Making Democracy Work

Issues and Advocacy

Issues that the Salinas Valley League or State League has taken a position on or are being considered.

Recent Action  Monterey County Issues  GPU4  Salinas City Issues and Advocacy  CFR  Local Positions

Recent Action:

Monterey County Issues: up through 2010

County issues are addressed jointly with the Monterey League.

General Plan Update 4 (GPU4)

Together with the Monterey Peninsula League, we have been actively following the General Plan update process for several years. We have studied the GPU4 plan and the Community Plan in depth in order to do a side-by-side comparison of the two plans for voter education. We have recently published the comparison as a two-page summary in both English and Spanish, and as a five-page more in-depth comparison. These are available on our Voter Information page.

In addition, the Leagues have co-written a Commentary which was published in the Herald on Sunday, April 15. More detailed responses to the Commentary written by Carl Holm, a Monterey County planner and one of the authors of GPU4, which appeared in the Herald on April 8th, are available here.

Letter to the Editor in support of the Referendum - 7 January 2007 We joined with the Monterey League in supporting the Referendum on GPU4. The only way to assure the legal relevance of the vote on the Rancho San Juan Referendum and the Community General Plan Initiative is to support the Referendum on GPU4 which puts that plan in abeyance until a vote of the people.

We have encouraged the Board of Supervisors to allow the residents to vote on the two referenda and the Community Plan Initiative because we believe that it:

  • Builds citizen participation,
  • Encourages open processes,
  • Empowers citizens to shape better communities worldwide,
  • Engages the community in promoting positive solutions in the public interest on key community issues at all governmental. levels;
  • Empowers of grass roots activism, and
  • Influences public policy through education and advocacy.

Letter to the Editor (published August 22, 2006)

Letters to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors on this issue:

The draft general plan, and many other planning documents and maps are available from the County website at http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/gpu/.

Salinas City Issues and Advocacy

Campaign Finance Reform

Our League supports the model ordinance developed by the LWV Monterey Peninsula and advocate its use as a guideline in development of local ordinances in Monterey County.

More information and background on this issue is available at the LWV Monterey website.

Local Positions

The League of Women Voters may only take action on an issue or advocate for a cause when there is an existing League position that supports the issue or speaks to the cause. Positions result from a process of study, either at the National, State, or Local level.

Click here to read our local positions.