October 2017 Meeting Minutes

October 3, 2017

In attendance: Approx. 32

Meeting opened @ 7:30 p.m.

Glory Days Restaurant, Rt. 40, Ellicott City

A.  President Report –

Sue Geckle greeted the crowd and introduced all the elected officials and candidates in attendance. Natalie Ziegler announced her candidacy as a delegate for 9A.

September minutes were approved.

There was a discussion over the issue of raising dues. The question was raised as to why we needed to raise them.  We have not raised them since 2006 and we charge the least of any of the area clubs. We currently don’t cover the website fees (thanks to Dan Medinger), but we need to absorb that cost, soon. Also if there is money we might be able to provide some financial support to enjdorsed candidates.  Rich Corkran made the motion to raise the dues by $5/person, except for the Super Dem level. Richard seconded the motion. We currently have 67 members.

CDC TMDC ECWHDC Proposed
 Super Dems  $50 $50
 Supporters  $20  $25
 Families $45  $30  $40
 Members  $30  $25  --  --
 Seniors  $15  $25  $10  $15

 

Bryan Coster spoke about changing the by-laws in terms of the club endorsement process for candidates for office, which he doesn’t like because it often hurts candidates who have been long-standing members. He suggests the by-laws be rewritten to address the endorsement process that would include having members be members for longer and be dues-paying for longer. He is looking for members to join a task force he will chair to study the issue. Patti Medinger and others volunteered.

B.  Treasurer's report

Balance is $2,089.23; $30 in dues collected in September.

C.  Program -

George Clack, from IndivisibleHoCo, “Understanding the Immigration Debate

He has lived in HoCo for a long time and got into politics after Trump’s election and the CB9 issues. Indivisible has 13 different action teams.

800,000 have signed up for DACA. There are 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Starting in March 2018 no DACA permits will be renewed and they are subject to deportation. Most believe there will be an increase in border security as a tradeoff for keeping the Dreamers in the country. Three Republican senators have created a new bill called the Succeed Act which is not very different from DACA, providing a path to citizenship in 15 years.

The RAISE act deals with legal immigrants – it would reduce green-card visas and cut the number of refugees admitted. Immigration peak was in 1890, it is close today at 13.4%. It was the lowest in 1970 at 4.7%.

Economists are against the RAISE act because they believe immigrants are vital to our economy, i.e. agriculture. Big tech companies are against the RAISE act, too, because they need and want programmers from other countries.

There are 7,000 ICE agents and they run the detention facilities.

The crime rate of immigrants is 3X less than the average American citizen.

What sanctuary means - local jailers won’t cooperate with ICE but will respond to a judicial order, i.e. Howard County (but we don’t use the term, which doesn’t have a true legal definition.)

The meeting adjourned at 9:00

Respectfully submitted by Lisa B. Coster, secretary