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Harry –A few thoughts. First, can you please dial back the rhetoric in this proposal? Your continued personal attacks against Andrea are in my opinion, baseless and petty. Your insistence that a personal disagreement represents a larger rift in the GPCO seems a bit narcissistic. In addition, your reference to "the co-chair wars in October 2016" is at the very least wildly hyperbolic. I understand that we went through a tumultuous period but I would hardly call it a war. Second, as I would normally find concern for the growth and health of the GPCO to be an admirable trait, I can't help but feel like this concern, coming from you, at this time, in this way, feels disingenuous. To qualify that, since your return to the Green Party, I have seen utterly nothing except attacks on Andrea from you. All of this leads me to believe that your motives in this and your previous proposal have nothing to do with the stability or growth of the Green Party of Colorado. If your concern is in fact genuine, I would like to ask why it was so important to support Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Primaries that you abandoned your duty as a GP officer? Why did you spend so much energy trying to primary Jared Polis when you could have been working to support the candidacy of Green Party of Colorado Congressional Candidate Cliff Willmeng in the very county that you were elected to represent? Furthermore, when we needed to be working together to build this party, you were off being a democrat. That is unacceptable and I will not abide your flimsy, wishy washy, disloyal inability to commit to the independence of the Green Party. I certainly will not reward your infidelity with influence and authority. I also will not stand by and allow you to sit out when it matters, and then attack the people who were on the front lines doing the work after the dust settles. So Mr. Glass House, put down the stones and get to work or kindly step aside!
Thank you everyone for your participation in this election. I'm excited to continue the work to build the GPCO into the bellwether for Green Party politics in the US. We have strong momentum and the people of the US are hungry for true political change. I look forward to working with each and every one of you in the coming months to develop our strategy for growing our party, and building the infrastructure that will support a robust candidate field in the 2018 election and beyond. I believe that we have a dedicated, highly capable, and intelligent group that is more than ready to take the GPCO to the next level.I hope your holidays are everything you want them to be. Alright, let's get to work!Thank You,Dave
As humbled as I am to receive it, I have chosen to accept the nomination for interim State Co-Chair of the Green Party of Colorado. I believe that it is the right thing to do because I believe that this party deserves a dedicated, long time Green who believes in all of the 10 key values, and wants to see this party become a viable political force in Colorado and the US. To start, I would like to state that I want the Green Party to be seen as an autonomous political force and that the clearest path forward I see is organizing and party building outside of major election years. I believe that the only way this party will be successful in changing the society that we live in for the better is to effectively analyze and tenaciously act upon the challenges that we face individually and collectively. During my time as the chair of the Poudre Valley Green party, I helped to reactivate and mobilize a diverse group of dedicated local Greens. With the help of my fantastic team here, we saw registered Greens rise in Larimer County by about 45%. We helped to organize a few very successful GP events, including a panel held at Colorado State University in April of 2016 as well as a 4th of July party that gave exposure to around 150 people for our candidates. We also organized the August 27th rally for Jill Stein in Fort Collins that had upwards of 400 people attending, and raised $1,700 for the Jill Stein campaign on site.My goals: • Establish and maintain monthly leadership meetings with Co-Chairs from all chapters to facilitate more communication and collaboration between locals.• Implement candidate vetting and support systems that focus on the ability to win races.• Fundraising that will support the following: • Keep the state party financially healthy so that we can continue to gain access to and use up to date party building tools such as Nation Builder. • Paid positions for campaign/volunteer coordinators and campaign start up funding that will decrease the burden on candidates especially at the beginning of their campaigns.• Build stronger relationships with social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, Veterans For Peace, PFLAG, etc.• Work to increase voter registrations to 50,000+ voters in the next two years to give our state candidates debate access.• Work to increase membership in Green locals throughout the state.• Work to bring more locals online.• Continue to organize around the various issues that exist around the state. • Workers Rights • Immigration • Homelessness • Fracking/Environment • Health Care • etc.In closing, I believe that the Green Party is the only hope for true political change in the United States. Because of that, I believe it is our responsibility to continue the work to change the system that adversely affects so many people here and around the world. I believe that we can accomplish these goals and that we are already on the right track. How ever this interim election shakes out, I look forward to working with each and every one of you to make the Green Party of Colorado a flagship for the National Party. With that, I ask for your vote!
DisagreeIn my experience, Andrea Mérida Cuéllar has been an invaluable asset as a leader of the State Party. While some locals were clamoring to support the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, Andrea was working to build a strong base to support The Green Party Presidential Candidate. In regards to Arn feeling unsupported, I'm not certain that he understands that that effort by default, trickled down into his campaign by facilitating well attended campaign events where Arn was given a platform to speak to many voters at once. Andrea is a strong and highly effective leader, and we (Poudre Valley) would not be as strong as we are without her. She has helped us rebuild a local that was effectively dead by providing us with physical, intellectual, and historical resources, on a moments notice. She has driven up here to help us with events and participated in a few of our early reboot meetings. Furthermore, I see the statement that you're citing as cause to remove Andrea from her post as one of the reasons that she is so effective. It actually proves that she is able to discern between a person that is moving to the Green Party to help us grow as opposed to a person who is moving to the party to protest DNC politics. There is a huge difference between these two types of people and it is important for our leadership to recognize that. In order to remake the society that we live in, we have got to get to work building an intersectional space where radical change can occur.I believe that this proposal is lodged as retaliation for the recall against Bill. I would like to point out that that recall was proposed by Poudre Valley (Bill's local before Platte Valley was affiliated 2 weeks ago) and Arapahoe County, not Andrea. Worse, that you would try to conflate Nation Builder expenses and spending $50 on a hotspot so that we could raise more than $2,000 for our Presidential Candidate with referring to women as 'girls' and claiming that anti-white racism is real, is repulsive and inexcusable. Building this party is Andrea's job and that is exactly what she is doing. She is traveling the state and organizing at every level to make the Green Party a viable political organization for all people suffering under the boot of capitalism. I applaud Andrea for her strength and grace in the face of nearly constant adversity. Thank you for all you do Andrea Mérida Cuéllar.To echo Sean's question, I wonder why the people who wrote this proposal chose to side step an actual recall vote?
AgreeIn reference to the emergency council meeting on 9/22/2016 (audio linked here https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzteq2tfIdXvSnV4NmVSOGI3LVE ), I would just like to state for the record that within 15 minutes of the opening of this meeting, every single person that has access to this recording or was sitting on the call has personally witnessed the behavior that is the source of this complaint. Andrea was asked by the members of the council to give her account of the situation at the People's Fair. As Andrea began speaking she was interrupted and shouted down by Bill within seconds. She calmly asked if she could finish, and was interrupted and shouted down again within seconds. She responded that she understands that situation is stressful and that she would be willing to tell this story off line to any one interested. At this point, the council members present stated that they would like to hear Andrea's story uninterrupted on this call so that it would be part of the record. Andrea again began recounting her experience and was immediately interrupted and shouted down again by Bill. After being unable to get more than 30 seconds into her testimony, Andrea then repeated that she was going to leave the call, and again extended the offer to tell this story to anyone who is interested in hearing it. She then left the call. Bill's behavior in this instance is unacceptable, and clearly illustrates the need for this level of intervention. Bill does not get to decide how Andrea's account of these events is framed. Additionally, This council has no right to determine the timeline for the redress of Andrea's grievance. Over the next hour and 30 or so minutes, Bill was given several minutes to refute Andrea's testimony that was never formally heard by this council. During that conversation there were many comments (by Bill and other council members) about Andrea's character and her behavior, and many excuses and justifications made for Bill's behavior. There were repeated statements that Andrea has been less than admirable in her interactions with former Bernie supporters. I refute that statement by reminding everyone in this council that Andrea has facilitated and supported the creation of two new chapters made up of primarily former Bernie Supporters in this state in the last 3 months, and there are 4 more forming as this conversation is happening. There was also some criticism regarding the fact that we have candidates in the field and that we should not be fighting each other right now. I do not need to remind anyone that at the end of August, Dr. Jill Stein came to Colorado and we had 4 well attended, very successful events that brought a lot of attention to our candidates. Andrea played an unrivaled role in organizing and executing those events. With all of that out of the way, I would like to remind everyone that this discussion is not about Andrea. If you feel that this party is suffering under her leadership I would invite you to continue that conversation outside of this discussion. This discussion is about how this party is suffering under Bill's leadership. There is overwhelming evidence (shared in the google drive) to support the claims made in this proposal. The first example is a formal complaint by a female member of our State Party stating that Bill's conduct creates an unsafe space for women. His response to the post in question was to call her a "girl" and then a "sexist" on his own timeline. The reality is, women cannot be sexist against men because they are oppressed by patriarchy. Fighting oppression does not make a person guilty of the same oppression. Bill even stated in the emergency council meeting that he had clashed with Danika multiple times in the past, which was corroborated by Danika in her official complaint. I would like to address a few things that were stated in the meeting on 9/22. Bill said in no uncertain terms that he had not heard Andrea's story. That statement is absolutely false. On July 1st Bill and Andrea engaged in a conversation about this event over Facebook messenger. The screen shots are shared in the google drive link provided in the proposal (also linked here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B-sKCIke8emqU1pxX1lwMUd4b3M). They are named "July 1-1.png, July 1-2.png, July 1-3.png, July 1-4.png, July 1-5.png, July 1-6.png, July 1-7.png, July 1-8.png".Next, we were accused of spying on Bill. I believe that interpretation is inaccurate. Bill and I are friends on Facebook and quite often interact with each other's posts in various ways. We have even disagreed on some pretty fundamental issues from time to time. One of those disagreements is cited as source material for this proposal. Calling this spying does one of two things: it either points to a misunderstanding of social media functionality, or it is a word that was specifically chosen to paint Bill as the victim in this scenario. Having a debate on Facebook, even on your personal timeline, is visible to everyone that you are connected to and anyone they can share it with or tag into the conversation. The reach of social media is unprecedented in our history, and the amount of damage that can be done to our party by statements made on social media is immeasurable.In addition, Bill stated that he had not been confronted about this behavior and that this recall attempt was unexpected. The truth is, Bill has been challenged on these beliefs many times by non-greens, greens, state party members, even including Sean Friend and myself (cited in the screenshots). I understand that our 10 KV are not intended to to be a mandate for individual behavior. However, if we can't hold our officers accountable to our values, how can we expect to implement them as a matter of public policy.The question in this proposal is not whether or not Bill harbors views that are unacceptable to me. The question is, do these views held by an officer in our state party conflict with our values in a way that makes him unfit to hold the title of State Co-Chair of the Green Party of Colorado.
In reference to the emergency council meeting on 9/22/2016 (audio linked here https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzteq2tfIdXvSnV4NmVSOGI3LVE ), I would just like to state for the record that within 15 minutes of the opening of this meeting, every single person that has access to this recording or was sitting on the call has personally witnessed the behavior that is the source of this complaint. Andrea was asked by the members of the council to give her account of the situation at the People's Fair. As Andrea began speaking she was interrupted and shouted down by Bill within seconds. She calmly asked if she could finish, and was interrupted and shouted down again within seconds. She responded that she understands that situation is stressful and that she would be willing to tell this story off line to any one interested. At this point, the council members present stated that they would like to hear Andrea's story uninterrupted on this call so that it would be part of the record. Andrea again began recounting her experience and was immediately interrupted and shouted down again by Bill. After being unable to get more than 30 seconds into her testimony, Andrea then repeated that she was going to leave the call, and again extended the offer to tell this story to anyone who is interested in hearing it. She then left the call. Bill's behavior in this instance is unacceptable, and clearly illustrates the need for this level of intervention. Bill does not get to decide how Andrea's account of these events is framed. This council has no right to determine the timeline for the redress of Andrea's grievance.Over the next hour and 30 or so minutes, Bill was given several minutes to refute Andrea's testimony that was never formally heard by this council. During that conversation there were many comments (by Bill and other council members) about Andrea's character and her behavior, and many excuses and justifications made for Bill's behavior. There were repeated statements that Andrea has been less than admirable in her interactions with former Bernie supporters. I refute that statement by reminding everyone in this council that Andrea has facilitated and supported the creation of two new chapters made up of primarily former Bernie Supporters in this state in the last 3 months, and there are 4 more forming as this conversation is happening. There was also some criticism regarding the fact that we have candidates in the field and that we should not be fighting each other right now. I do not need to remind anyone that at the end of August, Dr. Jill Stein came to Colorado and we had 4 well attended, very successful events that brought a lot of attention to our candidates. Andrea played an unrivaled role in organizing and executing those events. With all of that out of the way, I would like to remind everyone that this conversation is not about Andrea. If you feel that this party is suffering under her leadership I would invite you to continue that conversation outside of this discussion. This discussion is about how this party is suffering under Bill's leadership. There is overwhelming evidence (shared in the google drive) to support the claims made in this proposal. The first example is a formal complaint by a female member of our State Party stating that Bill's conduct creates an unsafe space for women. His response to the post in question was to call her a "girl" and then a "sexist" on his own timeline. The reality is, women cannot be sexist against men because they are oppressed by patriarchy. Fighting oppression does not make a person guilty of the same oppression. Bill even stated in the emergency council meeting that he had clashed with Danika multiple times in the past, which was corroborated by Danika in her official complaint. I would like to address a few things that were stated in the meeting on 9/22. Bill said in no uncertain terms that he had not heard Andrea's story. That statement is absolutely false. On July 1st Bill and Andrea engaged in a conversation about this event over Facebook messenger. The screen shots are shared in the google drive link provided in the proposal (also linked here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B-sKCIke8emqU1pxX1lwMUd4b3M). They are named "July 1-1.png, July 1-2.png, July 1-3.png, July 1-4.png, July 1-5.png, July 1-6.png, July 1-7.png, July 1-8.png".Next, we were accused of spying on Bill. I believe that interpretation is inaccurate. Bill and I are friends on Facebook and quite often interact with each other's posts in various ways. We have even disagreed on some pretty fundamental issues from time to time. One of those disagreements is cited as source material for this proposal. Calling this spying does one of two things: it either points to a misunderstanding of social media functionality, or it is a word that was specifically chosen to paint Bill as the victim in this scenario. Having a debate on Facebook, even on your personal timeline, is visible to everyone that you are connected to and anyone they can share it with or tag into the conversation. The reach of social media is unprecedented in our history, and the amount of damage that can be done to our party by statements made on social media is immeasurable.In addition, Bill stated that he had not been confronted about this behavior and that this recall attempt was unexpected. The truth is, Bill has been challenged on these beliefs many times by non-greens, greens, state party members, even including Sean Friend and myself (cited in the screenshots). The question in this proposal is not whether or not Bill harbors views that are unacceptable to me. The question is, do these views held by an officer in our state party conflict with our values in a way that makes him unfit to hold the title of State Co-Chair of the Green Party of Colorado.
I took that screenshot and I certainly did not mean to like it. It was on my phone so I would like to retract that like officially.
We will be discussing this proposal at our next meeting. Our delegates have decided not to vote until after that meeting.Here is an analysis of Amendment 69 by the Physicians for a National Healthcare Program.http://pnhp.org/blog/2015/10/28/evaluation-of-the-coloradocare-initiative-by-pnhps-founders-and-policy-director/
