01.15.07
Meeting Minutes, 1/13/07
Our former Club President, Mary Kay Green, called the meeting to order at 9:15 AM. She announced that a lot of people aren’t here, because they’re at the Martin Luther King, Jr. "We are the Dream" parade (www.wearethedream.org). The 3,000th Iraq War Memorial is on display from January 14 to 17 in Memorial Park. This is an observance of the over 3,000 U.S. military casualties, the over 150 U.S. civilian casualties, the estimated 650,000 Iraqi casualties, and the tens of thousands of wounded in the ongoing Iraq War. She observed that our freedoms are being whittled away "piece by piece" by the Bush Administration.
She introduced Randall R. Morton, President of the Progressive Forum. The Forum hosts 7 events each year. Some of the speakers last year were Al Gore, Molly Ivins, Seymour Hersh and George Soros.
The Spring Season 2007 will commence on February 19 with Garrison Keillor, who is the author of "Homegrown Democrat". Tim Flannery will speak on March 19 on the topic of global warming. His book, "The Weather Makers", is considered the best book on the subject. Senior Time magazine columnist Joe Klein will lecture on April 12 on "Islam, Iraq, and the War on Terror". Anna Deavere, who has been hailed by Newsweek as "the most exciting individual in American Theater", will speak on May 21.
He said their featured speakers are some of the greatest minds alive. They want to feature Barack Obama, and are in contact with him (www.barackobama.com, www.obama.senate.gov).
Jim Dougherty asked whether The Progressive Forum is a non-profit organization. He confirmed that it is, and said it is the first group in Houston to pay speaker fees. He said that Progessive Forum events were previously held in the Hobby, but they’ve moved to the Wortham.
Max Beauregard, our new President, pointed out that The Progressive Forum web site, www.progessiveforumhouston.com, is linked to our site, www.ghdc.org.
Mary Kay Green thanked Leta Parks for hosting our Christmas Party. She mentioned that Lita is an Associate Judge, and likes to host parties in her home.
Mary Kay Green said that in November we suspended the rule that stipulates that the election of Club officers will be held each year in December, and postponed that rule until today. She said that Barbara Ashley has stepped down as Vice-President, and she has resigned as President.
Bruce Mosier moved that we elect by acclamation Vicki Bellow as Treasurer. She was elected by unanimous acclamation.
Bruce Moshier moved that Kevin Hoffman be elected by acclamation as Vice-President. He’s an activist who has worked on the campaigns of Adrian Garcia and Jessica Farrar. Everyone acclaimed their approval.
Bruce Mosier moved that we elect by acclamation Max Beauregard as President. He acknowledged the contributions that Max has made to the field of demography. He has provided valuable demographic anaysis to various Democratic campaigns. He was elected by unanimous acclamation.
He moved that Henry Weissborn be elected by acclamation as Secretary. Henry was unanimously elected.
Max Beauregard reported that we had a great day on January 11 in our visit to Austin by bus for the Texas Legislature Open House. We left at 7 AM, and ended up watching 5 hours of the legislators going back and forth on the rules of how to vote. There were various questions about rules and endless points of order. In the end, "we all know who ended up as Speaker of the House (Tom Craddick), much to our chagrin".
He recollected that mariachi bands played in front of Jessica Farrar’s office for the entire day. He commented that she has a beautiful new office.
The first legislative session of 2007 started off with a motion to keep the voting secret until all of the committee assignments had been made. The motion failed. Following the defeat of that motion, Representative Jim Pitts withdrew his name. Max said, "he fell on his sword poltically in order to save his people".
Mary Kay Green declared, "I thank you for having served. I’ve enjoyed being your President, believe it or not. This is a city election year. We need to get people registered to vote, so that we don’t let things lag. We need to stay busy. It’s all yours, baby".
Max Beauregard commented, "I’m happy to help. I very much want this to be a team effort. My priority is to reach out to the community in order to make them aware of our presence".
Scott Bruns, our webmaster, noted that our web site gets a lot of visitors. He said that, although there were almost no visitors when our site first went online last year, by December we were up to a thousand visitors.
Max Beauregard commented, "a thousand people is really significant".
Scott said our two hottest topics were early voting and neighborhood community news like "Lights in the Heights". He commented that we provide a vital service with that kind of information, since the only alternative is the Houston Heights Association (www.houstonheights.org), which is mostly focused on their club and is more procedurally-oriented.
He said "there are a lot of eyes. There are a lot of young people moving into these apartments. The majority of people coming to our site have high-speed internet connections.
That means we can do internet videos. If we do 5-minute interviews with candidates, You Tube-types of things, and post it to the site, it would get a lot of traffic. You can get a camera for a thousand bucks (www.youtube.com)".
Max Beuregarde said, "we need to network with Heights residents. We should hang our banner out on 19th Street. We need to wear our club t-shirts to First Saturday events, so that people will know there is a local operation going on".
Phil McNutt, an actvist with the local chapter of Democracy for America, said, "I’m in agreement with the web site". Democracy for America relies heavily on the internet. I think the club is moving in the right direction with the internet". He said that DFA will host a training academy in Houston on March 3 and 4 with speakers and workshops. The $60 admission charge includes lunch.
He said, "we’re ahead of Austin on training. We want to make sure that we get the word out. There are new folks and people running for office coming".
He announed that Barack Obama will speak at the Schultz’s (Beer) Garden, 1607 San Jacinto, in downtown Austin on January 28 at 5 PM.
Mary Kay Green said that Jim Rine is at the MLK Rally today, and added, "he was our bacup person for Vice President. He’s pretty over-extended with Veterans for Peace.".
E. I. Smith commented on the need for health care reform. He said, "there are millions of people without medication. Seniors are trying to get medicene down to a reasonable price".
Diane Mosier said that she writes a monthly column on neighborhood restaurants for the Heights Tribune (www.heightstribune.com). She commented that we need to have more social gatherings. She said most young people don’t like to get up early for meetings on Saturday mornings. We need to additional events at times other than Saturday mornings. She suggested that we start putting on receptions once a year for Heights-area precinct chairs.
Vicki Bellow suggested that we host a garage sale this spring. She noted that we have some members who have graciously offered their homes for parties.
Scott Bruns commented, "it’s interesting to see who our web site visitors are. The things we’ve posted on the site that relate to the Heights neighborhood have been the most popular".
Max Beauregard adjourned the meeting at 10:25 AM.
by Henry Weissborn
GHDC Secretary
Approved by Max Beaurgard
GHDC President
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