The Leaguer Volume 20, Issue 5 January - February 2015 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY lwv@lwvchautauqua.org, 672-4275 February 18th Noon At the Clarion Hotel Dunkirk LWV Chautauqua County PO Box 42 Fredonia, New York 14063 Inside This Issue About Our Next Meeting Reservation Form From the Board Local Issues We re Following GMO s Pros & Cons Calendar Membership Form 2 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Volume 20, Issue 5 Page 2 Margaret Bruegel Jonathan Titus is a professor of biology at SUNY-Fredonia where he teaches classes in biology, ecology and botany. Titus s research is in plant ecology. Locally he has set up a network of long term forest study plots in wetlands and uplands to understand forest structure and track forest change due to succession, invasive species such as emerald ash borer and hemlock woolly adelgid, and climate change. Titus also conducts research on the invasive plant species garlic mustard and Japanese knotweed and on Huachuca water umbel, an endangered wetland plant species in southern Arizona. Titus s main research has been on plant succession and community development in volcanically devastated landscapes of Mount St. Helens. He previously taught at Biosphere 2 and was a Nature Conservancy ecologist. Titus serves on the Board of the Nature Sanctuary of Western New York and the Research Science Consortium at Presque Isle. Along with his wife Priscilla he is a steward of Alexander Preserve in Zoar Valley. Titus along with many dedicated volunteers is working to control non-native species invasions in the Campus Woodlot, College Lodge and Alexander Preserve. February 18 th LUNCHEON at the Clarion Hotel RESERVATION FORM House Reuben Traditional Club Sandwich Chicken salad plate with a cup of soup and fruit Cobb Salad - mixed greens, tomatoes, bacon, chicken breast, hard boiled egg, avocado, red onion, and crumbled bleu cheese, choice of dressing Martha s Vineyard Salad - Fresh greens, craisins, gold raisins, bacon, chopped pecans, feta cheese and served with strawberry vinaigrette Please send selection and payment to: Marcia Merrins, 42 Rosalyn Court, Fredonia, NY 14063. Make check payable to LWV Chautauqua. If you would like to attend the program only, please contact Marcia Merrins at 672-4275 to reserve a place. Name Phone email Cost: $15
Volume 20, Issue 5 Page 3 From your Leadership Team and the National League The League of Women Voters will be celebrating its 95th anniversary in 2015. Here s brief overview of what we ve accomplished and what lies ahead. Here in Chautauqua County we have registered many new voters. We have had successful youth voter registration efforts. Both efforts nationally were in the thousands. The League was also instrumental in getting out the vote. Throughout 2014, nearly 1.5 million voters used the League's online elections resource, VOTE411.org, to find the information they needed to vote, including their polling place, and candidate/ballot information. We held many Meet the Candidates forums throughout the year. Leagues across the country held nearly 600 candidate events and handed out over a million postcards and fliers to help educate voters. In 2015, we'll see the 2016 presidential cycle begin to ramp up and we will continue to register new voters as well as prepare for state and local elections occurring in 2015. Voting Rights: This year, our supporters sent over 90,000 letters to Congress in support of the Voting Rights Amendment Act (VRAA), legislation to restore key provisions of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. A repaired VRA will ensure that every American citizen, regardless of race or language, has equal access to the vote. The League also remained critical to helping protect voting rights at the state level through legislative and judicial action. For example, the League of Women Voters of Missouri helped stop a discriminatory voter photo ID bill and a restrictive early voting constitutional amendment, while the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania was instrumental in thwarting a state voter photo ID law. Meanwhile, the League of Women Voters of Minnesota helped pass online voter registration thereby expanding the voter registration process for Minnesotans. The League will continue to push back against bad legislation that attempts to prevent voters from having access to the polls, and we're looking forward to more successes expanding fair and equal access to the electoral process in 2015! Environmental Defense: In 2014, our supporters sent nearly 100,000 comments 2015 State Convention June 6-7, 2015 Desmond Hotel and Conference Center, Albany on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Power Plan in support of critical measures to protect our planet and public health by limiting carbon pollution from power plants. In 2015, we'll continue to act on climate issues as the EPA finalizes these critical regulations by helping implement the process at the state level and defend the regulations in the face of opposition in Congress. Money in Politics: This year, we continued to work at all levels of government to ensure that citizen participation in the political process is not drowned out by special interests and big money donors, So far, we've sent 15,000 comments to the Federal Election Commission in hopes of reducing the influence money has on our elections. In 2015, we have our eyes on the DISCLOSE Act, critical legislation that would ensure that voters know the identity of donors who have secretly financed campaign expenditures in federal elections. We'll also closely monitor other legislation that defines coordination between candidates and outside spending groups, including Super PACs, in order to limit the big money flowing into our elections. And we'll continue to provide comments to the IRS as it redrafts a proposal that defines election activities. As we head into our 95th year, the League will remain active in strengthening our democracy. We're committed to stepping up our work to register more new voters and help all eligible voters participate in our electoral process. We'll also keep pushing for necessary legislation and regulations at the state and federal levels to protect our planet for future generations, keep secret money out of our elections and ensure that our elections are fair, free and accessible. As you may have read in the Observer, our League continues to invite informative speakers to our Hot Topics luncheons. In addition, within the January 15 th edition of the Observer there was a thoughtful article about GMOs. We wonder if the editor selects an article that parallels our concerns? Kudos to our local newspaper and the program committee! Warmly, Minda Rae Amiran, Priscilla Bernatz, Gloria Garretson, Gen Ludemann, Marcia Merrins, Judy Reynolds, Rose Sebouhian,Tillie Solomonson, Linda Warner
Volume 20, Issue 5 Page 4 Redistricting in Chautauqua County Local Issues We re Following The Chautauqua County Charter Revision Commission has decided that it must change what the Charter currently says about redistricting to specify (1) the composition of any Redistricting Commission, (2) the way it is to be chosen, (3) the criteria it is to use, and (4) the degree to which the Legislature would be free to alter its recommendations. So far, the Committee members haven t really considered the content of each of these items, mostly because they re waiting to hear the views of the Republican caucus in the Legislature, views which are promised for the February 11 meeting. A possible complication is that the Commission is also considering whether to change the legislators terms of office from 2 to 4 years, with staggered terms. If some legislative seats are up for election in the year after a U.S. census while others are not, it would be impossible to alter the boundaries of election districts to accord with population changes without improperly shifting the ground under incumbents. You may remember the fiasco of the last redistricting dance: the semi-independent Redistricting Commission was maneuvered into putting both a majority and a minority plan before the Legislature, which promptly adopted the minority plan drawn up by the leader of its majority party, the Commission co-chair. The other Commission members might as well have spared their breath to cool their porridge. If such a situation is to be avoided in future, all four issues before the Charter Revision Commission are important. The proper functioning of democracy in the County is at stake. It is to be hoped that the Commission will find a balance between the need to propose something that can pass the Legislature(i.e., please the Republican caucus) and its own obligation to use its best judgment in what it proposes. Climate Change Our national organization remains committed to slowing the pace of climate change, and we have been active locally toward that end for the last few years. Recently, our Board decided to promote composting in the Village of Fredonia as a modest project. At present, waste from kitchens is the largest single component of landfills statewide, releasing methane gas which too often escapes into the atmosphere, where it is ten times more productive of global warming than carbon dioxide. In cooperation with the Fredonia Farmers Market, we hope to establish an information table this coming summer to promote a variety of home composters. On a much bigger scale, we have been impressed by Fredonia Mayor Stephen Keefe s proposal to try for a generator that would run on vegetable waste and produce both electricity and fertilizer. Accordingly, we have engaged the help of SUNY Fredonia President Virginia Horvath and Vice President Kevin Kearns to look for grants that would fund such a generator. Ideally, it would use waste from the campus and from village restaurants to create electricity for everyone, and would produce fertilizer as a by-product. This initiative is something of a long shot, but might lead to smaller projects to create at least free fertilizer for village gardens, if not electricity. SUNY Fredonia is already composting its waste on a small scale. In a related issue, we have not seen the last of high volume horizontal hydrofracking. Governor Cuomo s ban is guaranteed to last only as long as he is governor of New York. It s not a law, and the State Legislature is hardly likely to make it one. When the price of gas goes up again, as it will, the Utica shale in our county will again look attractive to the large gas corporations, and we can expect renewed pressure to let it be drilled. LWVCC belongs to another organization, Cattaraugus/Chautauqua For Clean Water, which is still trying to get towns to ban fracking under local zoning laws. At present efforts are concentrated on the Town of Ellery, where many residents are opposed to expansion of the County Landfill, which appears to be accepting fracking waste from Pennsylvania. (This is not a known fact, but a reasonable inference.) The unpredictable weather makes planning for rallies or even meetings in rural areas hard. We can expect more activity with towns in spring.
Volume 20, Issue 5 Page 5 By Amy Paturel WebMD Feature Reviewed by Jennifer Robinson, MD If you ve eaten today, chances are you ve had a food that s been touched by science as well as Mother Nature. Up to 80% of processed foods in the U.S. have something that's been changed by man from the way it would grow on its own. This happens at a very basic level -- in the plant's genes. We say these are genetically modified (GM). Their number is growing by leaps and bounds. Key crops include corn, soybeans, and cotton. (Yes, cotton products are in foods.) Scientists tinker with plants for many reasons. They often take a gene that controls a desired trait in one plant -- less need for water, so it can survive a drought, for example -- and add it into a different plant. The end result: hardier crops, more colorful berries, even seedless watermelons and grapes. What that means is, like it or not, genetically modified foods are almost impossible to avoid, says Sheldon Krimsky, PhD, an adjunct professor of public health and community medicine at Tufts Medical School in Boston. The Pros The World Health Organization, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Medical Association all say these crops are at least as safe as, and often safer than, foods changed the oldfashioned way, such as when a new plant is bred from two different types. In the U.S., three groups play a role in bringing GM products to grocery store shelves. The EPA rates GM plants for their effects on the environment and the USDA decides whether the plant is safe to grow -- it won't harm other plants or animals. The FDA decides whether the plant will make anyone who eats it sick. They re the most thoroughly tested food on the market, says Dan Goldstein, MD, senior science fellow at Monsanto, an agriculture company responsible for a large share of genetically modified crops worldwide. Those in favor of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) count these among their top selling points: More food: These plants can help farmers boost their yield by making crops that can live through a drought or the cold and resist disease. Backers say GM products will help us feed the extra 2 billion people that will fill the planet by 2050. Not using these tools would push us back 40 to 50 years in food production, says Kent Bradford, PhD, distinguished professor of plant sciences and director of the Seed Biotechnology Center at the University of California, Davis. Less stress on the environment: Supporters say using science to make the changes is better for the planet than older farming methods. Crops built to resist pests lower farmers need for toxic chemical pesticides, Goldstein says. They also require less soil to be tilled, reduce runoff, and keep the soil in place. Better products: Scientists can create crops that contain vital nutrients. Swiss researchers created a strain of golden rice with high amounts of beta-carotene. Monsanto produced soybeans with lots of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Other crops, like papaya and cassava, can be made to withstand disease. Naturally occurring molds (if we don t prevent them by creating GM crops) present huge health hazards, Bradford says. Why reject a technology that has the potential to benefit so many people worldwide?
Volume 20, Issue 5 Page 6 The Cons People concerned about the planet, public interest groups, and religious organizations hold that GM foods can cause allergies, make your body resist antibiotics, or even lead to cancer. Independent scientists without a stake on either side see pitfalls to these high-profit, high-tech products. Top concerns about GMOs include: The rise of superweeds: Crops built to withstand herbicides could breed with each other and transfer their genes to weeds. These superweeds would also beat the herbicides. On the other hand, GM fans say this is nothing new. Even nonchemical technologies create superweeds, Bradford says. Health problems: The process often mixes or adds proteins that don t exist in the original plant. GMO foes fear these will create new allergic reactions. They also worry that foods made to resist disease and viruses will linger in your system after you eat them, and that could make antibiotics less effective. But no studies confirm this claim. "Frankenfood" fears: The long-term effects of adding new genes to common crops are still unclear. While the industry and health leaders cite hundreds of studies to support its safety, not to mention 20 years of animal data, experts like Krimsky say studies that show bad effects on animals -- like harm to the kidneys, liver, heart, or other organs -- should carry more weight. The prominent scientists who say the controversy surrounding GMOs has been resolved are dismissing at least 23 studies showing ill effects, he says. It has to be a balancing act that weighs the benefits of GMOs against the risks, and that is driven by science, not political pressure or profits. The FDA s only litmus test for safety is based on a policy that says GM foods are close enough to natural foods that they don t need regulation. The question is, how can they make that determination? Krimsky says. The Right to Know Whether they think of them as Frankenfoods or a way to feed the world, both sides agree consumers have a right to know what's on their plates. Countries that require labels for GM foods include China, Australia, and the European Union. But the U.S. doesn't make food companies mark products with GM ingredients. So it s no surprise many Americans don t realize they re eating them. The FDA says companies can label foods on their own to say they are or aren t GM, provided they keep it truthful. But that puts an added burden on farmers to plant, harvest, and ship GM crops separately from non-gm crops. That creates extra cost, which is passed along to the consumer. Food companies like Nature s Path and Gerber baby food choose to use non-gm ingredients. The fast food chain Chipotle removed GM foods from its menu. Whole Foods Market promises to label all GM products at its U.S. and Canadian stores by 2018. The bottom line: If you live (and eat) in the U.S., unless it s otherwise stated -- or it s certified organic -- it s a safe bet that your food is GM. Makers who don t use GM ingredients clearly say so on labels.
Volume 20, Issue 5 Page 7 MARK YOUR CALENDARS FEBRUARY 16 BOARD MEETING at 1:30pm Minda Rae Amiran s, 12 Lowell Place, Fredonia, NY 679-4636, amiran@fedonia.edu FEBRUARY 18 HOT TOPICS LUNCHEON at Noon What are GMOs? at the Clarion. Judi Lutz-Woods and Marcia Merrins are coordinating this program. Jon Titus and an organic farmer, speakers. MARCH 11 APRIL 22 MAY 20 JUNE 6-7 HOT TOPICS LUNCHEON at Noon Water Districting, coordinated by Pat Christina. HOT TOPICS LUNCHEON at Noon - Drugs in Our County, at Moonbrook Country Club. Tillie Solomonson, coordinator LWV Chautauqua Annual Meeting LWV New York State 2015 Convention at the Desmond Hotel in Albany. THANK YOU TO OUR ADVERTISERS Kniti Griti Works Pottery 672-4275 knitigritiworks.com Dunkirk & Fredonia Yoga Center 672-6697 Fredonia Baptist Church Christian Nursery School 12 Church Street, Fredonia The 1891 Fredonia Opera House 679-1981 www.fredopera.org Fairmount House 12 E. Fairmount Ave. 708-8549 DARWIN S Health Club, Inc. 43-57 Water Street, Fredonia 679-1591
Volume 20, Issue 4 Page 8 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY lwv@lwvchautauqa.org, 672-4275 The League of Women Voters of Chautauqua County is where hands-on work to safeguard democracy leads to civic improvement. Invite a Friend to Join or Give the Gift Of League Membership!! Make Your Voice Heard! Join Us Today! League of Women Voters of Chautauqua County Management Team Minda Rae Amiran Priscilla Bernatz Gloria Garretson Gen Ludemann Marcia Merrins Judy Reynolds Rose Sebouhian Tillie Solomonson Linda Warner Membership Form Mail to: LWV Chautauqua P.O. Box 42 Fredonia, NY 14063 Membership Dues: through December 31, 2015 Individual: $60; Family: $90; Student: $25 (Check payable to LWV Chautauqua County) Name Address Phone Fax Email I would like to get involved with: Local Issues Voter Service State/National Issues Local Newsletter Assisting with minor tasks occasionally Other: