League of Women Voters^®
of West Contra Costa County

"The Health Care Movie", a documentary comparing health care in Canada and the US and its evolution will be shown free of charge. Discussion and Q/A period will follow. There will be two more showings, May 22 and June 8, the former at the El Cerrito city hall and the latter at the Pinole Library. See our calendar page here for more information on the venue and links to details on the program. The movie and the subsequent session with experts on healthcare programs are both highly recommended.

The LWVWCCC annual meeting will be held on June 8 from 11 AM to 1 PM at the Nong Thon restaurant, on San Pablo Ave in El Cerrito. The speaker will be Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Dianna Becton. For information on cost, reservations, etc., click here to go to our calendar page.

The new LWVC study of The Initiative and Referendum Process in California is now well underway. For more information, please see our Current Issues Page here

Reports on the second major LWV study were due at the national office on May 1. This was a very important and significant study, given the current trend for various governmental offices, especially given their shortage of revenues, to transfer traditional public services to the private sector. Although LWVWCCC was unable to participate in this study, our neighbor leagues, Oakland and Berkelely/Albany/Emeryville have make their consensus report available to us. A link is available on our Current Issues page,here.

Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Commission is seeking applicants to fill the position of League of Women Voters Alternate Seat. There is currently a regular member but no alternate for meetings that the regular member may not be able to attend. The commission sets policy for hazardous materials and hazardous waste. There are two meetings per month, but most are attended by the regular LWV representative. If you are interested in policies with respect to hazardous materials and want to see the operation of a government agency, please see the announcement of the position by clicking here and the description of what is involved by the regular LWV representative (currently from the Diablo Valley League), by clicking here.

The National Newsletter comes out every week. Read the current and past issues here. If you wish, you can also subscribe and have it emailed to you.

The state newsletter is not available for reading on the web site, but you can subscribe and have it emailed to you. To subscribe, click here.

As a beginning step toward better understanding what is involved in balancing the California budget, LWV members are encouraged to take the California Budget Challenge, a questionnaire that calculates the budgetary consequences of your judgment about how much service the state should provide and how large taxes should be to pay for them. The program was developed by Next 10, an independent, nonpartisan organization whose purpose is helping Californians to improve the state's future. For two examples (one on spending, one on taxation) of what you are asked when you take the challenge, click here. To go directly to the Challenge, click here The Next 10 web site and the LWV of California web page on the budget provide additional information on the state budget for those who want more detail than that given in the Challenge pages.

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