Participants:
Co-chairs: Jason Nabewaniec, Craig Thorsen, Clifford Thornton, Jill Bussier, Budd Dickinson, Sanda Everette, Phil Huckelberry
Secretary: Holly Hart
Treasurer: Jody Grage
Staff: Tamar Yager, Emily Citkowski, Brent McMillan
Facilitator: Jason
Abbreviations used:
AC = Accreditation Committee
ANM, ANMC = Annual National Meeting Committee
BAWG = Ballot Access Working Group
BRPP = Bylaws, Rules, Policies and Procedures Committee
BC = Black Caucus
CC = Coordinating Committee
CCC = Coordinated Campaign Committee
CG SC = Campus Greens Steering Committee
ComCom = Communications Committee
DC = Diversity Committee
DIA = Democracy in Action internet service
DRC = Dispute Resolution Committee
FC = Fundraising Committee
FEC = Federal Election Commission
GP = Green Party
IC = International Committee
LC = Lavender Caucus
NPWG = Nominating Process Working Group
NWC = National Women’s Caucus
PEC = Presidential Exploratory Committee
PCSC = Presidential Campaign Support Committee
SC = Steering Committee
SPWG = Strategic Plan Working Group
[Brackets denote editor’s suggested corrections. Some punctuation corrections done with no content change. -ed.]
AGENDA
I. Check-in, review agenda, choose facilitator
A. POLITICAL DIRECTOR; LARGE DONOR FUNDRAISING – Brent
Brent reported on ballot access news from the past week – ballot access last week – opportunity this last week, Greens in Colorado are willing to petition in WYO, but needed information that night. They got the information and are now collecting signatures. CT is struggling, Brent is trying to get support for them. Petitioning went well in WA and we can expect to get that line.
The Green Party of MI held their convention this weekend, and Brent is expecting new MI candidates to be identified soon.
Brent was contacted by the American Muslim Alliance, their convention October 12th near Boston, would like to include a Green in their panel discussion on building a multi-party democracy. We have participated in the past. Cliff Thornton is interested in attending, will let us know his availability.
Joseph McCormick spoke with Brent in regards to coming trans-partisan summit. Lincoln’s Birthday of Feb 12th, major third-party gathering from left, right and center and leaders from various organizations. Plan to have 1305 delegates with 150 leaders. Delegate application will begin after September 2. They would also like to invite Cynthia McKinney to this event. Barr, Gore, Paul, Nader and others have also been invited.
On fundraising, Brent spoke with Roy Singhum on Friday of Thoughtworks in Chicago; he pledged $2300 to McKinney campaign and $5000 to GPUS. He would like to setup a fundraising event in Chicago for McKinney. Outreach to Daryl Hannah and other celebrities.
Brent updated the Wikipedia site to note all the current SC members. Brent and Steve Kramer are Wikipedia editors.
B. OPERATIONS DIRECTION; ONLINE FUNDRAISING – Emily
Emily noted that she uses these calls to bring to the SC anything for an SC decisions. There is not usually a lot. Looking for two new interns to replace interns leaving at the end of the month. Send leads Emily’s way.
Landlady is looking to rent out a space which GPUS has used for storage. Emily will bring this up in more detail with the FinCom, but wanted to let the SC know of this. If GPUS doesn’t take the space, she may find another tenant.
Online income is at $15,500 and $23600 is from the convention, the rest is broken down – Green Party card is the highest, sustainers are next ($2500); Merchandise is at $22K. general web donations close to $22. Emily reports we are doing well, which she attributes to being on CPAN and having a good convention, the donor list is increasing.
Merchandise sale – $6400 in sales at the convention, a record for GPUS (breaking last year’s record of $5500). MerchCom will write up an evaluation.
C. FUNDRAISING – MAILINGS, SOLICITATIONS – Tamar
Tamar sent out a written report today. Income was over $6000 from the various fundraising efforts at the convention. PCSC raised over $1000, with over $1400 in pledges for the McKinney campaign. Receivable, about $1500 from sustainers.
Tamar has been working on the donor database to get to the mail house, now just under 14,000 names. This took extra time, because we are personalizing the letter. That should go out this week. She is still looking for fundraising assistants. We should let Tamar know if we have anyone to suggest.
III. TREASURER’S REPORT – Jody
Jody will get a cash-flow report out later this week. We still don’t have all information from the convention, but we are doing better with getting information than last year. [MISSED MOST OF THE #’S] It looks like we’ve lost about $20,000 on the national convention. Fundraising and Finance Committees are meeting tomorrow. We have authority from the NC for up to $15,000 in loans from party members. Jody hopes to have at least half to the money we need to pay the hotel by the end of July; the other half would come out of August’s income. We may decide to go ahead and start asking for some loans.
Jody expressed great appreciation for Hilary Aisenstein, treasurer for ANMCom, who helped carry the workload.
IV. VOTING QUEUE – Holly
Brief review of voting queue, media releases and web content, forum managers
V. LEGAL ACTIONS
A. Asa Gordon – letter to the National Archivist
Brent submitted a draft, letter was sent to National Archivist; Brent drafted a response, some SC members felt the language was too strong. Brent offered to re-draft. Suggestion we file a mandamus, and concern is that, since we don’t have an attorney, we should not go forward with that. Brent suggested that he and Asa Gordon could do this on their own. Brent will re-send the response to the SC list.
Phil states that we need to find a legal counsel, or have someone we can contact. SC should identify legal counsel(s) within the next four weeks, and at least get steered in the right direction. We have dropped this ball for four years.
B. Alan Kobrin – FISA
VI. Various states and committees
A. Massachusetts – Clifford got a call from someone in MA that the GRP-MA is about to collapse and asking for help. He contacted Charlie Pillsbury (CT, RC) too help facilitate a meeting. Clifford feels there may be racial and cultural issues involved. He will send a report to the SC. Sanda reported that the PNC Credentials Committee heard hours of discussion on the issue, but felt it wasn’t within the purview of the Credentials Committee. She also feels some kind of facilitation is needed.
B. California – reports of a potential plan to hijack the GPCA ballot line for Nader/Gonzalez. Sanda reported there are threats but doesn’t feel there will be a real problem, there is no appropriate way for this to be done.
C. GPAX – question of non party members on a committee
D. Diversity Committee – general non-function
E. Request from GPNJ – concern about individuals who forcefully support a rival presidential campaign
Phil believes the national GPUS has the right and responsibility to make sure our committees are functional, and should remove individuals who are essentially sabotaging efforts. Brent, Phil, Craig and Cliff agreed. Jason and Holly expressed the view that members who may support non-Green candidates but are working well on committees are fine, but the problem is those that are clearly disrupting work and hijacking a committee, committee list, etc.
Agreed that this is a question of associational rights. Sabotage, along with campaigning for another candidate, would be considered grounds for requesting states remove NC delegates, and for removing from working committees. Agreed to send a letter to GPNJ. Agreed to have GPAX unsubscribe individuals who are not members of the Green Party. Holly will forward the letters to GPNJ and GPAX.
VII. CONVENTION – DE-BRIEFING
AnmCom has had a post-convention call. Notes will be forwarded to the SC list. There will be another call of those who were handling various logistics. The SC will take this up next call.
Jody stated that there needs to be clear allocation of roles, specifically regarding finances and fundraising efforts, and tabling.
Brent recommended that 4 years from now, and RFP be put out for elections software. We did not have a chance to test the elections software before going “live” on national television.
Budd is concerned there was no music at all, believes there needs to be something next time.
Holly recommended using note-taker, back-up vote counter and specifying what is official – this worked well at the convention. Holly strongly recommended that ballot fling paperwork be scheduled to take place at the convention.
Security issues, we need to strongly differentiate between what are essentially vibes watchers and security. In some ways, they did their job, in some ways, it fell short. There were two efforts at rushing the stage, and other incidents where someone was aggressively approached.
Sanda reported that the Credentialing Committee did an amazing, wonderful job. They were formed late, and people were credentialing up to the date of the convention, there were only 5 members (when there were supposed to be 15), they worked around the clock.
VIII. PORTFOLIOS
Budd suggested that Co-chairs continue with their portfolios; new Co-chairs take over the portfolios left by the outgoing Co-chairs. Sanda is interested in having Co-chairs take on committees they are interested in. Phil recommended Co-chairs figure out what committees are currently assigned, and then have the rest worked out on email or the next call.
IX. FACILITATOR – DO WE WANT TO CONTINUE MEETING FACILITATION
Holly will contact the former SC members who had offered to facilitate, and attempt to get a facilitator for the next meeting. We will re-evaluate next meeting whether we want to continue with an outside facilitator.
X. Ballot Access – Phil
5 deadlines this week. Petitioning: MO and MN are gone. NJ, WA and PA due this week, CT the following week. For the most parts, not good situations, except for WA state. (Paperwork for CO, WVA, IA and WYO.) Hard to get state parties to be communicative, report totals. We must come up with a strategy; we don’t have the resources to spend time chasing down state party reports. Fundraising for ballot access is another problem. Short-term problem, have been trying to get up a web page with ballot access information. Have the people willing to do the work gotten access? The party needs to make institutional commitments to securing ballot lines. Feels a lot of state parties aren’t carrying their load, national isn’t carrying its load, etc.
Phil expressed frustration that ballot access information was not getting up on the web and the difficulty in getting access. Brent suggested a conference among him, Phil, Holly, Emily, David Doonan and others involved in web access.
XI. Executive Session Requests – Jason, Holly, Jody
Potential legal, candidate and personnel items
11:15 – 11:50 p.m. EST
NEXT CALL: Sunday, August 10, 2008; 8:00 p.m. EST