Rotary Club Of Eureka March 20, 2017 meeting

Menu: Turkey Rolls, pork cutlets, mashed potatoes, ménage of vegetables, and chocolate cake. Matthew Owen opened the meeting by asking Jim Davis to lead us in the flag salute. Craig Hansen followed with the invocation. He asked for a moment of silence for long time Rotarian Ray Wickel, who passed away recently. Ray was an ex green Beret Army Ranger as well as a civilian pilot and instructor with 5700 hours in the air. He’d been active in Rotary for 50 years. Will the exchange student outbound for Belgium said he had cupcakes to sell to raise funds for his trip. Glenn Goldan was recognized for a ringing cell phone during the meeting…

Other guests included Mayor Virginia Bass and Jim Christenson of the Ink People . Christian Hill had raised $8,000 the previous week and still had six squares to sell for the NCAA March Madness fundraiser. President elect Bruce Smith was recognized for his photo in the TS presenting a check to the science fair. Alicia Cox got a big thank you from Pat Folkins on behalf of the club for garnering so much publicity for our Rotary club that the other clubs were jealous. Nancy Dean returned from Calgary in Canada for a Rotary Student Exchange convention. President Owen reminded us of the Rotary District Convention to be held April 1st at Mendocino College in Ukiah. Dale Warmuth drew the joker in the Spengler Howard Raffle and won 430 dollars, which partially recompensed him for having bought Duke for $800 only to see them lose in the 2nd round.

Our Speaker was John Henry Ford Planning and Building Department Director. He started off defending his staff, saying they were not incompetent as a recent newspaper article suggested. He said the deluge of Cannabis Cultivation Permits was taking time away from other projects. There were 2300 applications, but only 18 of them were completed and approved. He’s going to restructure the department and get a new computer program to keep track of things. The General Plan is 50 days away from being put out for public comment. Matthew said there were 12,000 growers in Humboldt County, and 11,982 were out of compliance. Craig Hansen said we should spend more time going after the growers and less time nitpicking timber harvest plans. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Penned by Hank Ingham