PPC Steering Committee Meeting 3/18/06

PPC SC members in attendance: Sarah Gonzales, Henry Kight, Stan Merriman, Sonia Santana, Terrence Shanks, Sheril Smith, Bob Turney - quorum reached.
PPC SC members unable to attend: Bob Dean, Ann Marie Schroeder, Jeri Segovia, Linda Perez, John Tackaberry
PPC members in attendance: Bill Baumbach, David Griggs, Lisa Harris, Mary Kay Merriman, Mehrdad Pirouz, Aimee Turney, David Van Os, Jan Wheeler
List of new PPC joining members: Nancy Russell
Guests: Rich Bailey, Melanie Cervantes, Rosie Gonzalez, Mark McCulloch, Charlie Urbina Jones, Jo McCall, Betty Richie, James Robertson, Aisha Savoy, Betsy Singleton, Don Singleton

I. Call to order

Meeting was called to order at 3:45pm, Saturday, March 18, 2006 by Sheril Smith. Sarah Gonzales confirmed that a quorum had been reached. Individuals addressing the caucus include:

• Charlie Urbina Jones addressed the PPC and discussed his candidacy for TDP Chair
• Mark McCulloch speaking for Glen Maxey, discussed his candidacy for TDP Chair
• etty Richie speaking for Boyd Richie discussed his candidacy for TDP Chair

II. Approval of the Minutes

Bob Turney motioned to accept the minutes from the prior SC meeting in January 7, 2006. Motion seconded. Vote carried unanimously to approve.

III. Treasurer’s Report

Henry Kight indicated that the current balance in the PPC account is $129.74. Sonia Santana motioned to accept the treasurer’s report. Motion seconded. Vote carried unanimously to approve.

IV. Annual Meeting and Budget

AFL-CIO building is reserved from noon – 7pm, April 22, 2006. Our annual PPC meeting will be a wine and cheese affair. David Sirota, our keynote speaker, will arrive Friday afternoon with his wife.

Bruce and Lisa Harris will host David Sirota and provide a tour of Austin. David Sirota may have dinner with Chris Bell, the details are to be finalized.

Discussion:
With respect to the PPC’s annual meeting budget – the flight has already been paid for and the Texas Observer is picking up the hotel room. Meals will be provided by the folks who are spending the time with David Sitora. The only other expense incurred will be $35 for the use of the AFL-CIO hall and includes trash and cleanup. Donations from PPC members and supporters will be requested to provide the wine and cheese. Sonia Santana asked who is providing the books for the signing. David Sirota will have a book signing sponsored by the Texas Observer, but will also have books available to sign at the PPC’s annual meeting.

Action Items

1. PPC had approximately 300 people at our annual meeting held in Houston in 2005, it was standing room only. It was suggested that we check to see if we should bring a screen / projector, assuming the weather permits and provide an overflow venue outside in the AFL-CIO’s large lot.
2. Volunteers are welcome to help plan and implement this event. PPC members in / around Austin will meet to discuss / plan the annual meeting. Date is to be decided and will be posted on the website.
3. Sheril Smith will ask David Sirota’s permission to video tape and distribute the event on DVD.  

Budget for the Texas State Democratic Convention 2006
The cost is $450 for a booth at the Texas State convention in Fort Worth. Most of the SC meeting will revolve around planning participation for the convention at our next meeting in April 2006.

V. Committee Reports

Tech Committee report – presented by Sarah Gonzales
Sarah Gonzales asked for comments / suggestions on the website and its features.

• Aimee Turney requested that people be able to enter their own events and be approved via moderation versus the PPC webteam having to maintain all that data.
• David Van Os recommended that we remove the date that refers to the statement by James Hogg that Texas belongs to the people, not the corporations since it is difficult to pinpoint the exact date this was mentioned. James Hogg mentioned this throughout his time as a populist.
• Stan Merriman reiterated that our goal is to provide authorized user access to various contact lists to enable easy communication from the PPC.

With the upgrade / release of new website features, we now have the capability to
 

• Communicate with the PPC members broken down by regions. The regions will need to be revisited in order to match the regions as defined by the TDP in the SDEC meeting on March 18, 2006.
• Sheril Smith indicated that the TDP has divided the state into regions – suggestion was made that we match PPC regions to the TDP regions. Jennifer Dean is the person to contact for this information.
• Once provided with access to their membership, the regional groups will want to review their membership and update the contact information.
• Members will be able to apply for PPC membership online, hopefully, cutting down on the paper copies we need to keep up with.
• We now have the ability to communicate with
• all county chairs
• SDEC, DNC and various official caucus organizations within the party
• precinct chairs in Harris County

Discussion:
Stan Merriman added that in addition to the above, we should also locate contacts which include the Texas Democratic caucus and Congressional and Texas State Democratic representatives.

James Robinson asked about the ability to share the materials across other groups using RSS.

Sheril Smith reminded Sarah Gonzales that she had sent information about an individual in Llano who has started a progressive communication effort and had volunteered to help PPC with our communications tasks.

Merhdad Pirouz discussed the idea of cross promoting our content in an effort to fight the corporate media. Create our OWN media, BE the media – this communication would be augmented by many facets including web page content, town hall meetings, attendance at meetings where we cross pollinate / promote our ideas.
 
Action Items – Newsletter deadline March 31, 2006
Sheril Smith announced that the deadline for providing newsletter content is March 31st please! Please send content to Sheril Smith with the goal to have it ready by the April 22, 2006 annual meeting.

Stan Merriman asked Sheril Smith to clarify content and target audience. Newsletter content request should include information on:

• what’s happening on the election front
• information about progressive candidates
• perhaps Bill Baumbach could contribute information about his campaign. This would not constitute an endorsement, just discussions about the campaign – the status, what’s working and ideas for other progressive candidates.
• identify where progressives are having an impact
• include information about what it means to be a progressive / populist? Focus on communities, from different vantage points
• identify grassroots activism that returned positive results. What worked? What didn’t?
• “Interview” successful candidates/ campaigns, how did they accomplish successful elections?
• Henry Kight indicated that many of the PPC documents are really living documents that are continually updated and improved. It would be a good idea to capture these improvements / changes.

With the resources to easily communicate and filter out key groups we wish to communicate with comes great responsibility and as such, Sarah Gonzales proposed that we establish some communication guidelines to

• Keep our PPC Chair “in the loop” and make sure he / she is aware of all communication that is exchanged with TDP officers and individuals in key positions – i.e. – communicating with the TDP State Chair, SDEC and other party officers.
• Ensure consistent messaging from the PPC
• That we develop a strategy over time to communicate our issues / goals that we can pass along as our group continues to grow. This will also serve as a documentation effort for future SC and PPC members.

Communication may include

• Quarterly newsletter
• Distribution of training materials / conducting training throughout the regions
• online blogging, targeting mailing lists, etc…
• This effort will grow over time – suggestions are welcome

Volunteers who responded to our call include:

• Bill Cowan – editor / review materials
• Linda Perez – editor / review materials
• Sonia Santana – write / edit / review
• Anyone else who is interested, please contact Sarah Gonzales.  

Sarah Gonzales needs to follow up on the PPC PO box. For now, it was decided that we would simply forward mail to Sheril Smith. This forwarding would be updated whenever a new SC Chair is elected.  

Nominations Committee – presented by David Van Os
The PPC is currently needing to fill several Steering Committee positions and are seeking nominations for Executive VP, Membership chair, and to fill the openings for regional chair openings in San Antonio and Fort Worth. At this time, the position terms would to expire next year when the election of a new SC is conducted at the PPC 2007 annual meeting.

David Van Os views the nominating committee as a recruiting effort. PPC is on the cutting edge of transforming the party and we are typically ahead of the leadership of the organizations. The PPC acts as a channeling mechanism into coherency. Behr County is potentially a very strong base for PPC members, but there is no regional chair currently. Anyone who is interested in offering to serve should be considered.

David Van Os made a call for people to serve. Sheril Smith suggested that current regional chairs help with the effort. Sonia Santana and Bob Turney offered to help with this.

Convention Planning / Strategy Committee
County / SD Conventions
Aimee Turney discussed that the effort / distribution of the precinct and SD training documents as well as the efforts to provide resolutions had been a success story. At this point, it is time to being thinking about the upcoming state convention and how to prepare. Floor leaders will need to be in place in order to coordinate our activities on the convention floor. In general, the precinct conventions were very well attended and we attribute that to the fact that people had guidelines on how to participate and resolutions to spur interest.

Goal is to identify the floor leaders by the time of the PPC annual meeting in April 2006.

Stan Merriman mentioned his success in recruiting floor leaders by broadcasting the request to our mailing list. Some were personally recruited, but many volunteered. It was also suggested that we take a look at past floor leaders and recruit from them if possible. Their experience will be valuable.

Chair’s platform committee and town hall meetings
Stan Merriman discussed the acceptance of the establishment of town hall meetings by the Texas State Chair and the SDEC.  He also mentioned that during the grassroots committee meeting that Boyd Richie personally endorsed our efforts in this area and agreed to work on appropriately 6-8 regional platform hearings to take place in April and May of 2006 in public space that is freely available. The purpose is to provide a venue for participation from the county parties and Democratic clubs to voice their interest / issues to be included in the TDP platform. This effort was also endorsed by Charles Schoecting, the current TDP Chair. Ruben Hernandez will be the contact for coordination of these meetings.

• The objective is for the pre-platform committee members to participate in the town hall meetings, taking minutes and ultimately, distributing the information to the pre-platform advisory committee for inclusion in the Texas State Democratic Party Platform.
• The request for participation needs to be sent out quickly and the PPC needs volunteers to manage the logistics (about 3-5 people).
• Aimee Turney suggested creating a template be provided in order to facilitate the format and maintain consistency.

Keynote speaker for Texas state convention
Aimee Turney recommended Bruce Schneier as our keynote speaker for the Texas state convention. He is the author of Beyond Fear, which takes a critical look at not just the threats to our security, but the ways in which we're encouraged to think about security by law enforcement agencies, businesses of all shapes and sizes, and our national governments and militaries. This topic directly ties into the PPC TEAM / Privacy resolution. Aimee Turney will follow up on this and report back at the PPC annual meeting in April 2006.

PPC booth at Texas state convention 2006
At state convention in Fort Worth, the caucus time is already confirmed for PPC 9-11am Friday, June 9, 2006.
Sheril requested from Donna Beth, convention coordinator, that our caucus NOT conflict with other progressive groups.

Action Items:

• Sheril Smith will work with Henry Kight to develop a budget for the state convention. This will be presented at the April 2006 PPC annual meeting.
• Ask if Linda Foley would be willing to staff the booth for convention. Volunteers will be needed to help!
• Ask Linda Foley to coordinate housing for PPC members?
• Stan Merriman also indicated that we need to meet to discuss / identify among incumbent SDEC members, coordinate who will run for which SDEC versus which current SDEC members to maintain support.

Announcements

1. Stan provided handouts for PLAN – Progressive Legislative Action Network and suggested that PPC members / supporters review the mission / effort.
   http://www.progressivestates.org/
2. Monday April 17th at noon – April 18th noon – Rick Perry is starting special session to discuss school financing issue. David Van Os will conduct a 24 hour citizen’s filibuster for education at the steps of the capitol building in Austin. Please come! Discussions will include the meaning of freedom and independence, readings from the federalist papers, etc…
3. April, 2006 -  Friday 28th, Saturday 29th and Sunday the 30th, in conjunction with the meeting of the Van OS steering committee, the Van Os’ are hosting a weekend of grassroots politics in San Antonio. Parade parties will be held on both those evenings, parades include the Fiesta Flambeau parade (the largest nighttime parade in the world! It was estimated that 800,000 people attended last year. It’s the South Texas Mardigras) and on Saturday, the Battle of Flowers parade.

   Saturday, April 29th from  9a-3pm – Van Os Steering Committee meeting – everyone is welcome
   Saturday evening is the Fiesta Flambeau parade – kids are especially welcome
   Sunday morning – the Van Os’ will treat anyone who would like to come to brunch at Estella’s Restaurant which has an all female mariachi symphony!

4. The next filibuster is scheduled for May 4-5 weekend of Friday / Saturday , main plaza San Antonio (spinning off Cinco De Mayo)

David Van Os wanted to announce as a fact that this year has got what it takes, the right recipe to win and Texas is a very important state. Others will follow our lead.

He would like to urge the SC of the PPC, that after the fulfillment of the PPC’s mission of the transformation of the TDP which we hope will culminate at the state convention, he would like to urge that PPC reconsider endorsement of candidates. The PPC is the voice of a constituency that needs to be captured and furthered. We can play a huge role in helping the Democratic state wide ticket win.

Henry Kight motioned to adjourn at 5:30pm. Motion seconded. Vote carried unanimously to approve.