Monday Noon, Los Robles Lodge
925 Edwards Ave., Santa Rosa, California

An Update on
Santa Rosa's General Plan

Pledge: Janet Codding
Rotary Moment:  Chuck Baker
Words by Albert Schweitzer
And for those of you who are confused:

This is Chuck Baker	This is Albert Schweitzer

Santa (Roger Olsen?) showed up and announced the visiting Rotarians, he only got 1 name right and was fined $10. He did, however announce the donation of a case of wine from Francis Ford Coppola to the Crab Feed which was promptly delivered to Arnie Carston by Kyle Stelling. And that was the name he got right.

We had only one guest today: Louie Capuano brought Paul Brophy.

Announcements:

Vida Jones spoke with about the Rotoplast program. She brought with her plush animals for sale to support the Rotoplast program.

PP Jim Benoit reminded us of our Crab Feed Raffle Tickets $5 apiece or 5 for $20.

(President Brian next asked for former Secretary Bob Harris' help in determining who the Bulletin Reporter was for today's meeting. He directed Bob to the inner side of the left door of the equipment storage cabinet, which is where the Bulletin Reporter Roster is posted. Bob disappeared behind the cabinet door and after a few moments of orienting himself to the form, he proudly reported that today's scribe was David Mc Donald. President Brian thanked him and then asked him to identify for him who was last week's Bulletin Reporter. Once again Bob disappeared from sight behind the door and after some mumbling he was heard to acclaim "Oh my gosh!" President Brian then extracted a $25 noncompliance fee from Bob for overlooking that he was indeed the Bulletin Reporter of record for the December 10th meeting. We all had a fun time at Bob's expense during this meeting, but in reality your Bulletin Editor wishes to thank Bob for the many, many timely bulletin duties that he has performed for our club over the years. For those of you who don't know, Bob is actually the "Father" of our very successful and highly awarded electronic bulletin. And since the electronic bulletin began during Bill Gittins' administration we just affectionately refer to him as "Father Bull." J -Ed)

As Jeff Ray recapped another successful Snoopy Ice Show, describing it as being even better than last year with 43 people showing up, (President Elect Mike Moore could only stare at his feet in horror, as he contemplated the rapidly declining amount of days remaining before he too, gets to take the podium, every week, of every month, for a whole year………….J -Ed)

Chuck Baker had a big thank you and a round of applause for the Bell Ringers.

Secretary Fred reminded us that we have SRWR club shirts for new members. $30 each, and they come in two colors, blue and white or white and blue (that's still two isn't it?)

District Governor Franz has once again sent The Wheel News (the DG's newsletter) to Secretary Fred in bulk. They are available to pick up at our regularly scheduled meetings.

Judith Light became a Rotarian today, she works for Sonoma Business magazine. She was inducted by Past President Ken Kushnir and sponsored by Chris Parr.

Crab Feed News:

Co-chair Louie has (had?) 2 tickets left. Arnie is urging our membership to follow through with their donations or the procurement of them as time is getting short.

Raffle:

Caroline Fox got the right ticket, but not the right marble. The pot was $275. Louie Capuano won the wine.

Craft Talk by Gail Johnson:

Gail's husband ("The Real Don Johnson") has been a Rotarian for 14 yrs. When she found out what Rotarians really did, she wanted to join. Gail was born and raised in Kansas City and went to the University of Oklahoma after which she taught High School for a number of years. She got into sales after a few years. In 1981 with no employment or lodging plans she moved with her young son to Sonoma County. Almost immediately after arriving in Santa Rosa she got a job selling hair care products for Nexus and before long she moved up from just sales, to a distributorship that supplied accounts from the bridge to north of Santa Rosa. After that she accepted a position selling advertising for "The Fox", KXFX FM Radio. In 1992 she got into real estate and in 1996 she joined Coldwell Banker and has been with them ever since. She had a heart attack a few years ago and it changed her life. She still works and loves to travel with her husband Don, but also has a very different perspective of precious are each of the days of her life.

Other news:

As the senior member of the Nominating Committee, (which is comprised of the most immediate 5 Past Presidents; Mike, Bill Gittins, Jim Valinoti, Richard Standard, & Chuck Stark),

Past District Governor Mike Merrill nominated, and the membership confirmed, Louie Capuano as the president elect-elect (V.P. for Michael Moore and Club President 2003-2004).

Additionally, with the proposed changes in the by-laws we will now have a 2nd V.P. (vice president elect-elect) in our line of succession. Arnie Carston will be our Club President for the Rotary Year 2004-2005. The formal election will be on 1-14-01.

Among some of the By-Law changes mentioned by Chuck Stark were those designating that the Senior Past President will be the Nominating Committee Chair, and the membership dues increase that occurred previously this year. Copies of all the changes were circulated at the meeting, and will also be emailed out to the membership.

Program:

Dick Carlile - Civil Engineer, Past Rotarian, and Chairman of the City Planning Commission.

Synopsis: The city used to be mainly designed around autos. Now we include pedestrians and cyclists and autos equally. Most acreage in a city is in the street. The most sensitive thing in city planning is traffic. The new planning will include more street trees, higher density housing, lot plans with alleys for garages and adding "pocket" parks.

Questions included: More roads? 6th street underpass will change, other changes coming. What about The Fountain Grove Ridge Top? We are planting more trees, changing colors and roof types to help mitigate the ridgeline effect.

Other changes will include a mixed use of downtown with grocery stores next to housing. The Old Cannery will be retail on the ground floor with loft housing upstairs. The City will also be going back to the definitions of Avenue and Boulevard to describe how the street works. You will also see more front porches for social interaction.

The meeting was adjourned promptly at 1:30pm

This Bulletin was written by David McDonald.
Your Bulletin Editor: Jim Valinoti

 * * * * * 

STANDBY BULLETIN WRITERS ARE:
John PALMER & Tom LAENGLE

Changes or comments?

Contact Jim Valinoti at valinoti@sonic.net or (707) 829-2300.

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