Minutes of the Carroll County Democratic Central Committee
August 13, 2015

In attendance:  Don West, Corynne Courpas, Frank Rammes,
Dorothy Scanlan, Anita Riley

The meeting was called to order at 7:00pm.

Pledge of Allegiance

Chair’s Report

The debate party was enough of a success that several more
will be planned.  Corynne stood in for Don at the executive
state party meeting in July. Corynne met Pat Murray, the new
executive director of the Maryland Democratic Party. 
Carroll County was singled out in a mention—but in a good
way.  Murray is aware that the last election was a
fiasco—the question is what to do moving forward.  State
party is in decent shape financially.

Secretary’s Report

Tabled until September meeting.  Corynne made a motion to
make Dorothy Scanlan the Recording Secretary.  The motion
was seconded by Frank; passed unanimously.

There was some discussion about minutes.  The state is
caught up, but there are still some meeting minutes that
have not been uploaded to the website.  Ensure that Meredith
and Mark are copied on the minutes; however, do not send
them the minutes until they have been approved the following
month.

Treasurer’s Report

Corynne  reported that the checking account balance is $
6,205.76.  Anita made a motion that the report be accepted;
Dorothy seconded; passed unanimously.


Club Reports

CC Dems: September 15 is the first meeting.  Members of the
Westminster County Council have been invited to attend. 
Frank is going to invite Paul Milton and Laura O’Callaghan
to be speakers at upcoming meetings.  A joint Christmas
party is being planned.  It was suggested that Pat Murray be
invited to attend.  The tentative date is December 10 at the
Buttersburg Inn.

South Carroll Club:  Mary Ellis is no longer president of
the club.  Anita Riley has taken over as president.  The
first meeting of the year will be on Wednesday, September 2
at the senior center on Mineral Hill Road.  The club’s
Christmas dinner is tentatively scheduled for December 2 at
Amante Pizza & Pasta, 21 Liberty Rd, Sykesville, MD 21784. 
There has been discussion about dissolving the club.  The
club has decent membership but very few members attend
meetings.  One idea is to cut back from monthly to quarterly
meetings.

Committee Reports

Local Politics:  There is not much to report on as the
Commissioners have not done anything of significance.

Annapolis:  Tabled.

Communications:  Tabled.

Events:  Kumar Barve and Jamie Raskin are attending the
breakfast which is October 24 at 9AM at the Best Western. 
Tickets are $40 pp or$35pp for a table of eight.   We need
to make sure this is on the website and publicized on social
media.  The party held at Johansson’s to watch the first
Republican debate was a success, attracting 35 attendees. 
The plan is to do it again on September 16 and October 13.

Blog:  Tabled.

Old Business

Brochure:  Dorothy will work on this.  We need it for
Fallfest.

Fallfest:  We need literature from candidates.  Corynne will
get literature from the presidential candidates.  Anita will
get literature from delegate candidates.

Intern duties:  Tabled.

Rural MD PAC:  A letter was sent to Russ Curry requesting
that the PAC’s bylaws be changed to make Carroll County a
full member.  Currently the bylaws allow for three members
from the other member counties but only one for Carroll.

Bylaws:  The revision was worked on by Mitch and Frank.  One
major change and one minor change were presented.  The major
change is regarding committee membership.  It was decided to
do away with districts and have members run on a countywide
basis.  Discussion ensued on the number of committee members
and it was decided to reduce the number from fourteen to
twelve.  The minor change was the decision to merge the
recording and corresponding secretary duties.  Our present
bylaws call for five officers; however, the state only cares
about three: chair, treasurer, and secretary.

New Business

It was decided that there was no need to invite Paul Milton
to a CCDCC meeting—a club meeting is a better venue for that
invitation.

There was discussion regarding whether to place an ad
publicizing the breakfast in Carroll Magazine.  We need to
find out the lead time to get event items in their calendar.
 It was decided that $200-$300 would be acceptable for an
ad.  We should ask Kim Byrnes to take pictures of our
events.  The event should be put in the Carroll County Times
calendar.

There was discussion about which local issue should be taken
up as our “cause”.  Education was suggested.  This is
something that could be a project for the intern.  She could
research the voting records of our delegation so that we can
present people with the facts.

As a result of Maria Warburton’s letter, it was agreed that
we need to do a better job in compiling information for
prospective candidates.

The next meeting will be September 10 in the large meeting
room of the Westminster library.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00pm; Frank made the motion
to adjourn and Anita seconded.

Respectfully submitted,

Dorothy Scanlan Recording Secretary, CCDCC