LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF PINELLAS COUNTY

August Meeting Minutes - 8/15/2019

Written by admin on Aug 15, 2019

August Meeting Minutes for 8/15/2019

1. 7:00pm - CALL TO ORDER - Mark Rodriguez call to order 7:04pm - Matthew Skopek
   1. Minutes - July
      1. Edited Stephen Paul Deiter's name to represent the proper spelling.
      2. Matthew Skopek motioned to approve minutes for July. Mark Rodriguez seconded.
   2. Introductions
      1. Mark Rodriguez - Been here in Clearwater for 9 years. Been Libertarian most of my life. Officially in 2016. Chairman of Clearwater Parks, executive committee and convention committee.
      2. Marcia Powell - Live in Clearwater, became Libertarian in Illinois. Still fighting the big fight.
      3. Laura Hartman - Currently live in St. Pete beach and believe in personal responsibility
      4. Samantha Broderick - Live in St. Pete, been Libertarian since 18. Just joined this year officially. Started coming to meetings in May. Went to USF. Was in Young Americans for Liberty, campaigned for Ron Paul.
      5. Stephen Paul Deiter - Actor, voice actor, college theatre grad. Been a Libertarian since 2012. Member of the party because I don't feel like I should be able to tell someone what to do. Doing what I can to help the party.
      6. Samantha Cunningham - Registered Libertarian since 1988. Did some support of the LP back at home. Been living in Tampa Bay since 2017. Running an app.
      7. Lee McConaghy - Since 1976 state chair in Wisconsin. 86-90. Lived in Clearwater 8 minutes away, thank you for the heads up!
      8. Matthew Skopek - Vice chair of this group. Moved to Chicago, active in Illinois. 
      9. Sebastian Blumberg - Became Secretary - run Libertarian-based blog platform called 1stAmender.com
   3. Announcements
      1. Mark Rodriguez - Amending, seconded by Marcia Powell, all approved.
2. 7:10pm - OFFICER REPORTS
   1. Chairman
      1. Went to the Oldsmar Market, engaged with a lot of people. Learned about preparing, supplies, approaching, engaging people. We had the cards, political quiz, stickers, names of results. One thing we learned there was when we go places we're doing better to target the clientel. Had 2nd Amendment stickers. Because people came up and thought we were Liberals, Libertarian, not Liberal. Because people only see the two sides, having information and pamphlets to cater to where we are on certain things. We wanted to educate. Facebook post, Matt, doing an amazing job posting news information. Engagement has gone through the roof. Now we just have to be posting more photos. We want to be out in the street, don't want to be keyboard warriors the whole time.
         
         Had a fantastic informal social. Went to the brighthouse field. Spoke with people informally. We've been trying to find a new venue, not that Applebees is back, we want to dress where we want to go. We want to have less of a club feel and more of a movement party. We need to walk a corporate walk. They remodeled Jungle Bills and it's now called Santa Fe Mexican. It's not condusive to the direction we want to go.
   2. Secretary
      1. Spoke about July Meeting Minutes
   3. Treasurer
      1. As acting treasurer at the moment, Mark Rodriguez - We have a little over $1600 as of right now. There is some cash I have to put in that we have received in the last couple of weeks.
3. 7:25pm - NEW BUSINESS
   1. Mark Rodriguez call to skip new business.
4. 7:40pm - MEMBER COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS
   1. Mark Rodriguez - Facebook post - reached over 1500 people on this post.
      1. "Without Government who would create water shortages" post.
   2. Samantha Cunningham had seen our Facebook post and decided to join us for August meeting.
   3. Marcia Powell - Freddy said that we should meet Barb Hazelden. Sharon Calver who was an activist in Hillsborough and who I then met here. She's a tea party person. Her big thing for years was trying to keep the transportation department from wasting money, raising taxes. She did so well, when I met with Barb Hazelden, another tea partyer, fighting a similar fight here in Pinellas. I ended the meeting with Barb and we were trying to find issues to become more known. Everything Barb is doing is only relevant to St. Petersburg. We wanted to support her. Apparently she and Sharon are so well known to the officials.
      
      I want to follow through and get in touch with Barb. The three of us, Matt, Mark, and Marcia, her take was that it was not that great of a venue.
5. 7:50pm - OPEN FORUM
   1. We need to find another venue before next meeting. We want to find potential chamber members in a chamber of commerce. Joe Richardson held a meeting at his home once. Lee thinks: We thought of breaking this to quarterly meetings that we would have at a venue wanting to sit and watch the meeting. Mark thinks that we want to find a place that has a low cost and is professional, and then do a separate quarterly, maybe a social. Once we have the consistency. We have to start asking around and finding someone.
   2. Laura Hartmann - When Jessica Mears lived here, member of Leadership Pinellas to potentially move.
6. 8:00pm - ADJOURNMENT
   1. Mark Rodriguez called for adjournment 7:47pm - Marcia Powell seconded.