SANTA CLARA COUNTY DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL COMMITTEE

 6:45 pm, County Building cafeteria, 70 W. Hedding St. San José

 

MINUTES FOR Thursday, May 6th, 2004

 *************** Refreshments provided by the 20th AD *****************

 

 

1.  CALL TO ORDER 7:15

 

2.  ROLL CALL:

Absent: Drina Collins, Gap Kim, Ron Lind, Francine Davis, Bill Ferguson, Peter Chiu, Francis La Poll, Anna Song, Bob Dhillon, Jean Cohen, Jacquie Heffner, Alex Kennet, Mark Moore, Larry Carr, Greg Sellers, Dan Kenney, Craig Mann, Sylvia and Sal Alvarez, Susan McKuhen, John Dutra, Joe Simitian, Manny Diaz, Rebecca Cohen, John Laird, Simone Salinas, Byron Sher, Anna Eshoo, Mike Honda, Zoe Lofgren, Ruth Ashford, Frank Bosche, Denelle Fedor, Laura Geonne, Dan Hoffman, Teresa Daley.

 

Excused: Madge Overhouse, Genni Gerard, Rena Modell, and Thelma Spaziani

 

Alternate: Mary Edmunds for Beverly Wharton, Jon Kessler for John Vasconcellos, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins for Liz Figueroa, Bill James for Sally Lieber, Alternate for Terry Gregory and Anne Mack

 

3.  IDENTIFICATION OF VISITORS: Jim Beall, Ira Ruskin, Philip Bump, Natasha Humphries, Emily Pettit, Darla McGlamery, Clark Williams, Dennis Cheu, Mike Pribula, Jeremy Nishihara, James Kim, Joyce Abers

 

4. ISSUES:

Iraq Discussion: John Soper, Herb Engstrom, and Emy Thurber

 

Presentation about John Kerry’s position on the war and the Iraq issue. Discussion about what Kerry will do if elected to office.

 

Kerry campaign will be working “hand in glove” with the Call to Action. The Kerry campaign will be working specifically on fundraising and a newsletter. Kerry national house party day is on May 22nd. Please contact Emy Thurber if you are interested in having a house party on that day. Kerry will be in the County on June 23rd for a fundraiser dinner. Email address for volunteers: volunteer@santaclaracountyforkerry.com.

 

5.  ADOPTION OF AGENDA

Approval of April agenda deferred to June meeting.

 

6.  APPROVAL OF MINUTES    (Minutes are posted on  www.scc-democrats.org)

Motion to approve, second, approved

 

7.  NEW BUSINESS

Ira Ruskin: discussion about his campaign. All of his opponents in the primary have endorsed him and are working with his campaign.

 

8.  REPORTS FROM OFFICERS AND OTHERS

 

A.  Executive Board: Hope Cahan

No report

B.  Chair: Steve Preminger

Paul Fong nominated to take the place of Keith Garvey on the UDC steering committee.

 

Motion to approve, second, discussion, approved

 

C.  Vice Chair: Drina Collins

D.  Treasurer: Gap Kim

E.  Secretary:  Hope Cahan

Please sign the visitor form if you are visiting tonight

 

F.  Community Services & Voter Registration: Hope Cahan for Jim Brady

Had 12 volunteers at this month’s naturalization ceremony

 

G.  Finance: Jim Thurber

Democratic Dinner went very well. A big thank you to Sari for her hard work. We had 660 people signed up for the dinner 620 showed up…well over 100 more than last year. $48,550 has been collected thus far, $20,700 is still due, we spent $21,418 at Lou’s. Including miscellaneous expenses, the total expenses were $23,918 in.  If everyone pays, our total profit will be $45,000.

 

H. Candidate Recruitment and Endorsement: Jon Kessler

Will have a report in August

 

I.  Campaign Services: Phaedra Ellis Lamkins

Welcome to Paul Fong, will be working with the Call to Action activity. Will be working on the local races as well as the national races.

 

J.  Issues: Emy Thurber

Emy Thurber, Director of Issues, introduced John Soper, a coordinator of the Kerry for President Campaign in Santa Clara County.  Herb Engstrom gave a report on John Kerry's voting record and positions on the Iraq war at the beginning of the meeting.  Emy also noted that there would be a speaker from the Silicon Valley Manufacturers' Group talking about affordable housing in Silicon Valley.  The presentation will be at 7:00 sharp on Thursday, June 3. 

 

K. Political Outreach: Tom Cochran

Suggest that the clubs take over the meeting refreshments.

 

Motion to approve LGBT club, second, carried.

 

L. Regional Directors: Madge Overhouse

 

M. Democratic National Committee: Chris Stampolis

Chris Stampolis reported the DNC Western Caucus will meet August 20 and 21 in Denver, Colorado, three weeks after the national convention in Boston.  Info will be posted at www.westerndemocrats.org for all interested parties.
 
The gathering will be open to all Democrats in the Western States, and national Convention delegates from the West will receive invitations.  A focus will be on partnering across Western state lines to enhance our fall results.
 
Also, Chris noted the State Party's Executive Board last weekend elected 19 representatives from 67 candidates who filed to serve on the DNC from 2004-2008.  All 16 incumbents (including Chris) were re-elected.  The three "new" members are Alicia Wang and John Perez who are rejoining the committee and Ed Espinoza, who was elected to his first term.

 

N.  Pro-Choice Coalition:  Claudia Shope

The health club Curves is owned by anti-choice supporter, Gary Haven, who gave $5million to operation Save America, an organization working against choice. Please encourage anyone that you know that is a member of Curves to discontinue their membership.

 

The information in the AP article is incorrect. Roe v. Wade is still hanging in by a thread of 5 to 4.

 

FDA has not made it so that you do not have to have a prescription for the morning after pill.

 

O.  DTV Report:  Steve Chessin

6O. DTV

Democratic Television Producer Steve Chessin reported that our April taping was with Mountain View City Councilmember Rosemary Stasek, who told us all about her recent trip to Afghanistan.

 

Our guest in May will be San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Peg Pinard, who is running for the State Senate from District 15.

 

We will be on San Jose AT&T Channel 15A May 6th with State Senator John Vasconcellos, May 20th and June 17th with Councilmember Rosemary Stasek, and June 3rd and July 1st with Supervisor Peg Pinard.

 

We could still use more good Democrats on the crew.  No prior video experience is necessary.

 

San Jose Channel 15A, 8:00pm every other Thursday (serves part of Cupertino) (408-918-3200):

2004:

May  6    DTV 110 Sen. John Vasconcellos

May 20   DTV 111 Hon. Rosemary Stasek/Afghanistan

Jun  3      DTV 112 Hon. Peg Pinard

Jun 17     DTV 111 Hon. Rosemary Stasek/Afghanistan

Jul  1       DTV 112 Hon. Peg Pinard

Jul 15      DTV 113 TBD-113

Jul 29      DTV 114 TBD-114

 

P.  CDC Report:  David Wilkes

 

 

Q. Welfare Reform:  Sal Alvarez     

 

Political outreach clubs and ADs

20th AD committee:

21st AD Committee:

22nd AD Committee:

23rd AD Committee:

24th AD Committee:

27th AD Committee:

28th AD Committee:

African-American Democratic Coalition:

American Sikh Democratic Club:

Asian-Pacific American Democratic Club:

Clinton*Gore Action Network:

Democratic Action for Women Now (DAWN):

The DAWN potluck brunch will be on May 23rd at 10:30 at San Jose City College in the Community Room (near parking lot A). The two speakers are Kristy Sermershein and Dr. Elena Dorabji. Kristy Sermershein, from SEIU 715, will be discussing Labor and Women. Dr. Elena Dorabji is a professor at San Jose State and will be discussing how to get more female legislators.

 

Additionally, please support Peg Pinard for Senate.

 

Evergreen Democratic Club at the Villages:

On May 4, 2004, Sylvia Alvarez presented some information about the Evergreen School District to 45 Villager residents. She explained how well the district was doing in their testing results. She urged the voters to consider the parcel tax that will be on the November ballot. This tax will help the school district. There is going to be a bus to Sacramento on Wednesday, May 19th leaving from Eastridge to meet with the legislature to hear how badly the schools are being affected.

 

14 Villagers went to the annual dinner on April 30th. More wanted to go, but the tickets were sold out.

 

Peg Pinard visited the monthly demo meeting and received great support from everyone.

 

We have almost 200 members.

 

Mission City Democratic Club:

Peninsula Democratic Coalition:

Peninsula Young Democrats:

Santa Clara County Democratic Club:

Silicon Valley Latino Democratic Forum:

Silicon Valley Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club (LGBT) Clark Williams

On May 1, 2004, a group of twenty LGBT Democrats gathered to start a Democratic Club. The group chose to name their club the Silicon Valley LGBT Democratic Club and passed a constitution and by-laws establishing the club's credo and anticipated goals. The new club also selected four (4) constitutional officers and an at-large Executive Board of eleven (11)

club members. The club's first organized activity will be at this year's San Jose Gay Pride festival on June 12th-13th as club members promote Democratic candidates - especially Senator John Kerry - and urge gays and lesbians to register to vote.

 

South County Democratic Club:

San Jose State Democratic Club:

West Valley Democratic Club:

 

9.  OLD BUSINESS

 

At the E-board meeting last weekend we did a presentation of the Call to Action. The State Party is very excited about our program and if other Counties develop a MOU to do the call to action, their bounty program will be increased.

 

The following resolutions were passed: The resolution that David Cohen offered supporting the State Universities, the resolution for a moratorium on the Death Penalty which asks the legislature to make legislation to this effect was passed. The Campaign for a New American Foreign Policy will be re-written and brought up in the future. There was a Resolution to Tell The Truth About Bush passed.

 

 

A.      Call To Action Reports

·         Speakers Bureau: Ron and Janice Naymark

o        Had a public rally at St. James Park last month. There are a number of speaking engagements coming up this month. Trying to set up a mechanism where one speaking engagement creates two more speaking engagements.

 

·         Media Committee: Emy Thurber

o        The letters to editor are working well and the calls to talk radio are about to start

 

·         Message Committee

o        Still working hard on creating documents. There are a lot of new documents posted on our website.

 

·         Volunteer Committee

o        Voter registration at Fairs and Festivals will begin in June. I will be sending out a list of June events and hope that all of you will volunteer for at least one event.

o        The Precinct Captain project will be up and running very soon.

 

 

10. ANNOUNCEMENTS

Dennis works on a construction site. Brought up the reaction that the group had to the number of workers that die each year on the job.

 

Carolyn Curtis: Dean group is still meeting. Will be throwing Swing State Letter writing parties and fundraisers to raise money for Kerry. Will have a conference call with Arianna Huffington on May 15th. Have been encouraging all Dean supporters to work with the Call to Action.

 

Gave out defeat Bush buttons at the fundraiser. Are looking to make more for the voter registration tabling.

 

There is an election on Tuesday and Wed. at San Jose State. They need 12 people per day to staff this election. Will give $800 per day to people who can staff this election.

 

11.  EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING

    The next Executive Board TBA

 

12. ADJOURNMENT Santa Clara County Democratic Club will provide refreshments next month