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L W V B R O W A R D C O U N T Y V O T E R
LWV Broward County VOTER 64(6) July 2015 1
President’s Message
It’s been an exciting summer, and it’s difficult to imagine that the year is half over. The LWVBC has been busy as we begin to implement the program you approved at our annual meeting and lay the foundation for a successful upcoming election year. Recently, we received great coverage in the Sun-‐Sentinel for our leadership, programs and initiatives to enhance the Broward County community. Joanne Aye completed our Directory of Broward County Elected Officials for 2015-‐16, and Carol Smith organized our volunteers to distribute them throughout Broward County, and Margery Marcus has become a blog
contributor for Education on the state LWV. Scherry Donato registered eight new members since the Annual Meeting and we are excited about attracting even more. This past June we held our first Cocktails and Conversation event to engage potential partners in our Get Out the Vote Coalition. Harriet Mathis—LWVBC Voter Turnout Taskforce Chair-‐-‐and taskforce members hosted a dozen partners representing diverse and influential organizations throughout Broward. Collectively, we enthusiastically exchanged insights and ideas on how to encourage greater voter participation-‐-‐especially among underrepresented youth, minority and women voters. Each partner has his/her own LWVBC Liaison to build our relationships and provide access to any information or services the partner may request. Also, we are planning a Coalition meeting in September to develop a plan for driving turnout in the upcoming primaries and general election. As we prepare to reach broader and diverse Broward voters, we intend to increase our use of relevant social media and other digital technologies. Shaheewa Gelin is leading this effort and needs your participation and support to make it successful. Please contact her if you would like to participate or offer resources that may be helpful. At the upcoming July LWVBC Board Meeting we will be finalizing our LWVBC 2015-‐16 Events Calendar. One important event is our Membership Open House, which we will hold at our LWVBC offices this fall. This will be an opportunity to meet your officers, board members and fellow LWVBC members. It’s also a chance for you to decide which committees to join, programs to participate in, and ways to get involved. I invite you to come to our July Board Meeting to learn more about our organization and upcoming plans. Enjoy your summer. Regards, Jocelyn Jocelyn Carter-‐ Miller
July 2015 Volume 64 Number 6
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Voter Task Force Hosts Cocktails and Conversation Event
The first initiative of the Informed -‐Campaign was a great success! The invitation to meet and greet was extended to influential women and diverse organizations in Broward. Representatives from twelve organizations responded to create a high-‐energy event held Friday, June 12 from 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm at Harriet Mathis’s home. They joined an equal number of Task Force members in circulating, greeting, and
sharing their concerns for Broward County citizens. Over wine and an enticing buffet, guests were welcomed by Jocelyn Carter-‐Miller and acknowledged for the role of their organizations in the community. They were invited to partner with the League in a County Get Out the Vote Coalition and went home with Goody Bag of League materials including a description of what a potential partnership could look like and a promise they would be called within a week.
Every community leader expressed interest in building a Get Out the Vote Coalition with their gratitude for being included.
The Task Force has assigned a mentor to each organization in preparation for planning the first meeting of the Get Out the Vote Coalition to be held in September.
Top: Jocelyn Carter-‐Miller and daughter, Alexis Center Left: Peter Koszoru, Betty Gambino, Ron Marcus Far Left: Josie Bacallao of Hispanic Unity of Florida Left: Donna Meyers, Margery Marcus, Carol Smith
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League Task Force members and community leaders strategize to encourage greater voter participation in the 2016 elections.
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Summer Sizzle (Fizzle) in Broward County, Florida
LWVBCFL Director Margery Marcus retired two years ago after a 36-‐year career as an English teacher, most of those years with Broward County Schools. Her admiration for Sue Legg's Education Blog, inspired her to contribute to it, with Sue's gracious acceptance. This is the second of her posts on Broward's charter school scene.
Posted on July 2, 2015 by Sue Legg
By Margery Marcus
Broward County School District is upset. Broward County has nearly two million people who live in relatively small cities. Ft. Lauderdale, its largest city has fewer than 200, 000 people. It is one of those pretty, but large beach towns. One third (100) of their schools are charters, but they enroll only 15% of the school population. Thus, there must be a lot of small charter schools.
Some charters with a high percentage of children from lower income families do well. Some charters have very nice facilities. There is once again, more to the story. Margery’s report will give you some clues about what is happening.
The Broward School Board saw red in the Florida Auditor General’s recently released audit report. Twenty-‐five percent of its charter schools finished the 2013-‐2014 school year with a deficit. The 23 Broward schools listed in the report posted deficits ranging from a low of $4591 to a high of $318,567.
Broward, of course, is not alone in having charter schools in the red, but it exceeded both Miami-‐Dade and Palm Beach counties in its numbers. The former had 7% of its schools cited in the report, while the latter had 15 %.
Schools showing deficits may not necessarily be on their way to closing, however, according to an article in the Sun-‐Sentinel. A school’s parent company may choose to offset the debt, or schools may have a plan to pay off the debt, or may have assets valued at more than deficits.
Indeed, charter school openings are far outpacing closings in Broward. The most recent information provided by the school district’s Office of Public Information, lists the closing of eight charters this past school year, while 21 new ones have been approved for next year. Of the 21, two (Doral Academy’s bid to open a middle and high school in Tamarac) will not open due to successful lobbying by the King’s Point retirement community.
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Most of the remaining 19 charters replicate other high-‐performing ones in the district. For instance, Charter Schools USA currently manages 18 schools in South Florida, 8 of which are in Broward. They are slated to open five more in the district this fall.
One of its current Broward eight is Coral Springs Charter School, which it manages for that city. The 1600-‐plus student school, sitting squarely in the middle of the city’s “downtown,” has proved a traffic nightmare at drop off and dismissal times for drivers. More than that, however, the land it occupies has long been eyeballed for redevelopment by city fathers.
Jointly, city officials and the charter school company have held public information meetings to gain support for the moving the school. The proposal involves relocating the school to a parking lot on the grounds of the city’s Center for the Arts. The plan calls for an enrollment increase of 500 students plus the construction of a three story parking garage to replace parking spaces that will be lost to school construction.
Residents in the area near the new site are already expressing concern about traffic congestion, but currently there does not seem to be a concentrated effort to head off the relocation.
Meanwhile, in nearby Parkland, the charter school company Academica, under scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Education last year, has approached city officials about opening a charter school in that city. Parkland officials, right now, are hoping to convince the Broward School Board to build a K-‐8 school there. If not successful, however, Parkland could be hosting another Broward charter school.
Join us in our efforts to ensure that registered voters go to the
polls in 2016. Consider joining a committee.
The Membership, Fundraising, and Communications committees are seeking members with exactly your skills.
Together, we can make a difference!
Broward Water Advisory Board
Technical Advisory Committee
For Terry Lianzi’s complete report of the June 19, 2015 joint meetings, please go to the website: lwvbcfl.org
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Update from LWV President Elisabeth MacNamara
July 2, 2015 Even from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico where I am taking a few days off with my son, it is impossible to escape the news from Washington, DC. Given the recent decisions of the Supreme Court, who would want to? Three years ago, on this same beach, another son and I celebrated when the Court upheld the Affordable Care Act (ACA); last week, I had the chance to do so again. Now we can add the right to marriage equality and a vindication of the right of the people of Arizona to fair and independent redistricting.
These are important and far reaching decisions for our democracy. Sometimes, no news is also good news. The Court refused to hear an appeal of a decision upholding the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the authority of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to refuse a request from Kansas and Arizona to require documentary proof of citizenship when voters register using the federal form. While this decision does not strike down the restriction on state registration forms, it is an important win for the NVRA and for the EAC since the federal form can serve as a backstop for registration efforts in federal elections.
The League played a role in most of these wins. We joined amicus briefs in support of the ACA and the Arizona redistricting case, where we helped craft the arguments with our coalition partners. We intervened as a defendant and fully participated in the NVRA case. We were and are on the right side of history in protecting the rights of citizens to better access health care, fairness in representation and more uniform access to registration and voting.
Let's keep up the good work.
In League,
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Congratulate the graduates you know on their achievement and encourage them to register to vote with our eCard. The League’s eCard directs recipients to VOTE411.org, our “one-‐stop-‐shop” for election information where they can easily start the process of becoming active participants in our democracy.
http://participate.lwv.org/c/10065/p/salsa/web/postcard/public/?postcard_KEY=255
Date Event Saturday July 11 10:00 am
Informed Voter Task Force meeting LWVBC Office 5101 NW 21st Avenue, Suite 450 Fort Lauderdale, FL
Saturday July 18 9:30 am – 11:30 am
Board of Directors Meeting -‐ LWVBC Office 5101 NW 21st Avenue, Suite 450 Fort Lauderdale, FL
Thursday August 13 9:00 am -‐ 5:00 pm
Guns Off Campus Event First Unitarian Church of Orlando 1901 E. Robinson St. Orlando, FL 32803
Wednesday August 26 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Women’s Equality Day Hats Off to Women’s Vote 6th Floor Main Library 100 S Andrews Avenue Fort Lauderdale, FL
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WANT TO GET INVOLVED? CALL OR EMAIL A BOARD MEMBER
Jocelyn Carter-‐Miller President 954-‐464-‐5512 [email protected]
Shaheewa Jarrett Gelin Vice President 305-‐495-‐8252 [email protected]
Elayne Garver Secretary 954-‐471-‐1355 [email protected]
John Kent Treasurer 954-‐632-‐5301 [email protected]
Barbara Beahan Director 954-‐753-‐4779 [email protected]
Scherry Donato Director 240-‐603-‐7711 [email protected]
Betty Gambino Director 954-‐849-‐8568 [email protected]
Janie Koszoru Director 954-‐895-‐4150 [email protected]
Marjory Marcus Director 954-‐464-‐4165 [email protected]
Harriet Mathis Director 954-‐563-‐3685 [email protected]
Donna Meyers Director 954-‐600-‐4563 [email protected]
Laura Simon Director 954-‐430-‐5234 [email protected]
M
The VOTER is a newsletter published by The League of Women Voters Broward County
If you wish to submit articles to The VOTER, LWVBC, you can send them to: Jane Koszoru, Editor, 81 SE 11th Street, Pompano Beach, FL 33060 -‐ [email protected]
Mae Silver Ft. Lauderdale
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