[Davis Democrats] TONIGHT: Davis Democrat Club board meeting on Wednesday, March 2nd

[G Richard Yamagata PhD]

Greetings Davis Democrat Club Boardmembers,

There is a board meeting tonight of the Davis Democrat Club.  All members
are welcome to attend.

Please find the minutes below from the January meeting.  There will be 20
copies of the agenda printed out for the meeting.  There will be 15 copies
of the minutes printed out from the January meeting.

Davis Democrat Club Meeting
February 16, 2005

This meeting was held at the Blanchard Room in the Yolo County Library. 
Present (15 members total) were:
President: Tony Gruska,
Vice President: Absent
Treasurer: Betty Weir	
Recording Secretary: G Richard Yamagata
Acting Past President: Bob Bockwinkel
Newsletter Editor: Committee representative present 
Publicity: Barbara Slemmons
Special Adjunct Membership Chair: absent
Parlimentarian: Arun Sen
Board members:  Rhonda Gruska, Mary Lou Hernandez,  John Chendo, Lyle Smith,
Mike Syvanen, Pam Neiberg, Adrienne Kandell,  Julia Sanchez.

Absent from Meeting:   Vice President, Kingsley Melton; Special Liaison,
Susan Peter-Thompson; Board Member Max Rothe; Board Member Jim Pollock;
Immediate Past Vice President, Joyce Wilson; Board Member, Rick Vulliet.

Guests:  There were no guests at this meeting.  All those present were Davis
Democrat Club board members.

Tony called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. 

MINUTES OF PAST MEETINGS: 
The minutes from the December 6th meetings were moved for approval by
Adrienne Kandell  and seconded by Arun Sen.  The minutes passed without
objections.

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


OTHER MINUTES
The Woodland Democrats were not at this meeting, even though a
representative from the group is on the e-mail list.   There were no
representatives from the Campus Dems, Young Dems nor High School Dems.
There was a Young Dems meeting this night, so no representative from that
meeting was expected.  No Action was required nor taken.  

TREASUERER'S REPORT
It was announced that $11,699.49 was in the club's treasury.   The club took
in $770 from the Valentine's general meeting and another $405 in dues.  We
currently have 118 paid memberships.  


VALENTINE'S GENERAL MEETING
Rhonda Gruska gave the report on this general meeting.  It was a successful
meeting with over sixty people attending.  The place was already decorated.
Mary Lou brought sandwiches, Mike Syvanen brought a dessert dish and others
brought other dessert items.  Electeds that attended and spoke were Jim
Provenza, Lois Wolk and Mike Machado.  Representatives for electeds were
Elly Fairclough for US Representative Mike Thompson and Mike Syvanen for
Mayor Pro-Tem, Sue Greenwald.  The only problem was that no photographer was
present at this event.  It was stated that whoever is chair of the event in
the future should make sure or arrange for a photographer is present.
Feedback was that this February event was well-coordinated, there was enough
food present and the publicity by Barbara Slemmons was very successful in
drawing people to this event.  May Lou stated that she woul have liked to
have been able to ask more questions before certain electeds left the event.
It was stated beforehand that it was known that two of the electeds were
coming from work and would make an appearance and leave for home from the event.

APRIL GENERAL MEETING
It was stated that past April general membership meetings were on coops and
political action subjects, like the Patriot Act.  Lyle Smith volunteered to
chair the April event.  He proposed that it center on Schwartzenegger and
his initiatives that he plans to have on the November ballot.  Lyle wants to
talk on how they will adversely affect teachers and health care throughout
the state of California.  He proposes to issue invitations to speakers that
represent teachers, PERS, redistricting,  and the CPR budget plans.
Arnold's theme or slogan is "starve the monster."  

Rhonda Gruska make the motion that Lyle will chair the April general
membership meeting and that its topic will be California voter initiatives,
providing information to help people vote Democrat on them.  Adrienne
seconded the motion.

Barbara asked that a plan be revealed before the next meeting.  She wanted a
date, time and place to be selected and that she be informed as publicity chair.

Betty stated that she wanted the event to be a potluck event.

Mike Syvanen stated that the meeting should focus on the state issues as
they are affected by party politics.  He also suggested that it should be
left open to bring in pertinent speakers on timely topics as the situation
concerning the voter initiatives develop.  Mike stated that even at the time
of the meeting, Arnold did not know what was going to be placed on the
ballot as a voter initiative.

John Chendo volunteered to help contact and bring in grass root speakers and
audience. 

Lyle will decide on the when and where the event will take place.

Lyle stated that on the 14th-15th of the month of April that a party
convention was taking place and that the event should be after that weekend.  

It was noted at this time that a thank you card should be sent to Rita
Martin and her retirement community for the use of their facilities for the
last general membership meeting.  

It was stated that Norma Turner of 506 Fillmore Court in Davis could be
asked to host this event.  

Adrienne asked at this time that a new agenda item be added -- paper
verification of ballots and the Secretary of Sate of California.  This was
added as the next to last item on the agenda.  

Betty stated that we need to let the club membership know about what voter
initiatives are good and which are bad.  Lyle agreed.

The motion was called as a question  where Lyle will set the program and ask
either Norma Turner or Rita Martin to act as host for the location and will
set the date and pass the information on to Barbara.  This motion passed 13
in support and 1 vote in opposition.

CHAMPAGNE BRUNCH
Betty volunteered to be chair.  Mike Syvanen said that he would help.  Tony
said that he would coordinate the invitations.  Betty will call the Cooks
and coordinate the date with them.  It will more than likely be in June.
Betty explained why they prefer to the have the event in June.  The
invitations will be in an envelope bearing the Democrat party donkey stamp.
The planned speaker will be Phil Angelides.  

CLUB NEWSLETTER
It was stated that Tonya said that she would not make every meeting.  She
was already working on the next two newsletters and that the March
newsletter was ready to be mailed out.  John Chendo stated that
representatives from the newsletter committee can report.  Tony stated that
the club can supply articles.  Mary Lou stated that we should be helping
Tonya out more.  This is where the newsletter committee comes in and we have
a set of proofreaders as noted in the newsletter.
 
BY-LAWS COMMITTEE
John Chendo, chair of the by-laws committee, reported to the board.  The
next by-laws committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at Betty's house at
7:30PM.  The purpose, he stated, was to formalize ourselves  and to cut down
the language in the by-laws.  Also, a goal is to clarify the meaning of each
section of the bylaws.  These are the main goals.  

On thing that John wants to achieve is to make the club more accessible to
the new people that have recently joined the club and that wish to become
more involved.    To that end, Betty Weir stated that we need to make the
general meetings better - more pertinent topics and programs to bring the
people to the meetings.  John Chendo agreed and said that we need more
better programs for each meeting.  As for the by-laws, John thinks that we
will need more side meeting on them before they are brought forth at a
general membership meeting.  John wants to hear more ideas about what have
been doing in the by-laws committee.  The process will take until April.  We
can have the by-laws approved by the board at the April meeting and then
approved by the general meeting later that month.  

Arun Sen disagreed with that time line assessment.  He stated that the
committee had spent lost of time going over the by-laws trying to understand
the intent of the language when it was written and to make sure that this
intent is clear to the first time reader.  He stated that he believed that
the by-laws will not be ready until 2 to 3 months after the April General
Membership Meeting.  John Chendo then agreed that it will more than likely
be a couple of month after the April meeting that the by-laws will be ready
to be voted upon.

NEW MEMBERSHIP
Rhonda stated that Lois Wolk commented that 77% of Yolo County voted for
Kerry.   She stated that she did not know why we cannot improve upon that.
Betty stated that she has a stack of cards with names of people that were
once Davis Democrat Club members and had not paid dues in years.  Many of
these people still receive the newsletter.  Rhonda volunteered to telephone
these people to get them to pony up membership dues.   

Tony stated that he is working with two people, Randy Millikin and Rita
Martin, to build the club database and list of members.

PAPER BALLOTS AND PAPER VARIFICATION
Adrienne Kandel stated that Freddy Oakley, the Yolo County Clerk, supports
paper verification of electronic ballots.  She is in the minority in the
state of California.  Adrienne proposes that we stand behind our county
clerk.  She  made the motion that we send a letter to Lois and Mike Machado
asking them to take up our position on voter verification on paper of any
vote taken in California.  John Chendo seconded the motion.  The discussion
settled on Adrienne writing the letter and Tony signing the letter on behalf
or the Davis Democrat Club Executive Board.  John Chendo agreed with the
statement.  He stated we should push our electeds by widely circulating the
letter.  We should also try to get an op ed piece published in the paper to
give our electeds an issue to address.  John Chendo volunteered to proofread
the letter.  The motion was made that Adrienne will write a letter to the
California State elections board and copy it to the newspapers.  The motion
carried unanimously.  

Lyle Smith commented that we should forward a copy of the letter to
MacPherson or whoever gets appointed as Secretary of State.  The Woodland
Democrat Club is already doing this.  We should get the signatures of all of
the board members on this letter.  He further stated that John Kerry is an
advocate of a paper trail for all presidential elections.




OLD AND NEW BUSINESS
Barbara asked that fixed dates be set for the April General Membership
Meeting and that she be informed so she can start promoting the event.
Rhonda made a motion to thank Barbara  her photo efforts on promoting the
Valentine General Membership Meeting and her past work on Davis Enterprise
photos to promote past club events.  

NEXT CLUB MEETING
Mike Syvanen asked that the meeting dates be standardized for the Club each
month.  It can be the first Monday through Thursday, but should be
standardized.  It was discussed which dates would not work for people.
Kingsley and Pam Nieberg cannot make the first Monday of the month.
Kingsley was ill tonight and could not make the meeting.  Betty seconded
this motion.  It was decided that the meeting would be the first Tuesday of
the month or as close to that date as possible as allowed by the Yolo County
Library's booking of the Blanchard Room.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Davis High School Democrats pizza fundraiser was announced.  


ADJOURNMENT
Barbara Slemmons moved for adjournment of the meeting.  Richard Yamagata
seconded  and the motion passed without dissent.  The meeting ended at 7:59 PM.