{news} minutes 8/15/04 Executive Committee meeting--office in Hartford

[edubrule]

Minutes of 8/15/04 Executive Committee meeting--state office in Hartford, 2-5pm

 

I  Finances/insurance matters.

1. A plan was arrived at for paying bills due within the next few weeks with the limited balance in the CT Green Party checking account.

2. "Many times when a chapter or campaign is holding an event, the question of insurance coverage for the event (through the CT Green Party's liability insurance policy) comes up.  Sometimes it is necessary to pay the insurance company a small amount of money to buy a "rider" to the policy so that the event will be covered.  All questions concerning insurance coverage should be directed to treasurer Bob Eaton (green at spazmo.com, 860-379-0632) or co-chair Mike DeRosa (smderosa at erols.com,  860-956-8170)   Please do not call the insurance company directly.

     The Executive Committee agreed that the message above will be placed in the minutes of this meeting, placed on the announcements listserve, and announced at the August SCC meeting.

     Bob has been working, with others in the CTGP, on publicity for the 9/11/04 Woodie Guthrie fundraiser.

 

II  Request for reimbursement by Chris Reilly.  Chris Reilly has asked the CTGP to be reimbursed $3,540.82 that he had spent in the past for office rent, postage/printing/envelopes for fundraising mailing(s), and for a domain name.  Mike said that Chris said that legally a political party's treasurer decides what expenditures are made.  All of the expenditures Chris made (and has asked to be reimbursed for) were made when Bruce Crowder was treasurer.  Bob said he talked to Bruce and Bruce said Chris should be reimbursed.

     It would be desirable to get information from Bruce on this matter in writing.

 

III   Lists/fundraising letter.  Aaron Gustafson and Dmitri D'Alessandro have finished producing a list of Connecticut registered Greens (also lists of Connecticut unaffiliated voters) from the compact disk purchased from the CT Secretary of State's office.  Ed will forward Elizabeth Brancato the list of towns-by-chapters (which towns "belong", in some sense, to each of the chapters) and Elizabeth will insert zip codes.  Ed and Elizabeth will form a subcommittee to ensure that the accuracy of the addresses on these lists is improved (by comparison with chapters' lists and other lists) (Chris Reilly will also be helping here), with goals of getting good lists to our candidates soon and having good lists for an annual fundraising letter.  The fundraising letter should go out in September (the third week of September).  About $650 will be needed for postage;  perhaps proceeds of the upcoming Woodie Guthrie fundraiser can help here.  The mailing bureau we have used has required payment of postage upfront.

     Steps do be done soon are:  (1) getting the list of registered Greens (approximately 2500 names) subdivided into chapter lists;  (2) getting lists of towns relevant to each of our candidates' campaigns.  The text of the fundraising letter should include accomplishments of the CT Green Party and its office-holders (including Elizabeth Horton Sheff, Joyce Chen, Ken Keskinen), and of VOTER (of which the CTGP is a member and to which Mike has contributed extensive work), over the past year.  For example:  (a) the fact that we are running 10 candidates (or maybe more) this November;  (b) Elizabeth Horton Sheff --in her role as Hartford City Councilor--worked on issues relating to the Patriot Act, abolition of the death penalty in Connecticut, no sale of guns in the Hartford WalMart (now being built), issues relating to jobs at this WalMart, issues relating to ability of workers at this WalMart to organize;  (c) the Hartford chapter played a role in getting a front-page Hartford Advocate article published on Richard Sitcha, an immigrant facing deportation;  (d) the Northeast and New Haven chapters (at least) worked with the DNC2RNC marchers.  Some of these accomplishments could be provided as a "reminder sheet" to persons doing fundraising calls (perhaps fundraising calls following up on the fundraising letter).  The text of the fundraising letter could draw on the text of fundraising letters already written (such as one recently written by Elizabeth Brancato).

     If candidates (such as Joyce Chen, who has requested our lists already) are sending out fundraising letters, should we wait until they have gotten their returns?

 

IV.  Village Fair Days incident.  In late July, the Western chapter paid $300 for a booth at the New Milford Village Fair Days.  The following is information from an e-mail from Justine:   The fair was held on the public village green.  At this fair the Western chapter petitioned for political candidates as well as tried to educate people about the Green Party and Green Party positions on Iraq, Israel-Palestine, the economy, electoral reform, etc.  Among the many Green Party positions and banners the chapter had in (or on) its booth were signs for Cobb/LaMarche and Nader and one reading "CT Green Party/Israel Must End Its Illegal Occupation/Stop US Aid to Israel".  On Friday 7/30/04 the New Milford Chamber of Commerce president, claiming that some people had found the sign "offensive", took the sign down, later refused to allow Justine to petition to get Nader on the ballot among fair attendees, and eventually took the booth away for Saturday 7/31/04, kicking the Western chapter out of the Fair at 9:30 pm.  There were people who expressed support for the sign which was removed.  There were Democratic and Republican Party booths at the fair, and booths devoted to controversial issues (e.g. Right to Life group had a booth).

     Justine believes that First Amendment rights were violated, and states in her e-mail that "We will be pursuing some kind of legal redress through the CCLU, who have been notified about the incident".

     At today's meeting we discussed this incident.  The Executive Committee states that we are greatly concerned about the First Amendment (freedom of speech) issues involved in this incident.  We will ask Justine to update the SCC on this issue at the August SCC meeting.

 

V.  Status of a complaint in the conflict resolution process.  Months ago a complaint was filed with the Process Committee by Amy Vas Nunes against Tom Sevigny.  To date there has been no Resolution Committee report on this complaint.  The conflict resolution process, as passed by the SCC, states that "Within 30 days after its formation, the RC will meet and take appropriate action".  The Executive Committee expresses its concern over the delay.



VI  Inquiries about revoking the accreditation of the CT Green Party.  David Agosta sent an e-mail to the co-chairs of the national Green Party accreditation committee, seeking info about revoking the accreditation of the CTGP.  He also e-mailed the Connecticut USGP representatives/alternate (Steve Krevisky, Tim McKee, and Tom Sevigny), asking them to provide him with information on the processes involved in revoking the accreditation.  An e-mail containing comments in response to David's second e-mail was posted to the ctgp at lists.riseup.net listserve by Tim McKee on 8/10/04.  Tim's e-mail did not provide information to David on the process of revoking accreditation, nor did Tim's e-mail provide information as to what response, if any, the national accreditation committee had provided to David.  The only information the Executive Committee has on this matter, as of today's meeting, is the e-mail posting by Tim.  The Executive Committee does not know why David is inquiring about revoking the accreditation, although we know that David has expressed concerns about the candidate nomination processes of the CTGP, and the failure by the CT Green Party to hold a primary to select delegates to the national Green Party presidential nominating convention.

     Ed will write an e-mail to Steve, Tim, and Tom asking them how they have responded to David's e-mail to them, and if they have any knowledge of how the accreditation committee responded.  This e-mail will be cc'd ("carbon-copied") to the rest of the Executive Committee.

 

VII  Filing of list of candidates with Secretary of State's office ("party designation committee").  This paperwork is due in September 8.  We agreed we will file it this week, to ensure it gets done.  Mike will do the filing, and he will be away the first few days of September.  Candidates that will be included in the filing are:

1 Ralph Ferrucci, US House of Reps, District 3

2 John Amarilios, state senate, district 36

3 Nancy Burton, state rep, district 135

4 Colin Bennett, state senate, district 33

5 Joyce Chen, state rep, district 93

6 Calvin Nicholson, registrar of voters, New Haven  (7/2/04 e-mail from Bedell called this "Inspector of Elections")

7 Tom Sevigny, state senate, district 8

8 Mike DeRosa, state senate, district 1

9 David Cobb, US president

10 Pat LaMarche, US vice-president

"We may have some write-ins as well, but they need to file as write-ins" (wrote David Bedell of the Elections Committee about Fairfield chapter candidates in a post to the elections listserve 8/12/04)

 

If anyone is aware of a candidate not on the above list, please contact any member of the Executive Committee.  If necessary, a supplementary filing can be done at the Secretary of State's office.

    When the list is handed in to the Secretary of State's office, a press release would be appropriate.

 

VIII  Implementing the Action Plan.  An Action Plan for the CTGP was passed by the March 2004 SCC meeting.  One provision of the Plan is that it divides the committees of the CTGP into five divisions:

 

I. FINANCIAL DIVISION 

   FUNDRAISING COMMITTEE 
   BUDGET COMMITTEE

 

II. OUTREACH DIVISION 

   A.  MEDIA COMMITTEE 
   B.  MERCHANDISE/PAMPHLETS COMMITTEE 
   C. DIVERSITY COMMITTEE 

III. ELECTORAL DIVISION 

  A. ELECTIONS COMMITTEE 
  B.  PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS COMMITTEE 
    
IV. POLICY DIVISION 

   A.  LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE 
   B.  PLATFORM/POLICY COMMITTEE

 

V. INTERNAL DIVISION


   A.  BYLAW, RULES, POLICIES AND PROCEDURES (BRPP) 
   B. INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE 
   C.  INTERNAL ELECTIONS COMMITTEE 
   D.  RESOLUTION COMMITTEE

 

A concept associated with the Action Plan is that each member of the Executive Committee should act as a liaison to one of the division.  The thinking here is that Executive Committee members should attempt to ensure smooth and productive functioning of the committees.  At today's meeting we finalized our previous discussions on this matter.  The liaison to the Financial Division will be Bob;  to the Outreach Division--Mike;  Electoral Division--Elizabeth Brancato;  Policy Division--Elizabeth Horton Sheff;  Internal Division--Ed.

     Mike, in conjunction with Elizabeth Brancato, will work with VOTER.  Elizabeth Brancato will e-mail Ed a committee sign-up sheet to pass out at the August SCC meeting.

 

IX. SCC agenda.  An agenda for the August SCC meeting was agreed upon.  As usual, it will be posted to the announcements listserve one week before the 8/31/04 SCC meeting.  The meeting will be held at the state office in Hartford.
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