Correction and update · August 28, 2026
After this piece was first posted, the League’s president answered two further questions
about how the organization is staffed. Correction: an earlier version said that Voter
Services and Advocacy “may be different teams, but the president is not a team” and
that she is “the officer above both.” The League says no such relationship exists.
It is entirely volunteer, no one is compensated, no one is evaluated by the president, and the
Director of Voter Services sits on the board as a peer. That sentence is withdrawn and the
passage rewritten. Update: the piece also said that who chairs Voter Services, and to
whom that chair reports, had not been stated. It has been stated since. Her answers are quoted
in full below, in Whether the wall runs through the president’s office.
The billing is the City’s. The Library’s event page describes the League of Women Voters’ Pros and Cons presentations as “nonpartisan explanations of state and local propositions,” with supporting and opposing arguments. Free, 6 to 7 p.m., Menlo Park Library, 800 Alma Street. Nothing on that page tells a reader the League has taken a side on Measure P.
It has. The League of Women Voters of South San Mateo County appears on the endorsements page of the campaign opposing Measure P, with a statement attributed to its president, Lucia Tedesco. Its president signed the argument against the measure that will be printed in the county voter guide. And the League’s own events calendar lists, under its 2026 past events, an item titled “Campaign Kickoff to STOP the Menlo Park Anti-Housing Initiative.” Further down the same calendar sits “Menlo Park Library Pros & Cons.”
What “nonpartisan” means here
The City’s word is accurate, and the League’s use of it is exact. In election vocabulary, nonpartisan means unaligned with a political party or a candidate for office. Tedesco stated it plainly: “The League is a nonpartisan organization. We do not support or oppose any political party or candidate for elected office.” In the next breath she stated the other half: “The League takes stands on legislation and ballot measures.”
Both are true at once and there is no contradiction between them. A ballot measure is not a party contest. An organization can refuse to touch candidates and still oppose an ordinance, and the League has done both for a century.
So nothing here says the Library mislabeled its event. The label is accurate. It is also narrower than it may look. Nonpartisan describes what the League is; it does not describe where the League stands on Measure P. A voter reading a library calendar has no particular reason to know the difference, and nothing on the page supplies it.
This site put five questions to Tedesco. To her credit, she answered all five promptly, with specificity and detail. She prefaced her answers with an account of how the League works.
What follows quotes her reply at length. On a question about whether an organization can hold a position and still explain a measure fairly, the organization’s description of how it separates those functions is presented fully to avoid paraphrasing it in error.
What the League says it is
On how the organization is built.
Lucia Tedesco, president, League of Women Voters of South San Mateo County
The League takes stands on legislation and ballot measures. Our advocacy is focused on issues, not individuals, and is guided by League positions. Education and advocacy are two very different actions, and we take the utmost care not to conflate them.
Our Voter Services is the nonpartisan set of activities and programs we conduct to promote voter participation and informed citizenship—essentially our nonpartisan effort to register voters, educate the public, and increase civic participation in the democratic process.
Our Advocacy and Action is our position-based, nonpartisan, organized efforts to influence public policy and legislation through lobbying, legal engagement, coalition work, and member mobilization, always aligned with our officially adopted positions.
Key work for the November election is providing voter education on the propositions and measures. We do this by studying the measures and giving presentations on the Pros & Cons of each. These presentations are neutral; that is, they don’t come from a position of advocacy, for or against. Instead, we maintain careful objectivity. The Pros & Cons presentations are intended to educate, not persuade.
The Advocacy team is not involved in the write-up and review of Pros & Cons measures.
That last sentence is the answer to the question at the heart of this piece. It describes a firewall to make sure the people who argue are not the same as those who explain. Whether a division of labor inside one organization settles the question is something a reader can weigh from the record that follows.
What the presentation will say, and what it will not
Will the League’s opposition be disclosed in the written materials, slides, and remarks? How and when?
Tedesco
In our Pros & Cons materials and presentations, we provide the official list of Supporters and Opponents, which lists the League as an opponent of Measure P. We will not comment on our opposition to Measure P, nor will we say anything beyond summarizing Pros & Cons.
As I already stated, the Pros & Cons presentations are intended to educate, not persuade, so it would be highly inappropriate for us to elaborate on our opposition to Measure P. If a question arises regarding the League’s recommendations on any of the propositions and measures, we will simply direct them to our website.
So the disclosure this site was going to ask for already exists, in the League’s own materials, in the form the League uses everywhere: the official roster of supporters and opponents, on which the League’s own name appears in the opponents column.
On the mechanics of the September 30 event, Tedesco confirmed the presentation will cover Measure P. On who prepares and delivers it: “The Voter Services group will prepare the written Pros & Cons material, and speakers may still need to be worked out as part of deciding how to cover everything.” The written material is expected on the League’s website in mid-September.
How the position was adopted
There is a harsher version of this story: that a century-old name was attached to a position the organization itself never took. Her answer rules it out.
When did the organization adopt that position, and by what process — a member vote, a board action, a consensus, or a decision of the president?
Tedesco
The League takes stands on legislation and ballot measures based on its existing approved and adopted “positions,” which has a specific meaning within the LWVSSMC, not on member votes or consensus.
A “position” is an official, formally adopted stance on a specific public policy issue, grounded in research, member agreement, and civic principle. Adopting a “position” takes about two years: we form a committee, study the issue, consult with state and national leagues, and finally put it to a membership vote.
When we are asked to support or oppose a measure, our Advocacy team studies the measure, researches our adopted positions, and presents its findings and a recommendation to the board. The board considers whether to adopt the recommendation.
On August 19, 2025, the board discussed the initial advocacy recommendation to oppose the Downtown Parking Plazas Ordinance and agreed with it. On August 11, 2026, the board discussed and approved an updated and expanded opposition summary. The opposition summary will be released in September.
Two dates, a named body, and a stated basis. The League’s housing position, which Tedesco cites as one of the two grounds for the stance, carries the line “Adopted May 2003” on the League’s own positions page. It was adopted twenty-two years before this measure existed, which is the point of having positions: they are not written for the fight in front of you.
She also declined an invitation to overclaim. Asked about a Menlo Together account of the campaign kickoff reporting that League and ACLU leaders discussed a threat to “our community’s civil rights,” Tedesco confirmed only her own organization’s reasoning: “We can confirm that one reason LWV opposes Measure P is that it undermines our system of representative government. Voters elect city council members to lead their communities.” She noted the two organizations had spoken with Menlo Together separately and that the League could not comment on the ACLU’s statements. The civil-rights characterization is not the League’s.
What the answer settles
- The opposition is an institutional position, adopted by the board on a recorded date, on grounds adopted in 2003 — not a personal view carried under the organization’s name.
- The Pros and Cons material is prepared by Voter Services, and the Advocacy team is not involved in writing or reviewing it.
- The League’s materials will disclose its opposition, through the official supporters-and-opponents list.
- Presenters will not argue the League’s side and will refer questions about the League’s recommendations to its website.
- No one in the League is paid and no one is evaluated by the president. The Director of Voter Services is a fellow member of a board that decides by consensus, not a subordinate.
Whether the wall runs through the president’s office
The firewall Tedesco first described runs between two teams. This site put two further
questions to her: whether the education team reports to her, directly or indirectly, and whether
the presenters for the Menlo Park program report to her, are evaluated by her, or have their
compensation set or approved by her in the budgeting process. She answered both, promptly again.
Does the education team directly or indirectly report to you?
Lucia Tedesco, president, League of Women Voters of South San Mateo County
Voter Services does not report to me in a traditional employment sense. LWVSSMC
is a 100% volunteer-run organization, so there is no compensation and no conventional
supervisor/employee reporting structure for anyone in the League.
Do the presenters for the Menlo Park program report to you, get evaluated by you, or
have their compensation set or approved by you in the budgeting process?
Tedesco
The same applies to the presenters for the Menlo Park program. They are not
evaluated by me, and there is no compensation to set or approve as part of a budgeting process,
since all roles — including presenters — are volunteer positions. That said, our
presenters bring years of experience, and any new presenters are trained before they give
presentations, so quality and consistency are maintained without a formal supervisory
structure.
More broadly, LWVSSMC is governed by a board of directors that operates collaboratively and by
consensus. The Director of Voter Services is one of several directors on that board, working
alongside the rest of us rather than reporting up through a hierarchy.
That answers the question this site raised, and it answers it against the premise the question
carried. This piece had said the president is the officer above both teams. On the League’s
account she is not: no employment relationship to sit above, no evaluation, no compensation to
approve, and the Director of Voter Services sits beside her on the board rather than beneath her. A volunteer board deciding by consensus is a different structure from a chain of
command, and the difference is not a small one.
Something smaller remains standing. Consensus is not the absence of influence, and a president
who signed the argument against Measure P sits on the board whose members prepare the neutral
explanation of it — as a peer, on her account, rather than as a superior. What weight to give
that is for the reader, who now has the League’s description of its own structure to weigh it
against.
What the answer does not reach
One thing sits outside everything above, and the follow-up answers do not touch it: the signature.
On the Primary Argument Signers Form filed with the San Mateo County elections office for the argument against Measure P, the third signer is Lucia Tedesco. The title she entered is President, League of Women Voters of South San Mateo County. She signed on July 27, 2026. The author box beside her name is unchecked; Mayor Betsy Nash authored the argument. The form instructs that where a signer belongs to a bona fide association, the title must name it, so the League’s name is on that argument by the form’s own design.
That argument will be printed in the voter guide. Summarizing it fairly is what the September 30 presentation is supposed to do.
This site did not ask Tedesco about the signature. The questions put to her concerned the endorsement quoted on the campaign’s website, not the signers form, and her reply cannot be read as declining to address something she was never asked. It is raised here because it is a matter of public record: the League’s name is on the argument that the September 30 presentation is meant to summarize, carried there by its president’s title, as the form requires.
One thing does remain open. The League has scheduled a busy September: the neutral Pros and Cons material in mid-month, the “updated and expanded opposition summary” the board approved on August 11 also in September, and the library presentation on the 30th. Nothing about that sequence is improper. It does mean a voter could encounter both documents in the same month, under the same name.
A wall inside one house
Nemo iudex in causa sua. No one should be a judge in their own cause. The maxim is not about honesty and never was. It assumes the judge is honest. It exists because a party to a dispute cannot occupy the neutral chair without the neutrality becoming harder to credit — not because they will prejudge the question, but because no one in the room can any longer tell whether they have.
The League has openly described the steps it has taken: separate functions, a written process, dated board actions, and a commitment in writing not to argue its side from the lectern. Asked a second round of questions, it described an organization with no chain of command for a president to sit atop — all volunteer, nobody paid, nobody evaluated, a board deciding by consensus. Her replies describe a September 30 presentation intended to be careful.
But a firewall is an internal arrangement. It governs how an organization conducts itself once it has the microphone. It does not make the organization neutral, and it says nothing about who was given the microphone.
Voter Services and Advocacy are two parts of one organization. That organization opposes Measure P. Its board agreed to oppose the ordinance on August 19, 2025 and approved an expanded opposition summary on August 11, 2026, and its president signed the argument against on July 27. Those are the facts on either side of the wall. What they add up to is for the reader to decide.
None of that is improper, and none of it predicts a slanted presentation. Institutions hold positions and still do honest work; that is what a position is for. It does show that neutrality of process and neutrality of standpoint are two different things. Which of them a voter should expect from a library program, and whether the first is enough without the second, is a fair question to put to the people who scheduled it.
The second is the Library’s to weigh, because the second was the Library’s choice. The page announcing the event names one presenter, offers no material from the measure’s proponents, links nothing but the League’s program, and does not mention that the presenter has taken a position on the measure it will explain. This site does not know how that came about and does not suggest it was arranged for effect.
The shape of the result can be described without knowing the reason for it: on a contested local measure, a single presenter, drawn from one side of it, in a public room, under a billing that is accurate about party politics and silent about this measure.
The League explained its conduct at length, and answered well. The League did not set up the arrangement that put it alone at the lectern. The City did. Whether that is the right way to stage the explanation of a measure when a ballot issue concerning only Menlo Park is involved — especially when the mayor was the author of the opposition statement to the measure — is a question this site puts rather than answers.
Sources and method