General Meeting September 2019

September 18th, 2019

Meeting call to order at 7:19 pm.

Beginning of meeting reminder to keep this a safe space:
Sharon reminded us that this we are in a public meeting house. if there is any disruption that is deemed threatening, we will call 911. We will be reminding everyone at the beginning of each meeting. Please refer to our code of conduct located on our website.

New Item:
Sharon introduced our new members as a new initiative to better welcome our new members to the 21st legislative district democrats.

Credential Report:
20 voting members present at meeting

August and July meeting minutes were voted on and approved

Motion to adopt tonight’s agenda was approved

Guest Speaker: Cindy Jacobs, Board member of Whole Washington
Cindy spoke to us at length on Whole Washington’s plan for universal healthcare. This is a grassroots campaign that is currently working on a ballot initiative to get Medicare for all in Washington.
There are many tools available to help convince people who may be on the fence with these options. Including a $9 billion savings on healthcare in Washington and there is a strong correlation between access to affordable healthcare and longer lifespan.
The new Medicare for all plan would cover more than Medicare currently covers, including mental health, dental, vision, inpatient and outpatient care.
They are requiring more signatures to get this on the ballot, so they are asking for volunteers.
For more information on Whole Washington please visit their website at https://wholewashington.org.

Officer’s Report
Treasurer’s report: Our total balance is $4362 of which $3688 is in our victory fund, $632 is in our operations fund, and the rest is in savings

First vice chair and PCO coordinator: We need to continue to build up our membership. We are looking to build upon our committees, so please inquire and join a committee today. We are also offering PCO training to anyone who is interested in becoming a PCO, or has already applied. We currently have 51 PCO’s in place, and we are working on two more. We have emailed out a slim-jim to help people with canvasing. Don’t forget that our candidates also need help with canvasing. We are currently standing at 86 members with no new members for September as of this meeting date. Any member who has foreign language skills please let Al Apodaca know.
County report: No meeting held this month, the next meeting is October 5th.
State committee report: Many rules are being proposed for the state, more information to come

Young Democrats: The last young democrats meeting discussed their involvement in “Painting the Town Blue”, which is from October 4th-6th. This is where they are supporting many different candidates throughout the state. The three resolutions that were brought up at the last meeting were brought up again to be voted on. The resolution against hate, the resolution for Medicare for all, and the resolution for fair elections.

Second Vice Chair: Invited anyone who is interested to join the education and issues committee.

Fundraising committee: We have October trivia night at Sully’s please submit trivia questions to Rose.

Tech Committee: Made some changes to the website

Endorsements/Elections committee: Five candidates have been interviewed for endorsements. Snohomish county endorsement committee will meet on November 9th.

New business:
Survey results are in and a good amount of people wanted the fundraiser at Sully’s to be on October 24th. Motion to approve this date was voted for and passed.
Survey results came in and there is an overwhelming interest in healthcare from our members. Sharon went over the survey results for all of the questions.

Motion to change rules to 1 minute debate talking limits for our Young democrats resolutions was voted for and passed.

Young Democrats brought three resolutions to our attention for us to vote on supporting:
Resolution for Free and fair elections. We passed a motion to table until another time.
Resolution for Healthcare for all was requested for changes to certain language before passing.
Resolution condemning hate groups: There was discussion, motion to push it back to the Young democrats for editing was voted for and passed.

Resolutions committee took back the resolution to support affirmative action via referendum 88 to work on.

Good of the order:
Megan Dunn reported a good turn out to the Evergreen State fair.

Meeting adjourned at 9:50 PM.