LA Greens General Meeting - November 16, 2005 7pm
Facilitator: Derek Iverson
Minutes: Byron De Lear
Also Present: Cathy McKnight, Lisa Taylor, Michael Rochmes, Linda Piera-Avila, Erin Schmidt, John Wenger, Will Yaeger, Bob Smith, Genevieve Marcus, Bruce Campbell, Jason Neville and Sasha Karlick.
1. Introductions made around the room.
2. Will Jaeger wanted have an approve agenda vote.
3. John Wenger wants Green email lists open to be readable by anyone, specifically the LA County Council Lists, as an added agenda item
4. Agenda approved by consensus.
5. 'Rebuild Green' presented by Cathy McKnight - proposal to donate an amount of money to Louisiana Greens who are working at rebuilding New Orleans. Green Party member and community activist in New Orleans, Malik Rahim has an organization called REBUILD GREEN. Proposed amount of $50. No quorum when presented, however after two additional members arrived the meeting met the required 10 voting members of the Los Angeles Greens, and resolved to donate $50 to one of the two aforementioned organizations helping to rebuild New Orleans.
6. Byron De Lear for Congress. Campaign in California's 28th Congressional District. For Information visit please visit: www.DeLearforCongress.org - This last week candidate website went up and features some innovative media elements such as a 25 minute streamable "Green Talk Radio" interview with the candidate regarding Green Party strategy, the dysfunction of the two-party system and the myths of Free Trade. Three segments from "Reality Check Radio" hosted by the candidate De Lear, and grassroots activist Alex Montanez are also streamable in addition to speeches and commentaries written by De Lear. Last week's Green Party meet and greet at the Santa Monica Green's office with Maryland US Senate candidate Kevin Zeese, California Congressional candidate Byron De Lear and newly elected Pasadena City College Board Hilary Bradbury-Huang was attended by 20-25 Greens and members from other peace and political organizations such as Society of Friends, Progressive Democrats and the United Nations. Each gave a short speech followed by questions from the group.
Facilitator Derek Iverson urged the importance of this campaign to the Green Party in Los Angeles and how it would serve to really forward to Green Party's exposure and visibility. He made suggestions of talking about the need for change in DC and how sending a Green there would be sea change in American politics. We discussed different strategies for energizing the community to show up and vote for change.
7. Email Open-ness presented by John Wenger. We need transparency and there are ways to open the list. John wants LA Greens to assert that the county council list should be open in the interests of political transparency. Open-ness should be considered a fundamental quality of Green policy. Michael Rochmes said there will be 2 new county council email lists. Various opinions were expressed to keep lists open - and also letting only registered Greens access to lists. Resolved to make formal proposal at later meeting
8. Doo-Dah Parade on November 20th. "Green Prix: Ladies and Gentlemen STOP your Engines!" Presented by Lisa Taylor and Cathy McKnight with contribution by others.
Where: Meet at Old Town Pasadena, Raymond & Colorado.
When: assemble between 10:30am-11:00am. The Doo-Dah Parade celebrates the irreverent, outrageous or silly. Decorate your bike or yourself in keeping with a stop-global-warming-get-out-of-your car theme. All manner of alternative transportation will be there. Wear Green and decorate with Green!
Art Party for Parade on Saturday 10-2 at Peace Center - to make materials for parade. Derek said we need a uni-cyclist.
9. New Member Speakout: Jason Neville thinks we should get involved in the South Central Farmers action. And will speak at this item later in meeting (see below)
10. Scholarship: Green Party Petra Kelly Scholarship: One male and one female high school senior in LA - given to a young person who has demonstrated supporting one of the 10KV. Good way to outreach to youth. Through paid or volunteer work, activism, extracurricular activities-- $500.00 scholarship to be used for educational expenses during 06-07 academic year. Opinions expressed to ban scholarship reach beyond accredited schools to include alt. educational - presentation options with letter to HS. Vote for approval for Erin Schmidt's draft letter of scholarship. Where can recipient go to school?
11. South Central Farmers: Jason Neville and Bruce Campbell explained the situation with the South Central Farmers. Jason recently spent a night at the farm. 14 acres of community farming provides food for 360 families. Very densely planted crops in co-op ran by So. Central locals. City Back-room deal sold off land to a developer. People organizing to protest the sale of land and the shutting down of the farm. Very Green project as it supports community farming collective. Looking for a list of folks to do civil disobedience if farm threatened.
- Phone tree of LA Greens who support project organized by Jason Neville
- For more info check South Central Farmers website for more info. Events listed, concerts, benefits etc.
- Green secretary to draft letter of support from Los Angeles Greens
12. Vacancies in LA Greens offices: Media Person - Co-Facilitator - Events Coordinator.
Erin Schmidt stepped forward to take Co-Facilitator position. Byron De Lear agreed to act as Media Person as long as it doesn't conflict with his campaign.
13. We decided to uphold our tradition of the Dec. mtg. being a Holiday Potluck and Social (no business!). It will be on Dec. 21 and since that is also the Winter Solstice, Will suggested we call it the LA Greens Winter Solstice Holiday Potluck. Same time and date, 3rd wed, Dec. 21, 7-9pm. Vegetarian, No plastic and No soft drinks please (we have plenty of real dishes/utensils/cloth napkins at our office)