Local issues matter to League of Women Voters

The League of Women Voters of Solano County was first founded in Benicia in 2004, expanding to all of Solano County in 2020. Our membership includes more than 130 people from Benicia, Cordelia, Dixon, Fairfield, Vallejo, Vacaville, Suisun City, and Rio Vista, and reflects the diversity of Solano County’s population.

Our mission is to promote political responsibility through the informed and active participation of citizens in governance and to act on selected and studied common-good governmental issues and policies.

In 2021, the organization is putting together its first countywide “To-Do List.” Every two years, League policy planners for cities, counties, regions, states, and the nation as a whole collect information and identify concerns and issues at each level. This year’s Program Planning for the new countywide League began in January, coordinated by League member Craig Paterson. To help with program planning, the Solano League started a “Listening Project,” reaching out to organizations and individuals in Vallejo, Benicia, Fairfield, Dixon, Suisun City, Vacaville and Rio Vista.

We hope to hear from youth groups, seniors, granges, church groups, service clubs, book clubs, people who feel comfortable talking together about what they think Solano County needs from the League. League Program Planning includes both collecting information about citizens’ interests and concerns, and connecting with individuals and groups already at work on those issues. As the League chooses its path(s), it is also coordinating with the California League and with the National League on issues the county shares with the rest of California.

At a Program Planning meeting on Feb. 24, Solano League members identified the top three priorities for 2021-2023:

• Encouraging inclusiveness, justice and equality for all races and ethnicities in Solano County.

• Enhancing Solano voter rights and education (an ongoing priority for the League!).

• Addressing climate change issues in the region.

With local Leagues, local issues prevail. For example, ongoing redistricting efforts across Solano County provide opportunities for the League to assist in equalizing voting rights. Climate change and concomitant sea level rise threaten local shorelines, and citizens and groups are also addressing the effects of forest fires and drought in areas of Solano County. Local efforts to slow construction of housing in the “rural/urban interface,” and agricultural areas (and severe housing shortages) are also opportunities for the League to cooperate with groups and individuals already at work. If any of these issues are your issues, please get in touch!

Email LWVSolano@gmail.com or visit the LWVSC website at LWVSolanoCounty.org.

We want to listen to what you have to say, and help out if we can!

— League of Women Voters/

Solano County