We are proud to announce the inaugural combined event of the now unified LPQ AND QL organizations, into the new Libertarian Party of Queens County (LPQC). This official LP county committee will hold its initial business meeting (plus speaker/topical section) on April 8 at noon, at OBA Grill on Metropolitan Ave in Forest Hills. The topic for discussion will be “Unification” and plans for the local party.
In this introductory session members from both groups will get to know each other, begin to complete the turnover of officer functions, and clarify current and upcoming projects. LPQC officers (John Clifton, Chair), Francisco Olvera (Vice Chair) and Mark Weinblatt (Treasurer) will go over the new arrangements. LPQC’s mission will be further defined, and prospects for conducting outreach and fundraising will be reviewed. Details and Directions
LPQC Treasurer Weinblatt and Vice President Olvera have drafted their remarks from the Queens LP side of things, which will be posted to the next LPNY Newsletter, which reads as follows:
QUEENS COUNTY LIBERTARIANS FINALLY TOGETHER
After years of having two parties identifying themselves as the LP of
Queens, NY, both entities decided to become one.
“We formed LPQC after the LP got ballot access in NYS and we had an
organizational meeting at [Former LPQC Chair] Mike Arcati’s house in
early 2019. It has been a challenge since then to gain strength by
reaching out to those in Queens who had registered as Libertarians.
Without reaching out, we struggle to raise money, and without money,
we can’t afford to reach out. It’s a Catch-22. The pandemic
restrictions made things even more difficult. Now that we have a
regular meeting time and place and will take on more ‘official’ party
business, my hope is that we can find ways of both reaching out to
like-minded Queens residents and also raising money to help extend
that outreach to the ‘libertarian-curious’ who would be open to our
ideas and values. We welcome any help that we can get from anywhere
else in the state or National.” — Mark Weinblatt
At the same time, John Clifton’s QL has been very active getting
people together whether voters, party partisans or simply persons who
share libertarian ideas or a good story from a guest speaker.
As with most good stories, everything happened by chance. John
Clifton, who had been running QL for several years, approached Mark
Weinblatt (LPQC) with the idea of merging the Queens entities after
Mark attended a meeting of the QL and let him know that LPQC did not
have a chair at the moment. A short time later, after years of having
two parties that broke resources in almost half and getting nowhere,
the two groups finally merged in early March 2023 with John Clifton
from QL as Chair, myself from LPQC as Vice Chair and Mark Weinblatt
from LPQC as treasurer.
Now it is time for LPQC to focus on promoting the party, its
philosophy and its brand. As with other county affiliates, educating
voters and anyone who can influence other voters is the biggest
challenge.
* Clifton has brought many ideas on how to teach young adults at a
college level, but we still need to promote the party at high school
level. Needless to say, this is an up-hill battle given the GOP/DNC
duopoly in the United States.
* We would merge the data sources into a common database that can be
used by LPQC and possibly the LPNY if we can get all the proper
datasets.