Category Archives: Meeting notices

Meeting notices

Meeting of January 14, 2020 – BHS youth on climate change / possible Benicia election changes

Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 7pm
Casa de Vilarrasa Community Room,
383 East I St. (corner of East 4th)

PDB’s first meeting of 2020 began with a talk by Benicia High School student Emma Goularte, editor in chief of the BHS newspaper The PAW.  Emma presented the results of a recent student poll on what students think about climate change issues.

We were the first to hear the results of the survey.  Our Q&A with Emma was full of good ideas for follow-up and support.

Next, we focused on an upcoming discussion by City Council on how to elect City Council members, at-large v. district elections.

Currently, council members are elected at-large, meaning all eligible voters can vote for any candidate for Council on the ballot. On January 21, City Council will discuss and consider whether to elect council members by districts, which would mean voters in each defined district would vote only for candidates running for that district Council seat. Several cities in the Bay Area and California have already made this change, as well as many School Districts (including BUSD).

First, Julia Hahn explained what the issue is, why it’s an issue now, and how other communities in CA are implementing the changes. She has worked with Vacaville and Vallejo on addressing these issues and shared some of her experiences. Then Benicia attorney Terry Mollica followed with a discussion of Benicia’s characteristics, and shared his observations on how Benicia should address the issue.

Again, Q&A was smart, energetic and focused.  All were encouraged to attend the January 21 City Council meeting for more on this important issue.

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.

Meeting notices

Meeting of January 8, 2019

Progressive Democrats of Benicia met on Tuesday evening, January 8, 2019 at 7pm. On the agenda for this meeting was election of PDB officers and discussion of activities for PDB in the coming months and seeking ideas from members.

MEETING LOCATION: Casa de Vilarrasa, 383 East I Street, Benicia, (corner of East I and East 4th Streets).  The room is called the Garden Room.

 

INVITATION FROM RALPH DENNIS, CHAIR…

December 14, 2018

Members,

It’s time to start the New Year off right – with the first 2019 PDB meeting! At the top of your 2019 to-do list, I am sure.

Well, ready or not, our next meeting is scheduled:

January 8th  7:00pm
The Garden Room
383 Casa Vilarassa (corner of East I Street and East 4th).

The Agenda for the evening will include:

  • Election of PDB officers.
  • Mimosa Montag, Vallejo-Benicia Indivisible for Justice. Indivisible 2.0 for 2019.
  • PDB planning for 2019 actions/meetings.
    • Benicia visit by Cong. Mike Thompson (co-sponsors)
    • Community air monitoring (expand info/awareness)
    • Recruiting women for public office: commissions and boards, gender parity in CA Legislature…. International Women’s Day, March 8.
    • Ideas from members

For those of you who were in on the beginning of PDB, we had our first public meeting on August 27, 2017 at the Garden Room, where we will be on January 8, 2019. It’s nice to revisit old roots, and many thanks to charter PDB member June Mejias for making the arrangements, then and now.

Don’t forget, PDB annual dues are payable in January of each year, that means you can pay your 2019 dues as you come to the Jan. 8 meeting. How convenient!!!

Hope to see you on Jan. 8. By the way, seating space in the Garden Room is about one-half the space we have had at the Library. A word to the wise….

As always, thoughts and suggestions are encouraged, and please visit your PDB web site at progressivedemocratsofbenicia.com/.

Ralph Dennis, Chair