A YEAR WITH AADC
December, 2022
In 2022, the Auburn Area Democratic Club maintained our role as a strong contributor to the Placer County Democratic Process. There was much work and effort needed in this endeavor. We achieved positive results, and we attribute those results to the volunteers within AADC who helped to implement our plans to reorganize and restructure the organization. This was my first message at the beginning of the year.
Our first few AADC general membership meetings revealed a need to streamline the presentation process. We needed to refine our staging operation. Thanks go to our great volunteers Stu Clancy and Dave Deckman, we improved our Internet Zoom operation, our projection methods, and our sound system.
Our communications outreach expanded via our newsletters, Facebook postings, and alerts. This provided up-to-date, ongoing election information, topics of interest to our community, and a platform for our candidates to use in their campaigns. It also opened a number of new volunteer opportunities. As a result, our readership increased during this period. Thanks to Mary Helen Fein and to Mike Davis for making this improvement.
Our E-Board updated our bylaws to meet what is expected of our organization by the Placer County Democratic Central Committee (PCDCC) and the California Democratic Party (CADEM). Our bylaws are now comparable to those of other Placer County chartered Democratic clubs. Many thanks to Ed Koons for his help on this revision, and thanks also to the E-Board for adding the final touches.
During the year, I have outreached to the various progressive organizations within our community who support Democratic values, inviting them to become involved under our AADC tent. We communicated to these organizations that they may have their agreements on issues, and their disagreements. However, opinions on the issues they champion can only be heard in the Federal and State legislature. By uniting under the AADC tent, we can work together to find avenues to find and elect candidates who will argue our issues on the stage of our legislatures. CADEM and the PCDCC have the operational resources to provide those avenues. Thanks to Sunny Carraway and Mike Davis for providing the names of the organizations they felt were important to contact.
The AADC Voter Outreach Committee has been remarkable in their Sierra College project. Gail Bartlow, Sandy Floyd, and Mark Havener established a format of not only registering students to vote, but also conducting an opinion survey on what political topics are important to these college students. They have engaged students in discussions of political issues, motivating many to register to vote. They assisted the Nevada County Democratic Central Committee in establishing their own similar outreach program at the Sierra College campus in Grass Valley. And there are other Democratic organizations wanting to do the same in their own areas. On this project, we sincerely thank Gail Bartlow, Sandra Floyd, and Mark Havener for a job well done.
Our AADC Fundraising Committee, headed by Noelle Filice-Smith, was another shining moment for our organization. We needed to raise funds for campaign support this election year. Under Noelle’s leadership, the committee quickly turned into a strong team. Our annual fundraising event was staged on September 25, 2022, at the Auburn Recreation Park. We invited a number of candidates to attend and speak at the event, including candidates Rebecca Chenoweth (CA Assembly), Belle Starr Sandwith, (CA Assembly), Scott Alvord (Board of Supervisors), Linda Lareau (Auburn City Council), Neil Popel, who represented Paula Villescaz (State Senate), and Sarah Brichler, advocating support for Measure E. Many thanks to Noelle Filice-Smith and her volunteers (of which I was proud to be one), for this great success. The event benefited our candidates by allowing AADC to make donations to their campaigns.. Special thanks to Stu Clancy for keeping us informed on our budgeting for the fundraiser.
AADC achieved a number of other goals during the past year, too many to list here. As your AADC President, I try to contribute to our club based on my experience with other Democratic organizations that share AADC’s goals. These include my being Assembly District Delegate to the California Democratic Party (CADEM), a Placer County Democratic Central Committee (PCDCC) member, and a member of the CADEM Rural and Progressive Caucus. Melding these experiences with that of the AADC E-Board helped to strengthen the links between AADC and the various levels of the Democratic Party. This stronger connection contributed to our successes this year as AADC worked full force to find and support our candidates.
My term as your AADC President ends on December 31, 2022. There is still much to do. Elections for new AADC Officers are on December 1, at our monthly meeting at the General Gomez Art and Event Center. Of course, a quorum is needed for this election. Nominations are still being accepted, just email them to me (mailto:lcoastnorcalcd1@gmail.com).
The next AADC President will find our organization resting on a solid foundation, ready to prepare for the 2024 election season. Should I be re-elected President, I will have high ambitions for AADC to contribute to the National Democratic Party goals: to elect Democrats to office, and to bring our positions on the issues into law.
It has been both my pleasure and my challenge to have been the director of AADC. Thank you for this great opportunity.