Feb 6, 2018-Rotary Forum

By Dick Dannells

Pres. Jeff King opened the meeting at 12:37 PM by auctioning off the fine-free badge to Andrea Lueker for $40.

No fines were levied this week, but Pres. Jeff has a long list of people who will be fined next week.

Steve Curry announced that the brochures have been printed for the annual golf tournament. Connie O’Henley spoke about the major golf tournament sponsors and Erik Mund spoke about the tee sponsors. Steve Schuman of the Five Cities' Eco Club announced that their major fundraiser for the year has a Monopoly game theme and will be held on Saturday, April 21.  The winning 3 person team will receive $1000. Pres. Jeff had Andrea Lueker come forward to receive the Rotarian of the Month for her work in handling this year’s community giving. In this connection, she announced that next week will be the last day to vote by allocating your play money among the list of this year’s charities. Pres. Jeff announced there will be a board meeting at the usual time and place this Thursday, February 8.

Ashlea Boyer introduced John who is a graduate of CalPoly with a BS degree in city administration and city design. He was elected to the Grover Beach City Council in 2002. He was the first person to be elected Mayor by the voters and retired from the Council in 2012 when his term limit ended. He was reelected to the Grover Beach City Council in 2014. John began his talk by stating that Grover Beach as a 5 Citi Council and a City Manager manager who handles the day-to-day operations and oversees a $15 million budget. John presented a Power Point program that began with their #1 project: Street rehabilitation, which got its big push in 2014 when the voters passed a $48 million bond issue to fix the streets. The first thing they did was to establish the priority of streets to do first. Some of the Street improvements include N. 13^th St., South Oak Park, North Oak Park in collaboration with Pismo Beach, Longbranch from 3^rd Street to Oak Park and Mentone Avenue. In 2 years 50% of the streets will have been rehabilitated, which is the head of the 5 year schedule for completing all of the streets. Priority has been given to streets having schools. In awarding contracts, priority has been given in to local companies such as Apadaca Paving Company. Along with the Street improvement, utilities such as water mains have been improve. Project #2, which began as early as 2003, is the Grover Beach Lodge located on the 13 empty acre lot adjacent to Pismo Beach Golf Course at the end of Grand Avenue. Three years ago the plans for the Lodge has been approved by the Coastal Commission. The Lodge was originally designed for a 150 room convention hotel, which has been reduced to 144 rooms. Compared to Pismo Beach’s $10 million in annual revenue derived from hotels Grover Beach receives a measly $300,000 per year. This revenue should increased exponentially with completion of the Grover Beach Lodge, the 135 room Holiday Inn and a hotel by Man Rock Brewery, both on El Camino Rd. Project #3 is the the train station, which as been very successful. They are currently redesigning the station so that the buses will be able to drop off passengers on the west side of the tracks. There are contemplating a free trolley to make a loop from the train station to the Pismo Beach hotels and back. Project # 4 is the broadband fiber project, which will bring high-speed Internet to Grover Beach in collaboration with Digital West that that many years ago installed optic cables from North America to Asia. Project # 5 is commercial cannabis, which will help offset the loss of economy with the closing of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Although medical cannabis has been approved for 22 years it was only last year that recreational cannabis has been approved by the voters of California. Grover Beach has been in the forefront of seeking necessary state and county licenses to allow commercial sales of cannabis in the industrial park south of town. The revenue from cannabis sales is expected to add 10% of the budget.

“Life is sweet with Girl Scout Cookies.”

By Dick Dannells

Pres. Jeff King opened the meeting at 12:37 PM by auctioning off the fine-free badge to Andrea Lueker for $40.

No fines were levied this week, but Pres. Jeff has a long list of people who will be fined next week.

Steve Curry announced that the brochures have been printed for the annual golf tournament. Connie O’Henley spoke about the major golf tournament sponsors and Erik Mund spoke about the tee sponsors. Steve Schuman of the Five Cities' Eco Club announced that their major fundraiser for the year has a Monopoly game theme and will be held on Saturday, April 21.  The winning 3 person team will receive $1000. Pres. Jeff had Andrea Lueker come forward to receive the Rotarian of the Month for her work in handling this year’s community giving. In this connection, she announced that next week will be the last day to vote by allocating your play money among the list of this year’s charities. Pres. Jeff announced there will be a board meeting at the usual time and place this Thursday, February 8.

Ashlea Boyer introduced John who is a graduate of CalPoly with a BS degree in city administration and city design. He was elected to the Grover Beach City Council in 2002. He was the first person to be elected Mayor by the voters and retired from the Council in 2012 when his term limit ended. He was reelected to the Grover Beach City Council in 2014. John began his talk by stating that Grover Beach as a 5 Citi Council and a City Manager manager who handles the day-to-day operations and oversees a $15 million budget. John presented a Power Point program that began with their #1 project: Street rehabilitation, which got its big push in 2014 when the voters passed a $48 million bond issue to fix the streets. The first thing they did was to establish the priority of streets to do first. Some of the Street improvements include N. 13^th St., South Oak Park, North Oak Park in collaboration with Pismo Beach, Longbranch from 3^rd Street to Oak Park and Mentone Avenue. In 2 years 50% of the streets will have been rehabilitated, which is the head of the 5 year schedule for completing all of the streets. Priority has been given to streets having schools. In awarding contracts, priority has been given in to local companies such as Apadaca Paving Company. Along with the Street improvement, utilities such as water mains have been improve. Project #2, which began as early as 2003, is the Grover Beach Lodge located on the 13 empty acre lot adjacent to Pismo Beach Golf Course at the end of Grand Avenue. Three years ago the plans for the Lodge has been approved by the Coastal Commission. The Lodge was originally designed for a 150 room convention hotel, which has been reduced to 144 rooms. Compared to Pismo Beach’s $10 million in annual revenue derived from hotels Grover Beach receives a measly $300,000 per year. This revenue should increased exponentially with completion of the Grover Beach Lodge, the 135 room Holiday Inn and a hotel by Man Rock Brewery, both on El Camino Rd. Project #3 is the the train station, which as been very successful. They are currently redesigning the station so that the buses will be able to drop off passengers on the west side of the tracks. There are contemplating a free trolley to make a loop from the train station to the Pismo Beach hotels and back. Project # 4 is the broadband fiber project, which will bring high-speed Internet to Grover Beach in collaboration with Digital West that that many years ago installed optic cables from North America to Asia. Project # 5 is commercial cannabis, which will help offset the loss of economy with the closing of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Although medical cannabis has been approved for 22 years it was only last year that recreational cannabis has been approved by the voters of California. Grover Beach has been in the forefront of seeking necessary state and county licenses to allow commercial sales of cannabis in the industrial park south of town. The revenue from cannabis sales is expected to add 10% of the budget.

“Life is sweet with Girl Scout Cookies.”