Tonight was the regularly scheduled planning meeting for September 24 Anti-War event, being held in solidarity with groups around the nation to demand an end to the Iraq War. The GPUT members have been very active in this effort. All of the meetings have been held in the meeting room located inside our party secretary’s retail activist shop in Salt Lake City.
Several us were anticipating the unaffiliated Green Party members to show up to this night’s planning meeting. Jeff Beardall showed up again, despite his behavior last Saturday and the Thursday before that. It is speculated that Beardall showed up in anticipation of a possible “scene” or attempt to bar him from this planning meeting, given his recent threats to our secretary and myself, and that his strategy would be to make it appear that the meeting could not continue at that location and to propose to move the meeting away from our secretary’s shop. (These meetings have been held weekly all summer since June. Last week was the first time Beardall made an appearance at these meetings, two weeks before the scheduled action.)
Our party secretary had options, given the incidents involving Beardall last week. She could have requested that Beardall leave and could have called the police and added to the report already filed against him from his outburst last Saturday. Instead, she chose to say nothing, to allow Beardall to be included. Beardall had nothing to say during the entire meeting. The meeting was conducted as scheduled, with plans being close to finalized for the September 24th event.
The affiliated GPUT members continue to avoid any self-initiated confrontation. Beardall was permitted to participate in the planning for the anti-war event, despite his recent threats, harassing and extortionist behaviors.
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 