Introductions
Two potential new members were introduced. Judy introduced Hayden Williams III who purchased her house and indicated that he was interested in joining a service oriented group. Barry Toby introduced John Milich who is a retired graphic artist formerly of Xerox. To everyone’s surprise, George Gayler made a guest appearance but it is rumored that his wife Darlene, who also attended, was the motivating force in George’s attendance.
The Liaison for our active Interact Club was introduced who shared the myriad of upcoming events planned:
- Packs to School Drive – Donating school supplies to orphans and other needy students
- Hop Fest – A fund raiser for Sentinels of Freedom
- Michael J. Fox fund raiser in Danville
- American Heart Association Heart Walk
- Run for Education distribution duties
Hopfest 9/17
District kickoff is 9/18
Danville d'Elegance is 9/18
Bay Area heartwalk 10/2
Auction distribution 10/15 & 10/16
Run for education 10/16
It is a pretty impressive start for this superb organization overseen by our own Colette Lay with support from Patty Hennigan.
Our speaker Catharine Baker was also introduced as our day speaker.
Dennis shared that there were efforts to revamp our membership materials were in process. He was redoing the brochure. He wants input from members as to what we might want to see in a brochure that would influence potential members. Dennis also described the invitation card which enables a prospective member to join us for a free lunch.
Bill Brodie reminded everyone that there were 10 tickets left for Day at the Races. Gary Sloan has already reserved his tickets and beginning his research for winners.
Stacey Litteral gave a shameless plug for Kid’s Country 30th Year Open House on Wednesday. She was not fined due to her generous donation to the Auction. Stacey shared that she now has 15 sites and would love to see Rotarians at the event where Catharine Baker would be the keynote speaker and Nina plus husband would be providing the food.
Colette presented the first Student of the Year by introducing Erin McFaran, an English teacher at Cal High. Ms. McFaran indicated that the recipient this month was new to leadership with a “no fear” approach but was always positive. MariSol (sp?) co-chairs the Spirit Group and put together a team of school Mascots to cheer Cal High onto victory. The Student of the Month receives a Certificate, a parking spot and “our eternal gratitude” for their leadership.
Fines, (I mean) Recognitions
Marco was recognized twice for his wife Abbey and his birthday. Family sports and dinner was the theme of their celebration. Fred Navarro left the meeting early missing his opportunity for recognition, while Herman got fined for not doing anything for his wife’s birthday (although he later remembered that he took her to “some kind of dinner”.) In the meantime Stacey celebrated her birthday with husband and kids at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay and was upgraded to a suite with a patio. Marie celebrated her birthday over an entire week with lunches, dinners and barbecues with friends. Chris Gallagher ran off to Sonoma to celebrate Renee and his anniversary (24 years). It is rumored that Renee was 14 years old when she married.
Speaker
Don Jones introduce Catharine Baker, Assemblywoman who announced that she was a past Rotary award recipient and her father and grandfather were Rotarians. In her first term, there were over 3,000 bills introduced in the Assembly with 750 of those bills introduced in the last week of sessions. Ms. Baker shared that her focus was on three key areas:
- Education: She is the Vice Chair of the Higher Education Committee where it is less partisan and more able to affect school policy change. A major accomplishment this year was to change the percentage of in-State students admitted to UC campuses. The State place a 10% cap on out of state applicants (which is now 16%) to enable better California resident access to education. Ms. Baker also advocated for reduction in cost for the university system with committee recommendations being incorporated into the Governor’s budget. The Assemblywoman also provided substantial support to helping transition veterans by providing aide to veterans for higher education.
- Infrastructure: Catharine Baker has also worked in the area of transportation and water. She has supported the transit and parking efforts with specific reference to the Dublin parking structure. Ms. Baker gained approval to increase transparency and oversight of the Bay Bridge and she submitted a creative bi-partisan bill to reduce or eliminate BART strikes. BART unions claim that they are not bound by the contract restrictions concerning strikes once the contract has expired but they continue to receive the benefits enumerated in the expired contract. The bill would ensure that the union workers accepted all the provisions of the expired agreement during negotiations or none. Unfortunately, this bill did not get out committee following union lobbying.
- Financial Health and Debt: State spending has increased by 14% and Assemblywoman Baker successfully worked with 9 Democrats and 15 Republicans to retain $1 billion in federal funds by working with insurance companies regarding how they were being taxed. Funds were used to fund pensions, lower transportation bond debt and assist the disabled.
Legislators can submit up to 40 bills. Ms. Baker submitted nine (9) meaningful bills, six of which were signed by the Governor.
Questions abounded covering the “gut and amend” process, support for trade schools and non-documented alien in-state or out of state status.
Raffle
The $20 raffle was won by our own Stacey Litteral who always seems to win whenever she is present at a meeting. Chris (Lucky spurs) Gallagher rolled the dice for $50 but failed in the attempt resulting in a $10 prize.
Speaking of Lucky, he will be next week’s Greeter and our speaker will talk about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
The meeting was adjourned a little late but the speaker was so good, everyone was happy.
Respectfully submitted by,
Gary Sloan
