Steering Committee Meeting

septiembre 27, 2021

Steering Committee Meeting

Agenda

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

7:00 Call to Order

Confirm notetaker

Sign in link distributed

Review Steering Committee meeting rules

Adoption of agenda

Adoption of last meeting’s minutes

Review of last week’s action items
Housing Justice Priority Report

Klaire to present

Mutual and Community Aid Priority Report

Brendan & Sebas to present

Update on School Board/Educators Forum

Shaun to present

Electoral Research & Recruitment Priority Report

Valerie T. to present

Discuss Endorsement Application Process

Tiffany to start discussions

Budget and Purchasing Resolution

Aimee to present

Member Social at the Park

Minnie to present

Member Engagement Phone Banking

Jackie to present

Other Actions & Proposals
Open floor
9:00 Adjourn

Meeting Minutes

Attendance: Minnie W.,  Jackie S., Lorenzita S., Tiffany S., Anthony L., Jesser S., Shaun N., Alvin C.,  Aimee H., Paul John C., Mike Y.; Guests: Klaire V., Brendan B., Sebastian A.
Chair: Jesser
Notetaker: Alvin C.

  • 7:08 – Meeting called to order
    • Jesser reviews steering committee rules
  • 7:10 – Jesser motions to adopt the agenda
    • Anthony motions to amend the agenda to move the electoral application process up one slot so that Val can attend
      • Tiffany seconds
    • Anthony seconds
  • 7:13 – Jesser motions to adopt last meeting’s minutes
    • Shaun seconds
  • 7:14 – Review of last week’s action items
    • Reach out to law student regarding internal mutual aid limitations – Shaun reached out to Athar from ACLU
    • No update on electoral email
    • PJC put in slack the pricing for mech
    • Land acknowledgement calls to action to be used for NMO
    • Women’s march
      • Shaun attended meeting, another meeting coming up, Lorenzita is the point person
  • 7:20 – Housing Justice Priority Report
    • Klaire presenting
    • Lit drop a few weeks ago, 13 people showed up
    • Got leads around the complex
    • Research session rescheduled to this Wednesday, going to go over how to start researching landlords, what properties they’re in, what names they’re using to house these.
    • Nevada Housing Justice Alliance – meeting tomorrow. Ahmed is signed up
    • Know your Rights training – in the process of putting this training together. Will have folks in the committee start with the research.
    • Next lit drop, still discussing whether this will be a lit drop or something else. Aiming for second week of October.
    • Question: How to add full list of progress residential to Action Builder
      • Tiffany – give her a spreadsheet
  • 7:23 – Mutual and Community Aid Priority Report
    • Brendan & Sebas presenting
    • Sunday Solidarity went well, it was nice having the Coronado High School Progressives there
    • Next time when there’s a chaperone present, we will be a bit more organized and professional
      • Lorenzita clarifies: if a CCSD admin/teacher was there, it’d be an official event
      • Zoomers were looking for service hours
      • Someone with LVDSA should register as a CCSD volunteer to make this easier moving forward
      • Zoomers were all 16 or younger, must set a good example
    • 31 instances of mutual aid at Sunday Solidarity
    • More people came this month than last month
    • Might host a direct action, strike support, with national mutual aid working group.
    • Jacob from MAWG might attend a LVDSA community aid meeting
    • Community aid meeting changed to Wednesday nights at 7pm every other week
    • Church Group in Henderson Collab, things are coming together here
    • Holiday Solidarity
      • Don’t need a resolution to start planning this
      • Need to find out what people’s schedules are to add extra meetings to make sure that this year is bigger than last year
      • No date for solidarity yet
    • Minnie – IATSE has a massive internal mutual aid program, but we should look into it. We have some IATSE leaders in the chapter, like Jesse Jenkins
      • Do we want Minnie to reach out and do some digging?
    • IATSE strike – we can offer support
    • Lorenzita – are we doing anything with SEIU?
      • Every other Wednesday they’re doing walk out Wednesday to win contracts at Valley Hospital & one other
    • 15 people attended sunday solidarity
    • Shaun – would it be appropriate to make October’s Sunday Solidarity halloween themed?
      • It’d be chill as long as it doesn’t take away from the event
      • Tiffany – we would need insurance re pumpkin carving
    • Budget – will figure out budget after SC gives the budget at the general body meeting
      • Tiffany – we’ll present it, but you can provide an amendment on the floor if you want to.
  • 7:45 – Update on School Board/Educator’s Forum
    • Tiffany made great lit
    • Hot event, school board has been taken by antimaskers. But this event, CCEA drove 40-50 people out there.
    • CCEA gave a presentation on Teacher’s Health Trust
    • Handed out a lot of flyers
    • Going forward, there’s a real question of how much we should dedicate to these school board meetings. It’s a huge capacity suck. Probably won’t be driving people there every two weeks
    • CCSD released a statement stating they didn’t get a good reason from CCEA re THT, this fight will continue.
    • Shaun has been dm’ing teacher’s online, should be a big build. Open forum for folks to vent. Kenny Belknap warned that there might be retribution against teachers for attending.
    • Run of show:
      • What DSA is
      • What our history with CCEA is
      • Open forum period
        • Healthcare
        • COVID
        • Culture
      • How can DSA help
    • Does anyone want to help moderate?
    • Anthony – Shaun do you have everything you need for Wednesday?
      • Could use help with outreach
      • Someone else to present who we are as DSA and the opening part/help facilitate in general
    • Minnie – $1532 from back to school solidarity needs to be voted on by the membership needs to be redirected, ask the teachers about this?
  • 7:54 – Budget & Purchasing Resolution
    • Aimee presenting
    • Budget:
      • Difficult to put together budget without financial information from the last year
      • Would like input from folks because the budget working group was a small group
      • Budget is a 9 month budget
      • This budget doesn’t include proceeds/costs from merchandising
      • Chapter has never operated with a budget
      • Likely underestimation of fundraising/donations that are not dues
      • Budgets are a fluid document
    • Resolution:
      • Anthony – difference between $600 and $1000?
        • Tiffany – $600 is for anything that wasn’t accounted for in the budget, where we have surplus cash, steering committee can reallocate $1000 that was previously allocated
      • What’s the next step to finalize the priority?
        • Need to add names to the resolution
        • We need to finalize the resolution and sent it to membership by Thursday
      • Anthony – if we need to move money around, which pool would it be easier to shift?
        • Depends on the amount of money
        • Need a working group to decide moving forward
        • Electoral will likely cost more than originally anticipated
        • Tiffany – what if we don’t endorse anyone?
  • 8:13 – Member Social at the Park
    • Minnie presenting
    • We should have an outdoor membership picnic, as suggested by Rahima.
    • Ideas:
      • Dogs of DSA contest
      • Physical or monetary donation to a mutual aid drive
      • Games/crafts/etc.
    • Reached out to Rahima to organize an event like this, she wants to and is excited to organize this.
    • Rental at a park is $150
    • Borne out of idea that not all of our socials should take place in a bar
    • This could be a tradition
    • Here for discussion & consideration
    • Minnie motions to hosting a social in a park with Rahima as the lead, with dates and costs decided later
      • Anthony seconds
  • 8:20 – Anthony gives update that Val won’t be joining us tonight
  • 8:23 – Endorsement Application Process Discussion
    • Tiffany presenting
    • We have to notify the general body
    • We have to have a candidate Q&A
      • Pick a date for that, send notice, link to the questionnaire, notify the general body of the Q&A date, and have these details sent out
      • Electoral stewards might want to run the Q&A
    • Anthony – Electoral priority group needs to provide recommendations to the body, need to think about the time for this and the format of this. We don’t want to go too quickly, because once someone is endorsed in a seat, we can’t endorse anyone else in the seat. Cody is recusing himself from Amy related discussions and decisions.
    • Tiffany – once people are notified, there’s a timeline for how quickly things can move. Once we notify, we also have to give everyone when we’ll be voting on it and notice requirement. 2 week notice of the general body meeting where voting will occur. No notice needed for the Q&A. Recommends that we give more notice of the Q&A and the voting meeting.
    • Anthony – during the recommendation process, LVDSA will decide how to work with the campaign.
    • Tiffany – Alvin will be recused from any discussion regarding the how LVDSA will work with any endorsed campaign
  • 8:32 – Mutual Aid Written Report
    • Mutual aid priority campaign written report for 09/27/21. Mutual aid review board held its 1st meeting on Sep 17. Little was discussed as the submission process is missing. Nick T. is going to help Lillian & Justin build this in Action Network or Google Sheets. If it’s done for the next general meeting, we can present it to start using. Need to schedule a recurring monthly meeting and the next MARB.
  • 8:35 – Minnie motions to go into executive session
    • Aimee seconded
  • 9:15 – Executive session ends
  • 9:16 – Member Engagement Phone Banking
    • NMO this week
    • Potential member engagement deputy has to step away from DSA
    • Going to have a phonebank every other week on Monday
    • Some things we could do:
      • Wellness checks
      • Go through membership survey results to find out who has specific skills and targeting them
    • Who from SC can help lead/co-host phone banks? Doesn’t mean just two Mondays. If someone has a Saturday afternoon or something, you can host too.
      • Aimee – 10/25
      • Lorenzita – was peer pressured by Jackie
    • Standing date for NMO: Last Thursday of every month
    • First one will be on 10/11
      • Figure out logistically how to build those lists
      • List building training!
        • Record it and sit down before 10/11
      • Hard ask/Response cycle training
        • Do a brief one before a training
  • 9:28 – Other Actions & Proposals
    • Anthony – how did the YDSA kick off go?
      • 8 people showed up, someone agreed to take notes, they had a lot of ideas like mutual aid on campus.
    • Anthony – proposes someone who will be chair next time?
      • Haven’t chaired:
        • Minnie
        • Aimee
        • PJC
        • Lorenzita
        • Tiffany
        • Mike
      • Aimee will chair next week
    • Alvin – proposes that the person who chaired the previous meeting takes notes the next meeting
      • Jesser will take notes next week
    • General Body Meeting Agenda
    • Shaun motions to assign a chair tonight
      • Tiffany seconds
      • Point of Inquiry: Is the agenda the responsibility of the chair?
      • No, just the chair
      • Motion passes unanimously
      • Alvin will be the chair, but cannot make the agenda
  • 9:41 – Jesser motions to adjourn the meeting
    • Shaun seconds