Waldo County Dems were thrilled to welcome a very special guest speaker at our April meeting – Secretary of State Shenna Bellows! Her talk on “Protecting Democracy: What’s at Stake in 2024?” was wonderful, packed with both solid information and words of encouragement and inspiration. Waldo County Dems expressed our enthusiastic support for everything Secretary Bellows is doing to repair and protect our democracy with a standing ovation.
The legislature adjourned last week after a marathon all-night session Wednesday. We’re grateful to all our legislators for all their hard work on our behalf this session! Rep. Paige Zeigler and Rep. Jan Dodge let us know about this year’s very challenging budget negotiations. Rep. Dodge also encouraged everyone to help candidates by driving them to knock on doors, write letters to the editor, and other ways. We also heard from candidates Mike Ray (House District 40), Elise Brown (County Commissioner District 3) and Alan Cohen (County Commissioner District 2). Visit our Elections 2024 page for district info, phone numbers and email addresses for all our great candidates.
WCDC voted unanimously in favor of the following Hate Crimes Statement, as proposed and revised by the DEIB Committee:
The Waldo County Democratic Committee hereby answers the call of the Maine Democratic Party, to stand together and speak out with one voice in support of Maine’s communities that are marginalized, and against hatred and bigotry. We must continue to make it clear that we support diversity in communities throughout our county and welcome a diverse population to come and make their homes in this beautiful county and state. (www.waldocountydemocrats.com/deib/)
As background, DEIB provided this definition of diversity: “A representation of the fact that people have individual, unique characteristics, and the practice of including or involving people from a range of these unique characteristics. These characteristics include legally protected classes such as race, color, ancestry, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, physical or mental disability, religion, age, marital status, and other categories in certain contexts. In addition, diversity in our county includes life experiences, ethnicity, language, geographic locations, history of incarceration, and socio-economic class.”
We’re also proud to announce that WCDC voted to join the Wabanaki Alliance as a coalition member, as recommended by WCDC’s DEIB Committee and Executive Committee, expressing our support for full and meaningful tribal sovereignty. Learn about the Wabanaki Alliance at www.wabanakialliance.com, with more informatio about being a coalition member here.
WCDC voted to raise funds to financially support a National Democratic Convention Delegate who represents Waldo County and meets the diversity goals of our state partyparty (as explained in the Maine Democratic Party’s Delegate Selection Plan, beginning on page 29). Attending the convention in Chicago is expensive, and we don’t want that expense to be a barrier to a prospective delegate, particularly one who is from a group that is typically underrepresented in our state’s delegation. Should a candidate not be found this year, or run and not be elected, funds will accrue for the 2028 National Convention.
MDP has identified several categories with goals for the number of delegates representing each: African American, Hispanic, Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, LGBTQ+ Americans, People with Disabilities, and Youth. The executive committee, working with the DEIB Committee, will start raising funds and work out how to distribute them. We’re very happy that our own Betty Johnson is running for national delegate and we want to recruit more candidates. Candidates must have their nomination petitions signed by 25 delegates before May 17 in order to run as a national delegate. All of our elected state convention delegates can sign the petitions through the Maine Dems’ website, with the login credentials sent by Maine Dems.
Are you a potential National Delegate? There are Zoom trainings to learn more about being a national delegate – look for them on the Maine Dems website under Events. If you don’t find a workshop there, reach out to Sara (sarasalley@outlook.com, 207-232-1028) and she will get you the info you need.
If you would like to contribute to the WCDC National Delegate fund, you can do so online to our ActBlue account, or mail a check to WCDC at 22 Searsport Ave., Suite 102, Belfast, 04915. If you use ActBlue, please send Treasurer Gail Chase an email (gmchase314@gmail.com) to let her know it should be designated for the national delegate fund.
We discussed the 2024 Proposed State Platform which state convention delegates will be voting on at the convention. View platform documents at https://www.mainedems.org/platform, including the Draft Platform and Draft One-Pager. Stay tuned – we’ll be scheduling a follow-up meeting to discuss platform amendments in early May.
WCDC elected new County Committee members Leslie Miller, Susan Tackel, Kim Relick, Eleanor MacMakin, LaNae Moline, Dana Rohr, and Karen Rhyne. Welcome and thank you for stepping up to help elect more local Democrats!
Mark your Calendar
- Next WCDC Meeting: Sunday, May 19, at 1pm (preregister here) – moved a week later than usual due to Mother’s Day. In-person location to be determined.
- State Convention: Friday, May 31 – Saturday, June 1, Bangor (learn more)
- Keep Belfast Beautiful – Saturday, May 11
- Pride Events coming up in June!
- Belfast parade – Saturday, June 8
- Unity parade and festival – June 17
Standing Committee Reports – WCDC’s standing committees are where our most important work takes place, and they need your help! If you want to be part of it, please reach out to the committee chairs, whose email addresses are provided below.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging Committee – Laura Baker
- Decisions to be Discussed by WCDC:
- Recommendation to join Wabanaki Alliance
- Financially support diverse representation at the national convention
- Activities in the past month:
- Reached out to all people who stated an interest in DEIB; 2 new members attended.
- State DEIB speaker, Ambureen Rana – threats and hate mail Muslim and Jewish members of the legislature received.
- State DEIB discussed Israel/Palestine and wrote a statement.
- Edited the Hate Statement.
- Began developing questions to ask Jason Trundy to assist our work.
- Next meeting: Sunday, May 5th by ZOOM. If interested to join, please contact Laura at fairtradebaker@gmail.com for the link.
Campaign Committee – Valerie Tate
- Activities in the past month:
- Discussed HD 38 – candidate Eileen Ellis is now a placeholder candidate; we are still recruiting for a replacement candidate.
- Explored ways to streamline how we collect and maintain accurate, up to date information about municipal offices, to support efforts to recruit for every race.
- Made plans to offer support to our great Waldo County candidates and discussed how to connect volunteers with candidates, what tools and training would be useful, and how to best communicate with campaigns.
- Next Meeting: May 15, 2024 @ 5:30-6:30 pm (Zoom link) (meets monthly on Zoom on the third Wednesday of the month). If you are a WCDC member and are inspired to work on any Campaign Committee projects, contact Chair Valerie Tate at valerietate2001@yahoo.com.
Engagement Committee – Cheryl Cassidy
- Activities in past month:
- Finalized Waldo County Woodshed work morning and the “Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring!” Potluck for April 13.
- Continued to clean up our volunteer lists and build our volunteer database. If you haven’t completed a “Volunteer Interest Form” please do so now (click here). Even if you’re already volunteering, our database will not have you listed unless you have completed the form – it’s an important part of getting us better organized and your help would be most appreciated.
- Reached out to new people who expressed an interest in joining the engagement committee.
- A group of volunteers led by Victoria Olson are working to get young people registered to vote; will probably become a sub-committee of the Engagement Committee.
- Next meeting: TBD; contact Cheryl Cassidy (ccassidy@tidewater.net) to be notified.