Former Congressman Dan Hamburg has been active in northern California politics and community affairs for more than 25 years.
After graduating from Stanford University in 1970, he moved to Mendocino County where he was a founding member of Mariposa School, now in its 30th year of operation. In 1976, Hamburg was appointed to the Ukiah City Planning Commission where he served for four years. In 1980, he was elected to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors. While on the Board, he helped draft the county's first legal and comprehensive General Plan and Coastal Plan. After working in China for six years, he became executive director of North Coast Opportunities (NCO), a community action agency serving Lake and Mendocino counties, from 1986 to 1989.
In 1992, Hamburg was elected to the US House of Representatives from the 1st district of California. While in Congress, he authored the Headwaters Forest Act, a bill that passed the House overwhelmingly. After losing a re-election bid in 1994, he was hired as a political consultant to the newly formed government of South Africa. Returning to California in 1996, Hamburg was active in the presidential campaign of Ralph Nader and in the struggle to preserve the 60,000-acre Headwaters Forest Complex. Since 1997, he has served as executive director Voice of the Environment, a foundation dedicated to halting the transfer of public assets into private, mostly corporate, control.
In 1998, he was the Green Party candidate for governor of California, polling over 100,000 votes, and he participated in the 113-day occupation of Ward Valley, California. This act of nonviolent civil disobedience was successful in stopping construction of a radioactive waste dump on land sacred to the Native American tribes of the lower Colorado River. In 2000, Hamburg was arrested outside a Wal-Mart store in Ukiah, protesting Wal-Mart's eviction of a petitioner for the legalization of marijuana, and he was a spokesman for MendocinoŐs successful Measure G campaign. In 2004, He was arrested along with his wife Carrie for trying to deliver a letter to Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell concerning alleged voter fraud in the 2004 presidential election.
Hamburg has written articles for several magazines (including The Nation, Tikkun, Harper's, and Sierra) and many newspapers. He appeared frequently on the McNeil-Lehrer Newshour and CNN while a member of Congress, and has subsequently appeared on television and radio programs throughout California. From 1995-98, he hosted a bi-monthly public affairs radio program that dealt primarily with the need to shift the cultural and political perspectives. Among his guests were: Ralph Nader, Medea Benjamin, Dennis Banks, and Ronnie Dugger.
Recently, Hamburg
has worked on the issue of impeachment, the passage of the anti-GMO Measure
H in Mendocino, and on the connection between mercury and childhood autism.
Hamburg holds a master's degree in philosophy and religion from the California
Institute of Integral Studies. He has been married for 25 years and has four
grown children and five granddaughters.
JOHN
MC BREARTY
Humboldt State University
John McBrearty, the Information Security Officer at Humboldt State University, was formerly the Director of Information Technology Services at College of the Redwoods. As a board member of the Redwood Technology Consortium, he helped in the efforts to persuade AT&T to install its first fiber Internet connection to the North Coast region despite a dispute over fees with the California Department of Transportation. He was also one of many technical professionals involved in the two Tech Expos held at Eureka's Redwood Acres in recent years. Prior to moving to the North Coast in 2002, McBrearty worked for almost two decades as a programmer, network consultant and security advisor and has lectured on Internet related subjects at the City College of San Francisco, Golden Gate University, and U.C. Berkeley.
"Net Neutrality" is the term that applies to the concept of keeping the Internet available as a basic transport to everyone equally, as opposed to what telecommunications companies are trying to do, which is to "privatize" the Internet. "If they get their way, instead of 'the Internet' as we know it, there might be the Disney internet, the WalMart internet, the Rupert Murdoch internet, the government internet, and maybe a non-profit organizations' internet, but you'd have to pay separately to access each one," McBrearty said. Bills have been introduced in Congress either to "privatize" the Internet or else to explicitly prevent that from happening by keeping the Internet "open." McBrearty's talk will describe this situation in greater detail, including some background on how the current "open" Internet began, what efforts have been made in recent years both for and against "privatizing" the Internet, and an update on the status of current pending legislation and its proponents and opponents.
California
NORML
Dale
Gieringer has been the state coordinator of California NORML (National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) since 1987.
In this capacity he has spoken with hundreds of medical marijuana users
and thousands of other recreational users. He is Vice-Chairman of the national
NORML board of directors. He
is also director of the California Drug Policy Forum (DPFCA) and treasurer
of the Oakland Civil Liberties Alliance (OCLA).
Through Cal. NORML, he has published research on medical marijuana
usage, marijuana smoke harm reduction, potency testing, marijuana and driving
safety, and drug urinalysis. He
has testified before the legislature and in court on issues concerning personal
use of marijuana. He was one
of the original organizers of California's medical marijuana initiative, Prop.
215, and the proponent of Oakland's Measure Z cannabis initiative in 2004.
Gieringer
has a Ph.D. from the Stanford University Dept of Engineering-Economic Systems
(1984). His thesis was, "Consumer Choice and FDA Drug Regulation."
Carolyn Crnich was elected Humboldt County recorder in 1990 and subsequently became HumboldtŐs elected Clerk-Recorder. In 2003, the county elections department was moved under her purview. Crnich has been actively involved in local efforts to implement the federal Help Americans Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), and has overseen the innovative Transparency Project with input from community members.