Notes from our Annual Meeting

• Making Democracy Work - Voter Rights/Education
• Racial Inclusiveness/Justice/Equity
• Climate Change
• Criminal Justice

Meeting Details below and attached as PDF files under "Event Minutes" at the bottom of this page.

Message from Our President, Carole Paterson

Greetings Members and Friends,

Another LWV Solano year is ending. And what a year it has been! Following the 2023 Annual Meeting the newly elected board of directors met at the Cordelia Library to focus on goals for the 2023-24 year. Also, at that meeting we learned about our role as advocates from Gloria Chun Hoo, who joined us from the San Jose League and who is a member of the LWVC board of directors. We anticipated that these skills will be very important during the 2024 election cycle.

Gathering no dust under our feet, we, under the excellent organizational guidance of Dr. Sarah Chapman as chair, began planning for the visit of our Secretary of State, Dr. Shirley Weber. Held at Solano Community College’s Performing Arts Theater, those in the audience were treated to a wonderful presentation by Dr. Weber who spoke of her growing up years and her current role as our Secretary of State. It was a very personal and heartwarming experience.

Wanting to bring our membership together for some socializing and to also meet one of our Board of Supervisor member, Mitch Mashburn, we gathered at the lovely Green Valley Rock Creek Winery for the event. Hosted by owners Carolyn and Tom West, we enjoyed Supervisor Mashburn’s presentation, sipped wine, vied to win door prizes, and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company—in person, not Zoom, so refreshing!

The March Primary saw us conducting candidate forums in Fairfield, Benicia and high school senior classes were visited by members to help them register to vote. The Program Commitee launched a banned book discussion series via Zoom. We discussed podcasts from the “Velshi Banned Book Club” podcast series, produced by MSNBC. On each of the three weeks, sessions were held to discuss 2 podcasts, covering a total of 6 podcasts. We included members and community friends. Our LWV Solano discussion series caught the attention of the “Velshi” production team… and Ali himself. Subsequently, Alice Fried and Rami Muth were interviewed by Ali Velshi recently. Their recorded conversa$on will be aired sometime soon on the MSNBC Velshi Show and we'll post a link to the conversation on our website when it's available. It’s excitng for LWV Solano to put our county on the national map in this way!

It has been an honor to serve as your president for the past three years. I am looking forward to continuing as a member of the board—it is a team of excellent leaders that I have grown to admire and respect. I look forward to rolling up my sleeves in a different capacity with our board, always with the goal of making democracy work.

ANNUAL MEETING INFORMATION

General Meeting Agenda Overview

• Call to Order – Welcome and Introductions – Carole Paterson
• Parliamentarian – Dr. Sarah Chapman
• Rules of the Day – Carole Paterson
• Agenda – Carole Paterson
• Report of the Nominating Committee – Janice Adams, Chair
• Election of Officers, Directors, and Nominating Committee
• Introduction of the New Board for 2024-2025
• Presentation of Proposed Budget – Judy Potter, Treasurer
• Review of Proposed Budget 2024-2025
• Discussion and Adoption of 2024-2025 Budget
• Program Recommendations for 2024-2025 – Janice Adams, Chair
• Proposed Program Priorities... Continued from 2023-2024

Priority #1- Racial Inclusiveness/Justice/Equity
Priority #2 - Making Democracy Work - Voter Rights/Education
Priority #3 - Climate Change with a focus on water
Priority #4 - Criminal Justice

• Discussion and Approval of 2024-2025 Program Priorities
• Discussion and Adoption of Amended Bylaws – Rami Muth Status of the League – Carole Paterson
• Voter Services –Craig Paterson
• Membership – Rami Muth
• Youth Outreach... Democracy Matters – Alice Fried
• Program Planning and Events – Janice Adams
• Great Decisions – Judy Potter
• Communications – KC Nash/Sandy Coury
• Closing Announcements – Carole Paterson
• Adjourn General Meeting

[Short Break]

Introduction of Guest Speaker John Gardner, Assistant Registrar of Voter by Rami Muth
Mr. Gardner will discuss voter integrity and the processes used to provide safe and secure elections in Solano County.
Detailed Annual General Membership Meeting Agenda June 6th, 6:30 – 8:00 pm
Call to Order – Welcome and Introductions – Carole Paterson Parliamentarian — Dr. Sarah Chapman
Rules of the Day – Carole Paterson
Voting Process: Voting is limited to members in good standing of the League of Women Voters Solano County.
A 'Yes/No' poll format will be used frequently on items only requiring the approval of majority of voting members.
Some polls may include multiple choices... specific instructions will be shared, as needed.
All reported Zoom polls are anonymous.
Quorum: 15% of members in good standing shall constitute a quorum.
Participation: League members and community members may ask questions and add comments.
'Raise Your Hand' if you wish to get the Moderator's attention.
You may ask questions or make comments in the Chat window. A Chat
Moderator will synthesize and relay chats to the moderator during the meeting, as needed. Chats can be addressed to 'Everyone' or to specific individuals.

Agenda – Carole Paterson
1. Report of Nominating Committee – Janice Adams
The Board of Directors consists of four officers and six directors who are elected by the annual meeting to staggered two-year terms. Additionally, not more than 3 directors may be appointed by the elected members of the Board. The appointed directors hold office until June 30 following the next annual meeting. Elected directors (and officers) take office July 1 following the annual meeting (For current Board, Appendix page 4)
• Additional Nominations Before the Annual Meeting:
Nominations from the floor may be made by any member. To facilitate a remote Zoom meeting, nominations must be submitted to LWVSolano [at] gmail.com with "Nominations" in the subject line by midnight on June 2, 2024.

LWV Solano County Proposed Slate of Candidates for 2024
Italics indicate Proposed Candidates for 2024 Nominations from the floor received by June 2, 2024
Position                       Candidate                                Term
President                                Rami Muth                               2024-2025
Vice President                        Janice Adams                          2024-2026
Secretary                                Leslie Lessenger                     2023-2025
Treasurer                                Char Hummel                          2024-2026
Director                                   Craig Paterson                        2023-2025
Director                                   Sarah Chapman                      2023-2025
Director                                   Kathy Pratt                              2024 -2026
Director                                   Barbara King                           2023-2025
Director                                   Carole Paterson                      2024-2026
Director                                   Alice Fried                               2024-2026
Nominating Committee Chair Carole Paterson           2024-2025 

Election of Slate of Officers, Directors, and Nominating Committee
Contingency action: If there are nominations from the floor, those positions will be separated from the slate for a vote to specifically choose one candidate among those who are nominated.

Introduction of New Board and Nominating Committee for 2024-2025

Presentation of Proposed Budget – Judy Potter, Treasurer (Appendix pages 6-8) a. Review Proposed 2024-2025 Budget
Discussion and Adoption of 2024-2025 Budget

Program Recommendations for 2024-2025 – Janice Adams
Proposed Program Priorities... Continued from 2021-2022
Priority #1- Racial Inclusiveness/Justice/Equity
Priority #2 – Making Democracy Work - Voter Rights/Education
Priority #3 - Climate Change iv. Priority #4 – Criminal Justice
Discussion and Approval of 2024-2025 Program Priorities

Discussion and Adoption of the Amended Bylaws – Rami Muth

Status of the League – Carole Paterson
Our League is a collection of small committees and individuals who work together to accomplish great things. Written summaries of their work are attached in the appendix.

Committees:
Voter Services –Craig Paterson (Appendix page 9)
Communications – KC Nash (Appendix page 9-10)
Membership – Rami Muth (Appendix page 10-11)
Youth Outreach... Democracy Matters – Alice Fried (Appendix page 11-12)
Program Planning and Events – Janice Adams (Appendix page 12-13)
Great Decisions – Judy Potter (Appendix page 13-14)

Closing Announcements – Carole Paterson
If you are interested in joining the League or would like to pay your dues by mail, please send your checks to LWVS, PO Box 83, Benicia, CA 94510

Adjourn General Meeting – Carole Paterson
[Short Break]
Introduction of Guest Speaker... John Gardner, Assistant Registrar of Voters – Rami Muth

Appendix
2023-2024 Board of
Consisting of 4 officers and 4 Directors who are elected, and up
Carole Paterson, President
Rami Muth, Vice President
Judy Potter, Treasurer
Leslie Lessenger, Secretary KC Nash
Alice Fried Craig Paterson Barbara King
Sarah Chapman Janice Adams
Char Hummel (appointed)
Directors to 3 appointed Directors Term Expiration
2026
2024
2024
2026
2024
2024
2025
2025
2025
2026
2024

Standing Committees

• Executive Committee: (Meets as needed, LWVS Officers, open to board members and committee chairs, others by invitation)
• Budget Committee
• Membership (folded into the work of all committees)
• Voter Service
• Program Planning and Events
• Fundraising
• Youth Outreach
• Communications

LWV Solano County Budget Proposal 2024-25
Submitted by Budget Committee (Judy Potter and Sue Sumner-Moore)
This 2024-2025 budget proposal was developed with input from the LWV Solano County committee chairs and board of directors.

INCOME: We anticipate income will be slightly higher than our current year income ($650.00): • The Crocker& Community Foundation asked us to administer board elections in 202425, which will bring in $500 to $1,000 depending on how much work we do.
We anticipate slightly more fundraising income thanks to some new ideas and events planned by our fundraising committee.
We expect membership to stay approximately the same. While we often have an uptick in membership during an election year, we budgeted conservatively and kept the same figure for dues income.

Beginning January 2025, the LWV US will be changing the way membership dues are collected and distributed. The details are not yet finalized. Our income from dues and expenses for PMPs will both change. We planned the 2024-2025 budget based on current procedures. We cannot be sure of timing for receiving funds from the National League after January 1, 2025, so we will have to be mindful of that early in the year.

We anticipate a slight decrease in income from Great Decisions. We have had a successful year, but our participant numbers have not yet returned to pre-pandemic numbers.

EXPENSES: We budgeted expenses in most areas at levels like those of the 2023-2024 budget, with total expenses estimated to be $1,140 less than during the current year. Among the changes in both versions of the budget:
We removed the budget item of $600 for the IRS fee to file the 501(c)(3) conversion papers. The 1023 form was filed in April 2024 and the fee was paid then.
We propose reducing the fundraising expense budget from $700 to $300. To date, we have spent none of the money allocated for this during our current year.
We allocated $250 to the new category of Advocacy. As a 501 (c)(3) our lobbying (and advocacy) activities cannot constitute a "substantial part" of our overall activities. Setting our budget at $250 will help us stay well within a less than substantial portion of our budgeted activities but is more than we have budgeted in the past.
Voter Outreach, PMPs, Conferences, Programs, and Great Decisions remain essentially at the same levels as the current year's budget.
Budget categories consolidation
The proposed budget includes the budget as adopted for 2023-24, which has many more categories than the proposed 2024-25 budget. The budget committee and the board have adopted a consolation of budget categories to make reporting simpler. The proposed budget for 2024-2025 is presented with the consolation of budget categories.

Education Fund: Our Education Fund has received donations this year of $552.00.
Our beginning balance 07.01.23 $596.00
Donations to date $552.00
LWVCA per member payments
Current balance
We will use much if not all of the remaining Ed Fund for our remaining PMP payment to the national League. If our 501 (c)(3) conversion is successful, our Local League Education Fund administered by the LWV CA Education Fund will be closed and any remaining funds will be forwarded to us.

LWV Solano County 2024-25 budget proposal
2023-24 2024-25
Approved thru 03.31.24
Proposed

LWV Solano County 2024-25 budget proposal

                                                                                                                                                                            2023-24                                                 2024-25

Status of the League 2024
Voter Services
Contact Information: Craig Paterson, craig_paterson [at] yahoo.com
Responsibilities of the committee:
The Voter Services Committee's main responsibilities are to register citizens to vote, to help people understand their rights as a citizen, and to encourage eligible students in high school and college to register. This committee is present in the community at events and activities where people gather to be able to promote the work of the League in Solano County. The committee is also interested in developing partnerships with other organizations who share a common passion for registering and informing citizens of their opportunities and rights as citizens.
Committee Members: Chair, Craig Paterson, members: Janice Adams, Sarah Chapman, Alice Fried, Barbara King, Leslie Lessenger, Rami Muth, Carole Paterson, and Kathy Pratt.

Highlights from the year:
Committee members Craig Paterson and Leslie Lessenger worked with the state League Vote411 team to populate the Solano County Vote411 site with candidates who were running for elected office. The committee saw a 75% success rate for securing information to input into Vote411 from candidates in the Primary election.
Committee members Barbara King, Kathy Pratt, Rami Muth, Janice Adams, and Carole Paterson conducted voter education programs and registered students in Benicia, Vallejo, and Travis high schools as well as the Vallejo Adult school and the Benicia Liberty Alternative School, and the Children's Network Parent Learning and Training program. A partnership with the NAACP/Theta Delta Theta Sorority was helpful in conducting registering teens to vote in the three Vallejo High Schools and the Adult School. Over 300 students registered to vote.

A State Senate Candidates Forum was organized by Craig Paterson and conducted by Alice Fried and Sarah Chapman at the Paradise Valley Estates. Over 40 participants attended the forum.

In partnership with the Communications Committee news releases were submitted to local news outlets sharing information about registering to vote and League related to voting activities.
COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
Contact Information: KC Nash Responsibilities:
The Communications Committee --
Supports and works with the Solano League Board and committees to get the word out about activities, initiatives, news, events, and programs.
To fulfill these responsibilities, the Communications Committee relies on the Board and committee leaders to provide us with timely, clear, and accurate information the committee can then provide to members, friends, local organizations, and the media.
We encourage feedback from all our members.
We make use of a full range of marketing tools and technologies including our website MyLO platform, and applications such as Eventbrite, MailChimp, and Zoom to make sure the flow of information is smooth, standardized, easy-to-access, and follows League guidelines. We review applications data to understand audience engagement and improve application use.
Organization
The Committee meets as groups monthly to assess needs, measure effectiveness of communications, set editorial goals, and build plans to continuously improve across all areas. Focused subcommittees, such as the Website and Technologies team meet as needed to research and discuss improved use of current and new tools. We are always looking for new members to help with the increasing communications needs of our growing league.
Members:
Website and Technologies, Newsletters
KC Nash, Chair Publicity
Articles, Blog, and Editing
Alice Fried
Social Media and local calendar posts, Images
Linda Stewart
Voter Newsletter Graphics
Leslie Lessenger
Event Placement in Local Media and Organization Calendars is done by the whole team by locality.
Standard Monthly Schedule
Voter Newsletter every other month
2-3 MailChimp Monthly E-blast Updates
1 Main Press Release and 1-2 additional releases as needed
Event placement as needed
Weekly Website updates, more frequent if needed
Frequent social media and local calendar posts (Weekly or more)

Membership Committee
Rami Muth – Chairperson
Contact Information: Rami Muth ramilmuth [at] gmail.com
Members include Rami Muth, Sharon Tucker, Alice Fried, Frances McCullough, Margo McGlone, Andrea Slater, Belinda Smith, Leslie Lessenger, Sarah Chapman, Nancy Gray, and Christina Palmer. Responsibilities/Goals:
Actively recruit new members that represent the demographics of Solano County. The goal is to diversify our membership in terms of age, race, and ethnicity.
Continue to implement and expand our youth outreach efforts with the Solano Youth Coalition and cultivate other partnerships.
Actively engage our members by encouraging committee participation and volunteer work to support the efforts of the league.
Actively seek out partnerships with aligned groups that want to support the efforts of the LWV
We have formed partnerships with other groups in Solano County as a mechanism to extend our reach and forge meaningful alliances that support our common goals.

Our members are passionate activists who support the work of providing unbiased information to the residents of Solano County thereby allowing them to become better informed and empowered to participate in the voting process. Membership has become a focus of each of our events and is promoted throughout the year.

We hold periodic events to support and engage our members. On October 29, 2023, we held a membership event called Each One Reach One, at the Rock Creek Vineyard in Fairfield. We had over 40 people in attendance and were able to successfully add several new members to our chapter. Mitch Mashburn was our guest speaker and he presented information about the Flannery Project (California Forever) and helped facilitate a lively discussion among members and guests.
Meetings: This committee was folded into the work of all committees and events. We do not have specific meeting times.

LWVSC Youth Outreach Report (2024-2025)
Contact Information: alicefried89 [at] gmail.com

LWV Call to Action: to increase youth engagement in the political process. In addition to responding the League's direct call to action, the LWVSC's Youth Outreach goals are to 1) use League programs, activities and resources to prepare students to enter adulthood and society as responsible citizens respectful of humanity, individual dignity and with a community mindset; and 2) to provide groundwork or frame-of-reference for ongoing political engagement; 3) increase league membership with knowledge about its resources used to protect our fragile democracy.

LWSC's Action Response: Created Democracy Matters: LWVSC Civics Education Program (DM) and entered a partnership with Solano Youth Coalition (SYC); Travis Education Center (TEC); Mare Island Technical School (MIT); Golden Hills Alternative School; Parent Training Learning Institute (PTLI) and ARC Solano, to provide Solano students/citizens hands-on, project-based, civics learning activities that inform how democracy works by demonstrating what citizens must do to make it work in the local government setting.

The training and project-based learning activities of three hallmark league programs offered to students are:

1) Observer Corps Training (OCT)
Demonstrates how to attend, observe, and participate in local governing boards and agency meetings. The OCT hands-on activity in 2024 is the mock city council meeting.
2) Forum Training
Emphasizes the importance of an informed citizens and demonstrates how to plan and conduct a forum not only to encourage students to attend candidate and issue/policy information forums, but how to organize and present their own forums using the rules of engagement and civility practices used by the historic League of Women Voters.
3) Voter Training
Shows participants not only how to register to vote, but how to cast an informed vote, i.e. how to access all voter related information such as ballot drop off posts, in-person voting venues, biographies and voting records of candidates, information on propositions, etc. Also, in this training, DM collaborator—Office of the Registrar of Voters—supplies voting equipment and technology to enhance the impact of a hands-on experience of this civics-learning activity.
These activities are designed to give students a better understanding of how government systems work; to get students involved in community issues; and to provide useful league tools and resources on how to participate in the process of debating, electing, governing and consensus building.

The Value of Collaboration
In addition to partnerships with the aforementioned learning institutions, collaborative partners include:
Local elected officials who provide personal and practical insights on the role they play as well as information on procedures and processes required to instigate issue solutions and policies that impact collective thereby individual day-to-day life experiences in our communities.
Voter Registrar – provide students/citizens hands-on training on how to register voters, how to vote and how to access official voting information and services. Training includes how to use voting technology and equipment; viewing of how votes are counted; as well as training and the opportunity to be a poll worker.
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority – adopts a poll and engages DM youth trainees as poll workers during elections.
2024-2025 LWVSC Youth Outreach Activities and Upcoming Projects:
So far, in 2024, DM has delivered OCT training to MIT, ARC and TEC student participants with mock council meetings in Fairfield, Suisun City and Vallejo. Upcoming projects include Voter Training at MIT, ARC, TEC and PLTI.
In partnership with the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, DM civics curriculum will be offered to incarcerated students at the Evergreen Academy.

A desired consequence of our Democracy Matters Civics Education program is its expansion capability to other leagues. The first of which is the Youth Empowerment Summit scheduled for April 20, 2024, in Ukiah, CA. This event is the result of our (LWVSC) collaboration with the Mendocino League and the recently organized Northern California Youth Coalition, a 60-member group of high-school leaders from 30 counties.
Respectfully submitted by
Alice Fried

Program Planning and Events Committee:
Responsibilities: The Program Planning and Events Committee (PP&E) plans and implements a wide range of activities at monthly meetings that reflect the program priorities established by the league locally and on a state and national level.
Members Included: Janice Adams, Craig Paterson, Alice Fried, Carole Paterson, Rami Muth, Sarah Chapman, Charlene Hummel, KC Nash
Contact Information: Janice Adams janiceadams1775 [at] yahoo.com
Highlights from the year:
The guest speaker for our General Meting in June was our own Alice Fried, creator and leader of our award- winning Democracy Matters program along with administrators of the Solano Youth Coalition (SYC), Rebecca Floyd and Johanna Nowak-Palmer, and SYC students. The discussed the SYC, Democracy Matters and the impact this program has had on their lives. The Democracy Matters program actively engages youth in local government.
Secretary of State Dr. Shirley Weber was our guest speaker at an event held at the Solano Community College along with Alice Fried and a panel of young people from Democracy Matters. The forum was focused on increasing civic engagement of today's youth and ways to increase youth voting.
Mitch Mashburn was the guest speaker at the member gathering in the vineyard at Rock Creek Vineyard in October. He discussed the Flannery/California Forever Project and its potential impact on Solano County. This was an informational meeting and offered a time for audience interaction.
Craig Paterson led a three-part series on Banned Books. The focus was on Ali Velshi's Banned Book podcast. Participants discussed a total of twelve banned books, the reasons for their being banned and ideas for promoting the right to read.
GREAT DECISIONS 2023 -2024
Niles Medders and Judy Potter Co-Chairs Contact information: greatdecisions.bpl [at] gmail.com
GREAT DECISIONS AND GREAT DECISIONS EXTENSION are programs cosponsored by the League of Women Voters
Solano County and the Benicia Public Library. The League of Women Voters Benicia first sponsored the Great Decisions program in 2010. The Benicia Public Library joined us as cosponsors in 2015. We have provided this program to the membership and the public for 14 years and jointly with the Benicia Public Library for the last nine of those years. The program consists of two parts. GREAT DECISIONS occurs February through early April. We meet weekly on Monday evenings to view the Great Decisions Master Class DVD provided by the Foreign Policy Association. We purchase a classroom set of Great Decisions Briefing books which contain chapters on each of the 8 timely global issues which are also covered in the Master Class DVD. We encourage participants to purchase a briefing book and read the chapter weekly. We provide a weekly email with suggested books, articles, and or videos relevant to the week's topic. We then watch the Master Class presentation as a group and have an informal discussion following the DVD presentation. The material we read, view, and discuss helps us to become more informed citizens. Topics covered this year were: Mideast realignment, Climate technology, Science across borders, U.S. – China trade rivalry, NATO's Future, Understanding Indonesia, High Seas treaty, and Pandemic preparedness. We had 47 people sign our attendance roster which means each of those people attended at least one meeting. We had an average attendance of 19.5 participants at the library with a high of 25 and a low of 15. In addition, we provided a zoom link where we had an average 9 participants, a high of 11 and a low of 6. We averaged approximately 28 people per meeting when Zoom and in Library figures were added together. We had a group of 26 people who attended four or more of our meetings. Of the people on our attendance roster 10 were current League members. The second part of our program is GREAT DECISIONS EXTENSION. It meets monthly June through October on the 3rd Mondays of the month. It was developed out of the interest of people in the Great Decisions group to continue meeting, learning, and discussing topics of interest. This group does not limit itself to topics of global interest but will consider anything of general interest to the group. Usually, we focus on current events. We are scheduled to begin our first meeting of 2024 at the Benicia Public Library on June 17th at 7:00 pm. We solicit topics from our current members and ask people to rank their interest in different topics. We have received some very interesting suggestions for June but have not yet selected the topic. Last year (2023) Artificial Intelligence, and the Flannery Project were two of the topics we covered.