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Published on 05/18/1998 All articles from this issue

Props. 223, 226 highlighted at League forum

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By JoAnn Peach

Special to the Town Crier

The Los Altos-Mountain View chapter of the League of Women Voters spoke to a roomful of Los Altos residents last Wednesday about the measures for Tuesday's election ballot.

The audience of approximately 75, mostly women and a handful of men, sat in the crowded Community Room at the Los Altos Library as Jane Bahr and Emily Thurber of the League of Women Voters talked about the pros and cons of each measure.

Several members of the audience took notes on each measure, including the controversial Proposition 223, which would mandate a 5 percent cap on money that school districts would use on administrative expenses such as curriculum development and personnel functions.

For some attendees, like Los Altos resident Shirley Rich, the detailed information provided at the meeting put the initiative in a clearer light.

"I didn't know what defined the administrative portion of the initiative," Rich said. "The detail of on-site events being considered a non-administrative cost and any off-site needs such as school bus maintenance would be considered an administrative cost was something that wasn't clear to me at first. I think that the school should have a little more flexibility."

Although there were not many questions asked during the meeting, there were some pertinent questions from the audience that were based on outside experiences.

One woman received a message on her answering machine informing her that if Proposition 226 received enough support, her Medicare would be affected.

Proposition 226 would "require employers and labor organization to get annual written permission from employees and members before withholding pay or using dues for political contributions."

After some on-the-spot research, Thurber guessed that Medicare would be affected "since the union, who are generally supportive of Medicare and are against cutting Medicare benefits, would be muzzled by 226.

"Unions would not be there to protect this social benefit.

"I think one can make a strong argument that this can be true since backers of 226 are conservative and may be anxious to cut social benefits," Thurber said.

The league is a nationwide, nonprofit educational organization which sponsors voter information meetings and provides voter registration information.

Its goal is to direct citizens to information and to encourage informed political actions including voting, communicating with elected representatives for those running for political office.

"We try to bring out the pros and cons of each measure in an political way," said Bahr, who started her interest in politics in the 1950s. "People get sloganed to death around this time and we want to provide them the information they need to make the best choice when voting."

The Los Altos-Mountain View League has plans for future meetings before the November election.