Steering Committee Meeting

Agenda

Meeting Minutes

Chair: Anthony L.

Secretary: N/A, Sarah L note taking

1. Call to order 7:04 PM
2. Weekend recap: Brake Light Clinic was great! A lot of members came. Great job Casey and Ephraim.
3. Agenda changes: postpone discussion of Member Census (Roy). Move HolSol up, after GBM prep. Added Voter Guide. Agenda adopted with no opposition.
4. Minutes from 9/19/2022. Minutes adopted with no opposition.
5. Action Items:
   1. Sarah has not yet shipped out merch orders. Will send a bonus sticker with each order.
   2. Anthony – action item completed
6. Treasurer’s Report (linked above)
   1. Sub-accounts make an extra penny or two every month. Will have one for HolSol too.
   2. Pending charge on PayPal from Minnie who donated $200 to SunSol. Aimee will check into it.
   3. Anthony: consider whether we need Action Builder since we don’t have canvassing.
7. General Body Meeting
   1. All virtual, agenda has gone out. No guest speaker, section on Ballot Q 3 on ranked choice voting, Chris Roberts will present followed by discussion. SC election.
   2. How to get turnout?
      1. Spoke campaign, Shaun can bottom-line. Sarah and Roy can help. Roy will do direct ask to Kara to help text.
      2. Shaun will get member list from Roy For phone calls. Sarah can assist with phone calls.
      3. Quentin – have them speak at the beginning while people are still coming in, running for President of NAACP. Formerly of Make It Work.
      4. Anthony: ask stewards to ask those active in their campaigns. Casey and Ephraim can contact folks who came to BLC, Skyler and Lisa can talk to their meeting attendees, Justin and Rahman can do SunSol folks. Shaun will talk to stewards to do outreach.
      5. Aimee: could use social media accounts
8. Steering Commitee Elections
   1. Candidates: Lorenzita, Skyler, Malcolm. Notice has gone out to members.
   2. Anthony will check if Malcolm is still interested as he did not submit a questionnaire.
   3. Candidates will speak, then questions, then emails will go out. Voting occurs during the meeting and closes right before the end of the meeting.
   4. We will do a manual STV vote.
9. Holiday Solidarity
   1. If we aim for Thanksgiving, we have one GBM before then (not counting the upcoming).
   2. Need to make sure Justin and Rahman are supported.
   3. Shaun: everyone is having events the weekend before Thanksgiving. We should do the weekend before that, handing out kits Saturday 11/11.
      1. Aimee: we could do it a little early because we are not doing turkeys/cold food.
   4. Shaun will be doing coalition partner asks. Lorenzita may be able to help. Shaun wants us to do bigger asks, make co-sponsorships more meaningful.
      1. Anthony strongly agrees.
   5. How do we feel about elected officials getting involved?
      1. Anthony: Last year we decided not to have electeds, but things can change. We should not have non-DSA-endorsed candidates as co-sponsors. If they want to be involved they can come volunteer and do photo ops, brag that they donated.
      2. Roy: what about Tick? We made more money when he was a sponsor.
      3. Shaun: sponsorship as a way to bring people into DSA. What about someone like Laura Martin as a host?
      4. Anthony: Tick did participate last year but did not donate as much. He is not asking to be a sponsor so we don’t have to tell him no. He just voted to give Metro PD more money. He does not believe in defunding the police. I don’t think we should have him. Maybe someone like Quentin, or Leslie T. Ask Erika B. and Courtney K.
      5. Aimee: stewards should be part of conversation too. We may soon have more SC members, we should not decide tonight.
   6. Aimee met with Rahman and Justin. They are planning a meeting, looking at dates based on their own availability, looking at location.
   7. Anthony proposes we invite Rahman and Justin to next SC meeting, finalize the dates
   8. Sarah proposes having priority-specific merch ready to sell for Holiday Solidarity, and suggests having an option to “sponsor a meal.” Aimee says merch does not make us money.
   9. Anthony says he will have a proposal in the future for us to purchase shirts to give to every member who attends Holiday Solidarity
   10. Aimee would like to see better merch designs soon for shirts, our fanny packs and other items have been good but not shirts lately
10. Voter Guide
    1. Roy: races are down to D vs R. A voter guide would involve paring it down and minor edits. People like voter guides, there is one in progress.
    2. Anthony: have had a few inquiries about this. Had lunch with Erika B. to discuss judicial races and get some insight. Very straightforward, not detailed like primary guide. There are a handful of new races. I would like to release at minimum a list of names, maybe with details. Sometimes judicial races are hard to describe/justify the reasoning. Suggest we release a list of names and ask members to ratify. No recommendations have changed from primary to now, just additions.
    3. Ballot questions: first two are an easy yes, Q3 leave off until discussed at GBM. If members have a consensus we can look at recommending.
    4. Anthony moves to publish a voter guide with a disclaimer blurb, names of recommended candidates, and recommendations for first two ballot questions.
    5. Partisan races would not be included. We would include a paragraph stating we recommend voting Democrat in all partisan races.
    6. Most judicial races are included. Those left out are where Anthony could find zero info, or where it was between two terrible candidates.
    7. Motion passed! Voter guide will be published and showed at GBM. Possibly put on consent agenda, Anthony will consider.
11. Future GBM venues and topics
    1. Anthony: I’ve checked out a couple community centers we might consider. They’re $30-60 an hour depending on size of room.
       1. Mirabelli Community Center
       2. Doolittle Community Center
       3. East Las Vegas Community Center – near Eastern & 95/515
    2. If people like these venues we can plan them for the next three GBMs.
    3. Aimee: like moving around valley but don’t want to forget about nunnery. There are a lot of other great businesses with them too, AvantPop, Gender Justice, etc. We have a good relationship and we can use it as long as it’s not already booked.
    4. Aimee: does Winchester Cultural Center have a place?
    5. Roy: like idea of bouncing around. Not thrilled about committing to next 3 meetings being at these locations because we don’t know what we’ll be doing. When we invite people out in person we should make it worth their while so they come back. I like the nunnery. It has the bar for post-meeting social. They are people we are ok with spending our money with. Should prioritize East Las Vegas center.
    6. Want our meetings to have a draw to get people interested. Need topics!
       1. Anthony: Holiday Solidarity focus for November GBM. Any ideas? Can do more brainstorming later.
       2. Sean: Nuts & bolts on grievances. Did not receive a fully developed presentation. Will have more time to work on that after November night school. Or we can present on any topic that seems relevant.
       3. Roy: Erika B. is being attacked by Metro. Could we ask her to speak about the campaign against her, how it is affecting her, how it might escalate (it’s not going to stop). Anthony can talk to Erika B. about it. Aimee will check in with her as a friend and comrade.
       4. Aimee: ICWA- Indian Child Welfare Act.
       5. Aimee will find an action for us to sponsor at upcoming GBM.
12. NPEC’s Socialists and Movements content
    1. Roy: we don’t often have national campaigns we can easily plug in to, where we can just turn people out. Dates and topics will be picked out and planned, we can do local viewings and poli-ed discussions. This could kick-start our efforts for engagement. We don’t have to commit to anything. Like a defibrillator! 
    2. Sean: we could do it with breakout sessions. Sounds easy on my end. Are some sessions not public?
    3. Roy: they have a series but have not published the topics for anything but the first. Co-sponsored by AfroSoc so there is some cross-organizing.
    4. Sean in support, Anthony in support. Sean can run with it! Roy volunteers to help.
13. Open Comment
    1. Aimee: we don’t have resources on our website right? Someone keeps emailing us about adding things to our resources. Do we ever have outside resources listed on our website?
       1. Anthony: yes https://lvdsa.org/resources/mental-health/ there was a resolution last year to do it, Jackie was part of it. If she gives thumbs up we can add it.
    2. Shaun: Rahima is proposing social event Oct 16 at noon at Gilcrease. She is already making a graphic, we can start promoting very soon. She can announce it at GBM.
    3. Anthony: Aaron Rose is moving to take care of a relative. They have been a great active member.
    4. Aimee: is anyone still plugged into housing? Emails will be forwarded to Shaun!
    5. Anthony: BLC was awesome. Social event was good, about 10 DSA members.
    6. Anthony: petition to LVVWD has a lot of signatures!
    7. Anthony: great job all stewards.
    8. Aimee: when you have voted please use the green check mark react. It’s very helpful!
    9. Shaun: LVVWD tomorrow- who’s going? Anthony: several people, Lisa is following up. Meeting at 9:00 AM, public comment should be first, but if not it is a short meeting. At Clark County Government Center.
14. Meeting adjourned 8:38 PM

Action Items