LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF PINELLAS COUNTY

July Meeting Minutes - 7/16/2020

Written by secretary on Jul 16, 2020

July Meeting Minutes

1. Call to order: 7:46pm
2. Introductions:
   1. Mark Rodriguez: Chair of the Libertarian Party of Pinellas County. Going to work on a permanent venue, and also online for those who want to make it and people interested in seeing it.
   2. Marcia Powell – Vice Chair, live in Clearwater
   3. Sebastian Blumberg
   4. Eric Olson: always a Libertarian
   5. Clay Montgomery: Live in Pinellas county and a member
   6. Laura Hartman: live in St. Pete Beach
   7. Matthew Skopek, treasurer of the group, from St. Pete Beach
   8. Steven-Paul Deiter: Voice actor. Can’t hear whoever is right behind the camera.
3. Officer Reports:
   1. Chair: We had the LP convention this weekend. We have Joseph Bishop Henshman and the vice chair.  It was 4 days, 1 day of credentialing done.
   2. Marcia Powell: Likes to keep the statistics on the graph.  The one that I was pleased, a lady in the city who sends me every month how many registered Libertarians there are. When I started in January, 2375 registered Libertarians.  In April, it dropped to 2311, 60 people. Did they clean the roles? Then went up 6 in May, then 2344 in June, and then in July 2386.  What causes the rises and the dips.  I think it could put people’s attention on voting.
      
      Our game is to make it bigger and bigger.  I want your help on the number of followers.  I am going to bug Sebastian on these stats.
   3. Secretary: Plugging away doing the streams.
   4. Treasurer report: We have $3000.12 in the bank account.  Anything under 300 is under the discression.
4. New Business:
   1. No new business except for streaming, interacting digitally.  Next week we would like to set up a date to have a brainstorming session.
   2. We intend on meeting here next week. We personally prefer another Thursday.  If we change locations, we can change the days of the week.  Other than that we can open to the floor member comments.
5. Member Comments/Questions:
   1. Steven: this was my first national convention, second time being a delegate, last year when I was an LPF delegate. Good lord we have some arguers don’t we?  On the whole it was very refreshing to be in a place where my views have been normalized. It was interesting to see the party function. Earlier on the first day, we spent 9 hours trying to find a way to ratify the credentials report.
      
      The list of anyone who was there seated as a delegate. The reason why was because there was a section of the party have taken undue liberties with remote participation being allowed when there was no saying so being in the bylaws.  We went to remove, only to unanimously vote them back in which was a part of the bylaws. We did that to say we followed our own bylaws, which took 9 hours.  Things then proceeded with a better pace after that.
      
      It was initially reported that Paige Sexton who didn’t get the position.  As for chair, I didn’t vote for Chris Penchman, who I thought would be a second Sarwark. It turns out he’ll probably be alright, and there are checks and balances.  I don’t have any fears on this, and he seems more qualified who seems better than Sarwark as the face of our party.
      
      There is reason for hope there.  I don’t know many people that were there in terms of their characters, I may have been unduly influenced there. I did the best to think on my feet.  There was a lot of contention, feeling absolutely that “this is where I belong”, I think it will be a matter of time before we save this country, and we’re the only people still trying.
      
      I had a wonderful discussion with a lady from Delaware is and how abysmal it is.  Apparently they’re part of the popular vote interstate compact, to try and render the electoral college irrelevant stating that functionally people in Delaware have no function, and they just do what the Democratic party tell them what to do.  They just say “vote Democrat” because it doesn’t matter the candidate.
      
      In 1968 or so, the Republicans passed a series of laws giving them power forever, which then the Democrats won the next election, giving the Democrats power forever.
   2. Mark Rodriguez: There was some internal back and forth within the factions of the party, they did a fantastic job, by the 4th day you might not recognize some of the delegates.  Our state chair, we always had all our delegates and the numbers were in, and correct.
      
      We came out in full force and people knew.  Steven will be working on some voice-overs for quick ads and we want to use his talents.  The other thing that came out of it between Joe and Spike, where we have Hispanic Libertarians to get more Latino outreach.  These are our people, we can get to them.
   3. Marcia Powell: I realize the other day that I’ve been going to so many conventions, I’m not aware what convention I have been to versus not.  At the February Florida convention I was dashing up at the last minute to meet Jacob Hoernberger. I didn’t have a room and nobody came up with a room, I went to pay for a room which was totally booked.
      
      I went in asking whoever, but Joe Bishop Henshman let me stay in his suite.  When I read his flyer, he had statistic after statistic, product after product, he would give a speech to the world, he was very professional.  The vice chair people Ken Moleman, he also to me had a wonderful production.  I had to leave early on Sunday, on the lp.org website, what was the final result on the elections?  There were no results hosted.  They posted the at-large members but did not post the officers.
      
      I now know two of the national officers! Some other interesting things: did any of you get the hard copy newsletter?  I did this thing in January, a study party with a one page check sheet, getting ready to have study party number 2, lockdown happened.  So, then I wrote to Steven  Mcaila, which could go to the affiliate news section, I sent it up to National who wrote back and it would be in the next newsletter.
      
      Then, I checked my vice-chair email. I had two reaches and a third one came in with people who saw it. The newsletter did go out.  I had my laptop there, as I met people, a lot of times I would mention my idea and they liked it.  I would send them the article and see if they like it.
6. Open Forum
   1. Clay: I told you guys about the thing in Tampa. I got invited to a community round table where there is a bunch of community activist people. There was a huge group of people, they’re all fed up with things that are happening. They all wanted to take some kind of action. I assumed it would be about police brutality, but it turned  into something much deeper than that.
      
      One subsequent meeting since then, there hasn’t been any additional meeting. But the group has evolved to becoming a 501-C3 and they want to build some container houses for the east Tampa community, the lowest income community. The city wanted to come in and build a nicer community, they’re working against the government, and it’s kind of developed into developing container houses which are cheap, plentiful, and easy to do.
      
      They found some land underdeveloped and they want to turn it into houses.  I’ve been involved  in Tampa because I have businesses in Tampa.  My whole thing was to get people to not depend on the government and not depend on government to hold people’s hand. 
   2. Mark: I spoke with Mark Hibbard and want to see about the city of Clearwater, where we could host a meeting.  Next week I am going down to certain businesses with the Hispanic community and find out  who their leadership is.  There hasn’t been much traction, it could be up to us, we should be a liaison with the community.  Hopefully we get something moving forward.
7. Adjournment – Mark Rodriguez motioned to adjourn 8:29pm – Matthew Skopek seconded.