Minutes from SCC meeting 11/29/05: quorum requirement met.
Place: Portland Public Library, Mary Flood Room, 20 Freestone Avenue, Portland, CT
Phone: 860-342-6770 Time: 7PM to 9PM
Voting attendees by chapters:
Fairfield: David Bedell, Paul Bassler;
Greater Hartford: Ed Debrule, Barbara Barry, Secretary of CTGP, Mike DeRosa, co-chairperson of CTGP;
New Haven: Daniel Sumrall, Allan Brison;
Middletown: Vic Lancia and Molly,
Northeast: Christopher Demmoit, Jean deMet;
Tolland: Tim McKee;
Facilitator: Tim McKee
Preliminaries:
(2-3 minutes): Introductions of attendees and chapters. Timekeeper: Vic Lancia.
(1 minute): Identify attendees who are NOT voting representatives: none.
(1 minute): Adopt ground rules: discussed modified concencus; many people verbalized frustration/dislike of it. Modified concencus process approved for this meeting.
(2-4 minutes): Approval of tonight’s proposed agenda, additions: none. Deletions: Proposal 1 :new organization structure due to lack of presence of the authors: Aaron Gustafson and Kelly McCarthy, resigned: co-chairpersons. Proposal 2: storage/cataloging of tape recordings of SCC meeting by Hamden and Northwest chapters due to lack of presence of the author: Judy Herkimer; budget suggestions: deferred due to time restraints. Treasurer’s monthly report and 3rd quarter
treasurer’s report to the CT. Secretary of State: due to lack of treasurer: Judy Herkimer or a deputy treasurer or her representative. She did not forward any report(s)
to the remaining CTGP officers for this meeting
(2-4 minutes): Comments and approval of 10-25-05 SCC minutes by Barbara Barry: approved by concencus.
(5 minutes): 11-21-05 EC meeting presentation by Barbara Barry: approved by concencus.
(5 minutes): Discussion of minutes (suggested by Judy Herkimer): Barbara Barry presented: Judy Herkimer perceives bias in the minutes by Barbara Barry, Secretary of CTGP. Barbara discussed, as she has with Judy at the 10-25-05 EC meeting, that minutes have been done word for word. Barbara has no control over what people say. Barbara could put the minutes in quotes since they are done word for word. So far, Barbara has not. Mike DeRosa: in the past, some people have
forgotten what they have said. Our approved proposal from years ago regarding the use of recordings was to help ensure accuracy of minutes.
(15 minutes): Discussion regarding EC meeting and SCC meeting should be held in December 2005 due to EC proposal by Judy Herkimer at 10-21-05: no EC or SCC meetings in 12-05. Some people felt very strongly that the important business of the CTGP needs to be addressed during the 12-27-05 scheduled SCC meeting. concencus: agreement to meet as usual on 12-27-05. Should EC meeting be held 12-12-05? Concencus: Yes, encouraged to meet on the previously arranged 2nd Monday of the month, 12-12-05; yes: suggest delaying the meeting so Barbara, secretary, can get to the meeting a few minutes after completion of her work at 7PM. Discussed: only one active co-chariperson: Mike DeRosa as both Kelly McCarthy and Aaron Gustafson have resigned their co-chairperson positions, immediately after election day. Working site of EC meeting: Greater Hartford Green Party’ office. Hope the treasurer, Judy Herkimer, can attend.
Reports:
(5 minutes, each for): Chapter reports:
New Haven: Daniel Sumrall: working in coalition to support a living wage in New Haven City employees; A German Green Party member is speaking in New Haven tonight; to have longer chapter meeting to discuss campaign streamlining; potential candidates for 2006 election. Allan Brison: to have specific speaker forums open to the public on special subjects (e.g. homelessness in New Haven) will have question and answer forum. Websit for New Haven Chapter: hopefully will be up and available in January 2006, as New Haven now has ability to update and edit information. 12-13-05 march and rally: working with people from the Hill section of the city. Hope to get Yale-New Haven Hospital (Y-NHH) to address neighborhood issues: hospital expansion (largest they have undertaken) e.g. issue that Y-NHH has put lenies on homes of selected low-income houses.
Northeast: Christopher Demmoit: Jean deMet: got 28% of vote for 1st selectperson (mayor type position) in Willimantic, came in 2nd place, beating the Republician candidate. Doing weekly community show, now. Continue to work with peace group. Continue to weekly picket Wal-Mart. Showed the film: The High Cost of Low Price. Halloween: chapter gave out coloring books and candy:.
Greater Hartford: Mike DeRosa: continue keeping our office open in coalition with the Clash Collective which maintains a lending library of literature, pictorals, videos, books. Continue with our periodic Friday night movies. showed The High Cost of Low Price, film. David Ionno, ran for Board of Education in Hartford. Did not win but his supporter encourage him to continue speaking out and run again. He had endorsement of 3 unions. Have more people and more organization done regarding participating in an organic food co-op. Office if open for Green Party or the like activities. Incorrect allocaton of Greater Hartford Green Party chapter funds.
Middletown: Vic Lancia: to show the movie: The High Cost of Low Price, film on 12-12-05; continue: weekly peace vigil: newspaper captured: sign: ”War is good business”.
Tolland: Tim McKee: continue with the usual.
Fairfield: David Bedell: Derrek Shapiro, Green Party candidate for Stamford mayor, got 3% of vote and ballot access; Democratic mayor, just, got reelected. (He is also running for governor.) Republican came in second. Derrek continues to address Green Party issues. Only elected Green Party person in office: constable in New Caanan, typically a republican stronghold. The Green Party candidate was a write-in candidate and won out of a field of five.
(15 minutes): Women’s Caucus report regarding recent Modified Consencus Training: Allan Brison: all participants were asked to complete a questionnaire about their knowledge about modified concencus; he does not know how many people were the actual participants, out of the 12 people present were actually present. All 12 people did participate to some degree. Allan did not sure what the questionnaire was used for e.g.: help educators find areas of individual or group educational opportunities; or elimination of people from more fully participating in the training. Barbara Barry: If you look at the 4-26-05 SCC Women’s Caucus verbal proposal indicates that interested people were encourage to attend. Preference was likely to be given to those people who already actually facilitated meetings. However, at latter EC, SCC meeting and via e-mails another qualifier was added, which was not clearly presented in the written proposal or agreed upon by this (SCC) body. That was that a participant had to have facilitated 2 SCC meetings in the last 5 years. When I asked the Womens’ Caucus representative (Judy Herkimer) at the 10-25-05 SCC meeting, if the Women’s Caucus thought of other ways to train people, she advised: “no”. Did the Women’s Caucus every consider opening the training to at least 1 member of every chapter in the CTGP, to allow for a fuller, more democratic process and show respect for diversity and fairness, Green Party values, Judy stated: ”no”. Various people agreed it would have been more fair to at least open the training to each chapter. Discussion was held regarding: different types of concencus is practiced by other groups, in and out of the Green Party; advantages and disadvantages of modified concencus. Some people dislike modified concencus or parts of it. We need to learn
more about how the process is done.
(10 minutes): U.S. Green Party report by CTGP representatives: Tim McKee:(Thomas Sevigny was not present.) national discussion regarding what/if anything is to done about state chapters who do/did not put on the ballot the nationally endorsed presidential candidate e.g Utah put Ralph Nader on their ballot line for president. Trying to enhance unity. What/if any direction will national party suggest the states do regarding running candidates, acquiring or maintaining ballot access.
(5 minutes): V.O.T.E.R. report from Mike DeRosa: CT legistature just passed a couple of hours ago, a procedure where 3rd party candidates will have to petition to get on ballot and campaign finances. This seems to be in conflict with the equal political party access provision under the U.S. Constitution. I will, get details. Have a lawyer who is willing to work on some potential lawsuits, regarding ballot access in CT, If we choose to go forward. Voter verified paper trail proposal is in trouble due to the cost of the machines. Federal monies will not cover the total cost of the machines. Each town will have to pay for major proportion of the voting machines. Tim McKee: newspaper articles regarding voter machines;
the state regulation regarding need to petition, might be unconstitutional. Tim to do a press release with comments from various Green Party members.
Proposal 3:
PRESENTER: Ed Dubrule, Greater Hartford Green Party Chapter SUBJECT: Reimbursement of Chris Reilly for rent payments he made.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:
The SCC on 11/14/2000 agreed that the Hartford chapter would pay half the rent and half the utilities of the Hartford office, and that the CTGP would pay the other half of the rent and utilities. (The April 2004 SCC meeting decided that the CTGP will no longer pay half the rent and utilities of the office.)
In 2003-4, during the period when Bruce Crowder was treasurer, Chris Reilly paid $2,650 of his own money to the landlord of the Hartford office, New Britain Ave. Real Estate, LLC.
The reasons Chris made these payments have been explained in the minutes of the August 2004 and October 2004 SCC meetings, written by secretary Ed DuBrule (Appendices 1 and 2). In e-mails to Ed dated 9/8/04 and 11/7/04, Chris Reilly stated that these minutes extracts are accurate. Bruce also commented on the accuracy of the August SCC minutes extract, saying, in part, "This seems fairly accurate, except that I don't think I ever 'asked' Chris to cover any bills. More like he offered and I agreed, but that's not an important distinction." Bruce's complete comments are in Appendix 3. (Ed did not request that Bruce comment on the accuracy of the October SCC minutes extract.)
The dates and amounts of Chris' rent payments are in Appendix 4.
In brief, the reasons why Chris chose to pay the landlord from his own pocket are:
(1) For months previously Chris had handled the rent payments.
(2) There were problems transitioning from the former treasurer (Chris Nelson) to Bruce. Among these problems was an inability of Bruce to write checks because he hadn't gotten the Party's checkbook and because of problems with bank paperwork.
(3) Often in the past Greens had spent thousands of dollars of their own money and had been reimbursed later by the CTGP.
(4) Chris expected that the CTGP would send out an annual fundraising letter to thousands of Connecticut Greens, as in past years, and that this letter would bring in many thousands of dollars, as in past years, enough to reimburse him. (Despite this expectation, a fundraising letter to only 1000 Greens was sent out, many months after Chris had made most of his rent payments, and it netted only at most $500.) In past years about $2,000 in postage and printing costs had been required to send out the annual fundraising appeal, and one reason Chris paid the rent was so that the CTGP checking account balance could be preserved and used for these costs. (When Bruce took over as treasurer, the CTGP checking account held only $2000 or less.)
Six of the seven rent payments made by Chris were made in the period April 2003 through September 2003. One additional payment toward the rent was made by Chris in March 2004; Chris explained this payment as follows: The GP/CT, for whatever reason (perhaps financial?) only sent a check for $350. Because the rent was $500, I needed to make up the difference with $150 of my own money". [E-mail response to Ed, 5/27/05.]
During 2003-4 Chris also paid money from his own pocket to cover CTGP envelopes, postage, printing, and domain name registration expenses. The October SCC decided to reimburse Chris for these expenses at a rate of $74.24 per month over twelve months.
PROPOSAL: The SCC should instruct the treasurer of the Connecticut Green Party to reimburse Chris with a check for $2,650 immediately.
Discussed by attendees. Clarifying questions were asked and answered. No blocking concerns. Concencus: CTGP treasurer to reimburse Chris Reilly, $2,650.00, immediately.