The Sept. 11 meeting of the county Democrats covered a lot of ground, including four guest speakers. Here is a summary:
The first item we had to deal with was an emergency resolution dealing with racial equity. You might remember that we learned earlier this year that I-200 from 1998 was mistakenly interpreted as ending affirmative action in Washington state. Both the state supreme court and the state attorney general have recognized that this interpretation was erroneous, and the Washington Equity Now Alliance (WENA) has been trying to remedy this by convincing the governor to sign an executive order overturning the mistaken directive issued 23 years ago. We had passed such a resolution three months ago in our county group, and WENA thought they had everything in order to have the resolution considered at the state party meeting later this month. However, due to a logistical oversight by the state party discovered at the last minute, it was necessary for us to re-pass the ordinance to clear the procedural hurdles for the resolution to be considered at the Resolutions Committee meeting that was taking place at the same time as our meeting. But all went well, we re-passed it unanimously, and it was unanimously passed at the Resolutions meeting, so it goes on to the state party.
The next meeting of the 40th LD will be Sunday, Sept. 19, from 2:00 until 5:00. Some of the candidates on the mainland in the 40th will be heard from, but more important for us, there is an opening for state committeeman that one of you might want to consider filling. This official attends the state party meetings. The current committeeman resigned due to a conflict, so we need someone who is male or non-binary to fill this role. Our local Democrat Larua Jo Severson is the female committee person, and it would be great to have another islander representing the 40th. There is also an opening for a new treasurer; the current treasurer is looking to retire after holding the position for many years. If you are interested in either of these positions, please contact Geri or me at davidgeri@rockisland.com. The link for the meeting next Sunday is
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84861585590#success.
Many of you are probably familiar with donating money to Democratic candidates and progressive organizations through ActBlue. It is now possible to donate to the San Juan County Democrats on ActBlue’s site. I tried it out, and it is about as simple as it could possibly be. Part of our funding normally comes from donations from those who attend our meetings in person, but we haven’t had this opportunity for a year and a half. As we try to build up our coffers for next year’s very important elections, please consider helping us with a donation of any size. Go to https://secure.actblue.com/donate/sjcountydems?refcode=directory. If you have donated through ActBlue before, it will take you 30 seconds or less. Thanks!
Emily Morrow is the new state party organizer for NW Washington state; her email address is emily@wa-democrats.org. She appeared at our meeting today to tell us about voter engagement projects. We are looking for people who are interested in working on one of the following:
1. Contacting and finding out more about voters for whom we have little data. We need to know more about some of these voters so that we can target them appropriately next year, for persuasion and GOTV. By contacting them and having a conversation, we can begin building a deeper relationship between them and the Democratic party, and find out how best to communicate with them through the rest of the cycle and beyond.
2. Reaching out to likely Dems who didn’t vote in 2020 and finding out why. Unfortunately, too many likely Democratic voters still aren’t getting their ballots in, and we want to find out why. By building relationships with these voters and listening to their issues and concerns, we can get them ready to vote this year and next!
3. Re-registering likely Democratic voters who’ve been purged from the voter rolls by the Secretary of State’s office. Thousands of Democratic voters are purged from the voter rolls every year by the Secretary of State’s office, and we know many of them are people who are still alive, still living at the same address, and still should be eligible to vote. We can identify these people, let them know they were purged, and get them re-registered to vote.
4. Registering non-registered voters. There are still so many likely Democrats who fall through the cracks of our automatic voter registration system – we need the face-to-face touch to reach them and get them registered.
This may look familiar, as I sent it out a couple months ago. Unfortunately, I received only one response. Now that summer is over, I am hoping there may be some more interest. Please let me know if you would be interested in being involved with one or more of these items.
County Councilor Cindy Wolf attended our meeting, and I put her on the spot to ask if she had anything she would like to tell us. She warned us about the sickout being participated in by many ferry workers, that now is probably not a good time to ride the ferry. She encouraged the wearing of masks to protect against the Delta Variant. Cindy mentioned that the council is working on caps for vacation rentals, that the Planning Commission meeting this coming Friday would again deal with that. She said that participating on citizen advisory boards is important, that this council listens closely to them. She particularly needs two people to fill the openings on the Eastsound Planning Review Commission. She said that if you care about the environment, this is a good place to have some influence, while another spot to have environmental influence will be the new environmental commission that will include citizen representatives.
Victoria Compton addressed us today. You may know her as the head of the Economic Development Commission, but she spoke to us in a new role today—candidate. Victoria is running for Port Commissioner for Friday Harbor. She brings lots of fresh ideas, including using the Port Commission as a way to foster more affordable housing as well as environmental sustainability. We think Victoria would be an excellent Port Commissioner, and we voted unanimously to offer her our endorsement. You can find out more at comptonforport.com.
Amy Vira and David Dehlendorf have been working on improving our Facebook page. It will be kept much more up to date and will have more content. You can find it at https://www.facebook.com/San-Juan-County-WA-Democrats-710973952268643/.
If you have content you would like to have put on the page, please send it to me. Thanks to Amy and David D for bringing us into the 21st century.
Bob O’Connell gave us an update on the work of the Charter Review Commission. There will be six proposals put forward by the commission for voters to consider this fall, so be sure to look for those when you receive your ballot next month. Also, the fact that the commission was looking to establish a new position for a person to deal with climate has led the County Council to create such a position. Stay tuned for further developments.
Another of our guests was Joseph Bogaard, Executive Director of Save Our Wild Salmon. There is an effort to breach the four lower Snake River dams to help save our salmon and our orcas. A resolution has been passed by all the northwest tribes and is being considered by Democratic locals across the state in order to influence the political powers in the northwest. The resolution thanks Congressman Simpson of Idaho who got this conversation going, it calls for breaching the dams along with investments to take care of stakeholders and communities affected by this, and it calls on the Biden Administration to drop the Trump salmon plan and instead work with the tribes, states, stakeholders and elected officials to meet the U.S. Government’s legal and treaty obligations. We have a little language that we want to add to the resolution, and once that is complete, we will vote on the resolution, which I would imagine will pass unanimously.
Our final guest was Dwight Colley, candidate for Fire Commissioner in Friday Harbor. Dwight has a long history in public service, both in his career and in volunteer capacities, especially in managing nonprofits. He also has personal experience in EMS, which gives him a perspective on the job not shared by his opponent. He wants to make sure EMS is represented if EMS and the Fire Department merge. Dwight would also like to see more transparency and accountability from the department. As to dealing with fire, he has some excellent suggestions related to having smaller fire trucks that can be used to fight brush fires a lot better than the large engines. Dwight is an excellent candidate who has asked for our endorsement, and once we vet him, we look forward to voting on his endorsement.
We had on our agenda another major topic—looking at local elections for next year. However, we decided that after our well spent two and a quarter hours at this meeting, we can safely postpone that topic until next month. Our next meeting will be at 10:00 AM on Saturday, Oct. 9.
Wrapping up, let me just remind you of items to keep in mind:
If interested in running for state committeeman or treasurer of the 40th, please contact Geri or myself.
Remember the meeting of the 40th next Sunday afternoon.
Please let me know if you would like to participate in one of the four areas of the voter engagement plan.
If you can, we would really appreciate a donation to help get our organization ready for ncxt year’s elections. Go to https://secure.actblue.com/donate/sjcountydems?refcode=directory.
Thanks for reading,
David Turnoy
Chair, San Juan County Democrats
davidgeri@rockisland.com
360-376-4165