Rotary Club of Eureka, California

Meeting of the Rotary Clue of Eureka
March 31, 2014

New Police Chief Andy Mills led the pledge. Lisa Slack gave the invocation. 

After he asked for visiting Rotarians and guests, President Ziggy gave us another reminder of the multi-club Mad River cleanup project. It starts at 8:45am on April 19th and finishes at Mad River Brewery at Noon. Then the drinking starts. 

Visiting Rotarians, soon to be members of our Club!

On a more sober note, dues are due. They are $130 for the club and $73.50 for the service fund. The alternative is a 5am phone call from Ziggy. 

Christian Hill announced that the March Madness auction had made $5,200, up from last year. 

New Rotarian Kathy Smith came up to get her blue badge. 

Ziggy held a brief vote on whether to submit Winship’s renovation as our club project for an award at the District Conference. The ayes have it. 

Gregg Gardiner gave a report on the Boys and Girls Club refurbishment. Lead abatement is complete and next they will fix the leaky roof. The club has raised over $100,000 in grants and local donations. 

Then Gregg asked Steve Justus, Jessie Klair, and Rick Littlefield to pose for a picture holding the certificates of appreciation the Marine Corps gave them for helping out Toys For Tots. Over 6,000 children got toys this year. 

John Bradley reminded us that the Backpacks for Kids barbeque and auction is April 25th at 6pm at the Adorni Center. Dr. Squid will provide the music. 

Steve Lafferty was awarded a t-shirt for a new addition to his family…after 50 hours of labor, a baby boy named Jack. We suspect that his wife did most of the work. 

Finally, in a disturbing trend of adding insult to injury, Christian Hill was presented with a t-shirt because the team he had purchased in the NCAA auction, UCLA, lost. 

Andy Mills and Tom Schallert won the drawing. 

Program
Our program was HSU Economics professor Erick Eschker. His students maintain the Humboldt Economic Index, a web site which gives a month to month picture of how the county is doing. It tracks employment, housing, retail, energy, hotels, and lumber. He announced that they will be adding niche manufacturing to the mix. 

There are some signs that the economy has improved in the last 3 years. Help wanted ads are up, unemployment claims are down, and the number of houses sold is up. He feels that housing prices have bottomed out, down 1/3 from the boom years. He says niche manufacturing has shown an up-tick in 2013. Then it was time for questions. What effect will marijuana legalization have on our economy? Will interest rates increase? Will there be another recession? Are there greater numbers of long-term unemployed? Is there balm in Gilead? They were all great questions, and the professor was glad they asked those questions. He was unable to hazard a guess due to insufficient information. Therefore our editorial staff has provided the answers. 1. Sales of snack foods will increase. 2. No-wait, maybe. 3. No, because we’re still in one. 4. Seems like it. 5. Try CVS. 

 Penned by PP Hank Ingham.