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May 28, 2017
In This Issue:
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June 1, 7 p.m., Annual Meeting, Woodbury Room, Jones Library. Refreshments at 6:30 p.m..
June 3, 10 a.m.-12 p.m., LWVMA Western MA Field Service Meeting, Mocha Maya's, Shelburne Falls. Contact Cynthia if interested in attending.
June 19, TBA, Joint Board Meeting for New and Current Board Members. Contact Marcie if interested in attending.
June 19, 3 p.m., Book Discussion of Eric Larsen's Dead Wake, Jones Library. No Book Group meetings in July and August.
June 30-July 18, Donations for Book Sale accepted at Fort River School ONLY.
July 3, Pricing and Sorting for Book Sale begins.
July 28-30 and August 4-6, Book Sale at Fort River.
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Reminder: Annual Member Meeting, Thursday, June 1, 7 p.m., Woodbury Room, Jones Library. Refreshments at 6:30 p.m.
The Amherst League begins planning for Charter Commission
At a member meeting on May 9, the League of Women Voters began to plan how it might assist Amherst voters in deciding whether or not to adopt the charter to be proposed by the current Amherst Charter Commission. A piece of this planning requires a change in the existing program. We will be discussing the proposed change at the Annual Meeting, and in accordance with our bylaws, will vote on the proposed change at the Opening Meeting in the fall.
Please bring your Program Book.
The proposed change is to delete one statement which
appears in our position on Structure of Town Government, at the end of the section on Executive Branch, found on page four of the 2014-2015 Program Book. The statement:
"The League supports selectmen-manager form of government (1950, 1995)"
The proposed change was initially discussed at a special members meeting on May 9, at which those present gave helpful guidance to the Board.
(Members recently received an email with a summary of the discussion of May 9. ) Many of those present on May 9 doubted that the consensus on the 1950 statement could be reached today.
A brief description of the LWVA's initial planning to help Amherst citizens make their decision about whatever the Charter Commission recommends, and relevant documents, can be found at the LWVA website,
here.
Questions? Please call or email Kathy Campbell.
Annual Meeting: Other Items of Business: By-laws Review; Approval of Planned Composition of the Board
A proposal to review the by-laws and to approve the planned composition of the
boa
rd will be brought to Annual Meeting. In December 2016, the board adopted the recommendations of the Organizational Structure Task Force: these will be discussed. These recommendations are:
- The board will have up to a total of 12 members to support the League's work.
- Up to three of the members will be at-large, fully sharing the work of the board as needed. The number of at-large members will depend on the number of split positions.
- The board should split the functional area positions to share the workload.
- Prospective board members should be offered a one- or two- year option of service on the board.
- The board will continue to use teams of board and non-board members to manage the work of the League.
Regional Field Service Meeting Coming Up
The LWVMA Field Service program provides opportunities for local League leaders to meet, share and plan within defined geographical areas. The goal of the program is to support local League leaders, strengthen local Leagues and encourage regional collaboration. Meetings are ordinarily held twice a year. The spring meeting of the West and Central Leagues will be Saturday, June 3, 10:00 a.m.-12 p.m., Mocha Maya's, Shelburne Falls. Nancy Polan is the field service representative for our area; Karen Price is the Field Service Director. Contact
Cynthia Brubaker if you are interested in attending the June 3 meeting.
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Highlights of the 2017 LWVMA Convention
- When half of the chapters offered brief (60 seconds!) highlights of their work in the past year, the Amherst League highlighted some of the work that the Local Action for Social Justice committee has been undertaking, as well as the March Civics Fest.
- In an engaging panel discussion, Time for Us to be Heard: Millennial Voices in the Massachusetts State Legislature, Moderator Sen. Eric P. Lesser (Longmeadow) led Rep. Natalie Higgins (Leominster), Rep. Juana Matias (Lawrence), Sen. Patrick O'Connor (Weymouth), and our very own Rep. Solomon Goldstein-Rose in a discussion of topics including what inspired them to get involved in politics and the difficulties of getting millennials to vote.
- Brian McGrory, editor of the Boston Globe, spoke about the ongoing economic challenges for newspapers and the urgent work of the Globe and other newspapers in the era of "fake news."
- Wylecia Wiggs Harris, LWVUS CEO, stood up and announced the LWVUS was listening and focused on helping the LWV move into the next century and then she proceeded to wow the crowd with her enthusiasm, her honesty and her drive to bring the LWV back to the center of the political stage.
- Prof. Rachael Cobb, Department of Government, Suffolk University, was both lucid and optimistic when reminding us that the perception that government isn't working means that 1) it isn't working and 2) we have a lot of work to do to increase voter participation.
Sudha Setty, Rebecca Fricke and Cynthia Brubaker,
attending from the Amherst League 
(and later reporting on the Convention)
are shown here with Rep. Solomon Goldstein-Rose.
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LIPPI (The Leadership Institute for Political and Public Impact of the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts) Graduation Dinner, of which the Amherst League was a co-sponsor, was held in Holyoke on May 22.
Amherst League Attendees Rebecca Fricke (a LIPPI alum) and Kathy Campbell are pictured with other LIPPI Alums.
Two Recent Presentations on Renewable Energy
The Amherst League's Energy Study Group and Sustaining Amherst co-sponsored two talks on Solar Power on May 18. Professor James Manwell of the UMass Amherst Dept of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering provided an introduction to solar photovoltaics, and Rep. Solomon Goldstein-Rose talked about the energy technologies he is seeking to see developed in his bill, H3473. Rep. Goldstein-Rose is focusing on the jobs that renewable energy technology can bring to Massachusetts, and the economic boost renewables can give more broadly, since the state, not a producer of fossil fuels, sees its money for fossil-fuel based energy drain out of the state.
Click here for more information on H3473.
The topic of the LWVUS webinar on May 23, co-sponsored by the Amherst LWV, Mothers Out Front Amherst and the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst's Green Sanctuary, was "Putting a Fair Price on Carbon: An Economist's Perspective on Carbon Pricing." The speaker, Adele Morris, is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and policy director for Climate and Energy Economics since 2008. Morris referred to climate change as "a market failure," and noted that "a price on carbon can be a key climate policy." A higher price on fossil fuels will lead to decreased consumption of fossil fuels, while renewables will come to be more attractive. The end results will include reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, more use of renewables, more energy jobs in the state, and a rebate to consumers that for about 60% of the state's inhabitants will be as large or larger than the fees they have paid. Small businesses and local governments will also receive rebates. Morris' presentation will be available on lwv.org in the future; meanwhile
consult her website.
Note that Rep. Goldstein-Rose's bill also includes a carbon pollution fee and rebate system, and that the Massachusetts LWV is one of the founding members of the Massachusetts Campaign for a Clean Energy Future,which endorses the carbon fee and rebate bills.
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| The Webinar |
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Dick Kofler of Energy Study Group |
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GET INVOLVED! HELP WANTED! PLAN AHEAD for BOOK SALE!
Pricing and Sorting for the LWVA Book Sale
We will be setting up the gym at Fort River School June 29-30, and accepting donations from June 30 through July 20. Pricing and sorting will take place July 3 through July 24 (excluding July 4), Monday through Saturday. Two session chairs per day are needed. The first shift is 8 to 10:30 a.m., the second is 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Click here to sign up-- get your first choice in now! (You may also
e-mail or call Kathy Campbell with your preferences.) Workers are also encouraged but not required to sign up there; join us whenever it fits into your schedule.
Two session chair trainings will be held between June 30 and July 3.
If you would like to help with the Young Readers Day at the Student Achievement Academy at Crocker School on the morning of Tuesday, July 25, please get in touch with
Adele Gladstone-Gilbert.
The sale will be open to the public from 9 to 4, Friday through Sunday, the weekends of July 28-30 and August 4-6. Sign-ups for cashiers will be available in June.
For more information as it becomes available, check out the LWVAmherst web site
here.
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Take a Look at LWVMA's Annual Report, which, according to lwvma.org
"recaps an extraordinary year of advocacy, voter engagement, and citizen education and celebrates the work of our local Leagues throughout the Commonwealth. Many thanks to or members and supporters for helping us Make Democracy Work!" Click here for the 2016 Annual Report.
The State League has again had a student video contest, this year on the topic "Making Democracy Work in My Community." If you watched the winners last year, you would probably like to see the winning videos this year, too. Here they are.
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Those who attended the State Convention were impressed by the video from
National shown by LWVUS CEO Wylecia Wiggs Harris. You can access her presentation here (scroll down the page to find the link to the power point.)
Good News from National: "The United States Supreme Court ruled Monday [5/22] that North Carolina lawmakers used racial considerations to draw congressional districts following the 2010 Census. This unconstitutional racial gerrymandering benefited one political party's power in the state. 'This is a major win in the battle for fair election districts,' said League of Women Voters president Chris Carson." Click here to read the press release.
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