[Lnc-business] The Libertarian Party only has 2 full-time staffers?!

Thu Jul 13 04:22:29 EDT 2017

	Thanks Nick. So I guess the question remains, who is answering the phones and handling routine office tasks? Austin Petersen says that during his time in the office, he developed a strong intern program. If so, I'm wondering what happened to that program. Do we have any written records of it, and if so, can those records be sent to the LNC? 

	My understanding – correct me if I'm wrong – is that we don't currently have any interns, but if we have names and contact info of past interns, I'd volunteer to call them and ask about their experience working as interns for the LP. That could help us rebuild a program and start getting more bodies in the office getting stuff done, including routine tasks.

	Do you agree with Alicia and I that the LNC should be provided with data on our meeting costs as I've been requesting? Going forward, I would like to see those costs disclosed upfront, before a meeting site is selected, and I would also like to see the our past costs for each meeting this term, within some reasonable frame of time. Do you have any objection to this, and if not, what time frames seem reasonable to you? 

Love & Liberty,

                                   ((( starchild )))
At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
                         RealReform at earthlink.net
                                 (415) 625-FREE
                                   @StarchildSF

On Jul 12, 2017, at 9:08 PM, Nicholas Sarwark wrote:

> Starchild,
> 
> At present, the LNC has Wes Benedict, Eric Dixon, and Robert Kraus
> full-time and based out of the Alexandria office. My understanding is
> that Nick Dunbar and Mat Thexton are also based out of that office,
> though not full-time.  We also have a number of contractors working
> remotely, including Andy Burns, Lauren Daugherty, Jess Mears, Denise
> Luckey, Bob Johnston, and Elizabeth Brierly.
> 
> Wes and I are in the midst of interviewing candidates for Press
> Secretary, which is anticipated to be full-time, and will be moving on
> to interviewing candidates for a Candidate Support Specialist shortly.
> 
> Yours in liberty,
> Nick
> 
> On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 8:05 PM, Starchild <sfdreamer at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Thank you, Alicia. Coupled with the Convention Oversight Committee
>> experience you mention, this does raise questions. But beyond the issue of
>> getting the requested information, I was honestly shocked to hear that only
>> Wes and Robert are usually in the office full time. If their time is
>> valuable enough to justify what we're paying them, surely we should not be
>> having them routinely spend that time on tasks that lower-paid staffers, or
>> volunteers, could be handling.
>> 
>> I would like to hear what Nick Sarwark as chair thinks about both the data
>> request compliance and how staff hours are apparently being allocated.
>> 
>> Love & Liberty,
>> 
>>                                    ((( starchild )))
>> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
>>                          RealReform at earthlink.net
>>                                 (415) 625-FREE
>>                                    @StarchildSF
>> 
>> 
>> On Jun 7, 2017, at 3:02 PM, Alicia Mattson wrote:
>> 
>> Starchild,
>> 
>> I have a lot of disagreements with your other ideas about how we should find
>> meeting locations and what arrangements are workable.
>> 
>> However, I do agree with you that it should not take so long to provide the
>> LNC with basic data about the routine costs of our meetings, and provide
>> copies of the meeting space contracts showing which of those expenses are
>> required performance.  You've been asking for some time, and it's not that
>> large of a data request.
>> 
>> Recently, the Convention Oversight Committee was not in agreement about
>> whether to again use an outside professional to assist with the 2020 site
>> search, or whether to do it in-house with Robert Kraus as the point person.
>> When the issue of asking a staff member to take on such a time-consuming job
>> was discussed, the COC was told that when Wes tells the LNC that staff is
>> overloaded, that characterization does not necessarily include Robert Kraus,
>> and he was willing and able to add such a large project to his plate.  If
>> that's the case, then I don't see why there isn't time to fulfill this data
>> request of yours in a more timely manner.
>> 
>> -Alicia
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, Jun 6, 2017 at 4:34 PM, Starchild <sfdreamer at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Maybe I just haven't been paying attention. That's what LP operations
>>> manager Robert Kraus suggested when I spoke with him today and expressed
>>> surprise at his statement that he and Wes Benedict are the only paid staff
>>> working full time at our office. He said that if I'd read the report Wes
>>> presented at the last LNC meeting, I would have been aware of the situation.
>>> 
>>> Robert told me this by way of explaining why he has not yet sent the LNC
>>> the details of how much we are paying for hotel meeting space, food and
>>> beverage obligations, staff airline flights, shipping costs, etc., in
>>> connection with LNC meetings. At the last LNC meeting in Pittsburgh in
>>> April, he told me in response to my asking him for this information that he
>>> would send it within a week or so. When I spoke with him today, he said that
>>> if I wanted him to stop what he was doing and send the information now, he
>>> would have to stop working on updating donor information to help us raise
>>> money, because he was the only person in the office right now. When I asked
>>> whether he could get us the meeting information prior to the next LNC
>>> meeting on August 19 (over 2 months from now, and 4 months from when he
>>> originally said he'd provide it), his response was "possibly".
>>> 
>>> We have 11 people listed on our staff page (https://www.lp.org/staff/),
>>> not even counting individuals like our legal counsel and our FEC consultant
>>> who are kind of "on call", and although political director Carla Howell's
>>> contract wasn't renewed, the chair recently proposed adding an additional
>>> lower-level staffer. With that many folks on the roster, I don't understand
>>> why the two highest-paid individuals on staff are the only ones who are
>>> being paid full-time salaries and asked to staff the office largely by
>>> themselves. If this is true, it means that our highest-paid staffers are
>>> likely spending a significant part of their time doing routine office tasks
>>> like answering phone calls which could be handled by lower-paid staffers or
>>> even by volunteers.
>>> 
>>> Robert did say he agreed with me that staff should not be asked to monitor
>>> or be involved in the party's social media outreach, which would potentially
>>> take a lot of their time away from other tasks. I also suggested that
>>> volunteers, instead of staff, could be the ones to research LNC meeting
>>> locations and present options to the LNC. Local activists in the cities
>>> where we're considering holding meetings would be the logical people to do
>>> this. If we don't have any local activists in a particular area able to help
>>> us find free or low-cost meeting venues there and help with details such as
>>> coordinating local transportation and folks able to host out-of-town
>>> visitors, it would beg the question of why we are meeting in that location
>>> instead of somewhere there is an active local Libertarian organization that
>>> can support us and which we in turn can support by seeking to arrange to
>>> have visiting LNC members make press appearances, attend local campaign
>>> events, do fundraising, etc., while in town.
>>> 
>>> But if what Robert says is correct, it seems to me that we are not running
>>> our office efficiently. It also seems to me that LNC members being made to
>>> wait months and months after an LNC meeting to see what the actual expenses
>>> were for that meeting is unreasonable. Actually, we should be seeing such
>>> expenses listed before each meeting, since expenses like hotel meeting space
>>> fees, food and beverage obligations, staff airline flights, and shipping
>>> costs are in most cases known in advance. And we should be seeing estimates
>>> of these costs prior to even making a decision on where to meet, since such
>>> costs ought to factor into our decisions.
>>> 
>>> Love & Liberty,
>>> 
>>>                                     ((( starchild )))
>>> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
>>>                          RealReform at earthlink.net
>>>                                  (415) 625-FREE
>>> 
>>> 
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>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
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>>> 
>> 
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