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A Voice for Citizens, a Force for Change
e-bulletin
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Message from the Steering Committee |
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A Message From This Month's Chair,
Cynthia Brubaker
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Dear League Members,
As the Convener of the Steering Committee this month, it is my pleasure to send out the Monthly Message. We, as a nation, are struggling on several fronts and have been for a while. First, we hunkered down for a couple of years with COVID running wild through our population. Now it appears to be ebbing. We are all tentatively going out and resuming activities which we have all missed. We are resuming in-person contact and will be slowly diminishing our reliance on Zoom and Face Time. Nonetheless we are all still being careful. We thought last summer COVID was on the wane only to have variants rise up and push us back into our homes and to Zoom.
Currently we are facing a very disturbing war in Ukraine. Nobody knows how this will turn out. Is this a short-lived incursion or could it literally mushroom into a full fledged global war? So, here we are on tenterhooks again.
Then there are political realities we must continue to deal with…..our elections system is under threat, racism, both implicit and explicit, is always with us, anti-Semitism has re-emerged in all its ugliness and dangers, the environment is deeply threatened as we see evidence of climate change on a regular basis and lastly, the rate of inflation continues to rise. These issues - and more - present us with great challenges, personally and as a society.
The LWV has always faced our problems as a nation head on. We are needed as never before. We all must do our part in getting through this unsettling period of time. Please stay involved and help us solve some of the issues facing us today. Spring is just around the corner and the daffodils will emerge and bloom. Hope does spring eternal! Participate in LWV activities. The Book Sale is coming back after two years. Get your books ready to donate. Look for further information about dates for it this summer.
Lend your voice, your wisdom and your experience to the issues we are faced with. We need you now more than ever. See you again soon…in person, I hope. And keep your eye out for the daffodils.
~ Cynthia Brubaker
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MEMBERS TAKE NOTE:
The Zoom discussion with Representative McGovern, "Voting Rights and Election Integrity" has been postponed from Saturday, March 19th to Saturday, April 2 at 2:00 p.m. If you have already registered for this event you do not need to take any action, your registration will automatically shift to the new time. If you are a member of LWVA and have not registered, head over to our website and register today!
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Action Items and Upcoming Events |
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Connecting the Dots:
The Intersection of the Environment, Health and Social Justice
On Thursday evening, April 28, the LWVA will host a panel discussion on how these three issues: 1) the Environment, 2) Health, and 3) Social Justice connect and interact with each other. They are often seen in their own silos, each made up of their own advocates and supporters. Only recently are we beginning to see how they come together. Our program will be a discussion by leaders in these fields, with the goal of thinking about ways to work together in facing major challenges so they can be dealt with more effectively and with greater impact.
Here is an example:
Wildfires in California (which seem to be occurring regularly)
These fires are exacerbated by climate change. There is less rain in areas like California, so the soil and forests are dry, the lakes have receded and sometimes just a tiny spark can set off a devastating fire. The aftermath hits people who are poor, old and/or infirm the hardest. They lose their homes, they can not get to where the resources and aid are because they had no car before the fire or have lost their means of transportation, they lack the basic needs and can’t afford to uproot and move or go stay in a motel or perhaps even with relatives. They actually become isolated and homeless at times. Then there are the resulting health problems from the fires. The air is polluted with the residue of the fires. People with asthma or lung disorders are at much greater risk and might suffer from serious health repercussions due to the air pollution that follows a major fire.
It is all interconnected.
Join us for a lively discussion about how we need to make certain we “Connect the Dots” and find ways to work together to address the problems of climate change and environmental degradation; the health problems that arise from living in a polluted or impoverished environment; and the social impact on the poor, elderly, and infirm in getting their basic needs met.
There will be a Question and Answer period, so bring your questions for the panel featuring:
- Billy Spitzer, Executive Director of The Hitchcock Center for the Environment
- Lev Ben-Ezra, Executive Director, Amherst Survival Center
- Sarita Hudson, Director of Programs and Development, Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts, Springfield
- Moderated by Andrea Battle, LWV of Amherst
Stay tuned for details, or check in with our website to find out how to join the discussion!
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LWVMA Healthcare Specialists are working with our coalitions to try to get all Representatives and Senators to co-sponsor H.1267/S.766, Medicare for All in Massachusetts (single payer health care coverage for all Massachusetts residents). This priority bill has important DEI dimensions. It is important to get it to the floor for a vote.
Senator Comerford IS a sponsor of H.1267/S.766, Medicare for All in Massachusetts, as are Reps Blais, Carey, and Domb. Why not call or email your Senator and Rep to thank them for their support, and tell them how important the bill is for you?
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Gender Parity and Racial and Ethnic Diversity
Bill on Gender Parity and Racial and Ethnic Diversity Needs Your Help
Please contact Senator Comerford to ask her to move S.2077, “An Act to Ensure Gender Parity and Racial and Ethnic Diversity on Public Boards and Commissions,” favorably out of the Senate’s Ways and Means Committee. The bill would ensure that Massachusetts appointed public boards and commissions broadly reflect the general public with regard to gender and race. (View League testimony here).
Senator Comerford DOES support this bill, so thank her. Legislators appreciate knowing of your support, and can use numbers of letters received to indicate the importance of moving a bill out of committee.
In addition, you can contact Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues here urging him to quickly and favorably report S.2077 out of Committee and move the bill onto the Senate floor for a vote.
For additional detail see this letter from Parity on Board, LWVMA's coalition partner.
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Town Clerk Updates New Voting Districts
Amherst Town Council has approved new voting districts for 2022, and voters will need to find out if their address is in a new district. You may have different Town Councilors or have a new polling place due to this change. I asked Town Clerk Sue Audette how the changes will be implemented, and her update follows:
"We are still in the thick of the redistricting process. As you may know, the Council voted on the new map that was proposed by the Districting Advisory Board back in December, and that map was approved by the State. The next step was to receive data from the State to proof [read] which happened just a few weeks ago, and we sent back about a week later. We are now waiting for the State to make the changes in the voter registration system so that all addresses are assigned their new precinct numbers. Once that is done, I’ll be able to request a file to send to our vendor who will be printing the annual street list (census) forms that normally go out in Jan/Feb each year. I’ve waited so that I can notify all households of their new precinct through the census to reduce costs.
All precinct numbers changed – there is no more 1-10, it is now 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B….5A, 5B. The Councilors felt it made more sense for each precinct to correspond to their district. Because of this, the Council has to vote on the polling locations for each of these new precincts. I am on the agenda for 3/21 and will be presenting my recommendations and then they’ll meet again April 4th to vote. Once this is done, I can FINALLY mail out the street list forms to notify everyone, and we’ll also go live on the town’s website with the new maps and precincts."
The full report of the Districting Advisory Board and the proposed map of new districts is available at this link.
~ Bonnie Isman
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Greetings from the Racial Justice Committee for March 2022
The Brown Bag Series is going strong! Thanks to our Brown Bag Coordinators Andrea Battle and Rebecca Fricke. The programs are all recorded and available to view on our You Tube Channel. Links can be found on the website: www.lwvamherst.org
This month we hosted the African Heritage Reparations Assembly to speak about their work in Amherst. 50 people attended and we learned a lot! The recording of the program is available at www.lwvamherst.org.
Upcoming Brown Bag Programs:
April: With the exciting LWVA program "Connecting the Dots" scheduled for April 28, 7–8:30 p.m. (see above), we are encouraging you to attend. And will resume our programming in May.
We have some exciting potentials for topics and speakers coming up. Please keep an eye out! Let us know if you have any programming ideas or requests. We’d love to hear from you!
Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) educational suggestions:
From Here to Equality, Reparations For Black Americans in the Twenty-first Century, by William A. Darity and A. Kristen Mullen is a must read to understand the Reparations concept. We hope to bring Darity and Mullen to a Brown Bag program later in the year.
The New York Times has an excellent compilation of articles that are called Race/Related. I get them delivered to my in-box and scroll through to see interesting headlines (some of which I actually read!). Click here to sign up for this.
Another interesting resource for articles and podcasts is called “Code Switch.” Click this link for their latest newsletter.
~ Marcie Sclove
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AFFORDABLE HOUSING COMMITTEE |
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The studio apartment building at 132 Northampton Road—now called East Gables—is expected to begin construction this month. As you may remember, there will be 28 small studio apartments; the site is within walking distance of downtown, shopping on University Drive, bus stops, and the Rail Trail. The tenants will have incomes ranging from 30% to 80% of the Area Median Income. The building is designed to Passive House standards for maximum energy efficiency and resident comfort. Utilities will be included in the rent. In addition, there will be a multi-purpose room, on-site laundry, an outdoor patio, and a covered bike rack.
Unfortunately, construction costs have gone up, and the developer, Valley Community Development, needs to request additional funding from both the state and the town. The Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust on March 10 granted the project an additional $100,000; the state is to increase its amount from $400,000 to $550,000.
In the meantime, housing advocates and town staff are investigating the possibility of a couple of houses on a small road off Strong Street. It’s a very difficult, steep, site, so it’s not clear what can be done there. And we await bids on the combined project for Belchertown Road and East Street (the old school on the common there).
~ Elisa Campbell
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SUSTAINABILITY & CLIMATE ACTION COMMITTEE |
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Events of interest
The LWVMA Environmental Action and Advocacy Committee invites you to a webinar: Barriers to Regional Decarbonization, March 23 at 4 p.m.
Regional cooperation is essential to meeting our clean energy goals. The road to decarbonization faces challenges from long-established regional rules that favor fossil fuel interests and stand in the way of clean energy. Join us to learn who is in charge of these regional practices, what their impact is, and how we can meet these challenges. Our speaker is Melissa Birchard, Regulatory Attorney for Power Grid Reform, Acadia Center. Co-hosted by League of Women Voters of Massachusetts and Elders Climate Action.
The 66th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women Parallel Event will be presented by the LWVUS United Nations Observers and the Global NGO Executive Committee. March 23, 2 p.m.
This panel presentation is co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the United States and the Global NGO Executive Committee. This event will provide ideas about voting procedures to increase access to voting for those threatened by severe climate/environmental events such as hurricanes, extreme heat, flooding, wildfires, and explosions. Focus will be on how local communities might anticipate and prepare for, rather than react to, these threats.
LWV Portland OR recently sponsored a panel in which four LWV members who had attended COP26 talked about a variety of aspects of COP26:
Climate on an International Scale: Notes from COP26. There’s a brief description of the event here. You can view it below or listen to the podcast.
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Does Civic Education Matter to You? Consider Getting Engaged in LWVMA's New School Civics Project
LWVMA encourages every local League to participate in the new LWVMA School Civics Celebration Project. Partnering with schools to celebrate student civics work will support civics education, help amplify the voices of youth, and establish a vital and visible League partnership with schools and young people.
The Amherst League is just learning about this project. If we decide to participate, it would likely not be before spring, 2023. Contact a Steering Committee member (see list below calendar on first page of this bulletin) and let them know if you would be interested in helping with the Civics Celebration Project.
For more information about the project:
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Massachusetts Legislation Update |
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Which Bills Supported by LWVMA Have Made it Out of Committee?
See the long list in the March 2022 Mass League Action Newsletter, found at https://lwvma.org (Scroll to the bottom of the page and look to the right for the link.)
One bill was passed in February: H.3456 An act relative to work and family mobility during and subsequent to the COVID-19 emergency.
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League of Women Voters Calls on Governor Baker to Support Clean Energy
The League of Women Voters of Massachusetts has issued a call to Governor Charlie Baker and his Administration to take a stand for state policy by opposing a two-year delay in letting clean energy compete at the regional level. A decision by the region’s power grid operator, ISO-New England (ISO-NE), to delay eliminating a harmful rule called the Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR) that excludes state-sponsored clean energy like offshore wind from the regional market for generation capacity will hold back progress on state clean energy and climate policy, if accepted. More at https://lwvma.org/league-of-women-voters-calls-on-governor-baker-to-support-clean-energy/
Launa Zimmaro of LWVMA said, “Governor Baker has set a bold path for clean energy but he must stand up at the regional level to protect our state policies. We call on Governor Baker to oppose a two-year delay in eliminating the harmful Minimum Offer Price Rule, which would hold back the future of clean energy in our state and prop up fossil fuels at the expense of clean resources like offshore wind.” Specifically, the League calls on Governor Baker to file comments at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking that agency, which is ISO-NE’s federal regulator, to direct ISO-NE to eliminate the MOPR immediately, without delay. Click here to read the letter to Governor Baker.
The above from March 2022 Mass League Action Newsletter
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National Convention Set for June 23–26 |
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LWVUS has published the first call for our 55th Annual Convention June 23–26, 2022. Convention will be hybrid: delegates can attend from the comfort of their homes. More information can be found here. The Amherst League can have three delegates.
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Women’s History Month Events at LWVUS
Women Power Democracy live panel discussion, featuring leaders from organizations dedicated to fighting voter suppression and empowering communities. Facilitated by our CEO, Virginia Kase Solomón, the panel amplified the work of advocates from SuperMajority, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and Black Voters Matter. Learn more about our biggest takeaways and watch the recording below or at at LWV.org
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Read About the Women of Bloody Sunday on the LWVUS Blog:
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FORWARD THIS MESSAGE!
This monthly message is for anyone interested in the League, not just members. If you know someone who might be interested, forward this message and invite them to subscribe themselves, using the link below.
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e-BULLETIN STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS IN MARCH
The Editor of the LWVAmherst e-Bulletin, Jessica Ryan can be contacted here. The Associate Editors are Trish Farrington and Susan Millinger; Assistant Editors are Janice Ratner, Phyllis Lehrer, and Kay Fite who checks the links. Contributors to this month's e-Bulletin include LWVA members, Cynthia Brubaker, Elisa Campbell, Bonnie Isman, Susan Millinger, and Marcie Sclove. Material on LWVMA and LWVUS comes from the website lwvma.org and lwvus.org, respectively, selected by Susan Millinger.
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