SANTA CLARA COUNTY DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL COMMITTEE

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

 

MINUTES FOR Thursday, October 6th, 2005

 

1.             CALL TO ORDER: 7:00

 

2.             ROLL CALL

Absent: Julie Lind, Bill Dias, Francine Davis, Cathy Dias, Deepka Lalwani, Scott Rafferty, Vince Cortese, Jim Brady, Mark Moore, Dan Kenney, Dennis Kennedy, Craig Mann, Bruce Morasca, Alberto Torrico, Sally Lieber, Liz Figueroa, Joe Simitian, Elaine Alquist, Jerry McNerney, Anna Eshoo, Zoe Lofgren, Chris Stampolis, Fran Bennett, Dennis Austin

 

Excused: Emy Thurber, Jim Thurber, and Tom Cochran

 

Alternate: Brandon Sulser for Anna Song, Rena Modell, Xavier Campos, James Kim, Elisa Martinez for Kevin Moore, Jon Kessler for Rebecca Cohn, Clark Williams for John Laird, Sal Alvarez for Simon Salinas, Mike Honda, Marylee Shelton for Ruth Ashford, Bob Applebaum for Beverly Waller-Wharton, Clarence Madrilejos for Herb Wadley, Dan Hoffman for Alicia Lanier

 

3.                 IDENTIFICATION OF VISITORS

Balliu Dhillon from SVAPADC, Jay Jackman from CDC, Richelle Noroyan the new District Director from Assemblymember Ira Ruskin’s office, Michael Goodman, From San Jose City College: Sherry Alberto, Tim McCullough, Elivia Farias, Patricia Walker, Reina Lopez, Dru Wood, Jane Jabar, Charmaine Jabr, Miranda Strickland

 

4.                ADOPTION OF AGENDA

Adjourn in honor of Andrea Liederman

Motion to approve as amended, second, so carried

 

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

Motion to approve, second, so carried

 

6.             NEW BUSINESS

Issues: Assembly Members Ira Ruskin and Joe Coto: Legislative Priorities

 

Ira Ruskin: introduced his new District Director Richelle Noroyan and his staff member Alex Kobayashi. Discussed his legislative agenda for the session. The Governor signed 7 of the Assemblymember's 9 bills that made it to the Governor’s desk.

 

The bills included, AB1317: safe drinking water, AB6865: conservation loans from foundations to nonprofit organizations, AB889: consumer protection: increases the authority of the County to increase fees as the cost of living increases so that they will be able to afford to inspect weighing and measuring devices (gas pumps and store scales), a bill protecting developmentally disabled service providers from frivolous lawsuits, and AB 1342: safe monitoring of the handling of hazardous waste.

 

Two of his bills became 2-year bills. One of the bills would close the tax loophole that lets businesses file that they are located outside the country when they are really operating in California and the other, AB312, protects privacy rights of sexual assault victims.

 

Joe Coto: The Governor signed 3 of his bills into law. One deals with teaching blind children mathematics, another requires physicians to receive cultural and linguistic training as part of their re-certification, the third deals with low performing schools. Two more of the Assemblymember’s bills are on the Governor’s desk waiting to be signed.

 

Assemblymember Coto was elected Vice-Chair of the Latino Caucus. The Caucus will be focusing on getting more Latinos elected to office and on registering Latinos statewide as Democrats.

 

The Caucus is having a hearing on urban education to help strengthen the support and education the State is providing to urban areas.

 

Call To Action: Steve Preminger: Goal is to get people out and walking precincts. The meeting will be this Saturday at the Sheriff’s auditorium from 9-11.

 

CDP Executive Board meeting report: Peter Chiu

The Executive Board voted to abolish AD committees effective Nov. 26, 2006. AD clubs can be formed in their place. This club formation will require special attention to filing requirements. The ADs would still have representatives to the State Party Executive Board and there will be caucus meetings every 2 years. In order to vote at the AD caucus meeting, the member must have been registered as a Democrat by the previous November.

 

Carolyn Curtis posted her 2-page report from the meeting at the back of the room.

 

Endorsement update: Jon Kessler: One of our endorsed candidates, Tammara Logan from Los Altos School district dropped out of the race so we rescinded our endorsement

               

Andrea Liederman: Anne Mack proposed that the County Central Committee donate a tree in Big Basin in memory of Andrea Liederman. Motion that the committee donate a tree for the sum of $500, second, so carried

 

7.                REPORTS FROM OFFICERS AND OTHERS

A.       Executive Board: Steve Preminger

The board discussed the hurricane and sent in 6 different resolutions to the State Party Executive Board meeting. The resolutions included dealing with racial and social inequality, energy, Republicans’ lack of investment in America, and misplaced priorities in this administration. They are available online for review. The board also put together the agenda for this meeting and the upcoming Call to Action.

 

B.      Chair:  Steve Preminger

See above

C.      Vice Chair:  James Kim

D.        Treasurer:  Drina Collins:

$711.01 in our account

 

E.         Secretary:  Hope Cahan

Please sign in if you are a visitor

 

F.       Community Services and Voter Registration: Carolyn Curtis

We have many voter registration booths occurring and are still working on getting precinct walkers; we did get 5 new walkers last night.

 

Adrienne: last big festival before the election is the Oktoberfest on the 15th & 16th in Campbell and we will have a large presence there. We now have Stop Arnold buttons to go along with the Stop Arnold fans.

The last day to register is October 24th for the November election. Any voter registration work that you are able to do before then would be very helpful.

 

G.      Finance:  Jim Thurber

H.        Candidate Recruitment and Endorsement:  Jon Kessler

See new business

 

I.      Communication: David Cohen

We now have a brochure for the County party. We are getting over 2500 hits per week on our website, 1200 are new visitors. The most popular site is the blog that Elisa writes; the second most popular is the calendar. If you want to walk your precinct, you are able to sign up through our website.

 

The Central Committee acknowledged David his great work as our Communications Director and for our high website viewing numbers.

 

J.        Campaign Services:  Philip Bump

36% of Californians still think Arnold is doing a good job. 54% of people who voted for him are disappointed. 83% said they would vote for someone else next year.

 

The polls indicate that every initiative is failing right now. 53% of people think the special election is a bad idea.

 

If we can’t win in this election, we have really failed. Every weekend, we are precinct walking to targeted precincts with targeted voters. The only way that we win elections is to talk to voters and get people to the polls. We are walking every Saturday at 9am and Sunday at 11am. We need to identify 60,000 people in this county who will vote against the bad initiatives.

 

K.       Issues:  Herb Engstrom

At our next Central Committee meeting, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren is scheduled to speak followed by Betty Yee, acting member of the State Board of Equalization, who is a candidate for that office.

Suggestions for issues speakers are always welcome.

 

L.       Political Outreach: Steve Preminger for Tom Cochran: From this point forward, we will try to start meetings on time and prevent the excessive talking in the back of the room that makes it hard to hear.

Club, AD, SD, & CD Reports

Santa Clara County Democratic Club: Herb Engstrom for Alicia Lanier
Our September meeting featured 22nd AD Assemblywoman Sally Lieber discussing legislation that she had sponsored in the past year.

Straight Talk TV produced another two shows:

Funding of Community Colleges:  Laura Casas Frier, an advocate for education, and Bruce Swenson, retired Vice President of Foothill College, discuss the costs of attending a 2 year college, who pays for it, why so many deserving students are denied access to a quality college education, and what we can do about it.

Engaging Youth in Politics:  With Aurelia Figueroa, who is Executive Director of the American Youth Scholarship Foundation, which is sponsoring several programs aimed at young people from middle school age through college.  One of these programs is the Model House of Representatives, which will bring one college student from every Congressional district in the country to Washington D.C. to play the part of a representative from that district.

These shows are now available in three ways:  1. Broadcast on public access cable.  2. On the Internet from
www.DemocraticClub-SCC.org/StraightTalk.html.  3.  On DVD.  We now have a flyer listing available shows.

Current broadcast schedule is as follows:

San José: Channel 15, Tuesdays 7:30 PM.

Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Stanford: Channel 27, Sundays 7:00 PM; Mondays, 11:00 AM; Wednesdays, 8:30 PM; Thursdays, 3:30 AM and 12:30 PM.

Los Gatos and Monte Sereno: Channel 15, Thursdays 7:30 PM.

Saratoga: Channel 15, alternate Fridays, 7:00 PM.

Mountain View: Channel 15 Mondays 5:30 PM (preempted by City Council meetings each month).

San Mateo, San Carlos, Redwood City, Belmont, Brisbane, Daly City: Channel 8, Saturdays 6:30 PM.

Foster City, Hillsborough: Channel 15, Saturdays, 6:30 PM.

10/2      John Garamendi on Workers’ Comp, #140
10/9      Holocaust Survivors, #141
10/16     Funding of Community Colleges, #143
10/23     Engaging Youth in Politics, #144
10/30     Funding of Community Colleges, #143
11/6      Chuck Reed on Open Government, #142
11/13     Engaging Youth in Politics, #144


Our next meeting, Monday, October 17th at Carrow’s Restaurant on El Camino in Santa Clara, will be devoted to a discussion of the November ballot initiatives.  Our program chair, Kim Singh, has invited the following people, each with expertise on one or more of the initiatives: Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins on the labor initiative, Pop. 75.  Prof Terry Christensen of the Political Science Department at SJSU with comments on all.  Esperanza Garcia Walters Chairperson Planned Parenthood Federation of America on Prop. 73, parental notification.  Miguel J. Carrillo Campaign Manager: Alliance for a Better California.  Possibly a member / representative of CTA (California Teachers Association) on Props. 74 (tenure) and 76 (school funding).

DAWN: Carol Garvey

September 10th was the endorsement brunch held at the Kessler’s Community room. 14 candidates endorsed by our members were present, 6 of them women and from school board, community college board, and Palo Alto city council.

 

The 6 women each received a check for $250. We put our money where our endorsement is to provide much needed seed money to women candidates. To provide this money, we held our second event in September on the 25th. This was our first fundraiser in over two years.

 

Thank you to all of the sponsors, attendees, and bidders on the silent auction gift items. We reached our goal of $5,000 for the event (after expenses). Thanks to Alicia Lanier, Evan Low, and the Santa Clara County Democratic Club for sponsoring the event. Also thank you to Sally Lieber and Rebecca Cohn who gave both financial support and political memorabilia and a “candidate 101” seminar, and to Linda LeZotte, James Kim, Otto Lee, Jim Beall and Pat Beall who donated beautiful handmade jewelry. Additionally, thank you to Nancy Pyle and Margie Mitchell. Special thanks to Zoe Lofgren for her welcoming remarks and report on the D.C. follies.

 

Two women DAWN activists (Joan Goddard & Sandra Skolnik) received the Jenkins/Moore Founders’ Award.

 

This year’s GEM (Greatly Enlightened Male) award went to James Kim for his tireless work with all the progressive clubs and his Domestic Violence Advocacy within the Korean Community.

 

We are working with Planned Parenthood and Campaign for Teen Safety for the “No on Prop 73” campaign.

 

Silicon Valley Latino Democratic Forum: Drina Collins

The club will hold a Forum to discuss the November election on October 26, 2005 at 6pm at the Isaac Newton Auditorium. Professor Fraca of Stanford University and Professor Terry Christensen of San Jose State will be the keynote speakers. The event is free and we invite all clubs to send guests.

 

The Dean Democratic Club of Silicon Valley: Carolyn Curtis

The Dean Democratic Club of Silicon Valley sent out questionnaires & held endorsement interviews last month, & endorsed 10 fine Democratic candidates. An extra benefit of our endorsement is that endorsees are encouraged to apply for the DFA-List on www.democracyforamerica.com. Democracy for America endorsed Madison Nguyen last month, featuring her on its national blog (thousands of hits/daily) twice and sending her a check for $250. Howard Dean phoned Madison the morning after her victory to congratulate her.

 

At our general meetings Wed Oct 5, held concurrently in Los Altos & San Jose, we had a conference call with Phil Angelides & with Phil Giarrizo, field coordinator for the Alliance. We recruited five new walkers & several other volunteers. The conference call was organized by California for Democracy, the umbrella group for the 40+ DFA groups statewide; members of DFA groups statewide, including ours, are walking and phone banking for the Alliance. In addition, the San Jose meetup used the exercise on messaging furnished by California for Democracy, the first of a series from Democracy for America to teach activists practical skills about Messaging, Communications, Volunteer Management, and Voter Contact.

 

Stephanie Grossman is hosting a house party Wed Oct 19 to encourage absentee voting & to view an informational DVD featuring Mark Leno on the ballot propositions (produced by San Francisco DFA, to be copied & distributed by Democracy for America to house parties throughout California).

 

Evergreen Villages Democratic Club: Mary Edmunds

The club decided that we need a more charitable pledge of allegiance-We need to end the divisions. "One nation should not be separated from "indivisible". Suggest...one nation, indivisible, with liberty, justice, and religious freedom for all.

 

We have a website. The URL is www.villagesdems.org.

 

Our September picnic was very successful. Mayoral candidates Dave Cortese and Cindy Chavez were present.

 

On Oct. 11, the club is hosting a forum at our Foothill Center for the 3 mayoral candidates to present their views. The candidates have been invited to have dinner

at our clubhouse afterwards.

 

21st AD Committee: Thelma Spaziani

The committee met on September 25th to discuss talking points that will help to convince people to vote No on Prop 73-78 and to vote Yes on Prop 79 &80 and the strategy for winning the election. Assemblymember Ira Ruskin was a guest.

 

There is a temporary leadership change for the Committee as Beth Shaw, an outstanding Chair, is taking maternity leave. Greg Loew and Carolyn Curtis will fill in until Beth can return.  

               

A new project for the 21st AD Committee is to gather data on local elected officials so that the Democratic clubs can identify individuals to support in local elections. The goal is for the clubs to be able to help ensure that for every seat, especially open ones, at least one progressive Democrat files, runs, and wins. They are also identifying special district elections as stepping-stones for those wanting to enter the public arena. Gail Slocum and Ralph Wheeler are heading this project.

 

Carol Dorshkind set up 8 phone banking locations in the Bay area. They have targeted 12 precincts in Palo Alto for walking. Please contact Carolyn for more info.

 

As you can see, this is an outstanding group; they hope to inspire other ADs to be active, too.

 

M.     Regional Director: Emy Thurber

N.      Democratic National Committee: Chris Stampolis

O.      Pro-Choice Coalition:  Claudia Shope

Campaign for Teen Safety/ No on Proposition 73:

The most important issue facing the pro-choice movement in Santa Clara County continues to be our efforts to oppose Proposition 73, a dangerous and misleading initiative that threatens the safety of teenage girls across California.

 

Key happenings:

·         Santa Clara Board of Supervisors voted to oppose Prop. 73 3-1. Thank you to the Board for their wisdom on this matter.

·         We held the campaign kick-off rally on Sunday, September 25. We had a very strong turnout of supporters. Santa Clara Supervisor Liz Kniss and San Jose City Council member Linda LeZotte attended the event and gave welcoming remarks. A special thanks you to both for their support.

·         We are holding phone banks every Monday and Wed. at 1046 W. Taylor in San Jose. We need volunteers for the phone banks. Please consider volunteering and clubs should consider “adopting a phone bank night” with your members.

·         We have buttons, stickers, and brochures for the No on 73 campaign available. If your groups are tabling or precinct walking we would like you to include our materials in your efforts. Please call Katie Desmond at (408) 297-9255 ex 17 to pick up materials.

 

SB 644 (Ortiz)- the Pharmacist Refusal Legislation signed into law:

SB 644, introduced by Senator Ortiz in response to a growing trend by pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives and other reproductive health medications, creates a duty on the part of pharmacists to fill lawful prescriptions. The measure also recognizes that pharmacists may have religious or ethical problems with some prescription drugs, and requires that when the employee gives sufficient notice of concerns, employers accommodate the beliefs of such pharmacists, wherever possible, while at the same time putting the patients’ medical needs first. SB 644 will be the first state law to ensure consumers’ rights to this basic component of health care delivery, and will have a significant impact on improving access to medically necessary prescribed medications.

 

Supreme Court:

On Thursday, September 29th, the US Senate voted to confirm John Roberts as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. We are very pleased that California’s two US Senators stood against the confirmation of Roberts because of his record and apparent views on issues of reproductive health and women’s rights. The fin al vote tally was 78 Yes-22Nays. All of the Republicans along with nearly half of the Democrats voted in favor of Roberts.

On Monday, October 3, President Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to fill the position left vacant by Sandra Day O’Connor. The nomination of Miers raises concerns for women’s health and safety for a number of reasons. First, Miers has never been a judge and has no judicial record to learn about her views on important constitutional issues. It is imperative that Miers’ position on key issues, including reproductive and privacy rights, be clarified during the nomination process. Second, during Harriet Miers’ tenure as head of the Texas Bar Association, she was a leader in the campaign to reverse the American Bar Association’s position supporting the right to choose. This campaign, while ultimately unsuccessful, would have returned the ABA’s pro-choice position to its former positions of neutrality.

 

Senator Feinstein played a leadership role in the Roberts nomination. Please call and write to the Senator to urge her to press for more information about Miers and to ask the really tough questions.

 

P.        DTV Report: Steve Chessin

Democratic Television Producer Steve Chessin reported that our September taping was with State Senator Liz Figueroa of the 10th District, and candidate for Lieutenant Governor.  She discussed the initiatives on the November ballot.

 

Our guest in October is still to be determined.

 

Our shows, beginning with DTV 125, are now available for streaming from the sccdp.org web site.

 

We will be on San Jose AT&T Channel 15A October 6th with the show we taped with Assemblymember Salinas, October 20th and November 17th with the show we taped with Senator Figueroa, and November 3rd and December 1st with the show we will tape this month.  See the sccdp web site for the schedule in the other communities.

 

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):

2005:

Oct  6                DTV 127                Hon. Simon Salinas

Oct 20                DTV 128                Hon. Liz Figueroa

Nov  3                DTV 129                TBD-129

Nov 17                DTV 128                Hon. Liz Figueroa

Dec  1                DTV 129                TBD-129

 

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

 

Q.       CDC Report:  Herb Engstrom & Jay Jackman

The CDC Executive Board met in Bakersfield the weekend of September 24 the and 25th.

Two women from the southern central valley, Holly Hart and Helen Acosta, gave an excellent presentation on organizing to win back the red counties of California.  They emphasized five necessary components.

1.       Building capacity:  We must have something to do for every volunteer.

2.       Sustainability:  The campaign must continue after the election and through the next election cycle.

3.       Outreach: Recruiting volunteers.

4.       Strategic planning: We must have a vision of where we will be in the future.  We work back from there to identify the milestones needed to reach that vision.

5.       Framing:  Framing has been described almost exclusively in terms of language.  Equally important are visuals - pictures that convey our message effectively.

They commented that while Republicans have stressed values, we Democrats should make virtues a central part of our message.

President Chris Stampolis reported on the Westin St. Francis controversy.  The Young Democrats had planned to hold their national convention at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco and had placed a $25,000 deposit for use of the facilities there.  Just before the convention started the hotel workers union went on strike at the St. Francis, and the YDs observed the strike and moved their convention to the Holiday Inn.  Chris confirmed that that St. Francis was fully booked the nights of the YD convention, so that the hotel lost no money due to the move, yet the hotel refused to refund the deposit.  Worse, the hotel threatened to retaliate against the YDs by suing for breach of contract.  Chris had called the St. Francis to demand the refund, and he appealed to the CDC members in the Bay Area to form a picket line at the hotel if the deposit was not refunded.  The CDC E-board supported this idea.

The CDC fundraising campaign has fallen short of expectations.  We propose to form a "22,000 Club" of that many small donors who would commit to automatic, monthly donations in small amounts.  This Club would allow the CDC to reach its fundraising goals.

 

The CDC Region V Semi-Annual Meeting will be on October 22 from 10:00am-1:00pm. The meeting will feature three speakers: Michael Meurer, Deputy Chair of the Campaign for California’s Future, Barbara Graves, CDP Regional Director, Region IX, and Constance McKee, Member of Democracy for America.

 

8.             OLD BUSINESS

 

9.          ANNOUNCEMENTS

Julie Lind: I am the new Senior Field representative to Rebecca Cohn. There are 2 Domestic Violence events on Wed the 26th. The first, examining domestic violence in the LGTB community, is at 9am, the second is a 6-7:30 vigil remembering the suffering that victims face.

 

Carol Garvey: 12:45 fundraiser this Saturday for Jim Beall at the Camera 12 theaters. Central Committee members may come for free.

 

Monday the 17th there will be a sculpture unveiling at SJSU in the sculpture garden.

 

Raina Lopez and Tim McCulla promoted an event at SJSU: “Be the Bridge” benefit. All proceeds go to the Katrina Catholic Charities. The event is Sunday, October 16th at 4:30 pm in the San Jose City College Theater.

 

Carolyn Curtis: Howard Dean fundraiser on October 15th to raise money for Zoe Lofgren.

 

Paul Fong: Are now accepting applications for the position of trustee to replace Andrea Liederman. This will be done on November 9th.

 

10.                EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING

The next Executive Board meeting is Thursday, October 20

 

11.                ADJOURNMENT: 9:09

 The committee adjourned in memory of Andrea Liederman and Kay Moberley