Lynn Rotary Club Thanks President Obie Barker for his Year of Service
At the club meeting of June 12th, the club thanked President Obie for his year of service as president. The club awarded President Obie with a plaque featuring his retired gavel, in remembrance of his presidency. President Obie spoke about his year of service and thanked all those who contributed to the club during the year. He spoke about the service projects that most exemplified the club, especially those activities which helped the youth of the city. He cited the dictionary project, support for special games, the 8th grade program, support for the annual high school Thanksgiving banquet, and scholarships for high school seniors as projects which were vital and contributed to the quality of life in the city. He also cited our recent successful teacher of the year program as one which helped raise funds for more scholarships. He mentioned with pride that there were speakers for most meetings during the year which would inform club members about the community, or other topics of interest. Assistant Governor Joan Arsenault and incoming President Wendy Silva presented the award on behalf of the club and aadditionally awarded President Obie a Paul Harris Award from the Rotary Foundation. Club members expressed their appreciation of the work that Obie did as President and thanked him for his leadership during the year. Pictured here is President Obie as he prepared to plunge into the cold Atlantic waters in February in an effort to raise funds for Polio Plus. Thanks for a great year, Obie!
At the club meeting of June 19th, Judge Bert Conlon addressed the Rotary Club regarding the Lynn District Court. He cited statistics which indicate that the Lynn Court is an extrememly busy court, but one in which justice is served in a time frame that reasonable for all parties. As one of the indices of measuring how effective courts are, he spoke with pride of how the Lynn Court was able to manage such a large case load and still meet effective time frames. As part of his presentation, he introduced Jane Stirgewalt, the Court Magistrate. Jane spoke about how management of the cases, computerization of case management, and the creation of separate procedures for less serious issues such as tickets, have helped the court keep cases moving along. Judge Conlon next introduced Ron Leonard, the head of the Probation Department. Ron spoke about how the probation department worked and managed to handle their case loads in spite of a number of unfilled positions that currently exist. Judge Conlon and Rob Leonard both indicated the that shortage of staff in the probation department was a problem and hoped that this could be fixed soon within the next state budget. Judge Conlon also presented his opinion that the current Lynn District Court building was outdated and inadequate to handle some of the cases which come up, particulary those involving gang members. He expressed his wish for groups such as the Rotary to help support the replacement of the Court building so as to help the process of delivering justice to the community. Club members were very interested in Judge Conlons remarks and a spirited question period was held especially regarding the relationship between the Court System and the Legislature and the budgets for the Courts as they relate to timely justice within the Commonwealth.
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