We will be meeting at Amy Vegh's home - 3133 Fairfax Road - at 6:00 pm on WEDNESDAY, June 11th for a potluck dinner, some business, and a guest speaker.  You can park on the streets or, if you prefer, in the nearby Fairfax Elementary School parking lot.

   Jodi Sourini, member of the CH-UH School Board, will speak at 6:45 pm on The Board of Education: What It's Like to be in the Room Where it Happens"

Some years back the Cleveland Hts. Council passed legislation pledging to hold a Democracy Day observance each year until Citizens United has been overturned.  The event is open to members of the community (and beyond) to raise concerns about how democracy is being weakened by money and other negative influencers.  This year's speakers addressed, among other things,  climate change, the weakening of the media, and the impact of billionaires.  I spoke on the now obvious impact of money on our democracy at both the national and state levels.  My comments are attached below.   

 

If you ever get the chance to attend, I recommend it. It's a moving reminder of what matters.

 

Heather Cox Richardson, noted Historian,  has just released a series of videos to help teach people our vital history.  In her words:

"The hard lessons of history seem to be repeating themselves in the U.S. these days, and with the nation’s 250th anniversary approaching, some friends and I got to talking about how we could make our real history more accessible.

After a lot of brainstorming and a lot of help—and an incredibly well timed message from a former student who has become a videographer—we have come up with Journey to American Democracy: a series of short videos about American history that we will release on my YouTube channel, Facebook, and Instagram. They will be either short explainers about something in the news or what we are releasing tonight: a set of videos that can be viewed individually or can be watched together to simulate a survey course about an important event or issue in American history.

Journey to American Democracy explores how democracy has always required blood and sweat and inspiration to overcome the efforts of those who would deny equality to their neighbors. It examines how, for more than two centuries, ordinary people have worked to make the principles the founders articulated in the Declaration of Independence the law of the land.

Those principles establish that we have a right to be treated equally before the law, to have a say in our government, and to have equal access to resources."

Maintaining our local community structures and guard rails is an important aspect of upholding our country.  Do any of the following activities interest you?

• CLAIMED: An easy on your own time project - compile the data we have on our observer process re time spent on the various steps for the various boards.  Talk to Maryann if you want to snag this opportunity.
• Talk to Maryann about joining the observer corp to help observe meetings, either in our communities or beyond, or help edit the observer reports for publication
• Talk to Maryann about helping to maintain the LWVGC website (she is the webmaster now)
• Talk to Betsy about helping with the Voter’s Guides this fall
  
• Ask Betsy about helping with Vote 411 – the online county-wide Voter’s Guide
  
• Talk to Wendy or Betsy about helping form an event planning committee – helping with locations and refreshments and developing new ideas
• Talk to Wendy about taking over posting items of interest to our Facebook page
• Write occasional articles for the newsletter
• Talk to Wendy about finding paths to Youth Engagement - a new possibility
• Print off some palm cards about the 10 Habits of Good Citizens and share them with others as you help people to stay informed about democracy.

 

I recently wrote postcards to the Supreme Court justices regarding their ruling on immunity, and shortly afterward saw that The Card Campaign group has put together a template to print out postcards to the Supreme Court.  If you can print two-sided onto card stock then you can use this template to create postcards.  Otherwise, you can use it as suggested text to write your own postcards to members of the Supreme Court.   I also see that the template is simply addressed to "The Nine Honorable Justices" whereas I directed mine to each of the justices and varied my text based on their vote.

 

 

In case you missed the news, our Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has moved a bit further west and north to

the former Plain Dealer Building - 1803 Superior Avenue.

For those of you who have been in the current building at 30th and Euclid, you will probably agree this is a good move.

 

Going forward the directory will be updated quarterly and posted to our chapter's website at www.lwvgreatercleveland.org (and emailed to new members.)  But here is your first (in a very VERY long time) member directory.  With major credit to Janice Foster who just couldn't believe we didn't have such a thing.  Thank you Janice!

For the report on the Public School Funding Meeting held on May 5th with State Sen. Kent Smith, and suggestions of follow-up steps, go to https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JiFYYO97YkdYMpGo8vqZr5cK-Gi2DSB4xsJTtP2GnrQ/edit?tab=t.0

 

 

CHUH Chapter Leadership