3/12/16 Green Party CC Meeting 

Members present: Betsy Barnum, Lena Buggs, Amber Garlan, Andy Hamerlinck, Hassan Hassan, Jim Ivey, Brandon Long, Carol Mellom, Andy Schuler

Facilitator: Andy Hamerlinck

Note Taker: Betsy Barnum

Approve Agenda  –

• The agenda was approved by consensus.

Approve Minutes from last meeting

• The minutes from the 2/6/16 CC meeting were approved by consensus.

Treasurer’s Report

Jim will email Julie Madden to ask why the projected rent for March is $550, which is more than double our monthly rate of $225. There is an increase of $50 in auto deposits from $678 to $723 from the Winter Membership Meeting January 23, 2016.

There are NationBuilder sustaining donations through PayPal of $66.76.

Fundraising Committee—Amber 

The fundraising goal for March is:

• 25 new donors
• membership drive
• party for donors to pick up donor gift

Membership/People Committee—Andy Hamerlinck

The main work now that caucuses are over is to support recruiting candidates for Soil and Water Board. Several have been identified to reach out to. In addition, we’ll be supporting the Biennial Convention.

Jim reported that new features in NationBuilder allow people to be identified in several different categories and searched for that way—for example, someone who is interested in being a member, volunteer and donor, we can find them when there is an opportunity they to volunteer or donate. Jim will enter the information from caucus sign-up sheets.

Organization Committee--Betsy

The revised CC Policies have been posted in GoogleDrive.

Communication Committee—Brandon

The GPMN now has 2,077 followers on Facebook and 1,176 on Twitter. The greatest impact for “liking” the memes on FB is to like them on the GPMN page rather than pages where they are reposted.

 The Sunflower Seed went out last week. We’ve gotten a good amount of TV and radio c overage around caucuses, including an interview with Brandon on KARE-11. Other media coverage of GP caucuses were Fox News in Duluth, Public TV in Bemidji, and Becki Smith interviewed on MPR.

The new website is coming along, and needs only a little more work to be in use. It is clearer and better organized, less cluttered and easier to navigate.  FB, Twitter and our blog will be on the front page, along with a sign-up form at the bottom. We will need to discuss how to integrate locals into the new site with pages they can update. Even in places where there is not a local, if someone is willing to post things to a page, it could generate interest.

 Politics—Lena

Thursday 3-17-16 will be the first meeting of the just-opened session for the Politics Committee at the capitol, at 11 am at the Transportation Building.

 Hennepin County does not have its own Soil and Water Conservation Board anymore, as it was folded into the Hennepin County Board. However, Wayne Pauluk has come forward as willing to run for Hennepin County Board as a Green after Lena talked with him about SWB. He is going to seek GP endorsement, and as he is in CD 3, which has no organized local, his screening and endorsement will be the responsibility of the CC. He will need to remove the words on his FB page implying he is already Green-endorsed until he is actually endorsed by an official unit of the party.

Other SWB candidates running or thinking about it are Gina Vermilion, Brandon Long or Jeff Zayer in St. Paul, and Mel Thoresen, Roger Francis and Janine Ward in Itasca County. We are still 14 from our goal of 20 candidates for these offices. Please recruit!

Other politics issues

• Hassan will seek 5^th CD endorsement for his candidacy for Phyllis Khan’s state legislative seat. Jerry Clendinen is seeking 4^th CD endorsement for District 64A. Rashad Turner may seek endorsement for 65A. Though we are focusing our electoral effort on the SWB seats, we will give equal assistance to these races.

• Erin Young is running for state house in Highland Park as an Ecology-Democracy Party candidate. 

• Hassan is involved in starting an Oromo caucus. It is mostly DFL and GOP but if the GP is willing to support Oromo issues in Ethiopia, there is potential growth for the GP. Andy H suggested an educational event for the broader GP membership.

• The third-party working group has resulted in no changes to election law 

• There is likely to be a bill this session to switch from caucuses a primary system for presidential election years. The GP would probably not be affected as long as we are a minor party. Jim will talk with Ken Pentel about this.

Locals reports

• 4^th CD will hold its endorsement meeting May 1 for all candidates who have screened, with option of holding another meeting if more come forward.
• 5^th CD elected Mohammed Hared, Doug Mann and Andy Schuler to the steering committee. They may want to make Andy S their rep on the CC, and want to make sure term limits wouldn’t prohibit that. The next meeting is March 20 at 4200 Cedar.
• 8^th CD has had trouble getting a quorum of the steering committee at a meeting, as well as scheduling membership meetings. They are trying to regroup.
• Itasca Greens have endorsed Jill Stein for president. Dennis Barsness is running for state legislature 5B and will need to get 500 signatures during the last two weeks of May to get on the ballot.

GPUS report

GPMN gets seven delegates to the national nominating convention in Houston.

Caucus Review

Nine caucuses were held. The St. Paul caucuses had 28 or 29 people, about 10 of them new to the party. In Itasca, most people attended DFL caucuses to vote for Bernie Sanders.  Jill Stein won the presidential straw poll. Caucus conveners said the packet was well organized and helpful.

In Minneapolis, a contentious issue arose about a proposed platform amendment against circumcision. It may be helpful for the packet to contain some tips for conveners on moving controversial issues along so the caucus meeting doesn’t get bogged down in argument.

 Biennial Convention

After being double-booked by St. Cloud State, Lena is working with Seth on another location.

Agenda:

• 10 am-12 pm, Presidential nomination process, starting with speeches by candidates who are present and using walking caucus method. Jim will facilitate.
• 12-1 pm, CC election, Andy H will facilitate.
• 1-2 pm, lunch
• 2-6 pm, Platform process, using breakout sessions organized by topic to speed things up. Betsy will facilitate.

We agreed to spend $1,200 to mail a postcard to members by March 25 with basic “save the date” info about the convention and an invitation to submit platform proposals. Brandon will prepare the card and determine the list of recipients. We will use Honsa to print and mail if the costs are within this budget.

We may decide later to send another postcard about 30 days before the convention with more details on the meeting and info about where to read platform poposals that will be considered at the convention.

Betsy will recruit some platform committee members to help go over both the resolutions and proposed amendments submitted at the caucuses and whatever comes in from members between March 25 and April 25, the deadline to submit proposals.

We will decide about food for the convention at the April CC meeting.

Ecology-Democracy Party

Andy H suggested making a movement to convince this party to join us instead of holding a competing ballot line when we are almost identical in principles and values. Andy and Lena will try to meet with Ken and whoever he wants to invite from his group to explore the mutual benefits of a merger.

Christiane Rank, Green Party member, sat in on the end of the meeting and indicated her interest in issues relating to food and housing.

The meeting was adjourned.