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Lunch and Learn! November 10 at noon Via Zoom Since the 1970s, scientists have known about the presence of tiny bits of plastic — microplastics — churning in the oceans and being ingested by birds and sea life. Recently, new research has shown the particles are also in the Great Lakes, which thousands of communities rely on for fresh drinking water and other uses. The potential threat of microplastics in the water and other products people consume worries Mary Kosuth, a microplastics researcher and 2017 graduate of the School of Public Health. “One thing that makes plastic a desirable material for containers and packaging is that it is durable and relatively inert,” says Kosuth. “But, they are also made of chemicals — like BPA — that can leach into foods, and the plastic particles can adsorb and concentrate other potentially-toxic substances, which we might then ingest.” Kosuth recently conducted a study to help determine how often microplastic particles are found in the things we frequently eat. For the study, Kosuth measured the amount of microplastics in samples of internationally sourced salt and tap water, as well as beer made from Great Lakes water. The study, co-authored by Associate Professor Elizabeth Wattenberg, was published in the journal PLOS ONE. The study revealed that 81 percent of tap water samples — and all tested brands of salt and beer — contained microplastics. “Our study basically confirmed that this stuff is everywhere,” says Kosuth. “In fact, during the study, we ran lab blanks with ultra-filtered water to make sure the equipment was clean, and even then found small amounts of plastic fibers. These particles are floating in the air and could have been coming from my clothing or the ventilation system — anywhere! Just the fact that I had to be so careful to keep everything clean of plastic shows how much of it is present in our environment.
The Coalition for Plastics Reduction, MN Mary is a spokesperson for the Coalition for Plastics Reduction, MN. That group was formed in 2022 and brings together individuals from diverse backgrounds, ages, professions, and expertise, including environmental advocates, scientists, business owners, community leaders, professionals, and everyday citizens. Coalition members are united by a common goal — to create a sustainable future by tackling the plastic crisis. The Coalition is dedicated to reducing plastic production and its harmful environmental impacts. They educate, advocate for policy change, promote sustainable practices, and raise awareness about plastic pollution. Their goal is to reduce single-use plastics, encourage alternatives, and unite businesses, governments, and communities to build a more sustainable future for Minnesota. Dr. Kosuth:
Mary Kosuth is a researcher with a PhD in microplastics research from the University of Minnesota, specializing in their presence in products like tap water, beer, and salt. Mary is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment. Her work has been featured in a documentary and published in scientific journals, and she is involved in advocacy through groups like the Coalition for Plastic Reduction MN.
In accepting the award, Vice President Feige said: "Thank you to First in the Nation Suffrage Celebration and Madeline Hansen for this award. I learned more today than I ever knew about suffrage and I appreciate your knowledge. The League of Women Voters works to support democracy and the rule of law. Voting is very important to our democracy and we work hard to register and educate voters. We are nonpartisan, never endorsing nor opposing any candidate or party, but we are not neutral. We have well researched positions which we support. In light of the tragedy at Assumption Catholic Church and School this morning, I want to say LWV has a position on firearms and gun safety. Obviously with threats to voting and gun safety we have lots of work to do. "  Group assembled at Dr. Barbara Steuhler's bench at the Women's Suffrage Memorial This ceremony marked the 25th anniversary of Lt Governor Mae Shunk's dedication of the Women's Suffrage Memorial in 2000. To learn more about the Memorial, Wikipedia has an excellent entry on the Memorial and the Minnesota Historical Society has additional information at this link.
KARE11 covered the event. The video above is their story, aired in the 10pm news on June 25.
Attendees signed Minnesota State flags for the Hortman and Hoffman families. These flags were taken to the State Capitol where they will be forwarded to the families.
Thanks to Julie Trude for sewing cloth envelopes for each flag for a nicer presentation. The flag for the Hortman's is shown below with other memorial materials outside the House Chamber, but the flag was taken to the House Information office where they will forward it to the family.
 Patricia Nauman, Executive Director Metro Cities – Association of Metropolitan Municipalities `
Patricia is a well-known municipal advocate at the legislature and extremely knowledgeable regarding the Metropolitan Council. After her remarks, she will take questions from attendees. She will provide an overview of Metro Cities as an organization; perspectives of metropolitan area cities on the Met Council, including its governance and policies, updates on bills proposed to the 2025 legislative session bills about Met Council governance or municipalities and share the concerns of the metropolitan area municipalities. For more background check out Metro Cities’ website at Metro Cities. January 29, 2025 6:30-8:00 PM ZOOM MEETING INFORMATION https://lwvmn-org.zoom.us/j/85120951000?pwd=yjeY5V8Synu9A3urJL8gwCYl8fkbpP.1 MEETING ID: 851 2095 1000 PASSCODE: 529268 Open to all League of Women Voter Members, Friends, and the Public When the voting is over, the focus of the election managers then shifts to verification. The Post-election Equipment Review is where random precincts in each county are chosen for a hand-count of the races for President, US Senator and US House. The counting In Anoka County, eight precincts were selected for this review. In the Post-Election Equipment Review (PER), trained election judges of balanced party affiliation hand count three races in a representative number of precincts to verify that the machines got it right. These reviews happen in every county in Minnesota between the election and the State Canvassing Board meeting. LWV ABC members observed the PER in Anoka County and Sherburne County on November 18 and 19, respectively. Precincts are chosen at random during the County Canvassing Board meeting. Eight precincts were reviewed in Anoka County and three in Sherburne.
At the start of the PER, county election staff bring the boxes of ballots to each table. The judges inspect the seals that were placed on the boxes on election night and then open them. The ballot are separated into piles by candidate voted for, and then each pile is counted and recounted by judges of different parties. After each race is counted, the reported results are compared to the machine counts from election day. If there is a discrepancy, the hand counts are checked. Common discrepancies occur in the "Write-in" and "No Vote" areas. If the voter has written in a name for a race but didn't fill in the oval for "Write-in", the voting machine counts this as a "No Vote". But when the human counters find this, they move it from the no-vote column to the write-in column, resulting in changes in each of these categories. In Anoka County there were no discrepancies found by the end of the process. State law requires each county to conduct a PER. LWV MN sent observers to more than 40 of Minnesota's 87 counties, providing a very visible presence at the reviews. You can read more about this work on the LWV MN website here. LWV MN President Gretchen Sabel was part of the team who observed at Sherburne County.  Louise Winter (LWV St Louis Park), Dorothy Doyle (LWV St Louis Park), Cathy Mahal (LWV Bloomington) and Gretchen Sabel (LWV ABC) In Sherburne County, Gretchen Sabel observed as part of a team of four with League members from Bloomington and St. Louis Park. The review took about six hours. It was very orderly and respectful. Gretchen reports that as the day went on, the human counters had problems and had to spend time trying to find their errors. The machines don't get tired. And here is Rita Mill's diary of events at the Anoka County PER The March Book Club selection is Whiteness in Plain View: A History of Racial Exclusion in Minnesota by Chad Montrie. This book is published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, who describes the book thus: Whiteness in Plain View examines the ways White residents across Minnesota acted to intimidate, control, remove, and keep out African Americans over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their methods ranged from anonymous threats, vandalism, and mob violence to restrictive housing covenants, realtor deceit, and mortgage discrimination, and they were aided by local, state, and federal government agencies as well as openly complicit public officials. What they did was not an anomaly or aberration, in some particular place or passing moment, but rather common and continuous. Chapter by chapter, the book shows that Minnesota’s overwhelming Whiteness is neither accidental nor incidental, and that racial exclusion’s legacy is very much woven into the state’s contemporary politics, economy, and culture.
Impact on Communities: But redlining is illegal now. How does it affect people today?
Since redlined areas were overtly denied opportunities to develop, it left those neighborhoods and residents falling behind other neighborhoods, where businesses, schools, and housing (including property prices) grew. Even though redlining as a practice has been illegal since the passing of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, the build-up of suppressed growth has made it so communities of color still feel the effects today. According to a study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, 74 percent of the neighborhoods that were redlined in the 1930s are low-to-moderate income neighborhoods today, and 64 percent are also majority minority neighborhoods. Redlining curbed the economic development of minority neighborhoods, miring many of these areas in poverty due to a lack of access to loans for business development. After 30-plus years of underinvestment, many nonwhite neighborhoods continue to be seen as risky for investors and developers. From Bankrate.com: Aug 4, 2023 Impact on Health: According to the National Institutes of Health, "Historical redlining is linked to increased risk of diabetes, hypertension, and early mortality due to heart disease with evidence suggesting it impacts health through suppressing economic opportunity and human capital, or the knowledge, skills, and value one contributes to society. " Read the full article at this link. Impact on Temperature: Inside Climate News reports that a study of 108 historically redlined cities nationwide found temperature differences between redlined neighborhoods and more affluent neighborhoods in 94 percent of them, and that the differences were consistent with racial and economic makeup. The greatest differences were in the Southeast and West, while the Midwest displayed the least. A growing volume of evidence suggests the temperature differences are no coincidence. Nationwide the hottest urban areas tend to be the neighborhoods with low-income communities and communities of color. In nearly every instance, researchers can trace a link to a nearly century-old federal program aimed at helping homeowners during the Great Depression that was turned against those who needed it most, because of a practice known as redlining. This article is a short read and quite powerful. Click here. Impact on educational outcomes: The National Low Income Housing Association, "The Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University recently released a new working paper exploring the impact of historical redlining policies on educational outcomes, including school district funding, school diversity, and student performance. The findings demonstrate that districts and schools currently located in formerly redlined neighborhoods have significantly less per-pupil revenues, larger shares of Black and non-white student bodies, less diverse student populations, and lower average test scores compared with those located in neighborhoods that were not redlined.“While much of the literature today shows redlining’s negative effects on outcomes such as housing prices, neighborhood segregation, and crime, very few studies, if any, look at the intergenerational relationship between redlining and present-day educational outcomes,” write the authors. “These findings suggest that education policymakers need to consider the historical implications of redlining and past neighborhood inequality on neighborhoods today when designing modern interventions focused on improving life outcomes of students of color.” Read the study’s findings here." In the LWV ABC session on August 14, Chris Lord (District Manager of the ACD) gave a presentation on the need for a groundwater specialist at the Anoka Conservation District. ACD will be making a request to include funding for this position in the county budget to the Anoka County Board's Intergovernmental Committee on August 23 at 1pm. Chris has asked for comment on his presentation - we've posted it here. Comments should be sent to Chris at [email protected] by Friday, August 18. 
If you agree that this would be a good thing for the county to fund, you could contact your Anoka County commissioner before the August 23 meeting and tell them so as an individual. LWV ABC has not yet made a formal decision to support this; we will set a meeting and take a vote yet the week of August 14. Watch your email for updates. Here are some additional resources from the email we sent on August 11 advertising this meeting. Anoka Conservation District is requesting an increase in funding from Anoka County to add a Groundwater Specialist to their staff in 2024. Currently, there is no Anoka employee dedicated full-time to groundwater.
Find out more on the ACD blog or download this ACD Groundwater Specialist Request PDF. Zoom Link The Anoka County Board is currently considering the 2024 budget, including ACD's request for a Groundwater Specialist. LWV ABC as an organization does not have a position on the Groundwater Specialist. As always, LWV ABC encourages all individuals to be informed and express their personal opinion - for or against proposals - to their elected officials. Contact County Commissioners Watch County Board Meetings The LWV ABC Summer Picnic was held at President Gretchen Sabel's home in Andover on July 15, in conjunction with the celebration of her birthday. It was a lovely day, and a good time was had by all! Gretchen's family and friends were also there - kids played in the pool and bounce house, ran around and were great entertainment for all. This was also a very successful fundraiser for LWV ABC - thanks to all who donated!  Jody Anderson and Betsy O'Berry staffed the Welcome Table Our Welcome Table staff did a great job of promoting LWV and have some prospects for new members. Left to right, from the top: Kathleen Sekhon and Paul Sitz, Olivia Paulsen, Wes Volkenant, Sandy Connor, Cindy Wetzell, (repeat, oops), Bruce Pomerantz, Geri Nelson, the Bouncehouse, Jeorgette Knoll, Leslie Waterhouse, Joan Molenaar, Julie Trude, Paula Mohr, Mary VanDerLan, Sue Dergantz, Pat Kennedy, Kathy and Mel Aanerud, Ted and Andrea Butler, the Pool, and Kathie Whelchel; all with Gretchen Sabel.
Senator Kunesh has indicated that she will be out of town and unable to speak at this meeting. LWV ABC would like to learn more about this important topic, so we will continue to see if we can find a speaker to address it. For now, however, this meeting has been indefinitely postponed.
This is the planned topic and additional resources.
Senator Mary Kunesh will update us the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) Office. This office, part of the Department of Public Safety, is the first of its kind in the country. Senator Kunesh was the chief author of legislation to create a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Taskforce and the legislation to create the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office. In 2023, MMIR completed its first annual report to the legislature. Here are links to the Taskforce Report and the recent update on progress to the Legislature.
Upcoming Plant Sales in May: (from Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 30, 2023) Hennepin Technical College May 11-13: Stock up on annuals, perennials and garden staples. Vegetable varieties, as well as hanging baskets and flower containers, will also be on hand. (9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Hennepin Technical College Greenhouse, 9000 Brooklyn Blvd., Brooklyn Park; hennepintech.edu) Champlin Garden Club May 13: Perennials, annuals, hanging baskets, potted plants, vegetables and herbs as well as garden art. (8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Willy McCoy’s parking lot, 12450 Business Park Blvd. N., Champlin; facebook.com/ Champlin Garden Club; [email protected]) Anoka County Master Gardeners May 16-17: Hundreds of varieties of native flowers and plants including vegetables and pollinator plants. (3 to 8 p.m. Tuesday; 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday; Anoka County Fairgrounds, 3200 St. Francis Blvd. NW., Anoka; anokamastergardeners.org; 763-324-3495) Soil and Sunshine Garden Club May 19-20: Perennials, annuals, vegetables, herbs and more, many grown by club members, plus advice from on-site gardeners. (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; 8713 Lincoln St., Blaine; northerngardener.org; 763-355-7030) If you are specifically looking for native plants, these sales in June are perfect!
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