LWV California Voter. NEWS From around the region

California Voter Online!
The League of Women Voters of California

SUMMER 1999

NEWS From around the region...

NEWEST MTA

Pat Waleigh reports that the newest MTA was recruited at convention. Jackie Jacobberger is the new MTA for Sacramento, Davis, Woodland, Placerville and San Joaquin Leagues. She already has had a call from the Sacramento LWV and has made arrangements for meeting with them. (Contact Jackie Jacobberger at E-mail dhjacobberger@worldnet.att.net.

RESEARCH PROJECT ON DEATH PENALTY

Julia Schiller of LWV North Coast San Diego County has launched a unique research project about the death penalty and how its application varies geographically in our state. She hosted a successful caucus at the state League convention to generate interest in the issue of capital punishment and to find other individuals who oppose capital punishment. Julia states, "The project will require digging for specific homicide-related statistics for the years 1990-1996 at the county level. One of the most exciting things about my project is that I plan to proceed using volunteer power and the wonders of modern technology, specifically e-mail. l am working with other groups such as Death Penalty Focus and the NAACP to build my volunteer network. If you are on-line, have at least a few hours to volunteer over the next few months, and would like to see capital punishment either abolished or more consistently applied, l would love to hear from you. My e-mail address is julia@znet.com."

SMART VOTER WINS AN INTERNATIONAL AWARD

The League's Smart Voter project (www.smartvoter.org) received a Kosta Boda Crystal award as a finalist in the Global Bangemann Challenge, a Swedish-based international awards enterprise. After two years of gathering information and sifting through nearly 700 projects entered for 11 categories of the Global Bangemann Challenge, the international jury narrowed the field to 92 finalists. The finalists exhibit the highest standards in information technology based projects throughout the world. Smart Voter competed in the category termed Public Service and Democracy.

The entire Smart Voter team went to Nobel Hall in Stockholm on June 9, for presentation of the prestigious awards by the King of Sweden. Also present was benefactor Martin Bangemann and the mayor of Stockholm. Attending, at their own expense, were Trudell Een, Carol Watts, Kathleen Weisenberg, Roberta Hollimon, Fran Krezek, Barbara Hopkins, and Carl Hage, Smart Voter's programmer.

Our staff and volunteers are very proud to have received such a prestigious award in the Bangemann Challenge. It was a great honor to demonstrate Smart Voter to the global community along with so many other excellent Web sites. We commend the City of Stockholm for undertaking the Bangemann Challenge and for bringing people together to share experiences, ideas and enthusiasm. - Fran Krezek, LWVCEF Voter Service Liaison

EMERYVILLE: A WINNER OF THE GLOBAL BANGEMANN CHALLENGE

Doris Fine, LWVC Director of Voter Service, North

We are all proud of Smart Voter as a finalist for the Global Bangemann Challenge, but our local Berkeley/Albany/Emeryville (LWVBAE) League members are also really proud of Emeryville as a WINNER, one of only 4 in the US. Its award was in the category of the environment, where it was the only winner. Its site concerned efforts to remedy this small industrial city's history of soil and groundwater pollution by creating a one-stop-shop of information about contaminated sites, aiding redevelopment efforts, and serving as an incentive for economic growth. You can find the site by clicking on Emeryville's home page which is listed on the LWVBAE, (http://home.pacbell.net/lwvbae). Emeryville has a population of 7,275 and its city manager, John Flores, who spoke at a recent well-attended meeting of the LWV Bay Area, is very progressive, forthright, and modest. In acknowledging the award, he wanted to be sure that credit would go to the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Environmental Protection Agency for its focus on the "Brownfield" problem. Information about the Bangemann awards is on their web site at www.challenge.stockholm.se.

THE LEAGUE REACHES OUT TO UZBEKISTAN

The Uzbekistan Department Director of the Regional Strategies Studies International in Tashknet was in San Francisco for a few days last October. Among the goals of his three weeks State Department-sponsored trip was to "observe the functioning of the policy procedure, at election time in the United States, when the public voices of our diverse, multiethnic society are heard." The League of Women Voters (of San Francisco) gave him his "best experience" (his words) watching our Board of Education Candidate Forum. The impact of our Voter Service work knows no bounds.