Date: 5/23/2024
Subject: LWVMC: Weekly Update for May 23
From: League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County

JOIN US FOR OUR ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING!

7:00 PM - 8:30PM

If you are attending the dinner, the deadline to pay by credit card or check was , Friday, May 17.

Contact Mary Ellen Spicuzza with questions or help in registering: me.spicuzza@lwvmilwaukee.org or 414-975-7012

Please read the annual meeting kit packet beforehand and be prepared to vote on the 2024-25 budget, by-laws changes, and the nominees to the Board of Directors and to the Nominating Committee.

2024 LWVMC Annual Meeting Kit

LWVMC Value Proposition

The League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County now has a Value Proposition about who we are and the issues that our donors and others care about. We extend a huge thank you to LWVMC member and volunteer Mary Rode. Mary wrote the content and then worked with Maddie Mason on the layout and design. The result is a professionally created document that we can be very proud to have for our marketing and fund development. You can access the Value Proposition here.

The value proposition is a one-page, two-sided document explaining our mission, history, and impact. We will use it as supplemental information in our grant applications. It will also be used to inform and influence our supporters and donors and the public at large.

You can use the value proposition to explain our work and why you are a member and volunteer to your friends and colleagues as you expand our efforts to identify and cultivate prospective supporters and donors. Please feel free to print it out and make copies to share with others in your network!!

Bid High and Bid Often!!

Follow this sage advice tonight during the Silent Auction at the LWVMC Annual Meeting at Alioto’s.

Thank you to Elizabeth Harris-Hodge and her team for organizing our first ever silent auction event.

The annual meeting event tonight starts at 5:00 p.m. Don’t be late so you have time to browse the auction items and watch when you need to re-bid to stay on top of the list for your favorite items.

An often-asked question is “Why do we need to donate money when we pay dues?” The answer is that individual membership is currently $75 with $13 staying here at LWVMC. We send $32 to LWV US and $30 to LWV Wisconsin. This amount ($13 per member) does not pay for our budgeted operating and program expenses. The silent auction is one way to raise the additional needed funds. Another is to respond to the Spring appeal letter you received recently from our President, Nancy Maloney.

Thank you for your continued support of the League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County

Next Steps For Fair Maps Coalition

Following the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision in the Clarke v. Wisconsin Election Commission case that the 2021 legislative voting district maps were unconstitutional, and the passage and signing of Governor Evers’s maps, Wisconsin has fair maps for the 2024 election!

Now it's on to the next phase: promoting a fair, transparent, nonpartisan redistricting process to ensure an end to gerrymandering. If you'd like to be involved, contact the Fair Maps Team Leaders listed below:

North Shore Fair Maps (Milwaukee, Washington, & Ozaukee Counties)

Debbie Patel: deborah.j.patel@gmail.com

Cheryl Maranto: cmaranto4860@gmail.com

Waukesha County

Vicki Aro-Schackmuth: varoschackmuth@gmail.com

Keep up with developments by signing up for the WI Fair Maps Coalition newsletter here.

Recordings of PFAS Webinars Available

This spring, LWVWI hosted two webinars about PFAS, the everyday, everywhere chemical. The webinars discuss: where it originates; how it gets into our bodies and our environment; what it does to our health; personal protections we can take; current remediation options and innovative remediation methods under investigation; and the state of PFAS in the WI legislature.

Watch both webinars below:

Watch webinar 1: PFAS the Everyday Everywhere Toxin

Watch webinar 2: What to do about PFAS

LWVMC is looking for a member volunteer to manage our bookkeeping. Working with the Treasurer, the bookkeeper will use Quickbooks online to perform the following duties. Estimate of time is 7-10 hours per month. All work can be done remotely.

Enter and categorize accounts receivables into Quickbooks to include checks, PayPal payments, LWVMC online payments via Club Express, direct deposits, interest payments.
Pay bills twice a month (average of 12 checks/month).
Monthly account reconciliation.
Prepare monthly reports for the Treasurer/Board in Quickbooks.

If you are interested, please contact Linda Brundage at l.brundage@lwvmilwaukee.org.

Candidate participation in VOTE411

The League’s VOTE411 voter guide is an online tool for personalized voting information including finding what’s on your ballot and candidates’ views on issues. It provides the opportunity to compare candidates’ views on issues side by side before making voting decisions. LWVMC invites candidates running for local races to participate in the voter guide by answering League questions that are important to their constituents. Their answers are published verbatim and are not edited.

The VOTE411 Team invited 342 candidates in 190 races to participate in online voter guides for the February primary and the April election. Thirty-one (31) of 52 primary candidates (59.6%) participated in the February primary election online voter guide. One hundred thirty-three (133) of 326 candidates (40.8%) participated in the April election online voter guide. Ninety-eight (98) of 179 candidates (54.7%) responded to the League’s questions in contested races and 30 of 147 candidates (20.4%) in uncontested races.

Thank you to the VOTE411 Team and to all the League members who helped reach out to community members about using VOTE411 as an election resource and to candidates – urging them to participate in VOTE411. These efforts were notable for candidate participation in the February primary and for voter use of VOTE411. Candidate participation in the April election closely followed participation rates in the previous year.

Voter outreach at Housing Fair

The Comité Team(Latinx voter out reach) was in the community Saturday, May 18 at the VIA Housing Resource Fair & Bloom & Groom. Barbara Medina, Esperanza Gutierrez and Diane Stiegerwald, talked to about 120 attendees at this event. It was a beautiful, happy day for housing and election information and flowers for planting. We had one voter registration and one address change. We looked up polling sites for three people and checked registration for another two people. Three people had their photos taken with serapes. Buttons were popular and children, parents and a teacher took coloring pages with crayons. About 25 future voters played the spin wheel with civics questions. Thank you volunteers for your warm and engaging outreach! We knew many of the participants and enjoyed the community.

Prepare yourself to help people register to vote!

Learn how to register people to vote using MyVote.wi.gov. Learn what is acceptable photo ID for voting in Wisconsin and how to acquire it. Registration required.

Thursday June 27 | 5:30pm - 7:00pm | Location to be announced.

Questions regarding this announcement? Please email e.aelion@lwvmilwaukee.org

Wisconsin’s Constitutional Amendment Process

The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin is launching a Constitutional Corner series to highlight issues related to our constitution. This week's topic is the process to amend our state constitution.

Wisconsinites cannot currently put referenda or constitutional amendments on the ballot. All amendments to the state constitution start in the state legislature. To amend the constitution, lawmakers must approve identical language in two consecutive legislative sessions. After that, the amendment is scheduled for an election where it will be on the ballot of every Wisconsin voter. The Governor cannot veto a constitutional amendment, unlike regular bills the legislature passes.

Since the state’s founding in 1848, there have been 200 proposed amendments to the constitution and 150 of those have been ratified. In 2024 alone, Wisconsinites will vote on five constitutional amendments. This dramatic increase in constitutional changes should set off an alarm. Voters need to understand why so many amendments are being proposed, their origins, and the impact they will have on our state. LWVWI's Constitutional Corner series will be posted on its website.

League Cafe will meet on Friday, May 31 at the MPL East Branch at 10 a.m.

Milwaukee Public Library East Branch Community Room https://www.mpl.org/hours_locations/east.php

2320 N Cramer St, Milwaukee, WI 53211

Everyone is invited to attend. Come one and all!

Normally we meet on the 4th Friday of the month but we are meeting one week later to avoid the Memorial Day weekend. This meeting will be a general discussion meeting. When we have a general discussion meeting we talk about anything and everything of interest to the group. It is also an opportunity for newer members to come and learn more about our League. Also, at this meeting, we will choose our book selection for our June meeting. If you have a title in mind, please feel free to bring it up on the 31st.

Visit our Web Site

Accessing Members-Only Website Portal

The LWVMC website has information and resources that are available only to LWVMC members. To access the membership directory or members-only resources and volunteer opportunities, click on the button below. Contact Mary Ellen Spicuzza at me.spicuzza@lwvmilwaukee.org with any questions.

Support Local Democracy. Support Your League.

Your support is critical to help our nonpartisan grassroots organization reach voters play a critical role in democracy. It would not be possible to empower voters and defend democracy without your support.

Donate Here

Thank you! LWVMC

Volunteer Here

Join

You have received this message from the mailing list of League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County. If you would prefer not to receive these emails in the future, go to the opt-out page and modify your privacy settings. You can also request to be removed from our database completely.

Return to Previous Page