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A League Tribute to Yvonne San Jule Koshland

The following was written by Linda Craig, in consultation with Leslie Stewart, Sally Germain, and Sherry Smith. The photo above shows Yvonne (at right) with Cynthia Kroll at a social gathering of past and present ABAG staff in 2015.

Yvonne San Jule Koshland, who passed away on March 29, 2017 at age 94, played many important roles in the success of the League of Women Voters of the Bay Area.

Many long-time League members worked with Yvonne on regional issues while she was a Senior Regional Planner with the Association of Bay Area Governments in the 1970s and 80s.

She joined LWV Berkeley-Albany-Emeryville in 1990, and soon became active with LWV Bay Area. She followed the progress of the Bay Area Governmental Consolidation Act of 1992, which failed in the last days of the legislative session that fall. She then joined the LWVBA Board in 1993 and contributed to materials on the California Environmental Quality Act, as well as a report on Local Agency Formation Commissions and Congestion Management Agencies. As Second Vice President of LWVBA, she led the two-year regional study Regional Planning, Regional Governance, and Funding of Regional Planning and Implementation. This major review of the League’s keystone Bay Area positions was completed in 2000.

After marrying Dan Koshland in 2000, she moved to Lafayette, and continued on the LWVBA board until 2002. She then led a project to evaluate new legislation regarding the role of the Local Agency Formation Commissions in the nine counties of the Bay Area.

Over all of these years, Yvonne was a member of the Bay Area Monitor Project Committee, and made a significant financial contribution to the Monitor in 2015. Sherry Smith, a current LWVBA board member and former president of LWV Berkeley-Albany-Emeryville, remembers Yvonne’s intellect, gracious but determined manner, and her generosity to the League.

She is survived by her children Philip Keene, Elodie Keene, and Tamsen Calhoun. Her son, Christopher Keene, died in 1995.

Messages of condolence may be sent to her granddaughter, Ariel Fortune, at 76 The Plaza, Berkeley, CA 94705.

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