Meeting of 14 November, 2009

 

 

Minutes of the LPSF Meeting of November 14^th, 2009

 

 

Members Present: Rob Power (Chair) presiding, Francoise Fielding (Secretary) recording, Marcy Berry, Ron Getty, Michael Edelstein, Richard Winger, Leslie Mangus,  Starchild.

 

Non-members: Robert Vincent. He used to be a Republican. He is now a member of the National LP.

 

Officer's Reports:

 

• Treasurer: Marcy Berry reported that last month we had  $2,419.01 in our Bank of America account. Marcy paid the Market St. Mailhouse for the whole year: $240, leaving $2,179.01 in the account. We have $20.64 in petty cash. Marcy reports that we are spending more than we are taking in.

 

• Secretary: Francoise Fielding had nothing to report.

            The Minutes of the meeting of October 10^th, 2009 were approved.

 

• Vice Chair: Ron Getty had nothing to report.

 

• Chair:  Rob Power reported that his husband Kai has received an offer for a job in New York City. He has not accepted yet. However, we should start looking for a new meeting place. In the best case scenario we can use the conference room at Rob's until May. In the worst case we can only use it until February. So we should plan on moving the meeting elsewhere as of February (see below).

            Rob has had people drafting him to run for LNC Secretary at the next LNC      Convention in St. Louis. The most important part of the job is that the Secretary is             a voting member of the Libertarian National Committee and we need someone who is politically correct in that position.

 

Committee Reports

 

• Outreach and Newsletter: Starchild was absent.

                        *Activist Forum: Starchild was not present to make his presentation.

 

• Bylaws: Rob Power wants to draft a new set because our present ones are old. He wants to base them on the Robert's Rules of Order from 1915 which are in the public domain. The State Party Chair said the National Party uses the new copyrighted version and they are trying to train everyone to use the new version. The LPSF agrees with Rob that we should use the version in the public domain.

 

• Website and Database: Rob Power reports that everything is working well. He reiterated his plea to the members to provide content.

 

• Membership and Fundraising:  Marcy Berry reported that we have not received dues or inquiries for a while. We are really on our own and have to accept a certain amount of dysfunction. Ron Getty and Rob Power will merge whatever information we last received from the LPCA Secretary and send out a postcard reminding people that LPSF elections are in January and they should renew their membership.

 

• Initiatives: Ron Getty drafted two initiatives: one on "Tax Relief for First Time Homebuyers" and the other on "Tax Relief for Small Business Owners". We don't have the money to get these initiatives on the ballot properly which would, among other things, involve hiring a law firm. We don't even have the money for brochures. To do this as a non-charter amendment would require our gathering 18,000 signatures which is also beyond our capabilities. If the Board of Supervisors gets behind an initiative it just takes four Supervisors to put something on the ballot, so we will send copies to each member of the Board of Supervisors as well as to other interested parties like real estate brokers. We can do this as in-meeting activism. There was a discussion as to how to define a first-time homebuyer. We agreed that the best solution is to define it the same way as the Federal Government does for the home- buyer's credit. We need to form alliances with other interested parties to influence the discussion. We did this previously with pushing for foot patrols in hot spots. It just didn't get acknowledged as having come from us. A motion was made to postpone the rest of the discussion to New Business (see below).

 

• Campaigns: Christina Tobin is running for California Secretary of State as a Libertarian. Leslie Mangus has volunteered to be her Treasurer and Richard Winger will be her Campaign Manager. She will need other help such as people to go door to door. She has made a  decision that she will not talk about things that don't relate to the position of Secretary of State so Rob wants to give her a chance to show us she is a Libertarian. She is in traveling today so she is to call us later during the meeting so that she can make a statement and allow us to ask questions.

 

• Social Networking: Rob Power reported that we have our LPSF page on Facebook and as many members at least as the previous LPSF Facebook page. It would be good to have a presence on Twitter but  to have people follow us we need to tweet at least once daily and we need someone to take charge of that.

 

Announcements:      

 

Marcy Berry announced that tomorrow  the Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty people and  the Bay Area Patriots are having a "sick-in" at in Justin Herman Plaza from noon to 4 pm. Anyone interested should join them.

Michael Edelstein announced he has a new computer but can't seem to do email so anyone wishing to contact him for the moment should call him instead of emailing.

 

 

Old Business

 

Meeting location. The conference room in Rob Power's building is reserved through May but we should find a new place to meet sooner if possible. Options in the past that were well supported included meeting in the Public Library and meeting in the community room at the Richmond District Police Station (461 6th Avenue at Geary).

The Public Library's disadvantages are that no food or drinks are allowed and that you can't be guaranteed to get a specific room. On the other hand, it is readily accessible by public transportation.

The second option is the community room at the police station. No food or drink is allowed there either. But at 6^th and Geary there are plenty of restaurants. In favor of the community room at the police station is that when our meetings were at 16^th and Geary we had better attendance. It is very accessible by public transit. A motion was made and carried to authorize Ron Getty to reserve the room at the police station starting in February for our usual date and time. If Ron is able to reserve the room we will vote at our next meeting to officially change the meeting place and announce that on the website.

Ron will find out if there is parking at the police station for people who use the community room.

 

New Business:

 

• Initiatives:  The discussion on Ron Getty's initiatives (see above) was taken up  again.

            A number of changes to the initiative on "Tax Relief for Small Businesses" were                         discussed.

            Robert Vincent suggested renaming the initiative: "Tax Relief for Employment                 Creation".

            A straw poll was taken as to which of the two proposed initiatives people prefer.

            There were four choices:

            1) Initiative on "Tax Relief for First Time Homebuyers". Received 3 votes.

            2) Initiative on "Tax Relief for Small Business Owners". Received 6 votes

            3) Both Initiatives. Received 0 votes

            4) Neither Initiative. Received 1 vote.

A motion was made and carried to table the formal vote to the December meeting. Ron will redraft the initiative on "Tax Relief for Small Businesses" incorporating the changes discussed and  further discussion will take place by email on the Activist list before the vote at the next meeting.

              

            Starchild suggested that we need instead to bring forth an initiative that appeals             to the left wing in San Francisco. He doesn't want to draft one like Ron did but                       suggested three topics which were voted on as follows:

            1) Measure on police abuse/ accountability. Received 1 vote.

            2) Measure on salary cap for city officials at $99,999. Received 0 votes.

            3) Measure on decriminalizing prostitution. Received 2 votes.

            The total of the votes in favor of these measures (3) is half the votes in favor of               the initiative on "Tax Relief for Small Business Owners".

 

Starchild wanted to add a discussion on the Activist Forum which was                      scheduled for earlier in the meeting when he was absent. It was decided to put it        in New Business for next month (5 minutes). Starchild needs to post the hand- out he distributed at the meeting on the Activist list so there can be an email        discussion and we don't need to waste time at the meeting.

 

• Officer Nominations (nominations remain open until voting at the January                     meeting).

            Rob Power and Francoise Fielding are not running again (or available to be                   drafted).

            Marcy Berry was nominated for Chair and is willing to run.

            Ron Getty was nominated for Vice-Chair and is willing to run.

            Leslie Mangus was nominated for Treasurer and is willing to run but will be                    unavailable during tax time.

Rob suggested we try to recruit Phaedra Fisher (who has come to an LPSF meeting and attended the LPCA Convention and the PRI Institute benefit this year) as an officer. Phaedra was an intern at PRI twenty years ago.

 

• Christina Tobin called and gave us an update on the status of her campaign.

            She will start campaigning when she gets back from Chicago. She has joined the                        LPCA. She has put out a bid for someone to create her website. She has a                         consulting firm (Brasher) for press releases. She has a company willing to                             provide free brochures. She will need people to help with fundraising letters,                    bumpersticker promotion and reaching out to people nationwide (sic). She is not                        comfortable discussing other issues for the outside press until the presidential                         election in 2016 (sic). Christina was asked about the issue of the war in                              Afghanistan and said she agreed with Ron Paul. Re the non-aggression principle,                      she said she couldn't answer one way or another.