Meeting Recap for Monday, June 23, 2014
“A budget is a statement of values,” declared Rotary Club of Sacramento’s guest speaker, Delaine Eastin, Monday at the Red Lion.
“I find it disgusting that we (California) are now ranked first in the nation in per-prisoner spending but 50th in per-pupil spending.”
The first (and only) woman to be elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction, a position she held for eight years, Eastin was introduced by Chair of the Day Elfrena Foord.
The Davis resident and UC Davis graduate clearly has lost none of her passion for educational issues since leaving public office in 2009 and received a standing ovation.
“No person should consider themself a patriot if they don’t support education,” she said after rattling off a series of reasons education is a strategic issue.
“People all over the world are investing in education while California has dropped from fifth to 50th in per-pupil spending since I graduated from high school.
“And as for Jerry Brown touting how much he’s supporting education, all he’s done is pay back $12 billion of the $13 billion he borrowed from education to balance the budget.”
The most important educational investment we could make? Eastin, who also served eight years in the legislature and is now a consultant, makes no bones about it:
“The early years are the most important developmentally. Kindergarten should be mandatory (it isn’t in California) and pre-school should be available to everyone.”
Commenting on the current wrangling over common core standards and assessments, Eastin clearly is a supporter of the new methodology.
“High-performing countries all have high standards,” she said. “We have to get on that same page. Young Chinese, Indians and Poles are not racing us to the bottom.”
Quoting Neil Postman, Eastin said, “Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”
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This was President Thom Gilbert’s final “regular meeting” before his demotion and he took a few moments to reflect on the past year and thanked the club for the opportunity to serve.
He pointed to the recruitment of new club Executive Director Katrina Salazar as one of the top two achievements during his tenure.
The other: the highly successful centennial celebration, for which he thanked a host of Rotarians for their hard work on the event:
David Cohen, Past-President Jon Snyder, Past-President Peter Dannenfelser II, John Lemmon, Past-President Skip Lawrence ,Ted White, Art Breuer, Allison Cagley, Karen Diepenbrock, Jim Culleton, Robyn DeLong, Roger Salazar, Mark Huffman, Tanya Kravchuk, Oleta Lambert, Jan Stohr, John Wood and a host of others whose names President Thom rattled off so fast yours truly couldn’t keep up.
President Thom also thanked the board members appointed during his term: Robyn DeLong, Bruce Hester, Mark Huffman, John Swentowsky; his Sergeant at Arms, Susan Drack and his Treasurer, Mike Gilligan.
The club responded with a standing ovation for President Thom, whose demotion dinner on June 30th is sold out.
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Bob Daly introduced a group of special guests—administrators and students—from the three of the four schools that benefitted from Golf 4 Kids last year: Luther Burbank, Fern Bacon and Ralph Richardson Center.
The longest continuing charitable event in the world of Rotary, Golf 4 Kids was started in 1922. This year’s event will be Aug. 11th at Northridge Country Club.
Dr. Forrest Junod was sworn in by President Thom as the newest member of Rotary Club of Sacramento. The retired Sutter heart surgeon and Heart Institute director was co-sponsored by Past-President Skip Lawrence and Dick Osen.
Amin Elmallah led off a parade of tributes to President Thom during the Roast, Boast and Toast portion of the program. Among others making pledges toward Eddie Mulligan and Paul Harris fellowships were Past-President Hal Bartholomew, Dave Higdon, Norm Marshall, Liz McClatchy, Dick Osen, Judy Payne, Dave Cohen, and David DeRoos.
Other contributions included those from Dave Murphy celebrating winning the treasure chest at the Centennial and in honor of Pres. Thom’s great year as president, Craig Brown celebrating his retirement & his son taking over CB Property Inspections, Rex Berry and Ilene Block celebrating their move to the law firm of Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard.
Past-President Peter Dannenfelser II pinch-hit for the scheduled invocator. Dick Osen led the club in singing “California Here I Come.”
Kathy Herrfeldt, Frank Cook and Jerry Haley acted as greeters and Paul Stone and Dick Wertz provided music on the newly tuned piano during the wine reception, which was sponsored by Jim Craig in absentia.
The next “regular” meeting of RCS will not be until Tuesday, July 8, at the Doubletree Hotel. It will be President-Elect Susan Sheridan’s installation luncheon. There is no meeting on July 1 because of the demotion dinner the night before.