November 17, 2019 - Basement Group Monthly Meeting

Notes at the top of the meeting:

Members of the 50th ADC were unable to attend, we will reschedule with them for another time.

A few of the members are going to help stuff envelopes for the announcement of the ADC at Josh Skaller’s house.

RYB

7 people from the Basement Group are in the 52nd organizing committee of RYB

Tabling

Today there was a tabling event at Carroll street park – tied to voter registration

19 people signed up for RYB!

It was a great group effort and went really smoothly!

Thinking of doing another tabling event at the Stone House – close to the farmer’s market but not impeding which worked out very well this time.

The event was advertised really well!

Katya Kelly advertised it on her blog – Pardon me for asking. She doesn’t want anything politically affiliated – so we called it voter registration.

Prema Yoga put it on their site

Next Saturday there’s a RYB AD 52 meetup

It will be at Tom Rosbarill on Gold Street with wine and cheese

It’ll be a mix between an info session and a meet up

If you didn’t receive a text from Joe and want to go, text him

Identify yourself and Joe will send you the information

Planning another meet up tentatively for December 7 at a bar or a coffee shop

RYB leadership does an orientation every month on what CC is, what it does, and how to petition

Lots of new people are coming to the events and singing up

There’s a holiday festival at the Carroll Street Park

1000s of people attend!

Might be good for another tabling event

Running in 2020

The ADO team looks to each of us to encourage people to sign up!

Please let Joe know if you intend to run again this year

There is an onboarding process to figure out how flexible folks are about running in their ED

Time frame for petitioning

Jan/Feb - attend petitioning training session

Feb 22/23 - pick up petitions

February 25-March 22 - petitioning

June 23 - democratic primary

Sept 2020 - election if primaried

You’ll have to collect only 3% of registered democrats in your district – as opposed to 5%

Still in the process of putting together the running mates

Submit the name of someone you want to run with if you have someone in mind

It’s our interest to get people to run in their ED

If there are people that aren’t actually petitioning but really just get added in, let’s put them in the EDs where people aren’t full

In January it’s rumored that the BOE may reconfigure the Election Districts

Might be minor, but no one knows yet for sure

Because of voter turn out in 2018 election, we were very well represented and so there may be additional seats that come up

In some of the EDs they may be adding seats – don’t think they’ll be redrawing any districts

In terms of bringing in and recruiting people – what’s the deadline?

No real deadline, but the sooner that we get them in, the better to give them more information

By the end of December is optimal to get them into petitioning training

Because also we’ll be able to have all the names and numbers for the meetings with Josh/Jo Anne/Joan

Support needed

Partnerships with other groups haven’t been going as well

If anyone has any local and community groups, let Joe/Meg know

We have contacts to reach out with the Park Avenue Committee

As of last Wednesday, overall numbers of people signing up are good and there’s a great return rate of people in CC

In some other districts, there’s not a great number of new people – if you know people in other districts would be good

One of the phenomena that we’re dealing is that a lot of people signed up for 2020 – we started at 80, but once you start touching base, you don’t hear back

Encourage new people to sign up and to come

Are we helping to table in other ADs

We’re doing better than many, so could we help?

We can make ourselves available, but each AD has it’s own make up and so each ADO team is recruiting in its own way

Keep in mind!

Presidential Petitioning starts on December 31

Important note for the voter registration and getting people registered for a party

Website Update

The site is live! Please take a look and make suggestions for edits, style notes, or additions

View the site here: https://thebasementgroupad.wixsite.com/home

Thank you Meg for writing the copy!

Organizing Document Change – Parliamentarian to Membership Chair

The Executive Committee recommends updating our organizing document with the following two changes:

1) Changing the position of Parliamentarian to an appointed position to keep us in line with Roberts Rules of Order at ADC meetings.

2) Adding a Membership Chair position with the following description:

The Membership Chair is responsible for promoting, coordinating, and overseeing The Basement Group membership efforts and for broadening participation in the Basement Group and the Assembly District Committee. Membership Chair develops and implements strategies to make the Basement Group more representative of the 52nd Assembly District, to retain members and drive them towards action, and to encourage members to invest in the club’s growth.

When we wrote the organizing document – we said that with the majority of those in the meeting we could make changes

To keep in link with our organizing document, we will vote on this at our December meeting.

December Meeting Date – December 5 and December 15 out

We’ve sent out a doodle poll to select our December meeting date

The meeting will be an informal social in The Basement – bring food and drinks to share!

ADC meeting

Since Aaron and Steve met with Jason a short bit ago, Aaron has been communicating with Jason Shelly in an official but casual way

Updates:

There’s an ADC meeting on Monday, November 25 at the Belarusian Autocephalous Church, 401 Atlantic Ave from 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Jason emailed out an initial save the date

If you haven’t gotten any emails from Jason, let Aaron and Steve know

Agenda

Jason confirmed that the agenda items that The Basement Group wanted to review will be discussed - (1) Rules Change: 3 weeks advance notice and (2) election of Vice Chair and Treasurer and opening of the standing committees

While we did not have to make a selection of one person as a candidate for the two ADC Executive roles, The Basement Group chose to nominate two individuals in order to have a clear direction for our votes, iit will be more practical for vote counts and we wouldn’t split the votes. If we have the ability to have an election, we don’t know actually how this meeting will go. They may already have the votes, so it’s good for us to be prepared because there is a lot of stuff before the election can take place – like nominating people, running, making speeches

Vice Chair: Vicki

Treasurer: Teresa

The idealism vs. the reality

Good point that the ADC might not officially be formed, but it’s more about a technical question and do we want to spend our efforts there

It’s not an issue since they haven’t spent money

Jo Anne paid for the mailings for the first meeting

Joan had 50 proxies plus the in room votes, we had about 40 votes

What we’re doing is more symbolic

It’s possible that maybe they just say great and move it all forward

We’re trying to figure out why they’ve been trying to have a meeting now

Jason brought up that we should have another meeting, but didn’t have a reason why

Wants to use the ADC and the ideas that we make here as a way to spread ideas countywide

Is there a possibility that Jo Anne would want to use an ADC meeting to talk about CC 2020 and recruiting onto her side?

Probably not, but it’s rumored that now that RCV has been approved, Jo Anne might want to run for Borough President – since she wouldn’t be 1st choice, as a woman, she might be 2nd choice and win.

This then means that the ADC is important to fill her vacancy though they still feel that they’re going to be able to maintain the status quo

There is also something in the rules that we have to have not less than 2 meetings each year, including the organizing meeting

If we didn’t have a second one, we’d be in violation

Aaron and Steve have been in touch about offering volunteers to help with logistics - no news on this yet

Proxies for ADC

Update since our meeting - we received a proxy form from Josh. Please use this form if you are unable to attend.

One person from The Basement Group should hold the majority of the proxies - Cecilia is collecting the proxies (although feel completely free to give your proxy to someone else if you would prefer!)

If any of us know people that don’t got to the meetings, get in touch with them to collect their proxies

Both our Basement Group and people not in Basement Group

We will get their proxy and also we’ll get information on if someone Joan already has it

Theories of change on proxies:

Maybe this is something that we can discuss, for making the meetings more representative instead of a proxy war

When does Joan start whipping proxies? I bet she already has them

In the 43rd there was a fast and loose view of the proxy counts

We can say that we’re bringing in proxies and we want to see theirs

Will do outreach to the people on the basement group list that haven’t been here

Erika and Greyson are reaching out to Basement Group members to alert them of the meeting and get their proxy if needed

Remember that elections for Basement Group are in January! Start thinking now if you’d like to run!

September 10, 2019 - Basement Group Monthly Meeting

Recap and discussion about 9/9/2019 County Committee meeting

o Discussion of the Census

§ It was worthwhile and taking part in the process can make a big difference. Others felt that while important to hear the information, it took up too much time from other matters.

§ The Brooklyn Borough President is focused on making partnership connections – The Basement Group can be part of this.

o Resolution put forward by Brandon and the non-vote that got it passed

§ Frank had an opportunity to extend a hand to the progressives and he took it. Arguing against transparency in County’s finances doesn’t make sense.

§ It’s fantastic that the resolution passed and encouraged by Josh Skaller’s rules reform

§ The fact that public attention spurs reforms is great – but it doesn’t mean much if the resolutions don’t go anywhere

o Josh’s resolution should have gone to a vote

§ But there’s also a conflict of interest now that Josh is the presiding officer in the committee

§ Also unclear when the committee haas been meeting

§ There are sometimes things that are too in the weeds and there is a vote to send it to the committee instead of getting into it with the whole body

o What happens with the explanation about the money?

§ There was an experience of anger in their response saying that they publish the budget every 6 months

§ Josh’s rules reform goes into more detail on what they should be presenting to the full body

o Updates from Josh Skaller on various resolutions and rules

§ Proxy reform was killed in the executive committee around some election cycle time

§ Doug’s reform hasn’t even made it to the rules committee

· There’s no accountability on when that’s coming

§ In questioning about the proxy reform he said that it was killed in the rules committee

o Meeting operations still need work

§ Looking at the proxy line at the meeting – they’re still not prepared for the large numbers

§ We still need to look into the credibility of how the CC is counting votes, both ours and anyone’s that we’re carrying

§ The dynamic hasn’t really changed and the CC Executives aren’t changing who they pay attention to.

· So what’s the best way to maneuver around that reality?

§ CC allowed time for questions at the end which is a great move forward, but none of the questions or requests were being answered or written down.

· There are 6 secretaries – but they haven’t been at the last few meetings.

· Asked Josh if there were minutes from the executive committee – and he said no

· There’s tracking of who votes for how people voted, but it’s not shared

o So what’s the best way to maneuver around that reality?

o What big ideas can we have to get things moving forward?

§ We need to stay on top of the resolution that was passed at the meeting and also the rules change that was presented

§ Post minutes we take on the website or some other link that connects to the website

§ Progressive DLs that understand the rules is the best avenue for the changes we want

- Extending invitations and communication to join or about The Basement Group

o Josh Skaller

§ He might not know about us as an organized group yet

§ Fits within our organizing document in his role in county committee

· The Basement Group is not about transactional things; we are a home base for the 52nd – general idea is that you, Josh, can come and be a part of it and just come and talk as another CC member

o Our elected see the ADCs and the KCCC as a transactional meeting to just put people into judgeships

§ Counter argument is that it can be an organizing tool – like The Basement Group

· Start with the olive branch and just invite him with no questions/agenda about him/his new role

§ Let them know that we exist

· Josh has been saying at least to CBID he feels excluded in general – so could use it to our advantage

§ In future discussions -

· With his position as rules chair, we have the most amount of leverage coming from the 52nd

· Getting the proxy initiative back on

o Jason Shelley

§ We would email him in his role with the ADC (not in his role as IND president)

§ Aaron and Steve will email him to ask him is if the ADC will be meeting again and when

§ We will not be inviting him to a Basement Group meeting at this time

o JoAnn is very proud that we have an ADC in the 52nd – could use this as a way to connect with her

§ For now, we’re not going to

- Rep Your Block

o Most in The Basement Group said that we’re not going to carry petitions for IND like we did in 2018

§ In the past, NKD ran on IND’s petitions because it was much lower turn out pre-Trump

§ The volume was much different in 2018 and so had to engage with Josh and Anne Swern

· RYB leads met several times with them in order to avoid primaries – the overarching goal was to get as many new people in the CC process in the 52nd, but also coordinating with the long-standing group (IND)

· Many of the IND folks didn’t actually carry/go out

· A lot of these people are now proxies for people we don’t agree with

· We don’t want to carry petitions for someone who’s not walking with us – no matter what club they’re from

§ If we don’t coordinate with them this time, there is a higher risk of primaries

· We can look at where we think they’re going to run and try to plan, but the biggest difference with IND and RYB is that we were really trying to get people to rep THEIR block

o What’s the basement group strategy for RYB?

§ Most of The Basement Group is in RYB

· Joe and Meg are the Assembly District Organizers for the 52nd

§ 52nd has about 400 members and about half were appointed

§ The 52nd had the highest engagement through RYB

- Candidate Presentations

o Brandon West for City Council of the 39th

o Jesse Pierce for District Leader of the 52nd

- Important Fall Dates and Next Steps

o Next meeting will be Sunday, October 20 at 6:00 PM location, TBD

§ Topics:

· Running people for the judicial nominating conventions

o Could have someone come to talk about the process and the role – Judge Margarita Lopez Torres, her husband, and/or JBV

· What other groups are we members of and could connect on RYB?

· Holding a strategy session for Basement Group's outreach for County Committee recruitment

o October 11 is the date by when to change party registration to vote in the primaries

§ Get your neighbors registered! 

August 19, 2019 - Basement Group Executive Committee Meeting

MEETINGS!

Tuesday, September 10th, 7 pm at Colonie 274 (274 4th Avenue)

Tuesday, October 8th, 7 pm

Sunday, November 17th, 5 pm

Tuesday, December 10th, 7 pm

WEBSITE! This month we'll be creating a Basement Group website so that we have a landing site for anyone curious about our group and work. We would love to grow our group and have a place for other County members from the 52nd (or those curious about jumping on board) to gather info. Look for that soon!

SOCIAL HANG! Thanks to all who joined us for the Basement Group Social Hang in July. We've got another one penciled in for December.

REP YOUR BLOCK! At our September meeting we'll be focusing on the Rep Your Block campaign and how the Basement Group can support it. We propose creating a committee to focus our efforts on outreach to community groups. Do you know any groups in your neighborhood or are a member of any that we could go speak to? Our members could present on RYB and recruit new prospective County Committee candidates.

GOOGLE GROUP! We also finalized guidelines for posting to the group email list. We'll present these for review before the meeting on September 10th. 

RECRUITMENT! Do you know other folks who would be interested our vision of a more transparent and inclusive ADC and County Committee? Please invite them to join us at a Basement Group meeting.