TCDP Committee Meeting May 27, 2009

If you haven't been out to a Travis County Democratic Party (TCDP) Committee meeting, please consider coming out to the next meeting on July 29th at 6! It was pretty entertaining to hear the back-and-forth regarding resolutions and recommendations. Plus, you'll get to meet other Austinites invested in making local politics work for us. =) The minutes from last month's meeting were just sent out earlier this week, and here are some of the things that were discussed. 

Appointment of precinct chairs 

• Precinct 126 - Andrew Bucknall
• Precinct 373 - Dave Rawlins
• Precinct 448 - Glen Shield
• Precinct 463 - Noelita Lugo

Resolution re: Lady Bird Lake & the Waterfront Overlay District

The resolution that passed (Yes: 30/No: 17) says that TCDP supports the Austin City Council's adoption of Waterfront Overlay Taskforce (WOTF) recommendations including re-establish Waterfront Planning Advisory Board and sub-district maximum height limits for structures built along Lady Bird Lake. For more information about the WOTF and why this is an important issue for all of us who love Lady Bird Lake, fka Town Lake, check out these resources:

• Austinist's April 2009 article re: Waterfront Overlay District
  
• Austin Chronicle's article re: Lady Bird Lake, what developers want, and the public good
  
• City of Austin's Waterfront Overlay Taskforce
  
• SaveTownLake.org's comments on Waterfront Overlay 
  

Travis County leads in all category of voters compared to statewide averages! 

Jeff Smith of Opinion Analysts Inc., talked about voter trends and turnout in the 2008 General Election -I shared a snapshot, via Twitter, of the chart he distributed. A link to the chart is unavailable, but I'll upload a picture of the table and update the blog.

TCDP web/tech upgrades - a demonstration of what capabilities the new website will have will be shown at the next meeting.

In an effort to have more transparency, TCDP's Finance Chair distributed the 2009 Operating Budget to all attendees. Any significant changes to the budget will be voted on prior to changes in expenditure. 2009 income goal: $191K. Make a donation. It was recommended that the Rules & Procedures Task Force develop specific policies regarding fundraising and expenditures of TCDP funds. This would help provide transparency and increased accountability.

Training

Deputy Voter Registrar training - first Tuesday of each month at 10:30 AM, 2:30 PM, and 6:30 PM at 5501 Airport Road. Training is also available during the workweek. 

Precinct Chair training - Training was conducted with precinct chairs after the meeting. The training covered Chapters 1 - 3 of the newly revamped training manual. The remaining chapters will be covered in August and September. If you want to learn about community organizing and resources available to Get Out the Vote, please contact me.

TCDP's Legislative Issues Committee Chair, David Kobierowski wants to know what issues are important to you. Is it voter rights, education, zoning, military/veteran issues, health care, economy, affordable housing, or other issues? Let's discuss via comments, email, Twitter, or in-person (email me first, please.)

The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, July, 29th at the AFL/CIO located at 1106 Lavaca Street. 

The above summary was taken from minutes provided by TCDP.