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Volume XIV, Number 11

December 1999

www.vtpride.org

Pride VT to
Hold Officer
Elections

BURLINGTON — The group
planning our community’s annual
celebration will be selecting lead-
ers and setting operating rules
early this month.

Pride Vermont 2000 will elect
co-Chairpersons, a treasurer, a
secretary, and board members in
a meeting on December 4. The
group will also vote on by-laws
for the organization. Any mem-
ber of the community who
attends the meeting is eligible to
make nominations and vote.

The two _co-chairs will be of
different genders and will be
responsible for running meetings,
representing the full committee at

. official functions, and delegating

responsibility to board members
and volunteers.

“A qualified candidate has a
passion for making pride a quali-
ty event for the entire communi-
ty, strong leadership skills, and a
diplomatic, yet assertive,
demeanor,” read the committee
statement. The co-chairs will
work together and have equal
responsibility.

The treasurer will manage the
books for the organization,
advise the board about budgets,
and work directly with the bank.
The job description for this posi-
tion : “A qualified candidate
should have some accounting or
bookkeeping skills, possess the
ability to explain budgets and fig-
ures, and be highly organized.”

The secretary will take meet-
ing minutes, be responsible for
keeping ofiicial documents, and
generally keep the committee’s

business organized. According to I

the committee, “A qualified can-
didate pays attention to details,
works well with groups, and is
very organized.”

The December 2 meeting will
begin with a vote on a set of
bylaws. These will outline board
member qualifications and
responsibilities.

People who have attended two
consecutive pride committee
meetings this year will be eligible
to become voting board members
at the December 4th meetings.
Anyone else interested in becom-

ing a voting board member after I

this meeting must go through the
nomination process outlined in
the bylaws.

For more on the Pride com-

mittee, see page 24.

Upset Victory in Plattsburgh Mayoral Race

PLATTSBURGH, NY — Dan Stewart
made New York state history on Election
Day when he staged an upset victory to
become the only openly gay mayor of a
city in all of New York state.

Stewart, a Republican, shocked the
political establishment in the city just
across Lake Champlain from Burlington,
Vt, when he ousted five-term incumbent
Mayor Clyde Rabideau, a Democrat who
lost his party’s nomination for lieutenant
governor last year.

“I think I live in a city that knows how
to treat people decently,” said Stewart.
“It’s a huge win. It’s something they said
we couldn’t do.”

Indeed, his win was not expected. A poll
in September said Stewart trailed
Rabideau by more than 30 percentage
points.

“We won because we dealt with issues,”
Stewart said.

A campaign stop by New York
Governor George Pataki, also a
Republican, didn’t hurt, either.

Pataki said Stewart’s victory proved that
the Republican Party is inclusive.

“It think it shows what I have been say-.

ing all along, that the Republican

Party is an open and tolerant party,”
Pataki said at a news conference with
Stewart the day after he won. “The fact

that Dan is openly gay, I think, is not ‘

going to affect in any way his ability to
govern the city one way or the other.”

“He has a great vision for Plattsburgh,”

Pataki said.
Stewart said his first order of business
after he takes over City Hall would be

putting _together a youth commission to  I
determine the city’s long-range recreation— ‘ ”

al needs. He also wants to hire another
person in the Community Development
Office.

Prior to his election, Stewart was a used
car salesman in Plattsburgh. He has been
involved in city politics for six years, serv-
ing on the city council.

Stewart was in the Air Force when he
moved to Plattsburgh in 1984, and

  

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remained in the city when he left the mili-
tary in 1988.

In some ways, Stewart seemed to be
more excited about the fact that he’d beat-
en Rabideau than that he’d become the
first openly gay mayor in New York.

“We had to beat a five-term incumbent.
I don’t know of any other challenge that
could be more difficult,” Stewart said.

   

NGLTF Creates Change in California

all Creating Change coverage by Donald R. Eggert

I GLBT activists discuss preparing the
movement for the next century

OAKLAND — The National
Gay & Lesbian Task Force
held its largest ever Creating
Change conference in
Oakland, California last
month, drawing over 2,000
GLBT activists from across the
nation to explore visions for
the movement, debate strate-
gies for change and to cele-
brate their accomplishments.

The five-day conference
included more than 120 work-
shops, plenaries, and other
events on nearly every topic of
interest to GLBT activists and
those who support GLBT
equality.

“Creating Change is about
building an accessible, pro-
gressive, equality-based move-
ment for the new millennium, “
said Kerry Lobel, NGLTF
executive director, during the
opening plenary session.

Accessibility, gender identi-
ty, and religion as a vehicle for
social change were among the
topics discussed at plenaries
throughout the conference.

The Body Politic Workout, a

series of eight all-day train-
ings, was a new offering at
Creating Change. The program
was designed to train activists
in-depth on subjects such as
sustainable leadership, efiec-
tive organizational planning
techniques, media essentials,
and advanced fundraising for
small organizations.

Afier three long days of net-
working, skills building, and
consciousness raising, confer-
ence-goers kicked back on
Saturday evening to enjoy a
concert. Performers included
San Francisco drag a cappella
group The Kinsey Six, a safer
sex educators/ comedic duo
Safer Sex Sluts, lesbian
comic/performer/singer Lea
Delaria, and emcee Karen
Williams.

For more on the Creating
Change Conference, see page
2. A

ICreatin
Work on aklan Attack
OAKLAND —— Almost

2,000 GLBT demonstrators
marched through downtown
Oakland streets to police
headquarters on November
12 to demand justice and
protest prejudicial handling
of an assault on a transgender
youth of color.

March organizers demand-
ed that the Oakland city
police chief order a full hate
crime investigation, properly
reprimand the officer in
charge of the investigation,
arrange transgender sensitiv-
ity training for his entire
department and establish a
permanent position for moni-
toring hate crimes.

The march was sparked by
an action alert circulated dur-
ing late-afiemoon sessions of
the National Gay & Lesbian
Task Force’s Creating
Change conference. The bul-
letin described police mis-
handling of that moming’s
incident, which saw the
youth severely cut with a
broken beer bottle during an
argument.

When the assault was
reported to Oakland authori-
ties, the dispatcher remarked,

Change Participants Protest Police

“We spend enough time and
money on you fags already.”
At the crime scene, officers
refused to take statements
from witnesses at the crime,
claiming that “it would be
too much paperwork [to do
an investigation .”

Although the assault vic-
tim was not attending the
conference, the Oakland host
committee felt that the poor
handling of the attack war-
ranted a response from the
gathered activists.

At 6pm, marchers assem-
bled in the lobby of the
Marriot City Center Hotel to

march in solidarity with _

Oakland natives. Because
there was no time to obtain
official march permits, the
crowd was instructed to fol-
low normal pedestrian rules,
making sure to stay on side-
walk andnot restrict the flow
of traflic. Several protestors
carried makeshift signs that
read “Transgender Rights are
Human Rights” and “Protect
and Serve?”

At Oakland Police
Headquarters, several trans-
gender speakers from

ASSAULT > P2