is south of Maple Road) Issue 2 October 2008 LWVOA FALL LUNCHEON Followed by a Panel Discussion on PRISONS & JAILS: TIME FOR REFORM?

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1 Oakland Voter The League of Women Voters Issue Oakland 8 Area 725 S. Adams Road, Suite 292, Birmingham MI Phone: 248/ Fax: August 248/ website: President: Eva Packard Pres@lwvoa.org is south of Maple Road) Issue 2 October 2008 LWVOA FALL LUNCHEON Followed by a Panel Discussion on PRISONS & JAILS: TIME FOR REFORM? MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, pm Lunch, 1 pm Discussion OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Farmington Hills Public Library in the auditorium on the second floor W. 12 Mile Road 1/2 mile West of Orchard Lake Road (South side, west of the Post Office) Entrance on west side of bldg; Parking on south and west of bldg. A diverse panel will discuss a comprehensive program to reduce crime & enhance public safety: - Rep. Paul Condino, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee which handles prison issues, will address alternatives proposed for sentencing. - Donna Lassa, Oakland-Livingston Counties Coordinator of Michigan Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative (MPRI) and Jaimie Clayton, Vice President of Programs, Oakland Family Services, will discuss how the MPRI program works & how it leads to prisoner rehabilitation while cutting prison costs. - Henry Wells, Program Manager at New Creations Community Outreach, which has provided prisoner re-entry services for the Michigan Department of Corrections for fifteen years, will discuss their experiences with parolees in transition and the social integration model used. $15 Lunch & Discussion (lunch, beverages & dessert) Please bring your friends. RESERVATION NECESSARY BY OCTOBER 16. (See Form on inside back page.) ** New Time, Place & Added Participants for Michigan Supreme Court Program ** The forum on A Fair and Impartial Michigan Supreme Court moved to Wednesday, October 29, 7:00-9:00 pm Schoolcraft College, Vis-Ta-Tech Center (Presentation Room) See Page 3 for details. ** Local State Representative Debates Online ** State Representative debates are being broadcasted on Detroit Public Television on Sundays at 3pm in partnership with The Center for Michigan and are being made available to be viewed online at by clicking on "Don't just sit there! Meet the candidates!" Oakland, Macomb and Wayne County forums are available on this website. Visit and see the Great Debates schedules. The League of Women Voters, a non-partisan political organization, encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.

2 LWVOA Board of Directors, PRESIDENT Eva Packard 1st VICE PRESIDENT Bernadette Najor - Program 2nd VICE PRESIDENT Sue Abrams - Membership 3rd VICE PRESIDENT P. J. Royale - Development SECRETARY Patricia Finn TREASURER Fran Fisher DIRECTORS Judy Bateman Candidate Forums Jerry Burden Voter Sponsors Laura Gogola Administration Deb Horner Voter Service Randa Keener Tera Moon Webmaster Alissa Terrell OFF-BOARD POSITIONS Mary Ann Barkach & Erin Shuster Voter Editors Linda DePoorter Judicial CFs Ann Edwards Mailings Carole Elder & Shelley Goldberg Voter Registration Mary Howarth Data Management NOMINATING COMMITTEE Geri Rinschler, Chair Andrea Zalewski Margaret Kanost THE OAKLAND VOTER is the official publication of the League of Women Voters. It is published eight times a year by the LWVOA. Articles and Letters to the Editor, with writer's name, address and phone number may be sent to the LWVOA office. PRESIDENT S MESSAGE by Eva Packard The General Election season will, as usual, be full of voter service activities, but three citizen education meetings have also been scheduled. My apologies to everyone for featuring the forum, A Fair and Impartial Michigan Supreme Court, in our last VOTER and then moving it from September to October in order to include a judicial speaker, Judge Edward Thomas, who was not available on 9/22. The new date is October 29 th and it has been moved to the beautiful Vis-Ta-Tech facility at Schoolcraft College in Livonia. It is just south of the county line and easily accessible by the various Southeast Michigan Leagues that are co-sponsoring the event. We are also pleased that the legal community can attend and that the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, State Representative Paul Condino, will be available to MC the forum. As we had the Farmington Hills Library reserved for September 22, we quickly set up a meeting on an issue in the Michigan news because of a proposal on the November ballot stem cell research. We learned about the current status of stem cell research and the laws that impact it. See the article in this voter. League has not studied this issue and has no position on it. Nor does it have a position on the other state ballot proposal on legalizing medical marijuana. Our annual Fall Luncheon will be held on October 20 th and will also be at the Farmington Hills Library. The topic will be Prisons and Jails: Time for Reform? We will cover the In and Out regarding prisoners Sentencing and Release and learn about options and programs in these areas. LWV Michigan s update of our state prison study is timely as the cost of prisons has been the fastest rising part of the budget with Michigan having more people in prison per capita than other states. It is a key issue discussed in forums for State Representative. As I write this, Oakland Area has 22 candidate forums scheduled with another few still possible. We have three countywide forums County Executive*, Prosecuting Attorney and Oakland Community College plus Congressional District 9*, the only district totally within Oakland County. We have 2 judicial*, 2 State Rep, 4 County Commissioner, 4 School Districts, 2 Cities and 4 Township forums set up. ALL will be rebroadcast on cable. Those with an * will be available for viewing from your PC. I again make a plea for a Cable Coordinator to assure that we can arrange viewing on all appropriate local cable stations. Many of the State Representative contests in Oakland County will also be available on Detroit Public TV, our local PBS entity, as part of their Great Debates partnership with The Center for Michigan to have half-hour forums with editors from the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press as co-moderators asking questions of the candidates. The forums will also be available for online viewing at and at Voter Guide activity is at its heights as candidate responses have just been received and online guides are being created at the same time we work with our printer to produce a newsmagazine guide. We will include the federal and statewide races in the Oakland County guide so all races are in the same guide. The target date for availability of the printed Voter Guide as well as all online guides is October 10 th. Members, contributors and sponsors will receive a printed copy in the mail. Thank you to all the members who promptly sent in their dues. A special thanks to those who added a contribution with their dues as almost all of our dues are passed on to other levels of the League, leaving little to pay our local expenses. Eva As a League of Women Voters member, you are part of an organization where citizens like you are actively engaged in effecting change on the local, state and national level. The Oakland Voter Page 2 Oct 2008

3 ** New Time, Place and Panelist for Michigan Supreme Court Program ** A Fair and Impartial Michigan Supreme Court Wednesday, October 29, 7:00-9:00 pm Schoolcraft College Vis-Ta-Tech Center - Presentation Room Haggerty Rd, Livonia, Between 6 & 7 Mile Rds - Park in North Lot Panelists include: = Judge Edward Thomas, Wayne County Corporation Counsel and retired Circuit Court Judge Brian Dickerson, Detroit Free Press columnist. Rich Robinson, Executive Director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network Moderator: State Representative Paul Condino, Chair House Judiciary Committee Join us for a thought provoking and timely discussion on Michigan Supreme Court elections. Eighty percent of Michigan voters believe that campaign contributions influence the decisions judges make. Speaker presentations will be followed by an opportunity for audience discussion. Supreme Court election campaigns have become expensive and highly contentious in the past decade. The growth of contributions, donor disclosure loopholes and the absence of Court rules for recusal have created the perception, if not the reality, of conflict of interest in the Court s selection of cases and its decisions. These factors are undermining one of the pillars of our democracy - our shared belief in fair and impartial courts that ensure equal justice for all. The League of Women Voters Oakland Area will be hosting the forum. The event is co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Michigan (LWVMI); League of Women Voters chapters in Ann Arbor, Dearborn- Dearborn Hts, Detroit, Grosse Pointe, Northwest Wayne County, Troy; Michigan Campaign Finance Network; Michigan Impartial Courts Coalition; AAUW of Michigan; National Council of Jewish Women, Greater Detroit Section; Oakland County Bar Association; and Chambers of Commerce of Farmington/Farmington Hills, Livonia and Plymouth. This forum is one of three public LWVMI forums this fall supported by the League of Women Voters Education Fund through a grant from the Program on Constitutional and Legal Policy of the Open Society Institute. Map to Schoolcraft College Vis-Ta-Tech Center Haggerty Rd. Livonia, MI Park in the North Lot. If coming from the south, it is the 3 rd campus driveway. Bldg. Entry is from North side for Presentation Room. I-275 which is just East of Schoolcraft campus has exits at 6 & 7 Mile Rds. The Oakland Voter Page 3 Oct 2008

4 VOTER INFORMATION for November 4, 2008 ELECTION PRINTED VOTER INFORMATION: VOTER GUIDES by League of Women Voters Oakland Area Newsmagazine Style newspaper with candidate and proposal information for federal, state, county, local and judicial contests + proposals. Available at ALL Public Libraries and City & Township Halls in Oakland County by October 10, 2008 WEBSITES: League of Women Voters Oakland Area website contains: VOTER GUIDES Available Online by October 10, 2008 Information on all Partisan and Non-Partisan Offices. State proposals will be posted with pro and con information. Wording of local proposals will be posted Calendar of CANDIDATE FORUMS The public is invited to attend the Candidate Forums listed. Forums are videotaped and rebroadcast on local cable channels. Check the Candidate Forum listings for Rerun Schedules on cable which will be posted when they are provided to us. You can also check with your local cable provider for schedules. View the Judicial Forums online as well as candidate responses to 29 additional questions. Joint LWV of Michigan and Publius website Specify your Name to check your Voter Registration and learn your POLLING PLACE. You will be able to see your SAMPLE BALLOT for the November election and be able to link to Voter Guides on League of Women Voters websites + to candidate financial reports. Note: Sample ballots will be available for viewing one week prior to the election. election.crcmich.org Citizens Research Council of Michigan Will contain ANALYSES of the STATE PROPOSALS on the ballot. LWV Members Take on Big New Projects! Debra Horner, a LWV Board member who has been doing our Voter Guides as well as raising a young family, has taken a full time job as a Research Fellow at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She is heading the development of a new opinion survey of Michigan's local government officials entitled the Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS). With a proposed launch of Fall 2009, the MPPS will investigate opinions and perspectives on a variety of important public policy issues and solicit information about their locality relevant to policymaking. The survey will cover issues such as civil society and civic engagement, economic and workforce development, local-state governmental relations, regional governance, privatization, ethics, important problems facing the local government, policy priorities, local finances and demographics. Don McHarness just left for Honduras for two months where he will be volunteer engineering work in a town called Tela, which has 80,000 people is located on the Caribbean coast. He is hoping his wife can successfully him an absentee ballot for the coming election! doing and send The Oakland Voter Page 4 Oct 2008

5 Thursday, Oct. 02, 6-9 pm Monday, Oct. 13, 1:30 pm West Bloomfield Twp Library 4600 Walnut Lake Rd. West Bloomfield, Community Media Network Cable Studio 1230 Souter Drive Troy, Upcoming Candidate Forums Additional forums may yet be added. West Bloomfield Township: Library Board at 6, Trustees at 7, Treasurer at 8, Supervisor at 8:30 Coordinator: Jerry Burden County Executive Due to space limitations in studio, there will be no audience (media excepted). Forum will be available for viewing On Demand at later in the week. It will also be broadcast on various cable channels in Oakland County. Cable Schedules for communities will be posted when known. Co-sponsor: LWV Troy Area Coordinator: Linda DePoorter Monday, Oct. 13, Tuesday, Oct. 14, Wednesday, Oct. 15, Wednesday, Oct. 15, Thursday, Oct. 16, 7:30 pm Suggestion: Arrive early. Wednesday, Oct. 22, 6:30 pm Wednesday, Oct. 22, OCC - Orchard Ridge Building J, Room Orchard Lake Rd. Farmington Hills, (Building J = Tirrell Hall) Oak Valley Middle School 4800 White Lake Trail Commerce Township, John English Administration Cntr Lahser Rd. Southfield, MI Farmington Hills City Hall W. 11 Mile Farmington Hills Oakland University Oakland Center - Gold Room 2200 N. Squirrel Rd. Rochester, (Oakland Center is labeled OC) Royal Oak Public Library 222 East Eleven Mile Rd. Royal Oak, Bloomfield Township Library 1099 Lone Pine Rd. Bloomfield Hills, Rd, (Leslie Harcourt Green Community Room) Oakland Community College Trustees. Co-Sponsors: Oakland Community College & LWV Troy Area Coordinator: Judy Bateman Huron Valley: School Board. Coordinator: Judy Bateman Southfield School Board. Coordinator: Judy Bateman State Representative: District 37 and County Commissioner Districts Sponsor & Coordinator: Council of Homeowners Association Co-sponsor: LWVOA US Representative: District 9. District covers Auburn Hills, Berkley, Beverly Hills, Bingham Farms, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Twp, Clawson, Farmington, Farmington Hills, Franklin, Keego Harbor, Lake Angelus, Oakland Twp, Orchard Lake Village, Pontiac, Rochester, Rochester Hills, Royal Oak, Sylvan Lake, Troy, West Bloomfield Twp and parts of Orion Twp and Waterford Twp. Coordinators: Ann Edwards, Sue Abrams Co-sponsors: Center for Student Activities, AAUW of Michigan & LWV Troy Area Moderator: Chuck Stokes of Channel 7. Forum will be available for viewing online at County Commissioner District 24 at 6:30 and District 18 at 7:10 + State Representative District 26 at 8 pm. Coordinator: Jerry Burden Co-sponsor: Royal Oak Public Library County Prosecuting Attorney. Coordinator: Linda DePoorter Co-sponsor: LWV Troy Area The following Candidate Forums were held in September and will be rerun on local cable channels: Sept. 16, District Judge 45B Sept. 17, Sylvan Lake Sept. 23, Birmingham School Board Sept. 24, District Judge 52-3 Sept. 17, Keego Harbor Sept. 25, Bloomfield Hills School Board Judicial forums will also be available for viewing online at including Primary forums held. The Oakland Voter Page 5 Oct 2008

6 Stem Cell Research: The Science, The Cures and The Law Barbara Hill of Michigan Citizens for Stem Cell Research and Cures spoke on Sept. 22, focusing not so much on the scientific explanations of stem cell research but on the possibilities and limitations of stem cell research. She pointed out that adult stem cell research has been going on for forty years. They are limited in the types of tissues they can become, have limited ability to replicate themselves and are difficult to grow in a lab. However, medical treatments have been successfully derived from adult stem cells, such as bone marrow transplants to treat leukemias. Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) can develop into all tissues and can duplicate in large quantities. ESC research has only been conducted since Researchers only use ESCs from fertility clinics when they are no longer needed for reproductive purposes and would otherwise be destroyed. Many scientists believe studying these cells will lead to better understanding and potential treatment of a wide range of diseases and injuries. Michigan is one of the five most restrictive states in allowing ESC research, along with N. Dakota, S. Dakota, Arkansas and Louisiana; and Michigan is losing scientists and students to other states. When the State Legislature failed to act to loosen restrictions, a citizen group submitted a petition to amend the constitution. Research on ESCs is controversial to those who believe life begins as an egg is fertilized. Others believe it is unethical to allow people to suffer with conditions that could be treated with ESC therapies, especially as the embryos used would otherwise be destroyed. But all agree we need to move forward with ethical stem cell research. For more information go to The wording of the proposal and the pros and cons of the initiative will also be on the LWVOA website. Special Thanks to Recent LWVOA Volunteers! So many LWV members quietly help with the less glamorous but important tasks needed to make our organization run smoothly, and work with other community groups to make the League more visible and to show we care about all people getting involved in the election process. In the past few months, several members have helped in getting our membership renewal forms mailed, as well as answering the call of the Pontiac Department of Human Services (DHS) to register voters for a three-month time period. During the Pontiac DHS registration, coverage became more concentrated as the weeks progressed toward the election. In Walled Lake and Madison Heights, DHS offices held one-day Voters Fair events. The League also provided information on how to learn about the candidates for offices on the ballot, while Clerks provided voting machines for registrants to experience the voting process. We also registered voters at two OCC Highland Lake events. Membership Renewal: DHS Voter Registration: Ann Edwards Karen Johnstone Christine Jurgensen Don McHarness Marge Polidori Betty Spehar Mary Ellen Stroup Andrea Zalewski Mary Ann Barkach Judy Bateman Cathy Carey Delores Curiel Joan Curtis Paula Creed Rene Dargin Shelley Gach-Droz Dora DeMarco Linda DePoorter Doug DePoorter Mina Feldman Carole Elder Fran Fisher Shelley Goldberg Winnie Ho Karen Johnstone Tom Hamilton Jatta Hamilton Christine Jurgensen Margaret Kanost Ruth Ann Lippitt Karen Linnell Kay Norton Jane Perrin Laura Sheldon Donna Sklar Betty Spehar Renate Soulen Barbara Suhay Jean Walker Katie Wilkie Special Thanks to our Fearless Leaders: Sue Abrams, V.P., Membership Carole Elder and Shelley Goldberg, Pontiac DHS Voter The Oakland Voter Page 6 Oct 2008

7 The Oakland Voter Page 7 Oct 2008

8 The League of Women Voters Oakland Area 725 S. Adams Road, Suite 292 Birmingham, MI The League of Women NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT NO. 32 BIRMINGHAM, MI A Voice for Citizens, A Voice for Change Time Dated Material Enclosed Calendar of Events See Page 5 for list of October Candidate Forums which include U.S. Representative District 9 (10/16), County Executive (10/13 In Studio), County Prosecuting Attorney (10/22), OCC Trustees (10/13), State Representative District 26 + County Commissioner Districts 18 & 24 (10/22), State Representative District 37 + County Commissioner Districts 14 & 15 (10/15), Huron Valley School Board (10/14), Southfield School Board (10/15), and West Bloomfield Township Offices (10/2). September Candidate Forums included District Judge 45B, District Judge 52-3, Sylvan Lake, Keego Harbor, Birmingham School Board, and Bloomfield Hills School Board. Forums are being taped and rerun on local cable. Some forums will be available online also. Rerun times will be posted on in the Candidate Forum calendar when known. Mon. 10/06 7p LWVOA Board S. Adams Square, Conference Room A, Birmingham Mon. 10/20 12noon Fall Luncheon Prisons and Jails: Time for Community Library, W. 12 Mile Rd., Farmington Hills See Reservation Form and Map on page 7 Wed. 10/29 7-9p A Fair and Impartial Michigan Supreme College, Vis-Ta-Tech Center (in Presentation Room) Haggerty Rd. (between 6 & 7 Mile Rds), Livonia Park in North Lot. Tues.11/04 7a-8p ELECTION DAY. V O T E!!! Upcoming National Debates: President: #2 = Tue, 10/7, #3 = Wed, 10/15 Vice-president: Thu, 10/2 LWV: Where hands-on work to safeguard democracy leads to civic improvement. The Oakland Voter Page 8 Oct 2008