Proposal: GPCA Governance - Denial of GPLAC access to email blast and to data update capability for LA County data within GPCA Nationbuilder data base

GPCA Governance: Denial of GPLAC access to email blast and to data update capability for LA County data within GPCA Nationbuilder data base and beyond

Section 1: Denial of GPLAC access to email blast and to data update capability for LA County data within GPCA Nationbuilder data base

Without any prior notification or consultation the GPLAC County Council was blocked by the GPCA from access to email blast capability and to data update capability for LA County data within the GPCA Nationbuilder data base. This meant the GPLAC was not able to use said capacity to contact Greens in LA County to support GPLAC-endorsed primary and general election Green candidates Angelica Dueñas, Kenneth Mejia, Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, Rachel Bruhnke, Mike Feinstein, Jose Lara and Emmanuel Estrada. This impaired the GPLAC's ability to fundraise for them, turn out volunteers for them and invite Greens in LA County to candidate and county party events and rallies.

Additionally the GPCA has suffered as well, as the state party data base is lo longer being improved and updated by contact information the GPLAC receives from new Greens in LA County, nor from data about registered Greens the GPLAC receives from the LA County Registrar.

The correspondence below demonstrates the GPLAC's efforts to rectify this situation, and the failure by the GPCA IT Committee to sufficiently respond to the GPLAC's efforts.

March 29, 2018

Dear GPCA IT Committee (and Coordinating Committee)

It has come to our attention that without following the GPCA's IT Protocol, the GPLAC’s designee to access the GPCA voter registration data base has had his access removed. http://www.cagreens.org/it-protocol

Perhaps you are not aware of the process that the GPLAC has followed, nor the damage it has caused to our county party because our access has been removed, and the damage it will continue to cause if it remains so.

For your information, for several years, the GPCA IT Committee conducted workshops at GPCA General Assembly, inviting county Green Parties to designate one or more individuals who would have access to the GPCA voter registration data base on Nationbuilder, in order to manage the data for that county party, and use the email blast function to contact its members.

Several years ago in response, the GPLAC designated Mike Feinstein for that task, and Feinstein met the technical proficiency standard that the IT Committee set for using Nationbuilder. In other words, the GPLAC followed the GPCA process.

Since then Feinstein has sent out multiple email blasts to our Green members in LA County on our behalf and at the direction of our County Council, and has consistently updated the data base to reflect changes in Green Party membership for Greens in LA County, and adds email addresses to the data bas where they were not otherwise - all of which also benefits the GPCA.  In addition, he has used the data base to consistently identify Greens who are running for office in LA County, in particular for Neighborhood Council.

Perhaps Greens in other counties are not aware of this, but the City of Los Angeles has 95 Neighborhood Councils, with approximately 1100 elected members.  Identifying who among them are registered Greens is an enormous, ongoing task that Feinstein has performed on behalf of our county party - and our state party, as this affects how many people we list on our state list of officeholders. The use of the Green voter registration data base in Nationbuilder is critical for this work.

One of the reasons is that Nationbuilder identifies each person by legislative districts, including for Neighborhood Council in Los Angeles. While this is normal for traditional legislative districts, it was not so originally with Neighborhood Council districts.  This occurred specifically because of Feinstein’s work with Nationbuilder and with the Los Angeles Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, after which Nationbuilder agreed to add Los Angeles Neighborhood Council districts a few years ago to their data base. Thus the GPLAC is able to target its email outreach to Greens in different Neighborhood Council Districts and Regions, with the information appropriate to each.

Most recently, the City of Los Angeles offered workshops on how to run for Neighborhood Council, in anticipation of the next Neighborhood Council elections in 2019.  Feinstein had been ready to send email blasts to registered Greens in the City of Los Angeles to advise them of those workshops, so that we could prepare and increase the number of Greens running in 2019.  Instead when he went to do that work, he found that the GPLAC’s access to the Nationbuilder data base has been revoked. In other words, the unauthorized removal by someone in the GPCA of LA County’s access to the Nationbuilder data base has hurt our ability to recruit and train future Green candidates.

It is important to note here that  the identification of Greens on Los Angeles Neighborhood Councils is not only critical for work within LA County, but it is important for updating the GPCA’s Green officeholders list. Green Neighborhood Councilmembers in the City of Los Angeles make they make up about 20% of the entire list of California Greens in office. Not only is that total important within California - and for the list of Greens holding elected official nationally, but the number of elected Greens is also a key variable in how many seats on the GPUS National Committee that the GPCA is entitled to. In other words, if the GPLAC’s ability to use Nationbuilder to track Greens running for Neighborhood Council is removed, then this can lead to the GPCA having fewer delegates to the GPUS National Committee than it is entitled to.

In addition to handicapping the GPLAC’s ability to develop more Greens running for Neighborhood Council, and undercutting the GPCA’s ability to maintain an accurate list of elected Greens, the removal of the GPLAC’s access to the Data Base has also undermined our ability to promote our endorsed candidates in this June election and beyond.

Now that the deadline to qualify for the June ballot has come and passed and we know who is on the ballot, we were prepared to begin emailing to our members to promote endorsed Green Congressional candidates in LA County Angelica Dueñas, Kenneth Mejia and Rodolfo Cortes, and State Assembly candidate Rachel Bruhnke.  Instead that capacity has been taken away from us without any contact with our county party officers or our county council.

This fall we have an excellent Green running for re-election to the school board in Pico Rivera - Jose Lara, a key Latino Green social justice leader, who is an incredible asset to our party.  The Democrats have been pushing on Jose to leave the Green Party, and one of the few things we have to offer in the way of support is sending email blasts to our members in LA County asking them to contribute to his campaign.  Do we want to lose this opportunity as well?

Then there is the issue of media contacts. The GPLAC has enhanced the state party’s media contacts list in the Nationbuilder data base, by adding its own media contacts to it, then using those LA County contacts to send out its press release on GPLAC positions on local ballot measures in LA City and LA County, like those recently passed to help address homelessness.  Now again the GPLAC’s capacity to perform this task has been taken away, because it can’t access that data in the Nationbuilder data base, including to announce to the media who our endorsed candidates are for this spring election.

Los Angeles County is home to the most registered Greens of any county in California. Success in LA County helps the entire GPCA.

The GPLAC has followed the GPCA’s rules in proposing a person who has the technical proficiency to use Nationbuilder on behalf of the GPLAC.  We have been given no reason why our access to the data base has been taken away. With almost 24,000 registered Greens in LA County, we simply do not have the capacity to manage our data and our outreach to our party members without access to the GPCA’s Nationbuilder data base. We ask that it be restored to the person who we have designated as our designee for this task, and who has shown the technical proficiency to perform it.

Sincerely,

GPLAC County Council

Daniel Alvarado, Downey
Doug Barnett, Los Angeles
Marla Bernstein, Los Angeles
Tom Bibiyan, West Los Angeles
Rachel Bruhnke, San Pedro
Angelica Dueñas, Sun Valley
Mike Feinstein, Santa Monica
Annie Goeke, Santa Monica
Cris Gutierrez, Santa Monica
Ava Kermani, Long Beach
Aria Pakatchi, Lancaster
Matthew Whittaker, Lancaster
Cordula Ohman, Santa Monica
Linda Piera-Avila, Santa Monica
Ajay Rai, Los Angeles
Julia Russell, Los Feliz
Adia Williams, Los Angeles

CC: GPCA CC

April 9, 2018

Dear Mr. Gonzales
Co-Coordinator, GPCA IT Committee
Green Party of California

Dear Mr. Gonzales,

Thank you for your e-mail of April 1, 2018 to Ajai Rai regarding Data Base access for Green Party of Los Angeles (GPLAC) County Council designees.

This issue was discussed at GPLAC County Council meeting of April 8, 2018.  Mr. Ajai Rai and Mr. Mike Feinstein have been designated by consensus by our County Council to have access to the GPCA Contact Data Base on behalf of the GPLAC.

Regarding their use of the data base on behalf of the GPLAC, GPLAC Rules and Procedures Article 5 (http://losangeles.cagreens.org/rules/2017-10-10#ARTICLE_5) state that the County Council shall decide how the GPLAC’s data is used, and that those with access to it on behalf of the GPLAC are subject to state law (California Elections Code https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2005/elec/2180-2194.html) and the GPCA’s IT Protocol.

As explained in our letter to you of March 29th, access to the GPCA Contact Data base - and the ability to contact our members via email blasts through Nationbuilder, is critical to the growth and development of the Green Party in Los Angeles County, on multiple levels for multiple reasons. Most timely is to provide necessary support to Green candidates running for office in Los Angeles County.

We hope that access can be facilitated immediately, as the election is only two months away.   

Sincerely,
Julia Russell
LA County Council Co-Coordinator

April 25, 2018

Dear Mr. Gonzales;

Thank you for your April 16 th response to GPLAC’s message of April 9 th to you.

As you referred us to GPCA IT-Protocol 3-1.4:

 “3-1.4:  The GPCA may send statewide (or other) email blasts on behalf of GPCA-endorsed candidates, but shall not directly export the contact information data from the Contact Data Base to any candidate nor their campaigns,” perhaps we were not clear enough about our request.  For that we apologize.

To clarify, we are not asking for an export of the Los Angeles County data to any candidate or campaign. Nor are we looking for an export of any data from the Contact Data Base to the GPLAC itself.  Using the Nationbuilder email blast functionality does not require an export of any data from Nationbuilder. Rather it requires access to the data **within** Nationbuilder, so that we can send emails from**within** Nationbuilder.  That is covered under the IT Protocol 3-1.2:

“3-1.2: Email blasts may be authorized and sent on behalf of GPCA committees and working groups, county Green Parties, and the GPCA General Assembly.”

Ajay and Mike were approved by the GPCA IT Committee for these purposes, and also by the GPCA Coordinating Committee for administrative access under IT Protocol 3-3. We are not aware that the Coordinating Committee has taken a vote to rescind such administrative access to Ajay or Mike.  At the Coordinating Committee’s March meeting, there was such an item on the agenda, but it was not acted upon.  On the Coordinating Committee’s April agenda, there was no proposal to rescind their administrative access.

But even if the Coordinating Committee had taken such a vote, that would not preclude Ajay and Mike from having access to send email blasts from within Nationbuilder, without the ability to export data.  As you probably know better than I, it is possible to set all sorts of permission levels within Nationbuilder.  

Those levels are explained here: https://nationbuilder.com/manage_control_panel_users

Here in Los Angeles County, we have the most Green candidates running of any county within the GPCA, and we have not been able to promote them nor their events to our members since losing Nationbuider access. With only a few weeks left in the campaign, restoring this capacity is of the utmosturgency.  And while we understand you have offered to send such blasts on the GPLAC’s behalf, that doesn’t appear to us to be practical nor timely for what we need done, nor would it be necessary as long
as our previous access to such capabilities is returned, which is provided for under the GPCA IT Protocol.

Therefore at a minimum in order to return email blasting capabilities to the GPLAC via its official designees - who have long demonstrated their technical capacity to do so - both Ajay and Mike should be set up by the GPCA IT Committee to have that capability.  We can not understate how the lack of it has been damaging to the GPLAC and Green Party organizing in Los Angeles County.

Finally we want to iterate that the GPLAC”s request has nothing to do with Mike being a candidate. As discussed above, we are not asking the GPCA to export any data to Mike while he is a candidate, which is what is restricted under the GPCA IT Protocol.
Once his ability to send email blasts within Nationbuilder is restored, Mike would not be sending out email blasts from a Nationbuilder account in his name from within the GPCA’s Nationbuilder contact data base. Rather, as is provided for in the GPLAC Rules and Procedures Mike and Ajay would be sending out email blasts on behalf of the GPLAC as directed by the GPLAC County Council, which is what is provided for under GPCA IT Protocol.

We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Without our access to the Nationbuilder email blast capacity, we are losing important opportunities to promote our candidates and their events to our members. Just this past weekend, there was a major fundraiser for local Green Congressional candidate Angelica Duenas, that we are not able to promote to the Greens in the San Fernando Valley, who would have been most likely to attend.  For a grassroots party that is dependent upon small donations, this has a
real world negative affect on our party’s ability to grow and develop.

Sincerely,
Julia Russell
Co-coordinator, GPLAC

May 1, 2018

Dear Mr. Gonzalez,

We are looking forward to receiving a response to our April 24th e-mail to you; regarding the GPLAC's access to the Nationbuilder GP Contact Database explaining that we are not requesting that data be exported to us from Nationbuilder but that Mike and Ajay regain access to data within Nationbuilder, enabling them to send email blasts from within Nationbuilder.

We're now entering the month of May and the elections are on June 5th.&nbsp; Time to promote our candidates is running very short.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br />

We hope you are able to facilitate the requested access in the immediate future so we can get to work!<br />

Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,

Julia Russell
Co-coordinator GP Los Angeles County Council

There was no response to either of these last two letters.

Section 2: Disabling of official GPLAC email access

Without any basis in GPCA rules and procedures, the GPCA IT Committe disabled the GPLAC's official email address gplac-info@cagreens.org, causing the GPLAC to lose four months of incoming emails.  When the GPLAC contacted the GPCA IT Committee to rectify this situation, the GPCA IT Committee co-chair displayed a lack of understanding on how such email addresess work and required extra assistance from GPLAC co-coordinator Ajay Rai to restore the GPLAC's email address.

During this time, it also became apparent that the same GPLAC IT Committee co-coordinator did not understand how to operate the IT Committee's own email list, and had thus not received any incoming IT Help request for five to six months, frustrating basic IT needs by various county Green Parties in California.

By the time the GPLAC's official email address was restored, which took 16 days after the GPLAC's initial request, the GPLAC has missed out upon the ability to send out multiple email blasts in a timely maner during the height of the campaign season in support of its endorsed Green candidates within LA County.