News Release - For Immediate Release -May 4, 2011

Connecticut Green Party
PO Box 231214
Hartford, CT 06123
888-877-8607

Contact Information
Ken Krayeske, State- Co Chair- 860-995-5842
Mike DeRosa, State Co-Chair (860) 919-4042
Patrica Kane, Secretary (203) 691-7887

Hartford - The Green Party of Connecticut held its annual Convention and Elections in Portland, CT on April 30, 2011 and elected new party leadership. Ken Krayeske, an attorney/journalist/and former Campaign Manager for Gubernatorial candidate Cliff Thornton was the top vote-getter out of 6 candidates for one of the three co-chair positions. Krayeske's slate won three out of four contested positions.

The Green Party uses Instant Runoff Voting, a process whereby voters state a first, second and third preference so that a candidate with a majority is always elected, to vote for state party officers. CT Green Party bylaws call for an executive committee of five: three co-chairs, one of whom must be a woman, and a secretary and treasurer.

Long-time co-chair Mike DeRosa was the only member of his slate elected. DeRosa, the 2010 Green candidate for CT Secretary of State, came in second.

Krayeske's running mate Ronna Stuller, an elected Green Party Board of Education member in New London was elected to the third co-chair position.

Patricia Kane, the third member of the Krayeske team, was elected secretary of the GPCT. Kane, an attorney/mediator in New Haven, CT, defeated incumbent secretary Barbara Barry. Incumbent Chris Reilly, the Treasurer, won as a write-in.

The concept of running on slates was something new in CT Green party internal elections. Both slates have agreed to work together to help grow the party’s chapters and elect candidates on the Green Party line in 2011 and 2012.

The CT Greens also elected new representatives national and state party positions. Long-time party activist and Congressional candidate Charlie Pillsbury of New Haven was re-elected to represent the Connecticut Greens on the national level. Justine McCabe of New Milford was relected to the Greens' International committee, where she serves as the National Co- Chair of International Committee.

"The Green Party is growing not just in Connecticut, but globally," McCabe said, pointing to the recent election of Elizabeth May, the Green from British Columbia. May, who was born in Hartford and spent the first 12 years of her life here, was the first Green ever elected to Canada's House of Commons on Monday, May 2.

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