Minutes - March 13, 2008

The minutes for the last ADTC meeting, held on March 13th, are now up on this site for viewing. Among the many important items accomplished were the election of new officers. Congratulations go out to Leo Maley (Chair), Sylvia Cuomo (1st Vice Chair), Herschel Shohan (2nd Vice Chair) and Diana Stein (Secretary)! Their terms will run for the next four years. Thanks go to them for their service! And thanks to outgoing Chair Harry Brooks — who took over after the untimely passing of Madge Ertel last year — and also to outgoing 2nd Vice Chair, Peter Vickery and Secretary Sarah McKee. Items discussed during the meeting included a reconstitution of the ADTC; a discussion about donations to the ADTC; an update about our meeting with Town Manager Larry Shaffer regarding censorship of certain participants in previous 4th of July parades, and possible town sponsorship of the parade; the ADTC Picnic; the proposed optional local meal tax; and a report on the FCC hearing in Cambridge on Net Neutrality.

Elections  -  Officers!
 
At our first meeting after the 2008 Democratic primary, the main business was to elect officers for the next four years.  More ADTC members and friends turned up for this than for any meeting, if memory serves, in the past four years.  It was downright cozy in that Jones Library upstairs room.
 
Life member Bill Thompson conducted the elections with aplomb.  Jill Sherman assisted.
 
I'll skip the numerous motions, seconds, acceptances, and declinations on the elections.  A healthy number of ADTC members were ready and willing to serve as officers and help the ADTC elect Democrats.  I understand that the secret ballot votes were close.
 
Our results:

• Chair: Leo Maley
• 1st Vice chair: Sylvia Cuomo
• 2nd Vice chair: Herschel Shohan
• Secretary: Diana Stein, with Sarah McKee continuing as scrivener, and an as-yet unknown person to handle the computer end.
• Treasurer: Keri Heitner

Re the position of ADTC Affirmative Action and Outreach Advisor, there's no incumbent; the Mass. Dem Party mandates only Chair, Treasurer, Secretary; and no one appeared willing to serve.  Alice Swift expressed the hope that someone would be interested as we start to become more active.  Keri Heitner, a 20-year ADTC member, observed that we need minority representation.
 
Sylvia Cuomo moved to table this topic until the next meeting.  Harry Brooks seconded.  The consensus was general.
 
Anyone who has held ADTC jobs knows that there's more work, most of it unseen, than one would imagine.  Our sincere thanks to H. Oldham Brooks, who gallantly stepped in as Chair after the death of Madge Ertel; to former 1st Vice chair Anne Awad; to former 2nd Vice chair Peter Vickery; and to once and future Treasurer Keri Heitner.  
 
Elections -- Members!
 
    *  Regular member Allan Feldman was out of town during the window allowed for prospective ADTC candidates to agree to run.   Ellen Story accordingly nominated him as a regular member; seconded by a mystery member; Michael Wolff called the question:  All ayes.
 
    *  Ellen Story nominated Mike Bell as an associate member "for heaven's sake."  Mystery second; all ayes.
 
    *  Harry Brooks nominated Jill Sherman.   Seconded; all ayes.
 
Reconstitution of ADTC:  A required post-primary ritual.  Done by acclamation; all ayes, no nays.  We're hereby good for another 4 years.
 
Treasurer's Report:  Keri Heitner reported that we'd had $421.13 & anticipate a bill for $200. for the use of Crocker Farm School for our caucus.
 
Vigorous discussion of donations to ADTC.  Michael Wolff suggested that those who can donate, do. Keri Heitner answered Allan Feldman's question re the $50. limit:  she must report donations exceeding $50.  These then turn up if someone googles your name.  Michael Wolff:  "So all you do is blush."  Ellen Story:  "Or preen."   Tom Plaut:  donations are on campaign.com (or some such) if over $200.  Fun to read.
 
Keri herself is donating to ADTC, as is her custom, the cards she sends annually asking for dues.  These are due (sorry) May 1.   $10. for regular members; $5. for associate members.  Some who were really good have already paid, mostly at the Caucus.
 
Caucus of registered MA-01 Dems for Barack Obama, April 5, at Amherst College to elect 2 women, 1 man as delegates for MA-01 to the Democratic National Convention:  Ellen Story not eligible because she's a convenor of the caucus.  Amherst College pres. Tony Marx campaigned in N.H. over winter break for Obama.
 
Ellen Story's legislative update:  Today (13 March) the House passed a good housing bond bill that had been in the works for a year.  Re casinos, Sal DiMasi was digging in his heels -- which, as we know, later worked.  Ellen also had some Beacon Hill human interest asides that may not belong in the minutes.
 
ADTC Picnic: 

Ever popular!  Is usually around the 4th of July.   Volunteer organizers so far -- Joan Ross Logan.  
 
4th of July Parade: 

Harry Brooks reported on the meeting that he plus representatives of the Republican Town Committee, the Green Party Town Committee, the LWV, and the anti-war group SAGE had with Town Manager Larry Shaffer.  Previous towns in which Shaffer has been Town Manager have all sponsored their 4th of July parades.  Shaffer will find out how much town sponsorship would cost.

For 2008, though, Shaffer will pull police officer and fire fighter participation in the parade if the private organizers turn down parade applicants, as has been their wont for any would-be paraders too wedded to their 1st Amendment rights.  Harry read the draft of a letter to those private organizers, indicating an ADTC interest in participation and our assumption that the 1st Amendment would be alive and well at the 2007 parade.
 
Paul Drummond would delay this question a month:  between now & November, our job is to pull Dems together and elect a Dem. President, and some Amherst Dems think the ADTC silly for its stance re the parade.  Paul also noted that next year is Amherst's 250th anniversary -- will be a Town parade for that.  Sylvia Cuomo has heard nothing about restricting speech for that 2009 parade.
 
Leo Maley:  Do we want to participate in the 4th of July parade?  Tom Plaut:  Harry's letter is an adequate test of the private parade committee.  Send it and see what happens.  Chad Johnson moved that we send the letter; Herschel Shohan seconded.  Allan Feldman supports this as a way to nudge the private organizers, reworded to say that the ADTC may be interested in participating.  Passed with 4 nays.  Leo will sign as new Chair.
 
State Tax Update: Optional Meal Tax

The proposed optional local meal tax has passed the Senate but is held up in one of the places in which things on Beacon Hill get held up.  Leo has been getting mileage out of our public-spirited ADTC Resolution in support of additional state revenue sources.
 
FCC Hearing in Cambridge on Net Neutrality: 

Sarah McKee attended the all-day, en banc (all 5 Commissioners) hearing that the Federal Communications Commission held in the Ames Courtroom of the Harvard Law School on 25 February to consider issues re Net Neutrality.  Comcast filled most of the 200+ seats in the room with paid seat-fillers in order to keep the interested & knowledgeable public out. You could tell:  the seat-fillers clapped for the Comcast lawyer, and some of them, sound asleep in the front row, made the blogs.
 
Net neutrality means that the Internet functions like the telephone system:  all calls get equal service; the phone companies don't get to give some customers, e.g., ones of whose politics they approve, better service than others.  The Comcast/Verizon folks and others of that ilk have NOT, however,  been similarly neutral as to Internet users.   Comcast seems to be the worst:  e.g., delaying messages based on content, then delivering them with cover notes indicating that they've peeked at the contents (standard protocol is to return messages that can't be delivered & leave it up to sender to try again).  Also, Comcast is doing something noxious to BitTorrent (why you can link on the Net to documents & videos, if I have that straight, so you can in effect refer to these in an on-line article or blog post & they'll be available to any interested reader at any time.)  
 
Though Comcast's obstructive effects are well understood by some obviously brainy Internet gurus, how it achieves them is not.  One MIT prof who, full disclosure, said that he did some work for Comcast ("though probably not after today") reported that Comcast engineers told him that they weren't allowed to tell him how they hold up certain messages.  (No one ever raised possibility that this was connected with unconstitutional and illegal warrantless wiretapping of Americans.)   
 
U.S. programmers can figure workarounds for the Comcast obstructions but spend their time doing this instead of innovating.  Comcast itself no innovator: essentially no technological advancements for a decade -- U.S. falling behind, has a 3rd world tech infrastructure.  A Western Mass. state legislator noted that his district still has only dialup -- is impeding economic development.  Other countries have far faster, cheaper, and more widely available Internet service than we.  They also have competition, which we do not.  Hmmm.
 
Commissioner Michael Copps, yellow tie instead of red like all the Republican Commissioners, deep circles under eyes possibly from trying to preserve some diversity in U.S. media in face of relentless Bush administration drive to oligopoly, asked at end of day whether FCC knew enough to regulate the Net.  MIT profs:  NO.
 
National news in late March:  Comcast announced that, by end of 2008, it would stop doing whatever it has been doing.   Sunshine is wonderful.
 

Present:  Leo Maley, Sylvia Cuomo, Alice Swift, Herschel Shohan, Ruth S. Backes, Joe Tarallo, Joan Ross Logan, Paul Drummond, Michael Bell, Bill Thompson, Jill Sherman, Keri Heitner, Rafael Segura, Tom Plaut, Chad Johnson, Greg Bascomb, Michael Wolff, Allan Feldman, Diana Stein, Mary L. Wentworth, Dick Bentley, Ellen Story, Sarah McKee, Gerry Weiss.   
 
Respectfully submitted, Sarah McKee, ADTC Scrivener