Category: A Message To Our Membership - PACG - Progressive Action for the Common Good

Vote in the June 7th Iowa Primary today! - Action Alert

6/7/2022

Iowa's June 7th Primary - Vote Today! - Action Alert
Tuesday, June 7th from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm

A Message to Our Members

Have you voted by early by mail or in person? If not, go to your polling place today!

We are all aware of the numerous challenges facing our democracy. Your vote matters more than it ever has and is the path forward for change.

Here are a few sources of information if you need more information today:

Find your precinct: https://www.scottcountyiowa.gov/auditor/precinct-finder
Find your polling place: https://www.scottcountyiowa.gov/auditor/polling-places
Election day questions? Find answers: https://www.scottcountyiowa.gov/auditor/election-day/election-day-faq

Photo ID is required to vote.

If you still have your absentee ballot but haven't turned it in, DO NOT MAIL IT! Bring it to the Auditor's Office (600 W 4th ST, Davenport - map) before it closes at 8:00 pm today. You can fill it out and drop it there, or turn it in to vote in-person.

For our Illinois members, check the important dates in the post below for information about your June 28th primary.

Glenda Guster

Voting Primary Dates - A Message to Our Membership

5/17/2022

Iowa and Illinois Primary Voting Information
Various Dates

A Message to Our Membership

Know the dates for voting in the upcoming primary elections!

Iowa Primary Voting

May 18: First Day of Absentee Voting
May 23: Deadline to Request Absentee Ballots to be mailed
June 7: Primary Election Day

Your ballot must be received at your Iowa County Auditor's office on June 7th. Ballots will not be counted if they are received later, regardless of postmark date. This is a new voter restriction that the Iowa legislature has instituted.Learn more about voting in Scott County here: https://www.scottcountyiowa.gov/auditor

Illinois Primary Voting

May 19: Early in-person voting begins at your county clerk's office
June 12: Last day to register online to vote in Illinois. You can still register to vote in-person, up until and on election day (June 28).
June 7: Primary Election Day
June 23: Last day for election officials to receive your mail-in ballot (so make sure your mail-in ballot is postmarked before this date)
June 28: Illinois statewide primary election. Polls open at 6:00 am and close at 7:00 pm. Learn more about voting in Rock Island here: http://rockislandcountyil.gov/Elections/Home/

Lori McCollum

In with the new! - A Message to Our Members

5/9/2022

In with the new!

From the Progressive Action Update Editors

You may have noticed some changes in the Weekly Email Update (WEU) in the past month. It's not your imagination!

One of the most recent decisions made by our Communications Committee is a name change for our weekly email. it is now the Progressive Action Update! Our website and this email campaign will be incorporating the new name as quickly as possible.

We will be rolling out more changes in the future. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Thanks!

The PACG Webmaster

Earth Month Proclamations for the Quad Cities - A Message to Our Membership

5/3/2022

Earth Month Proclamations for the Quad Cities

Environmental Forum

This year the cities of Davenport, Bettendorf, Rock Island, Moline and East Moline issued proclamations regarding Earth Day. Each of these is attached below as a pdf.

The cities in Illinois all agreed to declare April of 2022 "Earth Month." Davenport declared April 18th to the 24th "Earth Week." And Bettendorf gave us "Earth Day" on April 22nd.

You can learn a lot about your home town from these.

Susan Leuthauser

east_moline_proclamation_2022.pdf
File Size:	504 kb
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moline_proclamation_2022.pdf
File Size:	444 kb
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rock_island_proclamation_2022.pdf
File Size:	352 kb
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davenport_proclamation_2022.pdf
File Size:	232 kb
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bettendorf_proclamation_2022.pdf
File Size:	443 kb
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PACG Member J Gardner Passes - A Message from the Board

10/24/2021

PACG Member J Gardner Passes

A Message from the Board

It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of long-time PACG member Dr. J Gardner, MD.

Dr J H Gardner was a great friend and supporter of PACG. As a physician he was especially interested in health care reform, but his vast and varied life experiences made him supportive of many different progressive causes. He believed in our work at PACG, and was a generous donor.

As he aged it became more difficult for him to attend our meetings, many of which are in the evenings. The pandemic was especially isolating for him because he couldn’t go out with his friends or get to the Y to work out. But, ironically, it did lead to him becoming a regular attendee at the PACG Book Club!

Early in the pandemic PACG Board member Alta Price reached out to some of our older and less tech-savvy members to get them connected via Zoom. She says that, “No one had as little trouble getting on Zoom as Dr. Gardner, who was 91 at the time!”

“J was a loyal member of Book Club during the pandemic. We will miss his insight and the wisdom gained from a long life filled with incredible experiences. J suggested many great books for us to read and discuss. I know our Book Club enriched his life as well. When he joined us in reading Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi it was the first fantasy novel J had ever read - at age 91! He shared that it was strange, but he enjoyed it. All of our regular Book Club members will really miss him,” reports Alta.

Once on Zoom, J also served on our Finance Committee, which benefited greatly from his suggestions and guidance.

PACG Board member, Treasurer and Fundraising Chair Ann McCluskey had the following remembrance to share: "I met Dr. J H Gardner long ago over lunch. He was interested in a wide range of issues but we mostly we talked about our love of books and shared authors and book titles.

"Over the past year, Dr. Gardner was an active member of the PACG Fundraising Committee. He was responsible for introducing the concept of QCD to us, the way of giving to PACG via a Qualified Charitable Distribution. He explained that a QCD allows traditional IRA owners over 70 ½ years old to deduct from their required minimum distribution if they donate money directly from their traditional IRA to a qualified charity, explaining that the donor can give up to $100,000 to a qualified charity of their choice, lower their adjusted gross income (AGI) and effectively reduce their income taxes. Dr. Gardner was looking for a way to do more with his charitable donations and for all of us to be ongoing stewards of Progressive Action for the Common Good. We quickly adopted the QCD concept into our 2021 Fundraising Campaign. And we will use it in future campaigns.

"Dr. Gardner was interested in making sure that PACG would continue its work on progressive issues for generations to come."

PACG Book Club members Laura and Sharon shared this: "We were always glad to see Dr. Garner's smiling face on the Zoom Book Club meetings. His comments were always insightful. We will miss him."

This wonderful obituary in the Quad City Times, details some of his incredible life story. Dr. Gardner will be missed by all of us at PACG.

Donations can be made in J's honor to Planned Parenthood, the YMCA of Davenport and the Kay Gardner Memorial Foundation Fund at the Quad Cities Community Foundation.

We will let our community know when information becomes available about a memorial service.

Alta Price

ACA Wins in the Supreme Court - Again!

6/29/2021

Health Care Reform Forum
A Message to Our Membership

ACA Wins!!

On Thursday, June 17, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act for the third time, leaving in place the broad provisions of the law enacted by Congress in 2010. The vote was 7 to 2. The decision threw out the challenge that Texas, and other objecting states, were not harmed in any way. "To have standing, a plaintiff must 'allege personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief,' " the majority wrote. "No plaintiff has shown such an injury 'fairly traceable' to the 'allegedly unlawful conduct' challenged here.”

The Biden administration has increased subsidies for lower income families and both ACA marketplace insurance and Medicaid coverage have reached record levels. We advocate that providing a “public option” would further strengthen the Affordable Care Act.

Julie Ross

Your Vote Matters ! Vote Early! - What You Can Do Now

10/14/2020

Your Vote Matters! Vote Early!
Various Times and Dates

PACG Message to our Membership

The 2020 election has begun. Please remember to vote. Support the candidates who best align with your visions and values. Be sure to wear your mask and maintain social distance when you do. For those who prefer to vote early, here are the links to the Scott County locations, dates and times of the satellite voting sites and a list of the same for Rock Island County.

Iowa
Scott County Satellite Voting sites opened on October 5th. Ballots from all precincts are available at each location. For addresses, dates and hours for these sites, go to: https://www.scottcountyiowa.gov/auditor/post/2020/10/05/2020-early-voting-satellite-locations.

Illinois
Early Voting at the County Clerk's Office:

Rock Island County Office Building
First Floor - 1504 Third Avenue, Rock Island IL, 61201-8624 (map)
Monday to Friday, September 24th to Friday, October 16th: 8:00 am to 4:30 pm

Monday, October 19th to Monday, November 2nd: Monday - Friday, 8:00 am to 7 pm
Saturdays, October 24th and 31st: 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
Sundays, October 25th and November 1st: 9:00 am to 5:00 pm

Early Voting at Off-Site Locations (note - there is only ONE early voting off-site location for this election):
Western Illinois University, 3300 River Drive, Moline, IL (map)
Monday to Friday, October 19th to October 30th: 11:00 am to 7:00 pm.

Check this link for more details about voting in Rock County: https://www.rockislandcounty.org/AbsenteeVoting/#Early.

Keep in mind that all of these times and dates are only for early voting, not election day voting.

Susan Leuthauser

Iowa Voters - Track Your Absentee Ballot

8/25/2020

Iowa Voters - Track Your Absentee Ballot Status

A Message to Our Membership

Did you submit an Absentee Ballot Request form? You can now track the status of your request and ballot from the Iowa Secretary of State website by visiting: https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/absenteeballotstatus/absentee/search.

You will be able to track your ballot once you have turned it in through links on this page: https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/voterinformation/index.html.

Allison Ambrose

An Urgent Message from the President Regarding USPS Deliveries

8/18/2020

Y15K Donations - USPS Delivery Issues

An Urgent Message from the President

Due to the COVID pandemic we have shut down the PACG office and are working remotely. We made the decision to forward PACG mail to the home of one of our Board members.

We have recently been made aware that some Y15K donations are being returned-to-sender as undeliverable mail. Should this happen to you, please contact office manager Julie Ross at 563-676-7580, 563-508-2209 or pacgoffice@gmail.com.

If you did not put a return address on the envelope provided, please check your bank account to see if your check has cleared. You can also contact Julie to confirm whether or not we received your donation.

Once your donation is logged into our accounting software a thank you note is automatically sent to you via email. Check your email. If you donated more ten days ago and have not received a thank you email from us, your check may be lost.

We have now requested a discontinuation of the forwarding of our PACG mail and will go in to physically collect it once or twice a week. This transition may take until the end of August.

Remember that you may also donate to PACG online by clicking here.

We are very grateful for your donations that will allow us to do good work in our community during this difficult time.

Allison Ambrose

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day - A Message to Our Membership

4/21/2020

We Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day!!

A Message to Our Membership

Hello Progressives!

Wednesday, April 22nd is the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day!

Our Environmental Forum has worked hard all year to make this anniversary a special event. Unfortunately, the live events will not be occurring as planned, but the forum has made sure that we do have some virtual ways to celebrate. Look for details in today's newsletter.

I want to give a SHOUT OUT to the Environmental Forum for all they have done to help us remember how precious our planet is.

Happy Earth Day everyone!

Allison Ambrose, President