Pete Minett – Board Member  

An activist by nature, Nevada County’s Pete Minett declares, “Politics is not my first passion. I am involved because it is necessary. I was stunned by the rise of the tea-party movement in spring of 2009. Their tactics echoed the Brown Shirts in the early thirty’s – hauling weapons into public meetings, shouting down folks they did not agree with…. using the same bullying tactics. That was enough to get me involved in politics!”

       Leadership

While he had always been interested in civic engagement, Pete’s truly serious involvement began in his local teachers’ association. That early school-level involvement eventually saw him moving into leadership, then regional and state positions. Then followed organizing and deeper involvement with the Nevada County Democratic Central Committee, where he has been on the executive board for a dozen years.

Pete Minett is and has been a mainstay in numerous campaigns, partisan and non-partisan alike, from city council, county board of supervisors, state legislature and Congress. Whenever candidates and/or campaign organizers want to know what is going on in the Northern Sierra, or how to create a base, Pete Minett is on their call list—and eventually on speed dial. His first advice is always the same: “Go meet and listen to people. Then learn to speak their language.”

Although an active and partisan Democrat, Pete describes his political philosophy as “center-right on foreign policy to ‘progressive’ on social issues”. He grew up overseas (in Germany), which helps account for his interest in foreign policy, and his centrist views on the topic. As he puts it, “I have seen first-hand the skullduggery that goes on – the worst of it comes from non-American sources, and as a nation we are becoming less naive than when I grew up.”

Pete worries that “The greatest threat to the United States is no longer being united, and the rise of distinctly anti-democratic forces with no respect for the rule-of-law. I lived in a country run by a dictator. I do not want that here. And, so, I am still involved. Sierra Forward is doing the non-partisan, practical work of trying to win elections for viable, reasonable candidates who will preserve our democratic processes and institutions while working to improve the lives of all their constituents.”