We will meet in person for the first time in two years. The Friends Meeting asks that everyone wear a mask. Bring a friend. Come to reconnect. If you have not renewed your membership, renew at the meeting.
Agenda for the Business meeting:
9:00 Call to order and welcome – Co-President Adrienne Falcon
Annual Meeting Minutes – motion to approve
Presidents Report –
Voter Services Report –
Membership Report –
9:10 Treasurer’s Report – Paul Zorn
Proposed budget for 2022 – 2023 – motion to approve
9:15 Nominations Committee Report
Nominations from the Floor
Election of new board members (2022 – 2023)
9:20 Statement from incoming presidents
Direction from Membership to New Board
9:30 Adjourn
Immediately following the conclusion of the business meeting, we will have a presentation on policing, mental crisis response, and restorative justice:
Policing, Mental Health Crisis Response, and Restorative Justice
For the past 2 years, the Northfield Cannon Falls League of Women Voters has been working on advocacy efforts and a study around Policing and Crisis Mental Health Responses. Classie Dudley, who is the NAACP President in Duluth will share insights from the exciting work that they have been doing to address equity issues and the implementation of the Cahoots crisis response model and how they are approaching this work from a restorative justice mindset. Rep. Todd Lippert will share information about current bills at the legislature on these topics and Julia Tassava and Amelia Arnold who will be stepping down from being on the League board for 2 years as two of our first youth board members will share insights from their work on these issues and their time on the board. Following presentations, the speakers will take your questions.
Reflections of today’s annual meeting: May 2022
My goal was go with an open mind and learn how the LWV works toward justice and voting rights.
Annual meeting was pertinent and transparent. As a nonmember, I didn’t vote but protocol was proper.
Speaker Classie Dudley, NAACP Duluth gave a long synopsis of their work regarding equity issues. Suggestions for improvement would be 1)Allow time for questions vs running out the clock 2) Mission of the NAACP and it’s coordination within the community vs criminalizing law enforcement/their actions. As someone involved with health care for over 45 years, I’ve seen the impact of mental health crisis. There are two sides to every story and any one of us could become a victim. Regarding law enforcement, one of my sons is a Sargent with Ramsey County. He is upstanding, honest and compassionate and ended up being called out for the 2021 riots in Mpls. We prayed for his safety many nights in a row. Credit needs to be acknowledged to those officers who protect and serve.
Speaker Todd Lippert, Representative, with an update regarding current legislative bills. Feedback to him 1) Citing the GOP regarding funding without a representative from the GOP as to their side of the funding. I happen to register as Republican however desire to learn BOTH sides of the issues but pointing fingers across the aisle does nothing to promote unity.
The two high school students were invested in their commitment and their report was honest on a high school level. Suggestion: 1)Representative from local law enforcement for their side of their job and how we can work toward a common goal. Paint a picture of law enforcement’s side of their job. Skilled social workers are cherished. Anyone in health care could tell you expecting them to be ‘on call’ for a mental health crisis is pie in the sky- dangerous, time consuming and outcomes unpredictable.
My hope is I’ve adequately given the LWV feedback.
Thank you for the opportunity to attend this annual meeting.
LikeLike
Thank you so much for attending the League annual meeting recently and providing your thoughtful feedback. We always strive to do better and will consider your suggestions as we move ahead.
To respond more specifically to your feedback, we really appreciate your evaluation that the meeting was well run.
Vis a vis the presentation afterwards, as you seem well aware we are a non-partisan organization. We work on advocacy on issues where we have a League position, one of which supports government transparency and responsiveness. Under that position, we have been working on researching police procedures and communicating those to community members. As you say, there are always multiple positions on every issue and we have really focused on educating ourselves as to how the system works.
We started our work as a committee with the question of what are the policies in general and particularly body camera use. We have gone from there to try to understand other procedures in use. Along the way we’ve met regularly with the Northfield Police Chief, the Rice County Sheriffs and others to try to gain better understanding of what might be possible. We’ve also researched approaches that other similarly situated communities use which may be the same or different than what’s used here in terms of policing and mental health crisis response. As we meet with mental health professionals and police leaders, we hear their thoughts on these issues and see how we can encourage the adoption of new efforts.
As we set up our annual meeting, we wanted to update folks on model examples from other places in the state. Classie Dudley’s presentation on the work of the NAACP in Duluth in collaboration with the Duluth Police Chief is an amazing effort to improve crisis mental health responses in the region. Representative Lippert was asked to provide an update on where the legislature was at with criminal justice related efforts. The two high schoolers were asked to summarize our work on the committee from the past two years. I agree that there were some statements made that were more partisan in nature during the presentations and they are not appropriate for the League context. We will work to improve that in the future as we aim to truly be nonpartisan.
We did invite Rice County staff who are working on the embedded social worker project and improving crisis mental health responses in the county. They were unable to attend. We will be following up with them as they asked us to, so that we can continue to explore ways to support proactive innovative options to address such challenging issues.
Thank you again for raising your concerns and your desire to learn more about our organization. We would be happy to meet with you to talk more and explore ways for you to become involved in our League efforts. Please feel free to email me and we can set up a meeting.
Adrienne Falcon
LikeLike