As a Vice President of the Malibu Democratic Club (MDC), I have to to correct some inaccuracies in the article by Emily Sawicki, “Malibu Democratic Club Heading for Schism.” The MDC never voted to endorse a candidate for the Third Supervisorial District, but we were planning to hold a forum later this year to educate Malibu voters on their choice between Sheila Kuehl and Bobby Shriver for this important position, which is being vacated by Zev Yaroslavsky after 20 years in office.
However, the Los Angeles County Democratic Party has overwhelmingly endorsed Kuehl for this position, which may tie our hands on making a different choice if we wanted to do so, as MDC Board Member Dorothy Reik pointed out in the article. In addition, Kuehl and Shriver have just agreed that they will only hold future debates in forums where large numbers of voters can attend. The whole issue is moot.
The MDC was basically inactive for almost a year until earlier this year, with an important election looming in November 2014, when Ralph Erickson, past President of the MDC, and I approached the leadership of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party to see what we could do to reactivate the MDC before the election. The upshot was that at the 2014 MDC annual meeting, the incumbent President, Jean Goodman, was voted out and Ann Doneen, who was raised in Malibu, was elected president. Ann has pledged to work hard to make the MDC an active, significant part of the community, which will seek to highlight the issues and candidates that are important to Malibu voters in the upcoming election.
Some of the current board members have resisted any activist role of the MDC and have stopped attending meetings. Accordingly, having missed three consecutive meetings, they were removed as board members, as is authorized under the MDC By-Laws. We want a board that is committed to elect Democrats and support Democratic positions in the upcoming election.
Pamela Conley Ulich, whom I encouraged as a past Malibu City Council member to join the board, resigned from the board after the last meeting. From her recent statements to the Malibu Times, it seems that she apparently is more interested in a personal agenda than in the good of the Democratic Party in the upcoming elections.
Ted Vaill