ID 682 2012 Election of GPUS Steering Committee – Treasurer – 1 Seat

[Ryan Jones]

Ranked Choice Vote ID 682Ranked Choice Vote 2012 Election of GPUS Steering Committee - TreasurerType Secret Ballot Revealed at Close of PollsNumber of Seats 1Ranked Choice Vote Administrator Budd DickinsonPhase VotingDiscussion 06/18/2012 - 07/07/2012Voting 07/08/2012 - 07/14/2012Presens Quorum 0.6666Candidates Jeff TurnerAudrey Clementwrite-in BackgroundThis online, ranked choice vote will elect a Treasurer, who is a member of the Steering Committee. About Steering Committee Electionshttp://www.gp.org/documents/bylaws.shtml#article6MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE STEERING COMMITTEEGPUS Bylaws, article IV. The Steering Committeehttp://www.gp.org/documents/bylaws.shtml#article4GPUS Rules & Procedures, Section 1. Powers of Steering Committeehttp://www.gp.org/documents/rules.shtml#section1Candidate InformationJeff Turnerjeff@jeffturnercpa.comAloha GPUS Delegates, For the first time we have a contested race for election of Treasurer. Andas you can easily tell from other emails recently, there are some seriousdifferences of opinion on the Finance Committee that have been developingfor awhile. Differences of opinion can be a very good thing; they tellus that there are shortcomings in our structure that need to be resolved.There is so much to say about our current state of financial affairs. Iwill try to be brief here. Please watch for continuing emails where I willcomment on several of these subjects in more detail. INTRODUCTION I hadn't thought much about whether I would run for re-election or not untilabout three months ago. I had brought up, and the Finance Committee hadbeen discussing, the need for Treasurer candidates for the last half year orso, with no candidate prospects in sight. As the discussion evolved, itsuddenly became clear to me just how much difference of opinion there wasabout the exact role and mandated duties of the Treasurer. And I was struckby the realization that we had never really gone outside of the FinanceCommittee to recruit a new Treasurer. And that is when I instantly realizedI had to run for a second term as Treasurer to complete the work I havebegun - to transform our whole financial process into a professional,businesslike, operation that produces accurate and timely financialinformation, on a consistent basis from year to year, and from Treasurer toTreasurer, the sole purpose being to help us make informed financialdecisions for the Green Party and to comply with the laws and regulationsthat apply to us. MY VISION AND GOALS FOR TREASURER, FINANCE COMMITTEE, AND GPUS So here is my plan for the Treasurer and the Finance Committee and for allof you for the next two years of Green Party financial management. Pleasegive me your vote of confidence for Treasurer and together we can get thisdone well. 1. We need an accountant to keep our financial records in a professionalmanner. That is not spelled out in our fiscal policy at all, and it needsto be. We will carefully re-define the Treasurer role, create a section onthe role of an accountant, and clarify how each are related in the executionof financial management and reporting for the GPUS. The Finance Committeewill produce a fiscal policy amendment proposal to the NC that clarifieswhat is more than a bit vague at the present time on this matter. 2. We need to develop a recruitment and training guideline for selectingcandidates for Treasurer in the future. It is my belief that eachsucceeding Treasurer, in order to have thorough understanding of ourfinancial affairs, should come from the membership of the Finance Committee.We will develop a written plan for recruitment and training of succeedingTreasurer candidates. 3. I started calling for an accountant on the Steering Committee less than90 days into my term as Treasurer. In the meantime we have just barelygotten along without one for two years because we said we couldn't affordit. But now we are to the point where we can't afford not to. We now havetwo and a half years of accounting catch up on. Someone will have to bepaid to do that. Doug Malkan used to get $900/month to do that work. Ithink we can do it for less, but both Doug and I offer you our professionaladvice that this is not a volunteer task. We have to get this done now andwe will find a way to pay for it very soon. 4. We need a few good people to join the Finance Committee. As Bill Kremelsays, we are the cane and walker crew. We are almost all in our late 60'sand early to mid 70's. We need some younger folks to step up and join inthis effort to learn how to lead financially. We need whoever might be thenext Treasurer to get involved on the Finance Committee now. We willundertake an aggressive recruitment effort for new members and possibleTreasurer candidates. 5. The bottom line is a frustration that we are a rather large and complexorganization with a very small budget. We have to work on that, yet remainvery professional in how we manage our finances and our information systems.We will continue to work on that. I want to work with everyone to create awritten operations manual that guides our daily operations. We still carrytoo much in our heads and stand at risk of losing important group memorywhen personnel changes occur. MY GREEN CREDENTIALS AND EXPERIENCE I've been an active Green from the day in 1992 when I read in the newspaperthat the Green Party had just gained ballot status in Hawaii. I called IraRohter in Honolulu and organized a Green Party tour around Hawaii Island.At the end of a week end of three community meetings we had over 200 newHawaii Green Party members. Out of that came a dynasty of Keiko Bonk andJulie Jacobson and Bob Jacobson who collectively held a seat on the HawaiiCounty Council for well over a decade running. I was active in Hawaii GreenParty leadership for 10 years before I became an alternate delegate to theGPUS in 2003. Since that time I have spent most of my time on GPUS affairs.Last month I was elected Membership Chair for Hawaii, because I want to workwith David Sacks to set up our Hawaii membership and donor records in thechapter feature feature of Salsa, our GPUS donor database and membershipcommunication tool. I am the only remaining charter member of the original Finance Committeewhen it was formed in about 2003. I have been involved in every budgetprocess since that beginning. In that first year I devised a way ofgrouping the many committees into the four main functions of the Party. Imade different cost accounting categories for keeping track of things. Somepieces of this have been adopted over time. I want to finish that job foryou to make our financial reports more clearly understandable and useful. I have served on the Fundraising Committee and the Merchandise Committee formost of the years that I have been on the Finance Committee, as I believethey are closely intertwined and need that coordination between them. TheMerchandise Committee has lost membership and hasn't functioned for wellover a year. I want to restart that group. I need three or more folks whowant to join together with me to run the business of merchandising for GPUS. I have run for public office so I understand the daunting task ofcampaigning. If you haven't ever done that you can never know how allconsuming it is to do a good job. I have that experience, understanding,and empathy for all our candidates for office. MY PROFESSIONAL CREDENTIALS AND EXPERIENCE I have been involved in business since I was five years old. My accumulatedexperiences with many businesses, start ups, liquidations, and non-profitshas brought me to the place of being a highly experienced and well roundedentrepreneur and organizer. I bring those experiences into the service ofhelping the Green Party back office function efficiently, or as we say inHawaii - mo'betta', so that the rest of you can be free to spend more timeat politics.and have the business of the Party well taken care of. I have a BA in Accounting from the University of Washington, and wasinvolved in Beta Alpha Psi, a national accounting honorary fraternity duringmy college years. I have held a CPA license in Washington for over 30 years, then moved toHawaii where I have held that license for over 20 years while building apractice of consulting for small businesses and non profits. I have astaff of three that handle the routine bookkeeping and payroll, along with apartner who does all the tax work. I do the practice management, new clientdevelopment and set up, and general consulting and mentoring of clients,staff, and others in my community. We are taking good care of 50 or 60small businesses and foundations at any given time. I have started several non-profit organizations and mentored many others inmy professional career. From that experience I have learned that you canonly rely on volunteers so much. You still need effective volunteerleadership and that usually means paid staff. I have seen so manyvolunteers burn out only to have an organization fail to keep the continuitythat comes from paid staff. MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS TREASURER (in mostly chronological order) 1. Engineered a proposal, which you approved, to keep the DC office openwhen some were calling for it's closure.2. Completed and passed a major rewrite of the fiscal policy with the helpof many others.3. Crafted and passed a 2011 budget that enabled us to hire our currentFundraiser. A huge credit in this matter goes to Brent for securing amajor donor that enabled us to do that hire at a time when we were nearlydown to our last penny.4. Helped plan and get approval for moving our office to it's currentlocation, cutting about $500 off of the monthly rent and utility expensewith the direct help of Leenie, Tamar, and many others.5. Changed insurance agents for modest financial savings, but much betterservice.6. Overseen the process to change banks that was initiated by others. Thishas been nearly a year in process.  a. helped select a new bank - a credit union in DC which is walkingour talk about doing business locally with human scale enterprises  b. discovered that our new insurance agent has an excellent payrollservice to replace what we had at SunTrust Bank - the result is a new timekeeping tool for staff management  c. selected a new credit card processor to replace SunTrust, which isexpected to achieve another level of savings on merchant services fees  d. enabled us to begin placing reserve fund balances in a savingsaccount to earn interest - hopefully more as the economy recovers and ratesgo back up to normal levels7. Prepared frequent (several times a month) cash reports of deposits,disbursements,and band balances for the SC, Fincom, and Funcom to keep themappraised of our struggling financial conditions.8. Helped to reduce our debt from nearly $100,000 when I took office, tojust over $20,000 recently, until we recently added loans for ballot accesswork9. Worked with David Sacks and Brian Bittner to develop income recordkeeping processes that give us better, more accurate donor information thanever before10. Maintained good working relationships with our vendors and suppliers11. Sent many hours on the upcoming and the prior year's ANM to make surethat they are/were a financial success, rather than what occurred severalyears ago Please watch for my emails that will explain matters financial further.Thank you for your support. Respectfully, Jeff Turner CPATreasurer GPUS

[Ryan Jones]

Audrey Clementaclement65@hotmail.comWHY I'M RUNNING:I seek election as GPUS Treasurer, because I'm seriously concerned about the state of the party's finances. Recent cash flow reports indicate that the party has been barely making payroll for the past several months. As a result, it had to rely on a loan from party members to finance its presidential ballot access drive in 2012. In addition, no regular financial accounting reports have been prepared for the past two years, and no recent attempt has been made to reconcile the party's bank records with the reports it files with the FEC, in contravention of FEC best practice guidance. Finally no employment agreements have been executed for over two years, which is not fair to GPUS staff. Some of these problems are attributable to the fact that the party let its accountant go two years ago as a cost savings measure, but this state of affairs is untenable. Either the party needs to raise the funds to hire an accountant or it must purchase accounting software that will enable it to maintain its books and free the Treasurer to perform his/her other duties. If elected Treasurer, I plan to do what it takes to make party fully compliant with its own Fiscal Policy and FEC regulations.EDUCATION:B.F.A, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.Ph.D. Political Science, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa.PROFESSION:- IT professional employed as contract programmer for various federal government agencies since 1989.QUALIFICATIONS FOR GPUS TREASURER:My qualifications include three years as local party treasurer, and one full year as treasurer for a state political committee that financed the three runs I've made for Arlington County Board. As treasurer for my local and personal campaign committees, I file regular electronic financial disclosure reports, and I routinely reconcile those reports with their corresponding bank accounts. These skills are needed to produce the financial disclosure reports that GPUS is required to file with the FEC.In addition, for fifteen years I programmed and maintained the financial accounting reports for a Philadelphia area Medicare physician's private practice. The physician utilized the financial database I developed as evidence in a suit filed on behalf of the Philadelphia Medical Society against a Blue Cross clearinghouse for non-payment of Medicare claims. The medical society ultimately won a multi-million dollar settlement against Blue Cross.PRIOR POLITICAL CAREER:- Congressional Fellow, sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, 1987-88.- Political reporter, Philadelphia New Observer, a Black weekly newspaper, 1985-1990.GREEN PARTY POLITICAL CAREER:- Co-Chair, Green Party of Virginia, 2005 to present.- Delegate/Alternate to GPUS NC, 2005-2011.- Treasurer, Arlington Green Party, 2009 to present.- Treasurer, Committee to Elect Audrey Clement, 2011 to present.- Green Party Candidate, Arlington County Board - November, 2011, March, 2012, November, 2012.- Co-Chair, BRPP Committee, 2007-2010.- Co-Chair, Ecoaction Committee, 2010-present.- GPUS Steering Committee Co-Chair, March, 2011-July, 2012.GREEN PARTY PETITIONING ACTIVITY:- Virginia, 2008 - 6,400+ signatures, 2012 - 2,000+ signatures.- Arkansas, 2010 - 800+ signatures, 2011 - 450 signatures.-- Maryland, 2010 - almost 1,000 signatures.- Illinois, 2012 - 540 signatures in one weekend.- Plaintiff in a suit filed by the Libertarian Party to overturn a law adopted at the behest of Virginia's reactionary but popular governor that will invalidate 2,000 signatures gathered by GPVA and the Virginia Independent Greens and 2,000 signatures gathered by the Libertarian Party prior to the General Assembly's belated adoption of a 2010 census dictated redistricting plan.PERSPECTIVE ON GPUS:Green Party political fortunes have waned since Ralph Nader's 2000 run for President on the Green Party ticket and the attendant backlash from the Democratic Party. In the wake of this political fallout, Green Party activists have become discouraged and have turned their swords on one another.There is nothing wrong with infighting per se. In fact it is only through intramural conflict that party activists hone their skills for partisan political battles. The problem is one of degree. While it's right tocriticize leaders for their shortcomings and even question their qualifications for a particular office, it's wrong to denounce them as "destructive" or "racist" with no more evidence than personal animus. While it's right to exhort party members to work harder or to criticize their arguments as weak, it's wrong to scapegoat them because they are perceived as unpopular.Other conflicts throughout history have shown that scapegoating colleagues and demonizing leaders are the hallmarks of defeatist organizations. GPUS needs to transcend defeatism. We can do this by electing party leaders who are committed to ballot access as the party's mission or principal goal. We also need leaders who are committed to following party rules, because it's only through the impartial administration of those rules that the conflicts within the party can be effectively mediated and defeatist sentiments contained.MY RECORD SET STRAIGHT:Co-Chair, BRPP.During my tenure as co-chair of BRPP, the committee reported a number of proposals codifying party rules governing: the reporting of proposals, Steering Committee business, GPUS fiscal policy, and the Presidential Nominating Convention. All of those proposals were ultimately adopted. While a faction of the NC has consistently decried the time and effort devoted to the codification of party rules, and some believe there is no need for them at all, GPUS has benefited from them.Consider, for example, that planning for the 2012 Presidential Nominating Convention has proceeded flawlessly due to the deliberations that the party undertook in adopting convention rules in 2008. Consider also that the SC and the NC recently adopted measures to issue loans to fund the 2012 ballot access drive following rules laid out in the party Fiscal Policy adopted in 2010. Were it not for the expeditious issuance of these loans, the all important ILGP ballot access drive would have faltered. Instead on June 25, ILGP delivered almost 30,000 ballot access signatures to the Illinois StateBoard of Elections.Consider finally the amount of bandwidth the NC devoted to apportioning itself in 2007 and again in 2011. The result was both an NC and a PNC apportionment that most of the NC can live with and one that will reward state parties who prove effective at getting ballot access, while opening the door via the population mechanism to those parties struggling with repressive ballot access laws.As BRPP and later SC Co-Chair, I facilitated the adoption of these provident rules. I'm proud of my record in that regard.Co-Chair, Ecoaction Committee.The Ecoaction Committee is remarkable both for the size of its membership (31) and the degree of consensus on matters within its purview. Debate on the committee has been vigorous at times, and disagreement on contentious issues like the substitution of biofuels for fossil fuels has abounded. Yet Ecoaction experiences very little of the acrimony witnessed on the nationallist. No doubt this reflects a widespread consensus on the need for ecological wisdom that is the hallmark of the Green movement worldwide. It also reflects a spirit of comity and respect that committee members extend to one another as a matter of course.As co-chair of Ecoaction, I took advantage of the consensus I found there to promote an amended mission statement that accords the committee the right to submit Platform amendments directly to PlatCom. That proposal was overwhelmingly adopted by the NC in 2012 despite a protracted debate over the meaning of ecological wisdom and the propriety of tasking Ecoaction to promote it. Could less bandwidth have been expended on the proposal? Perhaps, but the importance of the concept cannot be overestimated.Co-Chair, GPUS Steering Committee.Over the course of the past year, I've participated in Steering Committee deliberations on diverse issues. While the debate has been acrimonious at times, the overall tenor of SC conference calls has been civil. I've contributed to that civility by compromising or otherwise deferring to my colleagues on more than one occasion. I am also happy to report that I helped forge a consensus that while the SC ought to decide whether proposals submitted for consideration by the NC comply with party rules, the NC decides on the merits of those proposals. In a nut shell, the SC rules on questions of form. The NC decides questions of substance.SUMMARY:I've labored hard for GPUS over the past seven years both in committee and in the field, and I'm currently a Green Party candidate for local political office. First and foremost, I'm committed to the Green Party, because I subscribe to Ralph Nader's belief that ballot access is the civil rights struggle of our times. In addition I believe that ecological wisdom and social justice can only be achieved through the election of Greens to government at all levels. If you agree with my priorities, are impressed with my qualifications, and satisfied with my performance, then I ask you for your vote for GPUS Treasurer.Audrey Clement, Ph.D.GPVAwrite-in

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