Meeting Minutes
Minutes of the Monthly Meeting on March 28, 2024
We convened as usual at the Glen Ellyn Historical Society. The meeting was called to order by Dennis Terdy (Chair) at 7:30 pm. Other officers in attendance were Steve Siemer (Treasurer), Stacy Slater (Operations), Karen Craven (Outreach), and Frank Merritt (Secretary).
Welcome (Dennis Terdy, Chair)
Dennis opened the meeting at 7:30 with the “Quote of the Month”:
…Stop saying “both sides do it” and lay the blame where it belongs. “Responsible reporting should not cover for Republicans. The MAGA Republican Party has beome shockingly irrational and radicalized, fully embracing totalitarianism, white nationalism, and radical isolationism. America is divided not by some free-floating condition of ‘polarization’ but by one party going off the deep end. And that’s a threat to all of us.”
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post Journalist,
quoted in the Daily Kos (March 11, 2024)
Dennis announced that this meeting would be followed by a celebration in honor of the PCs and canvassers who have done such an outstanding job leading up to the primary on March 19. He asked any of them who had any interesting stories or anecdotes from their canvassing to send them to him.
He then asked for anyone who was here for the first time to introduce themselves. Jay Marcus responded, saying he was a resident of Wheaton for the last 4 years, and was welcomed with a round of applause.
Approval of February Minutes
Jackie Williamson moved and Steve Siemer seconded a motion to approve the February minutes without reading, since they have been posted on the Democrats of Milton website (DemocratsOfMilton.com). The minutes were unanimously approved.
Treasurer’s Report (Steve Siemer, Treasurer)
Steve reported that our finances are in satisfactory shape, and our membership is up to 124, with 3 added since January. Dennis noted that there are 700 people on our mailing list, so we should try to recruit more members from that.
Nominations Committee (Larry Pitts)
Jessica could not be here today, so Larry Pitts represented the Nominations Committee. We formally nominated Karen Craven for the position of Operations Officer last week. Since there were no new nominations today, Larry called for a vote, which was seconded by Dan Bailey and then unanimously approved.
Larry then placed the following names in nomination as Milton Delegates and Alternates to the DPDC Executive Board: Delegates – Stacy Slater, Karen Craven, Frank Merritt, Mike Kaczmarek, and Erica Bray-Parker; Alternates – Dan Bailey, Bonnie Gahris, Maggie Romanovich, and Steve Siemer. These will be voted on in our April meeting.
Milton Township Annual Meeting (Larry Pitts)
Larry then reported that the Milton Township Annual Meeting will be held on April 9 at 7:00 pm in the Wheaton Community Center. This is open to all legal voters who are residents of Milton Township, and we urge all Democrats to attend. There will be three resolutions to be voted on by the public. Our recommendations are as follows:
1. Resolution Authorizing Certain Powers to the Township Board. Vote YES
2. Resolution fixing the hour for the 2025 Annual Town Meeting. Vote YES
3. Resolution for Public Question to be submitted: Shall the Township of Milton expand its transportation services to include all able-bodied people between the ages of 19 and 64? Vote NO
In explanation of this last recommendation, Dennis noted that all transportation questions should be brought to the DuPage County Board Transportation Committee and not Milton Township. There are also questions about both the need and financing of this proposal, and the impact of expansion on the current users with disabilities.
Finally, the Township government is looking to procure an additional building to house the Assessor’s office, without competeing a building needs assessment or financial impact report. We are asking all Milton Democrats to attend this Annual Meeting because we are concerned an additional resolution may be introduced and voted on by those in attendance, giving the township the authority to proceed without a ballot initiative that would allow all Milton voters to participate in the decision.
Larry also reviewed expenditures of the General Assistance Fund of Milton Township, noting that the amounts actually given to Services/Grants is far less than the amount that has been allocated for this, and the Administrative costs are quite large.
Transportation Initiative: (Tom Konkol, from the Democratic Socialists of America)
Tom spoke in favor of the plan to expand the Milton Transportation Services to include able-bodied citizens in the age group 19 to 64. A number of questions were asked, challenging the need, the financing, and the effect on the current disabled users.
Chair’s Report: (Dennis Terdy)
Dennis announced that Milton voter turnout for the primary was 25%, the largest of all the townships in DuPage County. We also kept Republicans off of our literature, based on the Democratic Party of DuPage’s survey that was sent to all candidates in December. And thanks to Stacy’s hard work, 72 of our 81 precincts were covered!
Operations Report: (Stacy Slater)
Thanks to everyone who helped with the primary. We printed 12,000 flyers (20% more than usual), and had only 46 left over. We are using our funds efficiently!
Summer Activities:
Adopt-a-Highway ( Saturday, April 20)
Cream of Wheaton (May 30 – June 2)
Fourth of July Parades (in Wheaton and Glen Ellyn)
Sign-up sheets and more information are in handoutsw at the back.
Planning for the November election: A committee for the summer flyer starts work in April. We will be recruiting additional PCs and canvassers over the summer, hoping to cover all precincts. We are buying bags for candidate literature in the autumn.
Small act of activism: Make a “bug bath” for summer pollinators, who are under stress and need water. They are easy to make, and give you a more attractive garden.
Outreach Report: (Karen Craven)
I am really pleased to be taking on this responsibility. I’ve been involved in outreach for the past 6 years, and I don’t think most of you realize the amount of work that goes into this. There have been a lot of improvements over the last few years, and that is due to Jackie Williamson, Maggie Romanovich, Shawna, and many others. I’ve lived in Glen Ellyn for about 11 years. I have a full-time job with the state treasurer. I love public service because what we do is so important.
We have a very active Facebook page. If you use it, you’re asked to follow very simpe rules of civility. We’re here to elect Democrats, not to bash other people. I’m also responsible for the Newsletter. If you have materials for that, send them to Democrats of Milton two weeks ahead of our meeting. For fundraising, I practice Improv at Westside Improv in Wheaton and we’re hoping to do a fund-raiser there. The calendar sales were a great success last year, and we will try to repeat that this year. Take pictures and send those to me. I will also be active in the membership drive this summer. We now have 124 members; if we double that, we can cover all of Stacy’s expenses for the fall!
Introduction of tonight’s speaker: (Dennis Terdy)
I’ve known Laura Ellman, Senator of the Illinois 21st District, for about 5 years. Her undergraduate major was Math, and she has a Master’s degree in Applied Statistics. She has worked in industry, manufacturing and engineering for 25 years, “using data to solve problems”. In the Illinois Senate, she serves on the following committees: Agriculture, Financial Institutions, Transportation, Veterans’ Affairs, Appropriations, and she is Chairwoman of Environmental Appropriations, Hydrogen Task Force, Next Generation of Energy, and the Subcommittee on Next Generation Nuclear. Her talk will address a few of the technologies to reduce carbon emissions in hard-to-decarbonize sectors.
Next Generation Emerging Technologies (Laura Ellman)
I’m excited about of number of issues this year. We’re calling 2024 “The Year of Water”, and one of the projets I’m working on is restoration of Illinois wetlands. We are also trying to regulate crypto-currency, to protect Illinois consumers. And we’re also working to supply free lunch and breakfast for all Illinois children. This is really important, children learn better when they have adequate nutrition.
Another thing I’m excited about is energy. I’m chairman of the Environment and Conservation Committee and of the Hydrogen Task Force, and today I want to talk about emerging technologies. We’re trying to electrify more and more things. Data centers use enormous amounts of electricity. The demand for electricity in Illinois is going to grow. Twenty years ago, coal and nuclear were about equal contributors to electric power. Now coal is on the decline, and is similar to renewables. We have the largest nuclear fleet in the U.S.; one eighth of all U.S. nuclear power comes from Illinois. With CEJA, we’ve set goals for renewables for the next 25 years, but we need to grow a lot to reach them. The generation of electricy generation Nuclear power accounts for 18.6% of electricity generation across the US; in Illinois it is 55%. Natural gas accounts for 43% across the U.S., and in Illinois it is only 15.9%. For coal, we’re pretty typical. Our renewable energy is 13.7%; solar is about 1.9% and wind is 11.8%. We need to boost solar and wind. Nearly a third of our power still comes from fossil fuels, coal and gas; we have 8 operating coal plants. In 2021, we emitted 184.2M metric tons of CO2 in Illinois, 3.8% of the total U.S. emissions. Since 2000, 21 coal plants in the U.S. have closed because they weren’t profitable..
In Illinois, we have municipal coal plants, like in Springfield, and then there’s municipal-plus (MP). I live in Naperville, which uses IMEA (Illinois Municipal Energy Association). This is its own utility, and is part owner of the Prairie State Mine, which is one of the top 12 polluting utilities in the U.S. So Naperville and many other municipalities are part owners of Prairie State. Their contract is up in 2035, so many people in Naperville are actively resisting the plan to extend this contract.
Then there’s nuclear power, with no greenhouse gas emissions but with nuclear waste. It provides steady reliable nuclear power, but is not scalable. Illinois gets more than 50% of its electricity from nuclear power.
But let’s talk about the future. The demand for electric power will increase, and renewables are not growing as fast as we need. In the legislature, we need to increase this production. But there are two new technologies that might be part of the picture.
Grid battery storage is needed, but it’s expensive. Average cost of electricty across the country is 12.7 cents/kW-hour. For Illinois it’s 11.9 c/kWh. I’ve worked at Argonne National Lab for many years, not as a scientist but close to scientists. There’s a lot of research there on energy technology, batteries, hydrogen, and nuclear technology.
Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) could be an important component, but to have them as part of our landscape is still a long way off. SMRs are scalable, so you could have many of these. A lot of the demand for these is in the industrial sector, for both power and heat. Last year I was a cosponsor of the repeal of the moratorium on nuclear plants in Illinois. This is a signal to investors that Illinois is a good place to invest in. A lot of the new technology is passive, meaning that if something goes wrong the reaction cannot continue, so there’s no way for it to go critical.
I’m also chair of the Hydrogen Economy Task Force. The bipartisan Infrastructue Bill put $8B into regional hubs to boost both the production and the use of hydrogen as a fuel. Hydrogen can be important for long-distance trucking, ships, and heavy energy because of the high energy density of hydrogen. You can extract hydrogen from water using electrolizers; also from natural gas and hydrocarbons, but this produces carbon. In Illinois, we will use electrolysis on water.
There’re no bills expected for 2024, but looking ahead to the future, Illinois could be a leader in clean energy production.
Laura then addressed a number of questions from the audience.
New Business
John Anderson, who won the primary for the Appellate Court, thanked his supporters and had only complimentary remarks about his opponent and friend, Joe Hettel. His opponent in November is a former law clerk of Clarence Thomas, is a far-right and well-funded individual who would be dangerous on the bench. He asked for our strong support in that election.
Judith Lukas, who won the primary for DuPage Coroner, also also thanked supporters and asked for our support for the November election.
Adjournment
Chuck Ditchman moved and Dan Bailey seconded the motion to adjourn, which was unanimously approved. The meeting adjourned at 9:07 pm.
Next meeting
The next meeting of the Democrats of Milton will be April 25 at 7:30 pm at the Glen Ellyn Historical Society. Our speaker will be Bill White, DuPage County Auditor.
Join the Democratic Party of Milton Township. Annual dues $25 ($20 for members of the DuPage Democratic Party). Join at www.democratsofmilton.com/membership.
Submitted by Frank Merritt, Secretary