GPUS SC Conference Call
Sunday, January 10, 2009
8:00 p.m. EDT
Co-chairs: Jill Bussiere, Craig Thorsen, Jason Nabewaniec, Mike Feinstein, Sanda Everette, David Strand
Secretary: Holly Hart
Treasurer: Jody Grage
Staff: Brent McMillan, Brian Bittner
Farheen is ill and can’t make the call. Jill left after the executive session items (2 hours). David left a little later, has to be up early tomorrow. Jason dropped off the call (dead battery) a little after 3 hours.
Guest: David Doonan (New York; web manager)
Facilitator: MIke Feinstein facilitated through Item II/ Sanda Everette facilitated the rest.
I. EXECUTIVE SESSION – Personnel approx. 8:15 p.m. – 9:55 p.m. EST Jody; Mike
Review of payment owed Tamar Yager for final weeks, severance.
Review of issues involving disclosure of personnel information, including items related to confidentiality and comments that do not reflect actual performance. AGREED to an expenditure of $156 to purchase an individual security insurance policy.
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I. STAFF REPORTS
a. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR – Brent
New intern is starting tomorrow.
Elections database now stands at 73; added 3 more candidates this week.
We picked up ballot line in Ohio: state Board of Elections ruled that, given that the state assembly has not passed ballot access legislation as they were supposed to a few years ago, the tate is now instructed to recognize certain parties, including the Green Party.
Brent is almost done preparing database for next solicitation. He will contact Red Sun Press for 18,000 piece mailing. Working with Jody on what up-front costs will be needed.
US Court of Appeals has agreed to hear Gordon vs Biden (Asa Gordon suit on electoral college).
Mike stated he had contacted a past large donor who donated $10K last year.
b. OFFICE MANAGER – Brian Plans to submit written reports in the future. Intern will be working in January and first half of February; brent is setting up an intern work station. Mike asked how we came to have interns. Brian noted that we have a standing call for interns on our website, and notices to colleges and faculty around the eastern part of the country.
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II. TREASURER’S REPORT – Jody
Paid Tamar Yager final salary and severance. Sent report to SC:
Deposited the Juoni Trust check for $30,400.
Repaid all previous loan holders for a total of $28,078.
Received and deposited $9250 for Loan #431 with checks on the way for an additional $2000.
Paid $4k on our $8k Red Sun Press account that will be paid off before the next direct mail in late January.
Paid $2k on our $16k Empower Telefundraising account.
Brought in $4k additional income beyond the Juoni Trust money.
Paid the office rent for January.
Paid remaining salary and severance pay to Fundraising Manager TamarYager.
Claim for unused vacation days are on SC agenda Sunday 10 January.
Current numbers —
General Account $10.00
Loan in reserve $3250
IC fund in reserve $85
IT fund in reserve $1740
Web/credit card income coming in Saturday and Sunday – unknown
Recommended next steps —
Monday using reserve funds if necessary:
Pay Brent his end-of-December paycheck.
Pay DC Unemployment rate adjustment.
Carry out SC decision on claim for unused vacation days by Tamar Yager.
Later in the week if possible:
Wired for Change – $500
Purchase Power – $773.75
Scott McLarty – December – $790
Recommendations to pay now: Brent’s end-of-December paycheck salary; DC unemployment rate adjustment; Scott McLarty for end of December; Wired for Change – $500; Purchase Power – $73.
Holly raised a point about deferring staff payments; in at least some states, the law states that staff salaries must be paid as first priority. Brent reported that we have money in account, but Jody had told him that the SC had to agree to release his paycheck. He and Jeff Turner had drawn up a good priorities list a couple years ago, would recommend using that. SC will send list a questions to legal counsel.
Jason made a motion that the SC approve Brent’s paycheck. Jody asked if the SC was ok with taking loan funds in reserve for new loan to pay Brent’s salary.
1) SC authorize Brent’s payment; 2) we are taking it from the loan proceeds, effectively on a one-time basis, while we investigate legal obligations to pay staff salaries as first priority before other party expenses.
AGREED, by consensus
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Holly asked to table some of the items for an extra call or the next. Mike stated that our rules stipulate we must do this at the beginning of the call, and we are “not even at 3 hours, yet.” Holly noted that calls were supposed to take no longer than 2 hours and others had objected to long calls, and that the rules do allow the SC to suspend them, if we wish.
SC then agreed to amend agenda to include: voting queue; calendar proposal; 5 minutes on the item involving Hugh Esco’s work (if more time is needed, that will be deferred); item involving web manager’s work/internal work space. These include Items III; V/VIII;
Item VII was taken up during executive session (with no SC vote to approve amending the agenda!).
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III. VOTING QUEUE – Holly 1
a. All items currently in the voting queue have reached quorum and will pass.
b. QUESTION: Whether or not to extend the nomination period for the CCC. Holly proposed extending the call through the rest of the month (February 1st).
AGREED. Holly will send another announcement to the NC.
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TABLED – IV. REPORT from Ron Citkowski on GPUS vs G/GPUSA name and logo question – Holly 5-10 minutes
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V. (see VIII, below) GPUS Calendar
AGREED, by consensus
See Mike’s draft. Mike recommended two changes – remove call for DAC; caveat at beginning stating that this is a projection, subject to change and updates. Ask David Doonan to establish a link to the SC page and post it there, as well.
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TABLED – VI. PORTFOLIOS
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(see “Appendix” A, below)
(Taken up earlier in the call) VII. PROPOSAL – Request for Legal Opinion and Advice Regarding Employee Relations; Mike, Jody
AGREED, by consensus
Recently[,] potential legal issues have been raised. This proposal would communicate a request to Attorney Andy Finko to analzye them.
PROPOSAL: Request for Andy Finko to analyze obligations to outgoing Fundraising Manager in context of GPUS Personnel Manual, Fundraising Manager’s 2008 contract, DC employment law and the emails titled and dated as below; and to consult with attorneys recommended by DC Statehood Party Greens who have expertise in DC employment law.
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(see item V, above) VIII. PROPOSAL to Publish GPUS Calendar as provided
by 6-11.2 of GPUS Rules and Procedure – Mike Feinstein
http://green.gpus.org/cgi-bin/vote/propdetail?pid=393
Section 6-11 Long Term Planning and Scheduling of Proposals
6-11.1 At the beginning of each Fiscal Year, state parties, committees, caucuses and networks that expect to advance proposals to the National Committee, including any required by the Bylaws, Rules and Procedures, Fiscal Policy, Presidential Convention Rules, and/or by resolution of the National Committee, are encouraged to forward the basic scope and expected timing of submission of such proposals to the Steering Committee.
6-11.2 The Steering Committee shall publish the list of potential proposals identified in Section 6-11.1, together with the schedule of internal elections and other mandated decisions, to the National Committee on a semi-annual basis.
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(see “APPENDIX” B, below)
IX. PROPOSAL to Publish Request for Proposals to Create a National Committee internal web site – Mike
AGREED, by consensus, with one amendment from Holly, an additional point to look into the feasibility of using voting page login id’s and passwords to access such a site.
David Doonan has already begun working on something like this: an application for storage for contact information for all NC, SC, committee co-chairs and co-chairs of individual state parties. Started work a few months ago. System would be a secure server,which adds a layer of security; login URL would not be published on GPUS website, URL would be given separately to delegates. However, if people can hack into DoD websites, we obviously need to be realistic about level of security. Will look into costs of audio archives; files are very large. Will summarize comments and send to all SC members.
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X. PROPOSAL to Update GPUS National Committee voting page and create voting page option for GPUS Committees – Mike AGREED, by consensus, as amended to drop the item on voting thresholds.
Jody asked to add something to ensure GPUS of the limits of our financial involvement. Holly expressed concern about “mission creep” – asked to make clear that SC has discussed two items, but not adding different threshold options; make clear the distinction
Mike stated the proposal does not commit the SC to anything, but to get information from Hugh with an estimate, so SC could decide whether we want to purse this work. Agreed to drop item on voting thresholds.
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TABLED – XI. PROPOSAL to Amend #393 to Include Executive Summary for Proposal
Submissions – Mike
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TABLED – XIII. Fundraising – DISCUSSION OF strategy, ideas – Holly, et al
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TABLED – XIV. SC strategic plan – DISCUSSION of strategic plan notes posted to SC recently; how to move forward, implement ideas Holly, et al
NEXT CALL: Sunday, January 24, 2010; 8:00 p.m. EST
1/10/10
Holly Hart
Secretary, GPUS
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“APPENDIX” A
Full Text of Request for Legal Opinion and Advice Regarding Employee Obligations
Sponsors/Presenters: Mike Feinstein, Jody Grage
Background: On its December 20th conference call, the GPUS Steering Committee approved the following procedure when seeking a legal opinion and/or advice:
“That it shall be a standard practice of the Steering Committe, that when seeking a legal opinion and/or advice in performance of its responsibilites under GPUS Bylaws and Rules & Procedures, that the Steering Committee shall first approve a proposal to do so, that includes what information is requested and what background information be provided. When the opinion and/or advice is rendered, it shall be shared with the entire Steering Committee, unless in the extreme case that there is legal reason not to do so.”
Recently potential legal/financial issues have been raised by the GPUS Fundraising Manager. This proposal would communicate a request to Attorney Andy Finko to analzye them.
Proposal: Request for Andy Finko to analyze obligations to the GPUS Fundraising Manager in context of GPUS Personnel Manual, Fundraising Manager’s 2008 contract, DC employment law and the emails titled and dated as below; and to consult with attorneys recommended by DC Statehood Party Greens who have expertise in DC employment law.
Attachments:
1) GPUS Personnel Manual
http://www.gp.org/committees/steering/personnel-manual.php
2) 2008 Fundraising Manager Contract (attached)
3) District of Columbia Labor Law, Article 32
4) Email correspondance (text of title of emails below, content would be
sent privately to Andy Finko))
Original Message ——–
Subject: Re: 30-day notice letter From: tamar@gp.orgDate: Mon, 7 Dec 2009
01:15:14 -0500 (EST) To: “Jody Grage” <jodytgrage@gmail.com> CC:
hijabicycle@gmail.com, “Holly Hart Jill Bussiere Sanda Everette David
Strand Mike Feinstein Craig Thorsen Jason Nabewaniec” <j_nabs@hotmail.com>
Original Message ——–
Subject: Wiki/Performance Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:12:49 -0500 (EST)
From: tamar@gp.orgTo: j_nabs@hotmail.com, lavgrn@gmail.com,
craig.thorsen@gmail.com, secretary@pair.com, gp.org@pair.com, jody@gp.org,
jdt@itol.com, hijabicycle@gmail.com, sanda@greensolutions.org,
mfeinstein@feinstein.org
Original Message ——–
Subject: Re: Wiki/Performance Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2009 15:08:23 -0800 From:
Mike Feinstein <mfeinstein@feinstein.org> Reply-To:
mfeinstein@feinstein.orgTo: tamar@gp.orgCC: j_nabs@hotmail.com,
lavgrn@gmail.com, craig.thorsen@gmail.com, secretary@pair.com,
jody@gp.org, jdt@itol.com, hijabicycle@gmail.com, sanda@greensolutions.org
Original Message ——–
Subject: January 6 payment Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:27:06 -0500 (EST)
From: tamar@gp.org
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“APPENDIX” B
Full Text for the Request for GPUS Web Manager to Analyze Creating a National Committee internal web portal and to make recommendations about placing it within the hierarchy of GPUS web/IT needs and tasks
Sponsor/Presenter: Mike Feinstein
Time Requested: Fifteen Minutes
Background: In order to provide a web-based place to conduct internal party business, many Green Parties around the world have password accessible, members-only portions of their party web sites (the Green Party of England & Wales <http://members.greenparty.org.uk/>, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand <http://www3.greens.org.nz/wiki/main_page>, the Green Party of Canada <http://www.greenparty.ca/user>, the Green Party of British Columbia <http://www.greenparty.bc.ca/user/login> and others.)
A major reason for this is that some information needed by party members is not appropriate to be published on the entire internet. The GPUS does not protect itself in this way. While the GPUS has a small internal portal for accessing the voting page (and with it also some out-of-date contact information), the public portion of its site openly features potentially sensitive internal financial, organizational and political information that could be used against the party. This is probably not in they party’s strategic interest. What could be in the party’s interest? A password accessible web portal for information, applications and services of an internal nature accessible to NC members, party staff and specific others; and integration of this function with the tracking of National and other GPUS Committee members, so that the party can achieve up-to-date membership and contact information for its core active committee members.
Proposal: That the Steering Committee ask the GPUS Web Manager, in consultation with the GPUS Executive Director, to analyze the creation of a password accessible portal for information, applications and services of an internal nature accessible to NC members, party staff and others, and make recommendations to the Steering Committee on the possibility of enacting it under the current workload of the Web Manager, to suggest a prioritization for it among other Web Manager responsibilities, and to include consideration of the following questions:
1) What would involved in establishing a more substantial password accessible internal GPUS web site than is currently provided by the party’s existing internal site <http://green.gpus.org/cgi-bin/vote/index>? How could the exiting site be expanded upon and/or what needs to be done separately from the existing site to create a functional internal site. Can we look into the feasibility of using the existing log in password for this? Could/should the portal’s creation utilize open source programs to accomplish this?
2) What existing public information should be public and what private?
– The GPUS Fiscal Policy says the budget document must be a public document and it easily can be, as a spreadsheet of projected income and expenses. But the party’s internal budget narratives, as well as some of the other budget documents on <http://www.gp.org/committees/finance/budget/index.shtml>, could be placed in a password accessible internal site. In addition, the Steering Committee minutes contain ongoing narratives of SC discussions in which various internal aspects of the organization are discussed openly in free-flowing discussion, that could either expose things about our party that we don’t want to give to our opponents, and/or that could be quoted out of context against us to make us look weak, unprofessional, dishonest or worse. These type of ‘minutes’ could be on the internal site; but a simple record of decisions taken, the text of approved proposals and who voted how could be made public.
3) What information could be published that isn’t now if there were a private place, including
– job descriptions of GPUS staff and independent contractors
– permanent audio recordings of Steering Committee conference calls
4) How could the password protected aspect of such a portal protect from spam, web-based information forms that are needed to be filled in by NC members, such as for example, a form into which all proposals destined for the NC would be submitted?
5) What would be involved in creating National Committee member profiles?
– could NC members be given the ability to enter their own information and choose what of that information could be shown on a private site and a public site, including a profile, picture, as well as email, phone, postal address, fax, website, blog, twitter, facebook, myspace, youtube information; and could such profiles also contain a list of what GPUS committees they serve on and their NC voting record?
– could a system of NC member profiles be integrated with the GPUS data base so that the party has an accurate and up-to-date membership roster for its standing and ad-hoc committees, instead of the consistently out-of-date list at <http://green.gpus.org/cgi-bin/vote/delegates> and on some GPUS committee home pages?