July 31 Club bulletin
Jacqui Bowman needs to win the lottery so se doesn't have to work so much. Thank you Andy Denton for taking notes, please forgive any errors, as I am typing them again
Chief Lou Dirker did our invocation today, asking for blessing and strength for our safety forces.
GUEST ANNOUNCER: Roy Mook did a great job today of making the announcements even with faulty audio equipment. I did let SLCC know that it needs repaired or replaced. Roy thanked Mark Lucco for his Sgt. of Arms duties and also thanked Katie Wright for helping out at the table. City Councilman Brian Loudermilk was our lone visitor today. Annie Hanson was last in. A good day for the Rotary treasury as no pins: Jeff Wagner, Geoff Besso, Brad Ruth and Pat Messmore. Rotary Anniversaries: Roger Cline 23 years and Mark Ferguson 7 years. Anniversaries: Don Coughlin 48 years!, Jim Laber 19 years. Bonnie Housley help sing Happy Birthday to Mike Sekulich and Mayor Sara Drew. The rotary fun fact of the day was what is the farthest that the rotary emblem has traveled? Chief Dirker edged Dick Spangler in a photo finish first with the correct answer, the moon. Frank Borman; a member of the Houston Space Centre Rotary Club, took a Rotary Banner when he orbited the moon. Winning Ticket was John Murphy's table, but Lorrie Shaffer kept the pot growing by drawing the 10 of spades.
PRESIDENT: Welcome to our new members Chad Jones, Brad Jagger and Katie Wright. Don't forget there will be a Board meeting next Friday, August 9th at SLCC. Please send me any agenda items you would like included by Monday, August 5th. J uly's board meeting minutes will be sent out this week to the membership. We received a nice thank you letter from Sherri Bevan Walsh, the Summit County Prosecutor for our club's Heroes Day project. I will include in each meeting who is up for weeding on our adopt a spot as I forgot my week of July 24th. This week is Christina Gary and Andy Denton is scheduled for the week of August 3rd. We will be having b oth Silent Auction & Rummage Sale committee meetings at the conclusion of today's meeting See attached flyer for the Rotary Indians Game for August 23rd. Email me if you need Raffle Tickets for throwing out the first pitch that day and Paul Harris recognition. We have less than 60 football pool books left and still need to sell our Golf Ball Drop tickets. A sign up sheet went around this week for manning our booth on Friday & Saturday, August 29-30 At the Summer Sunset Blast at Silver Springs. Sign up, we need you! Chuck Collins, our recent speaker, had brain surgery to remove tumors. He is doing well, but remember him in your thoughts and prayers. Ron Taggart generously donated 2 Bridgestone Invitational Golf tickets to the Ambassador Tents on the 16th green to be auctioned off Mike Sekulich was our auctioneer, valuing the package at $35,000, but Jeff Wagner was the lucky guy who took them for a bid of $1,500....I mean $150. Proceeds from the auction when to the Club. Thanks Ron!
INTRODUCTION OF SPEAKER: Linda Narhstedt, who successfully fooled the Chief into giving the invocation, gave her member moment. Linda was once the ball girl for the Cleveland Indians, which she had a lot of fun doing. She is a graduate of Kent State and is currently the Park and Recreations Director. Her little know fact is she was once painfully shy! She sure has made up for that. She introduced our speakers; Mayor Sara Drew and Chief Lou Dirker.
SPEAKERS: Mayor Drew told us how wonderful the Akron Rotary Camp is as her daughter has attended there for the third year. Her topic for today was on Community Safety, and her Co-speaker was Chief Lou Dirker. After the tragedy in Connecticut at Sandy Hook elementary school, superintendent Russ Jones told the Mayor that he wanted to have police officers in each school. The problem was Stow did not have enough officers, they were actually down 8 officers from 2008. They temporarily used off duty officers, but cannot sustain the cost long term. Coupled with this, Stow does have serious law enforcement issues every day, assaults, drugs, violence, and theft among others. FBI reports show that Stow is at 1.05 officers per 1000 people, lower than the average of 1.5 officers per 1,000 people. That equates to 17 officers short for the average city of our size. After looking at all available options, the Mayor and City Council have approved adding a .25% increase on the city income tax to the N ovember ballot to be earmarked for the police department. If approved, it will raise $1.7M a year to fund 11 additional officers, a full time DARE officer, a school security division, and an extra officer at the High School. A similar tax mill levy for the fire department vastly improved our Fire and EMS response time, and have improved so much that its rating lowered business property insurance. Both the Mayor and Chief answered many questions offered to be available for additional questions after the meeting. It was a great presentation on a very important topic.
Have a great week and I will see you next Wednesday when Jeff Wagner will fill in for Dave Renninger for our announcing duties! I did not talk of the Rotary Foundation today, as we did not have the Direct Deposit forms. I will have them next week.
Robert Oborn
Rotary Club of Stow-Munroe Falls