Candidate Statement of Ed Berry

Public elections are essential to our survival as a democracy. We also need an engaged and informed public. Both of these factors made me volunteer as Co-Chair of the Political Committee for our group. Politics today is a hard and difficult arena. Who can you believe? Who do you trust? On environmental issues we do that work: We check voting records. We track public statements. We do interviews with candidates. And we try to find new people with promising ideas. In April we ran a Zoom public forum for candidates in the Democratic primary for CD 17 (Rockland, Putnam, and northern Westchester). And we endorse candidates, and work to help get them elected. We work with like minded groups such as labor unions, faith based groups, and grass roots communities. This November we all know is a decisive struggle for the future of our country, one we need to win. Together we can. Remember our shared values and vote. Please also vote to keep me on our ExCom.

Candidate Statement of Gail Dutan

I’ve been a member of Sierra Club since 1998 when I started doing the layout for our newsletter, Terra Firma, and continue to do so. I became a Sierra Club Outings Leader a few years ago and since then I have assumed the Outings Chair position. I've enjoyed planning my own hikes, but have also partnered with interesting people and organizations. Green Ossining's Earth Day event continues to be one of the best ones for our group to table so I have continued to do it for the last 5 years. I would be honored to have your vote to keep me on our ExCom.


 

Candidate Statement of Peggy Kurtz

Climate change and the crisis of extinctions are the two great tasks of our generation.  A lifelong environmental advocate, I’ve led Sierra Club in Rockland County since 2006.  I was also one of the leaders of the Rockland Water Coalition’s successful fight to stop Suez’s energy intensive desalination proposal, and I’m a member of the Rockland County Water Task Force and an active participant in Nyack 2030’s exciting climate work.  I also led the successful campaign for a renewable energy program for tens of thousands of Rockland residents.  More recently, I’ve led the effort to provide information to Rocklanders about toxic PFAS chemicals in our drinking water, actively participate in local weekly protests, and have helped to organize opposition to a data center and two massive warehouses in Rockland. I believe in the strength of Sierra Club’s network of activists working for change and would love to continue to serve on the ExCom.

Candidate Statement of Paul Presendieu

Serving as your representative on the ExCom has been an honor of a lifetime. As your Political Co-Chair, I have facilitated our candidate endorsement process, and helped organize our Get Out The Vote Operation to help showcase the strength of Sierra Club membership at the ballot box for climate candidates. I have also been able to support candidate forums for congressional office, organizational position papers in partnership with our Conservation and Water Committees, and helped bring attention to historical environmental justice issues to exemplify our ability to serve as advocates for our most vulnerable neighbors. If elected to another term, I will be committed to helping engage our academic institutions of higher education throughout the Lower Hudson Valley, to extend our organizational membership with environmental majors, and streamline our programming for climate-themed extracurriculars amongst students and young professionals who care about the environment, but don't know how to get involved.

Candidate Statement of Jeff Schumann

As we know, the climate crisis is upon us.  And while the change in climate patterns is already affecting us in NY, there are still things we can do to mitigate the worst of what may come.  Promoting and building out renewable energy resources in NY is one of them.  I am currently the Energy Chair of the LHG and co-chair of the Atlantic Chapter Energy Committee.  My volunteer work with the Sierra Club is focused primarily on supporting renewable energy projects. Our Lower Hudson area has great potential for small scale solar and energy storage. By serving on our ExCom I can help our members, in collaboration with other organizations and local governments, advance the development of renewable power in our area.

(Note that the Lower Hudson Group election was active starting September 1, so you can use the following instructions to vote online in that election now. The Atlantic Chapter's ExCom election will be active starting in mid-November so go back to your MyAccount when you get the email to vote in the Chapter election. The deadline to vote in both elections is December 15!)

Sierra Club members have the right to vote by paper ballot at all three levels of elections: national, state Chapter and local Group. However, there are good reasons to vote online, which simply requires a one-time registration for a MyAccount to ensure online voting access for current and future Chapter and Group elections:

• It’s easy! Register once for a MyAccount and that’s it. Go to the public Sierra Club webpage at sierraclub.org, click on Login in the upper right (or simply go to myaccount.sierraclub.org), and click on Create your account. If you know your membership number (find it on your Sierra Atlantic and Terra Firma newsletters above your address), supply it with your zip code and email address on the left side, create a password and you’re done. If you don’t know your membership number, enter your name, zip code and email address on the right side, and create a password. 
• Vote for your Group and Chapter elections in the same place. When there are active Chapter and Group elections going on, the box at the top center of your MyAccount home page will let you know. (If the box says “become a Wilderness Guardian,” that means there are no active elections at that time.) You can save time and postage by voting for both elections in one place rather than sending in separate paper ballots, and you don’t even need to know what Group you’re in because the ballot for your Group will appear automatically.
• It’s secret! The Sierra Club online voting platform preserves voter anonymity. Sometimes members cut their name and membership number off their paper ballot before mailing it in, presumably because they don’t want vote counters to see their votes. This invalidates the ballot if the Elections Committee can’t identify that the voter is a valid member. (Know that once we confirm the validity of the voter, we separate the ballots from the names before tallying votes so vote counters don’t associate names with votes.) But if you vote online, the platform automatically confirms membership validity and counts the votes, and the only things Elections Committees see are the total votes for each candidate, not how any individual person voted. 
• Vote at your convenience and never miss an election. The Atlantic Chapter will send out an email in mid-November to remind members there are active elections going on, so you can go into your MyAccount and vote. But you can still vote if you log in for another purpose and see you have a current election going on.
• Voting online greatly simplifies counting procedures for Chapter and Group Election Committees, for a more accurate vote count. In addition to checking membership validity of paper ballots, Election Committees have to check if the members also voted online and that anybody who voted on both sides of the paper ballot truly have Joint memberships. That process plus tabulating the votes takes hours for Chapter elections, given the hundreds of paper ballots we receive. The voting platform automatically does all that, giving Joint members two ballots and ensuring that once someone votes online, they won’t be able to vote again.
• Having a MyAccount lets you do other things in addition to voting, like renewing your membership and changing your preferences for emails and mailings. You can see your recent donation history, access the online edition of Sierra magazine, sign petitions and find outings and events near you.