Meeting of 12 November, 2016

Minutes of the Libertarian Party of San Francisco
November 12, 2016, San Francisco Main Library, 4th Floor Conference Room
Written by Aubrey Freedman

Attendees:
Phil Berg, Philip Chi (guest), Aubrey Freedman (Chair), Les Mangus (Treasurer), Nick Smith, Starchild, Ivy Valory (guest), and Jason Williams.

Activist Reports:
Philip and Nick both attended and helped to make the Gary Johnson rally in Sacramento on Friday, November 4 a successful campaign event. It was held in a banquet hall and attendance looked to be around 1,000. Nick also helped canvas for Gary Johnson here in The City and helped with the graphics for submitting the LPSF ads that were run in The Guardsman (CCSF), the Golden Gate Xpress (SFSU), and West Portal Monthly. Ivy entertains a lot and discussed politics were her guests. Aubrey canvassed for Gary Johnson and Joel Engardio and attended the Anonymous “Guy Fawkes Mask” rally in The City on November 5. Starchild did an interview on KALW regarding the Prop 58 (English Proficiency and Bilingual Programs) and advocated a NO vote. He also created a new Twitter account for the LPSF, did a presentation at St. John’s High School, and also did a presentation for sex workers at a private school in Marin County (Dominican College) that accepts no taxpayer money. He also started a post-election petition on Change.org urging the Electoral College electors to vote their conscience and vote for neither of the major party candidates; he reported that the number of signatures jumped up to 5,000 within a day or two.

Announcements:

• Sunday, November 13-noon to 3:00 PM-Day of Healing & Reconciliation-Our own Marcy Berry will represent the Libertarian perspective-Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Marin-240 Channing Way in San Rafael-$10 suggested donation.
• Saturday, November 19-9:00 AM-5:00 PM-LPCA state executive committee meeting open to the public-Mudraker’s Café in Berkeley near the Ashby BART station (starting time later changed to 10AM).

Membership/Newsletter Report:
Aubrey reported that membership is up by 3 to 46 (21 lifetime members and 25 current paid up annual members). (Nick joined the party during the meeting, so that now makes it 26 current + 21 lifetime = 47 members.) The state membership listing is still all messed up, and Aubrey plans to attend the state executive committee on November 19 and raise a fuss about the state database records. There was no newsletter in October due to extensive work on canvassing and the ballot measure write-ups for our website.

Treasurer’s Report:
Les reported that our coffers are still in good shape: in our Bank of America account we have $4,742.61, and in our PayPal account we have $523.82, for a total of $5,266.43. He noted that expenses totaling $1,180.50 for election-related expenses (3 ads in local newspapers and Facebook advertising) have not been turned in yet for reimbursement, so when they are paid out, our balance will drop to $4,085.93.

Website Webmaster:
Aubrey brought up the fact that Marcy has been taking care of the website for years and would like to pass it on to someone else. Nick volunteered for Webmaster duties, and Aubrey said that he will put Nick in contact with Marcy so he can find out exactly what is involved.

Twitter Account Guidelines:
Since our last meeting, Starchild set up a new Twitter account in the LPSF’s name. He “followed” about 100-110 and now he has about 15 “followers” on our account. The problem is now giving access to other people who may tweet un-Libertarian comments in the party’s name. One idea was people could tweet to Starchild and he could retweet their comments, but that would be a hassle. Another one was to set up a separate retweeting LPSF members’ account. Nothing firm was decided or voted on.

November Election Wrap-up:
Aubrey reported that Gary Johnson received 5,922 votes (2.09%) in San Francisco this time as opposed to 4,096 (1.13%) four years ago. No surprise that Clinton got 84.32% of the vote this time as opposed to Obama’s 83.40% in 2012. Interestingly, despite all the hoopla over the Presidential campaign this year, even though total registration for San Francisco County only increased slightly this year to 514,502 from 502,841 in 2012, the percentage of folks who voted dropped way down from 72.56% in 2012 to 55.88% this time. There were several states where Johnson did hit the 5% threshold: New Mexico-9.3%, North Dakota-6.3%, Alaska-5.9%, Oklahoma-5.7%, Montana-5.6%, South Dakota-5.6%, Wyoming-5.3%, Maine-5.1%, and Colorado-5.0%. Local Libertarians from San Mateo County Harland Harrison and Lois Garcia, who both ran for the Sequoia Healthcare District, did not get elected but pulled in respectable numbers at 15.5% and 15.2% respectively. Brian Thiemer who ran for the Fairfield City Council garnered a decent 16%, and Baron Bruno (who was a write-in candidate in California Assembly District 62) got 5.1% of the vote. There were, as expected, huge differences on the state ballot measures between how San Francisco County voted and how the rest of the state voted, but the only measures where the end results were different were Prop 61 (state prescription drug purchases) where SF approved by 52.4% but the state only approved by 46.2%, Prop 62 (repeal death penalty) which was approved by 70.5% in SF but only 46.2% by the state overall, and Prop 66 (reduce time limits for death penalty appeals) which was only approved by 31.7% in San Francisco but got 50.9% statewide. Local ballot measures went pretty much as expected with all taxes, bonds, and set-asides being approved by the voters except Prop H (public advocate) which only received a 46.92% approval vote and Prop K (sales tax increase) which only received a 34.95% YES vote.