Future City | Inclusive Cities with Guest Weldon Angelos

Inclusive Cities – Fostering Just Laws for a Fair Society

A Future City Conversation – Thursday, November 16th
11:00 am – 12:15 pm
at Station House – 260 1st Ave S, St. Petersburg, FL 33701

As part of OPEN’s Future City conversations, powered by Duke Energy, social justice advocate Weldon Angelos joins local leaders to discuss how we’re building a more equitable social jusitice system that restores families, communities and futures.

Featuring Guest Speakers:
Weldon Angelos – Social Justice Advocate
Michael Jalazo – Executive Director, Pinellas Co. Ex-Offender Re-Entry Coalition
Simone Marstiller – Senior Council, Gunster, former state agency head and Appellate Court Judge
Rev. Dr. Russell Meyer – Executive Director, Florida Council of Churches
Barbara Rhode – Founder, The Red Tent Women’s Initiative Inc.

Weldon Angelos, a 36 year old father of three from Utah, was sentenced in 2004 to a mandatory 55 years in prison for selling a few pounds of marijuana while possessing a firearm – a sentence so extreme that his judge, unable to go below the mandatory minimum, called on the president to commute Weldon’s sentence.
Barring such a presidential commutation, taxpayers would spend over $1.5 million to keep Weldon behind bars until he’s 80 years old.

Weldon’s sentencing provoked unprecedented public outcry.

Twenty nine former judges and prosecutors filed a ‘friend of the court’ brief beseeching Weldon’s sentencing judge to declare the sentence unconstitutional. At sentencing, Judge Paul G. Cassell called Weldon’s punishment “unjust, cruel, and even irrational,” comparing it to much shorter federal sentences given to repeat child rapists and airplane hijackers. Judge Cassell wrote a 67-page opinion urging President Bush to commute Weldon’s sentence to 18 years or less. Unfortunately, none of these efforts proved fruitful until recently, when President Obama committed his sentence– after serving 13 years in prison.

Weldon Angelos is one of the nation’s most famous nonviolent drug offenders and became a symbol of what advocates said was the severity and unfairness of mandatory sentences. His case was championed by the group Families Against Mandatory Minimums, former FBI director Bill Sessions, conservative billionaire Charles Koch and others.

Join us Thursday, November 16th from 11:00 am – 12:15 pm as we discuss ideas for building a more equitable social justice system in our community and beyond.
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This “Working Lunch” Interactive Session is part of OPEN’s Future City theme, powered by Duke Energy, designed to spark conversation and learning around what it takes to build the kind of smart, inclusive, sustainable, and livable city we all want to call home in the future.

Over the course of three days, we will host six Future City discussions during lunch time (between 11 am and 2 pm) in central downtown St. Petersburg (two per day) on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday November 15 -17th as part of the Et Cultura festival.

To see the full line-up of Future City programming, please go to http://www.etcultura.com/interactive/futurecity.

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Here is how ticketing works:
• Priority entrance and seating for these sessions first goes to paid Et Cultura Ticket holders. (Get tickets here.)
• Any remaining seats at the OPEN Interactive Sessions can then be filled by the general public, at no cost.
• All seating is first come, first serve.

Buy your week-long all-access tickets to Et Cultura now! Go to http://www.etcultura.com/tickets