If you are a member of the Sierra Club in Alabama, watch your mail for a ballot and please be sure to return it no later than December 25, 2021.
Candidates for this election include:
Riva Fralick Riva is a resident of Fairhope, AL and a member of Sierra Club for many years. Riva became an active member and volunteer since watching the film, “ America’s Amazon, the Mobile Tensaw Delta “, at the Earth Day Mobile Bay event sponsored by the Mobile Bay Sierra Club in 2013. Riva credits the Mobile Bay Sierra Club’s monthly environmental education programs for her inspiration and motivation to learn more about the environmental issues facing us locally and globally and to get involved! As a member of Sierra Club Mobile Bay Group, Riva has focused on taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, including:
Starting a local chapter of www.citizensclimatelobby.org
Speaking at a “No Enviva Wood Pellet Plant” meeting in Lucedale, MS
Speaking at ADEM and AL Power Public Hearings on the Plant Barry Coal Ash pond on the Mobile River
Speaking at a “Rise for Climate” rally in Mobile in 2018, sponsored by Mobile Bay Sierra Sierra Club
Active board member of Gulf Coast Creation Care Fellowship’s Environmental Action Committee
Active in UU Ministry for the Earth, Elders Climate Action, Creation Justice Ministries, the Poor People’s Campaign (Environmental Justice), the Friends Committee on National Legislation (Climate Justice).
Riva has been trained as a Climate Reality Leader. She frequently writes letters to the editor and sign on-line petitions, and has attended many educational seminars and on-line classes. She lobbies her federally and locally elected representatives. She posts and re-posts Climate Crisis articles on Facebook. Riva is the ultimate “networker” and speaks up to protect our planet for future generations! She does a great job convincing other people to do what they can, because she believes one person can make a difference and together, we can really make a difference, but it is going to take all of us. Riva has a Bachelors of Public Administration from Florida International University. She was born and raised in South Florida (between the Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park). She is a retired Air Traffic Controller. She has swam with the dolphins, seen the huge, beautiful, living Great Barrier Reef, and wants to save it and our One Ocean. She has traveled and seen where Glaciers used to be and the changes caused by us humans, just since the first Earth Day. When you vote for Riva, you are voting for someone who shares your love for and deep concern about “the interconnected web of existence of which we are all a part”. “Let’s make the most of it!”
Ida Gleaton I have been a nature lover from as far back as I can remember. It began with playing in the woods as a child to camping from young adulthood till present (our kids didn’t know what a vacation was that did not include camping). I have been on the Alabama Sierra Club State ExCom now for the last 2 years. I am treasurer of the West Alabama Group of the Alabama Sierra Club, treasurer of the Blanche Dean Chapter of the Alabama Wildflower Society, and a member of the local Master Gardeners in Tuscaloosa, AL. I have been a bookkeeper by trade and am now partially retired, only working 2 days a week. There is much we need to do to help “explore, enjoy, and protect” our environment. It is regretful that we have to ‘fight’ to preserve this good earth we have for future generations. It seems as if ‘everyone’ should want that, but obviously it is not so. We must strive to do the best we can and I hope that I can help in some way by being on the Ex-Com for the Alabama Sierra Club.
Elizabeth Gonce I am a graduate of both the Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in Civil Engineering and the University of Miami School of Law with a juris doctorate. I currently reside in Florence and practice law in the Muscle Shoals area. My decades of experience working on contaminated sites that were subject to remediation, as an environmental engineer and also as an attorney, have included several positions which demanded an in-depth knowledge of all applicable and relevant laws and regulations such as NEPA; RCRA; the Clean Water Act; the Clean Air Act; FHWA rules and regulations; the Endangered Species Act; NPDES permitting requirements; wetland statutes and regulations; rules and regulations governing impacts to indigenous people, artifacts and historic places. A notable case I tried and won, in the area of environmental law, is Baugus, et al. v. City of Florence, AL, where new law was created in the State of Alabama requiring closed landfills to maintain the landfill and prevent methane gas leakage and offsite migration. Throughout my life I have taken numerous trips to National Parks with my family which fostered my deep passion for our great Public Lands. I now frequent the many trail systems that the Shoals area offers such as the Natchez Trace Parkway, the TVA National Recreation Trail, Shoal Creek Preserve and several others, for my much-needed, ongoing connection with nature. I understand the benefits nature provides to our health and well-being and also, serving as attorney for the Florence Tourism Board, I value the benefits of ecotourism to our local economies. I feel compelled to do all I can to help protect and expand public lands, including Wilderness, in our beautiful, biodiverse state while also holding polluters accountable. I would be honored to serve on the Alabama Chapter Executive Committee and work alongside the membership, in both grassroots and legal campaigns, in order to help facilitate positive change for a cleaner, greener and more environmentally just Alabama.
Vaughn Millner Vaughn is a dedicated environmentalist/conservationist. Since her retirement as a full-time professor in 2017, she has actively engaged in efforts to protect the environment. Her primary interests include the protection and restoration of waterways and natural habitats. Among her environmental efforts over the past year, she worked with the Sierra Club to write an article about the importance to protect against coal ash that was published and re-printed by Al.com; produced a video about the Mobile-Tensaw Delta that incorporated biodiversity education for social media; and participated as a Sierra Club speaker to EPA to advocate for additional ADEM protection for air quality issues in Africatown. She has led Sierra Club Conservation Team meetings and is completing her training to be a Sierra Club Outings leader. She is a licensed professional counselor and yoga instructor. As such, she integrates mental health, yoga, and the natural environment into some of her environmental efforts, such as those associated with Outings. An avid outdoorswoman, she enjoys hiking, kayaking, and paddleboarding. She is currently learning to fly fish. As a professor of counselor education, Dr. Millner published numerous articles about health, ethics, and human behavior in both mental health and medical journals. She enjoys collaboration across disciplines, and the integration of health and the environment has been a research theme throughout her career. She serves in several groups associated with the support of the environment. She is a member of Auburn’s Water Watch and the Mobile Bay National Estuary (MBNEP). Some of her responsibilities include the collection and analysis of water samples at two sites, and the creation of brief reports to publish in social media for the public. She is a member of the Baldwin County Environmental Advisory Board and a member of that group’s Water Quality sub-committee. A recent role therein was review and participation in a grant to protect water quality.
Roger L. Tanner Roger is a retired atmospheric chemist with 40+ years of experience in national air quality issues, with special expertise in airborne particulate matter, its origin and fate. He directed studies at the Look Rock air quality site in Great Smokey Mountains National Park from 2001 to 2013, in collaboration with the National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. He has been a member of the Sierra Club since 2012 and although not an active member until recently, he has been a moderate voice for responsible environ¬mental regulations and an ardent foe of profit-driven deregulation efforts. Since retirement, he has recognized the need to take a more active role in Sierra Club activities in the Alabama chapter given the current political, particularly in the areas of air quality and habitat preservation. He has been a member of the Shoals Environmental Alliance since 2001, and was active in efforts to save the TVA trails (a National Trails site) from development, thus retaining this ecologically important habitat on the Tennessee River. He has supported several other environmental groups through the years, including the National Wildlife Federation, Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund. He has also canoed local streams and rivers, and has been an active hiker, especially in the Sierra Nevada, where he has hiked more than half the Tahoe Rim trail. He has served as a member of the Sierra Club Alabama Executive Committee since January, 2019.