Citizen Action, Part 1

from communication center the university of texas at austin the longhorn radio network presents university forum at academic before is a public interdisciplinary meeting place for the wide ranging world of ideas opinion and analysis this week a representative of the nation's leading citizen advocate will talk about citizen action <unk> dawn ross works with ralph nader in washington dc his specialty is the ap i r g or public interest research group but ross is the author of several books on the subject and he coordinates the national nader effort to organize such groups around the country recently mr ross was a guest of the texas public interest research group in austin no honest expert the remark you're about to hear were delivered on that visit however mr ross his comments are directed toward the general issue a citizen action on important issues and are not restricted to taxes or to public interest research group says such now mr john

ross of ralph nader's office in washington mr lee well i'd like to talk about all kinds of projects that citizens groups are doing in various parts of the country and to go into some detail as much as i can as much as needed about what you people can do what us citizen groups of one sort or another can do to begin to megan kurtz says it might say one of the ways we can we got interested in trying to do this latest on about dealing mainly with professionals lawyers and doctors etc doing professional type were one of the ways we got we move beyond that was as we traveled around the country from especially from campus to campus and saw phenomena such as phd students in evolution studies at yale university what the newspapers as recycling is the main contribution preserving the environment us are all sorts of citizens groups that had tremendous skills and local knowledge

frittering away on low very very low impact will yield kinds of projects we became increasingly interested in trying to devise ways in which people are spending the same amount of time they might spend on the kind of work they were doing with low impact spending on projects that would have really decisive or court watcher influences on the vocal size and we published were already written a book that's going to be out in april called a public citizen's action manual which has fifty of these projects and it was one after the other describing there's a lot more talk about this morning as a project that i'm not certain would be a portable here in austin but it's a workable and what my many places in the country dealing with the energy crisis now a redhead granted it's not going to solve the problem of fuel oil and what have you and it's not gonna saw the whole energy prices but it's a it's a wedge

into it an access point to deals with schools or public buildings primarily goa can spread out to private homes as well eventually so we found out that if you talk to i just people or specializing and i met as an optometrist what have you and tell you that the average person needs about fifty foot canvas of light maximum to really say well and in fact thirty five foot candles are probably sufficient for most ordinary can really read the newspaper read television sitting in schools well if you keep that in mind and then take a look at your building codes thought the requirements that your local architecture society says are suitable for school lighting can start to find out that the light levels are set at a level of seventy two hundred and ten foot candles in many cases what's needed to actually safely

for little bit deeper into it talking to city councilman a house and go on the housing department so whoever was involved in the in the side of the roads those levels of a local architecture societies your most often find that the people responsible we're illuminating engineers in fact they see it as the looming engineering society that publishes recommended called levels he promised that richer deeper and find out where living engineers or annoying finding work utility company responsible or you'll find out or alternatively that the building code a blue ribbon panel made up of illuminating engineers lighting fixtures salespeople and the like were the ones to set up escrow and the result is that the lighting levels of the newer schools and in many cases the older schools are being increased substantially comparison st patrick's cathedral in new york city some of you may have seen as a tourist attraction it's an enormous lethal type of

people just renovated itself renovate renovated the lighting so the people would be able to read their problems services at fort campbell's is that's always thought was necessary to re i travel schools going in new york city at five foot candles of bell some packets didn't have a looming engineering society workers on setting of standards for what can be done about this and what's the impact or what can be done about is very easy to say no city councils are county legislators a housing group housing call centers of once or another had no idea what what standards me they've really gone to a group of people more interest a toll on what it should be and they put them even just offering some evidence that the current youre showing them some of the studies that have been published in his tear the wall street journal did a big expos a artist last december november i think he's showing them that information may be sufficient

rising consumer groups and taxpayer groups in the area and environmental groups may be sufficient to put pressure on the chances as i say it's not going to solve the energy crisis what water does pose it draws citizens together on an energy issue shows them that they can make an impact you can get a lot of diverse groups behind this because first of all it affect taxpayers since property taxes or supports the local schools you show that there's a measurable increase in taxes as a result of this additional lighting suddenly you can get various environmental groups together people concerned on the use of energy for and then they can get just the organizations in a society or work in a city or town that may be very concerned about the utility rates initially company practices of words or another yet given the fact that university of this was closed for a week there were shortages of fuel

should be able to rouse a lot of energy lot of activism on that kind of an issue is a perfect illustration i think of how in regulation we cast goes into effect and isn't forced without almost anyone in the society knowing anything about are those aren't visibly silently below the surface and yet it has an impact on us like text word on what some of your the citizen group should be striving to do not to point out the obvious kinds of issues there what to do with some of these issues that when they're exposed to light most obvious and an end so fish over people get involved in another one that we just it was a while property tax another area which is very easy to organize citizens are we getting westmoreland county pennsylvania which is in western pennsylvania jason to pittsburgh allegheny county and it's

the whole base of the melon family and what we did was begin to throw being along with a west pennsylvania taxpayers group in a western pennsylvania part there's some schools in pittsburgh probe into the tax base of this county sets of facts is this property tax levels in westmoreland county had risen about forty two percent over the last ten years not an unusual thing to have happen what was unusual is that the melon taxes have risen only about two percent on the average that was the stacy richard scaife stacy and announces it became somewhat famous or infamous as the case might be an october of seventy two when he gave the campaign to re elect the president three hundred and thirty separate three thousand dollar checks as a contribution million dollars cash his estate over there was assessed at a true market value of

about twenty thousand dollars on his estate from the outside i was invited in as eight has eight looks like it has a living room about half the size of this room huge driveway going up and expanses of green lawn you know and it looks like that assessment will be more appropriately than done on the garage and torture rather than the house well unfortunately in the county itself who are unable to generate much publicity via the printed media since the only newspaper was on bonuses but because of the excitement of the issue and all we were able to get pittsburgh newspapers and television stations out and very dramatic impacts on taxpayers in an area that sort of galvanize themselves now in and or running candidates for the local order the senses in an attempt to retake control of the board and see whether they can begin to write this rather only other hand while coming out with a name

a few months on how to evaluate property taxes in an area we have a book and newspaper poll people in taxes just published monthly which has been running segments of the handbook yemen which give the average person a step by step by step analysis of how to evaluate property taxes and chicago name as the city made a citizen action project hacker for sure i think is probably as far as i can tell the most successful citizen organization of its kind it's made up of i think the blue collar workers lax and just middle class people from around chicago wrecked than a student they have waged successful flights in a number of areas the most famous being a stop for chicago express were after was about a quarter the way bill to discontinue plans on what they just did a big property tax project using some of the techniques that are explained in this matter what they did was they compared three

areas of chicago commercial buildings downtown in some of the industrial areas around sass chicago and into residential neighborhoods made up of single family into family homes say was it systematically painstakingly in the assessors office is going through the records of what people are being charged for property taxes made comparisons between the residential homes and commercial industrial and the findings were that the residential mosul playing between thirty and forty percent too much they were recess over assessed in comparison to the commercial properties says it's always looking at the commercial properties are under recess and should be increased or the residential loans are overzealous and should be reduced fold away look at they look at the latter way because the reward was when they won homeowners in all of those areas hundreds of homeowners

receive checks of rebates of their property taxes some of them amounting to five hundred six hundred seven hundred dollars property tax rebate next issue of are people on taxes is going to feature this whole case is a case study in how citizens are using these were not specialists these were not ma assesses train the praises of the disease where average citizens you and i went down and study the kind of attacks rose had a little bit of little bit of for how they could do it it's a very simple one sequence to penetrate a few little of the jargon or property taxes figure out what true market value of percentages of true market value really me they saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars the capital itself is delirious over because a lot of the people in person generosity and all subjects to them so they're put back on a somewhat stable funding at present funding base says as an aside for some of you citizen groups might be in the process of searching for money as they have

about twenty full time people oh do nothing but rain doorbells street by street chicago asking for contributions and get twenty percent to thirty percent of what they collect the rest goes to tap got about forty thousand dollars that won't get forty five thousand dollars for some retired people were property taxes you get another couple examples of different projects that have worked the other hand books again i keep silent on advertising her but some of these are free so we don't get money from coming out soon titled how to investigate your hospital just to get a local hospital the right character study although it doesn't bring an issue in a lot of antagonism because most doctors and the state is still too much you have an md or a phd in hospital administration you're not capable of evaluating what the hospital does what services it performs how well it functions like this is not at all

true that the average person with no medical training it all can make a very important evaluations of particular hospital services for instance an urgency room services a gw publishes a pamphlet or rather the un the vision of a gw were anxious to vote on a lot of emergency rooms minimum standards for emergency rooms in this country a publicist pamphlets available free from them and all that's required to begin to make it a violation of your emergency room has a copy of this pamphlet and a meeting with the hospital administrator to find out what in fact your emergency room actually has and try to make some judgments of minot had every piece of equipment and try this week's discussions public health students and center in and help advise on something like this whether or not to support that don't have to be a doctor to know whether a hospital's of selling its requirements under this bill burton

act requires a hospital to take in any hospital that receives hilbert money to take in a certain percentage of patients more indigenous whether or not the hospitals private hospital or not or a public hospital has been taken certain number of indigents but it received silver money clinics that receive no we're mining have to do the same sand that is currently on the debate as to exactly what the percentage is currently proposals range from three to about eight percent of all patients should be indigenous right now the law reads a reasonable number of indigents forge most hospitals closed maybe one person on christmas day mini hospitals in a way thought that they were there was a reasonable number private hospital in texas you have a growing phenomenon of proprietary hospitals one of the three leading states and development proprietary hospital's profit making hospitals schools it's set up as a business from it ends is one of the biggest innovate is

in this area just changing the motel was on slightly making as one ramadi executive stated in harper's well we just turn the reception area into surgery and the rooms then you know are just way they always were these hospitals are really very very deserving of each citizen throws an article in the lady in the december issue of harper's magazine titled white candle to say three your tv which describes the kind of pastoral private hospitals and really for pride her husband's excuse me really a reading of that article was set off so jewel final quest to find out what exactly goes on is a quote osgood minister is saying yeah we're in a very fortunate location here because this is to freeways and so we get a lot of that emergency business and then we run obstetrics as a loss leader because people get involved in obstetrics the likely to come back again later on say them a bargain slang have the average hospital has a patient's day of seven point three days or something like that the number may be right that

the average proprietary hospital has only five point six days but that we've gotten down to only four point eight days because we found that after the first few days in the hospital most of the profit making business is over with all the protests and things in there and we don't hardly make any money at all on day to day of food and rumor and so we try to get them out as quickly as possible set house who administered is talking to sal great great issue to begin to look and sell says other ways you can begin to evaluate things for example most hospitals in the country not only peer review as to surgical techniques at all it's very hard for the layman to actually get in and evaluate surgical techniques unaided by anything else stations his addresses i don't have on my fingertips but that are contained in these pamphlets the health group of put out there lists says sarris kinds of statistics as to how many operations in one

area or another hospital's of performing what should be the norm and using these kinds of techniques the vermont public interest research group for example up in vermont discovered that there were about twenty five or thirty miles apart at forty miles apart very close together in vermont one had a gynecological or has directed this or was a rate of hysterectomies operations it was something like thirty times fifteen to thirty times and i remember the exact numbers the point is they certainly are thirty times above that area there was nothing between those two towns in the air they breathe a lot of they drank boy the food at that would make it all thirty eight arms was susceptible to his direct tv operations in one town minimum out that there was only one difference a different surgeon one surgeon needed to generate journal little business unseen and the other didn't really searching out that

kind of statistic and pointing out that for example the rate of operations in this hospital for our breasts removal is a very common operation that is unnecessary is four or five times above the national average for americans the whole you know have breasts removal operations about two and a half times as frequently as people in britain and that in certain areas of the country where surgeons are no particular chord with and i think those three or four times above the national average and a martyr simply searching out these kinds of statistics which are available or where you have no also gives you some grounds to begin investigation is vermont group which is very much into healthcare just completed a study of dental care in vermont again something that's available entitled it somewhat ironically keep on smiling and what this study showed is that in a state that has a population of four hundred and fifty thousand people fifty thousand vermonters had no teeth at all

these words or forty thousand were missing half that the least making a statistic of one out of five vermont is missing at least have that as sort of piece of laughingly think about that's a staggering proportion of the population it was again something special about the air they breathe it all as the group probe a little deeper they looked into why that is one of the different things that makes for healthy dental care obviously that this is a one eyed jane wasserstein all it training and schools and all would be another we found that the average debt that dental benefits for population and united states won twelve hundred people in vermont one for twenty five hundred schools all over the nation silver gets stars on their report card of the commandments look from that that this and that they have a chart showing glistening white teeth and how the russian certain vermont none of that is given is no dental hygiene

wasn't grammar school also the publication of that study and the city faces a twenty page but it took someone of about three weeks to do to research and write for us for governor in his state of the union message to announce one meaningless announcement that when a committee to study the matter further but two very significant mountains one was that he was appropriating significant money for a mobile dental clinic to go school to school to get lessons to children on russia and what have you and secondly appropriating state funds to begin a search session in the new england area to attract vendors from live in vermont and to offer them incentives to looking for these are what i call significant projects ones that have an impact as opposed to for example to project where people might walk up and down the length of a highway picking up ten chances says joints later the highways going to have the tin can sit right back again what

what that project has done is it's in state funds in the state department to encourage this kind of program dozens of other areas that you can be significant they say for example the consumer china touch on different areas so what might attract take an issue like this everyone in every city and town of the united states' complains about their service can find an area where people are perfectly satisfied with the way because the repair job awaited tvs stereo systems are intact and the pattern is very simple any area involving complex technology or involving things which the average person is unfamiliar with there tends to be fraud and where areas involving things that are of everything involving our everyday experience there isn't much from so for example you get a tear in his suit and taken into the talent and the talent said he says while only i'm eighty one

dollars and fifty cents of parts and labor you know you walk out certificates small musicals perhaps is certainly its adoption it together for that price we would you drive your car into the repair shop and the person opens it up a doctor that's they become almost open it up and so if there was arrested while rattles off a list of seven or ten names that you know nothing about him says all have to be replaced a certain soldier and you get a bill for three hours later it might have taken ten minutes you know no far away they'll begin to probe into this is very simple you gotta get a music sample about television cause i give you exact statistics are like a television set where this tremendous fraud in tv repair is what we did in montgomery county maryland just adjacent to be say a television set for the joint teacher in high school of vocational training what trauma that we as a teacher actually make a set not function properly without

destroying set after we so that's when we want a very simple he removed a one off use item within a one bought that fearless and we had sound but no picture far from ten to twelve different repair shops and succession in montgomery county maryland ft each visit brought it back to the future to recertify that it wasn't working conditionally big mistake that you've put in a live one time on corporate culture take it up with and then went back and we went to another repair shop well we did get some very interesting cost estimates the cheapest one was for real condition picture too i said that was what was made and i think that one about forty dollars fifty dollars pre condition for gq a place he said that it was so it's a re condition which is they tend to go pretty fast there was also a new pitcher too and he said welcome it's finished

beyond repair issues not worth fixing but fortunately we happen to have a real bargain of a seven year old to be some traders can use of troops and so you miss that and a study of all of the dawn will show repair for ordinary would have been useful to alert people that would've gone far enough so what the students where did this study under the direction of professor robert thorn by the way will send a copy of that to anyone that wants a professor robert vaughn american university law school what they say what the students did was they researched the california law on licensing of television repairman and drafted very simple lot you know they lost those i have such low regard what lawyers anyway i think anyone could've drafted and written up and put it in to the county ordinances a mobile county ordinance drafted this kind of a loss then they went to one of the county councilman and they explained to him before the study was made public

precisely what was involved what was happening and what they did is they went to the consulate apartment in the area which i counted up all sorts of complaints from people on repair services they contacted each of those people and ask them whether they would be willing to testify in open hearings about their experiences in rapid succession they released a study with the names and addresses of the stores and it wasn't some discomfort or some fury year and then had a county councilman called for hearings on this they're on this important issue or other citizens they contacted phoned in in cold in demanding to be heard at the hearings additional people call them because they had been felt that they had ripped off as well sarah's well with all sorts of angry people giving their experiences repairmen trying to make excuses how difficult that is than the span sixty cents to both use it over and the result is an ordinance that i think it went into effect january first but it may it may not be in effect yet licensing tv

repairman having inspections as casey licensed by itself doesn't mean anything having inspections in california what they do is they literally have a division of one of the state department's that does this full time going around checking out with an escalating series of penalties climb large fine suspension of license which means they can't do business phantom savings very significant says the same thing can be done with automobiles some of you may have seen a sixty minutes show about a year ago year and a half ago where they use the mechanical buzz using more should say was honest people i've ever encountered demonstrate this kind of repair fraud which of automobiles which senator hart says amounts to about seven to ten billion dollars per year and are unnecessary expenditures by consumers for repairs not only sent the hall was the first person by a way his commission to make famous the insider term in the auto repair industry the sunset

sunshine job so you may have heard it because it's sunshine famous sunshine attack europe which as you drive your car in and they talked about a lot in the sunshine for three or four days in charge of parts and labor well he found that this was not an uncommon private practice or what the sixty minutes show dead is the toughest thought it was an absolutely perfect running condition and then to go around to recap people with the country played like you know drive a turn it doesn't so you know the front end this year and doesn't really on some real you know that kind of a complaint very vague nothing specific something about the front end of that than for sample would jacked the car up and they grab a hold the front wheels seeley that moves like humanitarian you need all new universal and others that the other thing an incredible rich our estimates father was an absolutely ready for recognition as they demonstrated that it's not a brand

new cadillac lifted up on the fractured the front wheels and they shuttered terribly as well some the nature of the beast say that is consumer protection the average citizens can do what places along with some small out of course in this scandal but as i said we're coming out with windows five ways that you can give your car which will hurt the carnival in one spring silicone on the points so that car runs terrible rough and bring it in for a repair estimate the first thing they should check with the points in all and instead what the usual is as a forty five auto complete when all it needs is to have someone take their thing about straight the silicone oil the point isn't to trap these people so much as to set up test conditions where you can estimate just what they would beseech him and threw them out till sandy area sex discrimination which may or may not be an issue that he'll hopefully it is this some tremendous things that average citizens can

do to begin to have an impact on on practices in an area in minnesota minnesota public interest research group of male and female seniors at university of minnesota with resumes that were precisely identical except for the name the age in saxony it upped its name sax in the address the age was the same again in the same courses the same work experience the same honors everything identical into words and then they had to memorize the sad stage fit when something like that's i just graduated i'm gonna be a political science and honors and i'm looking for a job in business i want a job it's exciting and not that concerned about money but i want something that's exciting and has a chance for advancement nancy miller said the same thing of all i found out that employment agencies regulate had male counselors job counselors and female job counselors in itself is going you know forty

evidence of rumination but the findings went much farther of the twenty two agencies they surveyed one offered the mail a job that would be called cargo fall twenty two offered the female jobs will clerical and sour difference between the female clerical jobs by the way in the mail was significant forty seven percent of the agency's role of female issues aren't qualified for anything except being a receptionist secretary five job no other job was possibly open to the male wasn't tall led by any place in and the statistics one on the point of it was in his jaw absolutely blatantly job discrimination on the basis of sex in the communications media two groups of women i'm in new york and washington is arlene a while man hating women at least i hope not as my wife was one of

them are compiled what television those two women on tv news programs and other programming but they just concentrate on the news with stopwatches and pieces of paper charts supplied for them by the national organization of women now they simply compiled the amount of time given to women women's news the roles of women were portrayed in the news at center and found that these incredible incredible statistics example during the winter olympics when the wind speed skaters were doing so well winning gold medals they were consistently given only a fraction of the air time did lose in men's downhill race is and that you know and what had you sports were being given that worries that family in vermont the cartoon family i think it is a great speech family where the woman won the gold medal the man of bronze medal he was given infinitely more coverage on the news programs that she was the winner they filed major

lawsuits and in new york now in washington against the new abc tv in new york and one of their washing stations and figure where it no license is remote why the federal communications commission on the grounds that they have you know just ruminating that they haven't presented a fan is dr anna what all the news that and right agrees but the point is that grace are available from the national organization of women sad tragic thing anyone wants to indoctrinate else spent a few hours watching tv can go setting of licensing the whole area of television and radio as an area in which the citizen input has been way too little and which is wide open for first citizen activism you know that every television and radio station the country has to apply for a renewal of its license every three years as a nixon bill and now very insidious though i might add the changes that says the five years and

then puts in other impediments to citizen input into the communications media but at the moment at least four years once every three years and the law in this area is very very good in the communications area they state for example that a challenger to license we know and the purse and the institution that holds a licensed come into the hearing absolutely equal but the burden of proof is not on the citizen fit this a shared burden of proof that the citizen has his say the other one has proven as well they have been you know in fairness they have been giving community's input that they have been doing all that they're supposed to do in the way of a form of hiring my contention that the communications media the attack on them on the fairness doctrine which is kind of free rustin and some of the activist thrust as well from the other side trying to say the kidnap response was misplaced said the easiest thing to prove

was there discrimination on the grounds of race and sex philly stations and radio stations in the united states have an absolute duty to stakeout minorities and women for employment at all levels in the station that i know that the evidence is very strong that they hadn't done this at all but in november of nineteen seventy two three months ago the united church of christ office of communications ok to eighty nine point getting a south new york new york issued a report on six hundred and thirty television stations in the country how they had done an affirmative hiring and found out that they had done absolutely no measurable increase in women or minorities in the year nineteen seventy one seventy two a single entries percentage was some stations had others have gone down result was over all six hundred thirty no change every single citizen complaints led a study in this area it's taken

into consideration when the federal communications commission has a license renewal here to you so much you sent a postcard saying a remark made last night on television was offensive today on station so and so that's put in the file obviously it's not very persuasive but a letter stating that i am a regular listener station blank blank blank whatever it is that consistently they show mexican americans and derogatory rolls or they show women and bed rolls or they consistently take a right wing line or left wing line or whatever it is that you're upset about and mostly couple of examples and at times and stated you feel that this is not the role the station should take that kind of a document is right and if there are hundreds of those it touches off of your these stations regularly

receive their license renewals with banal citizen input whatsoever not what we should the communications media is the real important access point to citizens in this primary sandy united church of christ has put out a series of pamphlets at his mansion that address again to eighty nine park avenue south united church of christ you're telling people what they can go on license renewal issues great area to get into alaska and then to talk about it's an area that is it's an issue that's very dear to my own heart the three years i have been talking about this issue and to the best of my knowledge although i seem to get an audience positive audience the back no one has ever done anything wrong and nader has been talking to people on now for about three years as well and we've reached a point of such complete frustration we're now hired a lawyer to do this for us on a full time basis

one last country i go to college campuses and i see students walking around with t shirts with big red fist on the front there's a power to the people and i see slogans power to the people and they tend to grant paid visits a power to the people and i always try to talk to these people and say you know that is one area that degree you have a lot of power already and you're not using it and that's the area of mutually own savings and loan associations and most cities along associations overwhelming number on mutually on that is that the depositors are the owners of the savings along association first the owners they can theoretically set the policies of the association determine what's needed though you know it's a diesel associations that here they are they look like banks they act like banks but in very important ways that nevertheless julio unlike say corporations which are shareholder on these

deposit her own associations have some very significant differences one is that the small depositors given much greater weight proportionally than the large applause if you put five dollars into a federal savings or long association you get one vote and determining its policy someone puts a million dollars and they get fifty votes that's all the votes are still how would mean for the students here at the university of puzzling than five dollars each in a savings along to cancel out a job that people say with the association of as you look around the country to find this phenomenal sings along with one actually own in theory are in fact run by a tight knit group of beep well on the top offices sure sure that the way they maintain their control is their proxy statements that they'd deceptively solicit from depositors why perceptibly soliciting i mean they do this to open

an account they say well we need a signature caught a signature call center setting aside incidents caught one of the signature thoughts as i wave or my rights and how this association operates and i turned them over to three people you have no idea who they are to happen again the president vice president and treasurer something of the association cw proxy and on the third is that i think is maybe the third wednesday of january at two pm every year every sale is a long resume their annual nathan's required under federal law it on that at that time an eerie quiet the post noticed the lead the puzzle is now that you will remember seeing those notices available certain zones sometimes you have to look very like his we've uncovered instances of the known as being posted on a three by five index card behind the flag in the lobby you have to be very very strict rules to find that level littler the plantains not to find that is

so it usually happens is the association meeting and says about seven or eight people who reporter proxy total which is about the number of people openly and it's always almost always an overwhelming victory for the president why was it important to get into this area will say there's a long associations fincher over two hundred billion dollars in assets for second largest repositories of money stay off the major backers of mortgage money newhouse and women and what they can do with their money still longs in new housing actually areas all out to participate in a pretty heavily from others about eighty five percent of all the loans and major new house as you may know it has been summer is the country as a housing crisis for example in my very own city washington dc which is seventy eight percent black there's tremendous housing crisis

the savings a lot of twelve same the loan associations in washington the nineteen seventies found out that they invest the ones that would really would release information they invested well over seventy five percent of their money in new housing construction in the white suburbs so the savings along to liberia city a building somewhere for allowing the whites to flee from the city and turned into an ever increasing slow well in areas right adjacent university communities are frequently five terrible housing shortage you also find savings along that have heavy not one number that applause means to us simple inquiries into where they're putting their money investing their money in housing construction often reveal that they're investing as far away from the state vary as possible portland's the housing doesn't is more money more the middle class upper middle class rich housing brings in more

money is safer carlo raz why not run your own savings and while one out run a savings campaign a campaign or what could be more american life that apple plied lemonade and savings campaign and so less than five dollars to deposit back with interest say and the next time they have the jones meeting next tuesday whatever it is third wednesday january two pm saturday in the back room one room of the association all twenty fifteen ten twenty thirty thousand people there albeit to prevent abuse so it's it only got into son of proxies to quantify you don't really want to get a savings along the i mean once you know

what you want to go to one in mount a credible threat and you can't do that you're on like a campaign gm where you can't mount a credible threat taking over general motors said no credible threats for taking all the savings the low level threat will produce results quickly moves the animal and you'll see a full page ad in the daily attacks are all announcing that continuing as long established practice of trying to improve our cities also his eighties alone association announces thirty thousand or a hundred thousand two hundred thousand three hundred thousand were the size of mortgage money investment going into x y and z areas of the city are areas of the city's wards well no now having talk about discovery is we learned the industry's efficiently so that a hundred and ten page report single spaced typed just switch it like to read that some nine as an issue

how the state is long associations and now the trends are proposing that they should not be transferred from mutually own associations shareholder all natalie and the proposal is how would this be done well at the plaza would receive shares in the proportion of the money that they had deposited so that means the millionaire now would receive a proportion of people a million dollars and said i'm getting fifty votes and it is set two and fifty dollars each having equal voting share a million dollars now would be a proportional to the two hundred and fifty in show as we know it does is lead into the region and said he was like this tooth enamel not permitted to happen some other congressman about shaping up to a major battle which is why we hired someone at this time to try to fight that and citizen groups can do this i write in charge and what about an upcoming citizens you

think are aware of this issue and slight even those organs and one thousand dollars all of which leads me to my file says this was serious social change how to bring about social change is slightly different than some other groups we believe that to maximize overturned the wrong this isn't the only way it's not the school's of way but to maximize social change we need some ingredients ingredients are most simply stated aside from resources it's a combination of volunteer citizens standing out couple hours a week on what days a month or writing letters to congressman mac cost of a combination of volunteers citizens fulltime public service he goes full time job it's going to be to do this kind of war he goes jobs can and they should be aware of when a hundred and ten page orders issued about sanctioning the regulations a savings and we're also going to be aware about these other kinds of issues

such as school lighting construction large and small the kinds of issues that customarily swing by and the media circus that the average citizen never even hearing about we believe this combination of part time and full time is essential to build a kind of a force is going to be capable of maximizing the citizen input citizens power in other words strasbourg is one variety of that kind of model its student citizens forming their own full time status of professionals lawyers scientists what have you and working together with that there's no reason why it has to be limited to statins a low all sorts of other organizations should be able to form their own kinds of tax for a koala but instead of teachers all over the country teachers are being put out of business because of cuts in appropriations

cuts in the property tax base especially high school and elementary school teacher or school systems are going bankrupt i don't have enough money the property taxes and bring in enough money why haven't teaches on a statewide races organized themselves they ready had the unions in some areas and other areas they have associations professional associations why shouldn't they contribute a dollar or two dollars or three dollars a month to hire their own staff of appraisers and assesses and lawyers so on the town says well we're gonna have to cut back on our hiring the shia just from fifty to thirty one the quality of education or does double the school classroom size seventy eighty kids in a room cell problem why haven't they hired this vast regions into an area and find out whether in fact the property tax base has really needs is as bad off as they say or whether perhaps industries are an asset as they are the

city of the city across the country while and teachers i go around i had diesel music faculty at schools or faculty members doing on a political science across as a lookout the seriousness i really can't really envy your position here being done on independence hall and being able to do this kind of work i wish i could've done it i wish that i had had the opportunity i wish i had some way of getting involved really quiet oh you're making reasonably good salaries recently twelve thirteen so reasonable morning what you do this is what you get to get twenty faculty colleagues and toss in five hundred bucks apiece hundred dollars spaced out over yet and he arranged to sell strong enough to get university figured out your dress famously way they do social security and it responds savings bonds and set up a taskforce and activist as opposed to

really want full time and sit around and say to so something bothering me in this town i've got a man can do something about why employee portion to doing that drivers have fought to organize themselves into a group of professional drivers brought without at the teamsters would believe absolutely nothing to protect the health and safety we had a conference about this we now have about what a full time will act admittedly it's a shoestring operation about four hundred drivers now joined a twenty dollars a year a thousand dollars sellards a shoestring operation this person by himself has put in an infinite it's easy to say infinitely positive visit wooden nothing more petitions for regulation changes on private health safety and vehicle operation in his element when it sam talking about citizens of got to understand that by themselves on a part time basis they can make very

significant impacts and i just described i spent all morning describing the ways in which they can do that what they're getting together and forming a full time staff even if it's only one insist that members their impact can rise considerably but was mr john ross who worked with ralph nader in washington dc his remarks on citizen action were delivered in austin tex is under the auspices of the texas public interest research group remarks were mr ross his own and they do not necessarily constitute an endorsement by the station or of the university of texas at austin been listening to university forum producer stewart wilbur this program is produced and distributed by communication center university of texas at austin raw at this as the long war and radio network