LWVNM Board Minutes, March 1 2025
Board Minutes
March 1, 2025
10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
On Zoom
BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT
Hannah Burling, Co-President
Kathy Brook, Co-President
Barbara Calef, Second Vice President
Judy Williams, Past President and Program Director
Dick Mason, Voting and Elections Director
Akkana Peck, Action Chair and Webmaster
Meredith Machen, Education Chair and Special Projects
Edwina Jaramillo, Voter Services Director
Janet Blair, Communications Director
Jody Larson, Archivist
Felicia Orth, LWVLA President
Debbie Helper, LWVSFC Liaison
Starlyn Brown, LWVCNM President
Jo Galvan Nash, LWVSNM President
Guest: Becky Shankland, Member of the Nominating Committee
CALL TO ORDER AND INTRODUCTIONS
Kathy called the meeting to order at 10:02 a.m. All members introduced themselves and explained their positions on the LWVNM board. In the absence of a board secretary, Edwina and Kathy will work on the minutes.
REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF AGENDA
The revised agenda was approved on a motion by Barbara and seconded by Dick. The revision adds the Immigration topic under Other Business.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Several minor corrections (spelling of Dianna Wynns’s name and date of the last VOTE411 purchase) were made to the minutes of the board meeting of January 18, 2025. On a motion by Barbara, seconded by Meredith, the minutes were approved unanimously as corrected.
CO-PRESIDENT REPORTS
Hannah reported on her meeting with the Secretary of State (SoS) and noted the SoS answered several questions but overall is not planning to address the GIS issues identified by LWVNM. Hannah wants to talk to Starlyn about raising C4 funds through Zeffy. Action Item: Hannah will send a report on her meeting with the SoS to the Board.
Kathy thanked League Day participants. The Legislative Reception went well, but there was disappointment about limited participation by legislators. Dick requested a full discussion for next year’s planning. There was also a request for a restaurant list prior to the event next year.
Additionally, Kathy reported she submitted the LWVUS survey and was contacted by Conservation Voters NM for a newsletter contribution about the League that was, subsequently, submitted.
A recent State Leaders webinar focused on the state of democracy where they asked state and local Leagues to avoid being overwhelmed by actions at the federal level and to focus on League priorities and remain strategic in doing so. LWVUS also recommended a state-level offensive team of 3-5 people to mobilize local Leagues to take action. The idea is to help educate the public and share with local Leagues how to plug into state and national actions. LWVUS got the message that local Leagues were wanting a stronger response to Trump administration actions and, subsequently, put out two press releases. LWVUS leaders realized that while they were talking among themselves at the national office, they weren’t sharing information sufficiently with the rest of us. Kathy also noted that LWVUS is doing something that they referred to as “state and local signals engagement” to focus on raising flags around attacks on democratic institutions and organizations and identifying a menu of options that Leagues can take in response to what they might be seeing locally.
TREASURER’S REPORT
Kathy reported that she has agreed to fill in as Treasurer for the remainder of the fiscal year. She noted that she has made progress looking through the documents and trying to understand
the treasurer's functions. The bank balance is $26,907 (including restricted funds) as of 2/24/25 but there are two outstanding checks (one to LWVCNM for office space rental and one to La Fonda for League Day), and a pending expense to Hannah for part of the La Fonda cost.
Action Item: Dick and Hannah will assist Kathy with two transactions that went through the bank account in February (one a donation and the other a check) that she has questions about.
Payments to LWVNM through the Stripe account, the payment platform for dues, are being directed to LWVSNM rather than LWVNM. Kathy is working to get the situation corrected, but there is a backlog of help requests to LWVUS. Kathy noted that most of the member payments have been $75, so concerns over decreases in dues payments are not materializing. The state is receiving $35.25 (before transaction fees are paid) and local Leagues $13.61 from the $75 amount. Local Leagues get a notice via email whenever there's a new membership or renewal through ChapterSpot.
The invoice for the VOTE411 license was received. Action Item: Hannah will confirm whether payment will be from the Thornburg account or the LWVNM budget.
Budget Update
Kathy reviewed the budget produced by the Budget Committee (comprised of Kathy (Chair), Starlyn, Dick, and Judy) with the Board. Several expenses will be moved to other accounts. A PayPal payment received was apparently from out-of-state League members attending the Burciaga luncheon. There was much discussion around payment to the lobbyist, Kathleen Burke, and from which fund she is paid. Answering a question, Hannah noted that a percentage of C3 money is allowed for payment for lobbying, but in general lobbying should be paid from C4 money. Hannah noted that the lobbyist’s time was for the Making Democracy Work Award luncheon and not for anything she was doing for the Ed Fund (there was separate invoicing for time and expenses for that period at the Ed Fund).
Action Items: 1) Kathy will make corrections to the current budget based on the discussion including moving $3500 to the Advocacy line from the line for the Legislative Reception (that will be largely funded by the Making Democracy Work grant for 2024-2025). 2) Hannah and Dick will provide form 1099 (for non-employee compensation) information to Kathy for lobbyist expenses in 2024.
RATIFICATION OF LWVNM EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ACTIONS
The LWVNM Executive Committee met in mid-February to discuss two actions. A request from LWVSFC to provide funding for an ad in the Santa Fe New Mexican was received. The Executive Committee decided against providing funding, but didn't object to the activity. The second action was designating Kathy as the interim treasurer until the LWVNM Convention. A motion to approve the actions of the Executive Committee was made by Dick and seconded by Barbara. The motion carried unanimously.
ACTION COMMITTEE
Akkana reported that the Action Committee is monitoring and advocating on bills while the legislature is in session. The 2025 priorities determined by the Committee and the LWVNM Board are: voting, elections and ethics; environment; health care; and housing, but the Action Committee also advocates on other subjects. Akkana noted there are interesting bills this session, including some that stalled in previous sessions such as legislative salaries, open primaries, ethics, environment issues (e.g., oil and gas royalties and water protections), health care issues like interstate compacts, and affordable housing. To follow the details, see the tracking sheet linked on the LWVNM Action page on our website, or come to the Action meetings, which are held every Wednesday night at 6:00 p.m.
Dick noted that the joint resolution on redistricting is getting a lot of interest and we currently have five co-sponsors. The main function now is to educate the legislators about it as we know it will not pass this session. He plans to send a fact sheet to local Leagues and will ask them to contact their legislators about signing on as co-sponsors to SJR9.
Judy noted there are approximately 40 “dummy” bills in the House and 36 in the Senate that the Action Committee will monitor, and over a thousand total bills filed this session. “Dummy” bills are placeholder bills that can be amended to be about anything the sponsor wants; it's a way of getting around the bill filing deadline.
Action Item: Akkana will send the names of all people on the Action Committee email list (some of whom may not be League members) to the Board.
PROGRAM
Judy reminded the Board that answers to the Federal Judiciary Study questions should be completed by local Leagues on the LWVUS website survey by April 14, 2025.
Affordable Housing Position Concurrence Request
LWVCNM has requested changes to the LWVNM Housing position prior to LWVNM’s convention. Starlyn noted that we are being a little liberal with our interpretation of some of the national positions on affordable housing in order to address some of the bills that are being introduced. Language is lacking regarding renters and landlords in the national and state positions, and there are a number of bills in this legislative session that address that very topic. To address the omissions, CNM would like to revise the LWVNM housing position through concurrence by inserting language from the housing positions of LWVCNM, LWVSFC, LWVSNM, and a California League. The changes will allow for broader advocacy, including for transitional living for veterans. A motion, made by Meredith and seconded by Akkana, to approve the requested position changes as revised during the meeting passed unanimously. The proposed position is provisionally approved and can be used immediately for advocacy at the local level prior to convention. Action Item: Judy will make changes to the position as discussed by the Board and will re-send.
Dick noted there is an Albuquerque housing funding bill that is coming up for discussion at the legislature. The state League cannot take a position on bills for a specific area but LWVCNM can as long as it's consistent with their (and LWVNM’s) position and Starlyn approves it. Action Item: Dick will send a copy of the bill to Starlyn.
VOTER SERVICE
Edwina reported that the invoice for the licensing fee for VOTE411 (for the four local leagues and LWVNM) was received from national in the amount of $5000. Mark Coomes has agreed to provide VOTE411 contractor services to us again.
Dick asked the Board to watch SB218; if it passes, five municipalities will move their elections to November from their current non-November elections. Meredith noted that SB308, if passed, will allow separate elections outside of the general election. Dick clarified that the accommodation was to five pueblos who don’t want to release their voter data as required under the local Elections Act, but, as sovereign entities, they are not obligated to do so. Under the bill they will be allowed special elections.
Meredith also noted that school board bonds will be listed along with all the other bonds in the future. Right now, they're separate because of an arcane residual provision in the 1912 Constitution that separated school elections from partisan elections.
SOS Update
Hannah reported she met with the SoS via Zoom. She reviewed the League’s questions to the SoS and the SoS’s responses. The responses from the SoS were not satisfactory. We asked for an early working list of races that we have yet to receive. The official race list will be published in July. All soil and water special districts, counties, municipalities, etc. are responsible for drawing their own maps; it is not the responsibility of UNM’s NM RGIS. The SoS will not be supporting legislation to set dates and requirements for drawing maps. Additionally, the SoS has no plans to ensure that maps are up-to-date for school board and community college board districts that the Public Education Department is responsible for. The list of problematic districts, including the Santa Fe Pojoaque Soil and Water Conservation district, was provided to the SoS. Regarding the latter, the SoS stated the problem was a street renaming issue. Akkana noted that it may be true that the SoS is not responsible for drawing maps, but we want them to distribute official maps according to the bill LWVNM helped pass. Why are they not following the law, and do they plan to do so? The SoS has the geographical information because they make a sample ballot that anybody in the State can obtain from the SoS website by providing an address. Akkana refuted the street-renaming response for the Santa Fe Pojoaque Soil and Water Conservation district because the SoS GIS files mistakenly included all of Los Alamos County in the district. Edwina asked if we could make a special request (as we’ve had to do for contact information for judges) for the official GIS maps used to create sample ballots,which are different than the publicly-released GIS files on the SoS website. Action Item: Hannah will ask the SoS again for the working list of races.
Dick asked why we don’t submit legislation that says that all entities have to file information with the SoS by a cut-off date? Senator Daniel Ivey-Soto's original legislation on drawing precincts has a cut-off date by which the counties have to submit the data, or else the SoS draws the precincts. Akkana said the bill that we submitted and pushed did have a cutoff date, but the date was removed in a last-minute amendment on the next to last day of the legislature. Judy stated the NM Association of Counties sent her a bill that proposes to require the submission of the maps by some date in March, but no such legislation has been submitted. Meredith noted that the SoS information was wrong for her address – they had her in a different and incorrect district.
Barbara is interested in trying to get her school district to be at-large instead of having separate districts. The law currently says that school board members in a school district with more than 16,000 residents must represent separate subdistricts. Her request for a bill to increase the number to 26,000 was submitted to the Legislative Council Service, but she has not seen it. She wants to know if there are other school districts in the state with 16,000 to 26,000 residents Action Item: Barbara will follow-up with the Public Education Department.
Feedback On Voter Service Position Description
At the last Board meeting the Voter Services Position description was provided to the Board for feedback. The role changed from Voter Services Editor to Voter Services Director as the responsibilities were expanded for the position. Akkana noted that one important task for the Voter Services Director which is missing is coordinating the Voter Services Committee, i.e., keeping people on track, keeping track of who is doing what, and deadlines, etc. Action Item: Starlyn (chair), Edwina, Kathy, Judy, and Barbara will review and revise the description, as needed, and will bring it back to the Board for review.
LWVNM ED FUND
Hannah reported the Ed Fund will meet in March for strategic planning. There are several vacant positions on the Ed Fund board.
PREPARATIONS FOR LWVNM CONVENTION, APRIL 26-27
Banquet Speaker/The Lodge in Santa Fe/Banquet at La Fonda
Debbie reported a speaker has not yet been found for the banquet and asked for recommendations. She also that the cost for The Lodge was underestimated. A beverage amount, a 25% service charge, and 8.2% local tax will be added, bringing the member cost to approximately $100. A save-the-date email for the convention was sent to members and was also put on the LWVNM website. The bylaws indicate members are to receive convention documents 30 days prior to the convention. LWVNM pays the registration fee for LWVNM Board members other than local League presidents/liaisons. Each local League is allowed the President and one delegate for 15 members and one delegate for every additional 25 members. The reserved rooms at The Lodge will cost $149 plus tax and fees, and to get the discounted amount, registration must be made before March 26th (you need to mention that it is with the League of Women Voters of New Mexico). Debbie asked for a volunteer to organize a hike.
Action Items: 1) the Board was asked to provide Debbie with names and contact information of suggested banquet speakers. 2) Debbie will provide the registration form in WORD to Barbara for publishing in La Palabra. 3) the budget from the Budget Committee and other documents from other Board members need to be provided to Barbara. 4) Hannah will send a reminder via Constant Contact with a Call to Convention to the members with links to the documents and the registration form. 6) Kathy will find out how many Board members plan to attend convention.
NOMINATING COMMITTEE UPDATE
Dick reported that the 1st Vice President and Voter Services Director positions are still vacant. The First Vice President is usually a training for the next President. Lynn Jones has been performing roster manager activities, but would like to relinquish the task to someone else. It is unknown if the membership rolls will need to be maintained with ChapterSpot. Kathy said that our members-at-large did not renew last year. Dick noted it would be great if the Membership Chair could develop Leagues, but this would require a lot of work. LWVCNM is interested in supporting San Juan members-at-large and could assist if they want to do candidate forums. Action Item: Hannah will contact Joan from the Farmington area for interest.
BUDGET COMMITTEE
Kathy asked for input for the 2025-2027 budget. She noted there were several big-ticket items in last year’s budget: sending delegates to the LWVUS Convention, social media (mostly funded out of the MDW grant), the Burciaga luncheon (largely paid for by the tickets), and the Legislative Reception. Edwina asked for $5000-$6000 allocation for the VOTE411 contractor. Jo asked the Budget Committee to discuss whether local Leagues could count on any kind of grant or additional support, e.g., for voter guides, since the State League is going to be getting a bigger share of everyone's dues. Starlyn requested a discussion regarding a final PMP to be paid to LWVUS (based on the membership counts as of January 31, 2025) by the local Leagues (payment due by June 2026). Kathy noted the Budget Committee will meet tomorrow, and she expects it will be necessary to have an additional board meeting to approve the budget 30 days prior to convention. A Zoom meeting rather than an electronic vote via email was requested in the event there are questions about the budget.
CHAPTERSPOT FEEDBACK
Barbara identified several problems with ChapterSpot and issues encountered trying to get answers from national regarding separate donations. Starlyn noted that a member dues payment will need to be made in order to get to the donation payment, i.e., donations cannot be made separately. There's also a problem with members that are deceased and with our ability to manipulate renewal dates and the questions. Initially, you couldn’t put your own questions in the questionnaire, but you can now, if your roles are set up correctly. So, make sure that people in your League have the correct role assignment, since that determines what they can see when they go to the administration pages. Finally, problems have to be reported on a form to national rather sending an email to national’s membership director; that includes changes to member email addresses. Corrections or changes to email addresses are then made by national.
Debbie reported that new member notices have been going to her personal rather than the League email. Starlyn responded noting that member emails in the roster (based on role assignments) is what national will use for everything right now, i.e., there's no ability to put in an alias email to go to your League.
Barbara noted that drop-down questions on the renewal/registration form are not working. Meredith suggested that if local Leagues want student members, then some kind of fund should be created to pay for their memberships.
LOCAL LEAGUE REPORTS—PRESIDENTS AND LIAISON
Reports are included in the board packet. LWVCNM still has not been able to use all the grant money from Job Training Albuquerque and is inviting other local Leagues to make use of the unspent training money.
ANNOUNCEMENTS, INITIATIVES, AND OTHER BUSINESS
Immigration
Meredith and Edwina asked the Board to take actions on immigration in response to Trump administration policies and the huge amount of fear in immigrant communities. Meredith suggested we have money in the Ed Fund under the New Mexico Listens Grant for a program that could include speakers. She asked the Board for specific ideas about what could be done. Dick suggested doing a webinar sponsored by the League that would be open to the public. Additionally, Edwina suggested several “soft” actions that LWVNM could do which would cost us nothing: post the Know Your Rights information on our website, newsletter, and social media. Local Leagues could also be encouraged to distribute the Know Your Rights info to immigrant communities and post it on their websites. Additionally, we could educate the electorate on benefits immigrants provide to the US economy, debunk some of the myths regarding immigrant crime or their receiving social security and Medicare benefits. Debunking the myths could also be accomplished through the suggested webinar. Finally, Edwina suggested posting the 12 best practices that local Leagues could do to help welcome immigrant communities, which are identified in the Washington State immigration study.
Jo reported on a possible incidence of profiling in Doña Ana County when a charter bus carrying a swim team was pulled over by the Border Patrol who asked students and the driver for their green card or driver's license. Parents of those students were very concerned. It appears the Border Patrol subsequently met with the school superintendent, and they're discussing putting a sticker on the side of charter buses that indicates that they are serving a school function. Jo asked the Board if they would be interested in being involved with that. Meredith encouraged local Leagues to speak out about incidents like that.
LWVCNM has information on their homepage about immigration with links to the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, and the Know Your Rights information, and also to the New Mexico Justice Department's guidelines on what to do. Meredith suggested linking to LWVCNM’s website so some of the information could go up immediately.
Starlyn noted that it is important to educate the public. She wrote an article in their monthly newsletter to make people aware that even if you're not an immigrant, it doesn't mean that you will never experience a raid or a situation when you're out in public. Barbara suggested that Edwina, Meredith, possibly Starlyn, send an immigration article for inclusion in La Palabra, and also set up a meeting to talk about actions the Leagues could take at the convention.
Action Items: Meredith will send documents to Hannah for posting on the website. Starlyn will send the newsletter article to the Board. Meredith will write an article for inclusion in La Palabra.
NEXT BOARD MEETING, APRIL 27, FOLLOWING CONVENTION
ADJOURN
The meeting adjourned at 1:56 p.m.
Drafted by Edwina Jaramillo 03112025
Edited by Barbara Calef 032625