Saturday morning, May 20, 2023, a group gathered at Rotary Park in Pontiac to celebrate Earth Day one month later, when the weather was supposed to be more hospitable than April 22 and as not wet. We sincerely thank the brave volunteers who ventured out into the cold (but fortunately not wet!) to make Rotary Park a little nicer for Pontiac residents.
This week our speaker was Pontiac's City Clerk-Garland Doyle, Garland gave us an overview of the city’s challenge with recreational marijuana. Two petitions circulated in Pontiac by a group called Sensible Cannabis Reform for Pontiac aim to revoke – or at least force reworking – the cities recently passed recreational marijuana ordinances. These petitions could upend the city’s efforts by delaying the permitting process or make the city restart the whole process. He also spoke to us about how the city is in the process of revamping the policies and procedures so that government can run more efficiently, and how we (as a community) need to get out and vote and to make sure others around us are also voting.
We had dual speakers this week, Deborah Younger, the Economic Development Manager in Pontiac city and Kyle Westberg. Deborah spoke to us about her duties which include business attraction and retention, financial incentives, small business support, workforce, and housing development. She informed us that the downtown parking meters are in the process of being reestablished, which will help with some of the downtown parking issues. Kyle went on to talk about the city and what he sees as an owner of Charlene’s, Flagstar Strand Theatre, Lafayette Place Lofts and West Construction, all based in downtown Pontiac.
Eighteen Rotarians and guests gathered for dinner upstairs at The Alley Cat and Danny's famous fare did not disappoint! What a treat to just relax and casually catch up with our Rotary friends. Our thanks to Rick David for planning this delicious dinner outing!
Join us on Saturday May 20th from 10am - noon. Bring your sun hat and work gloves and join us at Rotary Park for some clean up as well as two tree plantings. Let's do our part to enhance Pontiac Parks!
This week we had a field trip to the Pontiac Public Library to meet the new Director Kevin L. Brown. Kevin spoke to us about his 1-year plan to make significant changes to improve the library, including hiring and restructuring pay for employees, focusing on building issues (inside and outside), social media and website changes and community alliances. Kevin went into more detail about the building being built in 1960 and it still has its original roof and is in desperate need of new carpeting and a fresh coat of paint. He is the person that goes outside to clean up the litter around the building and would like to be able to hire that job out to someone else. His hope is to make Pontiac Library a destination place for the city like some of the other libraries in the surrounding communities.
This week our speaker was Amy Mullins, Founder and CEO of A Courageous Voice. Amy spoke to us about Child Sex Abuse and her organizations mission to fight for children and their safety. She gave us facts, statistics, signs to watch for, we talked about the internet, sexting, risk factors, laws, and predators. Being a sex abuse survivor herself, Amy spoke about her personal experiences and why she is such an advocate to raise awareness and empower families to stop this violence. To see more about A Courageous Voice visit https://www.acourageousvoice.org/
This week our speak was Alice Currier, owner of Long Lake Market. We love their lunch boxes so much that we asked Alice to speak to us about owning a small market in a big box world. Alice graciously came and spoke about the history of the market and how they have stayed a staple in the community since 1960. The key to their success...
This week we had our fieldtrip to Oakland Schools to meet Superintendent Dr. Wanda Cook-Robinson and Carol Anthony who spoke to us about the District and School Services departments. This encompasses five units: Early Childhood, Instruction & Pedagogy, Curriculum & Assessment, Leadership & School Improvement and School Culture & Climate. Oakland Schools ISD has about 240,000 students in 28 school districts.
This week our speaker was Teresa Rodges from Oakland University, she spoke to us about OU-Pontiac Initiative, a Collaboration between Oakland University and the City of Pontiac.
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Pontiac, MI 48341
United States of America