More candidate statements:
Letter from Harriet Young, candidate for the office of First Vice Chair
Dear State Committee Persons of the Arizona Democratic Party,
For the past two years I’ve served as First Vice Chair of the ADP. I am asking for your vote to continue the work that has begun to turn the party into a full fledged, active, and cohesive organization. I’ve worked with the other members of the Executive Board to create a vibrant organization in the following way:
•We developed job descriptions for the members of the Board so we’d have clear responsibilities for making the party effective
•We met at least once a month to develop cohesion and collegiality
•We kept the entire state in mind as we planned for events and campaigns by including the Chair of the County Chairmen in all our discussions. It has knit the party together and provided a two way communication avenue.
•We’ve begun to engage the Executive Committee in much of the team building and expect the EC to develop into another piece of a strong state party with the inclusion of caucus leaders.
My particular role in this has been to develop a stronger donor base within the party. With over 3000 pc’s and 700 state committeemen, we should be able to provide steady support for party activities. My vision has been to raise our own county mobilization money. To this end, we’ve increased the number of party donors to the Arizona Democratic Council and the number of participants in the GIVE program.
It occasionally occurs to me that we forget why work so hard to elect Democrats. I was reminded of my own fundamental belief structure as I listened to a CD my daughter made as a Christmas gift. I was listening to the CD for the first time when John Lennon’s Imagine came on and I found tears in my eyes. The belief that beneath culture, race, and economic status lies a common humanity is a notion I continue to embrace.
I ask for your vote at the reorganization meeting and promise to continue to move us in the direction we can only “Imagine.”
Xo Harriet
Letter from Manuel Cruz, candidate for the office of Senior Vice Chair
Manuel Cruz is a fourth generation Arizonan, 1st Vice Chair of LD12 and the former Democratic 2010 candidate for Arizona State Mine Inspector. His experience in running for a state-wide office is a great attribute to the office of Senior Vice Chair. By working with communities, organizations, and businesses across Arizona, Manny has the ability to move the party forward. His state-wide campaign allowed him to hear the voices of Democrats across Arizona. Manny pledges integrity, accountability, and transparency to the office. He will help lead the Democratic Party to a bright future.
Letter from C.J. Carenza, candidate for the office of Affirmative Action Moderator
To my fellow State Committee Members,
I would like to begin by thanking you for the opportunity to be your representative on the Executive Board replacing Gerald Richards as the Affirmative Action Moderator. Holding this position for the past 6 months has provided an incredible amount of insight and experience.
As I seek my own full 2‐year term, I would like to outline the goals I have and how I plan to use the position to better represent those underrepresented persons of Arizona. To do that, you must first understand who those people are:
•The LGBT community is disrespected by the majority. Simply look at Prop 8 in CA or our very own Prop 102. As a gay man, I see this firsthand.
•The Hispanic/Latino/Chicano population, who are repeatedly attacked by the Republicans with legislation like SB1070 or the Ethnic Studies bill
While not exclusive by any means, these 2 groups clearly need to have better representation at all levels of government as well as the State Committee.
If the election of 2010 showed us anything, it’s that there is another group of underrepresented Arizonans who we as a party need to strive hard to bring into our midst. This group represents all ethnicities & orientations, but tends to be segregated by class. The group I am referring to is the Uninformed Arizonan.
While many in the party would argue we did everything we could do; we were fighting a “proverbial tsunami”. I believe we simply didn’t do enough to bring these voters into our party. I would argue we saw a large portion of the electorate cast their vote based on lies, falsehoods, or worse, no information at all. We as a state party like to think we are politicos; we follow the ins and outs of the daily happenings at the state and federal level; we communicate with our Representatives, Senators & other elected officials on regular intervals but we need to do a better job of bringing these voters into the process. An educated population votes Democratic!
Moving into the 2012 cycle over the next 2 years, I would like to use my role as Affirmative Action
Moderator to do the following:
•Expand our outreach at both local & state levels
•Identify new communication methods
•Create programs to activate and involve inactive voters
In addition to these goals, I will strive to make sure the Party and the 2011 Elected Presidential Convention Delegation, is represented as a true cross section of Arizona and the Arizona Democratic Party.
Thank you again for the honor of serving in this position, and I look forward to the opportunity to serve you and the Party for at least the next 2 years.
Sincerely,
C.J. Carenza
AZ Democratic Party, Affirmative Action Moderator
AZ Democratic Party’s LGBT Caucus, Secretary
LD 15 1st Vice Chair
Letter from Henry Wade, candidate for the office of Affirmative Action Moderator
Dear Fellow Arizona Democrats, Today, I come before you, seeking your strongest complement by electing me as the new Affirmative Action Moderator for the Arizona Democratic Party (ADP). My name is Henry M. Wade Jr., and I am a loyal Democrat with a 38 year voting record. I born and raised in Los Angeles, CA and was extremely fortunate to have been sent to schools that realized the value of sharing cultural awareness and tolerance with its students starting at an early age. Additionally, our community was, at the time, referred to a melting pot. I lived, went to school with and played with kids of just about every ethnic group you could imagine. This environment set my paradigms and has allowed me to make instant assessments of what is right/wrong or fair/unfair. Much of the State’s current legislation related to the minority, underserved or LGBT community is both wrong and unfair. As your Affirmative Action Moderator, I will always represent you and your concerns as a positive advocate for fairness.
I began my community activism while in the Air Force and have served as Founder, President or Chair of several Affirmative Action and Cultural Awareness Associations within the Air Force both nationally and internationally. On the local front, my outreach efforts while stationed at Luke AFB was the genesis of the Northwest Valley Black History Committee. On the International level, a culturally diverse organization I founded, at Armed Forces Central Europe (AFCENT), in the Netherlands in 1983 is still thriving today some 27 years later. Upon my retirement, I turned my attention to youth programs, establishing Cub/Boy Scout Packs and Troops in the minority and underserved community. Professionally, I am the Co-Owner/Branch Manager of the National Investment Division – Housing Counseling Agency (NID-HCA)-Phoenix and President of the Arizona Association of Real Estate Brokers (AAREB). I also serve on the Board of Directors of the Hispanic
Association of Real Estate Professionals (HAREP). Nationally, I have been tasked to oversee the Capitol Hill visits for the upcoming Multicultural Real Estate Policy Conference in D.C. on March 2, 2011 supporting AAREB, NAHREP and the Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA). With 30 years of real estate experience in the Valley of the Sun, I began my career selling homes part-time while stationed at Luke AFB. Upon my retirement in 1993, I opened Sabry, Inc. Real Estate Appraisals and then added Northstar Homes as part of my bundle of services. Currently, I am serving the community as a Certified Housing Counselor, concentrating on loss mitigation and foreclosure prevention. Spend five minutes with me and I guarantee you will feel my passion for the work I am doing. As a resident of the City of Maricopa, I serve on the Planning and Zoning Commission and am currently the Affirmative Action Chair for the Pinal County Democratic Party. I am the father of three sons; enjoy working with young people and traveling.
When elected, my goal is to use my innate sense of fellowship and brotherly love, my tried and true real life experiences and my extensive local and national contacts to help transform the Affirmative Action program of the Arizona Democratic Party into the model for which all other states will strive to emulate.
I would sincerely appreciate your vote. Henry M. Wade Jr.
Letter from Barbara Tellman, candidate for the office of Secretary
Dear Fellow Democrats:
We face huge challenges in the effort to take back the Legislature in 2012 and beyond, re‐elect Obama, and increase our congressional representation. I want to be more involved in these efforts at the state level as I have been in recent years at the county and LD levels.
I would like to see us do as good a job in the following areas as we did in 2010 in making voting more accessible through registration and PEVL. The major areas where I believe we can improve our success rate are by:
•Motivating people (especially young and minority voters) to believe that voting Democratic matters,
•Taking strong stands on issues of greatest personal concern to voters and work with groups furthering causes, especially in the areas of education, jobs, health care, pensions, and respect for government.
•Finding out why so many people are not registering with a Party and finding ways to help them believe the Democratic Party serves their interests. We should make use of the fact that this group includes the “clueless,” people who are disillusioned with their party but can’t yet join the other party, and those who agree with us on some issues and with the Republicans or Greens on others.
•Finding better ways to communicate both with people who spend a lot of time using electronic media and those who spend little time getting news from any source. Increased microtargeting by identifying occupations such as “teacher” or other affinities can be an important tool.
•Improving two‐way communication among County Parties, LD, clubs, and caucuses around the state to learn from each other and benefit from our successes and failures, and increasing our respect for the efforts, skills, and knowledge of our PCs and other volunteers. I will work with Lois Pfau in this effort.
•Working towards new Districts that are more compact, competitive, and have optimum opportunities for minority representation.
My qualifications: I have been involved in the following ways: I have:
•Been active in Democratic politics for many years and worked on many campaigns.
•Spent several decades as an environmental and controlled growth activist.
•Co‐managed successful campaigns for county supervisor, city council, and a countywide rezoning referendum before we had Internet or VAN. I have worked in many other campaigns with more modern tools, including VAN. I am computer‐literate.
•Spent 13 years in the Ivory Tower at UA writing about water policy and environmental history.
•Been a full‐time Volunteer Coordinator for Howard Dean’s Pima County campaign.
•Served as PC, State Delegate, Secretary of LD 27 (2 terms), and Pima County Party Secretary (2 terms.)
•Volunteered for a variety of candidates (including ones as different as Lena Saradnik, Jeff Latas, city council member Regina Romero, Andrea Dalessandro, and of course, Barack Obama.
•Become a member of the Steering Committee and database manager for the new Pima County Chapter of Progressive Democrats of America.
•Volunteered while secretary in the areas of VAN use and training; organized a major headquarters renovation; led the selection and installation, of our Predictive Dialer; worked with our African‐American caucus; wrote grant applications; helped with PC Development workshops; observed ballot counting and took part in all ballot audits; made some 15,000 campaign buttons; helped organize volunteer appreciation activities, and other tasks. I will continue this kind of participation.
I am retired, except for part‐time teaching at Prescott College (Tucson campus), and have the time and motivation to work with the State Party, not only to do the record‐keeping duties of the secretary, but also to be involved in actions such as communications, Redistricting, and IT. I feel that State Party officers should take on specific areas of responsibility and be accountable for their chosen areas.
As Secretary of the State Party I would not only help represent Pima County, but extend that to two‐way communication with other areas, especially south of the Gila River.
Barbara Tellman, PC in 320 (LD 27)
Letter from Sharon Thomas, candidate for the office of Secretary
January 11, 2011
Sharon Thomas
Dear Fellow State Committeepersons:
I am pleased to put my name forward as a nominee for Secretary of the Arizona Democratic Party. As a long-time Democrat, I have been involved in party politics and community activism for the past twenty-two years. I began my activism working on my uncle’s campaign for Sheriff of Cochise County in the late 1980s. I became a leader and out-spoken force against incorporation of my small community in southern Arizona, and was a founding member of Saint David Residents for Rural Life. Community members looked to me as an articulate writer, spokesperson, and leader.
I became a Precinct Committeeperson and Secretary of the Cochise County Democratic Committee in 2006, and was elected Vice-Chair of the CCDC in 2008. I travel across the state to attend our State Committee meetings, and have attended nearly every meeting in the past six years, even attending the meetings and becoming involved in several caucuses before I became an elected State Committeeperson. I have served as Regional Advisory Committee Chair for the LGBT Caucus since 2009, and was recently elected as a Vice-Chair of the Progressive Caucus.
Coming from one of Arizona’s founding families, I have a love for Arizona and a familiarity of the differing aspects of our diverse state. I was raised in Chandler, attended Prescott High School, and graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in English and Theatre Education. I have taught English, Communications, and Theatre Arts at the kindergarten through community college levels. I currently teach English at South Mountain High School in Phoenix. I am also a member of the Arizona Education Association, and have served as an AEA Assembly Delegate for my Classroom Teachers’ Association.
I am running for ADP Secretary because keeping accurate and regular records of our meetings is one of the most important things we do. As a party, we need a secretary who will be present at our meetings, take accurate, grammatically-correct minutes, and keep them organized and available for review. As an English teacher, writer, and compulsive editor, I am immensely qualified to be Secretary. I have served as secretary of numerous organizations and clubs in which I have been involved; I was elected Secretary of LD 15 in November. As a Maricopa County resident, I am accessible and will be able to attend all Executive Board and State Committee meetings.
I appreciate your support for Secretary of the Arizona Democratic Party. Please contact me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Sharon Thomas
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