1. A New Day, A New Year, and A New Board!
2. Community Meeting! Prevent Truth Decay - Combat Mis/Disinformation
3. The Case for a Consolidated Evanston School District
4. Bring your own bag
A New Day, A New Year, and A New Board!
The League of Women Voters of Roselle-Bloomingdale held its Annual Meeting last month and we are ready to start our new year. We are so fortunate to have many leadership members remaining in their positions and several new board members who stepped forward this year. We are so pleased to have Barbara Hochstadt and Diana Hoke serving as our co-presidents and kindly help us welcome new Vice President Susan Wakefield Dal Porto, new Secretary Jill Sagi, and new Advocacy Director Laura Bennett.
Our budget was approved with more money allocated for getting out the vote.
We want to thank Donna Limper for her board service this past year. She served as a tireless Advocacy Director and Co-President. We’d also like to thank Sue Coleman for her excellent work as Co-President, and Lisa Fonseca-Mlodoch for serving as our dedicated Secretary this past year.
2024-2025 Board:
Executive Committee Member 1 Diana Hoke
Executive Committee Member 2 Barbara Hochstadt
*Executive Committee Term (2024-2025)
President Emeritus (2023-2024) Roberta Borrino
Vice President (2022-2024) Susan Wakefield Dal Porto
Secretary (2022-2024) Jill Sagi
Membership Chair (2022-2024) Mary Ann Lill-Clous
Treasurer (2023-2025) Sue Coleman
Voter Services Officer (2023-2025) Roberta Borrino
Elected Directors on the Board:
Advocacy Director (2024-2025) Laura Bennett
Communications Director (2022-2024) Barbara Hochstadt
Community Director (2023-2025) Mike Murray
Environmental Director (2023-2025) Pam Re
Fundraising & Events Director (2023-2025) Shefali Trivedi
Congratulations to our new team and thank you to our outgoing leaders.
Community Meeting! The League of Women Voters of Roselle-Bloomingdale will present Prevent Truth Decay - Combat Mis/Disinformation, a presentation to address this troubling threat to free and fair elections, on Wednesday, June 26, 2024, from 7-8:30 pm in Rooms A/B of the Bloomingdale Public Library located at 101 Fairfield Way in Bloomingdale, Illinois.
The proliferation of misinformation and disinformation has emerged as a significant threat to informed decision-making by the electorate. It ultimately undermines trust in legitimate information sources, increases polarization in our society and erodes our democratic processes. The presentation will cover types of mis- and disinformation, including manipulated AI content, and the algorithms that spread it. It also will build awareness of the psychological processes of confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance, both of which create filter bubbles that can support beliefs built on fabricated information.
Come and learn how to minimize the impact of false information to achieve a more informed and resilient society through education and public awareness of mis- and dis-information.
This event is free and open to the public and attendees do not need to become a League member to attend. Bring a friend!
Enjoy this recently published guest essay: The Case for a Consolidated Evanston School District.
What the article says about Evanston applies to our area as well. Did you know we have FIVE elementary school districts feeding Lake Park High School? That's a lot of administrators' salaries and associated pensions and benefits. Check out your property taxes. School taxes are the lion's share of your bill. Nothing else comes close.
Our League will write an Op-Ed for submission just before the school board races in April. We also plan to ask elementary school board candidates for their positions on district consolidation at all relevant candidate forums.
As the article states, "It’s long past time to modernize, and I urge both the District 65 and ETHS boards to pass a resolution and initiate a feasibility study, funded by the Illinois State Board of Education, to seriously consider consolidation. If the boards choose not to initiate a study, I urge the voters to consider a 2025 referendum on the subject, which can be added to the ballot with a mere 50 petition signatures."
Bring your own bag
The grocery stores of a century ago didn’t bag groceries for customers. Shoppers were responsible for bringing along their own baskets or sacks to carry their purchases. The rise of supermarkets in the 1950s, coupled with plastic industry growth, pushed the convenience of plastic bags onto the consumers so that consumers didn’t have to remember to bring their own bags.
Now hardly anyone remembers to bring their own bag to the grocery store. We use close to hundred billion single use plastic bags per year in the United States alone. Environment America says the average American uses 300 disposable plastic bags annually. Plastic grocery bags can't be disposed of in curbside recycling.![](https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdtfzdHrsmHnirxHqy-SVafPeqZo4iiUfVuDYgkwcJi11LmVRdMolr5PUHeVXuKZ4c7DTSK8gdHsRoFGFwuYArfzjeyKVrxWDtQy7cJuL1pIcjiDxxpxtC0k6G54qMaRte2n1EUTDK3PC9q950p-KiNhik?key=CpFbOnLrSjzSWbbE33cShg)
Grocery shopping is evolving backwards, and we are realizing that the way our ancestors shopped was much more sustainable. A plastic bag, used only for 12 minutes and thrown into a landfill for thousands of years, is a bad choice. Bringing your own bag has become a responsible thing to do.
In the Illinois General Assembly, SB 2211 and HB 4448 aim to ban stores from providing plastic bags, while HB 2376 is a bill to ban polystyrene. You can actively lobby for them by writing to your state representative or senator.
Take your own bags for grocery shopping and keep them near the driver's seat as a memory cue. (Some people make shopping bags from old T-shirts. Find multiple instruction versions online.)
Do more!
Our Mission: Empowering Voters. Defending Democracy.
Our Vision: We envision a democracy where every person has the desire, the right, the knowledge, and the confidence to participate.
Our Value: We believe in the power of women to create a more perfect democracy.
The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan, political organization whose mission is to encourage informed and active participation in government, to increase understanding of major policy issues, and to influence public policy through education and advocacy. In our 100-year history, the League of Women Voters has never endorsed a political party or candidate for office. Membership in the League is open to anyone regardless of gender, race, or ethnic group.
Thank you for supporting our work to defend democracy and empower voters and thanks for helping our local league GROW! Please share our newsletter with your friends.
|