Posting #167 – Take a Stand and Be Heard!

By:  RSOL of Virginia
Date:  11/19/2009

Virginia Supporters,

Next week is Thanksgiving, we just can't believe it!
We hope you all have a wonderful holiday with family and friends. Soon you will be thinking of decorating and shopping for Christmas so we don't want the December 15 VCC meeting to slip your mind.

If you remember public comments were pushed off of the September 16 VCC agenda and moved to the December 15 meeting. We should be receiving a copy of that agenda two weeks before the meeting.

We will be making a statement on December 15 and we hope you will come to Richmond to show your support and stand with us. If you would also like to make a statement you can, here are the guidelines again.

• You must give your name to the commission before you begin speaking so it will be entered into the record.
• Your statement must stay on topic. Do not talk about your own case or conviction, they will stop you.
• The topics are the 2009 S.O. Bills that did not pass through the General Assembly, the Sexually Violent Predator Act of 2003 (civil commitment), the Static 99 evaluation test (to civilly commit) and considering lowering the required score to civilly commit. For more information to prepare a statement visit these three areas of our web-site, http://WWW.rsolvirginia.org/GeneralAssembly_2009.HTML , http://www.rsolvirginia.org/blog_106.html and http://www.rsolvirginia.org/blog_137.html .
• You are not asking them questions or for responses, just reading your statement.
• Your statement should not exceed 3-5 minutes.
• They will interrupt or stop your statement if you stray off topic, go on too long or are repeating what someone else has already stated.
• If you give a statistic or claim something is a fact, be prepared to give the source to support your statement because they very well will ask you for the source of that data.
• We learned that there is no minimum age for a speaker so if anyone's 15, 16 or 17 year old child wants to speak (and stay on topic) it is allowed.

As we did at the September meeting, we will arrive at Senate Room A at 9:00AM (one hour before the meeting begins). We need you to come up and introduce yourself as soon as you arrive because once the meeting begins at 10:00AM we will not be able to talk.

We need everyone to be professional and personable. Please turn off your cell phones and blackberries before entering the room. During the meeting no "town hall" moments, please. You can speak to the commission members both before and after the meeting. The meeting could last anywhere from 2 to 6 hours.

As we stated in our August e-mail to you titled The Time to Take a Stand is Now about the September VCC meeting, we need a presence to be made while showing we are professional and knowledgeable. We want you to bring your spouse, significant other, your children, your parents, your neighbors, your clergy person. It is of vital importance that the Legislators see just who they are hurting. We need the members of the Virginia Crime Commission to see that Registered Sex Offenders are human beings who deserve to be treated so and given the opportunities that everyone else has been given.

The Virginia Legislators find it quite easy to harshly punish those they cannot see those they think they know they live in denial that the punishment affects not only those on the Registry but anyone and everyone whom they love. They believe this does not hurt the wives, the fiancés, the mothers and the children of those who are forced to register. They think that we are not uneducated and are ill behaved.  We need to make a presence not a spectacle. We have a time where our voice will be heard and we can plan ahead for this date and time unlike with the Virginia General Assembly.

Please rearrange your schedules, find the time and the finances to cover the cost of fuel and stand with us in Richmond at the December 15, 2009 Crime Commission Meeting.

Bring your family, your friends and any children that have been harmed by these laws.

We now need your help; you must stand up to be seen and to be heard.

If you are planning on attending please let us know so we'll have an idea of how many supporters are coming ahead of time.

Thank you all for your support. We could not have made it this far in only 13 months without all of you participating as you have done.
RSOL of Virginia

Directions:

The General Assembly Bldg is on Capitol Square at 9th and Broad Streets (building address is 910 Capitol St.) Entrance is from Capitol Square kind of facing a big statue.

From the West:
• Take 64 East
• Near Richmond64-East merges with 95-South
• Stay on 64-East/95-South to exit 75—the 3rd St./Coliseum exit
• The exit ramp puts you on 3rd Street
• Cross Broad St.cross Grace St.turn left on Franklin
• There is a parking lot at Franklin and 7thon the right.
• If you can park there (if the lot isn’t full)walk down Franklin (same direction you had been driving) two blocks to 9th (dead end at a light). Turn left on 9th and walk up a couple blocks to the entrance to Capitol Square on the right.
If the lot at 7th St. Is full there are other lots in that area so take what you can find. [One possibility though it often fills up early is: From 7th and Franklin continue on Franklin to 9th-(a dead end at a light) turn left on 9thturn left on Grace and there’s an underground lot on the left under St. Paul’s church].

From north, south and east (copied from the General Assembly Website) I-95 North Exit 74 C onto Broad Street going west. Turn left at 10th Street cross Broad St. And look for parking.

I -95 South Exit 74 C onto Broad Street going west. Turn left at 10th Street cross Broad Street and look for parking I-64 West Exit 190 onto 5th Street. Turn left onto Marshall Street. Turn right onto 10th Street cross Broad Street and look for parking.

I-195 (RMA Downtown Expressway) Exit 7th Street-9th Street. Turn left onto 9th Street. Turn right onto Broad Street. Turn right onto 10th Street and look for parking.