 |  |  |  | We’ve gotten 2023 off to a rousing start!
- A forum on the LWVK Election Administration position
- A briefing from LWVK on the Redistricting position
- Meetings of all of our committees and the Board
- Information and assistance at the January Naturalization ceremony, with 163 new citizens
- A letter writing campaign to Kansas Legislators to support Women's Reproductive Rights. We sent over 250 postcards!
- Local Unit meeting to plan our priorities for action and study in 2023 – what fun that was!
- The first session of the Environmental Justice series we’re sponsoring with the WSU Environmental Finance Center and the City Sustainability Integration Board
- Ongoing plans for the State Convention – April 22, 2023, at the Advanced Learning Library here in Wichita.
Of special note, February 14 is the League birthday and League Day at the Capitol. See below for full details. Registration will open in the next few days. Also, we’re looking for three people to serve as the Nominating Committee so we can fill Board and Committee chair openings at our May business meeting. Please contact Nancy or Martha for more information or to step up to serve in this way. Check out the event calendar to see all the ways you can be a part of League activities. There’s no such thing as too many volunteers.
See you on the front lines!
Martha Pint and Nancy Brown, Co-Presidents |  | | Plan on attending the LWVK's Day at the Capitol on Tuesday, February 14, 2023. This is LWV's 103rd Birthday!
Feb 14, 2023, 8:30am-2pm
Kansas Capitol Visitor Center Auditorium
300 SW 10th Ave, Topeka, KS 66612
*DEADLINE Feb 9, 2023 to sign up for the FREE lunch
| | Our Speakers:
*Corey Carnahan, Secretary of the Senate
*Susan Kannarr, Chief Clerk of the House,
*Micah Kubic, Exe Director of the ACLU Kansas;
*Tabitha Lehman, former Sedgwick County Election Commissioner;
*April Holman, Executive Director of Alliance for a Healthy Kansas;
*League Updates: Redistricting and Election Administration | | | | Building a Resilient Wichita Series:
Energy Burden and Energy Efficiency
Evergreen Community Center & Library
2601 N Arkansas Avenue
Feb. 23, 2023 5:30PM-7:30PM
The event is still being planned. Check back HERE for more information
Be on the lookout for an email reminder of this event. | | |  | | The House elections committee is moving rapidly forward in passing HB2056, which abolishes the 3-day vote protection period for ballots arriving by mail, which would throw out tens of thousands of legal votes cast on or before election day.
Even though this bill had bipartisan opposition and not a single Kansas Citizen supported the bill during its committee hearing, it passed out of committee. Now this bill is moving to the house floor, where every Kansas Representative will vote on it.
THE GOOD NEWS - we can still stop it!!
What can you do? Contact Representative Owen Donohoe and tell them to VOTE NO on HB2056!
If you click the blue button above, it will take you to a form you can personalize to send to Representative Donohoe to tell them why you want them to vote no on HB2056 and another anti-voter bill, HB2057, which would arbitrarily restricts advanced ballot drop boxes. We stopped this bad bill before by taking action together- we can do it again!
| | Next Naturalization Ceremony
Feb. 24, 2023 - 10:30 am | Helping new citizens become educated voters is one of the most gratifying experiences as a representative of LWVW-M according to our volunteers. Volunteers are requested to arrive at 10:30 am. The ceremony is from 11am to noon at WSU Hughes Metropolitan Complex- Lowe Auditorium 5015 E. 29th Street North Wichita, Kansas.
Sign up here: volunteersignup.org/EHELJ
Upcoming Naturalization Ceremonies
March 24th, 2023
April 14th, 2023
May 18th, 2023
June 16th, 2023
July 21st, 2023
August 18th, 2023
| | | TUESDAY TOPICS
EDUCATION UPDATES IN KANSAS
Tuesday February 28th
Advanced Learning Center, 711 W 2nd St N
Since 2020 there have a been a lot of changes to the public education system in Kansas. Panelists will include a school administrator and a School Board representative. They will discuss these changes and topics such as teacher shortages, and the Kansas Parent's Bill of Rights initiative.
|  | Welcome to our newest members, Natalie Sollo, Mary Francel, and Joy Darrrah. Our LWV Wichita-Metro is 157 members strong. Our dues year is from July 1 to December 30 so current members will next receive reminders to renew near the end of June.
We hope all of our members have been exploring our new website we introduced last May and have taken the opportunity to update their personal information. This especially helps us communicate when you make a change of phone number, e-mail or postal mailing address.
If you paid dues by check without signing up through our website, you have a member account too. You can go to our website lwvwichita.org and log on but you will have to follow the "forgot user name/password" steps to get started. If you have problems contact membership@lwvwichita.org.
We also hope that each member checks off their interests for our database. We especially need people working in Voter Service for our League as well as Observers of our local elected bodies, City Council, County Commission and School Board and other Boards such as District Advisory Boards.
Elaine Harvey
Membership Committee
|  | Thanks for reading the LWV Wichita-Metro newsletters. We want to provide you timely information on upcoming activities through our emails without overwhelming your in-box. That said, the best way to keep up what is happening locally with the League is by using the calendar in our website. Please bookmark the web url so it is easy for you to check our upcoming events.
Not all our emails are long and windy (Pinky promise.) We send out quick reminders of events of interest to our members and urgent messages for more volunteers for voter services activities. We are grateful our dedicated volunteers show up to help educate the public on their voting rights. Thank you!
Now our Kansas Legislature is back in session, our local membership is receiving Legislators updates emails once a week. Please open those emails. They are PACKED with non-partisan information about bills that will be introduced and discussed in Topeka.
If you are like me, "packed with information" may be rather overwhelming. If you need smaller bites of civil engagement, try hanging out with some of our partners. Loud Light publishes a weekly video with an overview what happened in the Kansas Statehouse. We try to share their videos to our FaceBook page but "like" their page so you will see their posts more readily.
Here are a few other like-minded groups and non-profits who are regulars for posting on Facebook: Defend Roe, ICT Mainstream Coalition, ACLU of Kansas, Wichita Community Voice, Rock the Vote, Engage ICT, Kansas Appleseed, The Wichita Branch NAACP, Rank the Vote Kansas, Alliance for a Healthy Kansas, and League of Woman Voters - Kansas.
Next month, I hope to share some Government groups to follow on Facebook and on YouTube.
TAKE THESE SURVEYS FROM METROPOLITAN PLANNING ORGANIZATION
Here are some important surveys online for those who are environmentally minded. Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) would like to know what the public thinks about single use plastic shopping bags. Take the survey HERE,
MPO also wants to know about the current behaviors of all road users, including car drivers, bike riders, and pedestrians. Click HERE for the survey to share your thoughts about public safety.
Randi Thimesch and Britten Kuckelman
Communications Committee | Check us out on Instagram and Twitter
Check our Events page here.
Keep current on developments through our Facebook Page
Find out more about what the League of Women Voters of Kansas is doing.
We welcome your feedback! Please contact the editor
Our previous issues of our newsletter are here. | |