October 19, 2019 - Newsletter

The LGBTQ Democrats of Montgomery County met Monday, October 14 at the MCDCC offices in Kensington, MD to discuss the club's November officer elections and ongoing and future advocacy work. Read the latest e-newsletter for updates from that meeting. 

July 15, 2019 - Minutes

INTRODUCTIONS

• Total of 34 attendees!
• If anyone has suggestions on other locations to meet, please let the EC know. Love to spread things out around the County.

ADVOCACY COMMITTEE PRIORITIES

• HIV Prevention in MoCo
  • Guided by state report identifying disparities between gay white men and minorities
  • Statistics are going in the wrong direction
  • State does not contribute funding; only federal dollars are allocated from Part B of the Ryan White Act and the CDC
  • Priority: Have Maryland add funding to supplement
  • Risk category data and racial data exists, but not for sexual orientation and race
  • Priority: press County for data that could then be sued to target communications and prevention efforts
  • Lack of transparency on who county is working with to target prevention efforts
  • Priority: understand and increase engagement
  • Jared Solomon, Delegate D18: Can engage with Department of Legislative Services for historical data as well as with Department of Health for the plan
• LGBTQ Commission
  • Do LGBTQ issues get lost in the Human Rights Commission?
  • Number of MD counties have LGBTQ subcommittees to their HRCs; MoCo does not
  • Priority: MoCo establish an LGBTQ Commission
  • Suggestion: Write a charter to socialize with county leaders, use to promote the idea, and start petitions.
  • Make the case that the HRC is "not sufficient" to meet the needs
  • Take a look at the Baltimore City LGBTQ Commission charter
  • The Office of Human Rights is the staff office for the HRC.
  • Suggestion: Reach out to the director of the Office of Human Rights to discuss and get his thoughts.
  • Advocacy committee will look at drafting a charter
• Community Safety
  • Review of statistics on gun violence and gun safety legislation in MD
  • Review of the gaps

Suggestion to add an exec board position to focus on communications.

Meeting adjourned.

April 8, 2019 - Minutes
Introductions

Montgomery County Planning Board

• Discussion regarding the board talking about the opportunity to highlight the upcoming planning board nomination process and potentially endorse candidates as a club. 
• Dan Reed led the discussion around the upcoming planning board vacancies and the importance of this vote.
• One of the most important boards that exist in this county is the Planning Board.  Consists of 5 members – part-time position and they control a lot of the planning and approve the new development plans that affect how the county grows and develops. 
• Affects queer people because they often have less opportunities than other communities and are often discriminated against. 
• Issues such as new housing and how hard we make it for people to find new housing in the county. 
• The seats have to be balanced and have three dems, two republicans and one independent. Right now the opening seats are for the Chair and for a planning board member and the deadline is April 24. 
• Traditionally most clubs have not weighed in on the planning board nomination. 
• Dan said that there are reasons why to lobby for specific people. Get a democrat to run, get an LGBTQ candidate to run and also candidates who are amenable to issues that our queer community cares about. Public safety, access to affordable housing, transportation and economic opportunities. 
• Options for the club: 1.) Endorsement 2.) Candidates Forum 3.) Writing a letter asking the council to support candidates that support XYZ issue. 
• Dan thinks that endorsements carry a lot of weight during the planning board.
• The council looks at the following factors: 1.) Candidates who will be easy to work with and support the work of the council 2.) Candidates who don’t want to use the position to run against the council members 3.) Candidates who support specific communities. 
• To have a forum we’d need the forum in the first week of May. Having a forum doesn’t lock us into endorsing or anything. 
• Options: Interview in person and have them fill out questionnaires and make it public. 
• Question that came up:
  • How does this benefit the club? 
  • Will the general public be interested?
  • Is this an issue that voters care about? 
  • What is the drawback about co-hosting the forum?
  • We would need to maintain control over the questions and moderate it. 
  • Possibility of 15 applicants and how do we have a forum for that many candidates? 

Special Election for Treasurer Position 

• Founding Treasurer Theresa McKiever passed away. We are looking for a new treasurer and club by-laws require us to vote in a new treasurer. 
• This would be filling a vacancy so the next election of board officers is this Fall of 2019. 
• Bylaws require that we need three people – a chair and vice chair of the special elections committee and a candidate. 
• Ben offered to be the Election Chair and Sam offered to be the Co-Chair. 
• Candidates interested should let Michael Knappen know before the next meeting.

Advocacy

• Shannon Quinn – Reviewed the club priorities. 
• Advocacy committee organized a Lobby Day in Annapolis and a focus of it was lobbying for the additional X markers. SB196 Bill offered an “X market” to state issued IDs. This also eliminated the need to get doctor’s notices before changing over your ID market. 
• TransHealth Maryland did a wonderful job of advocating around this bill as well. 
• Lily Pastor – HB 1005 was entered to try and get it eliminated the requirement to publish name changes in a public newspaper. Also various counties charge various rates to publish the notice in the local news outlets so it’s important to standardize everything by offering a mechanism for the requirement to be eliminated. Delegate Emily Shetty (D18) pulled her bill because the amendments added were not acceptable to the LGBTQ community. 
• The agreement amongst the coalition is that next year in 2020 they will go after removing the publication requirement altogether. There was confusion around the bill’s language so hopefully next year this can advance further. 
• Protecting LGBTQ Youth from abuse and those that run away from abusive homes. 
• Another focus was to fully fund the Ending Homelessness Act. Some legislators thought that not much could be done legislation wise and there is some confusion over this bill. Option might be to organize action around getting the governor to write this into his budget. 
• Improving HIV outcomes and meeting the state’s goals. 
• Education around the Gay & Trans Panic Defense Prohibition Act and getting the Maryland democratic representatives to support it. Good news is that Jamie Raskin has become vice-chair of the LGBTQ Caucus for Congress. Talk about engaging Congressmen David Trone to support this.
• Recommendation to hold a gathering/party to thank the legislators that advocated for our causes. 
• Next steps to communicate to the members what happened during this last session.  Advocacy Committee report? 
• Discussion around using time this summer to regroup and flush out what worked and how to improve coalition and advocacy efforts for 2020. 

Radar Items

• ​Creating a local LGBTQ Affairs Commission. Discussion around whether we need another commission or add teeth to existing commissions to focus on our community’s issue. 
• Supporting Community Safety Initiatives – Police Chief Tom Manger retired. Council Member Evan Glass At-Large sent a letter to County Executive Marc Elrich asking for a Police Chief who knows how to work with our LGBTQ community and to require training for the police around issues specifically related to our issue. 
• One option is that the Council requires specific reports from the MoCo Police to provide reports on LGBTQ issues. 
• Pushing for great healthcare services and more comprehensive services – Pushing for queer competent care and carers. Pushing for an LGBTQ healthcare center in Montgomery County and Councilmember Evan Glass brought this up at the recent meeting. 
• Recommendations to put a bond bill up to the state legislature for support to create and establish an LGBTQ Center or health center. 

A vote was taken by the membership as to whether the Montgomery County LGBTQ Club will hold a forum for the planning board members. The vote was a majority in favor of holding the forum. Next steps are to find volunteers to help organize this.