Good Ole Girls Brunch – June 6th
“Fighting For Truth and Honor in Politics and Life” will be the topic of our featured speaker former Delegate Shannon Valentine of Lynchburg. Shannon was defeated by Liberty University and Jerry Falwell, Jr. as they tried to influence the direction of politics in Lynchburg, Virginia. In the House of Delegates her legislative priorities were economic development, transportation, public safety, education and health care. We all need to hear about what happened in Lynchburg and could happen in other parts of the Commonwealth to our Democratic candidates, especially women.
Please join us
Date: Sunday, June 6, 2010
Time: registration 12:30pm, brunch 1pm
Place: Tysons Corner Marriott, 8028 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, VA
Cost: $27.00
Reservations: Emilie Miller, emiliemiller1@cox.net or 703-560-0291
A Word of Thanks from Joan Foster
Dear Farm Team Friends,
May 4, 2010 will live in my memory as one of the best days of my life. On that day, my birthday, I won a City Council election with the most total votes of any candidate in the past 16 years. Winning is not the main reason it ranks near the top of the list of “best days”. The reason is the incredible amount of support, friendship, love and caring that I experienced that day, and throughout the campaign.
Words cannot express the gratitude I feel towards The Farm Team, especially the role you played in helping me win a very contentious campaign. Your belief in me, as a strong woman in politics, was so comforting to me, especially during some very difficult times during the campaign. Your advice, via our conference call, helped me to stand firm, remain forthright in my assessment of the situation, and enabled me to continue to be the unifying force needed as the Mayor of this wonderful City. The financial and human resources you dedicated to my campaign were truly overwhelming, and I believe played a key role in my re-election to City Council. So, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you, The Farm Team, for everything you have done to support me. Our city needs strong leadership, and because of your help, I will continue to provide that over the next four years. I look forward to continuing our important work in encouraging women across the Commonwealth to develop political leadership skills that will enable them to step up and serve.
In Gratitude,
Joan Foster
Lynchburg, Va.
Joan Foster 2010 – Election Day Reminders!
Citizens United for Foster
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LU VOTING SNAPSHOT: Growth Restrictions’ Effect on Tuition a Top Concern
By Liz Barry, The Lynchburg News & Advance
Thanks to Liberty University’s aggressive get-out-the-vote efforts, this spring marks the first City Council election in Lynchburg history where college students could emerge as a major voting bloc. Interviews with more than 20 Liberty University students provide a snapshot of reasons why they are voting — or not voting — and what issues are most important. The biggest concern among those students: how restrictions on LU’s growth will affect student tuition. LU officials argue that the city’s conditional use permit process, which applies to all Lynchburg-area colleges, will place an undue financial burden on Liberty as the school grows, and may result in higher tuition for students. It’s a deciding factor of Andrew Neber, a sophomore from Wilmington, Del., who plans to vote for Mayor Joan Foster and LU student Brent Robertson in the City Council race for three at-large seats. (He is undecided about the third).
“We should be allowed to grow past 12,000 students rather than spend $8 million on improvements that are not really necessary,” Neber said.
“I love this school, and I love the city of Lynchburg … I think that it’d be pretty awesome if we (LU) could achieve that goal of reaching 25,000 students. It’s one that I think would benefit the entire city and can only bring good things.”
On campus, the City Council race has dominated the news pages of the student newspaper and has been a recurring topic at LU’s thrice-a-week morning convocation. In late March, Liberty launched a two-day voter registration drive that resulted in several hundred new on-campus voters, pushing the total number of registered voters with a campus address to more than 4,250. The city will have to wait for Election Day to see if Liberty University students will play a deciding factor in the outcome. Either way, candidates are treating them as a voting constituency that must be taken seriously.
Lauren Lombardi, a freshman from York, Pa., changed her voter registration to Lynchburg this spring so she could vote in the City Council race.
“In convo and stuff, or just in general, people are really encouraging us to vote,” Lombardi said on her decision to register. “They’re not telling us who to vote for, just to vote.”
Taxes and moral issues are deciding factors for Lombardi. When interviewed in mid-March, Lombardi said she did not know the names of the city council candidates, but planned to research their platforms before the election.
“I guess taxes probably is the biggest thing … Moral issues is a pretty big thing, though; I guess moral issues is first, and then probably taxes.”
Hope Wozniak, a seminary student from Bayville, N.J., said she registered to vote in Lynchburg before the 2009 governor’s race. Unlike most of her graduate school peers, Wozinak lives on-campus because she is a hall advisor. Liberty has been encouraging RAs to mobilize students on their hall to vote, she said.
“I’ll probably be down here for a while so I wanted to make my vote count where I’m living and spending money,” Wozniak said on her personal reasons for voting.
Courtney Taylor, a junior from Antrim, N.H., said the use of local tax money is what she cares about most, citing the Fifth Street roundabout as an example of a frivolous project.
“There are not a lot of business nearby that it’s directly benefiting,” Taylor said.
For LU senior Jaimie Wendland, a native of the Lynchburg area, education tops her list. Wendland’s mother works in the local school system and Wendland plans on following in her footsteps.
“I plan on being a teacher and education is extremely important,” she said. “It’s kinda of frustrating to me that they’re cutting the (teaching) jobs.”
Wendland, a Republican, is still undecided about who she plans to vote for but said that her decision will transcend the Liberty agenda or partisan politics.
“What’s best for the city is what I’m looking for … someone looking out for other people, not just a certain political party interest.”
There’s no way to know for sure how many on- and off-campus students plan to vote in the election, but a significant portion of the student body is not registered. Reasons range from political apathy to feeling more connected to politics in their hometown.
Jillian Paul, an off-campus student from Palmyra, Pa., will stay home on Election Day.
“I know Liberty is hardcore into voting, but it doesn’t directly affect my life I feel like,” Paul said.
Law student Rachel Hepkins is voting by absentee ballot in her hometown of Yeadon, Pa., because she believes her vote matters more there.
Read more“I can’t vote in both places and I’m more affiliated with the politics in my hometown than here,” she said. “They need my vote there more rather than here, where I’m just passing by.”
City Voter Totals Boosted by Liberty University
By Liz Barry
The Lynchburg News & Advance
The deadline to register to vote in May’s City Council election passed on Monday with an increase of about 1,000 voters citywide, including at least 400 new registrations with a Liberty University address tallied since March, according to preliminary numbers from the Lynchburg Registrar’s Office.
That tally does not include another 250 to 300 voter registration forms from Liberty University that arrived at the registrar’s office on Monday afternoon, just hours before the deadline, Registrar Carolyn Sherayko said on Tuesday. Workers have not yet processed those forms, which might include duplicates, Sherayko said.
The Heritage Elementary School precinct, the polling site for Liberty’s on-campus students, saw an increase of 441 voters since Feb. 1, Sherayko said. Voters listing a Liberty University address make up about 70 percent of the precinct, or 4,251 of the 6,059 people registered to vote there.
The registrar’s office cannot keep track of students who register with an off-campus address, Sherayko said.
Citywide, Lynchburg had 48,522 registered voters as of Monday.
In late March, Liberty launched a campus-wide voter registration drive, in which professors handed out registration forms to students in all their classes over a two-day period. Though Liberty enrolls just less than 12,000 residential students, a surplus of 55,000 forms were on hand to ensure that any student who wanted to vote had the opportunity to register before the April 12 deadline, according to university officials.
Liberty’s get-out-the-vote campaign also extended to Lynchburg-based alumni, donors and online students. In March, Liberty mailed more than 10,000 letters written by LU co-founder Elmer Towns, urging members of the LU community to vote.
Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. did not have a reaction to the latest numbers.
“I just don’t have anything to say about it. The numbers are what they are,” he said Tuesday afternoon.
Liberty’s first concerted voter registration drive took place in the fall of 2008, when about 4,000 students registered to vote in Lynchburg for the presidential election. Last fall, approximately 3,200 Liberty students were eligible to vote in the state election.
Read moreClick on the link below to attend the Women of Courage and Truth Reception
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