Category Archives: Progressive Democrats of Benicia

Membership, Progressive Democrats of Benicia

Members and Friends – January is the time!

Annual dues are due in January – please pay online here…

THANKS!! …to all who have supported Progressive Democrats of Benicia since our founding in 2017!  Your interest, involvement and contributions helped carry the weight, and we accomplished a lot!

Annual dues are paid in January of each year.  Renewing your membership or joining for the first time is now soooooooo easy!  You can now PAY ONLINE using ActBlue.  Check out our Renew page or the Join  page today. Or just click here to go directly to our ActBlue page.  Pay right now if you can!

Why is your membership important? The $20.00 annual membership dues are the Club’s primary source of money to pay for room rentals, handouts, annual reporting fees required by the state of California, etc. (Note that additional donations are also welcome!)

What do you get for your membership? In addition to the camaraderie and conversation with fellow Progressive Democrats on political concerns and current issues, as a member you are also eligible to vote – to endorse candidates for public office and on resolutions for action on local issues.  And as a member you will help decide what issues the PDB should address and what actions we want to take.

What do you have to do as a member? No commitments are necessary. Membership itself is a tremendous support. Those who have time are welcome to join in planning programs, responding to action alerts, etc.  If that’s not your cup of tea, but you still wish to support PDB’s efforts, a membership is just the ticket.

We need your help in fighting negative forces in Benicia and beyond who oppose progressive values, and who want non-progressive candidates appointed and elected to local offices and beyond.  Don’t forget – in 2020 Benicia has three seats open for election: Mayor plus two Council seats. Big outside money may be meddling again, and we will likely have a fight on our hands to achieve a majority Progressive City Council for 2020.

So, please take a moment now and …

Click ActBlue to pay your $20 dues.
Progressive Democrats of Benicia

Ralph Dennis letter – the many accomplishments of Progressive Democrats of Benicia

Appeared in the Benicia Herald, January 19, 2020
Ralph Dennis, Chair, Progressive Democrats of Benicia

I was reading a recent letter to the editor from a writer who submits letters quite often to the Benicia Herald, and he used much of the same diatribes against Councilmember Steve Young and the Mayor he always does.

He also shared his opinion yet again about a local political club – the Progressive Democrats of Benicia (PDB), a club which I know.

At the same time, I had also been reminiscing about some of the activities over the past three years undertaken by PDB, in addition to the candidate endorsements PDB has chosen to make.

    • Last February, in celebration of Black History Month PDB honored four local African-American women for their longtime service to the Benicia community and surrounding area.
    • In another meeting, PDB discussed the use of glyphosate (Round Up) and heard from Benicia’s Public Works Dept. on landscape maintenance practices it follows regarding the use of chemicals.
    • PDB also honored the Good Neighborhood Steering Committee for its near-20 year activism on getting better and more air monitoring sites in Benicia.
    • PDB has brought in the founder of Cultivate Community Co-op, Solano County’s only food Co-op.
    • PDB has also organized appearances in Benicia by US Congressman Mike Thompson, California State Senator Bill Dodd, and California Assemblymember Tim Grayson, along with regular updates from Monica Brown, our Solano County Supervisor.
    • PDB helped organize public rallies on anti-gun violence and the federal immigration policies, trying to raise awareness in the community on these issues.
    • During the past two years, PDB has worked with other groups in tracking legislation in Sacramento to provide information to the community on bills that impact Benicia, encouraging Benicians to call their legislators on matters that concern them.

These are just a few examples of the efforts put forth by PDB since its beginnings.

Progressive Democrats of Benicia is a political organization, chartered by the Solano County Democratic Central Committee, and we do provide opportunities to Club members to vote on endorsing Democratic candidates in elections.  But endorsements are only one aspect of what the Club does, one of the partisan political things we do.

Much of what PDB does is in fact non-partisan in nature.  I’ll leave it up the reader and the community to conclude the “effectiveness” of the Club’s efforts.

As Chair of the Progressive Democrats of Benicia, I want to remove the misleading impression left by the frequent writer to the Benicia Herald about the Progressive Democrats of Benicia, and what we do.  And, you might want to check the Club out at one of its meetings and visit the Club’s web site progressivedemocratsofbenicia.org/.

Meeting notices, Progressive Democrats of Benicia

Meeting of Nov. 12, 2019 – Food Co-op & Candidate Endorsements

[  Note – result of ENDORSEMENT VOTE is here.  ]

Tues Nov. 12, 6:30 pm
Benicia Library, Dona Benicia room

Food Co-op & Candidate Endorsements

Our final meeting for 2019 was held on Tuesday, November 12 at the Benicia Library’s Dona Benicia room at 6:30 pm. We started a bit early for this meeting to make sure there would be plenty of time for our endorsement process, one of our most important functions of the year.

We had two presentations on the program:

FIRST… Paula Schnese, Executive Director of Cultivate Community Food Co-op, Solano Co.’s first community-owned natural grocery store, updated us on the Co-op’s activities and then introduced Jon Steinman, who is on a 130-stop book tour and author of Grocery Store: The Promise of Food Co-ops in the Age of Grocery Giants. Mr. Steinman previewed his book on concerns about trends among dominant grocers, and how the community food co-op model offers an alternative to the larger grocers’ influence on communities and food supply.
VIDEO OF PAULA SCHNESE’ PRESENTATION (5 minutes, video thanks to Pat Toth-Smith)
VIDEO OF JON STEINMAN’S PRESENTATION (40 minutes, with introduction by Paula Schnese, Steinman begins at 1:40, video thanks to Pat Toth-Smith)

Beginning at 7:30… we had two panels of candidates who will be on the Benicia ballot for the March 2020 Primary Elections. For each panel there were prepared questions asked to each candidate, as well as Q&A with the audience. The panels were:

      • Panel 1: CA Cong. District 5: Mike Thompson (incumbent), and Jason Kishineff, challenger.
      • Panel 2: Solano Co. Board of Supervisors, District 2: Monica Brown (incumbent), and challengers Rochelle Sherlock and K. Patrice Williams.

VIDEO OF THE CANDIDATE INTERVIEW SESSION – CA Cong. District 5, Thompson & Kishineff (28 minutes, with Moderator Maggie Kolk, video thanks to Pat Toth-Smith)

VIDEO OF THE CANDIDATE INTERVIEW SESSION – Solano County Supervisor, District 1, Brown, Sherlock & Williams (40 minutes, with Moderator Maggie Kolk, video thanks to Pat Toth-Smith)
ENDORSEMENT RESULTS: Progressive Democrats endorse Mike Thompson and Monica Brown.

Following the discussion with candidates, non-PDB members were be asked to leave the room. The remainder of the meeting was closed to the public and open only to current PDB members. During this remaining time, members discussed the candidates and were given ballots for voting on whether and whom to endorse in each race.

PDB bylaws state that to receive the Club’s endorsement a candidate must receive 50% + 1 of the votes from those present voting. PDB bylaws also state that members are entitled to vote 60 days after payment of dues.

This last PDB meeting of the year was highly informative – on the food front and also about the candidates running for offices that affect each of us on a daily basis.