Candidate for
Green Party County Council; County of San Mateo

We have accomplished a lot during the past two years. We have made great progress in professionalizing how we do business. We have established our monthly meeting series "Green Talks" on various issues, including transportation, local environmental problems, housing, and others. We have created a web site and a newsletter series, both of which are among the best in the state. We have formalized our meetings, while still adhering to the consensus process by setting an agenda, taking minutes and distributing these to a group of committed activists. We have compiled a list of about 100 Greens throughout the county who are interested in what we are doing and are kept informed of meetings. We have updated our bylaws so that they acurately reflect our priorities and how we conduct business. We have made modest progress in increasing our registration in the county. We adopted procedures for endorsing candidates for public office and recently endorsed Medea Benjamin for US Senate and Ralph Nader for President. In addition, we have worked on several important campaigns, including saving San Bruno Mountain and limiting growth on the coastside.

There is still much to do for our group. I would like to focus on three main issues: our need to grow, the lack of diversity in the party and the public perception of the Green Party as a 'one-issue' party, concerned only with environmental issues. These issues can best be addressed simultaneously by focusing our attentions on growing ourselves in the right way, addressing a variety of progressive issues. We can bring more working class, youth and minority activists into the party by focusing on issues they care about, including police abuse and other criminal justice issues, education, poverty, and living wage campaigns. We should focus our Green Talks on a better diversity of issues; while environmental causes are important, we should recognize that Ecological Wisdom is only one of our 10 Key Values and that we should address all of the many issues that progressives in our county care about. We need to work harder to make connections with local organizations and the media, improving attendance at our meetings and our presence in the county.