Candidate Development and Legal Comm Candidates and Committee Report

April 2, 2017

CDLC currently has 5 members: Charlene DiCalogero, Nat Fortune (co-chair), Steven Ballard, Maureen Doyle, Jonathan Martin. We are in need of 1 to 2 new members to replace a long-time member who resigned in November 2016.

We are pleased to welcome Steve Ballard from Assabet Valley Green-Rainbow to our committee. He is already contacting potential candidates and has offered to assist at the State Convention candidate workshop.

Trainings and Workshops

The CDLC is working on finding people to present two workshops at the State Convention:

1. Becoming a candidate workshop (mentioned above): we hope to have at least 1 CDLC member lead this workshop, with assistance from people who have worked on campaigns or run for office.

2. Campaign Volunteer training workshop

Joe Carvalho, former GRP mayoral candidate, Fall River, has agreed to lead this workshop with assistance from CDLC.

Because we were unable to devote time to putting together longer trainings for the spring, we have been referring candidates and volunteers to Mass Alliance grassroots campaign trainings. Charlene went to their Worcester training to promote the GRP to @ 20 candidate attendees, among whom were many women and some people of color. At least 1 of our liaisees has attended a Mass Alliance training and found it helpful. Mass Alliance is pursuing further collaboration with the GRP to work with our candidates. Some candidates have also attended GPUS Coordinated Campaign Committee (CCC) webinars this quarter.

Charlene also attended a candidate training designed for college women at Worcester State, spoke briefly, and gave her contact info to several attendees, including women of color.

Reporting to GPUS

Charlene researched and found stats for a number of 2016 and earlier campaigns, and sent these as requested by Mike Feinstein for the GPUS database.

CDLC has been requested to supply names and basic info on candidates as they officially attain ballot status. While we will do the best we can, our priority is candidate support.

CDLC webpages and candidate support docs 

We are in the process of revising and updating webpages. We recently recovered a number of campaign support docs. One of these has been updated, and several others are in need of updating.

Current Candidates or Potential Candidates

We have 45 people on our "Current" list of people we are mentoring. This number is considerably higher than our committee members have the ability to maintain contact with. We continue to attempt to winnow out those people who have not stayed in contact with us.

Two candidates are announced as running for office this year: Damon Jespersen is running for re-election to Select Board in Newbury, Charlene DiCalogero is on the ballot for Berlin Library Trustee

Three to four candidates are listed as committed but not yet announced, for local and federal office (it is unclear if one is registered GRP, and 1 listing may be out of date). We expect to have 1 of these on the ballot for Town Meeting Representative in Shrewsbury in May, and one is planning to run for School Committee in Fall River.

Twenty six (26) are considering running in the next one to four years for local, state or federal office; some of these may not be reachable and will be archived.

Of the additional names in our “current prospectives sheet”: 

Four (4) have no plans to run in the next 2 years, though one would run if a local seat became vacant mid-term.

Five (5) are potential recruits to be a GRP candidate, who have had previous experience in running or serving in public office, or in some other way are thought to be potential prospects. Some of these are people we believe are from underrepresented communities/identities. 

At least three have not been reached in the last quarter.

Elected and Appointed

We believe the following are currently in elected or appointed office as GRP. The first 6 are elected, the rest appointed:

                Name                                Next election     Level/Position                           Town                     Chapter if known

1. Moss     Bryan                    5/2018               Local      Town Meeting           Shrewsbury            NRGR
2. Larner   Tar                        3/2019               Local      Housing Board         Concord                  AVGR
3. Jespersen Damon                5/2017              Local      Select Board            Newbury (Byfield)
4. Merelice M K                       5/2019              Local      Town Meeting           Brookline                GBC
5. Steeves Gus                       6/2017               Local      Town Council           Southbridge
6. O'Connor Vincent                                         Local      Town Meeting.          Amherst
7. Ballard Steven                                             Local      Finance Comm.; Affordable Housing Trust  Boxborough    AVGR
8. Doyle    Maureen                                         Local      Conservation Comm. Southbridge
9. Factor Danny                                                     Local       Disabilities Commission Acton               AVGR

Respectfully submitted,

Charlene DiCalogero, co-chair