AFTRA officers all to return

Seven incumbents face no opponents

By DAVE MCNARY

All seven incumbent AFTRA Los Angeles officers will be returned to their slots with no opponents running in the upcoming local elections.

The officers include President Ron Morgan, First VP Susan Boyd Joyce, Second VP Gabrielle Carteris, Third VP Bobbie Bates, Fourth VP Jason George, Recording Secretary Patrika Darbo and Treasurer Jay Gerber.  

However, the upcoming election will see challenges from SAG's hardline Membership First faction, which advocates an aggressive negotiating posture and opposes merger between AFTRA and SAG. Membership First leader Anne-Marie Johnson, who serves as SAG's First VP, is seeking an AFTRA national board slot and David Jolliffe, who headed the feature-primetime negotiating committee before it was abolished earlier this year, has become a candidate for the local board.

Membership First began seeking AFTRA seats several years ago and several of its members -- including Bonnie Bartlett, Frances Fisher and Sumi Haru - currently sit on both the SAG and AFTRA national boards.

Candidates for AFTRA national board include incumbents Bobbie Bates, Susan Boyd Joyce, Gabrielle Carteris, Jay Gerber, Ron Morgan, Paul Petersen, and Sally Stevens. Besides Johnson, others running include Granville Ames, Steven Barr, L. Scott Caldwell, David Clennon, Milo Edwards, Carole Elliott, Joliffe, D. W. Moffett, Jason Priestley, Elizabeth Reynolds, and Alan Ruck.

Actors named by the nominating committee to fill 11openings on the local board include incumbents David Bowe, Raza Burgee, Andrew Caple-Shaw, Gabrielle Carteris, Bob Joles, and Kate Linder, along with David Andriole, Mimi Cozzens, Sandra de Bruin, James Schneider, and Marcia Strassman. Jolliffe qualified by petition as did incumbents Nancy Daly and Paul Napier.

Incumbent announcer Mike Sakellarides and announcer Chuck Southcott were named by the nominating committee as candidates to fill two vacancies repping that category. Dancer Galen Hooks, also an incumbent, was named as a candidate by the committee to fill a vacancy in that category.

Candidates to fill two singer vacancies are incumbents Susan Boyd Joyce and Dick Wells, both selected by the committee. Incumbent broadcaster Pepe Barreto was named by the committee as a candidate for re-election representing the newsperson category.

AFTRA Los Angeles will hold a "meet the candidates" forum on April 29 at union headquarters. Ballots will be mailed on May 8 with a voting deadline of June 3.