From the Founder's Desk:
Thank you to everyone for your continued support and interest in Next Ten. This edition of eNews will update you on some of the work we have been doing over a busy summer.
| In this issue, read about: » Investing in California » Updated Budget Brochure » Outreach Update » Updated CA Budget Challenge » Student Contest » Free Easy Voter Guide » Special Thanks |
First and foremost I want to thank the Legislature and the Governor and say congratulations to the people of California regarding the signing of AB 32. Placing a cap on global warming emissions is a seminal event in California’s history and is just the beginning of California’s efforts to grapple with one of the greatest - some say the greatest - challenges of our lifetime. I hope the sense of possibility and opportunity that surround AB 32 can act as a tipping point to engage Californians not only on the subject of climate change, but on other important reform issues critical to the state’s future, such as redistricting, term limits, and campaign finance.
I also want to alert you to a brand new offering from Next Ten: Investing in California, an eight-page brochure that offers an overview of the state’s infrastructure needs and financing methods. We were pleased to introduce Investing in California for the first time last week at the League of California Cities annual conference in San Diego. Besides being a valuable resource for schools, libraries, community groups, and other non-profit organizations, this brochure is also of strong interest to local elected officials. With Californians facing critical infrastructure decisions, including over $40 billion in state bond measures on the November ballot, it is especially important that we get this information (and related nonpartisan resources at www.NextTen.org) out to as many Californians as possible in the next several weeks. I encourage you to order copies today for your members, staff and community partners.
Again, many thanks for your support of Next Ten. We rely heavily on your comments and suggestions, so feel free to contact us by email at info@nextten.org or at 650.321.5417.
--F. Noel Perry
Investing in California
The success of Budget Choices, Next Ten’s nonpartisan brochure on the state budget, along with conversations around the state on infrastructure, prompted Next Ten to develop a user-friendly guide to basic infrastructure issues in California. We began this project by conducting focus groups across the state to identify what the general public knows about infrastructure. We found that while they are under-informed, there is a strong desire to better understand these issues.
To meet this need we developed Investing in California, a new nonpartisan brochure to help the average Californian understand what infrastructure is and give a basic overview of the state’s infrastructure financing options. Like Next Ten’s Budget Choices brochure, this new publication is free to everyone and available in five languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean). We encourage you to order copies today for your members, staff, communities, and friends.
Many thanks to Common Knowledge, the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, and the League of Women Voters for their overview and direction on this important document. The brochure is available to order today along with a 2-page companion piece providing nonpartisan information on infrastructure-related measures in California’s November 2006 election.
Additional Infrastructure Information
In addition to Investing in California, we are pleased to announce that we have expanded our website to include a more in-depth overview on the subject of infrastructure. We developed these online materials to be used as a resource by everyone with a desire to learn more including those already engaged in the subject, students, and the media. Many thanks to everyone who helped put this information together, especially Wallace Walrod, Peter Gleick, Tim Frank, and Phil Sisson.
Infrastructure Quiz
To compliment our new infrastructure products, we developed a short online infrastructure quiz with interesting facts and a few surprises. The quiz allows users a quick overview of infrastructure in California. We encourage you to take the quiz today. Special thanks to Ellen Hanak for her guidance in developing this piece.
Updated Budget Brochure
Budget Choices, our popular 8-page overview of the state budget, is currently being updated with this year’s budget numbers and will be available soon. Order free copies today in five languages.
Outreach Update
As our mission states, we are working to educate, engage and empower all 37 million Californians to enhance our state’s future. We are pleased to report that we are now a part of the curriculum for many high school and college classes across the state. We have started work on developing additional materials including lesson plans and other teaching aids. In the meantime, we continue to work with schools and often find ourselves presenting in classrooms and out in the community. We encourage you to contact us if you think we can be of assistance.
Budget Choices can currently be found at over 200 libraries statewide, with over 300,000 copies in distribution. If you would like to order free brochures or have suggestions about how we can better reach your community, please let us know.
UPDATED California Budget Challenge
We hope you have checked out the updated version of the California Budget Challenge and the new policy choices for 2006. We have received a lot of great feedback and will release another update in April 2007. We encourage you to help us by submitting your feedback on what we have done and ideas on what we could do to sarah@nextten.org.
ALERT - STUDENT CONTEST!!
In the next month we will announce a contest for college students to develop a new policy option in the Budget Challenge. The winner will receive a college scholarship and their policy choice will be used in the 2007 version. Look out for more updates on this contest at www.nextten.org or email Sarah Henry at sarah@nextten.org for details.
FREE Easy Voter Guide in multiple languages
To help all Californians prepare for the upcoming November 7, 2006 election, the nonpartisan Easy Voter Guide provides succinct summaries of the statewide races and propositions. Preview the 16-page booklet and order FREE copies online in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean. The project is a collaboration of the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund, the California Secretary of State’s Office and the California State Library. Visit www.easyvoter.org and www.smartvoter.org for other nonpartisan resources for this election.
SPECIAL THANKS
We want to thank you and our partners for supporting Next Ten. We are fortunate to work with some of the best people around and wanted to give special thanks to the Center for Governmental Studies and Common Knowledge for their dedication to Next Ten’s mission. Thank you also to everyone who helps connect Next Ten with Californians including the State Librarian’s Office, the Regional Library Systems across the state, the League of Women Voters, and many others.
Thank You for Your Interest in Next Ten
Please contact us at info@nextten.org for additional information or visit us online at www.nextten.org.
Please note that we changed our url and email addresses and are now at www.nextten.org (without a hyphen). Please update your address books!!