SDSA Membership Minutes

March 17, 2008

SDSA Co-chairs Roberto Flores and Lynne Armstrong called the meeting to order at 6:30 PM at Grady’s Restaurant.

Roberto introduced Steve Walker, who ran for Justice of the Peace. He thanked us for our support in the primary and hoped that we would continue to support him in November.

Travis Peterson introduced his guest, Debbie Meeks, who was requesting our support to become a delegate to the state and national convention. She was in the military and was the test case for the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy.

Ruth Dalrymple, treasurer, reported that our current balance is $8,880.00.

Lynne introduced the first guest speaker, novelist, Greg Herren. He spoke to the membership about an incident where he was invited to speak to a gay/straight club at a high school in Richmond, Virginia. Local religious conservatives objected to his appearance and his visit to the school was cancelled. He eventually spoke at the MCC church there. He received support from local GLBT groups and the ACLU. Many of the students from the high school, along with their parents, came to hear him speak.

Olga Hernandez, National Stonewall Board, introduced the second guest speaker, Steve Driscoll, Co-Chair of National Stonewall Democrats and founding member of the group. Steve spoke about issues facing not only the LGBT community but Democrats as well. He stressed the importance of Democrats taking back the White House and the Legislature.

There is a run-off in the race for sheriff between Andy Lopez and Amadeo Ortiz. SDSA had not endorsed either of these candidates, but rather Larry Ricketts, who lost. Both Lopez and Ortiz spoke at the meeting and the membership voted to endorse one or the other. The result of the vote was a tie, so we gave a favorable recommendation to both candidates.

Lynne announced that the city had adopted a new anti-discrimination policy; however, the policy did not include transgender people. After some discussion and comments about this Antonia Padilla, SDSA Board Member, decided she, along with several others would make an appointment to talk to city officials and voice our concerns over the exclusion of transgenders in their policy. Nancy Russell made a motion to circulate a petition and get other organizations involved in fighting this issue. Mark Spencer moved to table the motion until after Antonia and other SDSA members visited with city officials.

Carla Vela announced the sites for the Senatorial Conventions on March 29^th.

The meeting adjourned at 8:25 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Cris Ramirez,

Secretary