HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0774.032 2018-2020 ill I Orb
COUNTY CLERKt�
COUNTY OF @ r Mele U.Spencer
RECEIVED
Time 21py1 _
Date JUN 0 1 420
June 1, 2020
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Dear Chair Chung and Councilmembers,
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Thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony for the Special Meeting of the Hawaii County
Council on Thursday,June 4,2020. My name is Mele Spencer and I am a resident of District 3. 1 am writing to
express my strong support for Communication 774.12 introduced by Councilwoman Poindexter,which proposes
to amend Bill No. 144, Draft 3 by increasing the revenue account Fund Balance From Previous Year by$10,000
and increases the expense account Committee on Status of Women by$10,000.
I am retired from the federal government and am currently a member of the Hawaii County Committee
on the Status of Women (CSW)where I have been a member since 2012. During this time, I have served as
treasurer and on the am currently serving as corresponding secretary. I am also a member of the Zonta Club of
Hilo and from 2016-2018 served as Governor for Zonta International, District 9 where our mission is to be a
leading global organization of professionals empowering women worldwide through service and advocacy.
For the 8.5 years that I have been a member of the CSW, I have volunteered my time to attend monthly
meetings that rotate around Hawaii Island and participated on the following sub-committees:Teen Dating
Violence Prevention, Real Women Creative Writing Competition, Legislative Advocacy and Hawaii Island
Women's Leadership Forum, and Nominating Committee. In 2018, 1 had the pleasure of representing our CSW at
the 48`h annual National Association of Commissions for Women (NACW) conference, Cities Leading Women, in
Los Angeles,California.
Each year, the CSW publishes and distributes a minimum of 10,000 hard copies of the Family Services
Directory throughout the community,and we now have an electronic copy that we have partnered with the
YWCA Hawaii Island to house on their website. For the third year in a row, we are getting ready to distribute cell
phone safety cards as a resource for those who may be in abusive relationships.The CSW also publishes the
winning essays from our annual creative writing competitions and honors the winners at an awards recognition
luncheon where they get to read their essays with special privilege of having some of those real women who
inspired those essays in the audience.This is one of our most moving and powerful activities each year. Most
recently,we updated our CSW brochure for dissemination at outreach and informational events in the
community like Ladies Night Out and Domestic Violence Vigils.
The CSW makes many more contributions than just these that I have chosen to mention and should be
recognized as a valued committee of the County of Hawaii. Complete elimination of the CSW budget would
significantly reduce the committee's ability to provide the resources that are intended to serve and support
women in our county. I appreciate Councilwoman Poindexter's sponsoring of this amendment to provide
funding back to the budget for the CSW's operation and humbly ask the full council for your vote of support on
this measure.
Mahalo,
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Mele U. Spencer
Comm. No. -114- 31
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