[Davis Democrats] Preliminary Minutes for DDC Board Meeting on Tuesday April 4

[G Richard Yamagata PhD]

Minutes of Club meetings were requested by the Recording Secretary, Julia
Sanchez, to be done as soon as possible, so people will know what their
assignements and jobs are.  There are many things that need to be done, now
that we are having monthly General Meetings with Potlucks.  Board members
and voluteers, please keep your eye open for ACTION ITEM for work that was
committed to by DDC board members or assigned to members in their absence.  

These minutes have yet to be approved.  

Davis Democrat Club Meeting
April 4, 2006

This meeting was held at the Blanchard Room in the Yolo County Library. 
Present (14 members total) were:
President: Arun Sen,
Vice President: John Chendo
Treasurer: Betty Weir	
Recording Secretary: G Richard Yamagata
Corresponding Secretary: Julia Sanchez
Membership: duties being filled by John Chendo
Past President: Tony Gruska
Newsletter Editor: Committee representative present 
Past Publicity: Barbara Slemmons
Special Adjunct Membership Chair: absent
Parlimentarian: Vacant
Board members:  Lyle Smith, Mike Syvanen, Rhonda Gruska, Joyce Wilson,
Adrienne Kandell, Pam Nieberg, Max Rothe.

Absent from Meeting:   Past President Bob Bockwinkel; Past President Stephen
Souza; Past Vice President Kingsley Melton; Board Member Jim Pollock;
Publicity Mary Lou Hernandez; Newsletter Editor Tanya Chalupa

Guests:  There were seven guests at this meeting: Davis Democrat Club
members Lamar Heystek, Dick Fisher, Mike Levy, Donna Provenza, Bob
Schneider, and Bill Ritter.  Woodland Democrat Club member and member of the
Yolo County Central Committee, Joe Butler was also present.

Arun Sen called the meeting to order at 6:10 PM. 

AGENDA:  The agenda was moved for approval by Mike Syvanen.  It was seconded
by Barbara Slemmons.  The agenda passed with no objections.

MINUTES OF PAST MEETINGS: 
The minutes from the March 7  meeting were distributed.  The minutes were
posted on the web and sent to the list on March 14th for people to know what
their responsibilities were.  Barbara moved that the minutes be accepted.
Adrienne Kandell seconded the minutes.  The minutes were approve with no
changes or revisions.

COMMENTS FROM THE GENERAL PUBLIC
A resolution calling for the endorsement of the eminent domain and purchase
of the Conway Ranch.  Arun Sen ruled that we do not have time to pursue this
at this time.  If we have time, the club will address the general meeting
with this item.  If not, this item will be featured on the May 9 agenda for
both the board meeting and the general meeting.
 
OTHER MINUTES
Joe Butler was able to report on the activities of the  Woodland Democrat
Club.   He announced that the club endorsed Joe Butler for Assessor, Pat
Lenzi for District Attorney and Frank Seiferman Jr for Supervisor.

There were no representatives present for the campus Democrats, the high
school Democrats, and the Young Democrats.  The President and Tony had
nothing to report on their activities on behalf of the club.

Joe Butler was able to report on the activities of the Yolo County
Democratic Central Committee.  They are undergoing a process of interviewing
candidates to endorse them.  At the April 10 meeting, it is expected that
they will endorse.

TREASURER'S REPORT
It was announced that $17,529.77 was in the club's treasury.   We currently
have 165 paid memberships.  Betty would like to see a letter going out to
the 180 other people on the mailing list that still need to pay their dues.
Betty said that she will do this (with the help of the corresponding
secretary, Julia Sanchez).  

ACTION ITEM
Betty will write a letter to the 180 other club members that have not paid
their dues.  Julia said that she will help Betty with this task.  

APRIL GENERAL MEETING
Report on California Democrat Central Committee rules on endorsement.
John Chendo reported that the club is free to endorse candidates for
non-partisan elections.  There was a general discussion of this item.  Max
Rothe stated that anyone can endorse any candidate as an individual.  John
Chendo wanted to endorse candidates in the primary election.  Tony wanted to
stay away from making an endorsement in the local city council race.  G
Richard Yamagata stated that the club endorsed all of the Democrats running
for city council.  It was stated by Mike Syvanen that he saw this as a
useless endeavor and he wanted to endorse 2 candidates that would be
selected by secret ballot.  Betty Weir stated that this was against our
by-laws to do pre-primary endorsement and called our attention to the
section of the by-laws.  G Richard tried to state that the club has in the
past endorsed candidates in the non-partisan elections.  Rhonda Gruska
further clarified this point in stating that these are not pre-primary
endorsements, but are the elections for non-partisan offices and that this
section of the by-laws does not apply.  

MOTION
John Chendo had made the motion that we hold secret ballots and vote to
endorse candidates for non-partisan and pre-primary elections.  This motion
was seconded by Mike Syvanen.  

There was discussion on this motion.  It was pointed out that we cannot just
ignore the by-laws when it did no suit us.  It was explained what needed to
be done to amend the by-laws and what was done in the past to make the
by-laws more representative of the club meetings that what hypothetically
should be occurring.  What was then done was John Chendo withdrew his
original motion and moved to amend the by-laws to allow for pre-primary
endorsements.  

MOTION/VOTE
John Chendo made the motion that we change the by-laws to read that the club
is not prohibited from endorsing primary candidates for State Elections.
(There is no rule that prohibits the club from doing this according to John
Chendo.)  This motion was seconded by Adrienne Kandell.  The motion failed 7
to 7.  Three fourths vote is necessary to pass a motion to change the
by-laws and this was a 50-50 split of the board.

G Richard Yamagata at this time reported that all three Davis City Council
candidates coming to the  general meeting were registered  Democrats.    He
further reported that Bob Milbrodt and Joe Butler were both registered
Democrats (Bob Milbrodt was expected to attend this meeting.)   Pat Lenzi,
candidate for DA, was a registered Democrat.  Frank Seiferman Jr and Anne
Cedarblade running for Supervisor in Woodland were both registered
Democrats.  It was expected that someone would be speaking for these
candidates and that they would not be attending this meeting.  For all these
candidates for non-partisan offices, their political affiliations were
confirmed by the Yolo County Registrar's office.  

At this time, Arun Sen stated that he wanted to make sure that the club will
not have secret ballots for city council and that the club will endorse
Democrats and will not endorse all parties.  There was no motion and
consequently no vote on this item.  

[It was understood before the meeting that John Chendo would be in charge of
the candidate forum and the time keeper, but no mention was made of this.
There was confusion as to who was the chair of this meeting.  I, as
recording secretary, understood that John Chendo had stepped up to be the
liason with Mary Zhu as chair.  Please read the minutes of the March 7
meeting.  Also, John Chendo was addressing the club during the time period
that is normally left for the chair of the event to address the group.  None
of these items were resolved and time was running short.  What is clear is
that 50 minutes is not enough time to address all of the issues before the
club board.  We need at least 80 minutes and I recommend that if we have a
meeting before the general meeting, it must be convened at 5:30PM.]

MOTION/VOTE
At this time, Max Rothe made the motion that someone from the State Central
Committee be invited to explain the rules and procedures for pre-primary
endorsements.   Rhonda seconded the motion.

ACTION ITEM
John Chendo said that he will try to get someone from Sacramento from the
State Democratic Party Central Committee to the next meeting to address this
issue.  


MAY GENERAL MEETING AND POTLUCK
The chair of this event, Lyle Smith informed that he had secured 3 of the 4
speakers for this panel event on voter balloting issues.  He is inviting
Matt Bishop, Steve Ybarra aand Deborah Bowen or someone representing her to
this meeting.  There was one other person that was mentioned before  Matt
Bishop.  This will be the four on the panel.  

It was mentioned that people were complaining that they had not gotten
enough notice about this potluck and meeting being held in 20 minutes.  They
wanted to know where this event was noticed.  It was stated that it was
published in the newsletter and the Davis Enterprise.  It was stated that
there should have been an invitations separate from the newsletter mailed out.

MOTION/VOTE
There was a motion that the club will send out an invitation to the Davis
Democrat Club mailing list an invitation to attend a panel discussion about
balloting issues and election fraud.  The motion was made by Adrienne Kandel
and seconded by Lyle Smith.  

ACTION ITEM
Adrienne will write a postcard.  Lyle Smith will hold an envelope stuffing
party and even try to make phone calls for people to attend this event.

ACTION ITEM
It was generally agreed that there will be a subcommittee meeting to do
further planning for this event on Friday, April 7, at the home of Betty
Weir from 6 to 7PM.  The address is 887 Linden Lane.  

CHAMPAGNE BRUNCH
The Champagne Brunch will be held at the Cook's.  There was no one that
stepped up to be chair of this event.  [Mike Syvanen was the chair last year
for the food portion of this event.  Last year, Tony Gruska was the chair
for this event for the program side of things.]  The selection of the chair
of this event is deferred to the next meeting.

ACTION ITEM
Betty stated that she did not want to be chair of the event, but would
contact the Cook's to find a date for this event in June.  Tony has the
invitation design from last year's Champagne Brunch.  Tony will get the
invitations and the labels printed for this event and get them put together.

FOURTH OF JULY
It was mentioned that this event was chaired last year by Tony Gruska.  The
club received permission to be the concession that sold beer in the park.
The club made over $1000 selling beer.  There is a chance that the club
could get the beer concession again next year.  [Just a note, that last year
before the club received the beer concession, the club was ready to
negotiate selling fruit freezes from a dispenser machine owned by a neighbor
of Kingsley Melton.]  We will discuss this more, later.

ICE CREAM SOCIAL
ACTION ITEM
Arun Sen will get a list or the date for this event from Jerry Kaneko.  

Jerry Kaneko wants to MC this event if it is going to be held at his home as
in all past year that this event has been held.  

CLUB NEWSLETTER
Tanya is working on a candidate's issue for the May newsletter.  It will
contain candidate statements and candidate ads.  There was discussion about
the need for more articles submitted to the newsletter.  It was stated that
we should publish the results of tonight's endorsement vote and the vote on
the Iraq War resolution.


BADGES FOR CLUB OFFICERS
Arun Sen researched the price of badges.  He talked to Davis Trophy Shop and
found out that the cost of a 3 line pin badge was $5/badge.  The cost of a
magnetic badge (no holes in the wearer's clothes) was $8/badge. 

MOTION/VOTE
Max Rothe made the motion that the club authorize the purchase of the
magnetic badges at the cost of $8/badge.  G Richard seconded the motion.
The motion carried 13 to 1 in favor of the motion.  

ACTION ITEM
Arun Sen will take care of purchasing the badges.    

The meeting was adjourned at 7PM with agenda item X  of I through X not
completed.  It was understood that the next board meeting would be held on
May 9th, before the next potluck event.  [It is strongly recommended by G
Richard Yamagata that we start the board meeting at 5:30PM in view of the
fact that we did not get through the entire agenda and that we need to
address the report and discussion on the candidate's forum meeting, the
report from the representative form the California State Democratic Central
Committee, further planning for the Champagne Brunch and Ice Cream Social,
last minute planning for the voter balloting issues and election fraud panel
meeting, and the scheduling of the June, July and possibly August Davis
Democrat Club meetings.

Respectively submitted by
Recording Secretary
G Richard Yamagata  PhD
CEO/President   VME Inc.   http://www.vme.net/

G Richard Yamagata is a member of the Davis Community Network Board of 
Directors, a member of the board of the Business Link of Woodland and Davis,
Secretary of the Board of Directors for the Davis Democrat Club, President 
of the board of Virtual Market Enterprises, Inc, Secretary-Treasurer 
of the board of the Davis Progressive Business Exchange and communications 
liason of the Independent Order of Oddfellows Chapter 169.

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