Executive Central Committee Meeting – August 2021

Tonight’s meeting was held at the Delaware County Township Hall with 43 attending. Chair Peg Watkins called the meeting to order promptly at 7:08 pm and she led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Secretary report – None as Barb Berry was not present.

Treasurer’s report – None as Roo Dirrig was not present.

Chair report –  Peg handed over the stage to Joyce.

Committees

Candidate Committee – Joyce said that this committee has been operating for a while. They encourage more candidates to run while training and supporting them as well. Past candidates such as Heather Karr and Louise Valentine have been helping with training. A higher budget was approved this year in order to support the candidates. During training the candidates are provided with a campaign calendar, sample documents and the basics needed to be a candidate. Prospective candidates are evaluated by a team.

Questionnaires are sent to all of them and these are analyzed by the team and the candidate is evaluated on their strengths and weaknesses. 300 candidates were referred to us by ODP. The team called and spoke to each and every candidate. Even though this was a time consuming process it was worthwhile. Once the candidates were interviewed, they were referred to a support team headed by Racheal Morocco. A contact person was assigned to each candidate so all their needs and concerns could be addressed. The candidates need a lot of help in order to win their races so the members were asked to contact the candidate r their volunteer coordinator and offer to help.

Dave Simmons asked why some candidates had requested for fund but not for an endorsement. Joyce said that these positions were unaffiliated and in some cases an endorsement would negatively affect the candidate.

Indu Rajan asked if all these candidates were Democrats and Peg said that their voting history had been examined and they were determined to be staunch Democrats.

Julie asked if Franklin County Dems support the Westerville candidates and Joyce said that we are not aware of how the manage their candidate support.

David Carpenter said that Delaware City Council has always been Blue and is now controlled by Republicans. He said that it was important to flip it back to Blue by supporting the candidates. He said he was concerned about the amount being proposed for these candidates. Since Valerie Cumming did not make it on the ballot for Westerville City Council, David Carpenter proposed that the $ 1000 allocated to Valerie be distributed equally among the candidates running in Delaware City. Roger Van Sickle seconded the motion. David asked if there was flexibility in the amount being allocated to the candidates. Brian Jaffe asked how we can increase the candidate budget and Roger also asked how the budget can be amended.

Cheryl Luce proposed we vote on the question before raising other questions.

Peg asked if anybody objected on voting on calling the question.

None objected.

Motion passed with all members voting YES

Louise put forth motion to approve recommendation of financial support to candidates. Heather Karr seconded. All members voted YES.

Meeting adjourned by Peg and Heather seconded.

All agreed – meeting closed at 7:45 pm.

Respectfully Submitted, Indu Rajan