Meeting of 8 August, 2009

 

Minutes of the LPSF Meeting of August 8^th, 2009

 

 

Members Present: Rob Power (Chair) presiding, Francoise Fielding (Secretary) recording, Michael Edelstein, Marcy Berry, Les Mangus, Ron Getty, Richard Winger, John Bryner, Starchild, Michael Denny, Phil Berg, Tim Kuklinsky

 

Introductions: John Bryner is attending his first meeting.

 

 

Officer's Reports:

 

• Treasurer:  Marcy Berry reported that we started with a balance of $2,616.31. Marcy paid $39.05 for the stamps for today's in-meeting activism, resulting in a new balance of $2,577.26. We have $60.64 in petty cash and Rob Power made an in-kind contribution of $14.95 for Site Ground Web Hosting. We have a final balance of $2,652.85

 

• Secretary:

            Francoise Fielding had nothing to report.

            The Minutes of the Meeting of July 11^th, 2009 were approved.

 

• Vice Chair: Ron Getty had nothing to report as Vice-Chair.

 

• Chair: Rob Power reported that he has been recovering from June and just doing administrative stuff such as cleaning up the website.

 

Committee Reports

 

• Outreach and Newsletter: Starchild had nothing to report on Outreach. He is running email lists re prostitution and marijuana. He reminded us that he was arrested in South Dakota for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia which is a felony in that state. He will probably have to go back to face charges next month.

            Rob Power will be sending out (about 400) postcards with the results of today's            straw poll on the November ballot initiatives and inviting people to come and vote     at the September meeting. He reminded people to submit articles for the website.      They should be on local issues or big national issues like health care.

 

• Bylaws: Rob has still not received the county template from Beau Cain. He says that he and Jawj Greenwald (who volunteered to help him) will probably have to start from scratch in drafting bylaws for the LPSF.

 

• Website and Database: Rob Power indicated that the hack scare was just a Joomla security hole. We weren't targeted. Rob patched it so we are ok.

            Starchild wants to post things that he has put on sfgate and asked Rob to send him         his password because he has forgotten it.

 

• Membership and Fundraising: Marcy Berry reported she sent out one packet. We received some returned postcards. She will send the addresses to Ron so they can be removed from our mailing list.

 

• Initiatives: Ron Getty reported that the Board of Supervisors got cold feet and didn't put tax issues on the November 3rd ballot. The five propositions on the ballot (four were placed there by the Supervisors and one by the initiative process) are as follows:

            Prop. A - Charter Amendment: Budget Process

            Prop. B - Charter Amendment: Board of Supervisors Aides

            Prop. C - Ordinance: Candlestick Park Naming Rights 

            Prop. D - Ordinance: Mid-Market Special Sign District

            Prop. E - Ordinance: Advertisements on City Property

 

• Campaigns: Starchild says there is a special election for Congress in the  East Bay. There is no libertarian running but a Ron Paul Republican, Gary Clift, seems good on everything except for  border immigration issues.

 

• Social Networking:  Rob Power says we need to improve. We should keep looking for people. If you see a Libertarian who is always on phone/ twitter, recruit them.

 

 

Announcements:

Michael Edelstein announced that the Mises Institute is having a conference in San Francisco on August 28th at the Intercontinental Hotel. The topic is  "Dealing with Economic Depression".  Speakers include: Walter Block, Thomas DiLorenzo, Douglas French, Lew Rockwell and Robert Murphy. 

Michael offered a  "War is not the answer" sticker he had received.

Starchild said that if you mention mention Ron Paul  you get 15% off the Mises event.

John Bryner is in between jobs and wants to volunteer his time.

 

 

 

Old Business

 

• Top Two Primary:  Richard Winger says he has a Google news alert for "Open Primary" and got a lot of messages in July but that seems to have petered out.This is not too worrisome because it is a long time before the election.

            A motion was made and carried to approve the mailing which is the subject of   today's in-meeting activism.

 

• Discussion of Initiatives on November Ballot:

Starchild made a motion to discuss the ballot initiatives as  a general category of when it is good or bad for the government to get more revenue. There was no second so the initiatives were discussed individually.

 

Prop. A - Charter Amendment: Budget Process:

This proposition would amend Charter provisions concerning the budget as follows:

*Each year the City would adopt a two-year budget.  This new process could

  begin for some departments in 2010 and would begin for the rest in 2012. This

  process would be implemented in two ways:

            -The normal procedure would be for departments to develop a rolling two-

              year budget that would be adopted annually.  

            -The Mayor and the Board could instead establish fixed two-year cycles                         for some or all departments.  For those departments, the two-year budget

              would be adopted every two years.  

* The City would be required to adopt a five-year financial plan. The plan would

    include a forecast of expenditures and revenues, and proposed actions to

    balance them in light of strategic goals.

            * Before the Board of Supervisors could adopt the proposed budget the    

   Controller would have to show where money is coming from. If not, the    

   Supervisors would have to send it back and revise it.

Some arguments in favor: It gives us a heads up on what taxes might be coming along; it stabilizes the budget process whereas now the government gives raises when things are good and when things are bad, it makes drastic cuts; anything that tells us where the money to be spent is coming from is good; the process is contentious and takes up time, which is good because if the government is more efficient it may have more time to devote to other things which we don't want.

Some arguments against: we don't want to micromanage the government; this gives the government more legitimacy; we don't trust the government to monitor itself.

Starchild thinks there was already a provision enacted in  previous years that required the government to show for any new program where the money was coming from. We should research this.

            A straw poll on this item showed 6 votes supporting the proposition, 1 opposing            and 3 undecided.

 

Prop. B - Charter Amendment: Board of Supervisors Aides

Currently the Supervisors are allowed two aides each. This proposition would allow the Supervisors to add more aides.

A straw poll on this item showed 10 votes against the proposition.

 

Prop. C - Ordinance: Candlestick Park Naming Rights 

This proposition allows the Parks and Recreation Department to sell the naming rights to Candlestick Park and to spend 50% of the revenue from the naming agreement to fund recreation center directors. This is not a clear-cut issue. The initial use of "force" was getting the money to spend on building the stadium. The money from the naming rights may mean that taxes may be raised less.

A straw poll showed 2 votes in favor of this proposition, 3 against and 5 undecided. One person abstained.

 

Prop. D - Ordinance: Mid-Market Special Sign District

This measure would create exceptions to the city-wide ban on new general advertising signs and the prohibition against general advertising in the Market Street Special sign District. It would allow general advertising signs in a new special sign district in an around Market Street between 5^th and 7^th Streets. Twenty to forty percent of the funds would go to a government  favored non-profit organization to give art training to kids in the Tenderloin area, build a ticket booth in Hallidie Plaza etc. Rob Power says it restricts to a government favored non-profit the right to do something that, a few years ago, anyone could do.

A straw poll showed 0 votes in favor and 12 opposed.

 

Prop. E - Ordinance: Advertisements on City Property

This proposition would prohibit an increase in advertising signs on city property. This would hurt Muni to the tune of about $15,000,000 so they would have to get the money from somewhere else. Rob says it is like restricting the number of taxi medallions. It makes the ones that exist more valuable.

A straw poll showed 0 votes in favor, 4 opposed and 8 undecided.

 

• Free Ballot Arguments are due August 13^th by noon. A motion was made and carried unanimously authorizing Starchild to submit one or more free arguments in opposition to Proposition B (increasing Supervisors' aides). He has to provide Rob with sufficient notice so that Rob can go down to City Hall with him.

 

New Business

 

• Cindy Sheehan did not show up

 

• Decision on whether to continue after-business socials

            Since the after-meeting socials are not well attended and we don't have to order            food to justify our using our meeting space, the question is whether we want to         continue holding the socials. One of the reasons for holding them could be           allowing people to tell us what they are doing. On the other hand we can allow   people to speak during the meeting. On the motion of whether or not to publicize    the socials, there were 5 votes opposed and 6 in favor. The after-hours social will            continued to be mentioned in the packets Marcy sends out and on the website.