Minutes From SCC Meeting July26, 2005, no quorum Portland Library, Portland CT

Attending: Barbara Barry (Greater Hartford),
Mike DeRosa (Greater Hartford),
Allan Brison (New Haven),
Karin Norton O’Connor (Tolland),
Tim McKee (Hamden),
Kelly McCarthy (Hamden),
Aaron Gustafson (Hamden),
Miguel Nievas (New Britain)

Facilitator: Aaron Gustafson (Tom Sevigny could not make it at the last minute).
The meeting did not have a quorum but we did follow the agenda items that did not require a formal vote.

A. Preliminaries 1-8:
Preliminaries were done. Recent minutes were handed out but could not be approved because of lack of quorum. The treasurer did not attend so there was no report.

B. Reports:
Chapter Reports;

Greater Hartford: Progressive Movie Festival continues with showing of Atomic Cafi David Ionno is running for Board of Education in Hartford. There are no other offices available to run for in Hartford this year because of charter revision-4 year terms.

New Britain : Chapter will be participating in the Latinos In Action festival in Sept. 10-11 Will have a booth. Miguel campaign is going well. He is getting signs (100) plus he is speaking to groups. Hartford Courant is interested in his campaign.

New Haven: Not running candidates for Alderman at this time. Mayor wanted Charlie Pillsbury to run for alderman, Charlie turned him down. Joyce Chen is now running as a Democrat for City Council. Joyce switched from the Green Party for a variety of personal and political reasons. New Haven has a possible Afro-American candidate for Mayor. Chapter is very much involved in the fight over a land grab by Yale-New Haven Hospital. They want a zoning district that allows them to do most anything they want. Five Hundred people recently protested against this zoning at a hearing. New Haven is working with a community group from called CORD. Discussion about possible candidacy of Cliff Thornton for governor race in 2006 as a Green. He spoke to New Haven Chapter.

Manchester: Trying to update group. The candidates in Manchester have no real issues. People can’t make up their minds in Manchester about whether they want to be a town or a city. Walmart wants to go into Vernon. There is a lot of opposition to this. Contacts in Safford Springs are good possible coalition members. We discussed of the relevance of the book The United States of Walmart. Continued work on Cable show.

Hamden: Kelly McCarthy is running for city/legislative council in Hamden (5th district). Campaign has started. It is going well. Press was good and is taking the greens seriously. New Haven Register newspaper showed up at Hamden Convention. Kelly’s opponent is unknown in Hamden. Kelly has a campaign manager. Kelly was asked to run as a Democrat but she reclined. The 5th district is 45% unaffiliated, 45% Dem., 10% Republican. Discussion about why we do not have a quorum: Kelly said she wanted to know why we did not have a quorum. Mike said he thought it was because it is summer time and all meetings are off during this period. Alan suggested that we call people. Tim said that there is a lot going on so people have not come. Kelly said that she and Aaron have worked on the re-structuring plan and cannot get it passed until there is a quorum. Mike suggested that we have a convention that does not require a quorum to pass the various changes and approvals that have not been done in the past.

Voter Report: Mike DeRosa said that our Voter Verified Paper Trail was signed by Gov. Rell recently and is now law. CT has one of best auditing systems for VVPT if not the Best.

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