By Ann Nye —
The meeting began with an announcement about our board’s plan to appoint a nominating committee to nominate officers for the new PV Dems term beginning in July. Please check out the article on the Nominating Committee by President Kathy Bradford.
Kathy reported that “Asha Shahed has regretfully stepped down as recording secretary. She’s done a stellar job and we will miss her. She’s moving across the country to be near family.” Kathy put out a call for volunteers to take over the position and, a few days ago, member Casey Crowe stepped up to join our board as Interim Recording Secretary.
1st VP Connie Sullivan presented the “Stop the Big Lie” Jan 6 Rally at Founders Park, adjacent to Trump National’s Golf Club. A write-up of the rally and a photo montage can be found on our website here.
Due to concerns with the rise in COVID variant cases, our PV Dems meetings will continue virtually through at least March. SAVE the DATE for our February 20, 2022 meeting. Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik will return to speak about the main issues confronting us this year. For those following Hiltzik’s columns, expect an enlightening meeting.
I shared a quote in memory of MLK Day – A Day On, Not a Day Off. On April 3, the day before Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, he gave his I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech to support the striking sanitation workers at Mason Temple in Memphis, TN, and said:
“For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.”
Before the speakers’ program, candidates for LA County Superior Court Judge were introduced. Six candidates joined the meeting — Ryan Dibble, Sharon Ransom, Melissa Hammond, David Chiang, Matthew Vodnoy, and Patrick Hare. We don’t know how many Judge positions are in play, since filing opens Jan 31 and closes Feb 9.
Details of our January meeting’s theme, Continuing to Reimagine Criminal Justice with featured speakers Judge Tom Long, Deputy Attorney General Paul Seo, and DA George Gascon’s spokesperson, Max Szabo, can be found in Fraser Perkins’ meeting report.
After our speakers’ program (7:28 on the video below), Tony Hale gave a report on the LACDP’s early endorsement of LA County Assessor Jeff Prang and a lack of an endorsement for LA County Sheriff. You can see more details on this in Jon Munoz’s LACDP newsletter article.
Connie Sullivan presented the following local redistricting results (12:44 on the video below).
- Katie Porter will run in District 47, that includes her hometown of Irvine; former Rep. Harley Rouda will not contest her seat
- Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia will run for Rep. Alan Lowenthal’s seat against Dem Asm Cristina Garcia of Bell Gardens
- LA County Supervisors redistricting separates the Peninsula (with Janice Hahn) from the Beach Cities
- There was confusion that Rep. Lieu wasn’t our Congressperson anymore since Congressional District (CD) 33 does not cover our area; turns out CD numbers don’t follow the candidates and Rep. Lieu’s new CD number is 36 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E8u2WGSe20pK-eqrnPLJS25oadvG0XGI/view)
In our Did You Know section of the meeting, I shared an interesting background story on Homer A. Plessy whom Louisiana Gov. Edwards posthumously pardoned on Jan. 5, 2022, for violating Louisiana’s Separate Car Act of 1890. When learning about the famous 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson 7 to 1 Supreme Court decision, which legally enforced segregation on the basis of race under the fictitious notion of “separate but equal,” I only remembered the case perpetuated white supremacy. I don’t remember ever learning or even seeing a picture of Plessy until I saw his ancestors accepting the pardon from Gov. Edwards and wondering why a white person was accepting the pardon. Well, here’s why and I’m sure this would be a far more informative story to be teaching our young people in school.
To overturn the Separate Car Act of 1890, civil rights advocates looked for a plaintiff who had “not more than one-eight colored blood” and could pass as white so as to force the judiciary to determine the constitutionality of Jim Crow laws. They hoped that by selecting a person of ambiguous racial identity, the person might exploit the Louisiana legislature’s failure to define race and to force the court to consider the inconclusiveness of scientific evidence on definitive racial categories. In court, the civil rights advocates argued that a man of one-eighth African ancestry may not even know to which race he belongs, so a railroad employee would be even less qualified to “decide the question of race” and determine in what car a mixed-race individual ought to sit. That is how Plessy became the plaintiff in this historic Supreme Court case.
And, finally, we had a rousing discussion about Senate Bill 1383, which as of Jan 1, requires single-family and multifamily residents to place all their food scraps and food-soiled paper into their green waste container. What this means for each locality is still be worked out by the trash collection company that services your city. Athens Services seems to be somewhat committed to the effort with their email of Do’s and Don’ts on recycling food scraps to PVE residents. Fraser touches on this in his Climate Corner newsletter article and you can view CalRecycle’s Power Point presentation at this link – https://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/organics/slcp/education
Here are the PV Dems January expenditures as composed by Treasurer Al Shadbourne: (Note – Al’s attention to detail caught the 5 cent bank error.)
| ActBlue Credit Card Processing Fees | $2.97 | |||
| Al Muratsuchi for Assembly Donation | $200.00 | |||
| Bank Error | $0.05 | |||
| TOTAL | $203.02 | |||
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