December 2024-January 2025
Editor Jennifer Bales
jbales@me.com
| Co-Presidents Susan Saunders and Peggy Leech | | By Peggy Leech and Susan Saunders | Your board has been busy working on our 2 goals for 2024-25 (operational efficiencies, and volunteer growth). We did quite a bit of brainstorming and, now that the election season is over, we can address our ideas more fully. We have already implemented a few, such as:
• Consent agenda at board meetings
• Study sessions between board meetings to address items needing more discussion
• Org chart including vacancies
We are planning to do some board training on financial statements and technology areas such as Google Drive, Club Express, and Slack. We are updating our job descriptions, with a goal of simplifying. We are starting to investigate how we might use Club Express more effectively to fill our needs through postings for volunteer opportunities and vacancies. And more ideas.
We will have a board retreat on January 25, which will include a segment on Google Drive training. We have our next 2 study sessions scheduled:
• December 5. Discussion on Events Coordinator and Community Outreach positions
• January 2. Calendaring for 2025.
These meetings are open to all members. If you would like to attend, or if you have some ideas related to our 2 goals (operational efficiencies, and volunteer growth), please feel free to contact us directly, or contact Stephanie at admin@lwvbc.org. All participation and ideas are welcome!
Meanwhile, in-person meetings and events will start in January. We look forward to seeing you there.
Best wishes for a peaceful holiday season.
|  | | Post-election potluck social November 21, at the Rocky Mountain Equality Center | 2024 Voter Service Accomplishments | International Visitors Leadership Program | On Tuesday, November 5th I represented LWVBC at an information sharing event with a delegation of journalism & media professionals from Indonesia hosted by the Boulder Council for International Visitors. The event was one stop on a 3-week U.S. tour for the International Visitors Leadership Program, a local programming agency for the U.S State Department. After a short presentation on the mission & history of the LWV, the delegation asked questions about how we engage with the community, advocate for fair access to information, and encourage women to become active participants in democracy.
The group attended a watch party Tuesday evening. Later in the week, they took a tour of the Boulder County Ballot Processing Center and met with Pirie Jensen, LWVBC Energizing Young Voters Coordinator. The organizer said they had a lot to think about as they consider ways to strengthen democracy in their own country.
| | Holly Monkman with the delegation | | Pirie Jensen with the delegation | LWV Greeley-Weld County v. Weld County Board of Commissioners
Dec 11, 2024, 1:00 pm hearing with the CO Supreme Court
| Meet Your Legislators
January 12, 2025, 2-4pm Louisville Senior & Recreation Center
| Your Holiday Gift to LWVBC!
| As you prepare for the holidays, please include on your gift list an end-of-year donation to LWVBC! Your monthly donation of $20 or annual gift will make a huge difference to LWVBC’s 2025 success. Visit Our Donation Page or mail a check to LWVBC, P.O. Box 21274, Boulder, CO 80308.
In addition to a direct payment to LWVBC, there are easy ways to help the league without touching your pocketbook! If you are over 70 and 1/2, you can designate LWVBC to receive all or a portion of your Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from an IRA or retirement account. Or you can sign up for King Sooper’s or Safeway’s Community Rewards programs.
We at the board are tremendously grateful to each of you for your membership, your amazing volunteer efforts and your fiscal generosity.
| | | The holidays bring much joy and presents and trash and recyclables and compostables. What to do with wrapping paper: If it is glittery, metallic or shiny it is NOT recyclable. The same goes for ribbons and bows. These papers are a paper plastic composite and will not recycle. If you are unsure if it is recyclable try scrunching up the paper; if it stays scrunched it is.
As an alternative, use newspaper, maps, cloth bags, reusable gift bags or boxes. | Colorado Senate Resignations Trigger Vacancy Committees | There are three Colorado senate resignations that are triggering vacancy committees in January 2025: SD29 Janet Buckner, SD30 Kevin Van Winkle, and SD31 Chris Hansen. An interesting note is that all three of them obtained a legislative seat via a vacancy-in-office committee. Buckner and Hansen were just elected to a 4-year term last month.
In January of this year I proposed a two-pronged approach to deal with these kinds of vacancies in office. Both prongs would let all the voters in a district have a say in the replacement for a legislator vacating their seat. Article Here. Under this proposal:
• In the cases of Senators Hansen and Buckner, after a vacancy-in-office committee chooses a temporary replacement in January, a special citizens’ election (for ALL the senate district voters) would be held in November 2025 to fill the seats from Nov 2025 until the Nov 2026 election fills out the last two years of Hansen’s and Buckner’s terms.
• In the case of Senator Van Winkle, a contingency election would have been held in SD30 at the same time as the Douglas County commissioner election. The contingency election would have chosen a senate replacement to serve if Van Winkle were elected as a commissioner. No party vacancy committee would be needed.
| LWVBC Letter to Boulder City Council | On November 16, 2024 Holly Monkman, the director of action and advocacy for the LWVBC, sent a letter to the Boulder City Council requesting a continuing partnership to advance better voting methods. In particular, the letter requests a study session regarding proportional representation in Boulder City Council elections, and support for the Littleton City Council's request to the General Assembly to enable more voting methods.
| An Election Reformer’s Reflections on the Election Results | The post-election headlines are making much ado about the failure to adopt Instant-Runoff (ranked) Voting in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Arizona. In all but Oregon, the reform was paired with a choose-one all-candidate primary open to all voters, modeled after Alaska’s Final-4 Voting. (Alaska voters narrowly – by 664 votes – retained Final-4 Voting.) Voters also rejected primary election reforms in Montana and South Dakota and banned ranked voting in Missouri.
LWVCO is, meanwhile, making progress on a Primary Election Reform study, headed by LWVBC member Marcus Ogren. The study is considering many voting methods, not only Instant-Runoff Voting. In our polarized political climate, structural reform is more important than ever. Our work continues.
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By Susan Curtis
Membership count: 203 | | | Welcome to these new members who joined in November: Erin Anderson Edwards, Sara Miller and Audrey Hendricks. We’re so happy to have you join us!
Changes in Dues are Coming
As you already know, the way in which LWVUS collects and distributes dues is changing. We anticipate these changes will happen February 1, 2025. We will keep you in the know over these next months.
LWVUS anticipates the changes, which will be reflected in the website interface that members see when joining or renewing, will streamline membership activities and assist smaller local leagues around the country without websites. We are proud of our own local league as we are large and well organized with robust systems. Overall, the belief is these changes will grow membership nationally and provide consistency among local leagues.
This is what will change February 1:
1. The suggested annual membership fee will be $75. There will be an option to pay less than $75 in a “pay as you can” option to a minimum of $20. There is also the option to pay more than $75 in dues. All amounts are considered dues, whether the minimum $20, $75 or more. Currently, LWVBC members pay $80 with the choice to add $5 to cover credit card fees.
2. Household memberships will no longer be available as each member in a household is expected to join or renew as an individual member. What household members can do to keep the current $140 household membership in place is to renew each household member as an individual at $70, thus holding the $140 annual dues static.
3. Student membership will no longer be free. Rather, student members will pay the $20 minimum amount allowed to join or renew.
Donations—You Choose Where Your Money Goes
One very important change is coming that could have a profound impact on LWVBC. It’s important for you to consider now where you want your donations to go—local league, LWVBC; state league, LWVCO; or, national league, LWVUS. The League of Women Voters at all levels does important work. Today, many LWVBC members make an additional donation to LWVBC with their dues payment when joining or renewing. We are grateful for your continued support to the important work of LWVBC.
Our Treasurer, Molly Saunders, looked very closely at the financial impact to LWVBC with the reduction in dues amounts and the changes in proportional distribution we have noted in previous issues of The Voter. (Please refer to the November 2024 issue of The Voter.) For the fiscal year 2023 - 2024, the actual distribution of dues to LWVBC was $4494.00 ($80 dues, LWVBC received 35%). Using the same number of members, $75 in dues paid and 20% prorated distribution, LWVBC would receive $2407.50—a loss of $2086.50.
The financial impact to LWVBC becomes even greater when we consider the many members who add a donation to their dues payment. Using the same fiscal year, 2023 - 2024, LWVBC received $3225.00, the amount members added to dues as a donation. LWVBC received 100%! If members continue the same practice of adding a donation to dues payments and using the same fiscal year 2023 - 2024 data, LWVBC would receive only $645 (20% of $3225.00). The reason is money contributed with dues using the LWVUS new website interface will be prorated—LWVUS, 33%; LWVCO, 47%; LWVBC, 20%.
Please consider carefully where you want your donations to go. If you decide your donation will stay with LWVBC, you can donate on our website as you do today. We suggest this will be the easiest way to donate to LWVBC. Alternatively, you can make a contribution directly to LWVBC using the new renewal process, being careful to separate your donation from paying dues. In future articles, we will provide screen shots of the options available and provide more information. Now is the time to consider your choices for support.
We are enormously proud of all the hard work LWVBC does. In the current fiscal year alone, we have achieved:
* 1,732 community members attended or viewed LWVBC sponsored candidate forums
* 297 community members attended ballot issue presentations
* 2,357 community members received outreach re civic engagement
* 6,632 community members used VOTE411.org websites for informed voting
We invited the community to Meet our State Legislators; join us in Community Conversations on civility, disinformation and school bond issues; and, educated the community on ways to improve voting methods. All of this takes resources—money, volunteers and engagement in our communities. Please consider the important work of LWVBC as you make your choices for support.
What isn’t Changing
There is much that won’t change going forward. Because we have a robust LWVBC website that is well managed and current, LWVBC.org will continue to look the same and have the same information you depend upon. Information about events, volunteer opportunities, officers, news, members, your ability to make direct donations to LWVBC and much more will remain the same. LWVBC.org will be your one stop for current and useful information about local league and State of Colorado league information. | |