SANTA CLARA COUNTY DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL COMMITTEE

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

 

MINUTES FOR Thursday, June 1st, 2006

 

1.         CALL TO ORDER

            7:20

 

2.         ROLL CALL        

Absent: Francine Davis, Bill Dias, Cathy Dias, Deepka Lalwani, Thelma Spaziani, Francis La Poll, Scott Rafferty, Vince Cortese, Deniese Alejandro, Hope Cahan, Kevin Moore, Alex Kennett, Mark Moore, Dan Kenney, Brittany Bach, Tony Alexander, Kristine Dillon, Bruce Morasca, Alberto Torrico, Ira Ruskin, Sally Lieber, Joe Coto, Simon Salinas, Liz Figueroa, Joe Simitian, Elaine Alquist, Jerry McNerney, Anna Eshoo, Mike Honda, Chris Stampolis, Ruth Ashford, Buu Thai, Carol Garvey, John Nguyen, Fran Bennett, Alicia Lanier, Anil Babbar

 

Alternate: Susan Larson for Alyson Abramowitz, Brandon Sulser for Anna Song, Swanee Edwards for Dennis Kennedy, Jon Kessler for Rebecca Cohn, Clark Williams for John Laird, Philip Bump for Peg Pinard, Ricky Lee for Zoe Lofgren, Clarence Madrilejos for Herb Wadley

 

3.         IDENTIFICATION OF VISITORS: Wanda Bryan: Dean Club, Ann West: SMCCC alternate, DAWN and PDC member, Joe Pandit, Mark Metzler, Mariam Ghazrini, Joe Alcarde

 

4.         ADOPTION OF AGENDA

 

5.         APPROVAL OF MINUTES (Minutes are posted at sccdp.org)

            correction to minutes Ð DTV report Ð guest in MAY Kai Stinchcombe

 

6.         NEW BUSINESS

            Clean Campaign in San Jose Resolution:

Jacquie presented the resolution and explained that this stemmed from the ChamberÕs illegal hit pieces on the SJ MayorÕs race.

 

A boycott of the COMPAC BBQ was discussed as it is a primary fundraising event for the political arm of Chamber.

           

Philip Bump spoke in support of the resolution.

           

Herb moved to consider this as an emergency resolution, second, so moved

            The resolution passed as amended with 1 no vote.

 

7.         ISSUES

Congressman Mike Honda Ð spoke about the campaign for Cindy and the Chamber hit piece.

 

He supports Angelides for Governor. He warned the group not to undermine Angelides even if we donÕt agree with him.

 

The Congressman also supports John Chiang for Controller.

 

The Congressman does not think the immigration bill will get out of conference and explained how the trade issue affects border crossing. He advised supporters of NAFTA to think twice about the harsh immigration bill.

 

Democrats have real good shot at taking back Congress. The Congressman speculated that there are up to 42 vulnerable GOP positions. However, he advised the group to continue to pay attention and not assume we have won.

He also explained that the DNC is not looking at states as red or blue; we are staffing and paying attention to all of them. He then listed possible presidential candidates. Western states will receive a lot of attention, taking some away from the South.

 

            Jay James spoke about his endorsed District 1 candidacy.

           

8.         REPORTS FROM OFFICERS AND OTHERS

A.      Executive Board: Hope Cahan

The Executive Board did not meet in May in order to allow the boardmembers time to phone bank for the election

B.      Chair: Steve Preminger

Working to get people out for phone banking, worked on ethics hearing

C.      Vice Chair: James Kim

Supporting chairÕs efforts

D.      Treasurer: Drina Collins
            $644.50 balance

E.       Secretary: Hope Cahan
            no report

F.       Community Services and Voter Registration: Carolyn Curtis
            San Francisco has the highest percentage of DTS in state.

 

Imperial County has the highest percentage of Democrats.

 

            44.9% are registered as Democrats in this County.

The bounty program is complete and we submitted for $456. Additionally, we have raised $356 in donations at voter reg table and registered 181 voters since Feb (138 were Dems).

A big thank you to the clubs for their hard work on voter registration especially: SVLDF, Moorpark, and the South County Democratic Club

 

G.      Finance: Jim Thurber
            no report

H.      Candidate Recruitment and Endorsement: Jon Kessler
            Please donate your time on the Chavez campaign

 

I. Communication: David Cohen
            2 newsletters in May, election special June 2, looking for volunteers

 

J.        Campaign Services: Philip Bump
            UDC campaign phone bank and walk (Sat and Sun) Ð door hangers Monday

            Poll check program on Tuesday
            Angelides will be at precinct walk on Sat

 

K.       Issues: Herb Engstrom
           

L.      Political Outreach: Tom Cochran

Thank you to South County for brining the food this month


We received 2 new applications for accreditation: Motion to approve the Stanford Democrats, second, so moved

 

Club, AD, SD, & CD Reports
Dean Democratic Club of Silicon Valley: Carolyn Curtis

We were quite active in Jerry McNerney's campaign this month, with at least 16 members participating: 8 or 9 of us marched with Jerry in Stockton's Cinco de Mayo parade, the state's biggest; we had our own phonebank; 5 of us walked precinct in Morgan Hill the weekend before the election; 5 of us got out the vote there on election day. Several of us also phoned & walked for Cindy, & attended the Phil Angelides event. 
With our sister club, San Mateo County Democracy for America, we hosted an event for Jim Dean, chair of DFA, a national PAC, at the home of Kate Forrest May 18. Some of us leafletted for Debra Bowen & Phil Angelides at the opening weekend of An Inconvenient Truth, We also continue to monitor the Clean Money bill in the state legislature.

 

Pennisula Democratic Coalition: Rich Watters

1) The Peninsula Democratic Coalition Board held its regular monthly meeting on May 10th.

2) The PDC has endorsed the Santa Clara County Land Conservation Initiative (presented by Peter Drekmeier at the last SCCDCC meeting).
3) The PDC is a sponsor of the Los Altos GSA Parade and PDC members will join the Los Altos High School Gay-Straight Alliance and Los Altos Community Foundation in their march this coming Sunday.
4) PDC will also sponsor a Legislative Luncheon with Congresswoman Anna Eshoo on Saturday, June 24th at noon at Chef Chu's restaurant in Los Altos.
5) PDC members are actively planning our annual summer picnic, to be held August 19th at Shoup Park in Los Altos.
Latino Democratic Forum
We had a social mixer on Thursday, May 11 @ O'Flaherty's to introduce our club endorsed candidates.  It was well attended.  We had new members sign up. Thank you to other clubs' members who attended.  Many of our members have been assisting candidate campaigns.
Evergreen Democratic Club at the Villages: Beverly Wharton 
Membership stands at 236.  There are 3520 registered voters in the villages, 1408 (40%) Democrats, 1670 (47%) Republican, and the remainder Decline to State or other minor parties.  
Chris Stampolis, our scheduled speaker on June 13, will report on what is happening nationally and on the June 6 primary results.  For July we are preparing our club's entry in the July 4 parade and festivities in the Villages.  August we have scheduled 23rd AD Assemblyman Joe Coto, who represents the majority of the Villages.  Whichever of the Annas wins the primary election for the 28th AD (a small pocket of the Villages is in the 28th) will be invited to a future club meeting.
Past President Bob Applebaum, a member of the Health Advisory Commission, reported that the resolution he introduced recommending endorsement of SB 840 (Sen. Kuehl's single payer health bill) by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors was passed unanimously on May 17 and a similar resolution should be considered soon by the San Jose City Council.  Well over 400 organizations, 10 cities, the Alameda, LA, and Marin County Boards of Supervisors have endorsed it and 1/3 of our state legislators have signed on as co-authors.  Whether there is a successful vote in August or if a new bill number is assigned next year, support will continue under the One Care Now campaign.  A promotional video will be introduced by Lily Tomlin and a major street event is planned for Oct 26 in San Jose with the support of the California Alliance of Retired Americans in conjunction with their annual convention scheduled in San Jose.

 

 

Paul Fong spoke on behalf of Foothill-DeAnza bond measure Ð things look very good

 

M.     Regional Director: Emy Thurber

No report

N.     Democratic National Committee: Chris Stampolis

O.      Pro-Choice Coalition: Claudia Shope
            The next pro-choice coalition meeting is June 7

            Prop 73 clone will be back on the November ballot

            Please take part in South Dakota action

P. DTV Report: Steve Chessin

Democratic Television Producer Steve Chessin reported that our May taping was with Kai Stinchcombe, Founder of the Roosevelt Institution, and Nell Selander, President of the Stanford Democrats.

 

Our guest in June will be California Democratic Party Political Director Sam Rodriguez.

 

We will be on San Jose Comcast Channel 15A June 1st and 29th with the show we taped with Kai Stinchcombe and Nell Selander, June 15th with the show we taped with Councilmember Chavez, and July 13th and August 10th with the show we will tape with Sam Rodirguez.

 

See the sccdp web site for the schedule in the other communities, and to download our shows.

 

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

 

San Jose Channel 15A (also serves part of Cupertino), 8:00pm every other Thursday (408-918-3200): 2006:

Jun 1    DTV 136           Roosevelt Institution, Stanford Democrats

Jun 15   DTV 135           Hon. Cindy Chavez

Jun 29   DTV 136           Roosevelt Institution, Stanford Democrats

Jul 13    DTV 137           Sam Rodriguez

Jul 27    DTV 138           TBD-138

Aug 10  DTV 137           Sam Rodriguez

Aug 24  DTV 138           TBD-138

 

See http://www.sccdp.org/dtv.php for the full schedule, and to download our shows.

 

Q. CDC Report: Jay Jackman

no report

 

9.        OLD BUSINESS

            none

 

10.       ANNOUNCEMENTS

Jay Jackman Ð support Measure C, opportunity to work for Jerry McNerney on election day

Steve Chessin Ð need to get word out about Debra Bowen for Secretary of State

Carolyn Curtis Ð also spoke about supporting Debra Bowen for Secretary of State, 40% of Jerry McNerneyÕs money came from individual donations under $200.

Anne Mack Ð The speaker for the Century Club luncheon on June 9 will be Larry Stone
  

11.        EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING

            The next Executive Board meeting will be June 12, 6:00 pm

 

12.        ADJOURNMENT

               8:35 pm