock Earth First!

A number of billboards on north Walnut in Bloomington were modified with gigantic anti-road construction messages last week. Our guess is that the action occurred in conjunction with Mitch Daniels’ visit. Three billboards were tagged in all, to read:

Look Mitch!
Major Moves/New Roads/Major Goofs
High-speed Rail!

We will post pictures soon if possible.