Local
Stein Club election results upheld at special meeting
Challenge to validity of election dropped, proposed bylaw changes to be considered at next regular meeting
(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
More than 70 members of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club voted by an overwhelming margin Wednesday night to uphold the election two weeks ago of three new officers who gained control of the club in an upset victory.
The vote came in a special meeting called one week earlier by the club’s current officers to consider whether to invalidate the Dec. 3 club election of Martin Garcia, 27, as president; Angela Peoples, 26, as vice president for legislative and political affairs; and Vincent Villano, 26, as vice president for administration.
“We were all very excited to reaffirm the election of Marin Garcia and his slate,” said outgoing Stein Club President Lateefah Williams, who lost to Garcia by a vote of 47 to 45.
“And I’m very happy that we’re going to be moving forward as a united Stein Club,” Williams told the Blade after the meeting. Williams later said she misspoke and that she meant to say, “As a whole, we overwhelmingly reaffirmed the election of Martin Garcia and his slate.”
In a gesture aimed at avoiding a rift between the club’s old and new members, Williams withdrew from contention for the club presidency in the event that the special meeting voted to invalidate the election of the new officers and called for a new election.
“The new members have a hill to climb here with the old members,” said Stein Club treasurer Barrie Daneker, who won re-election unopposed after Garcia and his supporters chose not to run candidates for the treasurer and secretary’s position.
Berrie Daneker (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“But I’m confident that once they see their leadership and if they produce, then Gertrude Stein will be stronger than we’ve ever been in our 37 years of existence,” Daneker told the Blade.
Some feared that a bitter argument would erupt at the special meeting over a proposed challenge to the validity of 17 of the 46 new members who joined the club less than a week before the election.
The new members, who Garcia and his supporters recruited, are believed to have given Garcia, Peoples, and Villano their razor-thin margin of victory over Williams and her slate of candidates seeking the two vice president positions.
But during nearly two hours of discussion, no one moved to take action against the 17 new members, who came under question during the past week when the home addresses for 11 of them couldn’t be verified. Others questioned the qualification of six of the 17 new members who joined under a special membership category with a reduced fee of $15 restricted to students, senior citizens, and limited income people. The club’s regular membership costs $35.
Although many expected the special meeting to divide along the lines of the longtime club members and the new insurgent members who gained control of the club, those speaking in support of upholding the election and withdrawing the challenge came mostly from the ranks of the old members.
Gay Democratic activist and longtime Stein Club member Bob Summersgill said no one presented any evidence or valid rationale for disqualifying any of the new members.
“There is nothing in the bylaws that says anything about where you have to live,” he said. “There is nothing in the bylaws to define low income.”
Gay activists Lane Hudson and Steve Gorman, who are also club members of longstanding, said they were impressed with Garcia and his supporters’ political organizing skills that enabled them to bring in close to 50 new members.
Garcia told the meeting that he and the new members that supported him have been involved in local and national politics and Democratic Party activities. He said his objective is to strengthen the Stein Club by bringing in more members with diverse backgrounds so it can do more in its longstanding role as the city’s largest LGBT political organization.
Transgender activist and longtime Stein Club member Jeri Hughes, who was one of the members who challenged the club election, surprised some at the special meeting when she said the meeting should not vote on the question of invalidating the election or challenging memberships.
Instead, Hughes proposed bringing up the invalidation question at the club’s next regular meeting in January.
As she has in Facebook postings and in a Blade commentary, Hughes called the election a “farce,” saying the winning side “stacked” the election meeting with people who were “strangers” to the club.
While the new members acted within the club’s rules and bylaws, “that doesn’t make what they did right,” she said.
However, when fellow club member Ed Craft told her later that he planned to withdraw from the club because of his objection to the new officers’ takeover, Hughes urged him not to do so.
“I don’t think these are bad people,” she told Craft in a Facebook message Wednesday night. “I think they did something wrong…and foolish, but the club does good work and has done good work. We can still do good work. Leaving serves no purpose.”
Gertrude Stein Democratic Club President-elect Martin Garcia (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Former club president Kurt Vorndran, who was among the longtime members who called for letting the election of the new officer’s stand, introduced a resolution calling for changing the club’s bylaws to restrict the ability to vote in the election of club officers to people who have been members for at least 30 calendar days.
The club voted to table Vorndran’s motion, with the intent to bring it up at the next regular meeting in January.
Craft told the Blade he believes many of the old members will withdraw from active participation in the club due to the flap over the election and for what he said was the failure of the special meeting to enable longtime members to raise concerns and ask questions.
“I feel the meeting tonight was a complete farce,” he said. “I feel it was staged, that Lane Hudson through his motions made it impossible for the meaningful exchange of information that was the purpose of this meeting to take place.”
Craft was referring to a set of rules governing the meeting that Williams and the existing Stein Club officers proposed at the beginning of the meeting but that were changed by motions introduced by Hudson and other members supportive of Garcia’s slate.
The changes, among other things, reduced the length of time for people to speak from three minutes proposed by Williams and the club’s board, to two minutes. Toward the end of the meeting, when a question and answer period called for by the rules proposed by Williams and approved by the meeting participants began, Hudson introduced a motion to end it after just two questions were raised and answered. The meeting attendees — the majority of whom were new members supportive of Garcia’s slate of officers — quickly voted to approve Hudson’s motion.
Craft said the abrupt termination of the question and answer period upset him and other longtime club members who wanted to ask more questions of Garcia and the other newly elected officers.
While Craft spoke to the Blade immediately after the meeting adjourned, club member Robert Brannum shouted to the members collecting their belongings and leaving the meeting room that he was outraged he wasn’t allowed to speak during the closing session of the meeting. When Brannum, who spoke earlier in the meeting, requested to speak at the closing session, Hudson and other members objected, saying the rules adopted at the start of the meeting prevented him from doing so.
“The whole purpose of having an orderly meeting is to achieve the objectives of the meeting, and that’s what we did,” Hudson told the Blade. “People had their say, they came together and we’re in a much better place than when the meeting began.”
In a statement she sent to the Blade Thursday morning, Williams said more effort will be needed to heal the rift between all of the old and new members.
“I think the meeting was successful as an initial first step at dialogue between long term and new members and bringing both groups together,” she said. “Unfortunately, due to some motions that ended the dialogue early, some members still feel that they did not have an opportunity to have their questions addressed.”
Williams added, “I think the key is to look at this meeting as the beginning of the process of healing and not the culmination of it. I hope that all members continue to engage one another to work through any concerns that may still exist. I wish the new board well and I hope that they continue efforts to help bridge the gap between long term and new members.”
District of Columbia
Gay ANC commissioner sues D.C. over police ‘failure’ to pay reward money
Lawsuit says information led to conviction in murder, armed robbery cases
Gay D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Tom Donohue on Aug. 11 filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court charging that D.C. police acted improperly and violated a local law by not paying him $30,000 in reward money for his role in helping police identify and arrest — and obtain the subsequent conviction — of one man charged with murder and another man charged with armed robbery in separate cases.
Although the lawsuit alleges improper action by D.C. police in carrying out the city’s Crime Solvers reward program, it names as defendants the District of Columbia and the Office of the Attorney General for D.C., which, among other things, defends the city against lawsuits.
Donohue, who is a member of the city’s ANC Rainbow Caucus consisting of LGBTQ elected ANC members, held a news conference outside the D.C. Superior Court building on Aug. 11 to talk about the lawsuit before entering the courthouse to officially file it.
The lawsuit states that Donohue “provided key video evidence that led to the arrest and conviction” of a man initially charged with first degree murder for allegedly running over a bicyclist with his car after the two got into an argument.
The lawsuit states that police had offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the defendant in that case, but police “arbitrarily slashed the payment to $5,000 without prior notice or policy justification.”
Court records show that D.C. resident Eric Beasley was charged with first degree murder for killing David Farewell, 45, by hitting him with his car on Sept. 4, 2020, on the 2100 block of Young Street, S.E. The records show the evidence for the case was based in large part on video camera footage of the incident obtained by police. Donohoe has said he provided that video camera evidence.
The records show that during Beasley’s October 2023 trial a jury was unable to reach the required unanimous verdict, and the judge declared a mistrial.
According to the records, Beasley later agreed to an offer by prosecutors to plead guilty to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced in September 2024 to eight years in prison, a development that angered the victim’s family members who called it a “slap on the wrist,” according to a Fox 5 News report.
Donohue’s lawsuit says the second case in which he provided police with pivotal information involved a series of armed robberies known as the Fairlawn Serial Armed Robbery Spree that occurred in the Fairlawn neighborhood in Southeast D.C. in 2023 near where Donohue lives.
The lawsuit says evidence consisting of video surveillance footage provided by Donohue to police enabled police to determine they initially wrongfully arrested an 18-year-old male for the robberies. “Using Plaintiff’s security video, MPD identified, arrested, and convicted the actual robber, David Crocker, who was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison,” the lawsuit states.
It says one of the detectives investigating the case recommended a $10,000 reward for Donohue’s help in the case based on the police Crime Solvers reward program. The detective’s recommendation was approved by then-Assistant D.C. Police Chief Kyle Ramey on Aug. 4, 2025, according to the lawsuit.
But it adds, “Nevertheless, MPD improperly withheld payment.”
When contacted by the Washington Blade for comment on Donohue’s lawsuit allegations, a D.C. police spokesperson said “MPD does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.”
Gabriel Shoglow-Rubenstein, who serves as press secretary for the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, which will be defending the city against the Donohue lawsuit, said he would look into obtaining a possible comment but said the office has a similar longstanding policy of not commenting on pending litigation.
“This action arises from the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department’s arbitrary, bad-faith, and legally unsupportable failure to honor its public reward promises and administrative obligations to Plaintiff,” the lawsuit states.
It says the MPD violated the city’s Freedom of Information Act or FOIA law by not responding to Donohue’s request for information and documents related to the decision not to pay him the full reward money.
“MPD’s reduction of Plaintiff’s homicide reward from $25,000 to $5,000, and its withholding of his approved $10,00 robbery reward, were undertaken completely devoid of written standards, making such decisions inherently arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of administrative discretion,” it says.
It calls for Donohue to be awarded $30,000 in compensatory damages consisting of the $20,000 “unpaid balance” for the homicide case reward and $10,000 for the robbery case reward. It also calls for reimbursement for “reasonable” litigation costs and attorney’s fees. Donohue told the Washington Blade that at this time he is representing himself without an attorney.
Donohue told the Blade that the refusal by D.C. police to pay him the full reward money also limited his plans to donate some of that money to the family of murder victim David Farewell to help pay for a burial stone. He said that due to the family’s limited resources Farewell is buried in an unmarked grave
Delaware
New LGBTQ visitor center slated for Wilmington, Del.
The Collective to feature gift shop, queer museum, more
During Pride month this year, the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective (DSGC) announced plans for The Collective, which will become Delaware’s first LGBTQIA+ visitor center and Wilmington’s first dedicated LGBTQIA+ space in nearly 40 years.
“We’ve been talking about the concept of a brick-and-mortar space for a long time,” said Noah Duckett, co-founder of DSGC.
A licensed clinical social worker, Duckett co-founded DSGC with his mother, Julissa Coriano, in 2018. DSGC is an independent nonprofit organization that provides vital clinical and educational support, social programming and direct-need support to the LGBTQIA+ community.
Some of the programs DSGC offers include a free clothing closet for the trans community, meal support for people recovering from gender-affirming surgery, connections to pro bono legal services, a biannual Pride Market featuring over 100 LGBTQIA+-owned small businesses, and more.
“Our vision for The Collective is a place where our community can come to learn, create, work and be inspired,” said Coriano.
The Collective will feature a visitor center and gift shop highlighting LGBTQIA+-owned businesses in Delaware.
“I think that this is something that’s going to benefit our community so much,” said Duckett.
Some of the LGBTQIA+-owned businesses that DSGC has already partnered with include Stress Induced Art Attack, Moonbeam Art Collaborative, Voce Coffee, Groovy Gemini Co., Scout Cafe, Macaron Social and Huxley and Hiro.
“Specifically in Wilmington, we haven’t had an LGBTQIA+-dedicated space in almost 40 years,” said Duckett.
The Griffin Community Center, which operated from 1986 to 1990, was Delaware’s first LGBTQ+ community center. The Griffin was founded by Ivo Dominguez Jr. and James C. Welch and provided a range of community services during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, including AIDS hotlines, organizational offices and meeting space. The center ultimately closed because of a lack of financial support.
Duckett said DSGC hopes The Collective will carry on The Griffin’s legacy while building a sustainable space for the LGBTQIA+ community.
“I think now more than ever, there’s more and more spaces closing their doors. More and more spaces are losing funding, seeing reduced funding and reduced access, especially LGBTQ+ organizations and communities,” said Duckett.
The Collective will also feature Delaware’s first LGBTQ+ history museum, curated by LGBTQ+ historian Carolanne Deal.
“We don’t have any permanent displays in the state about Delaware’s queer history, and we want people to be able to access that history any day of the year, not just during Pride Month,” said Deal.
With a master’s degree in art history for museum professionals, Deal has more than seven years of experience in curatorial work and hands-on collections care.
“It’s mainly going to be a graphic display with photographs, articles and accessible text that draws people in and creates a story for the community,” said Deal.
Although the museum will not initially have an object collection, Deal said she hopes to add physical archival pieces in the future.
“Delaware has been at the forefront of a lot of queer civil rights, and it’ll be really amazing to have that enshrined in a permanent display that’s not only up for Pride Month,” said Deal.
Duckett said DSGC is currently raising funds with the goal of beginning construction this summer and opening by the end of the year.
Duckett told the Blade that fundraising efforts have reached just under $29,000 and that the organization is awaiting several major donations from community partner organizations.
However, he said DSGC continues to be denied many grants tied to federal or state funding because of restrictions on those funds being used for LGBTQ+-serving organizations.
“Private and corporate donations are absolutely vital,” said Duckett.
Anyone interested in supporting the construction and renovation of The Collective can donate online or contact [email protected] for more information.ose funds being used for LGBTQ-serving organizations.
“Private and corporate donations are absolutely vital,” said Duckett.
Anyone interested in supporting the construction of The Collective can donate online or contact [email protected] for more information.
Rehoboth Beach
HISTORIC: Susan Stewart elected Rehoboth’s first out mayor
Thanks LGBTQ supporters and vows to protect city’s small town charm
Residents of Rehoboth Beach elected City Commissioner Susan Stewart with 61% of the vote on Aug. 8, making her the city’s first openly gay mayor.
Stewart beat fellow commissioners Craig Their and Suzanne Goode in the race, as well as newcomer Jake Raak.
The final mayoral vote results were:
- Susan Stewart: 632
- Craig Their: 203
- Suzanne Goode: 177
- William “Jake” Raak: 23
“I’m very grateful because the LGBTQ+ community not only voted for me, but also supported me,” said Stewart.
Stewart said that she is particularly grateful for the support she received on social media from members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“I’ve had incredible support,” said Stewart.
Stewart said that her campaign showed her just how much residents of Rehoboth are engaged and care about the city.
“They really want to see what’s best for the community,” said Stewart.
Stewart spoke about the master planning initiative she has been working on as a commissioner, which she plans to continue as mayor.
“We’ve undertaken rewriting the commercial zoning code, and that’s foundational to the next step of the initiative,” said Stewart.
She said that she was proud of the results of charette week that was held last month where residents and business owners had the opportunity to speak with hired urban planners to give feedback for a zoning code update.
Stewart said that Rehoboth is at a tipping point as the city must find a way to balance the growth of the commercial district while improving the quality of life for residents.
“I don’t believe there needs to be tension between the business community and the residential experience,” said Stewart.
“I’m excited about a new master plan because we have a couple hotels coming, and we also have Clear Space Theatre looking for a new home, and we’re working with them,” said Stewart. “We want businesses to stay here.”
Stewart also said that she aims to embrace the concept of a ‘15-minute city,’ making the city much more accessible in terms of transportation in the downtown area for residents.
“The goal is to protect the small town charm and natural beauty of Rehoboth,” said Stewart. “I want to keep the momentum going.”
The Blade asked Stewart about any concerns she might have working with Commissioner Goode, whom she has criticized for sending inappropriate and offensive emails to city staff. Goode finished a distant third in the mayoral race and her husband fell short in his bid for a Commissioner’s seat. In that race, Jeffrey Goode received 239 votes; Patrick Gossett, who’s gay, received 813 votes and Mark Saunders 852. Saunders and Gossett will be sworn in next month.
“I’m really eager to move past this issue with Commissioner Goode,” said Stewart.
She said that she’s heard ‘loud and clear’ from the city that they want to move past this situation as best as they can while Goode remains in her seat as commissioner.
“There are no mechanisms for us to remove a sitting commissioner. Our laws don’t allow it,” said Stewart.
Stewart clarified that she has always focused on Goode’s behavior toward city staff.
“One thing I feel really passionate about is that the city employees have to know that they are heard. They are real people with real jobs, real professional reputations, and they’ve been harmed,” said Stewart.
The Blade also asked if Stewart had made a final decision on whom she plans to nominate to fill her Commissioner seat.
“I’m considering who to appoint and I have not made any final decisions,” said Stewart.
She noted that, as mayor, she only has the power to nominate a candidate and that the board of commissioners will have the final vote on whom to appoint to the board.
Stewart shared that she has received interest from a number of people and finds that to be a good sign.
“I think that’s a great sign because people want to serve. I’m eager to have someone in that seat who’s smart and has the best interests of the city,” said Stewart.
Stewart will be sworn in during the Board of Commissioners meeting on Sept. 18.
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