Leadership Meeting

11/29/2022

6:00 PM

Download the word document here

Attending

Christian Fyke—Interim State Chair of Pennsylvania

Benjamin Valimont—Interim Secretary

Kyle DeMarino—Interim Vice-Chair of Eastern Pennsylvania

Héctor Diaz—Interim Vice-Chair of Central Pennsylvania

Timothy Snyder

Michael Lee

Courtney Hazen

Absent

Brian McMurray—Interim Vice-Chair of Western Pennsylvania

Agenda

1. Bylaws discussion

The meeting started out with a limited number of attendees, namely with only Chairman Fyke & Secretary Valimont. Secretary Valimont presented the issue of how we should start adopting minutes. Chairman Fyke responded by noting that we will need to see how the bylaws address & that we because it was just the two of us, we lacked a quorum. This issue led into a discussion of what a quorum should be for our leadership meetings (& also our state-wide meetings). We discussed whether only the five officers (Chair, Vice-Chairs, & Secretary) should be counted, or if we should count one or more members of the at-large leadership team. This is an area we will need to address in the bylaws. When we decide this, we will need to take into account situations where we would need to call an emergency leadership meeting.

1. Compliance Memorandum & Affiliation Agreement

Courtney jumped onto the meeting for about 14 minutes. She presented our next steps in becoming a party. Before we get a bank account, we need to have a Compliance Memorandum as well as an Affiliation Agreement. We need to have these in place to ensure that we have best practices. National is almost finished with their second state. They got Connecticut done & are in the process of doing Nevada. Texas is next, but Pennsylvania is in the que.

The Compliance Memorandum is about the structuring of finances & any FEC compliances. It is designed to be a partner to the Affiliation Agreement to ensure that state chapters are doing everything by the book.

Currently the Treasurer listed with our organization is from Headquarters. Ethan was going to have a conversation with our potential permanent treasurer but, Chairman Fyke had not heard back from that discussion.

As far as fundraising, right now the smaller amounts have to go through national, but if Tim gets any large donor commitments, Courtney said to contact her to make sure it is earmarked for Pennsylvania. Courtney posed the question of whether Tim would be in charge of compliance issues, but Chairman Fyke was quick to respond that the person Ethan is reaching out to would be in charge of it. Tim would be the person in charge of donor development.

Dates on when we should expect the Compliance Memorandum & Affiliation Agreement are being worked on. Furthermore, when these happen, Courtney suggested that we simultaneously have an official election for our officers. This should be done sooner rather than later so that we our leadership team is official. Courtney further suggested to have her reach out the Florida, Nevada, Utah, or North Carolina teams as they have already gone through the bylaw process.

1. December 15^th Event

The discussion then turned to the event in Philadelphia. Andrew Yang is going to be in Philly on the 15^th & would like to do an informal meet & greet for 2-3 hours. They would like it to be more for people who have been active with the party. We need to find a location but Mr. Yang has an appoint afterwards that limits where the event can take place. He wants it to be at around 5:00 PM-ish & he needs to be around 1800 Arch St. Philadelphia, PA.  It should probably start at around 4:00 PM to 4:30 PM with Andrew getting there at 5:00 PM. It is not being staffed so they don’t want fifty (50) people or more to show up.  The ideal number would be 20 to 25 people.

1. Chairman Diaz’s Debate

Chairman Diaz was able to hunt down the new Director, & she e-mailed him back. The goal is to have moderator, who has already been found, to moderate a debate between a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian, & a Forward Party member. Chairman Diaz wants them to debate a few topics with the grand finale being a discussion on Ranked Choice Voting. Chairman Diaz is going to hash out the details with the Director & decide upon a debate & hopefully that will be in for the spring of next year.

1. Framework Sessions

Chairman Fyke confirmed that Adrian is on for next Tuesday. He sounded pretty intrigued by what we are about. Chairman Diaz is going to also get a connection with Norman Bristol who was just named to Josh Shapiro’s transition team. He would be a good person to connect with to have a discussion on our Party’s identity in the Commonwealth.

December 13^th will be on Community building & will be our last session this year.

1. Fundraising

Chairman Fyke talked to PNC Bank & there is an account that would meet our needs. The account would be a zero-interest checking account so that there would not be additional reporting requirements. Secretary Valimont made comment on the naming convention of the state party’s name. Chairman Fyke responded that national has one that it would prefer to use but that he could not remember it off the top of his head.

When Mr. Snyder joined the call, he mentioned that he also talked with someone who might be able to serve in a treasurer type role. They could either help the person Ethan is talking to or be a plan B if Ethan’s person isn’t able. Secretary Valimont at this time mentioned that might also want to keep in mind that every candidate is going to need a treasurer for their own campaigns & that it would be a good idea to have several individuals we could direct them to—if needed.  Mr. Snyder made a good point that we might not want party officials doing this. In the past, this role was filled by the president of a local bank. Now, though, the major parties just assign someone to fill this role. We need to keep it so that when asked, we are providing recommendations & not dictating who our candidates will use. We also do not want financial reporting to prevent good candidates from running.

1. Committee Members

Chairman Diaz has meeting with an Alex Upton who wants to learn about hosting events. He is from the Philadelphia area. Secretary Valimont also has a meeting with Chairman McMurray, Christian Clark, & a person named Caleb Short. Caleb works in computer science & coding & wants to gussy up our web presence.

1. December 15^th (Part 2)

As mentioned earlier, Andrew Yang is going to be in Philadelphia on December 15^th. It is going to be our job to plan the event. He will be at the location we decide on at around 5:00 PM. He has an appointment later that evening & will need to leave at around 7:00 PM. We would like to keep attendance to attendance down to around 20 to 25 people. It needs to be within walking distance of 1800 Arch St.

Chairman Fyke suggested throwing Alex Upton into the deep end of event planning by letting him plan the event. This was generally agreed that this was a great idea.

1. Miscellaneous

• Drop-in Sessions will begin on Monday
• Appalachian Coalition
  • Coalition of states in Appalachia to work together on issues. One of the things that came out of it was a plan to support some civic causes that we ally with.
• A short discussion on a possible leadership retreat was discussed
  • How do we foster a candidate
• A short discussion was held on how to shine the spotlight on our volunteers