BEXAR COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY
VOTE CANVASS & MEETING OF COUNTY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
MARCH 13, 2008

The meeting was called to order by the County Chair, Carla Vela, at 7:05 p.m. in Lecture Hall 1328 of the UTSA Downtown Campus Buena Vista Building.

Following the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence for our fallen comrades, the Chair recognized the following elected officials and candidates: Judge Karen Crouch, Jo McCall, Madeleine Dewar, Roberto Rodriguez, Andy Lopez, Lauro Bustamante, Linda Johnson, Frances Carnot, Amadeo Ortiz, Monica Caballero, Steve Walker and Jose Gallegos.

Upon motion made and seconded, the Agenda was approved without discussion.

Although not listed on the agenda, the minutes of the February CEC meeting were approved near the end of tonight’s meeting without further corrections or discussion.

John Courage reported the results of the Canvass of the March 4, 2008 Primary Election, a copy of which is attached to the record. On motion by Jose Gallegos, the vote canvass was approved.

After approval of the vote canvass, the ballot order drawing for the April 8^th run-off election was conducted and resulted in the following:

Railroad Commissioner: 1. Dale Henry 2. Mark Thompson
Sheriff: 1. Amadeo Ortiz 2. Andy Lopez
Justice of Peace, Pct No. 1, Pl. 1 1. Tomas Uresti 2. Monica Lisa Caballero

A run-off election for Precinct Chair of Precinct No. 2060 was also scheduled, but was cancelled when one of the contestants withdrew.

Chair’s Report. Carla Vela thanked everyone who worked so hard. Because we had such a great turn out, we have a lot of delegates and we have been working hard trying to find locations to accommodate such large groups of people. Carla reviewed the past two years when we started with no place to meet, no furniture, no computers, no copy machines, no paper, no essential materials and now we a beautiful location with six computers, copy machines, and all other necessary equipment where we can all come together. She reviewed the proposed locations for the four local senatorial district conventions, and announced plans for a meeting at the Democratic Party office next Tuesday, March 18^th at 6:30 p.m. to work on plans for the conventions. She outlined some of our immediate needs – first, we need money, second, we need vendors for food and drinks, we need buttons, pins, etc. We need voice mikes for audio. It is going to take a lot of work and she asked for help from all the temporary chairs and all of the chairs in each senatorial district.

Treasurer’s Report. Fernando Contreras, Treasurer, announced that as of February 29, 2008 there is a balance of over $30,000.00 in the bank. With the proceeds from the Bragging Breakfast and one fundraising event which we are still working on, we have $23,734.65 cash available.

Committee Reports.

1. Special Events/Fundraising – Lila Aguirre announced a net profit of $2,670.24 in proceeds from the Bragging Breakfast on February 23^rd at La Hacienda. She thanked her co-chair, Rudy Galvan, and all those who have made cash contributions as well as those who help put on the event.
2. Precinct Chair Recruitment – Mark Camann reported on two training sessions during the past month on how to conduct a precinct convention. He asked for more members for this Committee. Currently all members are not precinct chairs, although four of the members will become precinct chairs at the beginning of May. The next meeting is scheduled for March 25.
3. Campaign Committee – Ian Straus reminded the group that we must hire a manager for the election campaign. Applications and resumes are still being accepted
4. Communications. No report.
5. Primary Committee. No report, primary account statements included in handout.
6. Partners Program. No report
7. Budget & Finance – Zada True-Courage and Fernando Contreras reported that they have discussed needing the approval of the CEC to spend any money collected for use by the conventions. It will be necessary to pay food vendors, for example, and in some locations it may be necessary to collect money to pay for the space.

Larry Romo made a motion to authorize expenditure of a reasonable amount of money for each convention. During discussion, the cost for the Lila Cockrell Theatre was noted to be $2,500 all day long. Carla remarked that if each elected official would donate $250 each, we would have enough money. The motion was seconded and passed without further discussion.

8. Rules Committee. Ian Straus.reported two meetings of the Committee, the last being in preparation for the Senatorial District Conventions.

9. Community Outreach – Ruth Stewart reported on the response to our gifts of phone cards, cookies, water, etc. to the Warriors and Family Support Center at BAMC. They were much appreciated and we will be doing this again in a few months.

The minutes of the February meeting which were not listed on the Agenda, were approved without discussion at this point in the meeting as noted in the beginning paragraphs.

SDEC Report – Zada True-Courage stated that she had hand-delivered to the Rules Committee a request that the statuatory quorum cannot be changed.

Bob Miller made a motion to accept the foregoing reports. There was some discussion and an amendment to the motion. However, the reports were accepted.

Unfinished Business. There was no unfinished business to discuss.

New Business. John Friedreich commented on the lack of a report on the Partners Program.

Announcements. Charlotte Waldo announced that there will be training for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

A total of $239.45 was collected tonight.

There was no further business for discussion and the meeting adjourned at 8:40 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Jane M. Humble
Secretary