The Windsor Democratic Club held its biannual election of officers on a Zoom meeting on Dec. 5, 2020. Julia Donoho was elected President and Rosa Reynosa was elected Vice President. George Valenzuela was elected to fill the previously open position of Program Director. Ellyn Lazar will be the new Treasurer; Shirley Johnston will be Secretary.
Programming for the next year was discussed. Valenzuela will invite Jeremy Decker, the current superintendent of Windsor Unified School District to speak at the next regularly scheduled meeting Jan. 26, 5:30 p.m. on Zoom. The meeting will be open at 5 p.m. for socializing.
Interest was expressed in having someone from Sonoma County Public Health speak in February about the coronavirus pandemic, perhaps director Sundari Mase, deputy director Kismet Baldwin, or county epidemiologist Kate Pack.
The suggestion was made to invite Larry Martin of Indivisible to the March meeting to analyze the results of the 2020 state Congressional election and discuss what that might mean for the future. Martin gave a detailed and informative talk about how voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaign flipped seven of thirteen Republican congressional districts targeted by Indivisible in 2018. In 2020 Republicans regained control of several of these districts.
Other discussion suggestions included John Broughton volunteering to talk about the website he and his wife are putting together advocating for a substantial increase in controlled and prescribed burns. He thought doing it in May, just before the start of fire season, would be a good time. Donoho expressed an interest in revisiting IOLERO, and a new discussion of immigration policy.
Other issues for future programming might include addressing political divisiveness. John Greech, an AP History teacher at El Molino who writes a column for Sonoma West, was suggested as a possible speaker on the subject. Inviting local politicians or academics to speak about global warming was also brought up.
Other topics will be proposed in the future as it becomes clear what develops with the pandemic and the shape of the new administration.
Windsor town councilmember Sam Salmon expressed a desire to have regular reports about what the town council is doing presented to club members at meetings since Windsor Times is now online only. (Editor’s note: previews of council agendas and post-meeting wrap up stories for the majority of town council meetings are always available on the Windsor Times website.)
Broughton suggested amending by-laws to allow people to be members two years from the resumption of in-person meetings rather than the two years from attendance at any single meeting. Anyone currently a member would continue to be a member for an extra year. He said he would post the proposed amended by-laws to bring to a vote by membership in February.
The next officers’ meeting was scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 16 at 1 p.m.
Shirley Johnston is the secretary of the Windsor Democratic Club.
