Agenda

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

Meeting Minutes

Chair: Anthony L.
Notetaker: Tiffany S.

• Call to order at 7:05
  • Review of Steering Committee meeting rules
  • Minnie motions to adopt the agenda, no one opposed, agenda is adopted at 7:08
  • Anthony motions to adjust the date on last meeting’s minutes to reflect the actual date of the meeting, Tiffany seconds
  • Angel motions to adopt last meeting’s minutes, Minnie seconds, no one opposed, last meeting’s minutes are adopted at 7:10
• Finalize Convention Details
  • Anthony: Wrote a run of show with a list of roles, wants to go over it as a group
  • Notetaking will be limited to a simple record of any motions
  • Anthony and Tiffany will think on how the voting will work with only 3 priority resolutions
  • Suggestions for guest speakers:
    • Cheryl from national abolition working group has already been asked.
    • If Cheryl can’t make it, we will ask Nick Estes with Red Nation
    • If not Nick, then Rosa Palmeri
    • If not Rosa, then Jas?? That Aimee remembers speaking at a national socfem event
    • If not rosa, then Heather from DSLC
• Plan for Transitioning Between Steering Committees
  • Anthony: Last time there was a transition team so we should have a plan. We need to transition the technology logins and passwords including changing all of them. Suggestion is Tiffany, Tiffany agrees. Before results are released.
  • Do we need a plan to transition financial accounts? Anthony, Aimee, and Tiffany will legally be the officers for the chapter until the new SC votes on the new chair, secretary and treasurer. Bank accounts can’t be transferred until that happens.
  • Mike: Will be available to teach whoever the new comms person is to help transition them when they are selected
  • Slack channel for transition – Anthony
• Treasurer’s Report   
  • In the google drive. Email lasvegasdsa@gmail.com to see the report.
• Abortion Rallies – Reflection and Future Events
  • Tiffany: When the Roe decision was released, Tiffany began texting repro organizers to see what actions were planned, no one seemed to have anything planned or anticipated. Tiffany approached SC in the slack to propose using the same plans for the July 2nd. Received negative feedback about the suggestion to wear green in solidarity with Latin American / international abortion rights. Phone calls with Maria who is a member, Raquel with PP, Erika C from PLAN and a member, asked their thoughts on the situation. They appreciated the outreach and asked that we do political education about why we were making the call to wear green. At that point, we were approached to join WWAF and Nevada NOW at their event. We chose to cancel our event and encourage members to attend that one. Tiffany wrote a blog post about the color green. During the march, some individuals were arrested (not members). Tiffany passed information to NLG legal observers.
  • Minnie: Eli K wrote about how an individual shared information with police at the event, an article was written about it. There was some conversations on Twitter where individuals claimed that the event was an LVDSA event. That was corrected by others on Twitter.
  • Aimee: I asked for the reflection. Thinks we moved a little too fast on it and we need to give more space.
  • Tiffany: Things we did move a little fast, but WWAF did express to us that they couldn’t plan anything. Planned Parenthood usually moves faster than we do which is why I was surprised nothing was planned.
  • Anthony: Values everything that has been said. Wants our organization to be in a place where we can respond quickly and appropriately. Doesn’t like that WWAF was planning an event without us. There is an expectation on us as a socialist organization.
  • Tiffany: Disagrees that the event would have been good. The event was planned without a significant security plan, and there was increased police presence. WWAF was going to send someone to our event and the other event, but they thought it would be better to combine the events and gave us that recommendation.
  • Minnie: Believes that we are not appropriately positioned to do rally and protests, that is not our skillset. Not clear on what is needed to keep people safe and what our goals are for the event. We did not have it during the George Floyd protests either and it was starting to turn into a mess. Not our forte at the moment. Having an event on our own at The Venetian would put us in a difficult position with the police. There is also a long history with socialist organizations and DSA in particular with reproductive justice organizers. Repro workers who were DSA members were trying to unionize and did not get support from DSA. There is a lot of bad blood at the national level.
  • Mike: Agree that we want to put ourselves out there and have a better handle on the messaging than the liberal line, but at the same time, showing up at the existing event with some of our lit and having conversations about what we are doing was a good opportunity.
  • Natasha: We shouldn’t have hurt feelings in terms of WWAF asking us to join their event instead of the event we planned, they are their own org that they need to do what is best for them. Getting a lot of visibility is important for them. We can get trainings from National in terms of doing those kinds of events if we want to improve our abilities in those areas.
  • Aimee: Doesn’t like going to protests anymore. Very unsafe for me. Hard to be in those spaces. Also wants to know who it is that is looking to us to do something. Are they white people? People with privilege to be moving quickly? We have to listen to the people doing the work on the ground. We need patience and to be listening to other leaders. There are pregnant people that need their abortions.
  • Tiffany: We will not be hosting an event coming up. Tiffany has spoken to Tamara and members of the NLG, they do not believe it will be safe to protest at the Venetian. We do not want to put people at risk, so we want to pivot to more practical support, such as after care kits, calls for donations and volunteers for WWAF, setting up a rotation outside of crisis pregnancy centers to redirect people to appropriate clinics. Tiffany will notify the partners
  • Minnie: Planned Parenthood put out their week of action and we are not on it.
• Open Comment
  • Aimee: Has noticed an increase in people not threading replies on Slack. Wanted to bring it up so we can start moderating that behavior. Maybe a Slack refresher.
    • Anthony: Can give nudges to the comrades when he sees it. Also wants to focus on Slack moderation with the new Steering Committee.
      • Minnie will actually give the nudge
    • Tiffany: I think the new SC should consider commissioning a tech working group for some of this type of stuff
    • Natasha: I think we should regularly make reminder posts about slack and the community agreements
  • Mike: Is it okay to loop in folks from socfem on a potential blog post that was submitted?
  • Mike: Should we be boosting the Planned Parenthood week of action
    • Tiffany: Promote individual events if they have an action with material impact, not the week as a whole.
  • Angel: Thinks we should hold an organizer training for the priority stewards
    • • Anthony: There has been some discussion in the past in terms of increasing the steward onboarding.
      • Aimee: Wonders if the language of referring to them as stewards is also part of the issue. Some of the stewards thought that the SC advisors had more responsibility in the priorities than they really did. Have to empower them more.
      • Minnie: Thinks it’s a great idea, and maybe we could have a day with the stewards and SC with some practical training and breakouts for content-related stuff.
    • Natasha: National is still having Regional Organizer Retreat at end of July
• Adjourned at 9:15