Thread by @PierceJesse07, Last night was the BK Dems Executive Committee meeting, my 1st as [...]

Last night was the BK Dems Executive Committee meeting, my 1st as 52nd District Leader. These are my notes and my recollection. I do my best to present as remembered, here& #39;s a

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1st order of business - nominations for AD50 District Leader - Kristina Naplatarski, AD50 District Leader presents Emile Bazile and explains the process AD50 went through and some background on Emile. Voice vote passes, Emile is welcomed into the fold.
2/N

Moving on to Exec Cmte officer votes, Lori Knipel nominates Rodneyse Bichotte, Mark Treyger seconds. Maritza Davila speaks to some concerns on transparency & communication from leadership. Maritza abstains from voting & leaves the meeting. (tho does come back later)
3/N

Voice vote for Chair, ayes have it. Abstentions: myself, Emile Bazile, Kristina Naplatarski, Shaquana Boykin, Walter Mosley, Samy Olivares, Julio Pena, Maritza Davila (from earlier). Me, Emile, Kristina, Shaquana, Samy & Julio abstain from all Exec Cmte votes.
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Vice Chair - Henry Butler nominates Annette Robinson, Josh Skaller seconds. Ayes have it. Secretary - Tori Kelly nominates Nancy Tong, Rodneyse Bichotte seconds it. Ayes have it.

5/N

Rodneyse spends some time thanking everyone for their vote. Talks about how Brooklyn is not a monolith and she& #39;s looking forward to working with everyone despite any differences.

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Annette Robinson & Nancy Tong thank everyone. Doug asks Nancy if she can commit to taking notes for Exec Meeting & County Committee meetings. Joe Bova & Lori Maslow get very upset with Doug for "putting Nancy on the spot."

7/N

Rodneyse moves on to discussing latest BOE debacle w/ absentee ballots. She said she recommended terminating the vendor contract & the vendor agreed to sending ballots overnighted at their expense. Vendor claimed an update / software bug caused the mistake.

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Reprinted ballots will include some kind of message or note to inform people they need to vote again. Josh Skaller requests a rep from the BOE to come & speak to what happened at the next Exec Cmte meeting. Rodneyse agrees & directs Jeff Feldman to coordinate.

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Lori Maslow expresses deep frustration & embarrassment at the mistake by the BOE. It& #39;s an embarrassment to Brooklyn and to us as Democrats.

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Walter Mosley asks when would the vendor be replaced? Answer: next year, tho acknowledgement of tight timeline with June 2021 elections. Walter also asked about the process if someone already voted with the wrong envelope information.

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Jeff Feldman: if someone alrdy voted, the name & signature wouldn& #39;t match on the inner envelope - would be caught by BOE. Also assuming ppl caught the mistake & a new reissuance of ballots would resolve the issue.

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I asked if the vendor did a faulty run of ballots, why can& #39;t they provide the batch ID to the BOE? If the BOE has a unique batch ID of bad absentee ballots, they can simply toss them out.

13/N

Rodneyse said she asked the same question - the vendor apparently lost the data tracking the particular batch(es) that went bad, including back up file. Yikes. (my editorial takeaway)

14/N

Samy asks if Exec Cmte meeting can be public, as stated in the bylaws. Jeff requests this topic get deferred to the end of the meeting. Samy & Rodneyse agree.

15/N

Jeff begins his spiel into the proposed rules change. He cites these as necessary, temporary changes since a body of 2300 cannot meet in person safely. Says Kings County is a "covered jurisdiction" under Voting Rights Act.
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any change to how the Party conducts its business from a physical meeting must be comprehensive at who is capable of reasonably attending. The act of moving the meeting to Zoom or other technical solution leaves out those w/o access to internet / smartphone

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and that this move would be unacceptable, disenfranchise those County Committee members and the modern day equivalent of a poll tax. He also mentioned the move to give DLs the County Committee votes was meant to empower DLs

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Rodneyse speaks next. Speaks to agreeing w/ these rules changes, an unfortunate necessity in our times. These changes are similar to how the judicial convention was held & that went fine. It& #39;s a temp solution & ppl need to understand Brooklyn is diverse, not a monolith.

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Those people who are advocating a technical solution need to be more mindful of barriers to digital & forcefully advocating for a digital solution should be aware of racial undertones others are perceiving from this push.
20/N

Henry Butler, Annette Robinson & Edu Hermalyn all speak in favor of what& #39;s been presented by Jeff & Rodneyse. Strongly agree with the burden, lack of fairness, lack of digital equity & access in their communities & how a digital meeting would constitute disenfranchisement.
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Walter Mosley brought up fairness in process & fairness in practice. Expressed concern that this proposal hadn& #39;t gone thru committee & is presented to everyone as a done deal. He said we& #39;re creating bad habits as a Democratic Party

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Julio Pena asks Jeff questions based on Jeff& #39;s remarks. One in particular, State law requires the County Committee to meet, doesn& #39;t this rule change go against State law? again, I don& #39;t fully remember the answer, my takeaway was Jeff& #39;s response was:
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Holding a meeting created a greater risk for injunction than not. Holding a meeting meaning, in person was risk to public health & online at risk to violating VRA. Happy to be corrected on this.
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Julio& #39;s other ?s: 1)are we taking into consideration the Gov& #39;s EO on public meetings law? 2) How is disenfranchising everyone the right solution? Julio also acknowledged lack of digital equity in his teaching experience, esp this summer. Disagreed w/ proposal.

25/N

Doug Schneider spoke of physical meetings in the past not being the picture of enfranchisement, remote locations & times not supported by working parents / people who work night shifts.

26/N

Also A LOT of back & forth between Doug & Jeff on interpretation of VRA. Will let Doug speak to specifics, my main takeaway is that Doug disagreed with Jeff& #39;s interpretation.

27/N

Doug ended saying he thought this was a missed opportunity. Lori Knipel spoke too - she was voting No on the proposals due to what the constituents wanted. Acknowledges why ppl could feel disenfranchised on both ends of the spectrum.
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Kristina Naplatarski spoke. No on proposal. She expressed discomfort at just being handed votes for the County Committee. She also expressed this as a missed opportunity to organize BK Dems before election, the only time the whole county would get together before Nov 3
29/N

Samy Olivares spoke. No on proposal. Mentioned being a representative to the Black & Brown communities in Williamsburg & Bushwick. How digital meetings gave families, including Spanish speaking more access. There are conf lines and other ways to include ppl.
30/N

Josh Skaller spoke, No on proposal. Also brought up the lack of committee and no broader discussion around proposal before up for a vote. Eventually made a motion to table discussion and move to a committee. This was a precursor to final vote: 26 Nos, 11 Yeses.
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Final vote on adopting the rules changes. Yeses - 27, Nos - 11, Abstain - 1. Rodneyse thanked everyone for the time, again reiterated looking forward to working together. A few other folks thanked for the discourse. Meeting adjourned, just a shade over 3 hours.
32/FIN

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