PRESS CONTACT: Gayle Thomas, LWVA Program Chair

PRESS CONTACT: Gayle Thomas, LWVA Program Chair (510-289-1268; [email protected]) LWVA EVENT INFO: http://LWVAlameda.org/calendar.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Co-presidents to Unveil 2015-2016 Plans for League of Women Voters® of Alameda September 21 at Public General Meeting at Alameda Hospital, 7 PM

Alameda, CA (August 27, 2015) The League of Women Voters® of Alameda (LWVA) will launch its fall season with a public meeting for LWVA members and the community from 7:00 - 9:00 pm on Monday, September 21, in Alameda Hospital’s Conference Room A.

Alice Wilson-Fried (Alice Fried) and Anne Spanier, the LWVA’s new co-presidents, will present their priorities for the upcoming 2015-16 program year, including many voter and community education events. The LWVA’s first community forum this fall will explore California’s open primary election system, which voters adopted in 2010. (LWVA members will decide whether to embark on an in-depth study of our open primary at the meeting.)

Additional LWVA priorities this year include the Make It Fair effort to reform California’s 1978 Proposition 13 as well as offering forums on Alameda development and transportation in November. During the 2016 primary and general election season, the LWVA will offer local candidates’ forums and present ballot measure pros and cons.

The LWVA membership elected Alameda residents Alice Fried and Anne Spanier to share presidential duties for 2015-16 at its June annual meeting. (See biographies below.)

“Anne and I met on the tennis court for the first time 15 years ago. As my partner, she always had my back,” Co-president Alice Fried said about her co-leader, Anne Spanier. “We are looking forward to sharing our passion for making democracy work as co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of Alameda,” she added.

About Alice Fried New Orleans native Alice Fried attended Tulane University and worked in public relations at the Delta Queen Steamboat Company before moving to California 28 years ago with her husband, Frank Fried, who died in January 2015.

Alice has published two books under her pen name of Alice Wilson-Fried: a nonfiction work, MENOPAUSE, SISTERHOOD AND TENNIS, and the award-winning first book in her mystery trilogy called OUTSIDE CHILD, set in pre-Katrina New Orleans. She is now working on the sequels to Outside Child, which are set during and after Hurricane Katrina.

Alice joined the LWV of Alameda in 2010 after being recruited by her friend and former tennis partner, Anne Spanier. She joined to commemorate her mother, who was turned away from the League because of her race in the 1950s, and to support the organization’s mission—to inform and encourage citizens to participate in our democracy.

Alice is the mother of two, stepmother of three, and grandmother of nine, and enjoys tennis, reading, and writing when she is not busy with her family.

About Anne Spanier Anne Spanier first joined the League of Women Voters (LWV) in Oakland. When she moved to Cincinnati in 1990, friends told her that she should become more active in the local LWV to meet “intelligent, engaged women,” so she did.

On returning to Oakland, Anne became an Oakland LWV board member and Voter Service Chair. She helped mount a campaign for Ranked Choice Voting, which Oakland adopted in 2006. Anne also moved to Alameda and joined the LWV of Alameda in 2006. She was elected Co-president in 2009, 2010, and again in 2015. Along the way, she looked up Alice Fried, her friend and former tennis partner.

“Our voting system has been under assault almost since the day the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965,” says Anne, who champions election reform and voting rights. She adds, “I believe the League is most potent when it works to sustain those rights.”

Anne received her nursing degrees from UCSF and a doctorate in education from USF. She taught community health and long-term care nursing at California State University East Bay, at USF, and in Ohio until retiring in 2003. In addition to League activities, Anne plays tennis, reads, and travels with her husband, Ted Frey, who is also an active LWVA member.

This LWVA general meeting is open to the public. It will be in the Dal Cielo Conference Room (Conference Room A) on the second floor of Alameda Hospital, an accessible facility at 2070 Clinton Avenue (at Willow Street). There is ample free parking during the evening in the parking lot (entrance on Willow).

The League of Women Voters of Alameda, a 501(c) (3) nonpartisan and nonprofit public policy educational organization, offers voter service and citizen education activities to increase citizen participation in our democracy, study community issues, and support positive public policy solutions. The League of Women Voters never supports or opposes any political party or candidate. Membership in the League is open to all women and men.

For more information on this public meeting, please visit the LWVA calendar page at http://LWVAlameda.org/calendar.html or contact LWVA Program Chair Gayle Thomas (510-289-1268; [email protected]).

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