Blog

Is Next Saturday, June 18th!

Ticket locations:

• While Aways Books, 932 W. Harvard, Roseburg
• My Coffee, 1700 NW Garden Valley Blvd, Roseburg
• Umpqua Sweets & Treats, 1016 SE Oak Avenue, Roseburg
• Atom Espresso & Coffee Bar, 20168 N. Umpqua Hwy, Glide
• Central Feed & Supply, 231 E Central Ave, Sutherlin
• The Harvest Store, 501 NW Douglas Blvd, Winston, OR

Don’t miss all the artists and musicians in the gardens! There’s art and plants for sale, too!

Artists!

• Victoria Carnate – Jewelry & Garden Art
• Jenny Gibbs – Metal Garden Art
• Jan Horn – Plen air painter
• Jackie Little Miller – Oil Painter
• Judy Danielson – Watercolor painter
• Bobbi Reinhardt – Impressionist painter
• Camille Collins – Painter
• Lee Howard – Gourd artist

Musicians!

• David Morrison – Clarinet
• Whistler’s Mother – Connie Page, vocals, Rick Kreofsky and Mike Fisher, guitar and vocals
• Joe Ross & Friends – Guitar and vocals
• Jeff Havener – Guitar and vocals
• Wylde River – Kathy Vandendoel, flute, Tim Stephanso, guitar, Jeanette Kangas, percussion
• Kim Blossom – Harp & vocals
• Steve Lounsbury – Baroque group, flute
• Justus McIntosh – Cello
• Mark Barrata – Guitar & vocals

Visit our webpage for more information and photos of musicians.

Sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Umpqua Valley • Contact us!

Douglas County Commissioner Candidates will introduce themselves and answer questions from the League and the audience.

Douglas County Commissioners Candidates Public Forum
Douglas County Fairgrounds
Cascade West Building
7PM – 8:30PM

This is a Public Forum open to all. Please attend!
Sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Umpqua Valley
lwvuv.org

Meet the candidates! Figure out who to vote for for all three commissioner positions!

The Umpqua Valley Quilters Guild will host the 37th Annual Quilt Show at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Douglas Hall on the weekend of April 22-24, 2022.

The League of Women Voters of Umpqua Valley is one of the sponsors. There are 250 quilt entries, including suffrage quilts. The League is honored to choose the best suffrage quilt. A prize will be award to the sewist of the quilt.

For the next month in Douglas County, Oregon, you can apply as a Temporary Election worker with the Douglas County Clerk’s office. Here is the link to the position.

The pay runs from $12.08 to $12.57 per hour. There are basic requirements, skills you need to have. It doesn’t say when the position starts work, but the May Primary Election is on May 17, 2022. This position is an ‘on-call’ job.

This would be a great way to see exactly how it all happens and actually participate in our democracy besides voting, or working for a campaign. Our most important task in a democracy is making sure our votes are counted. If you apply and are accepted, you would get an inside view of the incredible work and coordination it takes to have secure elections.

Best of luck in your job search!

You can help the Ukrainian people in a number of ways:

Here’s a couple of links to valid methods:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/27/how-to-help-ukraine/

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/ways-to-help-ukraine-conflict/

Is Finally Done!

Victory secured at last! 

After 15 years of tenacious opposition, the Jordan Cove LNG and Pacific Connector Pipeline Project is finally dead! On January 25, 2022, the last step remaining to declare total defeat of the project occurred: The Court of Appeals of the DC Circuit issued an order dismissing challenges to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) March 2020 authorizations for the project and allows FERC to vacate those authorizations. More specifically, the court granted FERC’s request to dismiss the petitions filed last year challenging these critical permits by the State of Oregon, affected landowners, the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw and Cow Creek band of the Umpqua Tribes, and environmental organizations. We have been following this project for years. The January 17 issue provides a brief account of local and state League involvement in opposing it.

By Shirley Weathers for the LWVOR Action Team

We must stop the suppression of voting rights that is going on right now in our country. It’s hard to believe but it is very true, some are actively seeking to disenfranchise the ability for some to vote. This has been going on too long!

Specific groups are especially being challenged for their rights, and being marginalized and discarded as valid voters.

15th Amendment to the US Constitution was adopted in 1870, which states: 

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” 

What the League is doing:

The League is at the forefront of the most important federal and state cases across the United States. The national League’s (LWVUS) legal team works tirelessly to oppose all forms of voter suppression, including: 

• Discriminatory voter ID laws;  
• Attacks on voter registration; 
• Last-minute Election Day barriers;  
• The elimination of voting locations in underserved communities; 
• Unjust voter purges; and 
• Attempts to limit access to early and mail-in voting.  

ADVOCATING TO END VOTER SUPPRESSION 

The League of Women Voters on all levels supports legislation that empowers Americans to participate in the voting process. These include: 

• The Freedom to Vote Act: This bill would expand voting rights by expanding early voting and same-day and online registration, creating standards for upholding voter rolls, and authorizing voter registration at new-citizen naturalization ceremonies.
• The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act: The John Lewis VRAA would restore and strengthen aspects of the bipartisan Voting Rights Act of 1965, enabling Americans to protect themselves from voting laws that discriminate based on age, race, ethnicity, and other factors. 

What you can do

Get all of your friends and family to register to vote now! The mid-term elections are almost upon us, and we need to let everyone know how crucial these votes will be.

• The Oregon primary is on May 17, 2022.
• The last day to register is April 26, 2022.
• If you’ve moved within the state, you can update your contact info at the Secretary of State’s election office.

The EPA Region 10 (Serving Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and 271 Tribal Nations) announced on 12/17/21 that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding will boost cleanup at the Formosa Mine Superfund site near Riddle, Oregon. 

That is great news for Douglas County, Oregon, and many other counties!

Here is an excerpt of the press release:

Contact: Suzanne Skadowski, 206-553-2160, skadowski.suzanne@epa.gov

SEATTLE (Dec. 17, 2021) – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that the Formosa Mine Superfund site near Riddle, Oregon, will receive Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds to complete critical cleanup actions and protect human health and the environment.  The Douglas County, Oregon, site is among 49 sites across the nation that will benefit from a $1 billion investment from the BIL to initiate cleanup and clear the backlog of previously unfunded Superfund sites and accelerate cleanup at other sites across the country. Until this historic investment, many of these were part of a backlog of hazardous waste sites awaiting funding. Thousands of contaminated sites exist nationally due to hazardous waste being dumped, left out in the open, or otherwise improperly managed. These sites include manufacturing facilities, processing plants, landfills, and mining sites.

To read the whole press release, visit https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/bipartisan-infrastructure-law-funding-will-boost-cleanup-formosa-mine-superfund-site.

Celebrates 60 Years in Douglas County, Oregon!

Sixty years of education and action in southern Oregon has been carried out by dedicated women and men who joined and participated in the LWV Umpqua Valley. The League began in Roseburg officially in April 1961.

Thank you to all of you who have contributed, and are contributing, to making our democracy fairer, more accessible, more understandable, and for representing the League.

Here are a few memories ~

And we’re still going strong!

Now is the time to step up to keep our democracy! Join with others who are working for Douglas County, Oregon, and the United States of America!