Libertarian Party of San Francisco Agenda: Saturday, February 13, 2016
Meeting Location: San Francisco Main Library – 4th Floor Conference Room
Welcome – Introductions 3:05-3:10
Activist Reports – Past & Future 3:11-3:35
Announcements 3:36-4:00
Membership/Newsletter Report 4:01-4:05
Treasurer’s Report 4:06-4:10
Transportation Panel Discussion (Sunday, April 10) 4:11-4:20
Pride (June 25-26) 4:21-4:25
Ballot Measure Arguments (due March 17) 4:26-5:00
Meeting Location: San Francisco Main Library – 4th Floor Conference Room
Welcome – Introductions 3:05-3:10
Activist Reports – Past & Future 3:11-3:35
Announcements 3:36-4:00
Membership/Newsletter Report 4:01-4:05
Treasurer’s Report 4:06-4:10
Transportation Panel Discussion (Sunday, April 10) 4:11-4:20
Pride (June 25-26) 4:21-4:25
Ballot Measure Arguments (due March 17) 4:26-5:00
Minutes of LPSF meeting of February 13, 2016
Minutes taken by Francoise Fielding
1 Welcome – Introductions
Present: Members: Aubrey Freedman (Chair), Françoise Fielding (recording), Starchild (arrived at 3:40 pm), Phil Berg (arrived at 4:40 pm) Guests: Chris LeMaster, Zhou Miao, Leonard Miretsky, Cliff Nelson (arrived 4:55 pm) Chris joined us because he took an online survey that told him he was libertarian and because he likes Ron Paul. Zhou came because he is interested Bitcoin and in starting a Bitcoin-like business. He finds there are more and more restrictions on personal liberty.
2 Activist Reports – Past & Future
Chris has been reading Meetup notes and saw that Starchild said the LPSF needed help with respect to members joining city commissions. He is interested in Entertainment (films) and the Small Business Commission. He is curious about the time commitment required. Leo has been registered as a Libertarian voter since he was a teenager. He tries to get views out on Facebook. Zhou wants to become active because Bitcoin is getting into trouble so he thinks being a Libertarian is important. Aubrey did newsletter. He is a member of a small property owners group for whose journal he plans to write an article on the parcel tax proposed for the June ballot. Starchild just came back from the Berkeley Polyamory Convention where he attended some talks. He will talk there informally tomorrow. He sees it as part of the liberty movement. Starchild trying to get current information on contacts for Young Americans for Liberty but has not gotten an answer. He is hoping to have a forum where there is a cross-pollination of students and the larger libertarian movement ie. an ongoing presence (because what has been happening so far is that when students cycle though things tend to end). In Fremont the American Muslim Council is holding a “Hands Around the Mosque Interfaith Action” for civil liberties. Starchild has been playing phone tag with them. The Democratic state convention is being held February 24th. Starchild is going. There is a marijuana advocacy group. He wants to connect with them. He went to Republican convention a few years ago.
3 Announcements
* The Golden Gate Liberty Revolution meets the third Monday of every month at the Moksha Life Center at 405 Sansome Street. The next meeting is Monday February 15th 7-9 pm.
* There will be a tabling organized by Niike at SFSU on Tuesday March 1 (from 5:30- 8:30 pm in Jack Adams Hall). Niike has graduated but is still involved with Young Americans for Liberty which is active on the campus.
*Free Exchange has a Social (at Jim Elwood’s in Parkmerced) on the 1st Saturday of every month. There is often a speaker. The next one is scheduled for Saturday March 5th from 7- 11 pm.
*The Libertarian Party’s California convention will be held Friday April 1 from 9 am to Sunday April 3 at 5:30 pm. Hilton LA Airport- 5711 West Century Blvd.
* The Libertarian National convention will be held Memorial Day week-end: Friday May 27th 9 am to Monday May 30th noon at the Rosen Centre Hotel and Resort in Orlando Florida.
*We received a membership renewal form from Californians for Electoral Reform. We will renew with them for $25.
4 Membership/Newsletter Report
We are down 2 people. There are 19 lifetime members and and paid-up membership is 19. A couple of people lapsed at the end of January. Aubrey thinks we may get some back. The Newsletter membership is unchanged. Aubrey sent it to 224 people. He heard from one person who asked to be added and one who bounced. He got 6 comments.
5 Treasurer’s Report
We are doing well. Our bank balance is Balance $4,931.93. We have $387.68 in Paypal. There is a Paypal fee of $15.11. Our total is $5,319.61
We got an unexpected Paypal donation from a woman who gets the newsletter and came to one of our meetings years ago. She was part of “Restore the 4th" (Amendment).
6 Transportation Panel Discussion (Sunday, April 10)
The Speakers are confirmed. Starchild is willing to be the MC. The speakers each want 20 minutes to speak about their ideas at the beginning. Tom Rubin will go first and will have charts etc. His interest is land use and transportation as opposed to light rail. He will talk about plan “Bay Area”. Gerry Cauthen is more pro “good” government but opposes the central subway. He is a technocrat engineer interested in making things run on time. He is with “Save Muni”. Aubrey needs an overhead projector. He may be able to borrow one from work or rent one. Marcy will help with publicizing the event.
7 Pride (June 25-26)
Aubrey hasn’t had time to do anything yet. He went to the Libertarian activist training in Burlingame. Andy Burns talked about outreach. He said when they do outreach in Minnesota they try and do something “catchy” rather than just have Libertarian on their banners. Several ideas were batted around. Starchild suggested something interactive would be good. Some ideas were:
*A wheel with recently enacted laws and an arrow you could spin. You would get a prize if the law you ended on increased liberty- ha;) *Stand up comedy. *An inflatable blow up boxing ring (can be rented for $180 a day). Have people make a donation to get in the ring. Have a donkey costume and an elephant costume and encourage people to cheer one or the other on. *Having a parade presence. The Pink Pistols will be marching. We might be able to get libertarians from the Bitcoin community to march. Paige from the Bitcoin meetup might be willing to help. * A micro-aggression float.
8 Ballot Measure Arguments (due March 17)
There are about 5 of them.
The one we are the most concerned about is:
“The San Francisco Bay Clean Water, Pollution Prevention and Habitat Restauration Program” submitted by the San Francisco Bay Restauration Authority. It imposes a parcel tax of $12 on every property in 9 counties. We oppose it because for one thing it is a tax, for another these people weren’t elected, they were appointed for a different job.
The other one we are particularly concerned about is “Transportation 2030: Smart investments for a Better Future” submitted by Mayor Lee. This is a Declaration of Policy which sets the stage for future revenue ballot measures. There are 4 steps to this. Last year they passed a bond measure. This year they want to increase the license fee for cars from 0.65% to 2%. Later they will increase the sales tax, then propose another bond measure. It is written in such a mellow fashion that Aubrey thinks it is sure to pass.
Aubrey will write ballot arguments for these two and Starchild will go over them afterwards.
Three more measures concern Affordable Housing.
There is an Affordable Housing Streamlining Act proposed by Supervisors Wiener, Cohen, Tang, and Farrell. We would not oppose this because it seems to be cutting back on requirements and requires less bureaucracy.
The final two measures are: An “Ordinance amending the Planning Code to maximize inclusionary or affordable housing obligations for housing development projects based on economic feasibility studies” proposed by Mayor Lee and. An ordinance “Setting Minimum Inclusionary Affordable Housing Fee Requirement” proposed by Supervisors Kim, Peskin, Avalos, and Campos.
These last two are competing ordinances which increase what you have to build as affordable in order to be able to build at all.
Aubrey will contact someone he knows who has indicated an interest in running for a BART position. Even if he doesn’t win running even a minimal campaign could focus attention on issues such as getting the restrooms reopened and get a significant amount of votes.