October 2007
Linn County CentralMinutes (Meeting Oct. 17, 2007)
Presentatations: Dr. Michael Huntington,retired Oncologist gave an excellent slide presentation on the ArchimedesProject. The presentation focusedon the deficiencies of our current health care system. Dr. Huntington provided data thatshowed the United States ranked last in Health standards in all but onemeasurement in comparisons made to 5 other industrialized nations. The presentation recommended thatGovernor Kitzahaber’s Archimedes project provides a good test bed for the US HealthCare system as a whole. There wereseveral questions and those in attendance gave Dr. Huntington a warm welcome,listened attentively, and provided comments.
Motions: Motion was made to support the CAAIR(Corvallis and Albany Assisting Iraqi Refugees) Group. The motion did not include any specific mention offinancial support from the Linn County Democrats. Individuals can make contributions to: CAAIR, PO Box 365, Corvallis, OR 97339-0365.
Subjects of discussion:
1. Committees
a. Events committeechair, Evan Deganfelder (Evan gave an update on the Blue Bluegrass & Moreevent scheduled for Nov 10, at the Morningstar Grange. She asked for help in getting theposters distributed around the 4 county area).
b. Call for other committees-(Finance,Campaign, Membership, Communications, Legislative, Candidate Support, VolunteerCoordinator). John Puma will bethe Chair of the Budget and Finance Committee. The committee will formulate a budget plan for the comingyear. No further action was taken.Chair Henion said this would be further discussed at the next ExecutiveCommittee meeting.
c. November Central Committee Meeting; Asthe regularly scheduled meeting falls on one day before Thanksgiving, on Nov.21 there was discussion about canceling the meeting. It was decided to defer the decision for the ExecutiveCommittee meeting.
d. Mention of Measure 49 election night party is scheduled for the evening of Nov. 6th. An announcement will be made as to timeand place.
e. Marion County will be hosting the Attorney General forum on Nov. 19th. Benton, Polk and Linn counties areinvited as the candidate forums are to be a coordinated events between the fourcounties. Time and place to beannounced in Linn, Benton, Marion, and Polk County Hotlines and/ornewsletters. Alan Holland (Polk Co. chair), SamSappington (Benton Co. Chair),Wayne Baum (Marion Co. chair) and Loyd Henion (Linn Co. Chair) will be panelmembers. The sameformat will be utilized for the US Senate and Sec. of State forums.
f. Benton County will be hosting the US Senate candidate forum between Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley.
g. Our county will be hosting the Sec. of State candidate forum. The month to be decided by the executive committee.
h. Louise Owens discussedthe resumption of Myth Buster Movie. Louise has found a place in Lebanon but is still looking for a suitablevenue for Albany. Shementioned that she has assembled a good cache of documentaries.
i. The idea of a Raffle waspresented and members agreed that we would give this a try at the next CentralCommittee meeting. The idea is formembers to purchase a ticket at the beginning of the meeting. Tickets are place in a can. Someone draws out the winning ticket andthe lucky person holding the ticket number wins the prize. It was pointed out that Marion Countymakes $50-to $100 per meeting by doing this. It was recognized that Marion County has more people at theirmeetings and that we could not reasonably expect to match their raffle amounts.
j. The Soap box was not conducted but will be at the next meeting
k. The meeting was at 8:26 pm.
Respectfully submitted by Loyd Henion
