August 17, 2021 Lunch Meeting (Aug 21, 2021)

August 17, 2021

Piatti's Lunch Meeting

Week #7 - President Patrick O’Neil

(Support Your Local Sheriff, a great movie)

President Patrick O’Neil hit the bell to open the meeting at 12:03 p.m. He then welcomed everyone to the “Best Damn Rotary Club in all of Arden Arcade.” He asked

Danny Curtola to lead the pledge, which he did. Mike Grace was asked to say the invocation, which he did.

Guests and Visiting Rotarians – Steve Turner introduced his nephew, Phill Benning, who works on the IT side of crime fighting.

Bell Ringers - None

Happy Bucks

Bill Hambrick – He spent last week in Monterey/Pebble Beach looking at cars and hanging out with people that he doesn’t deserve to hang out with. He had his eyes on one particular car, a McLaren F1, but he got outbid by $18,600,000.

Richard Goore – For visiting Mammoth for the first time and spending a week with his family hiking and mountain biking.

Rob Olmstead – For seeing his son play in a tournament this weekend and making the game winning score.

Bruce Stimson – For Sheriff Jones being at the meeting and for all the good work he has done and in hope that he has selected a good person to replace him as Sheriff.

Johnathan Barker – For getting to know the people in the club and for finding out that Richard Goore was Jewish and recently meeting his family. Richard’s mom called him up, out of the blue, and tried to play match-maker. He was not sure if the donation was happy or sad bucks. He will report back after his date.

Linda Biggler – For having a fabulous weekend and having dinner at the Kitchen, 4 hours and $7,000, the food was fabulous.

Danny Curtola – Happy to be here and seeing everyone. His daughter started Kindergarten this year and he got promoted to Recreation Manager and a big part of his job is community relations. So, now Rotary is officially part of his job.

Late Arrival: Michael Caplan received a huge round of applause for joining the meeting at 12:14 pm… he had a legitimate reason for being late this time as we will soon find out.

Bell Ringers Revisited

Jenny Davini – Her son is coming home this Saturday after having a wonderful research-intensive program at UCLA that brought him back to life.

Sad Bucks

Al Cady - $100 – his cousin’s house was burnt down in the fire.

News, Announcements and Stuff Like That

Golf Tournament

John Gabriel reminded the club that this is the only fundraiser this calendar year and everyone is expected to participate by either being a sponsor, a golfer or a volunteer. We need donations for the raffle and silent auction. We have sponsorship opportunities ranging from $200 to $2,000. The flyer with all of the sponsorship opportunities will be sent out again to the members. Everything is done online. If you have trouble signing up via the computer just ask your children or grandchildren to help you. If you don’t have access to a child call Christine Jensen and she will help you. The golf tournament is set for Monday, September 20^th at 11:00 Sierra View Country Club. We are partnering with Granite Bay Rotary. We are seeking sponsorships from $200 to $1,000 which includes golfing. Sheriff Jones volunteered to purchase a foursome and donate a tour to the jail as a silent auction item. Extended stay at the jail is optional for an additional cost. According to Al Cady, several club members have already had the non-voluntary tour of the jail. Sheriff Jones noted that you only have to be out of jail for 30 days to be able to go on the jail tour.

Bill Hambrick announced that the club will be participating in the Great American River Cleanup on September 18^th from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm on the American River at the Northgate site at mile marker 2. There is a lot of debris due to the homeless camps so we need as much help as we can get. Wear closed shoes and long pants. The campers have been alerted to the fact that the sites will be cleaned up. A BBQ and social gathering will be held after the cleanup.

Christine Jensen gave a quick update on the Golf Tournament; Al Cady is now the Golf Cart sponsor.

Past, Past, President Caplan announced that he had the Silent Rotarian Award to present. He went on to list the reasons for the award. The recipient is being honored for his efforts before and during Michael’s term as president. His service above self is an example of the spirit of Rotary. Membership Chair, Poker Tournament committee member three years running, Rotary House Co-chair, Created a partnership for the Rotary Van transportation, Softball Team Captain 2016-2019. Pasta Feed Collaborative Fund Raiser 2012 to 2018 raising over $120,000, collaborated with Sac-Family meals to create distribution sites in Arden Arcade, Carmichael and Fair Oaks during the 2019 covid crisis distributing over 50,000 meals community-wide. It is with great pleasure that he called Danny Curtola to the front of the room to receive the award. The club gave him a congratulatory round of applause for all his efforts, well deserved. The secret word is “Service.”

The club socialized while waiting for lunch to be served.

Rob Olmstead introduced the guest speaker Sheriff, Scott Jones. Sheriff Jones has addressed our club on several occasions and needs no extended introduction. Sheriff Jones noted that he loves speaking to community groups, especially Rotary Clubs. Here are some of the highlights of the talk:

Covid
- Was an extreme challenge for the Sheriff’s Dept.
- They overreacted early in the pandemic and that was a good thing
- They set up one pod in the jail for rapid isolation of inmates if needed
- They didn’t have their first case of covid in the jail until May 2020
  - Elsewhere people were dying from covid on death row, ironic
  - The Public Defender’s office wanted massive releases of prisoners to protect them from covid even though the jail was safer than the general population
  - The new inmates are segregated and tested before being placed in the general population
  - Eventually covid did impact them in late 2020 and now with the Delta variant
- Over 300 employees have tested positive for covid, most employees experienced light symptoms. Most of their employees are younger and in good physical condition. There have been more hospitalizations in the last month than in the entire previous fourteen months
- Covid did not have a major impact on the operations of the department
- They do not enforce mask mandates, it is not their place to enforce health regulations, only legislative laws
- The employees will not be mandated by the Sheriff to get the shot
  - However, they are county employees and the county can mandate it and the Sheriff can’t countermand the requirement
Social Justice
- The George Floyd incident change the landscape, igniting the spark that emboldened the left-wing extremist like Antifa and Black Lives Matter
  - The Statement Black Lives Matter is a true statement
  - The politics behind the group was questionable and went unchecked
    - Politicians, corporations and the media were not supporting law enforcement, afraid of the political backlash
    - Cities were afraid to confront the tactics of the groups. The City of Sacramento instructed the City Police not to engage the protestors unless lives were at risk. It is OK to destroy businesses, that is just stuff.
    - The Sheriff took a hard stand and the political demonstrations kept to the city knowing they would not be stopped. He put the protestors on notice that the National Guard would be called in if needed. The county facilities were not harmed in contrast to the city facilities.
    - The sheriff will defend the right to protest but not the destruction of property. (A large round of applause erupted regarding this stand.)
  - The department’s health is fantastic and morale is great. They continue to provide the appropriate level of service as always.
Homeless
- This is the biggest complaint he gets
- It is not worst here than elsewhere, it is bad everywhere
- They have a homeless outreach team that attempts to address the problem
- Not everyone on the street is a victim of bad luck
  - There are a lot of criminals and people with dependencies on alcohol and drugs. Others choose that lifestyle and refuse help.
- The county has tried to address the problem with ordinances that get overturned in the courts
  - The Sheriff’s Department stands ready to enforce laws to address the problem when they get passed
  - The city tends to be a magnet for the homeless because they here of all the support given to the homeless
Support for the police nationally is between 70% and 80% and has not changed.
- What has changed is the organized opposition and the media support for them
- Our community loves the Sheriff’s Department as noted in the community forums they hold
- Defunding is pushed by a very small minority. Polls have shown that the 83% African American community want the same, if not more, number of police in their communities. Even though the “defunders” represent no one, their protests will be the lead story on the news.
The Sacramento Sheriff’s Department did not have to change their use of fore tactics as they had already updated their policies and were in compliance with the new/proposed changes.
Zero bail is a problem for our community as it lets the criminals escape incarceration and allows them to continue to commit crimes that would not have been committed had they been incarcerated.
- The jail went down to about 50% capacity. People that were released were usually within one to two weeks of release anyway.
Federal bail-out funds were used to help fund the department but the majority of the 600 million dollars that went to the Sheriff was passed onto other departments.
Sheriff Jones will be retiring next year. He is endorsing Chief Deputy Jim Barns, a person of extraordinary intelligence and experience.