League of Women Voters of Berrien & Cass Counties

News Releases

LWVBCC Releases Spring 2010 Calendar of Events

The League has a variety of activities planned for Spring 2010, from a field trip to a prison to a lobbying day in Lansing, with a prison discussion meeting and book group meeting in between. See the Calendar page for more detials.

Not yet on the Calendar page are the League's annual public meeting onThursday evening, May 6 and the members' Annual Meeting & Dinner on Wednesday evening June 23. The public meeting will be a panel discussion on Detroit and the metropolitan area--an effort to help Southwest Michigan understand Southeast Michigan.

LWVBCC attempts to have meetings on different days of the week and at different times of the day, as well as in different locations in our service area to meet the needs of all our members and guests.

The League of Women Voters of the US Celebrates 90th Anniversary in 2010

The League was formed in 1920 by suffragists as a "mighty politcal experiment designed to help 20 million women carry out their new responsibilities as voters." January 9 is the birthday of one of those women, Carrie Chapman Catt. Carrie Chapman was widowed as a young woman and actually had to work for a living. That experience taught her a lot about the role of women in the power structure and she evolved into one of the leading suffragettes of her day (after she remarried!). A remarkable picture shows her leading a march in New York in 1917. Click on the link below to see the picture. She is the lady in white in the center. She was a formidable woman, to put it mildly. She didn't quit after the prize was won, but went on to help found the League of Women Voters.

http://www.lwv.org/AM/Images/historic_images/pre20s/002.jpg

Watching How Your Federal Tax Dollars Are Spent

There are two websites that allow taxpayers to follow how their tax dollars are spent. Rolled out in December 2007, usaspending.gov is a searchable website for all federal contracts and grants over $25,000. A growing number of states are implementing similar websites for state expenses.

Then this February the Obama administration launched recovery.gov to track money spent in the federal stimulus package. Michigan has just implemented a website to inform residents of where stimulus money is going in our state. The Michigan Recovery & Reinvestment Plan can be found at michigan.gov/recovery.

The Your Government Officials contact information list is current and provides an easy and convenient way for you to contact your elected officials. Where e-mail addresses are available the links are live, so just click to send a message to the official of your choice. The list is available by clicking the Your Government Officials tab above.

The League encourages citizens to contact their Michigan government officials with their questions, concerns and suggestions. To help you and to understand better conditions in the state your representatives need to hear from you. The live links make it easy!

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1. The request must be in writing, either in a letter or on the FOIA form of the government unit (usually available from government units).

2. Address the letter to the Freedom of Information Act Administrator and advise you are requesting documents pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.

4. The government unit has 5 days from receipt of the letter of request to respond. There can be a 10 day extension at their request.

5. You can examine the documents at the government office or they can be copied and sent to you, for a fee, which varies, but should be actual costs, including labor.

6. If your request is denied you must sue in Circuit Court within 180 days. If you prevail, you will be awarded attorney’s fees and costs in an amount set by the court.