Hi All,
This was my turn to take the meeting minutes, so here they are pasted below. I will post them on the LPSF website by Friday 25th.
Mike Denny, please excuse me that I did not jot down Maggie's last name. If you would like to add her last name, please let me know.
Marcy
Libertarian Party of San Francisco Minutes of Meeting of
September 12, 2015
San Francisco Main Library, 4th Floor Conference Room, San
Francisco
Members Present: Phil
Berg, Marcy Berry (Vice Chair), Mike Denny, Aubrey Freedman (Chair), Les Mangus
(Treasurer), Starchild, Jason Williams (new Member)
Guests: Maggie
Activist Reports:
Members reported what they did to promote liberty since the last
meeting. These actions are the result of
individual initiative.
Announcements: Golden
Gate Liberty Revolution monthly meeting September 21, Jim Elwood’s Free
Exchange October 3.
Membership/Newsletter:
Aubrey reported LPSF has 18 current annual members and 22 life
members. He sent out his monthly
newsletter to 171 recipients. He has
included a note on the newsletters indicating that it is membership dues and
donations that keep the lights on at LPSF.
The newsletters continue to be well received.
Website Report: Marcy
reported that the LPSF website needs to be upgraded. The current version, Joomla 2.5, was
superseded by 3.0 some time back, and stopped being supported at all in January
2015. Marcy recommended that LPSF
allocate $500 to pay a professional Joomla website developer do the work. Phil suggested using an unpaid
volunteer. Marcy indicated that her
experience with the volunteer upgrade from Joomla 1.5 to 2.5 was not positive,
and she did not recommend a repeat.
Members present voted to allocate the $500. Les generously pledged $250 to defray this
cost.
Treasurer’s Report:
LPSF bank statement balance of 08/31/15 $4,688.86. Transactions after that were $2,176.20 check
to Aubrey in reimbursement for his payment at the Department of Elections for
our paid ballot measures, income of $60 from Mike for his $50 ballot measures
pledge and $10 extra donation for operations support, income of $30 from Phil
to pay for extra words on one paid ballot measure. The $2,662.66 will be increased by Les’s
pledge of $250, and decreased by $150 for the LPSF mailbox in October, and $500
for the website upgrade, leaving $2,202.66, which is close to our reserve
amount.
November Elections Strategy:
1. Aubrey presented
some ideas of what LPSF can do to promote its positions on the November 2015
ballot. Aubrey will work on his
newsletters, send out ballot recommendation postcards, and occasionally posting
on Facebook. Marcy will work on website
and Facebook promotion, as well as attend elections forums when invited. Mike will post LPSF ballot recommendations on
his neighborhood’s Nextdoor social network.
Phil and Starchild offered to present LPSF positions in elections forums
when the opportunity arises. It will be
decided at a later meeting if elections ads are possible and desirable.
2. Aubrey asked for
approval of expenditure of $100 to send out around the beginning of October
ballot recommendations postcards to LPSF members, and registered Libertarian voters
who regularly vote based on S.F. Department of Elections records. Request unanimously approved.
3. Starchild proposed
that LPSF recommend Ross Mirkarimi for Sheriff, based on the Sheriff’s record
of supporting social issues. His
proposal passed, with Aubrey abstaining and Marcy voting no. It was decided that Starchild will write the
brief recommendation for the LPSF website to be posted with the other LPSF
ballot recommendations.
Remaining Ballot Measures:
At the last LPSF meeting members present reviewed and voted on LPSF
positions on several proposals on the November 2015 ballot. At this meeting, members voted on remaining
measures, as follows:
Proposition C – Expenditure Lobbyists Ordinance: This proposal does not present a Libertarian
issue, and arguments could be made pro and con.
People who do not quite fit the description of lobbyists, and therefore
are not registered as such, are being paid by lobbyists to promote causes. On the other hand, there are hundreds of
campaign rules already, and Libertarians do not believe piling up on rules
solves problems. NO POSITION.
Proposition D - Mission Rock Development: This proposal seeks to build a mixed use area
on a site located just south of AT&T Park, owned by the S.F. Port
Authority, currently being used as parking lot.
The area will include 1,500 new rental units, 600 of which subsidized so
as to be rentable to lower and middle income households, retail spaces, and
parks. The proposal will also fix Pier
48 so it can house Anchor Brewing Co.
Our recommendation of YES is based on the fact that San Francisco needs
new housing.
Proposition E – Requirements for Public Meetings: This proposal was placed on the ballot by the
Board of Supervisors. It requires
live-streaming of all public meetings by City policy departments via the
Internet, comment submissions from anywhere via the Internet, scheduling of
specific agenda items at specific times, and translation services available at
all meetings. LPSF decided that this
proposal has both good and bad aspects.
The price tag is not good ($1.7 million one-time cost of installation,
and a minimum of $750,000 annually in staff costs), but making the government
process more accessible is good. Our
recommendation of YES is based on the added accessibility.
Proposition G – Disclosure Regarding Renewable Energy: This proposal was placed on the ballot by
PG&E’s employees union, and seeks to limit what the City can call “green,”
“clean,” etc., in promotion of its City-owned utilities. Under the City’s plan, utility customers will
be automatically enrolled in the municipal utilities program, and will need to
opt out if they find the program unsatisfactory or too expensive. Our recommendation of YES is based on this
advantage enjoyed by the City which negates the City’s claim of promoting
competition, as well as our preference for transparency.
Proposition H – Clean Energy Right to Know Act: This proposal was placed on the ballot by the
Board of Supervisors as a pre-emptive strike against Proposition G, which
resulted in PG&E agreeing not to promote Proposition G. Proposition H claims that there is no
consensus on what is green or renewable power, so the proposal simply says
green and renewable is what it is offering in its City-owned utilities. Also, the proposal would “urge” the SF Public
Utilities Commission to inform customers what’s in their green and renewable
offer. We recommended a NO vote.