GPAC County Council Minutes February 9, 2003

Location: Oakland Public Library, Temescal Branch, 5205 Telegraph Ave. (This meeting only)

Introduction to decision-making process. Introductions: Sunni Sabini, facilitator, Kevin Reilly, Laura Wells, Patti Marsh, Budd Dickinson, Greg Jan (proxy for Suzanne Baker); Evan G; Leslie Bonett, Jim Aiken, John Klopf, Kenny Mostern, Martin Illian, John Selawsky, Bob Marsh, Kate Tanaka, Lee Amosslee, Howard Chong. (County Councilors in bold.) Late arrivals: Leslie Dinkin (proxy for Lisa Stephens), B Soffer.

Announcements were made.

Consent calendar: Endorse the Urban Roots proposal for the Gill Tract; and the proposal passes by consensus.

Agenda review: The agenda was reviewed and adjusted. Leslie Dinkin is timekeeper

Action items

• Letter to state Coordinating Committee regarding Mike Feinstein (Budd). Paragraph four in the proposal change to "The state CC is about to send has sent a letter." Concern over "taking a side" and wanting to ask all the Greens to resolve it internally. Suggestion that we informally communicate it to State CC via our representative, instead of making a formal resolution. Concern that Mike Feinstein has not completed all financial paperwork, and that the CC may be in the right in writing about his errs (although they may have not done it in a manner we would have wanted). Suggested for re-working the proposal, pass by EMT if needed. Budd, Kevin, Bob, Laura are willing to work on revising it.
• Budd Dickinson for BART Board (Budd). Willy Kennedy resigned, and there is a vacancy for District 7. Budd has applied. BART Board will review candidates and appoint soon. About 16 people have taken out application packets, including the son of the Mayor of Richmond. The term is four years, so it ends November 2004. Budd plans on running for the position in November 2004. Current racial composition: 1 African-American out of 8, 2 Asian Americans. Concern about having an all-white county council endorsing a white person to the Board in a District that is one of the few that could elect an African American. Four unresolved concerns. Extended for two minutes. ®Councilors vote 8-2-0 to approve the proposal. Lee expressed that GPAC shouldn't make decisions about endorsements based on personal relationships. Budd says he's running as the progressive candidate. Lee feels this is cronyism because we don't know who the other candidates are. Also he feels the group doesn't use the consensus process properly. (Short stretch break. Lee left the meeting, and then John Klopf took over minute taking.)
• Support Common Agenda Regional Network (Patti). Patti's been representing Greens at Common Agenda (a coalition of peace groups in the east bay who share how they're doing, etc). It's dues time and she thinks we should join as a group. The cost is $25.00. They have no local website. Written material is passed around. No concerns. ®Proposal passes by consensus.
• Discussion Item Capacity Building (Sunni): At the end of the last meeting we had a list of all the different groups that exist in the GPAC. [List is posted on the wall] she understood that the Outreach Working Group (OWG) was going to take action on this list during the last month. Each group was going to become volunteer-ready and give contact information for new volunteers to the outreach committee. Goal for leadership: Leadership functions and structures exist. Work assigned to leadership structures gets done. Patti: OWG is ready for volunteers and so are the newsletter and tabling subcommittees. John K: website is ready as of Monday the 17th (actually a subcommittee of OWG). Kenny: Media committee is ready and has needs he'll mention in his report. Greg: finance/fundraising will be ready within a month (fundraising letter will be sent out within a month and then they'll be ready). Bob: finance committee agreed to increase sustainers as their main goal and get going on this by March. Greg: Campaigns/voter guide will be ready for volunteers in April. Bob: Admin committee wants people who want to do office work (clean up office, send thank you letters, etc.). Working Group / Committee contacts --- Volunteer Coordinator: Patti Marsh. OWG: Patti Marsh. Tabling: John Morton. Newsletter: Suzanne. Website: John Klopf. Media: John Selawsky. Finance: Bob Marsh. Campaigns/Voter Guide: Greg Jan. Administration: Martin Ilian. Each group should develop projects and pass info to OWG later. Groups that need attention: Council Vacancy. Bob reports that they started in June or July but hasnÅft done anything yet. The first task was to decide if we need more council members. Bob thinks we need additional members, especially women, on the committee but Lee is not interested in finding members since he feels we don't need any more Councilors. Leslie D. and Budd volunteer for the committee. Greg: in the last 6 months, we have wanted to fill vacancies but the working group hasn't done so. He feels the directive doesn't need to be discussed unless we want to decide to change the mission. Leslie B. thinks we don't have a choice, because of the law; we must go forward and fill the seats until there are 13 people. Kevin thinks we really need to find a councilor from District 4 in Oakland that should be easier to fill than seat from Fremont or Livermore. Leslie D. states there are 6 names for the working group. Kevin opts out. Leslie B. thinks Lisa wanted to convene the working group. Leslie D. agrees to contact Lisa and convene the group this month by email. Peter asks about proportional representation vs. at-large for our group. Bob says there is an electoral reform committee on the state level, so this might change. Our by-laws are at-large. LauraÅfs concern is if three people are against something, you can have minority rule (three people can kill something until you have fifteen people on the council). Leslie B. says our intention was to work with the county registrar to accept our by-laws or find out why not. John Selawsky thinks our by-laws do need help - one example is the problem of standing aside and how that affects voting. Leslie D will be the placeholder but won't do any work. Peter volunteers to be on the group. Sunni: what should we focus on next time? The group discussed the consensus decision-making process and the 80% super majority vote issue. Greg requests that we ask the State CC what other counties do and offers to do that on the national level. Kenny wants to discuss an increased capacity to do political action for this group.

Reports (see meeting agenda for previously submitted written reports).

• Media report (Kenny). For his press advisory about him being the Green contact wasn't supposed to contain new information. Gill tract development - he'd like to do a press release, but when it matters) contrary to the feeling at the end of the last meeting that we should do one now). He's going to be writing this and he'd like to have actual Greens at the council meeting with a sign to generate press interest. Generally, turnout at meetings helps, and he'll do press releases when they matter. Montclarion article - he was quoted extensively, but decided not to be the "Green Party Spokesperson" because there was no direction from the group. Question: would the Green Party like to be recognized when a reporter calls him? He could have said that and gotten it in the paper. Laura states he can always identify as a Green Party activist, give your reply, and possibly refer to other people in the county for various issues. Kenny agreed. More discussion. Kenny says he's hearing that he should state the Green Party position if the party has done something on the issue in the past or if it's in the ten key values. Otherwise he will be a "green party activist."
• Treasurer's Report (Bob). Study the statement of accounts, especially for your working group, and ask questions if any. Also, there's a statement of actual expenses vs. budget. See if you're on track by using 2/3 as a benchmark because we're 2/3 of the way through the year. Of course that doesn't work for seasonal items. The minuses on the bottom are debits. It means we spent more than our income. Bob captures the information about types of cash or check and tries to keep track of money from newsletter, Green Sundays, etc. But he hasn't gotten with people to decide whether/how to do this for all committees. Our fiscal year is July-June. The credit card service charge is offset by the gains made by credit card contributions, but the amount of expenditure is very high. The previous treasurer signed a 4-year lease at $40/month and we're locked into it. We can re-negotiate it in two years.
• Outreach Committee (Patti). Written report is within the agenda. John Morton wants to see ten tables going in our county - minimum. There's potential to get people from many places. Laura is the only person with a regular table, and there are about 8 people. So if we have 6 per table plus 20 for dropouts, we need 80 people to do tables. Greg says we had 150 volunteers for campaigns, and we can get the people needed.

Additional items: Proposed Oakland anti-loitering law (Kenny). Only two Oakland City Council members oppose the proposed ordinance. Kenny would like the GPAC to oppose the ordinance and organize Greens to attend the City Council meeting on Tuesday, 2/11/03. Summary of ordinance: if a police officer believes that any group of four people is loitering with the intent to sell drugs, they can issue a ticket for $100 (2nd is $250, 3rd is $500, 4th is arrest). This is based on the judgment of the police officer.

Closing

Adjourned

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