05-25May SC

DC Statehood Green Party Steering Committee meeting at La Orilla on Wed, 25 May

LaVerne Butler, Ann Wilcox and Dave Bosserman were there.
Michele Tingling-Clemons, Jared Ball emailed in their comments on the agenda items.

If all would email their comments regarding the summary below, I will incorporate them into the SC meeting report and send it out again before release.

1. Green Action In Neighborhoods (GAIN) The agenda said:
?DCSGP action making a difference in everyday lives of residents all over the city;
- Should we have a DCSGP Housing Task Force working on homelessness, tenant?s rights and technical assistance, tenant to owner, affordable housing at many levels, and progressive home tax relief
- Should we have a DCSGP Child Care Task Force working on providing before and after school quality care for all?
- Should we have a DCSGP Jobs for DC residents Task Force??
(This gets into the Union VS local small businesses issue below)
I know we need to work on all of these to make a difference to the daily lives of DC residents from the homeless through poverty-level immigrants and low-wage workers through moderate income to more affluent two-paycheck homeowners. Who should lead and who would work on these Task Forces? Do we have the human resources needed to make a difference?

We thought that creating new committees or task forces would be futile, given our current struggles in activating committees. But, how will the DCSGP then visibly act in the community? DCSGP members are key in many non-partisan groups already working these issues but many say they cannot be visibly Green because of their non-profit status. Many others testify at hearings, but again, are there visible clues to their Greenness? We need DCSGP members to ?own? some of these issues, with or without committees, in the sense that they organize occasional DCSGP actions through the SC and GA to visibly support community actions.
1.1 What form of visibility is needed? I still have DCSGP caps but many do not wear caps. Would sweat bands help? Should I order more DCSGP visibility T-shirts, and if so, what styles and sizes? Would LARGE buttons work?
1.2 Who should/wants to own Housing issues? I dabble in Mt Pleasant affordable housing but do not want to lead citywide.
1.3 I will investigate child-care. I will begin by asking Parisa Norouzi of Empower DC what she needs in volunteer assistance for her summer child-care program. Perhaps visibly identifiable DCSGP members could provide child-care during her community meetings or appear as a group to support her public actions in the community.
1.4 Who should/wants to own DC Jobs issues?

2 DC Jobs runs into the union contractor vs non-union minority contractor debate. The agenda asked: ?Union contractors vs non-union minority contractors: is DC (and are the Greens) discriminating against small and minority owned businesses by specifying union-only??
I have emailed six of our union-active members for help on this. See my text in brackets below:

[I need advice from DCSGP members involved in Union business. DC, the Green Party US, and the DC Statehood Green Party have all been struggling with the dilemma of either supporting union contractors or supporting local, minority owned, small businesses or independents.

Often, the national Green Party (Green Party US) or the DC Statehood Green Party finds a good, small, and minority owned shop but then has to switch to a union shop because members say they want to see the union ?bug? on the product. This result is loss of support for minority and locally owned small businesses in the community.

DC has been caught up in this recently because the mayor puts a union-only Project Labor Agreement (PLA) in large contracts such as hospital, convention centers, or stadium construction. Unionized construction firms are generally the larger, out-of-state firms that may not be minority owned. This cuts minority owned local shops out of the action.

I have concerns on both sides. We should be supporting unions. We should be supporting our communities including local small businesses no matter who owns them.

The Capitol Area Minority Contractors and Business Association Action Fund claiming that Tony is shutting out DC workers from stadium jobs have recently mailed a glossy brochure to DC residents. Is this group a front for Republican union busting or are they legitimately representing DC minority-owned businesses and workers? Is the PLA a good thing or a big-money ploy?

I need help here ? can anyone guide me through this thicket?]

3 Agenda item 3 said: ?Membership letter: Is this the time to contact all members and ferret out bad addresses? We could tell about ?04 successes in ANC races, introduce our ?06 campaign for a council seat, ask for donations for the campaign war chest, include our Legislative Agenda, and mention the national on-line survey.?
This has been overtaken by a flurry of emails ending in an offer by Brent McMillan to ask the GPUS to sponsor a state (DC) mailing of the Green Card application form along with a DCSGP-oriented letter. We supply the mailing labels and should volunteer to do the work. The letter will mention an on-line survey developed by some GPUS committee to find out what are member priorities. The on-line survey will run till 19 June.

I will see Brent today at the GPUS office to work out details. Ann, Laverne and I agreed and most of the rest of you also agreed to try this via email before the SC meeting. We will then update our membership list with bad address returns. We then can resolicit donors later on with a campaign war chest pitch. Our one question is can we insert a Ward 5 questionnaire in the Ward 5 mailing and have the returns placed in the Green Card return envelope? If that does not bump up the postage, I don?t see why not. LaVerne and her Ward 5 crew developed this to foment more Ward 5 participation in our campaign. Other Wards should emulate this. If we can mail it in the GPUS mailing, perhaps we should widen it to include all wards.

4 Item 4 said: ?GPUS_BC report on ?The Right to Vote Act vs The Right To Vote Amendment:?
- This title tells me nothing about the issue
- Should DCSGP endorse?
- Should DCSGP pay Asa?s registration fee and partial costs??
We concluded maybe a more telling title could be devised and placed on top. DCSGP already endorsed the report and ASA Gordon has explained it in detail ? the gist is that the ?The Right to Vote Act? contains a clause that makes ?winner takes all? into federal law overturning any existing state practice otherwise and eliminating any chance that states would institute proportional Electoral College electoral selection for presidential elections. This would cement the duopoly now in force. Asa now asks us to endorse a plenary presentation to the GPUS summer convention and to at least partially subsidize his expenses. This leads to the next agenda item.

5 This item asked: ?National Convention: whom should we subsidize, what expenses, and at what cost??
We thought that DCSGP should defray costs for delegates and alternates by at least $100, and that this subsidy should be extended to sponsored presentations. What are the costs going to be? Airfare may be around $250 or up unless tickets were purchased early, registration is $135, lodging around $100 for three nights on campus, and meals at $75/day would be $225 totaling over $700 per attendee. Who is going? What should be done?

6 Item six was:
?Near-Term Events: what are we doing with?
- Black Pride Day ? Sat, 28 May (who is lead?)
- UNIFEST ? Sat/Sun, 4/5 June (who is lead?)
- Mt P Festival ? Sun, 5 June (Bosserman)
- Capital Pride Day Parade ? Sat, 11 June (who is lead?)
- Juneteenth ? Sun, 19 June (Jared Ball, Rick TC, Dave Bosserman)
- 4th of July actions inc 4 July baseball ? 1 to 4 July (Adam)
- Others that I missed??
Questions remain. I hold that at least one DCSGP member should ?own? any event that is posted to DCSGP members and provide leadership in developing and executing a DCSGP visible presence at that event.

Ann is attending the Democracy School next week and will supple information at the GA.

Ann mentioned the Green Office Holders meeting in Madison the first weekend in June (Dates?). Alex should supply information at the GA.

Ann will supply information on a tour by Iraqi union activists protesting the US no-union policy in Iraq.

Ann wants to develop a mid-July Statehood social or celebration perhaps honoring Hilda Mason and other early statehood leaders.

Ann said the next Coordinated Campaign Committee meeting is scheduled for (15?) June.

7 Item 7 was the GA Agenda ? the scratch agenda looks like this:
June 2nd DCSGP General Assembly Agenda - Alex Hogan facilitating
1. Distribute minutes from last meeting and agenda for this meeting.
1.1. Approve Minutes ? Modify if needed
1.2. Approve Agenda ? Modify if needed
2. Introductions - go around the room, give name and ward, and if we have new members or guests - invite them to briefly comment. Ask all to sign the attendance sheet and supply email addresses and both home and cell phone numbers.
3. Monthly Interest Theme? (10-15 minutes)
4. Committee Reports
4.1. Steering Committee (Dave Bosserman)
4.2. National Delegates, Committees and Caucuses
4.2.1. Delegates (?)
4.2.2. GPUS & Mailing (Brent McMillan
4.2.3. GPAC (Ann Wilcox)
4.3. Treasurer's Report ? ask for contributions ? especially monthly donors (Philip Barlow)
4.4. Other Committees with news
4.4.1. Coordinated Campaign Committee (Ann Wilcox)
5. Old Business- Items previously introduced that still need consideration or have reports
- Black Pride Day ? Sat, 28 May (who is lead?)
- UNIFEST ? Sat/Sun, 4/5 June (who is lead?)
- Mt P Festival ? Sun, 5 June (Bosserman)
- Capital Pride Day Parade ? Sat, 11 June (who is lead?)
- Juneteenth ? Sun, 19 June (Jared Ball, Rick TC, Dave Bosserman)
- 4th of July actions inc 4 July baseball ? 1 to 4 July (Adam)
6. New Business ? includes new stuff including new endorsement requests.
7. Announcements ? relevant happenings
8. Adjourn ? with name of person who will chair next month's General Assembly. (Thomas Smith)

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"We do not have to accept or tolerate such glaring disparities in our society. We do not have to accept or tolerate bloated Pentagon spending, unfair tax cuts, attacks on our civil liberties, and on workers' rights to unionize. We don't have to accept or tolerate our children dropping out of high school, college education unreachable because tuition is so high, or our country steeped in debt."
- Cynthia McKinney, Green Party Presidential Candidate 2008