The Board held its annual retreat in August and had some robust discussions about what we can accomplish in the next year. We also celebrated some of our successes. The most exciting is the new Stand For Democracy program which was Lynn Dooley’s answer to “doing something” to counteract attacks on democracy. She and a group of members came up with the great idea of civics on the backs of buses. Some of our members helped fund it and now we are moving forward with yard signs, also promoting basic information on how government should work.

A long-time success story is High School presentations and registrations throughout the county. Chris Reizenman and Robyn Bramhall have been heading up this program and expanded it dramatically to include the SRJC and SSU. Lots of kids are pre-registering so this year we will partner with the Registrar of Voters on monitoring the progress of this effort. Another success has been our member meetings -some in person and some on zoom. Leona Judson has been tenacious in getting us some great speakers as well as organizing the Grand Jury lunch each year. This year we hope to have a celebration during women’s history month.

We’re very excited to have two new board members who are taking on Voter Services (Eleni Misthos) and Membership (Julianne Guariglia). Both fit our younger demographics and come with a lot of energy so you will be hearing more from them! Deborah Doyle has also joined the Board and will help us with fundraising and relationships with LWVUS. Sherrie Brand is our new secretary, which is always an important position to fill. Linda Rosen and Sara Ingle are partnering to keep our financial house in order.

Advocacy champions are diligent in monitoring the work of the county and all its departments. If you have an issue that you think is important for the League to discuss, attend an advocacy meeting! Jim Masters has started a new idea of explaining how advocacy works prior to most meetings. A new communications committee headed up by Rebecca Jones has done an amazing job of upgrading and improving the website with the awesome webmaster, Juanita Roland. The team is also doing more posts in social media. Please check it out and give us feedback. We’d also like feedback on the “What’s Up email we send periodically. Are you getting enough information from us? Is there a better way to communicate with you? Please email me atpresident@lwvsonoma.orgwith your thoughts. All these committees work hard at accomplishing the work of the League and could use your help. The meetings are listed on our calendar on the website.

Voter Services and Election Update!

Hello Sonoma leaguers! I'm Eleni Misthos, the new Voter Services chair for LWV Sonoma. We have lots of great programs coming up and are always looking for volunteers to join us for tabling, election prep, and more!

With next year’s midterm elections approaching, we'll have lots of fun tasks and trainings for candidate forums, pros and cons, tabling, etc. We might even bring back the Observer Corps if we get enough interest! Join us at our next Voter Services meeting or email me atelections@lwvsonoma.orgto get involved or just say hello!

And with that, here are the latest election info updates from our league:

Special Election November 4th!

Did you know that special elections (also known as off-cycle elections) have some of the lowest voter turnout?That's why we're working hard to raise awareness and provide Sonoma County with the facts they need to turn out and be informed voters this November.💪

Key Election Details

• Registration Deadline: October 20, 2025
• Mail Ballots: All registered voters receive mail ballots starting October 6, 2025

What is Prop 50?

Proposition 50 is a constitutional amendment proposed by the California State Legislature to temporarily change California's congressional district maps.

Multiple districts would change in Sonoma Countyif the proposed maps are passed. Check outthis interactive map to learn more about the proposed changes.

The California League has chosen not to take a position on this issue, leaving it to the voters to decide.Their statement on Prop 50.

Where can I get more info on Prop 50? What is LWV Sonoma doing about this issue?

We will be distributing an Easy Voter Guide with additional information about prop 50 later this month. Keep an eye onour elections page for the Easy Voter Guide and more info coming soon.

We're also hosting an event featuring Pedro Toledo, a Commissioner onthe 2020 California Citizen’s Redistricting Commission, to share more about this vital civic process.Join this session on October 6th at 5pm.Get thezoom link and event details at lwvsonoma.org.

What else is on the ballot?

Some Sonoma County cities have local issues and positions on the November ballot, including:

• Petaluma Measure I: Joint Union High School District Parcel Tax
• Timber Cove County Water District Director

Get more info on these local issues fromSonoma County Registrar of Voters

Sonoma/Marin Area Rapid Transit, or “SMART” for short, has become the backbone of the public transportation structure on the US 101 corridor.https://www.sonomamarintrain.org/However, it is in mortal danger! SMART is funded by a ¼% sales tax throughout Marin and Sonoma Counties approved by the voters in 2008, but the authorization for this tax expires on 31 March 2029.Unless the voters approve an extension, the system will have to shut down – eliminating a clean, efficient, and green system of public transport, and stranding a billion dollars of public investment in track, trains, crossings, stations, and bridges.SMART plans to put the tax extension on the ballot in 2026.The Boards of the Marin County and Sonoma County Leagues of Women Voters have endorsed the extension of the tax.

In addition, a new California law provides that a proposition put on the ballot by citizen initiative requires only majority support to pass.When an effort begins to collect signatures, an official clock starts that allows for only 180 days to gather the signatures. The SMART Initiative is preparing the official signature-gathering phase to start soon.The principals of the organization areDenny Rosatti (formerly president of Sonoma County Conservation Action, founded by the late Bill Kortum), Suzanne Smith(formerly General Manager of Sonoma County Transportation Authority),Mike Pickens, Joanne Webster, and Leo Buc. All have considerable experience in running campaigns like this.League members are urged to support the Initiative by: 1) signing the initiative petition; 2) helping to gather signatures; 3) donating to support the signature-gathering, and most importantly, 4) voting for it.Check out the initiative website for more information.The Smart Initiative

The intrepid volunteers of our Youth Outreach group started the semester with two events at Sonoma State University in August. Chris Riezenman, Sara Clark and I staffed a table at SSU’s Part-time and Volunteer Job Fair on the 27th, where we met over 40 students and signed up 15 who wanted more information about volunteering for LWV. Chris returned the next evening to train six members of student government to become LWV Elections Ambassadors, prepared to register and motivate their peers to vote.

Sonoma County’s new Registrar of Voters (RoV), Evelyn Mendez, invited LWV to join her team at a table near the field at Santa Rosa High School during the football game against Petaluma High School on Friday, Sept. 5th. Lynn Dooley and I passed out cards with a trackable QR code to students 16 and older, encouraging them to pre-register or register online when they had a few minutes.

Casa Grande High School seniors in Lisa Cain’s Government, AP Government and Economics classes were the first high-schoolers to be visited in the classroom by LWV Youth Outreach volunteers this semester. This is our third year at Casa Grande (Petaluma), and we were able to register or pre-register 85 students over the four classes we visited.

Our classroom volunteers are provided with a script to guide their presentations, and we use a PowerPoint slide show to give visual-learner students something to follow. There’s a 3-minute video about 10 Bad Reasons Not to Vote that includes some humor and gives our speakers a rest. Besides our Presenters, who practice their parts before they visit a school, we value our Observers. Folks in his role donotneed any prior training or practice, but serve a key role in passing out materials, counting students and helping them fill in their registration forms.

If you’re interested in learning more about Youth Outreach, join us at our meeting on 9/16 (see the Events calendar for details) or write me atyouth@lwvsonoma.org

Have you seen the STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY
Sonoma County Transit bus ads?

The STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY committee convened in January to support our democracy the best way we knew how - locally.The committee created small tidbits of basic information on the Constitution and government. This info offered Sonoma County residents the chance to refresh their knowledge of how government is supposed to run on the federal, state and local level andWHY IT MATTERS.We also included information on how to join a local board or commission.

STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY is an education campaignanda branding campaign.And both have been successful.We have people mentioning the bus ads to us – letting us know they appreciate the League and our work.Plus, people have scanned the QR code on the bus ads and gained access to the landing pages on the civics topics giving them the info they need to decide how they feel about what they hear on the news.Find the civics menu of topics here:lwvsonoma.org/civicsmenu.

In addition to our own website, we have a number of partners who have added our Civics Menu to their websites to drive people to our landing pages!!SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS: La Vox Bilingual Newspaper, AAWU Healdsburg, AAUW Petaluma, LWV Marin, LWV Cupertino-Sunnyvale!

And we are committed to keeping the campaign going and growing.The bus ads will continue through this month.We will continue to add important civics topics to our menu.And, we are printing two-sided yard signs in English and Spanish and will offer them for sale ($15) at our tabling events and at the various rallies in the county.

You can get involved! We would appreciate donations to our campaign.You can sponsor a bus, buy a yard sign, suggest an organization who can help amplify our message or…

…join our committee.Our monthly meetings are held on the second Monday of every month at 3pm.Our next meeting will be on Monday, October 13^that 3pm.

Know the Law.Know Your Rights.Get Involved.

STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY.

Contact Lynn Dooley atstandup@lwvsonoma.org

Website Design Project

Over the summer, a small communications team met with the intent of improving our website.Our goal was to improve the ease of use, design appeal and navigation of the website.Our additional goal was to expand the knowledge and technical expertise of maintaining the website.Juanita Roland has been the primary webmaster for many years and we wanted to provide backup and a deeper depth of knowledge within our league.We also want to make it easier for anyone accessing our website to explore opportunities to get more involved.

With the help of Theresa Paris, a new member with website design experience, we completely redesigned the home page to make it more appealing but also provide timely and useful information at a glance.The menu tabs at the top of the home page were also renamed and reorganized with the intent of easier navigation to the desired content page.

Another terrific addition was the creation of an individual page for each committee.We wanted to encourage anyone interested in getting more involved with the league to explore the committee pages to see what there was to offer.

Next we will be working on improving the Elections/Voting and Government Contacts webpages as well as cleanup of other pages.

A big thanks to our team:Juanita Roland, Theresa Paris, Lynn Dooley, and Eleni Misthos.

Check out the websiteLWV Sonoma County Web Page!

The revisions to the LWV SC website now include examples of the actions that the LWV Advocacy Committee and Board have taken the past three years.After you login to the LWV website; click: “Member Resources”, then “References”, then “expand all” then the “topic subfolder” you want.Read, print, or download items.The entries so far illustrate the range of issues and variety of approaches used, including:letters to national, state and local elected officials (opposing the coal train, promoting the Eel River Diversion; modifying housing at the Sonoma Development Center; increasing transparency of government operations); letters to county agencies reflecting testimony on issues (tree ordinance, cannabis draft EIR).This is a work in progress.Questions?Questions about Advocacy

We gathered at the Bennett Valley golf course restaurant for our third annual Grand Jury luncheon on August 25^thto honor last year’s Grand Jury members.In addition to our members there were eight GJ members attending including the foreperson,Karen Rocco. Other guests in attendance were this year’sforeperson, Wendy Roberts andthe newly appointed ROV, Evelyn Mendez and her colleague Will Stephenson. Past presidents of our league were well represented including Nancy Richards, Debbie McKay, Rebecca Jones, Juanita Roland, Susan Gorin, Jean Schulz and our current president, Donna Roper, an auspicious group indeed.

Last year’s Grand Jury had a rough start as several members dropped out early on for various reasons. But despite that, they managed to complete seven reports on widely varied topics from our airport to animal services & one of particular interest to our league was Sonoma County Emergency Evacuation Plans.

There was a lively Q & A following lunch. One question that was raised can the Grand Jury access previous year’s confidential documents? The answer is yes and no. If the information is in the public domain such as newspaper reports, then yes. But interviews of city or county employees and other government documents, it’s a firm no. All Grand Jury work is held in secret until the final reports are made public.

Civil Grand Juries are a true watchdog of our city and county governments. These everyday citizens do a remarkable job in making sure our government agenciesare following the law and spending our tax dollars wisely. They deserve to be acknowledged for their hard work.

Membership Chair:The board unanimously welcomed Julianne Guariglia to be the new membership chair.

Treasurer’s Report:Sara Ingle and Linda Rosen presented year end 2024-25 showing a $6000 negative for the year but with assets over $80,000. Year to date is negative $4,000, waiting on dues to come in. We voted to pay the PMP to Bay Area League this year.

Fundraising:It was decided to do a fundraiser in Guerneville for Give Back Tuesday on January 6,2026.

Redistricting:We are waiting for Easy Voter Guides from the state to post our position on prop 50, which is neutral. We will then decide about pros and cons and other measures to take.

Membership:The new member orientation will be September 13 at 10:30 at the office.

Voter Services:The League is looking for a rep on the LAAC committee. Donna will reach out to Sukey Robb-Wilder. Stand Up for Democracy is working on yard signs in Spanish and English. The Youthprogram isreally taking off! We will use Vote 411 for upcoming elections. Some tabling activities are planned for September.

Member Activities:There will be program on redistricting on October 6^thand David McCuan will speak on September 22.