Libertarian Party of North Carolina Executive Committee Meeting

Concord, North Carolina Sat, July 28, 2007 called to order by Barbara Howe at 12:14 PM

Present

Chair: Barbara Howe

Vice Chair: Sean Haugh

Stephanie Watson (Acting Recording Secretary for this meeting)

Rick Pasotto

Joy Elliott

Phil Jacobson

Brian Irving

Thomas Hill

Paul Elledge

Guest: Mike Helms

Guest: Marty Readling

Absent:

Allison Jaynes

John Caveny

Barbara distributed the agenda and a contact information sheet to confirm name, address, and phone information from all EC members.

Additions to the agenda:

• Babara added Old Business: ballot access petitioning
• Sean added Old Business: how to document incidents involving paid petitioners
• Brian added New Business: use of mailing lists

Officer report from the Chair:

• Barbara spoke at a John Locke Foundation event on July 9, 2007, and was ell-received.
• Barbara reported that she, Mike Munger, and another person are plaintiffs in the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law lawsuit against Google, Inc., filed Wednesday, July 25, 2007, challenging the state legislation for having granted certain incentives (corporate welfare) to Google in exchange for the company locating an operations center in Caldwell County. This has brought media attention to the LPNC.

Officer report from the Vice Chair:

• Sean reported having participated in Barbara's place on a conference call of state chairs for the national Libertarian Party. This was for planning a state chairs' conference in Las Vegas to be on President's Day in February 2008. The national party is encouraging state and local offiers to attend, not just the state chairs, and hoping that it will become a fun, educational, and worthwhile event. Sean stated that he would publish details about the event when they come available.
• Sean was asked to be plaintiff in the NC Institute for Constitution Law lawsuit against Durham County for 6-figure county government-level incentives offered to Nitronex.
• Sean announced upcoming radio appearances:
  • Accompanying Lee Wrights for an appearance on "Liberated Space," hosted by libertarian Angela Keaton (California LP Executive Director, LNC At-Large); show is broadcast online and in various other locations.
  • Joining Lee Wrights as guest hosts for Matt Mittan's Asheville-based show for WWNC
  • Appearing monthly on the nationally syndicated Jerry Hughes' show "Straight Talk"

Officer report from the Acting Recording Secretary:

• Stephanie reported that she was typing and prepared to assemble and distribute the minutes for this meeting.

Officer report from the Treasurer:

• Barbara reported in John's absence.
• Barbara reported the current checking account balance as $24,529.78.
• Sean added an agenda item: report of matching federal funds
• Barbara reported that $12,802.99 was in the ballot access fund and that John reported the lawsuit fund as $0. Barbara expressed that the lawsuit fund may not include the $10,000 designated for this fund in the previous EC meeting.
• Point of information (Sean): Did recent payments to the attorney come out of the lawsuit fund already? Barbara responded that $4000 has gone to the attorney of the designated $10,00 from the last EC meeting, and she corrected her previous statement to say that $6000 should be remaining in the lawsuit fund.
• Barbara mentioned that the outstanding balance for the attorney is approximately $8000 and continues to grow as the attorney continues working on the lawsuit.
• Barbara added she had paid Brian for newsletter distribution, also, which was around $230.

Point of information (Sean):

• Is there a Membership Secretary report? Barbara responded that she had no membership report, only that she had the most recent database records from the LNC and was waiting for software.

Reports filed with State Board of Elections

Officer report from the Convention Committee:

• Joy reported on locations she was looking into as possible convention sites, including:
  • Embassy Suites off Harrison Avenue in Cary, NC; information is pending meeting with a representative for an estimate
  • Clarion downtown Raleigh (former Holiday Inn); the hotel may be converting its top-level restaurant into a small convention center
• Joy mentioned that she had not yet investigated possibilities in Durham.
• Joy expressed her efforts were focused on selecting a central location for TV media, encouraging them to send reporters for convention coverage.

Phil added an agenda item:

• officer reports from the Webmaster and Communications Director officers (not previously listed on Agenda)

Officer report from County Affiliate Affairs:

• No officer reported; Barbara made a point to check the previous EC minutes to determine if an officer was appointed for the position.
• Sean reported that Libertarians from Asheville have been involved in a local referendum regarding ballot access. The city council recently decided that local elections would be partisan, presumably in an attempt to push out independent and third party candidates. Nonpartisan candidates wishing to seek ballot access are required to petition, though the law does not say that the signators have to be registered voters, only "residents of the city." Sean described a particular libertarian candidate who received sufficient signatures to get on the ballot in accordance to this specifications, and that there is a current conflict with the Buncombe County Board of Elections about the signators. If the petition holds, the local referendum will be on the new partisan ballot, and voters will be able to vote on whether the partisan voting should continue.
• Point of information (Brian): news sources indicate that the council has not gotten the approval from the NC Department of Justice for its actions to make the election partisan and that the referendum would have to preceed the partisan ballot
• Point of information (Sean): Buncombe County is not one of the 40 states to which the Voting Rights Act applies and that the council would have to actively reverse their actions
• Barbara discussed that she would ensure more of the Asheville city council issue is clarified when she makes a trip to that area in the coming days.

Officer report from Campus Affiliate Affairs:

• Joy reported that Paul sent her an email with the email addresses for the libertarians at UNC, but the email was lost and she is waiting for it to be resent.
• Paul clarified that an entering law school student that has been participating at UNC-G libertarian group meetings has expressed interest in starting a group at the UNC School of Law.

There was no Legislative Agenda Report due to no officers or appointees assigned to that task.

Lawsuit Committee report:

• Barbara stated that the summary judgement for the lawsuit was still scheduled for September 17, 2007.
• Point of information (Phil): there is one more EC meeting before the summary judgement
• Discussion between Phil, Sean, and Barbara about attorney interaction and billing for interactions.
• Point of information (Phil): is there an archive of the attorney bills?
• Barbara confirmed that Alex had scanned in most of them and that she was planning the scan in the rest so that they could be shared.
• Point of information (Phil): attorney said the LPNC needs to consider how to proceed after the judgement
• Barbara confirmed that this is something the committee would need to address.

Outreach Director report:

• Susan could not be reached, so there was no report from her.
• Phil conveyed that Susan mentioned a Constitution Day event planned at the residence of Mike Munger in Chatham County.

Ballot Access Petitioning Committee report:

• Barbara reported that LNC Chair Bill Redpath requested numbers we could provide about our ballot access drive so that the treasurer can have a level of detail appropriate for determining financial assistance from the national party.
• Barbara explained that Bob Ritchie's report (distributed) incorporates the details necessary to meet this request, though it is not ready yet to send to Bill.

Issues and Priorities Committee report:

• Michael Munger was not present, and there was no report.

Webmaster report:

• Rick explained that the lpnc.org domain is not yet transferred and that Sean needed to log in to Network Solutions to release the domain.
• Rick mentioned that GoDaddy.com is offering a 25% discount for purchases of $70 or more.
• Rick noted that he purchased two domains at a significant discount to help with the domain transfer process: lpnc.us and lpnc.info.
• Rick mentioned that lpnc.net was expiring and that someone emailed him to offer to sell it to him. He did not know how much the individual wanted, but he did not see a need to have the .net.
• Sean expressed interest in holding the .net and .com domains when they come available and encouraged Rick to discuss offers.
• Rick conveyed that there may be value in adding another $30/year to our website costs have a dedicated IP address for the domain.
• Rick stated that he still needed to meet with John about encrypting credit card information on the site.
• Rick encouraged everyone to provide suggestions.
• Point of information (Phil): are the open officer positions on the site and can they have better on-site visibility?
• Rick answered that they were on the site as blanks on the EC page, but he could add it to the front page.
• Point of information (Phil): are the bylaws current as shown on the site?
• Barbara stated that the convention rules are up-to-date but that the bylaws are not yet complete.
• Rick explained that Brian had sent a version of the newsletter that could be put on the website and asked how subscribers should be notified that it is available there.
• Barbara responded that previously, her and Tom waited until the paper newsletter was in recipients hands, then put the file online for download. She said she was not sure what happened to the electronic subscriber list.
• Barbara contributed that the newsletter was sent not just to paid LPNC members but also to LNC members across NC.
• Phil suggested emailing an announcement with a simple link to let people know it is available.
• Discussion followed that we need an email announcement list to closely follow the newsletter mailings.

Communications Director report:

• Brian submitted a written report and offered summary points.
• Brian described his goal to print the newsletter on a more regular schedule (perhaps once per quarter year), despite the length of the report, so that recipients would anticipate its arrival at certain intervals.
• Brian was also interested in having an online version of the newsletter that corresponded with the printed version, but was possibly more extensive and up-to-date than the printed version.
• Brian proposed an "Outreach Issue" to distribute at the NC State Fair and other outreach events for an audience outside the paid party members ("external" rather than "internal" audience).
• Phil and Brian both proposed a possible expansion of the existing mailing list to include contacts in media outlets.
• Discussion followed between Barbara and Brian regarding the costs for printing.
• Brian described the differences between the features and costs of different printing services. Pip Printing in Cary could print in four hours, and Brian did the final fold and addressing ($360 plus tax, not including postage). Freedom Mailing did more, including making it ready to drop off at the post office ($455, not including postage).
• Point of information (Joy): has Brian looked into cheaper services that are out of state and not as timely
• Brian replied that he did not want to sacrifice the quality of the newsletter and thus had not pursued cheaper alternatives.
• MOTION (Sean): Allocate up to $500 per quarter for the Tarheel Libertarian mailings. ** Second by Thomas. ** Passed unanimously.
• Brian reported that he was working on a news release about Cary's instant run-off voting (IRV) for its town council. He will distribute this news release to media outlets from a list received from the national party (including specific reporters).
• Rick led the suggestion for a podcast, and Sean and Stephanie volunteered to pursue that idea.

Barbara declared a 5 minute recess.

Old Business:

1. Incident discussed from the previous meeting regarding paid petitioner in Asheville who misused information for personal purposes:
   • Barbara reported that prior to being proactive about contacting the police in Asheville, she tried unsuccessfully to contact the woman who had reported being harrassed. Barbara will continue to try to be proactive, though she feels that perhaps no news is good news with regards to the matter.
   • Sean emphasized that we should be proactive to address the legal liability, making sure we have done everything we can to address what has happened, including cooperating with law enforcement as necessary. He said that we need to ensure that neither the offending petitioner nor the other petitioner who brought him in work for us in this state again.
   • Sean expressed that we need to report incident to the national committee to protect other states who might use those petitioners' services. This was prompted by his observing those individuals trying to get more money from the national committee for continued petitioning efforts with national. (Personal donations were made to meet the request rather than LP funds.)
   • Sean asked that we document the incident and show this to the national committee if the same individuals try to cause problems for them.
2. Ballot access petitioning business was covered during committee report.

New Business:

1. Leveraging mailing lists to help a local candidate in Raleigh:
   • Brian said he was in contact with Dave Williams in Raleigh who was running for an At-Large seat on the Raleigh City Council. Brian explained that Dave, who is a party member and came across very much as a Libertarian, was hoping to leverage the local mailing lists to garner support for his campaign.
   • Sean confirmed that he knew the individual and could verify his dedication to the Libertarian party from past actions.
   • Barbara and Joy mentioned that a Wake County list would probably be more useful, and Joy said she would look into providing a Wake County list.
   • Barbara added that the LPNC has had a policy to help prospective Libertarian candidates in local and county elections.
   • Sean clarified that our mailing lists can be used however we want and that we are not obliged to share those lists just because they were originally from a public source.
2. George Phillies, prospective presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party, wants to offer help states in their ballot access drives:
   • Barbara and Sean reported that he was offering to give us $500 now and $2000 later depending on his funds raised.
   • The money would have limitations on how we could use it, including promiting federal-level candidates rather than state-level efforts and candidates.
   • Sean clarified that the LPNC would be required to keep the money in the federal account, and we could not use it for state purposes.
   • Sean recommended we not spend such money on the ballot access drive because a "gray area" in election law (enforced by the Federal Election Commission) that indicates that such a drive is not a federal activity even though it puts federal candidates on the ballot.
   • Sean explained that if we pass $5000 of activity in the federal account in a two-year election cycle, the LPNC is over the filing threshold requiring that John file regular reports about the federal account to the FEC.
   • Sean wishes that we not push the legal limits or get to a point of having to file reports with the FEC.
   • Sean stated that our LPNC activity has been minimal (around $700 currently in the account), and that taking all that Phillies is offering would put us half way to the point of having to file.
   • Sean concluded that if we take the money and could not spend it on our top state issues (lawsuit and ballot access drive), we would need to determine how to spend the money in a way that aids the donor.
   • Phil projected that we would get on the ballot with or without this particular donation, and having acheived ballot access we will want to run campaigns for presidential and gubernatorial candidates together, aiming for at least 2% of the votes. These campaigns would make the effort valid for federal funding.
3. Next EC meetings:
   • September 8, 2007, 11 AM, at Lone Star on High Point Rd in Greensboro, NC
   • Tentative additional dates are October 20, December 2, and January 13.
   • The October meeting is tentatively in the Durham area
4. Run candidates to take advantage of being on the ballot:
   • Thomas added that we should ensure we have more candidates for political offices across the state to back up our efforts toward getting on the ballot.
   • Sean declared that he was going to make a concerted effort to win Durham County Commissioner.
   • Phil reiterated the goal to get 2% vote in the state-level elections.
   • Sean expressed approval of the idea to have local individuals supporting Munger while also having their names on the ballot for local positions (joint campaigning efforts).

MOTION (Sean):

• Adjourn ** Second not required. ** Passed unanimously.