Rotary Club of Eureka, California

Meeting of the Rotary Club of Eureka

January 13, 2014

Steve Justus led the flag salute and Dan Heinen gave the invocation. 

Visiting Rotarians 
Cindy Denbo of Southwest Club.

Guests of Rotarians 
Steven Wright was the guest of Steve Justus and Tom Strickland from Boy Scouts of America was the guest of Kim Bauriedel.






Birthdays 
Bob Morse 1/8
Neal Carnam 1/10
Corky Cornwell 1/29
Chris Freeman 1/25
Glenn Goldan 1/27
David Hull 1/25

Anniversaries 
Bruce and Marilyn Rupp 1/15
Warren and Lisa Hockaday 1/18
Dennis and Karen Hunter 1/28

Announcements 
Pat Folkins introduced Jim Hunter as our newest Paul Harris member. Pat gave a bit of background on the Paul Harris Fellowship to the club before giving the certificate and pin to Jim. The club stood for Mr. Hunter.

Lisa Slack said the Clarke Museum is doing its 3^rd Murder Mystery Roundup next Saturday 1/25. Tickets are $50. Contact Lisa, web page is clarkehistorical@att.net or call  443-1947.

Pat Folkins got fined $50 for wearing a 49ers tie, but suggested that our President get fined for not knowing certain arcane details about the Raiders; the president turned the table on him for not knowing where the Raiders first played.

Nick Bertell stood looking clean cut and green-tied, but was nevertheless fined $50 for being a Mason or something like that.

Ziggy and all agreed that Mike Cunningham did a fine job organizing the Christmas party, but pictures are still missing. Mike passed the buck to Carlton Nielsen and Carlton to others whose names won’t be mentioned. The pictures are still missing. No fine—yet.

Steve Lafferty keeps attendance records for our club and was recognized because he and Greg Gardiner are the only two members to have 100% attendance last year.  Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, President Ziggy fined them both $100 (to Paul Harris) for exemplary attendance.

Continuing on the theme of punishments meted out for good behavior, the bearded wanderer, Mr. Hank Pierson, was recognized for being here two weeks in a row. He claims to have lost his badge, but should not expect credit for 100% attendance because the president is wise to such ploys.

Ziggy chided Jason Eads for moving into his neighborhood, saying, “There goes my neighborhood, with all these lawyers for neighbors.”

John Bradley said Backpacks for kids served 114 kids every week at Alice Burney, Lafayette and Grant schools with some help from other service clubs. April is a big event to raise money for Backpacks for Kids and John will give more details soon. John was happy to put in $50 for his announcement.

Nancy Dean and Alicia Cox were the raffle winners.

Program 
Dave Parris introduced our guest speaker, prefacing his introduction with mention that this week is historic because of someone who will retire after 50 years of service: Murl Harpham. The club rose to its feet in recognition of Murl’s outstanding service with Eureka Police Department.

Robert Losacco is a Community Resource person for California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). He is in charge of volunteers, chaplains and donations at Pelican Bay (PB).  PB State Prison is California’s only level four maximum-security prison, so they get the worst inmates. To give us a clue about just how bad the PB prisoners are, he highlighted the fact that these prisoners have to “earn their right to get to Pelican Bay,” by acting like knuckle-heads after their incarceration. No one is sentenced directly to PB.

CDCR facts: CDCR runs 34 state prisons, 41 fire camps and 16 community correctional facilities. It employs 24,000 peace officers, 1,500 state parole agents and 700 criminal investigator / special agents. It has a staggering $8.9 billion dollar budget and incarcerates over 134,000 inmates. The cost of each inmate is over $48,000 dollars per year. Higher security inmates cost about $72,000 dollars per year, and those inmates with medical needs can cost us $102,000 dollars per year.

CDCR is going to hire 7,000 new officers in the near future. Pelican Bay currently needs 135 correctional officers to fill their openings. Pay and benefits are good, says Robert, affirming, “Once you get in, it’s hard to get out.” California CDCR employees are among the highest paid law enforcement salaries in the U.S. and it is not unusual for overtime pay to exceed one’s base salary. With CAL/PERS Retirement a CDCR employee can retire at age 55. At 27 years your retirement pay is over 100% of your working salary.  Other incentive pay options are available from taking college units to passing a Physical Fitness test all cost taxpayers extra money.

He made the claim that 84% of what they do in the prisons is due to some sort of litigation; I think he meant litigation other than the trial of the prisoners--things like ACLU lawsuits.

For those interested in a captivating second career go to www.joinCDC.com.

Respectfully submitted,
Dan Price