Dear All,
Attached and pasted below are the minutes of the LPSF meeting of July 9, 2011, I just received from Jawj.
Marcy
Minutes of the LPSF Meeting of July 9, 2011
Members Present: Marcy Berry
(Chair), Michael Edelstein, Aubrey Freedman, Jawj Greenwald (Secretary), Tim Kuklinsky, Les Magnus (Treasurer), Ryan McLoughlin,
Starchild.
Guests: Sam Lewis
Officers’ Reports:
Chair: No report
Vice Chair: No report
Treasurer: Les Magnus
reported that the LPSF has $4903.45 in its coffers.
Secretary: Minutes of
the June meeting were posted online.
Committee Reports:
Internet Communications/Social Networking: Michael Edelstein reported that Marc Joffe has
indicated a willingness to be our webmaster, replacing Rob Power who is
currently serving from New York City.
Initiatives/Ballot Measures: In
Ron Getty’s absence, we deferred to the August meeting any discussion of ballot
measures and which ones we should submit written arguments for or against,
except as discussed below.
Membership: Marcy Berry said we needed to work on this.
Outreach: No report.
Political Candidates’/Activism Reports: This month’s
political activism focused on the booth at Pride Weekend. Aubrey Freedman and Marcy Berry were there
the whole day on both Saturday and Sunday, while Les Mangus and Jawj Greenwald
were there Saturday afternoon. Michael
Edelstein engaged in various activities in support of the Ron Paul campaign.
Announcements:
The Campaign for Liberty
(promoting Ron Paul for President) meets the 3rd Monday of every
month. The next meeting is July 18 at 7
p.m. at 405 Sansome Street
in a chiropractic office labelled the Moksha Center.
Mises University
will offer its annual studies in Austrian economics on July 25-30th
in Auburn, Alabama.
Starchild announced that he is launching a new monthly gathering to
hear libertarian speakers on the 3rd Thursday of the month at the
Social House and 50 Mason (at Market).
The first meeting will be July 21st from 7 to 9 p.m. See below for the
discussion topic. He invited suggestions
for future speakers and topics.
Old Business:
Literature for Distribution at Outreach Events. Marcy Berry has ample stocks of the three
pieces of literature used at the Pride Booth and other outreach events, which
work well. The challenge is to find more
tabling opportunities to distribute them.
Pride Festival Report. Marcy Berry
reported that the Pride Booth was its usual success. At times people were
queueing up to take the World’s Smallest Political Quiz. As a result of people requesting further
information, Marcy sent out 25 information packets, 17 by mail and the rest by
email.
The major problem was that she and Aubrey
Freedman had to be there all of both days, and were all alone on Sunday. At least four people are needed Sunday
afternoon, and enough helpers to allow shifts of only 3-4 hours. Logistically, putting up the tent was a
struggle. Two were broken in the effort,
so a new one will need to be bought before next year. A second laminated grid for people to place
stickers locating their quiz results is needed, as well as new stickers that
are easier to remove. Marcy was
authorized to acquire removable stickers.
Pension Reform Ballot Argument. Marcy Berry submitted
a compendium of the work done so far on the Adachi pension reform ballot
argument, with comments and draft language by Mike Denny, Ron Getty, Ann Grogan
and Marcy herself. Further comments are
solicited by the August meeting, when our arguments can be considered in the
light of the final versions of all ballot measures and our formal
recommendations.
New Business:
Handling Paypal Donations Made through Our Website. Someone recently donated $1000 to the LPSF by
clicking on the paypal button on our website.
There is a problem accessing the funds because we have no organizational
tax ID number, so the Webmaster at the time the Paypal account was established,
Bryce Bigwood, used his personal social security number to set it up. Bryce hasn’t been heard from for a few years,
and we need to enlist his help to retrieve these funds. Jawj Greenwald agreed to phone him, and
Aubrey Freedman to visit his home if that doesn’t work. Longer term solutions also need to be
developed, whether we re-visit the reason not to have an organizational tax-ID,
or develop a process for having a current officer substitute his social
security number for that of a retiring officer.
Candidate and Ballot Measure Support.
We reviewed the offices and likely ballot measures for the November
election. The offices are Mayor,
Sheriff, and District Attorney. The
measures listed so far include: school bonds and school assignment procedures,
park and recreation bonds, banning male circumcision of minors, a rent control
initiative limiting landlords’ right to demolish rental property, a
homelessness tweak to the Care not Cash program to disqualify shelter beds as
housing for Care not Cash purposes, and two competing pension reform
initiatives. We felt that we did not
know enough about most of these measures to decide our position and assign people
to write ballot arguments, so deferred action to the August meeting.
To qualify for the lottery for a free
official argument, arguments must be submitted by August 18, i.e. very soon
after our next meeting. However, there
is nothing to prevent anyone from submitting an argument in his own name. And, realistically, the pension reform measures
and certain other arguments are unlikely to have a lottery because a supervisor
will avail himself of the right to draft an official argument or to designate
the party to write it. The deadline for
submitting paid arguments is August 22.
It was agreed that we should accept
Starchild’s offer to make his first July 21st speaker forum an
evening to meet candidates for the November elections and proponents and
opponents of ballot measures, rather than arrange a restaurant night as we have
in the past. Aubrey Freedman volunteered
to help contact the various candidates and interested parties for each ballot
measure, using a Department of Elections list supplied by Marcy. All are urged to attend to help us formulate
strong positions of our own.