Board Meeting, Minutes - February 21st, 2016

CVCLU Board Meeting Minutes

Meeting Date: 2/21/16

Location: Herrick and Hart Law Office, 116 Grand Ave., Eau Claire

Present: Ann Heywood (presiding), Myron Buchholz, Lindsey Brandrup (recording), Mildred Larson, David Shih, Paul Wagner, David Rice, Sara Thielen

Absent: Marni Kaiser, Dr. Mahmoud Taman,

1). Treasurer’s Report:

There was a 6 cent discrepancy due to a misreading of a check. The matter will be cleared with the bank. The current balance is $700.42. There has been no new income since November.

2). Minutes from the last meeting were approved by the board members present at that meeting.

3). Lindsey Brandrup was elected as board secretary.

4). The State Board Report identified that the budget will be a pressing issue. There is a structural deficit and donations are needed. The Board brainstormed ideas about recruiting new members and garnering support from lapsed members. A concerted effort will be made to make phone calls (Mildred/Ann/David Rice) and send personalized, follow-up notes to try to garner support of lapsed members.

5). Old Business

David Rice confirmed the date (6/7) for Senior Americans Day at UWEC.

David Shih briefed the Board on the situation at UWEC regarding requesting assistance from the ACLU. Currently we will wait for more information on how the issue develops this week before further discussing possible involvement.

6). New Business

The Board reviewed steps to take if we are individually contacted with requests for ACLU help. The caller should be advised very early in the call that we are not lawyers and do not give legal advice, and the information given is not protected by attorney/client privilege. Rather we are local chapter of lay volunteers who work for civil liberties in coordination with the ACLU. If the caller wants legal help in a civil liberties matter, he or she can go to the ACLU-WI website and fill in an intake form. If the ACLU should take the caller’s case, the resolution could take a considerable amount of time. Also the state office gets 100s of requests for help and has the resources to address only a few. Then reiterate the importance of the issue to the complainant, and ask for time to communicate with the Board to determine what, if anything might be done about the situation. The Board will consider the matter further, keeping in mind that our main purpose is educational; the goal of the discussion will be to identify the best resources with which we can connect the complainant (such as the State for actionable offenses or the free legal clinic). It was largely agreed that we would email/share the situation with other board members in a timely fashion. We should protect the privacy of the complainant as appropriate.

April Presentation–David Shih described possible topics for the presentation. The proposed date for the presentation is Wednesday, April 27^th at 7:00pm. The preferred location is Volume One, with the library serving as a backup. David hopes to provide the title of the presentation by the end of the week. Paul agreed to create a Facebook event and assist Mildred in creating a press release of the event. Additionally, we will attempt to reach faculty members at UWEC individually.

7). The next meeting was set for April 3^rd at 6:30pm at David’s office.

8). The meeting adjourned at about 8:00 pm.