April 30, 2008 was our elections meeting, therefore no minutes were taken, just vote tallies. They are as follows:

University Democrats’ Elections for the Fall 2008 Semester

April 30, 2008 8:00 p.m. 

Events Amendment

For: 48 
Against: 28 
Abstain: 11 

Voting Amendment

For: 58

Against: 18

Abstain: 12 

Webmaster Amendment

For: 31

Against: 45

Abstain: 12 

President

Andrew Kirk: 29 
Zack C. Hall: 41

Alex Ferraro: 22 

Presidential Runoff

Andrew Kirk: 38

Zack C. Hall: 52 

VP 
Jimmy Talarico: 62

Alex Ferraro: 22

Abstain: 2 

PR Director

Andy Jones: Voice acclimation

 
Secretary

Michael Hurta: 10

Brittany McAllister: 59

`

Ballot to Suspend the rules

Yes- 20

No-21 

Treasurer

Laura Bloomer: 35

Gene Vela: 16

Kendric Hornsby: 8

Michael: 2

Abstain: 6 

Events Chair

Jasmine Blake: 25

Emma Vernon: 33

Abstain: 4 

Volunteer Coordinator

Megan Forbes: 25

Thaddeus Woody: 35

Abstain: 3 

Historian

Jess Faerman: 22

Kendric Hornsby: 2

Megan Forbes: 30

Abstain: 9 (**Note that all of these were absentee ballots, thus no runoff was necessary)

Tenth General Meeting, Wednesday, April 16^th, 8:00 p.m.

Larry Joe Doherty! Inviting us to participate in kicking some Republican hind end in November! We want to see Mike McCaul fall in the fall! His office is at 3563 Far West Blvd. 512-345-5277 right off the Far West Shuttle. Field Director is Marco Mancila! They will stay here to sign anyone up who wants to work as a volunteer on the campaign. He’ll find something for everyone to do! 160 miles of asphalt to cover- Tom Delay’s fault. Help him help undo Tom Delay. We’ll make a change together and he appreciates us.

Dues! They’re five dollars. Pay your dues, give up Tiff’s Treats.

This week’s member of  the week is Katie Naranjo. Running for CDA president!

New TCD Officers- Tory Lauterbach- Vice President, Andy Jones- Communication Director, Jasmine Blake- Secretary!

Volunteering! Sunday we’re volunteering for Randi Shade at Noon on Sunday- Meet at Littlefield Fountain at Noon! Sign-Up!

TCD and other organizations are sponsoring trips to Baton Rouge!  They’ll pay for your gas and all of this stuff- block walking and canvassing. Please come see Tory at the end of the meeting.

This Sunday we’ll meet and make A-Frames at 2 p.m. at Ben’s 32^nd and Grooms! It will GOTV! Meet at 1:45 outside of Littlefield Fountain.

Dining with Dems!

Senior Gifts: Ashley Boggs, Kurt Neumann, Marcus Ceniceros, Nick Chu, Alex Hunt, Nathan Friedman, Laura Hernandez

Jimmy only wanted to talk about white supremacy at Grandma’s.  It upset Grandma Talarico.

Dr.Robert Jensen specializes in making grandmother’s uncomfortable and pissed off!

Campaign Academy is going on! Jimmy & KT went!

KT is speaking to this. A project started by Rep. Strama. Next Thursday is KT’s Bday party- aka Burnt Orange Report- Scholtz Garden- 16^th & San Jac- 8:00

Zack C. Hall this Sunday at 8:00 mtg. with Udems, Lation Leadership., Longhorn LULAC- talking about coordinating Voter Reg & DREAM Act

Next Friday & Saturday the 25^th & 26^th at Winedale Picnic at 7 p.m.- $5 for students- come see Jamie

Regional Conference with UDems Peace Department countering Dept. of Defense- at SMU

Gene Kelly this Friday at 4:30 at Scholtz- Jerry Garcia is having a campaign coordinating meeting

Nominations next week!

Eighth General Meeting April 5, 2008

For you die hard readers: we had spring break and then the DA runoff debate, so there are no actual minutes from those.

Congrats Delegates!

Pay Your Dues, Pay Your Dues, Pay Your Dues, Pay Your Dues! Can’t vote in the City Council Endorsement meeting Saturday but you can for the ICE Debate next week!

Runoff Election Day! Early voting 7a-7p thru Saturday. On Election Day, Tuesday April 8^th outside Jester- we’re passing out fliers and encourage people to vote for Montford, passing around sign-up sheet.

Forty Acres Fest “Worst ways to pick a candidate booth!” From 10-4 Email events@udems.org

Issues Committee- Frankie Rodriguez & Ameya Latkar, Meetings every Tuesday at 6.

Place 4 Elections:

Cid Galindo- Maroon & Orange, 1995 founded Group Austin- City Development Organization, served on Austin City Planning Commission 2004-2007. Won Austin Firefighters, Police, EMS, Downtown Austin Alliance & Neighborhood Association. Urban Planning is his biggest deal. Within a generation, Austin’s pop. Will increase to about 3 million. (30-50 yrs.) If we’re going to care about our environment and keep growing we need someone who knows a lot about urban planning.

Laura Morrison- Project Mgr. for Lockheed Martin, UCSD grad, Cochair of Austin neighborhood plan team, Protect character and vitality of Austin neighborhoods, tackling congestion on roads, developing comprehensive growth mgmt. policy, endorsed by Austin sierra club, better Austin, Austin gay lesbian political caucus, stonewall dems, north Austin dems, south Austin dems, capital area progressive dems, caaad

Ken Vasseau- We couldn’t find a picture of him. This seat has been vacated so everybody and their grandma are trying to get in. Small scale campaign. Doesn’t have a website but does have a myspace. He’s got a few friends on there. Stop crime at Highland Mall. That’s pretty good. Issue bonds at a low rate to help fund public services. Wants to find solution to the panhandling epidemic. Look for a solution. Against converting freeways into toll ways. He didn’t friend Frankie on his myspace—yet.

Jennifer Gale- Ran for Austin ISD in the last election cycle. One three of the six campus precincts.

Sam Osemene- Recent grad of UT. Got in through GI Bill. Served in navy for many years. He is receiving his master’s in poli sci soon from here. Talks a lot about the federalists. Most of his poli experience comes from the fact that he worked on the Ron Paul campaign. Hardcore libertarian. He’s lived here a long time. Proposes relocating the ARCH away from downtown and other measures to help the homeless.

Robin Cravey- former UT student, asst. ed of Daily Texan, started Ecology in TX mag while at UT, owned and managed taxi cab service in 70’s. Went to law school in 90s. Uses a scooter and his wife uses a hybrid. Director of Austin Bar Assct. Parliamentarian in the Austin Planning Commission, Pres of Zilker Neighborhood Assct. Editor and publisher of Children’s Magazine. Affordable housing, jobs, Keeping Austin Green, focusing on the economy and helping small businesses. Comes to UDems meetings pretty often.

Yay issues committee.

Councilwoman Kim- Thanks to Laura, Katie, and Jazz helping her with the campaign. Appreciates opportunity to get to know us better. Contributes financially. Believes the opportunities we have at this time are special. When she was a student at A&M. The Aggie Dems club was really small- inspiring to come to our campus and see us being such a poli force in Travis Co & university. We had a positive energy… Made a difference. Many people she believes in this room that will be elected officials one day. Inspiring to share her experience and help us get that done. Working on issues of poverty, environment, transportation, border issues. Sometimes it’s not a glamorous job- you gotta make calls, block walk, etc. That’s the spirit of the Dem party- anyone who has a voice will be heard. That’s why she’s so proud to be a dem. Student Safety Task Force- she formed with Sheryl Coal. Jack Polmeroff of Lambda Thi Epsilon- Asian American frat- died of alcohol poisoning. Disrupted his family and frat members lives. Formed this with UTPD & APD to collaborate with Fire Dept.- Apt. Associations- to give students info about how to stay safe. She’s amazed at some of the things our peers do. Three level decks- parties where they use plastic black sheeting… who knows where the exit is if there’s a fire? Greek sororities and fraternities especially but other groups. Three Deck rule… not any higher than this. It’s an ordinance. She’s worked on Affordable Housing. Concentrate on your studies without having to worry about working another job. Being able to go to Princeton to get her Master’s in Public Affairs. She got that opportunity- now she’s giving back. Honored by this opportunity to make sure everyone has access to a good education regardless of their economic background. Making sure we have more resources to help our small businesses in Austin. The Domain- a lot of subsidies given to them by former council- now in the charter election in November to take the subsidies back. A lot of local small bus. Are upset about that. Taking customers away from 2^nd street & West Campus. In Austin we pride ourselves on small businesses- and all of the owners she just named are supporting her- including Amy’s Ice Cream. They call her and they know that she will help them right away. Your support is critical to her campaign.

Q: If re-elected, what would you like to improve on?
A: Probably the way we communicate with the citizens and share information in a timely manner. Electronic communication is not perfect. A Wal-Mart supercenter is going into a neighborhood in an abandoned mall. They found a way through our city codes and ordinances to do this- and their staff should’ve notified the neighborhood ahead of time. We can do this with the Legislative Alert system like they have at the capitol. It sounds simple; it’s not. It’s something that takes a lot of money, but she’s willing to invest in it over time.

Q: I’m a resident of WC and have been for the last year. A lot of students live in certain areas.. He’s disappointed by price of housing- skyrocketed- it’s been a struggle for students with fin aid. Read about lack of responsiveness for utilities in WC- water flooded basements in some of these buildings. Do you think the article was fair? What have you done or will you do to address these issues?

A: Packing in more people per square mile- there wasn’t sufficient planning on the utilities. She has expertise in this and knows about state procurement laws including professional services. She thinks that there was an ambitious goal to try to get more affordable housing in exchange for height. She thinks what happened there is a lesson that we need to think comprehensively about all of these things- sidewalks, roads, historic oak trees… all of these multi-faceted things. In the past 3 years we’ve had accelerated rapid growth- she never foresaw all of this growth- property values down town- 1.5 bil worth of property- will double in three years. Basically the city is running at warped speed and things are being missed. They need to take a breath and make sure they’re planning their budgets early. She’s been an advocate for this. This needs to involve the entire community. We need to have a concenus of what works for us and understand what’s expected for us.

Q: How do you validate your two methods of deciding your stance on an issue you don’t have an opinion on it? Do you decide based on your voters or yourself?

A: Both. We need to make sure our citizens understand what’s coming and what’ it’s about. In grad school she’s learned how to take a lot of info and a lot of statistics- she wants to be able to explain it to citizens that she’s served. Villa Muse deal in a film studio outside the ECJ. Sounds great thousands of jobs. Hayfield and a flood plane? They go in executive session and realize there are irreconcilable issues with this. She looks at all the info and comes to a position she’s comfortable with explaining an justifying in a way that is honest and compassionate because there are sometimes people you’re not going to please. If they are racing ahead of where the public is- they will yank them back. Recall position on the toll roads. You need to bring people along, educate them, understand what the constraints are. Rushing things can really have a backlash.

Q: What’s your position on the toll roads?
A: Voted against all TXDot Toll Roads. Trusts TXDot as far as she can throw them. They gave her info that they changed the staff’s info on the answers. Oak Hill has been waiting for 20 years to have relief to the traffic congestion- didn’t ask for three story highways- lights, noise, destroying oak roads and part of Williams creek. They wanted something more parkway to keep the more charming natural character of Oak Hill. Worked with them to scale it back- mediation involving the two sides.

Matt Glazer is in the back- he’s the field coordinator. Internships and volunteer stuff with him. Who’s Matt Glazer? He’s the shady guy in the back.

This Saturday in GEO or JGB we’ll have our endorsement meeting. There will be food and coffee at 11. We know this is right in the middle of Forty Acres. Mix it up a little bit.

Jamie and Andrew are going to show us the updated website. In case any of you have seen last semester’s website… we decided to revamp the whole thing because the old one was not updated. What is Udems? Who are our officers? News goes on here. Membership. All of the links that are on the old website are on the new one. Come to this website for the events. We’ll keep the upcoming events updated. Get in the habit of checking the website for this. Seniors: send her a bio and picture and she’ll put that on the website.

Upcoming initiatives.

Nick Hudson- 30 second spiel on ICE! The local and fed have collaborated for about 30 yrs. Really closely. The Travis Co Sheriff’s office expanded its collaborating with ICE- resulting in more deportation of immigrants and the immigrant families are being affected. Trav Co Sheriff’s office contends that its good for crime and stuff and it brings more money to the county. But the city is actually losing money on the deal.

We will have a meeting next week where we discuss the pros & cons of this issues. Local comm. Leaders will discuss why they’re for or against this and then we’ll vote on it.

Lauren works with OxFam- have officially launched their campaign to make UT Sweat-Free. Tying in to a national campaign to do this. Especially Nike- they outsource. And Nike makes millions of dollars off of our name. 41 schools are in on it. They want to be able to present this to Nike and really officially change it by next spring. We’ll make it available on the website.

Our PR Director. This is neither a Hillary nor Barack issue. He got an email from his mom- there is a shirt offered on Café Press that said I wish Hillary had married OJ. The shirt advocates domestic violence and murder.  We want you to send a letter to them that says we are not buying any more merchandise from them. The message of domestic violence needs to be stopped.  They’ll brand your logo and order whatever you want. If you want something made you go and get it made. There are a lot of grass roots liberal organizations.

Dr. David Jefferson Distinguished Lecture Series, Monday, 4/7 7 p.m. ACES 2.302- “Electronic Voting: How to throw an election!”

Judge Jan Breland’s sanctions hearing, old courthouse at 9 p.m. thursday

Lots and lots of outside announcements!

TYD Convention! Woooo! April 11^th-13^th convention in Austin. Strama, Dukes, Dogget- great trainings, people coming in from D.C. to help us. We want Udems to 1. Come and we’re also electing our state officers- come talk to the previous state officers. You hear what’s going on all over the state. Lots of hospitality parties afterwards. Texasyds.com Sign up, come, have fun with us. Link on udems.org. We have some people running for office within Texas College Dems- like Andy Jones. There is a registration fee for the convention- if you want to go and don’t want to pay the fee- be on the host committee- we’ll have a meeting tomorrow- we’ll have 2 or 3 meetings before next weekend- you’ll get to help run the event at the actual event. Registration is $15. Texasyds.com Right side link- 76^th annual thing- you hit it. Matt Glazer in the house will sponsor 10 people to go if you can’t afford it. If you’re on the host committee, you have to do work.

Andrew’s is really important. Udems is obviously going to the convention. So we need everyone to send their date of births to Jamie at webmaster@udems.org or treasurer@udems.org You have to be young

Marcus and some other people are doing Teach for America- domestic peace corp- when you graduate- you decide to give two yrs. Of public service anywhere across the country- you commit to teach for two years and then afterwards there is money available for grad school or to go into the public sector- partnerships with law schools and grad schools and with consulting firms- if you get accepted to work there and get extra bonuses once you come back to the firm. If you want more info- sign-up sheet teachforamerica.org Marcus is teaching first grade in Houston reading & writing. Alex Hunt is teaching middle school math. There is Houston and Rio Grande Valley in Texas that you can go to.

Jamie- is also doing senior gifts- this is the third time we’ve done this. She is raising money. If anyone wants to give her some money to fundraise for that.

Jeremy Martin- he’s a first year law student at UT- Texas Law Democrats. Wants to give an open invitation- if anyone’s interested in law school or whatever- meeting tomorrow at 6 p.m. TNH 3.142 or email president@udems.org It’ll also be on the website!

Katie is representing Rosemary Lehmberg- if you want to help on the campaign we have opportunities before Tuesday and on Tuesday- she has the signup sheet going around and you can come see her after.

Marti Bier- campaign mgr. for Randi Shade. T-shirts out in the lobby and Randi will be at Player’s for sure.

Alex offers a constitutional amendment with Nick, Marcus, Ben.

We’re fliering all day next Tuesday!  And a rally Monday with Mindy.

Jimmy wants to invite everyone to Player’s-

Last announcement! Jess! She turned 21 yesterday! Party at her appt. this Saturday. Really fun our parties are amazing and they’re always talked about! Email historian@udems.org!