Meeting of 9 May, 2009

Minutes of LPSF Meeting of May 9^th, 2009

 

 

Members present: Rob Power (Chair) presiding, Francoise Fielding (Secretary) recording, Michael Edelstein, Ron Getty, Marcy Berry, Jawj Greenwald, Starchild, Phil Berg, Leslie Mangus (a member since 1975 who hasn’t been to meetings in a long time) and Tim Kuklinsky.

 

Guests: Chris Jannette.

 

Officer Reports:

 

• Treasurer: Marcy Berry reported that the balance last month was $2,567.71. After payment of $132.00 for the Market Street Mailhouse and $50.64 for lapsed member postcards, the balance is $2,438.71. Petty cash remains at $53.64. Marcy pointed out that our profit and loss statement shows that we are $278.57 behind last year at this time and we have no additional sources of income.

 

• Secretary: The Minutes of the Meeting of April 11^th were adopted.                                                

            Francoise reported that she had attended a break-out session at the LPCA        Convention two weeks ago and that she had learned about political software that      might be of interest to the LPSF. (See http://www.perrypoliticalsoftware.com/).

 

• Vice-Chair:  Ron Getty reported that he had been working on recruiting lapsed members of the LPSF. He has used Zabasearch to find 167 lapsed members to send postcards to. He also used the National LP database and compared it to the California LP database to come up with 1,500 names. Of those, he estimates that Zabasearch will show (when the search is completed) that ½ (750 people) still reside at the address they had given, so we will have an additional 750 names of people we can send postcards to.

 

• Chair: Rob Power reported he had attended the LPCA Convention two weeks ago.

            He also reported that he had sent out postcards to the people that Ron Getty’s research had located (see above) and that since Leslie had shown up at the           meeting and planned to renew his membership, we had recouped half of what we           spent on the postcards we had sent out.

 

Committee Reports

 

• Outreach and Newsletter: Rob noted that Starchild was not present to make a report, but suggested that, since we don’t do a printed newsletter anymore, we should send out a postcard to paid up members of the LPSF plus those whose memberships have lapsed within the last year to remind them about Gay Pride. This will amount to about $60. Rob will send the postcards out and get approval for reimbursement at the next meeting.

 

• Bylaws: Rob has still not received a copy of the template of county bylaws from the LPCA.

 

• Website and Database: Nothing to report.

 

• Membership and Fundraising: Marcy Berry has sent out a few information packets to people requesting them.

 

• Initiatives: There are no major initiatives coming up except for  the May 19^th election which we already know about. The only other possibility would be for an election in June that the Supervisors are allowed to call with respect to the San Francisco budget. Ron Getty noted that the legal required time for notification with respect to the possibility of this election has run out.

 

• Campaigns: We have no one running for anything.

 

• Social Networking: Jeremy Linden was not here. He is apparently very busy. Rob inquired if anyone wanted to take over as Chair of the Social Networking Committee. The position involves posting our social events on major internet sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc. No one volunteered so we will leave that in Jeremy’s portfolio.

 

Announcements

 

Michael Edelstein announced that he had received a compilation of articles by writers for the Independent Institute and offered a copy.

 

Old Business

 

• Opportunities for Outreach and Voter Registration: Rob asked if anyone had any ideas to replace our old outreach program at Naturalization ceremonies. No one had any new ideas.

 

• Replacing by-laws with new set based on template: Rob suggested tabling this item until the next meeting since he hasn’t yet received a copy of the template from Beau Cain.

 

• Top-two primary (SB6): This issue was tabled since Richard Winger was not present to talk about it. The issue comes up for a vote in one year. This is important because if the measure passes, the LPSF/LPCA will become irrelevant. The Republicans will fight it because the top two candidates could be Democrats. The Democrats oppose it because the unions oppose it for the reason that it favors moderates.

            The issue of whether we could work with one of the other parties to defeat the   measure was raised. No decision was reached. For the moment the best way to   fight it is to contribute to the Libertarian Party of Washington             (http://www.lpwa.org/) because they are currently fighting it in their courts.

 

New Business

 

• School Board recall: The Board of Education voted in 2006 to eliminate JROTC in the schools because the military’s ban on openly gay soldiers violates the school district’s equal rights policy for gays. (The voters voted to keep it but the vote was purely advisory). Three School Board members voted to stop the funding and Republicans have initiated a recall. They need to collect signatures totaling 20 percent of registered voters in the last general election for each member they want to recall which, as a practical matter, is unlikely. There was a discussion on what, if anything, we should do. The time allocated to this item expired with no action having been taken.

 

• Youth Outreach Opportunities: We should focus outreach on youth because their minds haven’t been so distorted. Chris Jannette is in the military and said that when he was in high school they had  a debate between Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians and the Libertarians made the most sense so going to high schools is not a bad idea. There was a discussion of whether Chris would be willing to do this, however he is an Independent, not a Libertarian.

            Starchild said we should develop chapters at local universities. He would be open          to doing an outreach table with s/o else. Jawj is willing to do a  table at City           College with Starchild. Rob suggested that as “homework” we think of actual           things we can do or spend money on and bring those ideas to next meeting.       (School newspapers, YouTube etc.). The issue was tabled until the next meeting.

 

• Moderation of LPSF-Discuss: Certain people on the list are not being courteous. (In this particular instance someone named Glenn). There was a discussion of what to do about it. Some people like Starchild want to leave it alone and not have a standard. Others feel that if there are several people who complain, the discourteous person should be barred/moderated. Marcy has sent Glenn an email. It was decided that Marcy has the situation under control and we would leave it at that..

 

• Purchase of Brochures for Outreach Events: Rob Power said that if you order 1,500 brochures from thelibertysource.com you get a discount. Last time the LPSF bought 100 and Rob bought 100 for Outright. The issue is what we want to do for Pride. A motion was made and carried unanimously to buy 200 brochures for $50 for Marcy’s welcome packets and outreach at Pride.

 

• Cindy Sheehan donations: Marcy Berry will collect individual members’ donations and forward them to Cindy in one envelope with a note saying the donations are from individual Libertarians who want to help her.

 

• Activism Planning for Next Month’s In-Meeting Activism:

            We will send out brochures with a handwritten note asking people to attend our             July meeting. Marcy will get an Election Department CD of people registered as       libertarians, order brochures and buy #10 self-seal envelopes. Ron Getty needs the             CD before the June meeting so he can cross-reference the names with the national         LP list. Ron and Marcy will decide on the copy for the letter. Ron will provide the    paper for the letters and print them out. At the meeting we will sign the letters and        stamp the brochures.