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PRESIDENTCLIFFORD J. TASNER: ADA SoCal president Clifford J. Tasner began his life of activism as an intern on the Mondale/Ferraro campaign while he was at Tufts in Massachusetts. When he moved out to Los Angeles in 1987, he got involved with the Pro-Choice Movement, defending women’s clinics against attacks by operation rescue. He writes and produces the songs for the political satire group, The Billionaires and works as a composer and orchestrator in the Film Music Industry. He is serving as a delegate to the California Democratic Convention. He has been a member of the ADA SoCal board of directors since 1999. He served as Chair of the Endorsement Committee since then and Secretary of the organization from 2001 to 2014. |
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VICE PRESIDENT JAN GOODMAN: Attorney Jan Goodman has been President of the Southern California Chapter of Americans for Democratic Action, The Paul Robeson Community Center in South Los Angeles, Sunset Hall Retirement Home, The National Lawyers Guild, The Committee to Strengthen KPFK and The Sholem Community, She is a member of the KPFK Local Station Board and was a member of the Pacifica National Board for 5 years. She has also been a member of Americans for Peace Now, and numerous other peace and community groups. She is Vice-Chair of the New Day Pacifica Campaign and, if the New Day Pacifica Bylaws and election of officers passes, she will be elected Vice Chair of Pacifica. |
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SECRETARY CHRISTINA AVALAOS: SoCal ADA Secretary Christina Avalos brings years of experience in community outreach for grassroots organizations, campaigns and issues including the successful campaign toAmend the Three Strikes law. She has worked with David Sanchez’ Brown Berets, Chicano Unidos of Orange County, and Los Amigos of Orange County, and isactively involved with Latina group women artists and writers such as Naomi Quinonez, Latina women Circular.
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TREASURER
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ANDY THORNBURN: Andy Thorburn is a businessman, a nonprofit founder, a former classroom teacher and an advocate for working people. He has worked as an educator, union organizer, and entrepreneur, and at each phase in his life, he has prioritized the principle that any organization - a country or a company - gets the best results if it treats its people fairly, with dignity, and holds itself to a standard of excellence.
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Dr.Alice Stek MD: SoCal ADA board member Dr. Alice Stek, MD is a Maternal-Fetal Medicine Specialist in Los Angeles, CA and has over 36 years of experience in the medical field.
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ANKUR PATEL: Ankur Patel was born in Los Angeles in 1985 and is a graduate of LAUSD (2003), UCLA (B.S. 2007), and CSUN (M.S. 2014).
He has taught English in South Korea and China (2008 to 2010), and has been working as a UTLA substitute teacher in The Valley since 2018.
Ankur has run for office, including finishing third in the race for Board District 3 in 2015, after which Board Member Scott Schemerlson hired Ankur as a School and Community Coordinator. Ankur also joined the Board of SoCal ADA in 2015. He later served as Scott Schmerelson’s Campaign Manager for the November 2020 election.
Ankur is currently working for the Hindu University of America as the Director of Advancement (since 2019) and Move Left Consulting which has Dr. Daniel Lee for Congress in CA-37, Ruth Luevenos for Congress CA-25, and Getro Elize for Assembly District 36 as clients.
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BETTY DOUMAS TOTO: Betty Doumas-Toto, Community Organizer, Healthcare Justice Advocate and Activist, is an Americans for Democratic Action - SoCal - Board Member, she also is vp of Feel the Bern-SFV Democratic Club, LACDP Elected County Committee Member, Americans for Democratic Action - SoCal - Board Member, Feel the Bern-SFV Democratic Club, VP Betty Doumas-Toto is a co-chair of the Health Care Justice Committee of Americans for Democratic Action - SoCal She is a proponent of establishing a Single Payer Healthcare System in California and describes herself as “Single-Minded for Single Payer”, however she finds her advocacy for health care justice naturally intersects with so many other different social justice issues. She organizes for the unhoused, income inequity and tenant’s rights through her work with Project Mask Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Poor People’s Campaign and ACCE. She believes that implementing a Single Payer Healthcare System will cure many of the inequities we have in our society. Recently Betty has been appointed to the Special Task-Force on Statewide Health Care Advocacy newly established by the Los Angeles Democratic County Committee chair. Betty is an elected County Democratic County Committee Member. When Single Payer is passed and implemented in CA she will continue her advocacy for healthcare justice until there is equity in every aspect of health care. She currently is campaigning for AB1400 the California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act. |
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GREGORY WRIGHT: is an American and a Democrat who works for Action -- ADAmantly -- on this country's and the world's unprecedented challenges. He worked as a Congressional intern in Washington during the summer of 1969, researching environmental and foreign policy for a Congressman, and organized a statewide student environmental conference at Stanford University in November 1969 that resulted in the first state network of campus environmental organizations and helped lay the groundwork for the following year's first Earth Day. In March 1991 he literally handed Jerry Brown (in the living room of New Age cultural guru and author Marilyn Ferguson) a package of interactive computer disks containing the just-produced enormous Macrocosm USA database of U.S. environmental and progressive organizations that played a significant role in Brown's unexpected primary victories the following year and, it is widely thought, leveraged ultimate Democratic Presidential candidate Bill Clinton's choice of Al Gore as his 1992 running mate.
In this century Wright worked with California Assemblymember Paul Koretz and Secretary of State Kevin Shelley in 2002-03 to create a new simple check-off box on the California Voter Registration form enabling any Californian to become a Permanent Mail Voter, increasing the momentum for ever-expanded voting access that bore especially sweet fruit in the 2018 Midterm Election when late-counted California mail ballots delivered the U.S. House of Representatives to the Democrats.
Wright's interest in structural political reform includes a longtime and continuing advocacy for repealing the 1845 Congressional law that set the workday Tuesday for our federal election days (since missing by a minute his chance to vote at his precinct in the 2000 California primary election after rushing home from work) and instead creating a new Saturday-and-Sunday American Election Weekend. With fellow SoCal ADA board member Tad Daley, on America's 240th birthday on July 4, 2016 he argued for a grand reconceptualization of the foundations of our American republic in a new Constitutional Convention in the year of America's Quarter Millennium in 2026: www.commondreams.org/views/2016/07/09/reimagine-and-rebuild-our-broken-democracy-time-nations-250th-anniversary. Wright also writes progressive political cartoons in collaboration with editorial cartoonist Steve Greenberg. A sampling: 'Your Country on Democrats . . . Your Country on Republicans' (www.greenberg-art.com/.Illustrations/.Humorous/YourCountry.html) and 'Left Behind: What if the Rapture Actually Happened?' (www.greenberg-art.com/.Toons/.Toons%20recent/Rapture.html). And Wright makes memes. This is his favorite: GOP = CO2. Spread the word. |
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JEFF BORNSTEIN: My political awareness was ignited by the UTLA Teachers strike of 1970.
When I was 9. In high school I was co-founder of Canoga Park HS Junior Statesmen
of America. In college at CSUN I was appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to
the San Fernando Valley Mayor's Advisory Commission on Transportation.
At CSUN my last act was electioneering for 22 hours over 2 days to help the first
openly gay student President, Zeke Zeidler, get elected.
In 2005 Ran against Dennis Zine as a way to show the City there was dissent
and with the help of SCADA endorsement received 31% of the vote. In 2009
spent $11,000.00 and received 29% of the vote.
In 2013 Ran for City Controller and even though I was on the ballot endorsed
Ron Galperin and was happy to nominate him for the SCADA endorsement for Controller,
which he received unanimously. Also that election worked with another Controller candidate
Cary Brazeman to do a little Muckraking and get the LA Weekly to expose Dennis Zine's previous
massive sidewalk repair, in front of Zine's house, during the campaign.
In 2018 Ran for State Assembly. My name qualified for the ballot on February 9. Dennis Zine dropped out of the race "Abruptly" February 10 as he Daily News described.
Lately been work with Planning and land use in the West San Fernando Valley.
And always looking for optimal-use non-profits who use all their money for public benefit.
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JOAN PIRKLE SMITH: Health care activist, Kentucky Woman, Foster mother, actor of film and stage, and President of the Board of Health Access. She is known for her role in such movies as "RoboCop", "Body Shot", and "Two Idiots in Hollywood". She is married to actor "Kurtwood Smith".
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JOHN SEELEY: Becoming a civil rights activist semi-accidentally (tired CORE protesters asked him to hold a picket sign just before angry police arrived), John hung in to work against LAPD abuses, joined SDS and many anti-Vietnam War actions. A co-founder of an alternative weekly in Santa Barbara (staff-owned & collectively managed), he came to LA to join LA Weekly, writing on politics and labor issues. Recently he co-edited Occupy LA’s short-lived paper and works with Occupy Fights Foreclosures. Active in campaigns from Jackie Goldberg’s to Bill Rosendahl’s and Marcy Winograd’s, he is a longtime member of SCADA”s endorsement committee.
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DR. KHIN KHIN GYI:
Dr. Khin Khin Gyi, MD Chairs the SoCal ADA Environment committee.
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MYLA RESON: Myla Reson serves on SoCal ADA’s Endorsement Committee and Environment Committee. She is a longtime activist and community organizer fighting for peace, health care, food safety, environmental, racial, and social justice.
During the effort to organize farm workers, Myla volunteered in Delano, California with the United Farm Workers. Her earliest campaign experience includes working against the repeal of the 1963 California Fair Housing Act, as well as all three of Marcy Winograd’s congressional campaigns. In New Mexico, Myla led an effort to stop a dump for plutonium contaminated nuclear weapons waste, and continued her anti nuclear organizing in California working with a broad coalition of activists and organizations to prevent So-Cal Edison from re-starting it’s San Onofre nuclear plant – she is currently campaigning to shut PG&E’s embrittled Diablo Canyon atomic reactors as well as calling for the City of Los Angeles to divest from the Arizona Palo Verde nuclear plant. For several years she served as an elected Listener Representative on Pacifica Radio’s KPFK Local Station Board. |
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NINA MERSON: Nina Merson is a longtime leader in the anti-nuclear and environmental movements. She has worked closely with Dr.Helen Caldicott, renowned world leader in the anit-nuclear movement. |
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PAUL NEWMAN: Paul Newman, not the actor, is a singer/songwriter music producer. He was nominated for an Indy Award for the Theme song of Vintage America, with Ginger, which can be viewed on Amazon Prime. He comes from a show biz family with progressive beliefs. His father, a World War II vet from the European Theater, and was the owner of American Fiber Industries a Union shop, was a big donor to the Democratic Party. His mother was a supporter of "US" an activist civil rights group in the 1960s. Their progressive influence and analytical thinking laid big impression on him.
Paul has contributed his technical skills as a website developer to ADA SoCal. He works with Healthcare for US, as a website developer. He supports and is active with the Single Payer Healthcare Movement. He also works with the ADA SoCal sending email Blasts. He is currently supporting member of Progressive Democrats of America, KPFK radio.
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RICK TUTTLE: is currently active in a number of city election campaigns, and works on behalf of the United Farmworkers. He was also active in the car wash unionization campaign. He was Los Angeles City Controller for four terms and also served as a member of the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees where he established the LA Labor Studies Center. While Controller he led the fight to abolish discrimination in the large, so-called private club of LA, and worked to strengthen LA's anti apartheid contract ordinance. He was president of the California Federation of Young Democrats. In the summer of 1963 was a civil rights worker in Mississippi and Georgia.
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ROBERT C.FARELL: Robert C. Farrell Is a member of the SoCal ADA Environment Committee and has long been actively involved in the struggle for equal justice and civil rights. In August 1961 Farrell was one of four hundred Freedom Riders who travelled to segregated Southern U.S. states to protest racial discrimination. He was a consistent critic of South Africa's Aparteid regime and championed freedom for Nelson Madela. He served on the Los Angeles City Council from 1974 to 1991.
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SAM PARNES: Continuous political activism began in March 2017 when Trump threatened to end the Affordable Care Act. I attended that and other protest marches in Downtown Los Angeles in 2017 and 2018. In 2018, I canvassed with SeaChange in Orange County, Chino Hills, and Antelope Valley. In 2019, I attended many Refuse Fascism marches, including a series of them in the MacArthur Park area, and banner drops over the Harbor Freeway, Downtown Los Angeles. I volunteered with numerous phone and text banks starting in 2019, and much more intensely since the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic. I joined the Americans for Democratic Action in Fall 2017, and both the Sierra Club Angeles chapter Political Committee and the Santa Monica Democratic Club in 2020. Made audio and video recordings for the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive’s project “Archiving Filipino American Music in Los Angeles,” 2003-2004
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TAD DALEY: Tad Daley, JD, PhD, has served on the board of SCADA -- with a brief sabbatical when he lived in Washington D.C. -- since 2001. He is author of the book Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World from Rutgers University Press. He has held affiliations with several think tanks and peace advocacy organizations including the State of the World Forum, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the RAND Corporation, and he has worked as a policy advisor, speechwriter, or coauthor with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the late U.S. Senator Harris Wofford and the late U.S. Senator Alan Cranston. He serves now as Director of Policy Analysis at Citizens for Global Solutions. <<<<<
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TOM CAMARELLA: SoCal ADA board member Tom Camarella is currently Co-Chair of the Citizens for Global Solutions Program Committee, member of the Strategy and Development Committees, and a Trustee of the World Federalist Association (WFA) Endowment Fund. He has been on the Board of WFA since 1984, served on the Executive Committee of WFA/CGS from 1991-2004, and was Executive Director of the Southern California Region, WFA (1984) and later President of same from 1990 to 2002. Tom’s experience working with other non-profits includes currently: Executive Board of the California Democratic Party; Congressional Council for the 37th US Congressional District in CA; Board Member of Southern California Americans for Democratic Action. Formerly: President of the Culver City Democratic Club; Chair of the Culver City Fiesta La Ballona; Steering Committee of the Progressive Democrats of America, LA; Appointed Member of the Culver City Charter Review Committee; Steering Committee Member of Labor/Community Strategy Center; and Steering Committee Member of Jobs with Peace. |
