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The Return of "Mendo" Dollars

By K.C. Meadows

From the Ukiah Daily Journal
Wednesday, Sept. 18, 1996

About a year ago, I mentioned here that some folks at Mendocino Environmental Center were trying to get a kind of barter system using "Mendo Dollars" going. Nothing, it seemed, ever happened. Well, now the effort is back on the front burner. The MEC will be the place for a meeting Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. about local trading systems and creating a local currency.

Thomas Greco will be the speaker. He knows all about this stuff and wrote the book titled, "New Money for Healthy Communities,' which outlines how a community like ours can start its own "new money" system.

There are a number of ways to go about it and I'll explain one of the most popular U.S. trends in new money in a second. First, the reason people are attracted to this kind of new money system is the desire to equalize things a little by letting the average Joe have some of the advantages that the rich have in buying power. It also allows people to use their skills and talents in ways that benefit them, even if it's not what they do "for a living.'!

Communities in many parts of the U.S. are creating their own currency, which is completely legal.
There's a wonderful article about it by Susan Meeker-Lowry in the 1995 July-August issue of Z Magazine, which was passed on to me and which explains thoroughly what the new money idea is all about. I'm sure there'll be copies of it at the meeting Thursday.

But, let me crib a bit from Meeker-Lowry and tell you about the "Ithaca Hour," a new money system developed in Ithaca, New York which is gaining popularity across the country. The system was developed in 1991 by Paul Glover and since then $50,000 in local currency has been issued to over 900 people and has been used by hundreds more.

According to Meeker-Lowry each Ithaca Hour Is equivalent to $10 because that's the average wage in Tompkins County. People can use hours for rent, plumbing, carpentry, car repair, chiropractic, food, firewood, child care and numerous .other goods and service.

Everyone pays one U.S. dollar to join and gets four Hours when agreeing to be listed as backers of the money. A free newsletter is published six times a year, which lists a directory of members who will take the Hours (which are printed up and look like dollar bills).

While ideally, everyone's "hour" is worth $10, people do negotiate higher prices for services such as dentistry or other professions where expensive equipment and office staff make it impossible to barter at $10 per hour.

That's just a tidbit. If you want to know more, go to the meeting. And if anyone out there gets involved in starting a system, let me know. I'd love to track it locally.

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