[These minutes were approved by the executive committee at their meeting of 20 April 2023.]

Adelante Progressive Caucus Executive Committee

Minutes of regular meeting, 23 March 2023

Attendance

Present

Executive Committee members:

Colton Dean (At-Large Officer)
Dan Fay (Treasurer)
Patricia French (Chair)
Nicole Olonovich (Administrative Director)
Michael Sperberg-McQueen (Secretary)

Other caucus members:

Roger McNew
Jane Yee

Absent:

Cricket Courtney (CD-2 Chair)
Samuel Nevarez (Congressional District 1 Chair)

Call to order and quorum check

The chair called the meeting to order at 6:49 pm (after a technology-related delay) and confirmed that a quorum of the executive committee was present.

Approval of minutes

The minutes of the executive committee meeting of 16 February 2023 and the general member meeting of 2 March 2023 were approved without objection.

Chair’s report

The chair said there was little to report, but expressed concern that in Bernalillo County there are reportedly more vacancies on the county central committee than people available to fill them. Other counties apparently have similar issues.

Treasurer’s report

The treasurer reported that in the last thirty days there has been income of (about) $201 and expenditures of (about) $21 for postage and ActBlue fees. The current balance is $3793.12.

He is working on the SOS report due 10 April.

The handoff to the new treasurer is almost complete but he does not yet have the checkbook or the debit card.

Administrative director

The administrative director reported that she is trying to obtain a list of those in Otero County who expressed interest in joining the caucus at the recent event there. She reported on plans to staff a table after the Bernalillo county central committee meeting on Saturday.

There was some discussion of the Bernalillo CCC meeting and the Bernalillo deadline for self-nomination for SCC positions.

April member meeting

We discussed the April member meeting; the chair proposes to devote it mostly to discussion of the proposed revision to the bylaws.

Appointments

The chair proposed to appoint Colton Dean as Vice-chair of the caucus, and Nicole Olonovich as Political Director.

Moved (PF) and seconded (MSM): to approve the appointments proposed by the chair. So resolved, unanimously.

The committee discussed the issue of inactive officers and reviewed the procedure for removal of officers; we decided to take no action at this time.

Endorsements

The chair proposed to endorse all Adelante members who are candidates to represent their counties on the state central committee, or for seats on state-wide committees.

Those reported during the meeting as candidates for seats on the SCC were Colton Dean, Patty French, Roger McNew, Nicole Olonovich, Michael Sperberg-McQueen, Carol Trujillo-Fay, and Jane Yee. Those reported as seeking a seat on SPARC (state platform and resolutions committee) were Patty French, Jane Yee, and Colton Dean (all from CD-1), and Nicole Olonovich (CD-2).

RESOLVED: to endorse all members of the Adelante Progressive Caucus seeking seats on the state central committee or any state committee.

State rules committee revision of DPNM rules related to caucuses

We discussed the plan of the state rules committee to form a task force together with the caucuses to consider possible revisions to DPNM rules relating to caucuses. There was some interest in discussing such revisions among caucuses without members of the rules committee being present.

Future meetings

Regional meetings

The chair reported that the CD-2 chair would like for Adelante to hold a meeting in Socorro; more generally, she proposed, we should plan to have meetings all around the state, just as SPARC did before the pandemic, as a way of boosting membership. We probably cannot do it every month, she said, but we should try to have a meeting in a different location every quarter. These may be joint events with other caucuses, not necessarily general member meetings of the caucus.

Such events will need to be on weekends; the chair asked members of the executive committee to let her know what weekends would be impossible for them.

RESOLVED: to organize an event in Socorro at a time agreed with the CD-2 chair, perhaps late April or May.

Regular meetings

We reviewed the currently scheduled meetings:

6 April (first Thursday of the month): general member meeting
20 April (third Thursday of the month): executive committee meeting

The chair proposed to host future meetings on her personal Zoom account, to avoid whatever was going wrong with the Adelante zoom account, and to make it easier to send invitations which allow people to add the event to their calendars. The web site meeting announcements need to be updated with the new link.

After discussion, the chair said she proposed to continue following the pattern of holding general member meetings on the first Thursday of each month and executive committee meetings on the third Thursday of each month. She will send invites to the Zoom calls.

9 Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 8:20 pm.