SC Call Notes — June 03, 2004
Participants:
Jo Chamberlain, Jake Schneider, Alan Kobrin, Ben Manski, Greg Gerritt
Staff Emily Citkowski, Adam Benedetto
Call Functions:
Notes Greg
Abbreviations used:
AFT = American Federation of Teachers
AC = Accreditation Committee
ANM, ANMC = Annual National Meeting Committee
BRPP = Bylaws, Rules, Policies and Procedures Committee
BC = Black Caucus
CC = Coordinating Committee
CCC = Coordinated Campaign Committee
CG SC = Campus Greens Steering Committee
DC = Diversity Committee
FC = Fundraising Committee
FEC = Federal Election Commission
GP = Green Party
GW = George Washington University
IC = International Committee
ICA = Institute for Cultural Affairs
LC = Lavender Caucus
LG = Lavender Greens
PEC = Presidential Exploratory Committee
PCSC = Presidential Campaign Support Committee
SC = Steering Committee
[Brackets denote editor’s suggested corrections. Some punctuation corrections done with no content change. -ed.]
Published Agenda
Assemble and chatter 3 minutes
Reports
office 5 minutes
convention 50 minutes
(In no particular order)
packets
Election administrator
Internationals
Rules: who, how, what, when, challenges
CC meeting
agenda
proposals
elections
facilitation
notes
projecting totals
Women’s Caucus
donation forms
platform process
projecting and advancing calmness
finances 10 minutes
Black Caucus
voting queue 20 minutes
NEW
SC elections proposal
redoing endorsements?
CHANGES
timing of BC/AC vote and on what
recap
Currently Under Discussion
GPUS PRESENCE AT DNC & RNC CONVENTIONS Floor Manager: Ben Manski
Black Caucus Accreditation Approval – GPPA Floor Manager: Jo Chamberlain
Endorsement of Racism Watch Floor Manager: Greg Gerritt
Black Caucus Accreditation Approval – AC/DC Floor Manager: Greg Gerritt
Currently Voting
2004 GPUS Presidential campaign endorsement procedures Floor Manager: Greg Gerritt
Approval of Convention Voting Administrator Floor Manager: Greg Gerritt
Amend credentialling rules for 2004 convention Floor Manager: Ben Manski
Adjourn
*****
Agenda review: no changes
Office report:
Emily, Written report has been sent. Biggest concern is data base and getting it cleaned up. Thinks we need to hire someone to do that and it will take 30 to 40 hours of work.
Jake proposes we allocate up to $400.00 to pay someone to do that work. Unanimous approval.
Building manager tells us we do not have access to a storage closet we are using, so we need to move stuff out of it. May have to find/rent storage space for some files. SC asked Emily to come up with good numbers for what that will take.
Convention:
Adam and Jake start us.
We received a bid for $1252 for Security at the convention — 7 guards for the day . Jake will sign contract. Finalized numbers for Michelle Shocked and Diverse for entertainment. Reminder that new convention assistant needs to get w-2 finished. and sent to Jake. Insurance for convention arranged through our regular insurance agency. They will just add $300.00 to our normal insurance bill to cover it.
Schedule is getting close to done. Confirming with speakers. Getting things posted on the web. Registration glitches have come up but are being fixed. For registration database we need delegates info from Credentials Committee, though it is likely that many states have not yet sent lists. We shall have to stay on this from several directions.
Audio Visual is going to $11,000 plus. Higher than original budget, but we checked around and got a fair price for what we need. Susan Dridi will be developing the program for keeping the spread sheet of the convention votes that will be projected on a screen so delegates can see the tally as it is being recorded.
Discussed CC and Convention packets and what needs to be in them. Especially noted process for recording donations on FEC reporting materials in a way that will not be excessively burdensome to delegates or book keepers.
Discussed table for Women Greens that will be part of Lorna Salzman’s table. SC agreed that at their table they must have a sign that they are not affiliated with GPUS in any way, nor with the Women’s Caucus, and that if they did not display the sign they could not table.
Discussed vibes watchers, peace keepers and the need to develop a plan to deal with potential uncivil behavior, chaos, and disruptions.
Agreed to move forward with packets and enforce deadlines for getting materials in.
Election administrator for convention:
So far Matt is being approved unanimously 58 to zero. We are going to try to write up materials on process and have a discussion with Matt to prep him. We would like rules materials in packets. Ben will start that process, Greg will help. Greg will also ask BRPP co chair Tom Sevigny for assistance. Want Matt to know the rules and cut through the BS and people trying to manipulate the rules. Keep us to business at hand.
SC is very clear that the CC makes the convention rules, and understands how unprepared convention delegates would be for rules votes. We owe it to delegates to the convention to have the rules settled so they can do what they were sent to do, vote on the platform and nominee.
CC meeting:
Greg is working on agenda; committees are letting him know what they need for time, but some laggards. Facilitation for CC meeting. 90% of CC meeting will be routine. SC can facilitate committee reports. We shall ask experienced facilitator Greens (CC delegates) to facilitate anything that might be controversial or where SC would have a role in the debate. This is different from some past meetings.
Proposals to be on the floor in Milwaukee
Rules on how to elect SC. After 3 weeks of discussion on voting page. Hope it will be easy. If Florida brings a proposal on redoing the endorsement process, that may be voted on following time on the voting page. We did ask committees and states to get all proposals to us by June 1. Nothing else has come in or been hinted at other than a potential IC resolution on some issue of the day relating to international affairs. Might be something from Black Caucus but nothing official yet. Want to keep this very limited and make sure delegates have bee able to see materials in advance.
Convention will have some emcee stuff, schedule of who introduces what is being worked on. Platform committee will handle platform vote. Administrator will handle whole Presidential nominating effort.
Calmness:
Create a calmness team? Find volunteers let them know there are others working in this arena as well. Send suggestions to Greg who will send out a note asking individuals to participate.
Finances:
Potential budget — Income projected $84,000 Expenses $65,000 Registrations are most of the income and those are on track. Expenses are pretty well all accounted for, so it is looking pretty good, though some skepticism remains, which is probably a good thing.
GPUS finances — Finance Committee wants to take the $27,000 reserve and move it from the checking account to a savings account also at Sun Trust. Right now the reserve is mixed in with the two checking accounts. Treasurer proposes to open an account and move the amount of money the Accountant says is the actual reserve fund after the next monthly report from the accountant. SC approved.
Income is way down. Way down. Partly because of a very reduced bulk mail program. Expenses are way down for the same reason. This year frugality is critical. There will not be a redo of the budget in Milwaukee as it is to difficult to project income streams at this time and there is unlikely to be any money to newly allocate.
There have been some questions about how the fundraiser is supervised with the delineation between Fundraising co chairs and SC blurred. The confusion ought to be further explored. We will ask Kara to join us on the conference call next week.
Both fundraising and personnel committees are short staffed which does not help matters.
Black Caucus:
There are divisions though it is hard to tell how extensive they are as we only see a small part of the Black Caucus discussing things in the national fishbowl. It was agreed that if there is any discussion of issues within the Black Caucus during their report time at the CC meeting that there shall be equal time for the various factions. The suggestion was made that there may be a role for the Dispute Resolution Committee in this but it was noted that the DRC has just convened and has not yet pulled together rules for the management of the committee or rules on how to handle disputes and that until those rules are all together and approved it would be inappropriate to bring them into anything. 3 to 4 months should be sufficient to get them up and running and to have rules approved by the CC.
The SC has continued to slog through finishing a contract with the organizer for the Tour of America. Greg suggested that the task might be best left to a newly reinvigorated SC after the convention, as there will be 6 new members, but others wanted to continue finishing the contract. Vote: 3 to finish contract (Jo, Ben, Alan) 1 opposed (Greg) and one abstention (Jake). Ben and Jo will work with Jason on finishing the contract.
Voting Queue
SC elections proposal. Discussion on the voting page, vote very early in the agenda at the CC meeting. Forgot to pick a floor manager.
4 items currently in discussion phase. All go to vote on June 14. The SC will continue to seek an amicable way to get the AC and PA to combine their proposals so that there is just one vote on accrediting the Black Caucus.
Current votes are all passing overwhelmingly, but endorsement rules has not yet reached quorum.
Adjourned at 11:40 PM EDT
Minimally edited and HTML formatted by Charlie Green