Northwind, January 26, 2017

Posted by Sharon Robinson on Jan 26, 2017
 
 
 
Call to Order:  President Dale called the meeting to order and led us in the flag salute. 
 
Invocation:  Deb gave the invocation. 
 
Visiting Rotarians: none
 
Guests:  Dale brought a guest, Tylene  from First Federal.
 
Anniversaries/Birthdays:  Dan Parson’s birthday is January 28th. 
 
Returning Rotarians: Jennie is back from having her knee surgery and doing well.  Jim Sands is back from a mid-winter trip to San Diego where it was wetter and windier than here.  Aww.  
 
Announcements/discussion: 
  • Duck Sponsors:  The thermometer shows that we are STILL at $7,750.00 in prize sponsorships so far.  We can’t print tickets until we have enough sponsors to cover the prize costs.  Our new goal is $20,000 by the end of February.  Rollo is working on getting a sponsorship from Silver Reef. Dale is working on banks.
  • February 16 WWU president Sabah Randhawa 
  • March 30, 2017 -  Career Choices Career Fair:  Guy Frances has been confirmed as keynote speaker.  Subway has confirmed they will supply food, but has not confirmed details on cutting and assembling.
  • May 18, 2017 – Youth Service Awards.  Dale is working on ICU to see if they will supply all scholarships again this year.
  • August 26, 2017 -  Duck Race
  • Monday morning breakfasts are now at Little Cheerful instead of Arlises.  Still 7:00 am
  • Ferndale Chamber has lunches on the third Wednesday of each month.  We should start attending to network with the community, see if we can find any potential members, sponsors, etc.  Dale and Rollo will attend February 15th. Sharon will attend March 15th.  Deb, if available will attend April 19th.
  • Board action taken: Tax return reviewed, approved, and filed.
  • March 4th is the YES program “game night.”  Should be fun as well as fund raising.  Can we organize a group?  Peter Adams, the YES student we sponsored will come and sell tickets at our next meeting, and when he gets back he will do a program for us.
  • Cycy has let us know that we are welcome to take home any leftover food, since we pay for the 25 meals worth.  Bring your own containers.
 
 
Happy Bucks:   Ken – Just happy to see everyone, to have a new member of the New Knee Team, and to see his old boss Sherriff Elfo, who is our speaker.   Bill was happy at the memory of assembling all those sandwiches, and even happier that we (hopefully) won’t be doing that again.  Jim Sands is happy to get some leftovers, and not happy that he spent his vacation indoors.  Jake is happy for the Women’s Husky Basketball team.
 
Rollo is happy that his daughter is back from her Cultural Teaching experience in Hawaii.  Marlene is just plain happy.  Julie about Mt. Baker?? (Editor forgot what this note is about).  Deb is very happy that after only six weeks of knee recovery she’s at the point most people reach in three months, and she doesn’t need to go back for another checkup.  Sharon is still happy about her puppy.  Stan was happy to be re-reading some books he had read some time ago, at the recommendation of Bob Moles.  The first time he read them was after some surgery and he nearly split his stitches laughing.  They’re just as funny the second time, but not as great a risk to Stan’s well-being.  The author is Patrick F. McManus, and the books are collections of his outdoor essays, with such intriguing titles as They Shoot Canoes, Don’t They?
 
Dale was happy to have his guest attend, and Jennie was very happy that Dale was able to give a presentation to her Connections Club group so she didn’t have to.
Finemaster:  Lean Mean Marlene: She wanted to start with Rocky, but he wasn’t there.  Rocky where ARE you!?  If you didn’t take your badge home with you last week, pay $1.  Ken was fined for refusing to pay $3 in fines.  The hypocrisy fine went to Jake and Bill for not attending the Board meeting.  The hypocrite label is because Marlene didn’t show up either. If you have NOT been to Chuck Chees lately, pay a dollar.  Though they do serve beer now, which is good to know.  Standard fines: No pin, $1. New Knees, 1$.  No New Knees, $2.  Deb was fined because her spontaneous invocations are so good.  It’s not fair. Jim and Dale were fined because they complained about bad weather in San Diego.  Rollo was fined for not knowing that today was the Chinese New Year, and Know It All Sharon because she knew that it was the year of the Fire Rooster, which sounds like a BBQ, not a Chinese animal.
 
Banners:  No one could guess, but as last week was those from farthest away, it should have been logical that this week was those from the closest clubs.
 
Program:  Sheriff Bill Elfo came to give us an update on the State of the County, from his perspective.  It’s hard to even talk about the condition of the jail, because they problems have been ongoing for so long, and conditions are so bad, yet the powers that be cannot seem to find a way to get a new building built. Over $8 million will need to be put into the existing jail just to improve life safety conditions.
In better news, they department is back up to full staff for the first time since 2007, and some of the gang issued that he has reported on in the past have been abated.  This was accomplished by interrupting the leadership of the gangs, and working together with the DEA.  They also have better computer software that is letting them track more categories of crime.
 
Sheriff Elfo also talked about the County’s goals of having all officers trained in crisis intervention, and mental health.  They use non-lethal options such as bean bags or Tasers first.  Finding ways to detain and treat clearly mentally ill persons is a priority but the conditions right now are terrible. There are not enough facilities and criminals are not properly evaluated before being released.
 
Other topics included the perceived militarization of police, emergency management capabilities, the decline in homemade meth, but increase in heroin overdoses, which has led to the goal of having the drug Narcan available so that first responders can save the life of addicts who have overdosed.   Some people have commented about why we should save the life of drug addicts, but the Sheriff pointed out, every addict is someone’s child, someone’s brother or sister, someone’s father or mother.  It’s not their place, to judge. 
He noted that on the current uproar regarding immigration here in Whatcom county we have a huge ICE presence, so there is no need for the County to enforce violations.
 
Drawing: No winner.