Craig Cayetano- Green Party of Passaic County
Last night’s Our Revolution Passaic County meeting was originally billed as a meet the candidates event. A representative from The Green Party of New Jersey had been e-mailing Dianne Douthat, one of their Steering Committee members, since last week to see if they would allow the Seth Kaper-Dale/Durden Campaign or a liaison to speak. They did not respond to multiple attempts at contact.
When activist Craig Cayetano from the Green Party of Passaic County arrived, he asked to speak at the end about the upcoming Gubernatorial election and what the Green Party has been doing in the state this year. Our Revolution leadership refused to give him the mic. Craig asked Ann Rea a second time about speaking and was told “this was a local candidates event not a state wide one and internally they decided against having representatives speak on behalf of the Kaper-Dale/Durden Campaign.” She also said to Craig that “the elected steering committee had decided to support Phil Murphy and wouldn’t bring the topic up to a vote with membership.”
Green Party of Ocean County member Carol Elaine Gay was there wearing her Kaper-Dale For Governor shirt and witnessed this. “I was told the steering committee members had voted not to have anyone speak about gubernatorial candidates. I expressed my disappointment in finding that they were operating so undemocratically”, said Carol. Joni Brennan, another Green who traveled from South Jersey, said she “had brought up the idea of Seth’s campaign and possible endorsement on their phone meetings of county chairs and they would never discuss it.” Joni also said it was “undemocratic of them to not let Craig speak. I understand their reasoning about the gubernatorial race, but don’t like it and don’t think it fits with ‘Our Revolution’. Ocean County OR is fully backing #theonlyprogressiverunning Seth Kaper-Dale.”
Not all members of OR PC agree with the leadership position on the Green Party, and we thank all of our supporters in OR for speaking out on behalf of our grassroots organization. We are very grateful to the Our Revolution affiliates that have supported GP candidates in New Jersey and Nationally. In light of OR President Nina Turner endorsing NY Green Party candidate Jabari Brisport for NY City Council one would think a local NJ chapter would invite the progressive Gubernatorial ticket to speak. If not that at least allow a Green Party member, that is also a local Passaic County resident, to have the open mic for a chance speak. On the contrary, it has become obvious that internally, some factions in this state have decided to support Phil Murphy, another Goldman Sachs oligarch.
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E-mails to Our Revolution leadership for comment have not yet been replied to.