SANTA CLARA COUNTY DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL COMMITTEE
6:45 pm, County Building Cafeteria, 70 W. Hedding St.; San Jose
MINUTES FOR Thursday, June 4, 2009
1. CALL TO ORDER: 7:15
2. ROLL CALL
Absent: Marsha Grilli, Ron Lind, Jey Surier, Bill James, James Rowen, Xavier Campos, David Cohen, Ken Yeager, Tony Alexander, Peter Arellano, Bruce Morasca, Alberto Torrico, Joe Coto, Jim Beall, Bill Monning, Ellen Corbett, Joe Simitian, Elaine Alquist,
Alternates present for: Brandon Sulser, Omar Torres, Jim Brady, Ira Ruskin, Paul Fong, Anna Caballero, Jerry McNerney, Anna Eshoo, Mike Honda, Zoe Lofgren, Rena Modell, Peter Chiu
3. IDENTIFICATION OF VISITORS
Rich Gordan: candidate for 21st Assembly District, Teresa Alvarado: candidate for Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, Eugenia Sanchez: Mayor of Hollister and Candidate for 28th Assembly District, Jim Cogan: Candidate for San Jose City Council District 9 Ash Kalra: San Jose City Council Member, Rose Herrera: San Jose City Council Member
4. ADOPTION OF AGENDA
Motion to approve, second, so moved
5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
(Minutes not available to post on our website sccdp.org) June 4, 2009
Tabled to the August meeting
6. NEW BUSINESS
Employee Free Choice Act: Eric Larson: informational discussion. Letters need to be written to Diane Feinstein expressing the need for this act.
Update on activity against the current state of Iran: Medhi Safipour
7. OLD BUSINESS
8. REPORTS FROM OFFICERS AND OTHERS
a. Executive Board:
b. Chair: Steve Preminger
Working with a group of people to bring about support for HR 676, the Single Payer Health Care Bill. We are looking for help on this; please attend the meeting on July 14th at 6pm at the Labor Temple.
c. Vice Chair Ð Clark Williams
d. Treasurer: Drina Collins:
$569.32. Some people still have dues outstanding
e. Secretary: Hope Cahan for Margie Mitchell
f. Community Services and Voter Registration: Judy Pipkin
Still have some events that need volunteers to staff the voter registration booths.
g. Finance: Jim Thurber
Presidents and Treasurers of the clubs need to be aware that they do not have liability insurance. Please talk to your fellow officers about the need for insurance.
FEC and FPPC reporting must be done if you spend or accept $1000 or more to help a candidate. There will be a training session at the Executive Board meeting-2pm on Saturday for 2 hours. Later in the year there will be a two-day training session, dates to be announced.
h. Candidate Recruitment and Endorsement: Jon Kessler
Endorsements interviews will be: Aug 24th-27th & the following week if need be.
Districts and Councils we will be endorsing in:
School Board: Cupertino Union, Los Altos, Orchard, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto Unified, Foothill/DeAnza Community College
Councils: Cupertino: 3 seats, Gilroy: 3 seats, Palo Alto: 5 seats, Sunnyvale: 3 seats
All club representatives and interested members of the Central Committee, contact me if you are interested on being on the committee.
Our County is well represented in leadership and membership for the California Democratic Party Standing Committees. Congrats to all.
Voter Services Committee
Cindy Chavez, Lead Chair
Steve Chessin
Jay Jackman
Finance Committee
Evan Low, Lead Chair
Alyson Abramowitz
Marie Highby
Rules Committee
Peter Chiu, Co-Chair
Jim Thurber
Resolutions Committee
Steve Preminger, Co-Chair
Emy Thurber
Platform Committee
Claude Ezran
i. Communications: David Cohen
j. Campaign Services: Tom Cochran
k. Political Outreach (Clubs): Diane Rolfe
Thank you to the LGBT for the food tonight. Next month is the SVAPAD Club will bring the food. Thank you to Jim Thurber for making sure that the treasurers are invited to attend the financial training at the Executive Board Meeting.
If your club would like to co-sponsor the all club event, please let me know and we will add your name as co-sponsor on all marketing and announcements; in return you will be asked to send an email announcements to all your members.
Club Reports:
BAFC:
Marie Highby
June Event
June
28, 2009
Unite
for Change BBQ & Potluck
Finch,
Sunnyvale, 100-500 pm
Upcoming
Events
July
11, 2009
Canvass
for Health Care Reform
Meet
at PeetÕs Coffee and Tea, 1032 Castro Street, Mountain
View, 1230-300 pm
July
15, 2009
ObamaÕs
Health Care Plan and You (VitoÕs Italian
Restaurant, Sunnyvale, 630-930 pm)
Discussion
of the Obama health care legislation, followed by
Q&A
Panelists:
Dr.
Ellen R. Shaffer, Co-Director of The Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and
Health
Dr.
Henry Abrons, MD, Board of CA Physicians Alliance
Ken
Jacobs, Chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center and
former member of the MayorÕs Universal Health Care
Council in San Francisco
Moderator:
Emily Lam, Director of Health Care and Federal
Issues for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group
August 19, 2009
The
Bay Area, Housing, and the Mortgage Crisis (VitoÕs Italian Restaurant,
Sunnyvale, 630-930 pm)
Housing
is at the epicenter of the world-wide recession. The Bay Area is uniquely
affected by the housing crisis. BAFC will have a panel discussion that will center on the national
challenge with particular highlights on the Bay Area and its unique economics
and housing challenges.
Panelists:
Dean Florez,
CA State Senate Majority Leader and Candidate for
Lt. Governor
Vance
Riddler, Princeton Capital
September 5, 6 & 7, 2009
Tapestry
Arts Festival
Voter Registration
Evergreen Democratic Club at the Villages: Duane Jones
The speaker at our June meeting was Dr. Claudia Chaufan, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Health Policy at the University of California in San Francisco and Vice-President of California Physicians Alliance and the California chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. She spoke on ÒÕA Framework to Analyze Health Care SystemsÕ and ÔProposals for Health Care ReformÕÓ. It was a very informative presentation.
On July Fourth, our Club participated with two vehicles in the Villages annual intra Villages 4th of July parade, This yearÕs theme followed the Mother Goose rhymes and our Club featured a six foot ÒHumpty DumptyÓ egg with a big crack in it representing our broken national health care system.
We are now looking forward to Former Assembly Speaker Sally
Lieber speaking at our August meeting.
Milpitas Democratic Club: Deepka Lalwani
Milpitas Democratic Club invites
you to an event with Assembly Majority Leader Alberto
O. Torrico of the 20th Assembly District
Date - Saturday,
Aug 29
Time - 1 to 3 PM
Venue - Milpitas
library, Main Street
Santa Clara County Democratic
Club: Jon Graff
The SCCDC will be holding an August event at the Railroad Museum in Santa Clara on August 28th. It is a potluck and each person is asked to donate $5.
l. Regional Director: Emy Thurber
At our Regional meeting with our 4 Assembly Members, we discussed the discouraging budget situation.
The State is working hard to turn the state from red to blue. They have created a telephone system so that you can make calls from home to Democratic activists in Republican districts asking for them to call their representatives to urge them to pass a sensible budget: www.cadem.org/callavoter.
Over 8,000 letters have been written to our lawmakers so far, but we need more.
The upcoming State Party Executive Board meeting is at the Crowne Plaza at the San Francisco International Airport. The next meeting is on November 13, 14, &15th in San Diego.
Sean Bagley is running for the open DNC representative seat.
Portions of the law limiting activity for Central Committees were found illegal and have been changed to allow Central Committees to remove members for cause from the Central Committee and may add new members to those vacant positions during a 2-year term.
The Century Club luncheon speaker for tomorrow is Anna Caballero. The lunch is at the Holiday Inn on 1st street.
m. Democratic National Committee: Chris Stampolis
Heard comments from the members on the impression friends and neighbors have of Obama and the work that he is doing.
Please visit Whitehouse.gov for a list of signed legislation.
n. Pro-Choice Coalition: Claudia Shope
o. DTV Report: Steve Chessin
Democratic Television Producer
Emeritus Steve Chessin reported that our guest in June was David Gonzales, the Executive Director of Friends
Outside in Santa Clara County, which offers
support to families of the incarcerated in Santa Clara County.
Our guest in July is TBD.
Beginning July 15th, Democratic TV will be shown in San Jose on channel 15, CreaTV San Jose, every Friday at 8pm. Previously we have been
every other Thursday at 8pm.
See the sccdp web site for the schedule, and to view our shows.
We could still use more good Democrats on the crew. No prior video
experience is necessary.
p. CDC Report: Jay Jackman
CDC will have a meeting at the Executive Board Conference on Saturday morning from 8-9:30am
Herb Engstrom: Will be hosting a club training on August 29th and are still looking for a facility.
9. ANNOUNCEMENTS
Jay Jackman: Afternoon conversation with Governor Howard Dean on July 23rd from 2-4
Most of the conversation will be about health care.
Mia White: Zoe LofgrenÕs annual BBQ is Sunday August 9th from 1-4pm
Darcie Green: Santa Clara County Status of Women meeting on August 26 from 5:30-7:30
Teresa Alvarado: introduced her candidacy for Board of Supervisors
Eugenia Sanchez: Candidate for 28th Assembly District
Jim Cogan: running for District 9 City Council
10. EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING
11. ADJOURNMENT: in honor of Joseph Cannon Houghteling