Notes from the Coordinating Committee of the Green Party of Ohio
January 26, 2002 Meeting

bullets from the meeting:
- 26 delegates attended the meeting
- Next Meeting March 16 at the Clintonville Community Resource Center
- The GPO will sell or return merchandise from last year's Ohio State Fair to the Regional or Local Organizations
- Rapid Response Team for more information on setting this up, contact Greg Richey
- Accepted the Proposal for Filing for FEC Affiliation with GPUS
- Request for Support of Funding Winona LaDuke to speak before Campus Greens Meeting on February 15-16 from the Green Party contact list after Friday, 2/1 and the Campus Greens indicate they need the funding. The Campus Greens' drafted message would go out from Bob Gragson.
- Daryl Davis will replace Bob Gragson on the GPUS CC
- GPO will not probably not be in the Ohio State Fair this year.
- Committee has been formed to work on the convention.

Notes by Paul Dumouchelle until lunch & Gwen Marshall from after lunch to end of meeting.

Location: Clintonville Community Resource Center, 14 West Lakeview Ave., Columbus 614-268-3539
Facilitator: Russ Buckbee
9:30 ­ Treasurers' Training ­ Gina Ficociello & Paul Dumouchelle

DRAFT AGENDA
Meeting Starts: 10:30 AM

1/26/01 Meeting ­ Quorum Requirement ­ 40% of Current Members (required for Quorum: 13)
Total #: 36 (including 3 additions from Cleveland: Dave Katz, Henry Knecht, Chris Lutjen added without objection during quorum call - for 1/26)
Attendance: (Y=present or N=absent)
Officers & Unorganized Areas (6 allowed)
Paul Dumouchelle - Y
Gina Ficociello - Y
Bob Gragson - N
Greg Richey - Y
Central (8 Allowed)
Keith Johnson - Y
Larry Snider - Y
Hillary T. - Y
Alan Amstutz - Y
Cleveland (8 Allowed)
David Berenson - Y
Dave Katz - Y
Brian Cummins - N
Daryl Davis - Y
David Ellison - Y
Jonah Jacobs - N
Henry Knecht - Y
Chris Lutjen - Y
Lake Erie (2 Allowed)
Mahoning Valley(4 Allowed)
Betsy Johnquest - N
Shawna Leonard - N
Terry Esarco - N
Tina Mays Hyde - N
Mid-Ohio (2 Allowed)
Stan Null - Y
Michael Renock-Welker - Y
Alternate: Boyd Addlesperger - N
Northwest (4 Allowed)
Kathy Kozlowski - N
Anita Rios - Y
Portage-Summit (6 Allowed)
Russ Buckbee - Y
Patti Fridrich - Y
Tim Newman - Y
Michele Pamer - N
Southeast (2 Allowed)
David Whealey - Y
Southwest (6 Allowed)
Donna Leist - (after lunch only)
Gwen Marshall - (after lunch only)
Dorsey Stebbins - Y (until 4PM)
Eric Wise - Y
Brian Sebastion - Y
West Central (4 Allowed)
Logan Martinez- Y
Tiki Kai-Krismano - N

David Ellison was facilitator before lunch

1. Confirmation of Agenda & Time Limits - David Ellison

2. Approved November Minutes ­ handled by Paul Dumouchelle
(copies carried to meeting by Eric Wise from Gwen as well as Gwen's computer for Paul to take notes which were then completed and edited by Gwen.)

3. Officers' Reports:
- Convener - Paul Dumouchelle
Next Meeting Date March 16 & Location - Clintonville Community Resource Center
Coord Com.

- Secretary's Report: NA (Bob Gragson did not attend)

- State Treasurer's Report: Gina Ficociello - Gina is Treasurer, Greg Richey is Deputy Treasurer, Paul Dumouchelle is managing the bank account. Current State Balance in the PAC is $182.68 and remaining funds will be sent to the appropriate Locals. Gina will forward actual record to Gwen Marshall for inclusion in final minutes.

Proposal by Gina Ficociello regarding Ohio Green Party Merchandise Inventory. Two Decisions - Proposed that the GPO sell merchandise inventory of items at cost to the Regional or Local Organizations. Accepted as Proposed.

Proposed, that since the original agreement was to return to donating organizations 25% of the profits from the inventory's sale, that, instead we return the equivalent amount in merchandise as long as this is acceptable to the Local/Regional Organization. Accepted as proposed.
- Federal Treasurer's Report: Paul Dumouchelle. $361.52 balance.

4. Green Party Petition Committee ­ Paul Dumouchelle. No activity on this committee since the last meeting. Cuyahoga continues to gather signatures as events allow. Petitions would be used for 2004. Perhaps we should abandon this effort and lobby for the rule to change, or do both together. A question whether there is a benefit to filing a completed effort in 2003.

5. 2002 Candidates Committee ­ Logan Martinez.
In 2001 Nine people ran in Ohio as Green Party candidates and received a little over 20,000 votes in total. Paul Dumouchelle got the highest percentage amount at 40%, Steve Steel in Toledo got the largest number of votes. Plan to do a survey among candidates to get feedback on how Party can be more effective. Committee did some work in getting volunteers organized and soliciting donations.
Looks like we have 2 Green Candidates in 2002. One is Frank Doden running for 7th Ohio Congressional District (Green, Clark, Fayette, Pickaway, Perry and part of Franklin & Ross Counties). We made a call for candidates for 2002 in June, filing date for independent candidates is May 6, and final decision could be as late as April. We have no statewide candidates running for office. Logan would like to see Congressional candidates as a priority to help build the national party then have State Representative as the next priority given that they are sometimes fairly easy to organize and David Whealey mentioned that donations to State Representative campaigns are deductible as a credit from State Taxes. Russ referenced the national candidates committee document which seemed to have some good strategic thought. Logan emphasized the need for Green Party leaders to consider running, that everyone contact three local activists to act if they would run and that locals should hold press conferences to publicize the call for candidates.

6. Locals' Reports - (Note - only pre-submitted reports are included in minutes and none were received either at or before the meeting .) Reports can be sent in by Wednesday, 1/30/02 to SWOHGP@fuse.net and still be included in the minutes.

7. Rapid Response Team - Greg Richey and David Berenson. Greg passed around a list to create a committee that will develop a proposal for how the Response Team will work.

8. Accepted the Proposal for Filing for FEC Affiliation with GPUS - Paul Dumouchelle. Proposal for Filing for FEC Affiliation with GPUS - Paul Dumouchelle Proposal Language: That the Green Party of Ohio seek recognition by the Federal Election Commission as a State Committee of a Political Party affiliated with the FEC-recognized GPUS. That the Treasurer of the Federal Political Action Committee (currently Paul Dumouchelle) undertake all necessary actions to obtain and maintain this recognition. The two requirements for FEC recognition are:
a) Bylaws or similar document that delineates activities commensurate with the day-to-day operation of a party at a state level; and
b) Ballot access for at least one federal candidate who has qualified as a candidate under FEC regulations.

9. The following proposal was accepted regarding the Request for Support of Funding Winona LaDuke to speak before Campus Greens Meeting on February 15-16. Hillary T., Keith Johnson. Expenses would be travel, lodging and $2,500 honorarium and Hillary clarified that she is looking to a variety of sources for funds. Proposal - That we ask for people on the Green Party contact list to support this effort and if funds are found elsewhere that the donations will be used for general use by the Green Party of Ohio. That this will be done after Friday, 2/1 and the Campus Greens indicate they need the funding. That the Campus Greens will draft the core of the message. The message would go out from Bob Gragson as a separate message.

Lunch Break

Old Business

10. Supporters' Proposal ­ Logan Martinez, Russ Buckbee
No proposal was accepted. Paul pointed out that - a 50-50 split is not covered by the Bylaws and in fact the Bylaws try to maintain a legal separation between State and Local funds so the sharing of money is something that does need approval.
What follows are some of the issues raised and either resolved or not resolved:
a) In part #2 of the proposal - It was suggested that the "local responsibility" would be to forward, name, address of donor and half of the donation collected from the Supporter's program. There would be additional information needed if money is for the PAC, such as the employer if the amount is over $100.
b) Not settled was what kind of program this should be:
1) all for Operating Costs such as copies, postage, supplies, meeting costs, long distance phone calls, web page and so on related to building and maintaining the local & Ohio Green Parties.
2) all for the Political Action Committees to help fund local and Ohio Green Party Candidates with costs of such things as registration fees, flyers, parade cards and sample ballots for poling stations as well as the operating costs listed above for building the party. (PAC bookkeeping is more time and paperwork intensive for the state and locals)
3) PAC & operating
c) Also not answered:
Should the money go from local to state
from state to local
either direction depending on who gets the check.
Comments made on these issues included: Gina said that she would prefer to have checks made out to the local and have the locals write a check to the state party. Logan said that the check should be allowed to be written either way and have the receiver write the check to the other party. Paul said that including the PAC in the mix makes it too complicated and that it should be operating or PAC, not both. Gwen said that the SWOH local had voted to have this program be for both operating and PAC and expressed a preference for using the less paperwork and reporting intensive system of the operating account to fund party building activities.
Gwen proposed that a State Operating Account be set up, but this proposal was not voted on after Logan's proposal was voted down. After giving the proposal orally, she reread her proposal as, "Proposal by Gwen Setting up an Green Party of Ohio Operating Account
The fund raising committee is authorized and recommended to set up a Green Party of Ohio operating account that is not a PAC for the purpose of operating the 'Supporter's Program,' the state convention, and other operating expenses related to building the Party such as costs for copies, postage, supplies, meeting costs, long distance calls and so on. "
When the vote was held on Logan's proposal (amendment version #5), he said it would be for use with an operating account only. The vote did include revising the #5 proposal (the version sent out with the agenda) to include Paul's amendment to #4 regarding the treasurer.
It was agreed that we needed a 2/3rds vote so needed 16 votes to pass, so the proposal failed.
Vote was: for-13, opposed-7 abstain-4

11. Expanded Ohio Representation to GPUS coordinating committee (including replacement of Bob Gragson) ­ Anita Rios
Anita is compiling the list of local activity to show that we can qualify for the 4 representatives that Ohio should be able to qualify for with our 18 Congressional districts in Ohio. We need to show local activity in 4 Congressional districts for each representative we will be allocated by GPUS. {To see which Congressional districts overlap with your local, compare your county list (on the Ohio Green Party web page) with the new Ohio congressional district map by going to www.ohioremap2001.org click on Congressional map and look at large print copy of the map to see which districts are in your local.}
Regarding replacing Bob on GPUS coordinating committee until we find out if we get our 3rd and 4th representative, Daryl was approved to replace Bob as the delegate and Paul Dumouchelle was approved to became the 4th alternate with the idea that he become the 4th delegate when we get the rest of our allocation. Bob had said that he wants to remain as a alternate, Anita said that we may have as many alternates as we want.

12. State Fair - Paul Dumouchelle - informally agreed that we will not be doing a booth this year, but should agree to readdress this issue every January.
Paul had raised the following questions:
a) Should we make sure the petition issues at the State Fair are State rather than local issues? Should the state committee consult the regional parties and then decide what these issues should be? Would this approach stimulate more state fair involvement at the state and the regional levels?
b) Perhaps it is important for us to do the Fair on election years, but not the others. Should we do the fair this year, and, starting with next year, institute the practice of only doing the Fair on EVEN-NUMBERED years?
Discussion: We need $1,600 to do the fair, and need to make a payment in March if we want a booth. Bill Kerwin is not volunteering to do as much as he has done in the past, but has done a great job with pulling this together the past two years. David B. suggested that the odd numbered year is useful for collecting signatures. Paul said that he personally didn't think that having a booth 2000 at the fair was that good of a use of resources. There was no proposal made to have us be at the State Fair this year, but agreed that we could/should discuss the questions a&b raised above on line.

13. Strategic Planning - Russ Buckbee
Suggested that we need to spend a couple of hours at the state convention on strategic planning & that we have a subcommittee work on setting up ideas for strategic planning. Another proposal was to have a retreat before the convention to work on strategic planning.
{note from Gwen - sorry I got lost on this one, was a separate committee set up to work on this, if so, who is on it?}

14. 2002 State Convention - Paul Dumouchelle
Location & Dates­ Paul says it needs to be a central location & he suggested the Community Fest weekend (the last weekend of June)
Agenda - (see notes from discussion and also requirements from bylaws: Platform, Bylaws Revisions, Tabling)
Also needing resolution is the projected numbers of people who would attend.
Russ had everyone who chose to make a 1 minute comment on what they thought would be the purpose of a convention. Ideas ran from an outdoor picnic/potluck to a forum on local/state/federal issues. Other ideas ranged from making it be about outreach, or be about seminars to learn about how to run a campaign. Also suggested is that we work to come up with a clear plan of what the Greens recommend as a solution to our economic problems &/or how to work with other like minded groups. David Ellison suggested the need for a retreat before the convention to establish a platform that could then be ratified at the convention.
Agreed to set up a committee: David Ellison, Paul Dumouchelle, Hillary T., Patty Fridrich, Gwen Marshall and Tim Newman to compile a proposal to be published and ratified before the next meeting. A meeting was held after the GPO meeting to set up a time for a meeting to work on this issue.

New Business

15. Endorsement of Frank Doden for US Congress ­ Logan Martinez
The West Central group has already endorsed Frank Doden for run for the new 7th Ohio Congressional district which has been redrawn to include two major military bases. The current incumbent is David Hobson, a Republican who is currently the chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Military Construction. Frank spoke to the group and was well received but some wanted more time than was available so the endorsement decision was postponed to either on line or the next meeting (which ever happens first.)
{An online vote needs a 2/3 majority and the quorum is 50%.}

Adjourned at 5 PM due to the meeting room being booked by another group at that time.