[Davis Democrats] Davis Democrat Club minutes for March 2nd Meeting

[G Richard Yamagata PhD]

Greetings Davis Democrat Club Boardmembers,

Please find below the preliminary minutes for the MARCH 2ND meeting.  These
are not for last night's meeting on April 5th.  With last nights meeting
lasting 1 hour and 34 minutes, I have my work cut-out for me in organizing
those notes into minutes.  

On a totally different note, I am saddened by Joyce Wilson's resignation
from the board.  She was the person that inspired me to join the board and
fill in the position of recording secretary and complete the term of Judy
Vulliet.  Judy had to leave the board because of illness.  That was over 5
years ago.  

Susan Peter-Thompson should be dropped from the board if she does not show
up at a meeting by the June meeting.  The club needs Susan's participation
at the Champagne Brunch, so I hope that we hear from her.  Tanya Chalupa has
special status with the board and is excused from attending the board
meetings.  The current by-laws state that she is a board member.  There are
currently 22 board members on the active roster with the resignation of
Joyce Wilson.

Davis Democrat Club Meeting
March 2, 2005

This meeting was held at the Blanchard Room in the Yolo County Library. 
Present (12 members total) were:
President: Tony Gruska,
Vice President: Kingsley Melton
Treasurer: Betty Weir	
Recording Secretary: G Richard Yamagata
Acting Past President: Bob Bockwinkel
Newsletter Editor: Committee representative present 
Publicity: Absent
Special Adjunct Membership Chair: Rita Montes-Martin
Parlimentarian: Arun Sen
Board members:  Lyle Smith, Mike Syvanen, Julia Sanchez, Adrienne Kandell,
Jim Pollock

Absent from Meeting:  Special Liaison, Susan Peter-Thompson; Publicity,
Barbara Slemmons; Board Member Max Rothe; Board Member, Rick Vulliet; Board
Member, Pam Nieberg; Board Member, Joyce Wilson; Board Member, Mary Lou
Hernandez; Newsletter Editor, Tanya Chalupa; Board Member, Rhonda Gruska;
Board Member, Dan Kehew; Board Member, John Chendo

Guests:  There were six guests at this meeting.  Davis Democrat Club members
Jim Provenza and Yvonne Clinton were present.  Guests present included: Dan
Berman, Bob Milbrodt, Sheila Allen,  and Sally Parker.

Tony called the meeting to order at 7:09 PM. 

AGENDA:  The agenda was moved for approval by Kingsley Melton.  It was
seconded by Arun Sen.  The agenda passed with no objections.

MINUTES OF PAST MEETINGS: 
The minutes from the February 16th meeting were distributed.  The vote on
these minutes will take place at the April meeting.

OTHER MINUTES
Lyle Smith was able to report on the Woodland and Winters Democrat Clubs.
There were no representatives from the Campus Dems or Young Dems.  Bob
Bockwinkel was able to report about the High School Dems and Young Dems.
The Lamppost Pizza Fundraiser was a success.  There was a discussion on how
better publicity should be done for Davis High School Democrat Club events.
It was stated that the DDC is fortunate to have Barbara Slemmons, our
publicity officer.  Bob reported that Scott Lay met with the High School
Dems.  There were 20 members in attendance.  Bob reported on the debate
between John Munn and Tanya Chalupa that was sponsored by the Young Dems.
Bob also stated that the Young Dems will possibly be at the next party
convention and will be working there.  No Action was required nor taken.  

PUBLIC COMMENT
Bob Milbrodt stated that he would like the club to sponsor a monument for
Thomas Payne in the Davis Central Park.  President Tony Gruska stated that
he would speak to Bob after the meeting to discuss this.  

Dan Berman stated that he would like the Davis Democrat Club sponsor a
statement in support of SMUD annexation for the City of Davis.  It was
stated that the City of Woodland and the City of West Sacramento's Democrat
have already done this.  Dan presented data and study results.  He stated
that the average household in Davis would save $45/month.  He also presented
data and stated that SMUD is the third largest provider of "green" power in
the state.  He stated that the Sierra Club has endorsed SMUD annexation.  

Bob Milbrodt wanted the DDC Board to vote on this.  Kingsley Melton stated
that we need to formally agendize this item to vote on it.  He made a motion
that this item be placed on the April agenda for a vote.  There was a
substitute motion that the DDC Board vote on this item at the present
meeting and not wait until April.  The motion died for a want of second.
Kingsley's motion was agreed upon by concensus.  No vote was taken and this
item will be placed on the April agenda.

TREASURER'S REPORT
It was announced that $11,811.49 was in the club's treasury.   We currently
have 128 paid memberships.  

APRIL GENERAL MEETING
Lyle Smith presented his outline for the April general meeting as chair of
this event.  The meeting would be on April 9th at Cantina del Cabo.  It was
stated that we needed more time to plan for this event and that having it
the weekend before Picnic Day may pose a problem in terms of attendance.  It
was decided that a May date for this event at Cantina del Cabo was best.  It
gave us more time.  It was also proposed that this meeting have no cover
charge and that it be used as a membership drive.  

Lyle stated that the theme of the event would be to combat the Republican
grand scheme to kill our communities with their "Starve the Beast" campaign.
The possible speakers at this event would be Steve Ybarra of the Pacific
Region Hispanic Causus or John Garmendi or Jim Provenza or Lois Wolk or a
combination of these people.   This event would aim at getting 400 people to
attend that normally do not attend Davis Democrat Club meetings.
Fundraising would be through the sales of t-shirts, buttons or bumper
stickers.  We would at this event aim at building coalitions between the
other activist political groups in Yolo County.  Tony will try to get the
Yolo Beat Bush contact list to invite the close to 1000 people that
supported that organization to attend this general meeting.  The whole point
of this is to energize and expand the base of people to get them to
volunteer.  We know that the people are out there that selected Howard Dean
as National Party Chair.  We need to rebuild the party from the bottom up.

Bob Bockwinkel supported the idea of no cover charge at the door.  He stated
that we can get 50 to 100 people to a meeting like this.  Kingsley stated
that in planning this event, we need to look past it and plan for the
future.  We need the volunteers for the future campaigns and he is in
support of this idea.  Adrienne stated that she was impressed by Lyle's
planning and liked what she saw in Lyle's outline and supports his proposed
event.  Lyle added another statement that he saw two groups of people -
people that regularly come to Davis Democrat Club events and people that
normally do not come to the DDC events.  This general meeting is aimed at
the latter.  Lyle finished up by saying that if we can get new  people from
this latter group energized at this general meeting in May, we can expect
higher turnout for the Champagne Brunch in June and we can expect more new
DDC members.  

CHAMPAGNE BRUNCH
Betty stated that she wished to step down as chair of this event.  Betty
stated that she had yet to reach the Cooke's and confirm a date for this
event.  The Cooke's seem not to be home in Davis at this time.   Mike
Syvanen said that he would step up to chair, if he could get help.  Mike
will chair the food for this event.  Bob Bockwinkel stated that he will pick
up the champagne and champagne glasses for the event.  Kingsley stated that
he can help with the orange juice.  Kingsley also stated that he would ask
the people and the potential keynote speaker to speak at the event.  Lyle
also stated that as he plans for his general meeting in May, he will ask
people if they would come to the champagne brunch and speak at this event.
We still need to nail down the date.  The general information is that the
event will be held at the Cooke's.  It will be held on a Sunday at the end
of May or more likely the beginning of June.  The time will be from 11AM to
2PM.  The event will not be on Mother's Day or Father's Day.  

CLUB NEWSLETTER
The March newsletter was dropped off at Betty's house and is ready to be
mailed.  Tony stated that the club still needs articles and photos for
future issues.  If you have club news, political issues or pictures to
contribute, please contact Tanya or Tony.  Betty had some concerns about the
newsletter not leading on the front page with club news.  Jim Pollock also
was concerned about the misspelling of his name. 

More seriously, it was discussed that we need to spend money on disposable
cameras to take pictures at events for the newsletter.  It was discussed
that we should just make sure that designated photographers are at the club
events.  Among the board members, there are 3 digital photographers (people
with digital camera's) that could supply pictures at no cost to the club at
events that they attend.  It was further stated that a 4th photographer,
Corky Brown could be asked to supply photos from club events that he attends.

Mary Lou stated again that we should be helping Tonya in submitting more
articles.  

BY-LAWS COMMITTEE
John Chendo, chair of the by-laws committee, did not make this meeting.  The
committee is still meetings and will be meeting a couple of more times
before the next meeting.  In the absence of John Chendo, Mike Syvanen spoke
on this issue.  

Before changes are made a copy of the revised by-laws will go to the board
for discussion and then a vote on whether or not to submit the revised
by-laws at a general meeting for ratification.

The By-Laws Committee was formed with the mandate to re-write the by-laws to
conform what is happening at the club meetings and club activities.  At the
last meeting, what happened is that the committee tried to rewrite and make
new changes to the by-laws, which would make the selection process of board
members more democratic, requiring elections to take place every year on a
rotating basis where board members would serve 3 year terms.  There were
other radical new changes proposed for these revised by-laws.  These
proposed changes go beyond the mandate given to the committee by the board.
Mike Syvanen therefore made the motion to suspend the committee and hold no
more meetings of the committee, until the chair of the committee could
attend a board meeting and a vote taken to reform the committee and give it
a new mandate.  

It was further stated that Mike Syvanen was the only member to have attended
all 4 of the committee meetings to date.  Mike was the person that made the
changes to the by-laws at each meeting and made is such that the revised and
annotated by-laws were distributed at each of the meetings.  The committee
has made substantial progress towards the goal of creating by-laws that
reflect the current operation of the club.  

Kingsley stated that to take such an action as suspending the committee was
not something that he could support without hearing from the chair of the
committee.  

Adrienne stated that she would like to see the new proposals.

Richard Yamagata stated that he was unhappy with the meetings being called
or changed on short notice.  Tony Gruska outlined the history of the past
meetings and how the times and date were decided by the chair.

The substitute motion submitted by Bob Bockwinkel was that John Chendo
should write up a majority and minority report on the by-laws, presenting
the updated by-laws and the by-laws with new rules.  It was stated that the
committee is evenly divided on this issue. 

Neither motion received a second and therefore no action was taken.  The
committee will meet at its next scheduled meeting time at 7:30PM on March
15th at Betty Weir's house.  

NEXT CLUB MEETING
The next club meeting will be on April 6th in the smaller conference room of
the Davis Branch of the Yolo County Library at 7PM.  The May meeting will be
on May 4th at 7PM. 

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Jim Provenza announced his event on March 5, 2005 at 5:00 Pm to 8:00 Pm.
The event will be at the home of Holly and Matt Bishop located at 1237
Drummond  in South Davis, CA 95616

Tony announced that he had received the City of Davis solicitation for the
4th of July booth participation.  This will appear on the agenda next month.
It was discussed and generally agreed that the booth should be educating
people about the issues and we should be trying to increase the membership
of the club.

Adrienne reported that she is working on the letter to be sent to Lois Wolk,
the Davis Enterprise and others about the club support for paper back-up of
electronically registered votes.  The letter will be from the Davis Democrat
Club executive board.  

ADJOURNMENT
Kingsley made the motion for adjournment of the meeting.  Arun Sen seconded
and the motion passed without dissent.  The meeting ended at 8:12PM.
G Richard Yamagata  PhD
CEO/President   VME Inc.   http://www.vme.net/

G Richard Yamagata is a member of the Davis Community Network Board of 
Directors, Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Davis Democrat Club, 
President of the board of Virtual Market Enterprises, Inc, Vice President of 
the Board of the Business Link of Woodland and Davis, and communications liason 
of the Independent Order of Oddfellows Chapter 169.

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