March-April 2001 Home   Newsletters

May 2001

July-August 2001

President's Message (Pearl Johnson)
Office Clean Up
Vote Count June 29th @ JCC (Arlene Ellis)
Annual Meeting of the League of Women Voters of Honolulu
Voter Service Proposal (Dorothy Cornell)
Changes in Organizational Governance: A Perspective... (Colbert Matsumoto)
April 21 Member Meeting - Question and Answer Period
LWV - Honolulu Education Fund (Arlene Ellis)
Action Alert from LWV-US
Environment Meeting
New Members

Annual Meeting of the League of Women Voters of Honolulu

About 50 people attended the April 21 meeting of the Honolulu League at the Hale Koa Hotel.

During the morning business meeting Continuing Programs were discussed as contained in the meeting booklet. These were later adopted. Dorothy Cornell rose to speak about her interest in allowing incarcerated prisoners to vote.

Arlene Ellis presented the proposed 2000-2001 budget to the membership, which was later approved. The LWV Honolulu's main source of money besides membership dues is vote counts. Every third year the major unions have big elections and we make a lot of money. Other years there aren't so many vote counts, so our budget is modest.

Arlene Ellis also reported that in anticipation of a large bequest, an Education Fund for Honolulu has been established. Since 1995 we have sent our education funds to National, the Alice Scott Fund. Protect Ala Wai Skyline (PAWS) gave us $7,295 when it was disbanded, and this money has been added to our Ed Fund. Ellis will apply to IRS for 501c3 status. The Ed Fund Board plans to use only the interest unless there is a great need, in which case we can spend up to 5% of the corpus in any one year. The Education Fund organizing board is President, Arlene Ellis; Vice President, Helen Griffin; Secretary, Suzanne Meisenzahl; Treasurer, Jean Aoki; Director, Robin Loomis.

Grace Furukawa presented the Nominating Committee's report. Unanimously elected were Vice President, Karen Ah Mai (1 year); Treasurer, Annie Kim (2 years); Directors, Malia Schwartz (2 years), Jacqueline Parnell (2 years) and the 2002 Nominating Committee, Helen Griffin (chair), Ah Jook Ku, and Carolyn Wilcox. President, Pearl Johnson (1 year), Secretary, Robin Loomis (I year), and Charles Carole (1 year) continue to serve.

Committee Reports:

  • The Environment Committee will try in the next 18 months to define water issues. Regarding alternate energy sources, the committee wants to gather information on Hawaii's performance compared with the rest of the nation and examine the community infrastructure that continues our dependence on oil.

  • Planning and Zoning: Charles Carole reported the 2000 Census results are out and growth in Ewa and West Oahu is way up. In the Redevelopment Plan for the Primary Urban Center (Kaimuki to Pearl Harbor) there is a proposal to introduce small shops on the ground floor with living units above.

  • Schools Committee: Mary Ann Raywid said we have lots to be discouraged about. Even though League spent a lot of effort to get information publicized about the Board of Education candidates, the highest vote getter refused to answer our questions and didn't attend any forums. Hawaii has large school sizes and large size correlates highly with school violence. We need to adapt to kids who come from homes that have very little education or use for it.

The meeting was followed by an address by Colbert Matsumoto, the court-appointed master for Bishop Estate. The text of the speech is here.

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