Mission,History, Leaders - League of Women Voters of Oakland

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Mission, History, and Leadership

Our Mission

Our mission is to promote political responsibility through informed and active participation in government. We pursue our mission through education on major public policy issues and by influencing public policy through research and advocacy.

Through collaboration with community organizations and by advocacy with local government, we’ve been able to make a positive impact in voter education and engagement by:

Supporting more voter participation in under-served communities

Developing fair representation through nonpartisan re-districting and campaign finance reform

Creating new ways to evaluate citizen oversight committees

Our History

Dating to its founding in 1920, the League of Women Voters U.S. has a long, proud history of expanding voter access, fighting voter suppression, advocating for limits of money in politics, and opposing partisan and racial gerrymandering. We believe in the power of women to create a more perfect democracy.

The League of Women Voters Oakland is part of a national network of more than 700 local and state Leagues with more than 500,000 members nationally operating in all 50 states. With more than 300 members, League of Women Voters Oakland is the largest per capita membership of any big city League in the State of California.

Our Leadership

Our Leadership team, for FY25-26, displayed here reflects the approved slate of nominees presented by the Nominations Committee at our Annual Meeting, held in person on Saturday, June 14, 2025.

Officers and Executive Committee

Please click on the person's name to see more information.

Ernestine Nettles

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Ernestine Nettles

Ernestine is a life-long resident of West Oakland and very active in that community. Her life has been dedicated to equity, equality, and being of service to the marginalized, under-represented and underserved.

She has been active in the League of Women Voters for the past 15 years and a member of the board for “THE” last ten years. Ernestine has a long-standing relationship with the National Black Veterans Association and worked closely with Ms. Ethel Bradly to establish the Tom and Ethel Bradly Foundation. She has a BA and a MA in Human Resources and Public Administration from Golden Gate University.

In 2019 Ernestine was honored for 50 years of volunteering with GLIDE. She works closely with civil rights leader JT Johnson to promote non-violent political activism, empowerment of women, and the power of the vote. Through much of her career she has been responsible for the oversight of sexual harassment, discrimination, workplace harassment, and affirmative action investigations.

For the last 13 years, she has served the City of Oakland as an Assistant Contracts and Compliance Officer. Ernestine believes, "We must do all we can to make the world a better place for everyone and work tirelessly to ensure that no one is left behind."

President

Anna Mathai

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Anna Mathai

Anna grew up in Mumbai, India before moving to the US. Anna has lived in Oakland since 2003 and has been a member of the League since 2013. She joined the Speakers Bureau in 2016, worked on Ballot Measures Pros and Cons in 2020 and then led the effort in 2022 along with creating short videos. She has been increasingly alarmed by the authoritarian trends in India, United States and around the world. Democracy only works when citizens are engaged in the process and she wants to empower voters and fight disinformation through LWVO.

Anna has a B.Tech from IIT, Mumbai and a PhD in Physics from the University of Maryland at College Park. She has a US patent for scanning SQUID microscopy. She worked at KLA-Tencor, TeraBurst Networks and IBM before retiring early in 2018. After two years of travel in South-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand, her husband and she have settled back in Oakland. Her hobbies include pickleball and traveling.

Vice-President

Fiona Jackson

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Fiona Jackson

After answering an ad in Volunteer Match, Fiona Jackson joined LWVO in the summer of 2023, as a volunteer to support the updating and maintenance of LWVO’s website. She has since joined different committees, including Membership, Programming, Candidate Forums, and Communications.

Besides LWVO volunteering, Fiona supports Planned Parenthood and the protection of everyone’s right to sexual reproductive healthcare, starting in clinic defense and has worked for them for over 15 years. Fiona also supports the work of Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue (YUWR), by maintaining their data entry in the Wildlife Rescue database and occasionally transporting injured wildlife to area wildlife rehabilitation organizations.

Secretary

Dana Lang

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Dana Lang

Dana Lang grew up in East Palo Alto, CA. She earned a BA in Economics from Wellesley College, an MBA from Cal Berkeley’s Haas Business School, then married, and while raising three sons, spent 24 years securing millions in grants and contracts for local government, including City of Oakland, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, SF Municipal Transportation Agency, San Francisco International Airport, and the SF Police Department.

She has retired from government, but remains active as a business consultant. She currently serves on the BART Police Civilian Review Board, and recently completed service (2018 – 2023) as treasurer of her Wellesley College class. She has been a long-time member of the Northern California Chapter of COMTO, the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials. She also has earned a 3rd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do martial arts.

Treasurer

Directors

Aleece Tkachuk

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Aleece Tkachuk

Aleece Tkachuk has been an Oakland resident since 2015 and a member of the League of Women Voters since 2020. She is passionate about ensuring access to reproductive healthcare as well as expanding voter rights and protections. Aleece wishes to utilize her leadership in the League to create tangible change regarding these issues, and to get a new generation of voters involved with securing these rights.

Professionally, Aleece has worked as a data analyst for many large firms throughout the Bay Area and holds a PMP (Project Management Professional) Certification. She will be graduating with her BS in Management Information Systems & Business Analytics in Spring 2022.

Aleece is originally from San Diego, California. In her spare time, Aleece volunteers as a writer for a local animal rescue organization and enjoys reading, hiking, and experiencing all the Bay Area has to offer

Deborah Shefler

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Deborah Shefler

Deborah joined LWVO in 2012 because she wanted to help encourage informed voting, working first with a professional videographer on the production of short videos about local ballot measures. She took on Voter Service leadership as a Board member eventually rising to serve as President of LWVO from July 2019 to June 2021. For the last three years she has produced the League’s bi-weekly bulletin and served as a Local League Coach.

Deborah earned her J.D. from George Washington University. She has worked in the U.S. Justice Department and was an Assistant U. S. Attorney in the Northern District. After eleven years in government service, she shifted to commercial litigation in private practice. Following that she worked for 20 years in the Law Department of PG&E.

Since retiring, Deborah has served on nonprofit organization boards including, currently the Friends of Ruwenzori Foundation and The Barbara McDowell Public Interest Law Center.

Dondrea Morgan

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Dondrea Morgan

I’ve served the “beloved community” at the intersections of Community, Government and Law, defending our fair City, as a Paralegal in the City of Oakland’s Office of the City Attorney for the past 20 years. In the previous 10 years, I was employed with a nationally known Civil Rights law firm that filed and won multiple class action lawsuits for racial, gender and employment bias matters. I became a member of the League after frequent passing encounters at City Hall meetings. As I served around election season, I often used the League’s voter education resources to inform local churches and community organizations regarding various relevant issues.

Recently, I’ve come full circle working with the LWVO dynamic YOUth Decide (youth voter engagement) team providing voter registration info to teens and young adults to develop and encourage a culture of voting, including informing the re-entry community of their voting rights. I’m interested to further engage with LWVO & Open Oakland, to enhance the accessibility of government reports.

A few years ago, I attended the Delilah Beasley luncheon where the LWVO made a public apology for the historical failure to include women of color in the suffrage fight/movement. In light of the LWV Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, and the centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage, I believe it is serendipitous for me to partner with the LWVO now.

Gail Wallace

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Gail Wallace

B.A. Catholic University of America; M.A. Philosophy University of Toronto; J.D University of Colorado at Boulder. Gail began her legal career as a clerk on the Colorado Supreme Court and continued to a decade of practice in commercial litigation in San Francisco and Monterey. During that time she also taught several courses in legal ethics. Gail pivoted from legal practice to educating her two children through high school.

Since they departed for college, Gail served on the board of Luna Dance, a local arts organization serving families and public schools in the East Bay, before joining LWVO as co-chair of the Action Committee. In recent years, Gail is also pleased and honored to be part of the teaching staff at Mountain Yoga and Wellness in Montclair.

Karen Boyd

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Karen Boyd

Karen Boyd is a veteran communications strategist and civic leader with decades of executive management experience in the government, nonprofit, and corporate sectors.

Prior to founding Heart of the Matter in early 2024, Karen served as Communications Director for the City of Oakland, California’s eighth largest city serving 424,000 residents. For more than two decades she advised top Oakland officials and executive leaders – including five Mayors – on a wide range of high-profile, complex, sensitive, and urgent issues, including police reform and the rise of unsheltered homelessness. As a senior official and City spokesperson in a fast-paced, full-service municipal corporation with a $2 billion annual budget and a 4,500-person workforce, Karen is well-versed in a broad range of complex administrative, operational, technical, personnel, legal, and quality of life issues.

Karen is inspired by service to others and mission-driven work. She currently serves as Vice President of the Children’s Fairyland Board of Directors and previously served as President of the East Bay SPCA Board of Directors. A fourth-generation Bay Area resident, she has deep ties in Oakland and the region. Karen lives in Oakland with her wife and teenage son, along with their shelter-rescue cat and dog.

Kimberly Holtzinger

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Kimberly Holtzinger

Kimberly has used League of Women Voters resources to inform her vote since she cast her first ballot as a teenager. She was inspired to become a member of LWV Oakland when she was researching a local Measure and LWVO was the only organization to provide an objective, nonpartisan information about the Measure. She’s proud to be a member of an organization dedicated to democracy and the diverse Oakland community.

Since joining LWVO, she has seen firsthand how the work supporting good government and voter resources continues even when it’s not an election year. As a member of the LWVO Observer Corp, she has developed an interest in public ethics and traffic violence prevention. She aims to bring her expertise as a professional to contribute to the work LWVO leads.

In her spare time, Kimberly gives back to her community by supporting math and science youth mentorship, community clean-ups and being a member of a local animal service’s foster network.

Lori Lieneke

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Lori Lieneke

Lori Lieneke has worked in the East Bay publishing industry for over twenty years connecting the local business community with an audience to grow their business while supporting local community journalism. She is the Director of Advertising for Cityside, a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization committed to building community through local journalism and home to award winning local news sites Oaklandside and Berkeleyside.

Lori moved to Oakland in 1999 and earned a BA in Political Science from San Francisco State University after graduating Riverside Community College with an Associate of Arts and an Associate of Science. She is a recent graduate of the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Leadership Oakland class of 2024.

Lori is a League member because she wants to support the safeguard of voting rights, expand transparency of local government and increase voter engagement in elections. And she enjoys collaborating with the fun, talented and smart League members.

She is currently co-chair of Programs and planned the League’s Centennial Celebration. From 2017-2019 she served as co-chair of the Development Committee and a Board Member of the League of Women Voters of Oakland where she collaborated on many projects including the All-City Luncheon, Pros and Cons videos and Oakland Easy Voter Guide.

Louise Anderson

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Louise Anderson

Louise started her involvement with LWVO in 2009 working in the office with Bonnie Hamlin learning League operations. She was drawn to the League because of her interest in voter education and civic engagement. Over the years Louise took on a variety of tasks e.g. coordinating distribution of the Easy Voter Guide, organizing candidate forums, and promoting candidate participation in the League’s Voters Edge platform.

She is a strong advocate for youth and is serving her second term as a Commissioner on the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Commission. She uses her League hat to facilitate youth voter education as well as registration for 18-year olds in the Juvenile facility.