Hi All! Here are the minutes--not the best, but better than nothing. It was a rather exhausting meeting, so I hope I got everything right. Please note that I added a sentence in the final section about a resolution authorizing Les to open up a separate bank account for the new campaign committee. This was actually done in the September meeting, but since those minutes aren't done yet and Les needs something in the minutes for the new bank account, I have put that statement in these October minutes. Please review the minutes and let me know if I made any bloopers.
Minutes written by Aubrey Freedman
Libertarian Party of San Francisco
Minutes for Monthly Meeting at San Francisco Public Library on Saturday, October
12, 2013
Attendees: Phil Berg, Marcy Berry (Vice Chair), Aubrey
Freedman (Chair), Les Mangus (Treasurer), Matt Murphy, Joseph Rahn (guest), Starchild,
and Richard Winger.
Activist Reports: Richard
talked about the need to register more Libertarians in California since there
is no guarantee that we will remain on the ballot after the November 2014
election. Les worked on trying to set up
the campaign committee authorized by the LPSF in the last meeting; he went down
to the SF Ethics Commission but was not able to get all the answers he needs. Joe talked to others to try to push them in a
liberty-leaning direction. Aubrey did
the annual mailing of our pre-election postcards with our recommendations for
the upcoming election.
Announcements:
· Monday, October 21, 2013-7-9 PM-Monthly meeting
of Golden Gate Liberty Revolution at Moksha Life Center-405 Sansome Street.
· Saturday, November 2, 2013-7-11 PM-Monthly
social of Free Exchange at Jim Elwood’s in Parkmerced-Guest speaker will be
Phaedra Fisher (author of Vodka Diplomacy).
· Starchild will be speaking to a group of Nevada
County Libertarians in Auburn on November 1.
· Starchild will be speaking at the Black
Leadership Conference group on October 24 at 762 Fulton in opposition to Prop A
sometime between 6 and 8 PM.
· Starchild also mentioned the “End The Fed”
Protest at noon on November 22 at the Federal Reserve Bank on Market Street.
Treasurer’s Report: Les reported that the current balance in our coffers is $3,048.53 plus
an additional $250.00. Aubrey reported
that in that balance $155.00 is earmarked for our Activity Fund (of which we
used $93.00 for the recent gun show table at the Cow Palace—a favorable
reception was received but only $17.00 was collected in donations). Aubrey added that an additional $999.00 is
earmarked from the general treasury balance for Prop A activities.
Website Report: Marcy reported that she did some cleaning up of the website this
month. She cleansed the Yahoo lists of
names with excessive bouncing. She also
added our ballot recommendations for the upcoming election. She also spoke of the need to get more folks
to our website and cited the increase in number of hits our website receives
after we announce things, like our recent ballot recommendations. She updated us with the following numbers of
members to our lists: Activists-34,
Discussion-124 (corrected afterwards via email to 100), Facebook-132, Announce-low 120’s, and Meetup-220.
State Legislative Updates: Aubrey reported good news on AB351, the state
measure forbidding state employees from aiding the feds with indefinite
detention under the NDAA. It was signed
into law by Governor Brown on October 1, making California the third state to
nullify the indefinite detention parts of the NDAA. He noted that there has been almost no public
fanfare regarding the nullification in the news media, except by Ben Swann. Aubrey reported that SB1, the
Sustainable Communities Investment Authority which will be the funding for Plan
Bay Area, is currently shelved in the legislature until January. There was a protest by members of the
coalition against Plan Bay Area (the LPSF is part of the coalition) at a Democratic
fundraiser in Marin last month featuring Darrell Steinberg, the co-author of
SB1. There will be a campaign by the
coalition against SB1, and Aubrey will represent the LPSF in the coalition.
Prop A Campaign: Aubrey designed and mailed out via Click2Mail the annual pre-election
postcard with our recommendations with an emphasis on Prop A. He went over the $250 budget and spent $348,
leaving Matt $651 for the Facebook ad. Matt worked up the Facebook ad but was not happy with it and will redo
it and post the text today (October 12). He wanted to submit it by Tuesday, October 15. It will start running within 30 minutes of
the time he submits it. It will have 20
words on the side and link to the Voter’s Guide document. He can sort it by region, age group, and
political orientation. Starchild argued
against sorting by political orientation because it would end up targeting only
conservative voters; Matt said he would withdraw that filter. Starchild wanted to run an ad in the SF State
paper the Golden Gate Xpress and wanted to use up to half of the $651
available. We agreed to give him until 5
PM Tuesday, October 15 to submit his full proposal (what the ad will look like,
the cost, and when it will run) to the Activist List. If there is consensus that his ad is fine,
then no problem—otherwise the Executive Committee will vote on it at 8 PM on
Tuesday night October 15. Matt can use
the remainder for his Facebook ad.
Campaign Committee: There
was a heated discussion about what kind of campaign committee to form—a one-time
committee just for the election season or a continuous committee that will
exist indefinitely from year to year. Starchild argued against the forming of any kind of separate campaign committee. A resolution was passed authorizing Les to
open a separate bank account for the new campaign committee. One of the objections cited to a one-time
committee was the time needed to get the committee up and running each time—we did
that this year and ran out of time and were not able to get the committee set
up in time for this election. However
the biggest objection to a continuous committee is the continual filing of
required governmental reports and who will do it. Zach offered to do the filing at the last
meeting, and Les agreed to do the filing if for some reason Zach can’t. Aubrey offered to serve as a back-up to Les
for filing once the initial filing is done. Starchild made a motion to authorize Les to investigate and research all
the options available for forming a separate campaign committee, and Les will
report back at the next meeting.
Thanks!
Aubrey