Hi everyone,
As you may know by now, we have elected new officers for the LPSF. I
(Nick Smith) will be taking over for Aubrey Freedman as Chair,
Rebecca Lau as Vice Chair, Jawj Greenwald as Treasurer and Aubrey
Freedman as Secretary. We're all extremely grateful for the work
that Aubrey has done for the party as Chair (and continues to do!).
Thanks to all of you for your support as well. My number one
priority is to grow the party and I am optimistic that with help and
enthusiasm from all of you we will make 2018 a great year!>>
Here are the (maybe) complete minutes from our meeting. Please help
make them more complete wherever needed.>> Thanks,
Nick
Libertarian Party of San Francisco
Meeting of 13 January, 2018
,
Phil Berg’s Apartment
Attendance
Aubrey Freedman (Chair)
Phil Berg
Nick Smith (Secretary)
Rebecca Lau
Francoise Fielding
Andrea Compton
John Compton
Jeronimo
Starchild (Vice Chair)
Michael Denny
Terence Polomy
Richard Winger
Brad Hamilton
1. Welcome - Introductions
We pretty much already know each other!
Jeronimo: Known Phil since he was young.
Brad: Friend of Starchild, interested in the party.
Terence: Was a pretty solid Democrat but has recently come around
and realized that the Democratic party and socialism are the wrong
direction for this country.>>
2. Activist Reports
Francoise: Nothing to report, nothing planned.
Rebecca: Went to the SV Conservative forum for a talk about school
choice. It was okay.>>
Aubrey: Not that much in the last month. Working on the Newsletter
and planning to table to a few hours at the Gun Show tomorrow.>>
Nick: Been out trying to get signatures, with little success.
Generally helping out with the initiative.>>
Phil: Catching someone’s ear in a Lyft ride at every opportunity,
with some good response. Bitcoin is really helping, getting people
to question the essence of money.>>
John: Spending too much time arguing with friends.
Andrew: Bogged down with work but getting back to it. Visiting many
different counties.>>
Mike: Lots to talk about for politics in San Francisco. Has lots of
good conversations started around Ayn Rand.>>
Jeronimo: Talking to people, especially getting out of the bubble of
Silicon Valley. Finds a lot of individualistic ideas.>>
Starchild: Small confrontation with the library after being required
to show government ID to retrieve a lost item. Eventually got his
item dropped off personally with an apology (but not from the
library manager who gave him trouble). Been posting a lot of
comments on SFGate and SF Examiner and posted an article to the LPSF
website. Working on a convention that one of the national LP members
is working on in Omaha, where Ron Paul will be speaking (Roads to
Freedom Foundation, r2ff.org). National Convention is coming up in
July. Circulating petitions (Gas Tax Repeal, Changing requirements
for Homeowners over 55 and dividing California into 3 states). Had
some correspondence with Hillary Ronen about some derogatory
language used against sex workers, got a fairly supportive sound.
Trying to reach out to the <???> movement to get them to realize
that the Libertarians are allies.>>
3. Announcements
Gun Show - Cow Palace, Daly City on Geneva
GGLR is there today and Sunday
Golden Gate Liberty Revolution Monthly Meeting
Richmond District Police Station Community Room
461 6th Avenue, Monday 29 January, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Libertarian Party of California 2018 Convention
Long Beach Mariott, 4700 Airport Plaza
April 27 - 29
2016 Convention - Libertarian Party of California
Silicon Valley Liberty Forum
Prof Gary Wolfram from Hillsdale College
“Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?”
http://www.theconservativeforum.com/speakers/gary-wolfram-tuesday-february-13-2018>> 432 Stierlin Road, Mountain View, CA 94043
Scott Adams interview with Nick Gillespie
January 29 (Invitation only?)
Starchild is Teleconferencing with LNC IT Comittee
7 February at 6:00 pm
Contact Starchild for the info!
Sonja Trauss is having a campaign event soon!
(More details to come)
Santa Clara Libertarian Party Annual Meeting
Candidate for Gov. Nickolas Wildstar will be speaking
January 27, 11:30 - 3:30 in San Jose
More info: http://scclp.org/org/annual-meeting.php
Hospitality House in San Francisco
Starchild and Andrea are thinking of organizing an event for
Libertarians to gather at. More info to come.>>
Board of Supervisors meetings have resumed, Tuesdays at 2:00 pm. We
are trying to get Libertarians to go and get on the public record.
Good way to influence local politics.>>
4. Annual Election of Officers
Nominations:
Chair:
Rebecca nominates Nick for Chair, Phil seconds.
Richard nominates Aubrey, Mike seconds. Aubrey withdraws.
Vice Chair:
Nick nominates Rebecca, Mike seconds.
Starchild nominates himself, Nick seconds.
Secretary:
Aubrey nominates himself for Secretary, Starchild.
Treasurer:
Jawj Greenwald has volunteered herself, via email.
Richard nominates Aubrey as Treasurer, there are several seconds.
Results (with unanimous support)
Chair: Nick Smith
Vice Chair: Rebecca Lau
Secretary: Aubrey Freedman
Treasurer: Jawj Greenwold
Everyone gives a big round of applause to Aubrey for his excellent
service to the party over the years!>>
5. Membership / Newsletter Report
Aubrey plans to continue working on the newsletter.
21 lifetime members, 25 current paid members. (46 total)
6. Website Report
Set up a listserv to batch-email the newsletter with archiving;
needs some testing before it's in use.>> Paypal donation button is back and functional.
Several pieces of constructive feedback from Starchild.
7. Treasurer’s Report
Checking account in
SFFCU: $5,771.35
Paypal: $727.39
Total: $6,498.74
We’re loaded!
8. BOS Meetings Report
Meetings have restated. Starchild hasn’t regularly been going.
Starchild has been putting a more specific agenda for each meeting
into the Meetup description for each individual event.>>
9. Pride 2018
We have been at Pride for years, and we have been going under the
name of Outright Libertarians. Outright is now based in Arizona.
They have very generously offered to, if possible, authorize helping
fund the difference that we would have to pay. Aubrey has contacted
Pride and they will honor us at the same rate ($140 for the booth,
$65 for insurance, $205 total). We unanimously support the decision
to fund it.>>
Starchild makes a resolution to contact the CA LP Store to get the
Pride poster printed on some items for sale. Phil seconds.>>
Andrea suggests that we should also participate in the San Francisco
Pride parade. We don’t know how much it will cost but we will look
into it.>>
Starchild suggests that everyone join the SF Pride coalition-- it’s
free and has lots of grassroots involvement.>>
10. Petitions
Aubrey suggests that we (the party) make a donation to the
Foundation to Stop Top 2. We suggest a donation of $54, Starchild.
We vote 3 to 1 in favor.>>
Nick would also like to organize some petition signing events, but
Aubrey and Nick will be at the gun show on Sunday to collect
signatures.>>
The proposition for Gas Tax repeal needs more signatures, we
absolutely support it.>>
11. Tax Day 2018
Aubrey proposes the topic of school choice for our next panel
discussion. We would have no problem getting people to speak in
favor of school choice, but it will be difficult to get people
opposed. Starchild suggests we try to do it at a more public venue
where we can reach people with differing opinions, such as at SF
State.>>
Rebecca suggested last year that automation would be a good topic
(or basic income). We think it would be easy to get speakers about
this. Starchild suggests we start a “Thousand Robot March” to ‘Free
the robots” in protest of Norman Yee’s robot ban.>>
We need to decide on a venue. Starchild suggests that Barbara West
might be a good panelist.>>
We will follow up with more ideas on the activists list. We are
looking for speakers on either side, preferably someone with name
recognition. It would be nice to have the event around Tax Day.>>
12. Ballot Measures Report
The deadline for ballot arguments is March 15. The deadline to get
in any ballot measures is March 9.>>
Norman Yee: Universal childcare and rent tax. Would establish a
“Babies & family first fund” 1% of gross receipts on any leasing
warehouse space. This is higher for commercial space, but would not
apply to nonprofits.>>
Repeal of the ban on flavored tobacco (we definitely support it, and
Starchild may be working on it).>