From L-R:  Jim Benoit, Susan Nowacki, George Mickelsen,
Tom Boylan, and Tom Laengle

Jim Benoit recognized two of our own members who in turn introduced new "red badgers" to the club. Tom Boylan introduced Tom Laengle of KFTY 50.  George Mickelsen introduced his daughter, Susan Nowacki, of Valley Financial.  Welcome Tom and Susan!

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Jim Valinoti promptly led us through this week's latest announcements.

Bob Marigo stated that Past District Governor Larry Bello is very seriously ill.  Please keep Larry and his family in your prayers.

Bob Marigo

Prez Patsy has appointed Phil Talamantes as Rotary Fellowship Exchange Chair.   Lucky couples would exchange visits with families in Sweden this coming year.  Contact Phil at 584-1610 if you are interested in participating.

New member proposals are on all tables today says Teri Evans.  Let’s keep all prospective new members in mind.  We now have 96 members in our club and the numbers keep climbing.

Don't forget!  The Board of Directors meeting is this Tuesday, November 9th, 11:45 AM at Josef's Restaurant.

Duncan Holt announced that today is the last day to donate wine for the Crab Feed.  However, we would never turn down a good bottle of wine!

News Flash! Arnie Carston announced that Paula Wrenn donated to the Crab Feed auction an abalone dinner for four at her home.  Be prepared for a wonderful dinner served with DeLoach wine!

Arnie Carston

Louie Louie needs your stubs back from tickets you bought for the Crab Feed.

Harry Rubins is selling Rotary Foundation dinner and raffle tickets today.  For  $100 spent on raffle tickets, you are supporting your Paul Harris Fellow.

Ex prez Jim Valinoti presented a check for $1,460 to Don Ling, as the grand winner of our September 20^th raffle.  Grandly, Don has pledged $500 to the Crab Feed.  Thank you Don for your generous gift.

Finemaster Bill Fisher welded his "fine" sword and collected $250 from Ginny Pitts for the sale of her company and the purchase of her new car.

Bob Reinking got 4 out of 6 Keno numbers on a recent trip to Reno and was fined only $20!

Bob Harris has FINALLY come home after traveling all over Florida, Charleston, and Virginia.  He did a fine job of staying just ahead of Hurricane Irene.  All this traipsing for a $20 fine.

Bob Harris

Bob Miller had fun on Balboa Island, fined $20.  He also welcomed a fine baby granddaughter, and, when Bill inquired the baby's weight, Mike Moore quipped, "Wait?", "Weight??", answer is nine months.

Mike Mullins made front page of Sonoma Business, stating a "kinder and gentler" D.A.  Good luck on your campaign for 2002, Mike.

Richard Standard was a no-win guy pulling a marble, whereas new member Susan Nowacki won $20 and promptly donated it to a worthy cause.

Our guest speaker today is Ken Blackman, City Manager for the City of Santa Rosa.  Ken talked about several key issues confronting our city.

Ken Blackman

• Affordable housing is desperately needed.  The Sonoma County Manufacturing Group is trying to raise $20M to build 500 units for low income housing.  There have been approximately 320 units opened recently.  These are but a drop in the bucket.
• There were 4,000 new jobs created in Sonoma County last year.  Where do we put everyone?
• Three hundred million dollars have been allocated to the neglected Southwest area of Santa Rosa over the next 30 years for new roads, parks, sidewalks, storm drains, etc.
• The City needs a good design configuration for the much discussed 101 expansion. There exist problems, such as off ramp closures, redirecting traffic through the city, and the need to address Cal Trans’ plans.
• On New Year’s Eve, the City expects up to 50,000 people to attend First Night downtown.  Santa Rosa has hired an outside consulting company to monitor Y2K potential problems that night.  The problems could be non-working street lights, parking garages, elevators, etc.  The consulting company gave Santa Rosa a clean bill of health.

The problems of running a big city.  Thanks Ken for your time.

The meeting ended promptly at 1:30 PM, with a plea that Census 2000 is coming.   Please give an accurate count.

* * * * * * * * *