Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show February 21, 2013

Service begins at home in this club, and the list of the many members (in order of appearance per President JOHN) who made the meeting really click this week included:

• PP MARGE BRUNO
• BARBARA SMALL
• KATHY LERA
• LEW FRASER
• BONNIE BURDETT
• STEVE POMEROY
• PP MARLENE COWAN
• FRANK VERLOT
• FRANK ELMER
• JOHN CARDOZA
• PE JACK KELLY
• and of course our head cheerleader/President JOHN SYLVESTER

In addition to the one visiting Rotarian, we met guests of FRANK ELMER, JULIE ROSE, BARBARA SMALL, GARY MAGGARD, ABBY AHRENS and ROY LAVE.

President JOHN’s announcements: the BOD plans to install yet another new AV system, though there were some comments from the peanut gallery about who would be footing the bill.

 
All are invited to honor MARY MARLEY, past valued member of this club at the memorial service honoring her on Feb. 23 in Smithwick Theatre, Foothill College at 11 am.  

Candidates nominated for election to three seats on the Board of Directors on March 7 include ALAN VARNI, KATHY LERA, LONNIE GARY, JEAN MORDO, FRANK VERLOT, and LOU FRASER.

Nominations from the floor will be entertained for members who are in good standing (over 50% attendance and no monetary balance due). The Nominating Committee includes PRESIDENT JOHN, PP MONA ARMISTEAD, PE JACK KELLY, SECRETARY KENDRA GJERSETH, JERRY TOMANEK, PP SAM HARDING, and PP TRACY MURRAY.

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS:
KENDRA GJERSETH and CAROL GARSTEN announced the availability of new LARC trifold brochures.  As Chair of Rotary Day in Los Altos Feb. 23, CAROL reminded us to wear Rotary shirts and hats, prepare a personal story to share with townsfolk, help pass out Rotary balloons and cookies, and alert personal friends to attend by using our email and Facebook messages with a link to the Town Crier article that she will send out today.

ALLAN VARNI announced that World Community Service committee meets at 8 am next Tuesday at First Republic Bank, as usual.

PP MARLENE COWAN announced that three children receiving counseling and surgeries at COANIQUEM in Chile sent cute drawings to thank Los Altos Rotarians for their generous financial support.

PAUL SCHUTZ reminded all to attend the March 1 Cioppino Feed fundraiser benefitting the Welcome Home Veterans program.  Kudos to the efforts of JOE RENATI, Honorary LARC Rotarian DAVE LUEDTKE and his supportive wife PP CYNTHIA for all their efforts to make this a successful fundraiser.  Be sure to invite your friends and other community members to this fundraiser.

KAREN FOX needs a color printer to promote the Cioppino Feed’s silent auction as well as a manager for that auction.  One of the great items for bid will be a tour of the TESLA factory.

DAVID SMITH announced the third annual Encore! Event on March 23rd from 9:30-11:30 AM at Los Altos Youth Center.  Their goal is to recruit volunteers aged 50+ for local non-profit organizations. The featured speaker will be Sandor Tarics, 99, the Hungarian 1936 Olympic gold medalist. DAVID asked business owners to display an Encore! poster in their windows.

DONNA VERNA, responsible for Fine Art in the Park sponsorships, asked sponsors to return their invoices with payment to her.

GARY WALDECK, Mayor of the Town of Los Altos Hills, presented a proclamation naming Feb. 23, 2013 as Rotary Day in Los Altos in commemoration of Rotary’s founding 108 years ago.

Mayor JARRETT FISHPAW prepared a video in which he proclaimed the same for the City of Los Altos.  All Rotarians are urged to stroll downtown and share their personal Rotary experiences with townsfolk.

Fining was meted out by “Miguel the Magnificent”, neatly disguised in a turned-around fez.  MIKE ABRAMS had prepared a list of wacky answers that defied our efforts to conjure up matching questions, so he was able to fine GARY MAGGARD, HARN SOPER, DONNA VERNA, and BARBARA SMALL.  

His challenges included, “What is A,B,C,D,E,F?” answer: “earlier forms of Preparation H” and

“Until he gets caught.” answering “How long does a US congressman serve?”

PP ROY LAVE was fined for spotlighting valuable partnerships developed between LARC and the Los Altos Community Foundation, including Los Altos Values Youth, PEGs, the Roadrunner vehicle donated to El Camino Hospital, and the Community Roundtable.  

PP MARLENE COWAN joined the President’s Club to celebrate her return to LARC meetings after weeks of full-time babysitting her granddaughters aged 4 months and 2 years old.

PROGRAM
“California is a mess!” announced Dr. Larry Gerston, Professor at San Jose State University and frequent interviewee on NBC Nightly News, CNN and the BBC.  He spoke today about why California is not so golden, after all.  Unfortunately, no single election or policy can solve the myriad problems in California’s “botched jigsaw puzzle where all the parts are there, but they don’t fit together,” he warned.  The three overarching challenges are that we don’t know how to get along and don’t like each other, that we don’t want to invest wisely, and that we’ve got a political system which protects the status quo.

The first challenge is that legislators seem to represent the far left and far right with few in between. He named the constituencies as the “haves” and the “have nots”,  our white and non-white demography, and a general opposition to newcomers who are now becoming the majority.

Second, he alerted us to the “disaster” of poor investment in K-12 public schools, while the economically-able prefer to educate their children in the few high-functioning school districts or private schools.  California ranks down at 47th through 49th in lowest per capita public school funding, along with Alabama and Mississippi. Our state is 50th in terms of class size and also very near the bottom in the number of school days.  

With the current 25% drop-out rate before graduation, our young population is obviously not being educated for jobs paying over minimum wage.  The drop-out rate even reaches 80% in areas around Fresno and Bakersfield, which hurts our entire state’s economy.  The shocking result in our “not so golden state” is a national rating of just 45th in basic math proficiency, 47-50th in reading skills and 48-50th in basic science.

He argued that Proposition 30 “just kept the bandaid on”.  Because most California students cannot compete well, companies resort to hiring H-1 visa employees or send jobs off-shore, he warned.
California’s investment in transportation infrastructure also now ranks 50th in the nation.  Delivery of sufficient water to support water-intensive crops is stymied by conflict between the needs of our urban and agricultural communities.

Third, he bemoaned the fact that “our political system is broken” by Seven Deadly Sins which he enumerated.  

• First, term limits result in “arbitrarily throwing out the good with the bad”.
• Second, the initiative system typifies our “out of control direct democracy” because they are so difficult to understand that they’ve become a tool of special interests, like PG&E.
• He also argued that reliance upon personal income tax for 62% of the general fund creates a “roller coaster economy” when times are bad.
• He lamented the fact that an “absolute majority” meaning 2/3 of the legislative seats in each legislative house is required to raise taxes; that’s the highest requirement of all US state legislatures.
• He also criticized our designated funding system that leaves very little flexibility in use of the state’s resources, resulting in extremely little left for higher education.
• Unnecessary waste also occurs in overlapping local governments with duplicated services such as the 34 school districts in Santa Clara County that pay high wages for 34 school superintendants.  Instead, adjoining school districts could be merged to save administrative salary costs.  As an example, in Santa Clara County alone, there are 12 separate police departments and 11 different fire departments that could possibly be merged.
• Gerston named the seventh “deadly sin” as “an unnecessary bicameral legislature”.  He suggests instead that the Senate and Assembly should be combined, and the Comptroller, Treasurer and Board of Equalization should all be joined as one financial entity.

Solutions?  Gerston suggests “recalibrating spending” to fix this mess.  

• He recommends adjusting Prop 13 to spread out sales taxes and increase “sin taxes” on wine and beer.
• He would begin taxing some industries that are not currently taxed, for California is one of only 23 states that do not tax “oil out of the ground”.
 
• He would bring California’s education system up to speed by funding a longer school year.
• He would get rid of term limits and duplicated offices and administration at the state level and also save expenses by holding state and local elections on the same dates.
• He recommends earmarking more funds for community colleges, merging public school districts and making learning a second language mandatory.
• He harkens back to the 1950’s and 60’s when California had the best public education, best transportation network, and nearly free public education, he said.  That was in the era of Governor Pat Brown, he reminded us. “To make California competitive again” he concluded, “we need to make changes now!”

THIS THURSDAY'S PROGRAM:

The Old Songs you remember from your youth, or your dad and mom... or your grandparents. And the "New" old songs of the '50's and '60's. Boomerang brings you beautiful, melodic and exciting songs in the a capella tradition of Barbershop Harmony.  Boomerang members are Steve Wolf, Al Ward, Ramin Keyvan, and Dave Morley.