Brad Sherwood Brad Sherwood is the president of the Mark West Area Community Fund. He and his family reside in Larkfield Estates where they rebuilt their home after the 2017 Tubbs Fire. He served his community as a Block Captain during the rebuild. Brad served on the Mark West Union School District Board of Trustees and Mark West Area Citizens Advisory Council. He is an assistant general manager at Sonoma Water where he manages business services and external affairs. He is the immediate past-president of the Mark West Area Chamber of Commerce. A fifth-generation Californian, Brad is committed to rebuilding the Mark West Area better and more resilient.
Karen Fies Karen Fies serves as the chair of the Mark West Area Municipal Advisory Council. Karen has over 35 years in the field of social services and retired in October 2020 as the Director for the Sonoma County Human Services Department. As director, Karen managed over 900 employees and an annual budget of approximately $350 million. Karen originally moved to the Mark West area in 1986. She and her husband, Brian, a writer and cartoonist, lost their home in the Tubbs Fire in 2017. They have rebuilt and moved back to the neighborhood where they raised their now adult twin daughters. In her retirement, Karen enjoys volunteering for the community, gardening, reading, and walking her dog, Riley. In addition to her work with the MWACAC, she is on the board of the Mark West Area Community Fund and the Family Justice Center of Sonoma County. Karen volunteers weekly for the Redwood Empire Food Bank and was a volunteer for the Girl Scouts of Northern California for over 30 years, chairing the Gold Award Committee for the North Coast region for 17 years.
Analysis of the 2024 Ballot Measures, by Kathy Hayes
Our speaker for the October 10, 2024 meeting was Kathy Hayes, who provided her usual excellent analysis of the ballot initiatives for the November 5, 2024 election. Kathy has a BA in political science from U.C. Davis, worked as a governmental affairs director for 25 years, and currently serves as an executive assistant to the principal of Elsie Allen High School. She is the daughter of Past President Merle Hayes, and regularly helps untangle ballot initiatives for us.
Kathy told us that the good news is that we aren’t going to have to read the ballot book because the main measures are for the most part about own set of values and belief structures. Do you believe in these concepts or not? Kathy went through the key issues for all the measures, stressing the value questions involved. Prop. 2 authorizes bond for public schools and community colleges. The bonds would be used to pay for facilities other than salaries or educational materials. Prop 2 also allows less affluent schools greater access to these bonds. School bond measures are important to allow school districts to seek matching funding from the state. Prop. 3, same sex marriage, would amend the state constitution to recognize the fundamental right to marry, regardless of race or sex. Prop. 4 authorizes $10 billion in bonds for safe drinking water, wildfire prevention, and protection of communities and lands from climate risks. Prop. 5 would change the state constitution to lower the threshold for the issuance of local bonds for affordable housing and public infrastructure to 55%, rather than the 2/3rds requirement for most general obligation bonds. It would also prohibit using these funds to buy existing family homes. Prop. 6 would eliminate the constitutional provision allowing involuntary servitude for incarcerated people. If Prop. 6 passes prisoners could not be required to engage in work projects. They could still agree to work in exchange for credit to reduce their sentences. The question to ask yourself is whether you have a problem with forcing inmates to work while incarcerated.
Prop. 33 relates to rent control and would repeal current law that prevents local entities from limiting the initial rental rate for new tenants in all housing, among other things. Prop. 33 would repeal this law and prevent the state from limiting the ability of cities and counties to enact or maintain rent-control ordinances. The net effect of Prop. 33 is to repeal current state law and prevent the state from limiting local cities and counties rights to enact rent control ordinances.
Prop. 35 would provide permanent funding for Medi-Cal health care services. The existing tax on managed health care insurance plans used to pay for health care services for low-income families with children, seniors, disabled persons, and other Medi-Cal recipients is set to expire in 2026. Prop. 35 would make this tax permanent. One possible benefit of Prop. 35 is that doctor’s groups might be more willing to accept Medi-Cal payments. Prop. Would, among other things, reclassify as felonies certain drug and theft crimes. It would also create a new category of crime; a “treatment-mandated felony.” The principal backers of this proposition are big-box retailers.
The County’s Prop. I would increase the sales tax by 25 cents for childcare subsidies for such things as early childhood education, better access to preventive health care, and preventing child abuse/neglect. Measure J seeks to phase out concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO’s) in the County. Kathy believes that Measure J is a test measure proposed by out-of-county animal rights groups. If it passes, Measure J would likely be proposed in other jurisdictions by these animal rights groups. Measure W would renew the current 1/8 cent sales tax to be used exclusively for the County’s library system to enhance/improve its services.
Thank you, Kathy, for the whirlwind tour of these ballot measures. As usual, we are all a bit more knowledgeable thanks to your presentation.
Click HERE to see the Zoom recording of Kathy's talk. It will be available for a limited time.
On a regular basis, our resident photo pro Warren Smith, submits pictures of what is going on at the weekly meetings. You can always find the most recent pictures at the websites photo journal called "Meeting Sighting" Please note that all the meeting photos for the entire Rotary year are at this location with the most recent on the last page.
Thanks for all the great pictures Warren!Link to Meeting Sightings. The most recent are on the last page!
Your Board of Directors had their monthly meeting on October 8. A few of our board members are off cruising in Europe (Penny, Paul and Mark) but that didn't stop us!! We needed to catch up on a few things because we had the District Govenor visit last month and didn't get any regular business accomplished.
The board reviewed the financials from August & September, and we continue to remain on track. Between the two months, we have given donations to The Family Justice Center from our raffle, Community Initiatives who hold the senior disaster preparedness seminars, Rotary Youth Exchange Golf Tournament, The Living Room and Leroy's Golden Hammer. We are also continuing to review other grant requests each month. If you have a request, reach out to Steve Herron.
During the rest of the meeting, we heard from each of the committees present. A couple of notable discussions - the Fundraising Focus Groups that were led by Steve Herron have concluded. A decision about our fundraising for next year will be coming soon. Also, we have updated our logo!! The board reviewed numerous versions of a new logo designed by Peter Hoberg's niece that were more modern as well as "readable". Our previous logo had some challenging fonts. We will be showing the new logo at our next meeting. And... we have a new member, Bonny Landers, that will be officially welcomed to the club on October 31!!
All and all a great meeting supported by your very dedicated board!
Penny and Paul did a make-up meeting with the Rotary Club of Prague International. They had an offsite meeting which was a tour of the largest cemetery in Prague, dating back 350 years to address a wave of the Black Death, and recipient to date of over 2,000,000 “residents.”
The cemetery covers 110 acres in downtown Prague and was ivy-vine covered enough to be ready for Halloween. A docent led us to the grave sites of “10 Badass Women of Prague”.
With World Polio Day on 24 October, I’m proudly rooting for Rotary as we team up around the world to End Polio Now.
I had the honor of attending a Strike Out Polio event in July at PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates MLB team. The Rotary Club of Delmont-Salem hosted the event, which raised $1.3 million for PolioPlus.
Later in the summer, I joined members of our Rotary family in supporting the Más Millas Menos Polio (More Miles Less Polio) bike ride. Felipe Meza Chávez and his team rode all the way from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, to One Rotary Center in Evanston, Illinois, to raise money and awareness. The ride took 12 days, and Felipe and his team collected more than $100,000 to support the fight against polio. It was a joy to greet them as they arrived in Evanston.
And I was thrilled to see Team End Polio raise global awareness around the 2024 Paris Olympics. This world-class roster of athletes, global leaders, and polio eradication supporters came together to advocate for a world where no child has to live in fear of being paralyzed by polio. Some of the athletes on Team End Polio are polio survivors themselves, adding weight to their advocacy.
These are just a few examples of the many ways Rotary has teamed up recently to End Polio Now. It is vital that we continue to seek out and recruit teammates in polio eradication, especially after the challenges our eradication efforts have faced this year.
The Rotary world was heartbroken to learn about the tragic passing in August of Aidan O’Leary, director for polio eradication at the World Health Organization.
I knew Aidan and worked with him directly. He was a tireless advocate in the fight against polio and a kind, genuine man. We will remember him both for his advocacy and his warmth.
But where there is hardship, there is also hope. I feel hopeful whenever I consider the countless ways Rotary supports the fight every day to eradicate polio.
As people of action, we don’t have the luxury of giving in to despair, even in the face of tragedy. The best way to honor Aidan’s memory is by teaming up and reaching our goal to End Polio Now.
We made a promise to the children of the world and their families. It is incumbent upon us, together with our global partners, to end this threat once and for all.
There are so many ways we can team up to eradicate polio. You can donate to the End Polio Now campaign, join or initiate a PolioPlus Society in your club or district, or take inspiration from the fundraisers I mentioned above.
I encourage Rotary members around the world to continue to seek out new teammates, so that together, we end polio.
You can find all prior "RI President's Messages" at this LINK
World Polio Day, on 24 October, is a time to celebrate progress and rededicate ourselves to finishing the job of eradicating the disease. Let’s also honor the countless Rotarians and Rotaractors who have championed the cause. One such hero was John Sever.
Sever, who died in April at age 92, was a member of the Rotary Club of Potomac, Maryland. An infectious disease specialist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Sever recommended in 1979 that Rotary make polio eradication a global goal, expanding what began as a national vaccine campaign in the Philippines.
It is hard to imagine where we would stand today without Sever’s decades of leadership, expertise, and advocacy. In August, I was honored to present his family with the International Service Award for a Polio-Free World and a crystal recognition piece in Sever’s name.
What he helped initiate, PolioPlus, became an example of implementing an action plan in Rotary. Thanks to him — and the volunteerism and generosity of countless others — polio cases have decreased by more than 99 percent since 1988.
The path to our goal could not have been predicted and may take longer than expected. There are sometimes setbacks, as we experienced with increased cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan this year.
But we get back on our feet. This year, we ended an outbreak of wild poliovirus in Malawi and Mozambique that was caused by an importation from Pakistan in 2021, and we decreased variant poliovirus cases. Rotary and our partners stay flexible, developing new tactics while staying focused on the long-term goal, with optimism.
Delivering a polio-free world with stronger health systems and communities is not only right for humanity but also a smart investment in future generations. It will be Rotary’s greatest gift to the world.
Countless heroes have followed Sever’s lead — from the club president who organized her first End Polio Now fundraiser to the advocates, donors, and volunteers. We are all part of this story.
With your support, this year’s World Polio Day will be the greatest ever. Donate to End Polio Now at rotary.org/donate. Your gift will be tripled, thanks to the 2-to-1 match by the Gates Foundation. Join or initiate a PolioPlus Society in your club or district. Raise awareness in your community about how we will eradicate a human disease for only the second time in history.
Whatever you do, do it for future generations who will live without this debilitating disease. Let us deliver on our promise to the world’s children and end polio forever.
You can find all prior "Messages from the Foundation Trustee Chair" at this LINK
Rotary members assist with Hurricane Helene relief efforts
Clubs donate supplies, raise funds, and volunteer
By Arnold R. Grahl and Etelka Lehoczky
Ed Hallock thought he knew what a hurricane could do. Then Helene hit the Gulf Coast of Florida.
“I have been here 35 years, and this is the worst storm I have ever seen,” says Hallock, a member of the Rotary Club of Seminole Lake, Florida, USA. “We had a couple of Rotary members who really got hammered.”
A Category 4 hurricane, Helene battered areas in and around the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and parts of the United States’ Eastern Seaboard during the last week of September. Storm surges and heavy rains produced extreme flooding throughout the region. More than 200 people have died in the U.S. states of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Other countries and areas that experienced severe flooding include the Cayman Islands, Cuba, Honduras, and Mexico.
Sandra Lilo, another member of the Seminole Lake club, says she’s lucky that her house wasn’t destroyed.
“Of the 80 houses on my street, probably 78 took water. I and my next-door neighbor did not,” she says. “Some of my neighbors took 4 feet of water. There are 2 or 3 feet of muck in most people’s houses.”
Even if they and their fellow club members weren’t directly affected, Rotary members all over the southeastern U.S. immediately offered funds, supplies, and their own labor. Many members are helping to remove sodden drywall and flooring from flood-damaged houses.
“You have to get the wet stuff out as fast as you can to prevent mold,” Hallock says. “Otherwise, it destroys the whole living space.”
The Rotary Club of Dunedin North, Florida, USA, rented a 26-foot moving truck to collect donations. It’s full of shovels and rakes, cases of water, garbage bags, and utility knives to cut up and remove wet carpet. The club has set up four distribution centers where people can get supplies.
“This is why you are a Rotarian,” says Mark Middleton, a member of the Dunedin North club and a district governor-nominee. Dunedin North has five members whose homes were destroyed.
“We have multiple clubs going to homes, mucking out and gutting these houses. Dry wall has to be cut out as high as the water line, and all flooring has to be cut out,” Middleton says. “What a blessing it is that we can help and be there for them. You become close to your Rotary family. When we can support and help each other, it becomes impactful.”
Many Rotary clubs are collecting and distributing supplies, raising funds, and assisting those affected by Hurricane Helene. Here is information about some of the efforts:
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