The Opening

Jinky Gardner, our Action Coordinator, introduced the program planning session, pointing out the requirements needed for the issues we were to choose as our emphasis in the coming League year of 2023 – 2024.

• Why is the proposed issue important?
• What role does the League play in uniquely having impact and moving the issue forward?
• What are the League positions that support taking action?
• Who will work on it?
• What is the plan forward?

Local Emphasis

There are usually three subjects of emphasis chosen each year. Following are the advocates who argued for each area of emphasis.

Henry Abrons, co-chair of the Healthcare Team, argued for the continuation of Healthcare emphasis. He pointed out the suffering in healthcare, the need to educate the team and the League, the effort to reach out to other Leagues to join us, the idea of starting regular public conversations about healthcare, and advocating the single payer plan as a solution.

Eric Arens, Chair of the Climate Team, argued for the importance of continuing the study of fire abatement, electrification, and eliminating fossil fuels.

Christine Wenrich, Chair of the Criminal Justice Team, talked of the importance of following Police oversight and determining how juveniles are affected.

There was a question about intern outreach and Alex Li talked about how Albany interns organized voting efforts  and interest in the League.

Sherry Smith suggested that housing was a hotter issue at the moment than Criminal Justice. Linda Carothers agreed.

Henry Abrons objected to dropping Criminal Justice and questioned whether we could have 4 issues of emphasis.

Jinky Gardener found that the State League has 4 issues of emphasis.

Marybeth Falzareno, chair of the CivilTalk Team, said that all teams are vital even without being emphasized citing her own CivilTalk Team. She supported retaining Criminal Justice.

Kandea Mosley Gandhi, our League President, pointed out that we should wait on housing as an emphasis until the team is established. One of the primary criteria for selecting issues at program planning is that we have the capacity to work on them.

The final vote recommended that we would again emphasize Climate, Healthcare, and Criminal Justice with a future question about Housing. The outcome of program planning will now be taken up by the Board before a final recommendation is made to the membership at the Annual Meeting.

State Emphasis

This is to decide what we are to advise the State League to emphasize.

Making Democracy Work, Housing, Criminal Justice, Climate Change are their current issues.

Mike Gardener felt that an emphasis on Healthcare was needed at the state level.

The group voted to recommend that we accept their issues for emphasis, and suggest that the state consider healthcare in the future. The outcome of program planning will now be taken up by the Board before any recommendations are submitted to LWVC by the end of February.