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The Charlottesville Democratic Committee

Meetings

REPORT: Full Committee Meeting (5/22/23)

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The Full Committee met at the Forest Hills Park’s picnic shelter. The highlights:
1) A number of candidates came early to meet and chat with members pre-meeting: Dave Norris, Bellamy Brown, Katrina Callsen (House of Delegates candidates), Michael Payne, Lloyd Snook (City Council candidates), and Amanda Burns (School Board candidate).
2) We had a quorum and were able to approve two bylaws changes necessitated by the City’s changed precinct lines (see last issue for explanation). Thanks to Dave Chapman and Erin Monaghan for crafting the approved amendments.
3) Jason’s Treasurer’s Report focused on our June 2 Summer Bash Fundraiser (more above!). Lynlee Thorne, Rural GroundGame’s Political Director, will be the guest speaker. So far, we’ve received or have pledges for $12,000, getting close to our current $13,000 goal. To purchase tickets, donate, or get more event info, please go to https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2023summerbash .
4) The voter registration team continues to do registrations and rights restorations at IX Park (Saturday mornings) and other locations (see below).
5)Jim Nix reported that the City Registrar’s data shows early voting turnout is good: 670 votes already cast and over 1,500 mail ballots sent out.
6) Date and location of our Charlottesville City Council Candidates Forum (held last night at Buford) was announced. We noted the 6/4 Martha Jefferson Neighborhood Assoc. candidates forum (see calendar above).
7) For our Monday June 26 picnic with the Albemarle County Dems we just have to organize a few games (see below).
8) The 5th District Dems hosted a summit for all committee chairs on April 29, focusing on committees that are operating in a “sea of red”. The 5th District’s Fall Extravaganza is scheduled for September 30 at the University of Lynchburg.
9) The Democratic Party of Virginia (DPVA) will hold its annual fundraiser on Friday 6/23 in Richmond. Rep. Bennie Thompson (of January 6 Commission fame!) and Paul Begala are announced speakers. For info and tickets go to bluecommonwealthgala.com .
10) DPVA has determined that the party will use conventions to select delegates for the 2024 Democratic National Convention, so we can look forward to local committee caucuses next year!

Full Committee Meeting (Monday 5/22 at Forest Park, unusual 6pm start)

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Six cartoonish (faceless) people sitting around a meeting tableOn Monday May 22 the Full Committee will meet, weather permitting, at the Forest Hills Park picnic shelter, 1000 Forest Hills Park Ave., starting at 6pm; the unusual start time gives primary candidates a final Full Committee opportunity to informally meet and chat with members before the primary. Please bring your own chair and an extra if possible. If rain (or snow!) is forecast, we’ll email everyone to switch to Zoom.
Tentative agenda item highlights (after the candidate time ends):
  1. Assuming we can get a quorum (so please attend if you can!!), vote to amend our bylaws to reflect precinct redistricting necessitated by the 2020 census (details in last month’s newsletter). The proposed amendment language, with full explanation, is here.
  2. Volunteers will be needed to staff current polling places and the two old polling places (Alumni Hall and Tonsler) on Primary Day to answer voters’ questions and thank them for coming out to vote.
  3. June 2 Summer Bash Fundraiser report (see below).
  4. Charlottesville City Council Candidate forum on May 24 (see below).
  5. June 26 picnic with Albemarle Dems (see below).
  6. Zoning info forum (see below).

REPORT: Executive Committee Meeting (4/24/23)

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Our first in-person Executive Committee meeting since before the pandemic (not counting some hybrid meetings) was held in Rives Park, and the weather thankfully cooperated. Highlights:
Jason Vandever gave a Treasurer’s Report; we’re well within our budget.
We discussed sending a postcard to registered voters in town to make sure that they know about the June 20 Primary.
The precinct lines for Charlottesville have been redrawn, as the City does every 10 years, and when this happens it poses a few temporary but interesting technical challenges we deal with, e.g.:
  • two precincts no longer exist;
  • there are two new precincts that technically have no one representing them, because the precincts did not exist at the time of our last reorganization (and our bylaws don’t address this scenario!);
  • some Precinct reps no longer live in the precincts that they represent due to the redrawn lines;
  • Mike Cameron and Mary Ann Harris have found a very few errors in the VoteBuilder database that put people in the wrong precinct (we’re advising the DPVA’s tech team of these).
To deal with this short-term, it was agreed that:
  • A proposed amendment to the bylaws will be presented for the May 22 Full Committee meeting.
  • In the meantime, precinct leaders will develop an ad hoc reorganization to handle the upcoming election.
We’re looking for suggestions on how to schedule the May 22 Full Committee meeting. We need a quorum to approve the change in the bylaws, so turnout is important, and it’s possible that a Zoom meeting would get a higher turnout. On the other hand, if we have another park meeting, we can invite the Primary candidates to chat with people before and after, and that could help drive turnout. Members are encouraged to share your views with John McLaren: cvilledemschair@gmail.com .
Nancy Damon updated us on the progress of our upcoming June 2 Summer Bash fundraiser (see below!), on the lawn at the Jefferson School African-American Heritage Center. Our goal is $10,000; so far we have $8,000 in sponsorship pledges… please pitch in and help us reach our goal!
There was broad agreement that our party should host an information forum on the City’s zoning reform process (see below).
Nancy reminded us of the opportunity to once again be a sponsor of (and table at) the Chihamba Festival (7/29). The Festival is also hosting a fundraising ball on June 3, and it would be great if local Dems attended that event too.
Based on feedback from the State Senate candidates, who told us there have already been five informational forums scheduled, we decided not to hold another one of our own.
Madison Cummings reminded us of the Albemarle Dems fundraiser May 7, 6-8pm, at Greencroft. In the past, a good number of Charlottesville Democrats have attended this event, and we encourage people to attend this year as well! Rep. Jennifer McClellan will be the guest speaker.

Executive Committee Meeting Monday 4/24 6:30pm

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We’re trying to find an outdoor location that will hold 20+ people with some social distance, we’ll email everyone Sunday or Monday with a Zoom link and a physical location if found.
Agenda highlights:
1. Meet the officers of Rally PVCC (see below), a new PVCC student organization aiming to mobilize students to become more engaged in the civic life of the greater Charlottesville community
2. Final list of candidates (and thanks to all who helped, see below)
3. Discuss logistics for various Candidate Forums (see below)
4. Decide whether to hold an informational forum about the Draft Zoning Plan revisions (see below)
5. Update on our June 2 Summer Bash fundraiser (see below).

Report: Full Committee Meeting (3/27)

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1. Ashley Cinalli-Mathews from Central Virginia Community Justice gave us an overview of the renamed and expanding restorative justice organization and invited us to attend its free introductory party on April 25 (6:00-7:30pm at Visible Records, 1740 Broadway Street).

2. Plans continue to advance for our June 2 annual fundraiser (see below for more details). In the near future, we’ll need some volunteers to go through our phone list to recruit sponsors for the event. Please contact Nancy Damon (nancycdamon@gmail.com) if you might be able to help.

3. Here’s our game plan for holding forums for primary candidates, with additional event details to be announced as soon as they’re set (details of the first event were not known as of the meeting date, we’ve filled those in):
  • House of Delegates — We’ll have one forum at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center on 4/26, 7:00-8:30pm, for all the primary candidates for both our District 54 (Charlottesville and parts of Albemarle) and also our neighboring District 55 (which includes the rest of Albemarle). This is co-sponsored by the Albemarle Dems.
  • City Council — Now that we need to hold a primary (currently 4 candidates for 3 seats) we’ll arrange a forum.
  • State Senate — We’ll will try to set up something with the candidates as soon as possible after candidate registrations for the primary end on April 6. The Senior Statesman club is arranging a forum close to the June primary date, but we want to give our members an earlier look.
4. We discussed whether to hold an informational forum about the City’s Draft Zoning Plan (see below for much more on this!).

Highlights of the Executive Committee 2/27 Meeting

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  • Our party must collect the paperwork from all primary candidates between March 20 and April 6, and immediately afterwards verify the petition signatures to get each candidate on the ballot. It’s fun, and much quicker, as a group project; please email cvilledemschair@gmail.com for information if you might be able to pitch in a few hours.
  • We’d like to organize some candidate forums in April, possibly in collaboration with the Albemarle Democrats. Details will be announced when they’re worked out.
  • Nancy Damon updated us on the upcoming annual dinner fundraiser, tentatively scheduled for Friday June 2 (see below). Thanks to Nancy and the committee for doing all the planning!
  • We want to increase our efforts at community engagement to get more people (and more diversity!) in our membership. If you or someone you know might be interested in joining this effort, please contact cvilledemschair@gmail.com.
  • We’ve formalized some policies and procedures for covering the primary candidates, so we can pass on information to our members without showing favoritism to any candidate.
  • Kate Vasiloff, a local activist working with Compassion and Choices to expand end-of-life options, briefed us on a proposed bill that would allow for assisted suicide in very narrowly prescribed cases of incurable terminal illnesses. In past years, the General Assembly hasn’t passed similar bills, despite large majority support from both Democratic and Republican voters. The Charlottesville Democrats have not taken any position on this issue. If you’d like to learn more, or to participate in this effort, you can contact Kate: kate@untoldresearch.com 
  • Erin Monaghan gave 5th District and DPVA reports (see below).
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