Agenda

Times are approximate and subject to change at the Chair’s discretion.

RR = Period will follow Robert’s Rules; OD = Open discussion, Robert’s Rules suspended; ES = Executive Session, rules established in session

Meeting Minutes

• 7:05 – Call to order
  • Alvin motions to adopt agenda, Anthony seconds
  • Anthony motions to adopt last meeting’s minutes, Alvin seconds
• 7:08 – Review of last meeting action items
  • All action items are either complete or on the agenda for today
• 7:08 – Regarding a Vote for SC Election Results to General Body
  • Anthony: Even if I personally feel that the transparency would be a good idea, a resolution endorsed by five members needs to be submitted to the general body for a vote. The Steering Committee is not the appropriate place for this decision when there is no urgent matter, and no evidence of or even accusations of inappropriate conduct. Our responsibility is to ensure that the members who have asked for the results understand the proper methods and channels for doing so.
• 7:09 – Partner Relationships and UMOK Membership
  • Anthony: For us to join UMOK, a resolution endorsed by five members needs to be presented to the general body for a vote. Steering Committee should only hold a vote like that if there is an urgent matter that cannot wait for the next General Meeting. Does anyone have any questions about that?
  • Jackie: Will you be writing the resolution
  • Anthony: Does anyone want to help?
  • Aimee: I’ll help
  • Anthony: Resolutions have to be given to the general membership one week before the meeting we are voting on it, and presented two weeks before to the SC, hopefully we can suspend the SC notification unless anyone objects
• 7:14 – Executive Session
  • Executive Session minutes (link restricted to SC members)
• 7:54 – Formations of Working Groups/Priority Meetings
  • Minnie: gist of the question is about working groups. What is a working group, who creates a working group? Should be a formation that comes together to accomplish a specific task on a specific timeline. Wants us to be mindful of the new structure and not recreating the committee problem with working groups. Can anyone form a working group?
  • Anthony: point of information, the bylaws allow working groups to be formed for the priorities, all other working groups must be formed by the Steering Committee. Sections and Caucuses can be formed by members
  • Alvin: reads definition of sections and caucuses from bylaws
  • Jackie: With member engagement working group, cannot do the work of her portfolio alone and needs a working group to help support that. Wants to use the working group to train people as internal organizers and develop leaders to replace her in the future. If SC members want to help with that work, please join the working group.
  • Tiffany: My assumption was that SC members could form working groups to support their portfolio, but if we want to set up a process for forming those we can discuss.
  • Alvin:  Working groups will be necessary to do our jobs as SC members. We cannot stop sections and caucuses from forming.
  • Tiffany: motions that working groups that are not part of a priority or steering committee portfolios must be approved by a SC vote, minnie seconds
    • Alvin motion to amend, working groups that are not part of a priority or steering committee portfolios must be approved by a ⅔ SC vote, Anthony seconds
    • Jackie: is anyone opposed? No objections, motion adopted.
• 8:09 – Review Socialist Night School Material
  • Jesser shares the presentation with the group to go over
  • Alvin: Suggests adding questions / interactive sections to keep people engaged in the presentation. Can we also have a recommended reading list put together for people to do more reading after
  • Minnie: Add a teaser for the Red New Deal reading group coming up
  • Anthony: Have you timed it?
  • Jesser: Not yet, will time it once it’s done. Section is booked for 1.5 hours, will plan to reserve at least half an hour for discussion.
  • Shaun: favors more discussion, socialists be talking
  • Anthony: 2:1 content to discussion ratio is good. If you have more discussion you run the risk that the conversation moves on to topics not covered.
  • Tiffany: If you do need to cut back, cut on the science part and focus more on ecosocialism which people might be less familiar with
  • Jackie: maybe a slide comparing neoliberal approaches to ecosocialism
• 8:33 – Update Regarding Monthly Field Organizer Check-In
  • Minnie: Doesn’t have an update, Garrick slow to respond. Garrick would prefer if not all SC members attended at once, maybe we can rotate who attends.
  • Jackie: Has applied to the national housing commission but never heard back
  • Minnie: will check with garrick
• 8:35 – Future Make the Road Event
  • Shaun: Make the Road NV was a partner on BTS. Would like to keep working with them and build the relationship. They are having an event on Thursday, Fund Education Not Incarceration rally.
  • Tiffany: Thursday at 6:30? Conflicts with socialist night school?
  • Shaun: Didn’t realize the conflict. Rescinds this proposal.
  • Minnie: Curious if we get a lot of last minute requests
  • Shaun: Yes, a lot of these orgs hold a lot of event and the requests are last minute
  • Alvin: Suggests adding a form on our website for people who want to partner with us on events and includes a disclaimer that events are best planned at least a week in advance. Also looked at the make the road website and didn’t see anything about this event
  • Shaun: It’s a great idea in theory but people from these orgs communicate in a way that’s more casual.
  • Tiffany: Can we express to Make the Road that more notice is better for us given our structure and our process for approving events
  • Shaun: Yes, I will pass that along
  • Lorenzita: Doesn’t think we should be doing anything with American Recovery Plan funding, focus on PRO Act and Green New Deal instead
  • Shaun: vibe check, do you prefer to talk about events in Slack or at SC meeting
  • Anthony: depends on how much time before the event
• 8:44 – Steering Committee Meetings on the Website
  • Tiffany motions to put our steering committee minutes on the website, Shaun seconds
  • Jackie asks if anyone objects
  • No one objects
  • Anthony, how quickly is this put into effect?
  • Tiffany: Now
• 8:48 – Update on first Steering Committee Open Forum
  • Shaun: Pretty productive, Klaire, Angel, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, Brendan, and Niall came by, discussed electoral and housing priorities.
  • Anthony: Thought we were going to vibe, but spent the full hour doing questions. Who is available to do Thursday.
    • Anthony, Lorenzita, Shaun, Tiffany
  • Shaun: wants it in the minutes that Anthony did a great job
• 8:54 – Updates Regarding Priority Campaigns
  • Anthony (electoral): Has not heard from Val since she was appointed but has heard that Cody has had a meeting with her and they’re discussing how to proceed.
  • Aimee (mutual & community aid): Two facets, community aid is up and running and has set a meeting for Aug 28th. The second facet, internal mutual aid, stewards have not had a chance to connect yet. It’s a big undertaking so Aimee is really trying to get them kickstarted.
  • Jackie (housing): Housing is rolling along. We were voted into the Nevada Housing Justice Alliance. First lit drop is on Aug 28th. The biggest obstacle is a concern is that the stewards are already getting burned out. Hopefully they can start delegating work.
• 8:59 – Proposal to Begin “Formal Positions Working Group”
  • Anthony: motion to enact a working group whose purpose is to create a living document of our formal positions on any stance that we need to public about. The document will also help guide communications and education. Shaun seconds.
    • Anthony: Would help us clarify our positions on various positions, it’s not always clear. Especially from a comms standpoint this would be useful
    • Alvin: Question about the process. If we make an LVDSA platform of sorts, would we have to bring each point to the membership?
    • Shaun: how would we operate in relation to national DSA positions? Would it be steering committee voting or membership
    • Minnie: I would be supportive of exploring our stances, especially for local and state issues. Does not feel comfortable with it being located within the SC and not being ratified by the general body. Might be thornier than we think it could be.
    • Jesser: For contentious issues I think that Political Education portfolio could be involved in collecting and providing materials for members to build an informed decision in conjunction with any other group/primary if the issue relates to them
    • Jackie: Why would this not be considered part of the comms work?
    • Anthony: Comms can’t establish on their own our positions. We need to feed them what our positions are.
    • Anthony: motion to amend, Create a working group that creates a resolution for a process for establishing formal chapter positions on local and state matters, Minnie seconds
      • Lorenzita: This would give us an opportunity to submit testimony and have an official stance regarding legislature
      • Shaun: likes the idea of getting a list of things we have a position on nationally
      •  Tiffany: who would be bottom lining the working group? I have concerns that we’re all at capacity
      • Anthony: I would
      • Anthony: motion to call the question
        • Motion passes
• 9:15 – Propose Agenda Items for Next Meeting
  • Anthony: I want to propose that we try to get Priority Reports next time, as well as discuss how we want to do Portfolio Reports.
    • Priority Reports
    • Portfolio Reports
    • Social media
  • Shaun:
    • YDSA
    • Process for selecting cosponsors for events
  • Tiffany: suggests that we do priority reports on the 30th meeting since Community Aid is having their first meeting on the 28th
  • Alvin:
    • Process for special election
• 9:22 – Anthony motion to adjourn, no objections. Meeting adjourned.