[Davis Democrats] DDC Board Meeting Minutes for May 6, 2008
G Richard Yamagata PhD
yamagata at virtual-markets.net
Tue Jun 10 16:13:45 PDT 2008
If you have corrections please submit them to yamagata at virtual-markets.net.
Davis Democratic Club Meeting Minutes
Tuesday, May 6, 7 pm - 9 pm
Place: Blanchard Room
Davis Branch, Yolo County Library in Davis.
315 East 14th Street.
This meeting was held at
Place: Blanchard Room, Davis Branch, Yolo County Library in Davis, 315 East
14th Street.
Present (12 board members total present -- 12 votes present -- We had a
quorum) were:
OFFICERS -- EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE BOARD MEMBERS
President: Arun Sen,
Vice President: Mike Syvanen
Treasurer: Betty Weir
Recording Secretary: G Richard Yamagata
Corresponding Secretary: Vacant
Membership Committee Chair: Carl Schmid
Publicity: Absent Barbara Slemmons
BOARD CHAIRS AND MEMBERS
Acting Past President: Absent Bob Bockwinkel, Past-Past President and
Newsletter Advertising,
Acting Newsletter Editor: Bill Ritter
Scheduling Committee Chair: Vacant
By-Laws Committee Chair: Jim Provenza
Board members: Lyle Smith, Rick Gonzales, Adrienne Kandel, Pam Nieberg, and
Barry Wilson
Ex-Officio Members of the Board: Absent
12 of 14 were present and
A Total of 14 active board members on the rolls.
Guests: 1 Guest, Halah Barre, was present from Lois Wolk's campaign office.
Absent: Bob Bockwinkel, Rick Gonzales, Barbara Slemmons -- (number
indicates how many meeting is a row have been missed. Excused medical
absences are not counted towards a quorum.) There have been 3 meetings
since the elections this year. By-laws state that board member cannot miss
3 meetings in a row or 3 out of 5 meetings in a five month period (meaning
you cannot just come to every other meeting and still remain on the board).
Absences can be excused by the President.
TOTAL: 12 of 14 Board Members were present.
Arun Sen called the meeting into session at 7:01 PM.
AGENDA
The agenda was approved MSB with no objection.
MINUTES
There were no minutes presented by the Recording Secretary, G Richard
Yamagata.
TREASURERS REPORT
Betty Weir was present and made the following report. At the beginning of
June the club had $4262.65 in the bank.
For the month of April, the following was the state of our treasury:
INCOME
Potluck and Dues $830.00
Expenses
Supplies: $30.39 (includes ledger)
Flowers: $85.07 (Sent by Board for funeral)
Newsletter $738.75 (includes printing and postage)
TOTAL EXPENSES $854.21
May 1 Balance: $4912.23 + $12,304.62 CD = $17,216.85 Grand Total
DETAILS
The expenses this past month were for ledger, flowers send by board for
board member G Richard Yamagata's father's funeral, post office mailing
costs and newsletter printing costs. G Richard Yamagata thanked the board
for sending the flowers. The board thanked Richard for the e-mail that he
sent out to the DDC e-mailing list.
Betty Weir noted that we have taken in $1318 from Potlucks in the last 4 months.
Betty also noted that the Newsletter Ads revenue has not been collected from
the businesses. There are only 3 advertisers that have paid to date for
their ads.
ACTION ITEM:
It was decided that a note should be sent to the advertisers. Bob
Bockwinkel should be contacted to let him know to send a note to the
advertisers to pay their dues.
EVENTS
FOURTH OF JULY BOOTH
A card came from the City announcing the event. Arun will drop off payment
for the booth. The club needs to pay $200 if it is going to serve any "hot
prepared food." The booth will have to pass health inspection. It was
decided that we will continue not to do this.
Bill Ritter announced that he will not be able to chair the event to the
degree that he did last year. He further announced that he had materials
left over from the booth last year. He said that the anti-Bush, Anti-Cheney
materials should still be relevant. He could set up the booth like last
year. After tonight's primary result, we should have Barrack Obama, Mike
Thompson, Lois Wolk and a nice display of our local candidates' materials
for the booth. Bill said that he would speak to the chairs of the various
campaigns for materials for the booth after the June 3rd election. Bill
asked for the help of Carl and Mike Syvanen. Mike Syvanen said that he will
be out of town for the 4th of July, but will help as much as he can until he
leaves the last week of June.
Carl stated that we could still distribute cookies and baked goods, as long
as they are not heated. There was no excitement about a bake sale or
selling soft drinks again this year.
CHAMPAGNE BRUNCH
Mike Syvanen stated that he was not able to get Howard Dean nor Mike
Thompson. Mike said that he would continue to try to contact McNearny.
Arun and Carl stated that they will try to contact Jerry Brown as a keynote
speaker for the event.
The event was announced for June 1. At this point there was a general
agreement among the board members that June 1 was a bad date. Many on the
board are busy with candidate election campaigns for June 3rd. Also, this
is a reason why we are having trouble finding a keynote speaker. It was
decided that Arun will contact the Cookes to see if June 15 (Father's Day)
or June 22 would be better. Bill Julian would be contacted as a back-up
location at his home. Other locations were discussed including the homes of
Norma Turner and Holly Bishop. Carl Schmid will hold off on producing and
mailing the invitations.
Board member volunteers were asked by the Cooke's to show up by 9AM to begin
set-up. There was a general discussion about the chairs that the club had
purchased. They have seemed to have disappeared. Arun stated that he will
contact Stephen Souza to find out if he knew where the chairs may be.
[This event is now on June 29th, Sunday, from 11AM to 2PM at the home of
Bill Julian.]
MAY GENERAL MEETING
Lyle Smith is the chair of this event. The event will be on May 29th at
Lamppost Pizza, 1260 Lake Blvd, in the strip mall that use to feature Ray's
Market. The event will last from 6 to 9PM. From 6 to 9 there will be a
social hour. From 7 to 8PM there will be speakers from various campaigns.
>From 8 to 9PM will feature speaker, Steve Ybarra (one of the Democratic
Convention Super Delegates).
The theme of the meeting is Party Unity. We need to pull together to win in
November! Unfortunately, the Obama people are out of town on that date for
a training meeting. We will have a Clinton representative and people from
the Charlie Brown, McNearny and Durston congressional races. Lyle will make
sure to have someone from the Obama campaign at this meeting.
There was some worry, that if there still was no clear Democratic
Presidential Nominee, that there would be contention at this unity meeting.
Lyle assured the board that all of Obama's people were for party unity and
will work for the Party in November. He also said that he will make sure
the the person representing the Hillary campaign would be constructive.
Lyle planned to address the meeting at the beginning and turn the meeting
over to Steve Ybarra. Lyle would take care of the one press release for the
event. This should be another successful May general meeting led by Lyle Smith.
At this point in the meeting, the agenda stated that we had coverted the
imediately important club events and the board would next examine an issue
brought before it by Bill Ritter.
DEMOCRATIC CLUB DELEGATE SELECTION PROCESS
Bill Ritter address the board about the issue of the choice of
pre-endorsement convention delegates. The club membership allows for 12
delegates to be sent to the state party run conventions. Bill went of the
history of the selection of these delegates by the club. He further
discussed what happened during this round of delegate selection. He stated
that he was concerned about the process. In selecting the delegates, 4 or 5
of the 12, were not current in their dues at the time of selection [all 12
selected delegates are current and upto date in their dues payments to the
club]. Bill stated that he felt that delegate selection should be a reward,
not a membership renewal tool. He wanted to board to be aware of this and
to make sure in the future that delegates selected are current, active
members of the club. The DDC Board is the body that is responsible for all
actions no covered by the by-laws.
The By-Laws were examined, and Barry Wilson said, they state that the board
can appoint a committee for any general purpose or need of the club.
President Arun Sen stated that a number of people were familiar with the
process of delegate selection, but none of them communicated that knowledge
to him. There was a gliche in communication. Last year, the club did not
select any delegates and the past president(s) did not inform Arun that the
delegates needed to be selected as part of validation of the club by the
State Democratic Party. [This may be the reason why the club was not listed
last year. The club is now listed with the State Democratic Party with the
selection of club delegates to the state conventions.] Arun stated that he
was made aware of the requirement of delegates selected by the club, only
two days before they were due. Only past-president Bob Bockwinkel was able
to supply any information about the selection process. Arun further stated
that no one from Mariko Yamada's campaign was involved in the selection of
the candidates.
Lyle Smith stated that we just need to plan ahead and get the process down.
We just calendar in the delegate selection and set a February deadline. We
need to utilize our commincation vehicles to inform the membership, next
year, as the process unfolds. The communication vehicles being the
newsletter and the e-mail listserve.
There was further discussion of the allegations made public by the Davis
Vanguard, an on-line Blog editored by David Greenwald and read by many, like
Barry Wilson. The Davis Vanguard allegation stated that Mariko Yamada's
campaign, through Brian Micek, had a hand in the selection of the Davis
Democratic Club delegates, to stack the pre-endorsement vote at the
convention. In the middle of the discussion over the allegations, Lyle
Smith wanted the minutes to show that Brian Micek was a Republican
registered as a declined to state. It was voiced at the meeting that this
was not only untrue, but the results of the convention showed that Davis had
no effect on the outcome of the vote of the convention. There were 73
delegate votes from the West Sacramento Democratic Club, alone, that voted
to endorse Cabaldan. There are many more delegates that are eligible to
vote at the convention.
After spending 30 minutes on this item, Vice President Mike Syvanen made a
motion to table discussion on this issue.
MOTION/VOTE
The motion was made to table all discussion of the Davis Democratic Club
delegates to the pre-endorsement convention. This motion was seconded by
Barry. The motion carried with two abstentions.
EVENTS continued
ICE CREAM SOCIAL at the home of Jerry and Teresa Kaneko.
Jerry Kaneko gave the club the choice of two dates, August 21 and August 28.
It was pointed out that the National Democratic Convention would be on going
on August 28. Therefore, it was generally agreed that we should have the
event on August 21.
BUDGET COMMITTEE
Chair Carl Schmid reported, nothing to report. [The club's budget in a
national election year with a campaign headquarters, is usually $39,000. We
are under half way there. Ry]
MEMBERSHIP COMMITEE REPORT
Carl Schmid reported that of 223 households that paid their dues last year,
131 have renewed, leaving 92 that have not renewed. Extrapolating from that
number, Carl reported that we can expect a maximum of $2000 to come into the
club through outstanding dues.
Membership Chair Carl Schmid asked for a policy decision from the board on
membership payment and current membership status. The record keeping is
such, that it is impossible to tell who is current in any given month if we
measure membership a year from the date that a person paid his dues.
MOTION/VOTE
Mike Syvanen made the motion that any dues paid by a member in the months of
November or December will be carried foward to the next year. Membership
will last until December 31 of the following year. The motion was seconded
by Adrienne Kandel and seconded by Barry Melton. The motion carried by
unanimous vote.
Membership Chair Carl Schmid wanted to inform the board about a new category
of donors and supporters -- called "Leading Donors." There are currently
two members that contribute at this level. These people are listed in the
newsletter to encourage others to become "Leading Donors" in support of the
club.
RECRUITMENT OF REPLACEMENT BOARD MEMBERS
We need more board members. Actually, we need younger board members.
President Arun Sen has appointed a committee to recommend new board members.
The committee will be made up of: Bob Bockwinkel, G Richard Yamagata, Carl
Schmid and Mike Syvanen.
Adrienne asked that an announcement appear in the Davis Enterprise and the
Davis Vanguard announcing that the club is looking for board members. It
was also asked that a message be sent to the list, asking for new volunteers
for the DDC Board.
The committee will identify applicants and place them on a list, which will
be submitted to the Board and the President. The first name submitted is
Bill Julian.
At this point in time, President Arun Sen asked the board if we should have
Term Limits. Term Limits as defined by the by-laws are only applicable to
the elected officers ("Up and Out"). The elected officers serve on the
board for their elected terms plus 1 year. The past officers are suppose to
give the club guidance to the new officers for one year. The rest of the
board is suppose to provide long term support of the club.
Mike Syvanen commented that people do not have an appointment for life. The
by-laws are written such that people that stop participating are dropped off
of the board.
President Arun Sen said that this did not seem an efficient method of
removing board members and would like a more formalized process, like 2 year
terms staggered in years that we do not have officer elections. The
question was brought up, does the board continue to elect the board members
or do the club members have to vote for the board members. Arun asked that
board think about this and that the subject be taken up at a later date.
NEWSLETTER
The acting newsletter editor is Bill Ritter. Bill reported that his staff
is overwhelmed by putting out the newsletter and with running a campaign
(for city council). He emphasized that when he took on this job, it was
only suppose to continue to February, the end of President Arun Sen's first
term. Bill stated that he wants someone else to take over the newsletter
after May.
Carl Schmid stated that he had a person to take over the technical aspects
of the newsletter, but this person needs help. [There was talk amongst the
board, that this person was having a baby, any day now.]
Bill Ritter once again went over the monthly timeline and deadlines for
putting out the newsletter and stated that it was highly labor intensive.
Bill said that the newsletter needs to be transferred to someone else,
because he was done, burned out.
President Arun Sen asked the board to seriously thinking of people that
could take over the newsletter for the club. There will be no newsletter
for June.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Our guest, Halah Barre talked about Lois' next fundraiser. She also asked
for the Board to endorse Lois Wolk for State Senator. The problem was that
new items need to be agendized before the meeting for the board to vote on
them. Such an endorsement request would be discussed and voted upon at the
next meeting in June. The board discussed this request and came to the
conclusion that the Davis Democratic Club already endorsed Lois Wolk. The
State Charter states that the clubs all must endorse the people endorsed at
the State Pre-Election Convention or Caucus or face having their charters
revoked. Lois was selected at the Pre-Endorsement Convention by the
Democratic Party, so the club was already supporting Lois. Halah was told
that she could tell Lois that the Davis Democratic Club supported her and
had our endorsement.
MINUTES AND REPORTS FROM OTHER CLUBS
Woodland Club
Lyle Smith announced that the Woodland Club had a new president (Mrs Marcus
moved from VP to President), and vice president. He also announced that the
club lost a meeting location. The Next Chapter bookstore closed.
Yolo County Young Dems
President Arun Sen stated that he will try to get either the President
Sydney Vergis or Vice President Colleen Hughby at our next meeting.
UCDavis Campus Dems
The vice president said that he was going to attend tonight's board meeting
with an endorsement proposal. He did not show up to the meeting. President
Arun stated that he would communicate with the Campus Dems about their
proposed event.
YCDCC
President Arun Sen reported that at the last meeting, the Central Committee
agreed that it will work through its staff with the individual clubs for the
establishment of campaign headquarters as well as campaign coordination.
The Central Committee's Executive Director, Claire Black Slotton will be
meeting and working with all of the individual club presidents. Lyle Smith
stated that he was inviting her to speak at the next General Meeting, which
he was chairing.
Another item discussed was the size of the Democratic Party Booth at the
Yolo County Fair. The cost of the current booth is $800. The cost of a
double booth is $1600 and the Yolo County Central Committee did not feel
that it could spend $1600. Arun stated at the meeting that the Davis
Democratic Club could come up with the extra $800. Carl stated that with
our single booth, the impact was that the booth was invisible.
MOTION/VOTE
Mike Syvanen made the motion that the Davis Democratic Club kick-in $800 to
purchase a double booth at the Yolo County Fair. Barry Wilson seconded.
The motion carried unanimously.
Adrienne stated that location is a key to a good booth presence. The board
agreed to talk to the two people on the fair board that it knows (one of
which is DDC Board Member Rick Gonzales) about getting a more central
location in the commerce building.
West Sacramento Club
Arun Sen stated that he was inviting Christopher Cabaldan to the DDC
meetings. He was able to increase the West Sac Democratic Club to 760
members. With such skill at increasing membership, Arun felt that
Christopher's insight would be valuable. There was further discussion on
this topic, that the West Sac club has in its by-laws that at least 10% of
the membership must be present for it to hold any votes or make any
decisions. The Davis Democratic Club does not have any such provision in
its by-laws, so any advice in increasing membership could be easily
implemented and adjusted.
KUDOS
President Arun Sen asked the board to recognize and applaud his past
editorship of the newsletter. The board gave Bill a round of applause and
its deepest thanks for a job well done.
Arun next asked the club to thank Betty Wier for her work on behalf of the club.
G Richard Yamagata thanked the Board and Club for sending the bouquet of
flowers to his father's funeral, which was used by the church for the
funeral and its next two services.
ANNOUNCEMEMTS
Halah Barre announced Lois Wolk's Campaign Headquarters Kick-off in
Stockton. [This has since occurred, but they were having a carpool for
people in Davis to attend.]
Arun Sen reminded all that Lois Wolk is endorsed by the Davis Democratic
Club. He also stated that Lois has been an active member of the club for
many, many years.
Other events announced were the May 29th General Meeting at Lamppost Pizza,
the Campus Dems Party that the club was suppose to be asked to sponsor, and
for everyone to vote on Election Day. Arun asked G Richard Yamagata to send
out a list of parties that Davis Democratic Club members are invited and can
attend on election night.
The meeting was adjourned by the President Arun Sen at 8:45PM
May 6, 2008 Meeting Minutes
Respectfully submtted by
G Richard Yamagata
G Richard Yamagata PhD
CEO/President VME Inc. http://www.vme.net/ http://vme.net/bcards/bio.html
Phone: 530-VIV-VMEI or 530-848-8634
G Richard Yamagata is a member of the Davis Community Network Board of
Directors, Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Davis Democratic
Club, President of the board of Virtual Market Enterprises, Inc,
Secretary-Treasurer of the board of the Davis Progressive Business
Exchange and communications liason for the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows Chapter 169 and the Business Link of Woodland and Davis.
For public service to the Democratic Party of Yolo County,
Recipient of the 2007 Williamson-Weir Award
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