Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
Board Meeting, June 10, 2013
Present: Don Stern, Mark Meade, Ray Schweri, Maria Hines, Ben Griffith, Alvin Seals,
Pat Delahanty, Kate Miller, Shekinah Lavalle, Kaye Gallagher, Stephanie Wurdock,
Richard Mitchell, Zach Everson
We introduced ourselves around the table and welcomed Stephanie Wurdock as anew
Board member and Shekinah Lavalle as our new staff Outreach Coordinator.
Shekinah also took a few minutes to talk about her work ahead and asked every Board
member to commit to a fundraising event this year. Challenge!
1. Minutes from our last meeting were reviewed for any corrections. A motion was
made and seconded to approve the minutes. Motion passed.
2. Treasurer’s Report. Kaye handed out copies of the report. She has recently
switched over to Quicken and apologized for any confusion in the report. She is still
learning the system and how to generate reports. She verbally took the Board
through a number of line items to better explain. Our beginning balance March 1,
2013 was $65,946.10 and our ending balance on May 31* was $69,539.36. There
was a motion and second; the report was approved.
3. State Fair Update. Kate explained that this year we were doing things a little
different than the previous years in running our information booth at the State Fair.
We are approaching some of our coalition partners to see if these organizations
might provide the volunteers for one day to run the booth. The organization that
would run the booth for the day would have signage highlighting their effort. Kate
and Shekinah have developed a training session and will try to offer it to every
organization’s team leader on basic do’s and don'ts to running the booth. So far
there has been a great response:
Tentative Schedule for State Fair
Aug. 15 Kentucky Council of Churches
Aug. 16 Catholic Conference of Kentucky
Aug. 17 U of L Peace, Justice & Conflict Transformation program
Aug. 18
Aug. 19
Aug. 20 ACLU of Kentucky
Aug. 21 EKU Innocence Project
Aug. 22
Aug 23 Catholic Diocese of Lexington
Aug. 24 Murder Victim Family Members
Aug. 25 KCADP
Alvin asked for the information packet so he can approach NAACP. Pat agreed to
email the packet to Alvin.
4. Summer Innocence Tour. Kate noted that ACLU was bringing Randy Steidl to
Kentucky in August. The dates haven't been firmly fixed yet, but the time will
probably be Aug. 5 through Aug. 15. Randy will visit small and more intimate
settings and the areas targeted right now are Hopkinsville, Somerset, and Eastern
Kentucky. (If you have contacts in any of these areas, please contact Kate.) The idea
behind the summer tour is to make strong personal contacts in key legislative
districts. Some discussion ensued about the best way to use Randy, and Kate noted
that during the last part of his visit he would be stationed in Louisville and available
to fan out to areas like Lexington and Northern Kentucky for evening fund-raising
events.
5. Fall Innocence Tour. A different person from the Innocence Project will be
brought in for the fall tour. It will be conducted like the last couple of recent tours
where college campuses are visited and greater numbers of people are exposed to
the fact that many have been convicted and spent time on death row only to be later
exonerated of the crime.
6. Grant Application. Pat reported that we have submitted an initial application
letter to apply for a grant award of $80,000 for next year. One of the items inserted
into the proposal is a media campaign budget of $50,000. A professional campaign
developed with message and targeted audience would then help get out our
message. There are also monies for more Innocence tours, more information tabling
at large festival venues, and other items listed in our strategic plan. Pat noted thata
series of 3 booklets are getting close to completion. One booklet highlights Murder
Victim Family members living in Kentucky, the second booklet highlights people in
Kentucky who have been wrongly convicted of crimes, and the final booklet will
highlight people from the law enforcement community who are disenchanted or
against Kentucky’s death penalty. A final piece of this grant work garnered from
our strategic plan would be to target a conservative audience. We must find ways
to engage conservative communities in a conversation about the death penalty.
There is movement toward our side.
Pat noted we have a working group that meets every two weeks that includes
Kaye, Kate, Pat, Ben, Zach, and Shekinah. Board members who are interested in
taking part in this working group are welcome to become involved. Pat has a
meeting with the new Senate Judiciary Chair in a couple weeks. We hope some
movement will come of this meeting.
There was a rather lengthy and wide ranging discussion at this point in the
board meeting. A number of different approaches and topics were discussed.
7. Our Next Meeting Date is September 9, 2013. 6:30 pm at the Catholic
Conference Center in Frankfort.
Respectfully submitted,
Ben Griffith, Secretary
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