Green Party of California, state meeting, January 2002, Los Angeles San Diego County delegation ===================================================================== PLENARY REPORT Six delegates and two alternates attended the state party meeting in L.A. Ricardo Newbery Tammy Tatum Michele Delehanty John Delehanty Jodi Beebe Aaron Lipke Lupita Jimenez (alternate) Karine Megerdoomian (alternate) Two delegates (Ted and Nelisse Muga) were not able to attend, so alternates Michele and John took their place. There were two San Diego delegation meetings before the state meeting (attended by Ric, Tammy, Michele, John, and Jodi) and two regional caucuses during the state meeting. During the two pre-state-meeting meetings, the delegates reviewed the various plenary agenda items. The second meeting was devoted primarily to reviewing the four proposed platforms. A summary of the delegates concerns was drafted and submitted at the beginning of the weekend (as requested in the packet). The first regional caucus was held during the Saturday lunch and devoted to discussing the various reapportionment proposals before the delegates submitted individual IRV poll ballots. During this discussion, there did not appear to be a clear consensus over this issue among this region's delegates. The first regional caucus was attended by the entire San Diego and Imperial county delegation (8 from San Diego, 2 from Imperial). The second regional caucus was held during the Sunday lunch and devoted to resolving the question of what to do about the vacating CC regional representative post held by Ricardo Newbery. In attendance were Ricardo Newbery, Tammy Tatum, Michele Delehanty, John Delehanty, Jode Beebe, Aaron Lipke, Lupita Jimenez, and Helena Quintana from Imperial (Karine and the alternate from Imperial had to leave early). The first question was whether the caucus would follow the default process to elect a regional CC representative as defined within the state bylaws or to instead opt for an alternative process. After some discussion, the caucus voted six to zero with one stand aside to follow the current default process. Two nominations for CC representative were then submitted: Helena Quintana and Aaron Lipke. An IRV election was conducted and Aaron Lipke was elected with 4 votes out of 7 ballots cast. Two nominations for alternate CC representative were then submitted: Helena Quintana and Ricardo Newbery. Ric declined the nomination for primary alternate but agreed to fill in as second alternate to assist Aaron and Helena. The delegation confirmed Helena as first alternate and Ric as second alternate. [Post meeting note: Delegate Jode Beebe has since expressed concerns about this process -- concerns which don't appear to be shared by the other delegates.] San Diego delegates also attended several workshops and meetings of various groups including the Information Technology (IT) subcommittee, the Coordinating Committee, the Bylaws committee, the Clearinghouse committee, the Platform ad hoc working group (the Platform committee has not yet been reestablished), the Green Issues working group, the Grassroots Organizing working group (GROW), a Rent Control workshop, a Living Wage workshop, a FACTS workshop (on amending "three strikes"), a Webmaster workshop, a Candidates workshop, and a Media Advisory ad hoc panel (?). Applications for appointment to become a GPUS delegate are still being accepted. Contact John Strawn or Jo Chamberlain. As far as plenary agenda items go, the following decisions were made: - Consent item #1, Armenian genocide statement, adopted on Sunday after some discussion - Consent item #2, Join Cal IRV coalition, adopted - Consent item #3, Prop. 40 endorsement, adopted - Platform, Transportation, adopted - Platform, Energy, adopted with changes - Platform, Education, adopted with minor changes - Platform, Economics, referred back to committee - CC regional rep reapportionment, 11 region version adopted (no change to San Diego / Imperial region) - Retain/remove bylaws language, pulled from agenda (referred back to CC?) - [new agenda item] Statewide candidate endorsement process, adopted - Barbara Lee support proposal, after some floor discussion was withdrawn by Camejo Personal observations: Again as in the past, the plenary meeting suffered from weak facilitation which tended to make some pretty routine matters exceedingly tedious. I don't know if the state party will ever grow out of this difficulty. Only one of the platform proposal presenters (Bud Dickinson, Energy) actually tried to incorporate the San Diego delegation feedback before seeking consensus on the proposal and only one of the presenters (Economics) showed any concern about avoiding a hasty decision. The feedback form included in the packet was a good idea and shows promise for future plenaries but at least during this meeting, few of the presenters took the feedback seriously (if they read it at all). In general (especially with the Education plank), there seemed to be an attitude (which was not new) that if you didn't get involved during the drafting phase, that you should just accept the product and try to "tweak" it afterword if you still had concerns. Overall, there did not seem to be enough desire to generate a real consensus, just a faux consensus where concerned delegates were browbeaten and intimidated into going with the flow. I was also a little disappointed that there was no floor discussion about the new information policy, mentioned during the web presentation, which was recently adopted by the CC and which, in my opinion, needs more careful review. I keep hearing people complain about access to state party information and I pushed very hard to get this stuff in writing so we could reasonably debate it and improve the current situation but I'm afraid most people just missed the significance of this new development. Each of the San Diego delegates did a great job of representing the county and for the first time in five years, we had a full delegation attend the entire meeting. John Delehanty had an excellent idea about forming a local standing committee for San Diego Greens interested in working on state party business which would meet more regularly between state meetings. Delegates would be selected out of this group of people who have made a commitment to participate at the state party level beyond a single state meeting. I was also very pleased to see Imperial county well-represented and willing to participate more fully in the state party business. Some delegates have also submitted more detailed reports which are attached to this email. Respectfully submitted, Ricardo Newbery newbery@greens.org