Meeting of the Rotary Club of Eureka
August 26, 2013
Lunch Menu: Salad bar, fresh fruit, pork ribs, Swiss
chicken, vegetables, scalloped potatoes, rolls and cheesecake.
The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Gary Todoroff.
The Invocation was led by Eric Bergel.
Visiting Rotarians
Liana Simpson – Old
Town Rotary, Les Merrill-
Southwest Rotary
Kim Bauriedel introduced his guest Patrick Cleary, Executive
Director of Humboldt Area Foundation. Jim Davis introduced Kathy Smith,
President/Superintendent of College of the Redwoods. Gregg Gardiner brought two
guests- Dr. Ziggy Poterak, a new Pediatrician in Eureka and Arnold Klein, Attorney at Law.
Birthdays
Tim Gallagher, J Hockaday, Jill Macdonald, David Wells,
Steve McHaney
Anniversaries
Aaron and Jennifer Tilch, Donald and Ruth Ziegenfuss
Announcements
Two new Rotarians were welcomed to the Rotary Club of Eureka... Dr. Bauriedel
introduced Patrick Cleary who moved to Humboldt
County from New York City 17 years ago. Patrick is the owner of Lost Coast
Communications as well as being the Executive Director of Humboldt Area
Foundation. He and his wife own 3 horses, 4 dogs and 1 cat. Patrick is a talented musician.
Jim Davis introduced Kathy Smith, President/Superintendent
of College of the Redwoods. Kathy moved here about a year ago from Ukiah and is
former President of the Rotary Club of Ukiah.
According to Jim, Kathy is probably the only Rotary member who gave her
craft talk prior to joining the club. (Kathy was the guest speaker at a
previous meeting.) He noted the impact and positive changes Kathy has made at
College of the Redwoods.
Former President Tim Gallagher, provided words of wisdom to
our new Rotarians.
President Ziggy asked Gregg Gardiner to give the club an
update on the Winship project, after first noting that after power washing and
cleaning Zane over the past 5 weeks our President feels that chewing gum and
skateboarding on the yellow curbs at Zane should be a capital offense.
Gregg noted that at 8pm last night the finishing touches
were made to the project. The only thing
left to do is install the basketball backboards, which will be here in a
week. He reminded the club that at
2:30pm today, is the grand reopening of Winship. He hopes that many Rotarians
can attend. In just 5 weeks volunteers
installed 7,400 feet of irrigation, rehabbed 4 baseball fields, resurfaced and
repaired all of the 2,200 square feet of asphalt, repainted the building and
more. He again thanked all of the volunteers and especially the amazing
donations made by Jack Rieke at Shafer’s Ace Hardware who donated all of the
paint to repaint the entire school in addition to many other supplies. Teen Challenge, Sheriff Downey’s SWAP crew,
Faith Center and of course volunteers from the Rotary Club of Eureka worked
together to create an amazing project.
Safeway and Jay Bahner from J’s RV Center made sure that there were 600
cupcakes to celebrate the ribbon cutting.
He said there were a couple of mishaps… he lost the key’s and gas cap to
the tractor that Jay Bahner loaned him for the project. Eureka Floor Carpet One had loaned him a dump
truck and they managed to bend the tailgate on the first use. Lee Cunningham at
Bay Tank fixed the tailgate. On the second use of the dump truck a hydraulic
cylinder broke on the truck. He’s hoping
that the Sign Smith committee approves a grant application for an LED sign that
would be used to communicate to parents of Winship students. The majority of the $40,000 costs are being
donated so the sign would end up costing $15,000. He asked for help to write thank you letters
to the many volunteers and individuals/businesses who donated goods to the
project. In summary this was a $300,00
to $400,00 dollar project that was accomplished by an amazing group effort.
Recognitions
Nick Bertel was signed $50 for the new addition to his
family. A little girl, 6 lb.,10 oz. named Kate Bella.
Mindy was fined $50 for her new addition, a 3-year-old
Cocker Spaniel that she recently adopted.
Craig Hansen was fined $50 for his recent vacation to England to visit his grandson and from there he
and his wife toured Prague and Budapest.
He tried to claim it was a work trip but Ziggy wasn’t duped.
Jason Eads was fined $50 for moving his office across the
street from Ziggy’s house and potentially bringing down property prices.
Spengler Raffle
$10 to Richard Storre and $10 to Greg Seiler
Guest Speaker
Our guest speaker was Rob Arkley from Security National. Rob
commended the club on a magnificent, impressive project in regards to Winship Middle School.
He said in his opinion the economy is healing. What we experienced was called an economic
shock. An Economic Shock leaves
long-term consequences and long-term debt.
It can devalue currency. However,
slowly we are seeing growth.
Security National processes loans from all over the United States. They are seeing people going back to work. On
the retail side their office building and mall leasing side has never been
busier. He feels good about the economy
and is planning accordingly.
He and Cherie have changed their residency to Louisiana which will
save them millions of dollars a year in taxes.
He said tax policy should maximize returns not drive policy but
unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening in California.
He feels optimistic about the future.
He does feel that the systematic attacks on big banks doesn’t help the
rebuilding effort and is in fact destructive.
As landlords and a mortgage servicer they see a lot of angry people out
there.
In northern California
our influence is limited. We cost the
State money and don’t have a lot of votes.
He wishes that the Rotary Club of Eureka’s next project
would be writing and attending City and County workshops to address the issues
of homelessness and drugs in our community.
He wants to know why we have so many people with these issues in our community.
He’s asked a number of people but nobody
seems to have answers. He feels that we
are allowing these issues to destroy our community. He has people visit from
out of town and there are people sleeping in his doorway on 5th Street. To him this should be project
#1 for all business people.
He said Humboldt
County has an undeveloped
port and developing that port can generate an extraordinary rate of
return. He questioned the recent
purchase by the Harbor District of a toxic site. He said they purchased no
insurance and the State Water Board is all over it. He feels that we will be paying out money we
don’t have for many years because of this purchase.
He said regarding the viability of the railroad… he and
Cherie have significant holdings in Omaha
and significant connections with Union Pacific. He said they are working on
bringing the railroad here. They know what the costs are and it is a fraction
of what is being reported. They feel it is viable. The biggest obstacle is the
timeline. New members are coming on the
Coastal Commission board that will give us a fair hearing. He feels there are
great opportunities ahead.
His daughter recently graduated law school and is now an
attorney. She also recently became
engaged to Mike Holland, the son of a local dentist. She and her fiancé will be moving back to Eureka.
We need to make Eureka
attractive. We need to deal with our
homeless and drug addict issues to help all businesses. He is optimistic about the future of Humboldt County
and California.
He then answered a few questions. He was asked if the Arkley Center
would reopen and he said it would at some point. He just was tired of losing ½ a million a
year. He said I understand that the
ballet won’t be profitable but I know that the theater itself can be
profitable. He’s not focused on it at the moment because he has so many other
things going on but they will reopen at some point.
Meeting adjourned at 1:30pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Alicia Cox
