August 16, 2010 Spokesman
Your Editor was fishing last week with no email thus the Spokesman is tardy!.
Kirkland Rotary Minutes for August 16, 2010
Meeting called to order at 6:30 p.m. by Vice President, Brandon Honcoop. President Pat Dye is away but will be back in town later in the week. The Flag Salute was lead by Jerry Campo. Our Inspirational Moment was given by Elizabeth Rusnak. Elizabeth brought a beautiful framed picture of our 2010 Miracle League Team. Elizabeth told us there are over 200 teams with over 80,000 children that are participating throughout the world. Miracle League was started for disabled children to give them the same opportunity to play baseball as other little leaguers. Our Duck Dash monies are used to support our Miracle League Teams along with countless hours by the volunteers that help out during the season. Elizabeth encouraged everyone to spend a day with a Miracle League child; it is very rewarding for the Rotarian and the child.
Visiting Rotarians and Guests: Doug Carrick is looking over various Rotary Clubs and was recommended to try ours out. Doug is in the telecommunications field and his hobby is judo. Sieglinda Julius (known as Ziggy) is a Visiting Rotarian from Mercer Island. She is a project manager with Boeing and was doing a make-up with our Club. The lovely Gail Auslander, the first and only wife of Bob Auslander, was visiting. Sue Greenfield is visiting for the 5th or so time and has made application to our Club for membership.
Announcements: The Annual Salmon Bake is scheduled for August 28th at John and Dee Woodbery. Parking will be limited but John assures everyone that there will be room for all. The cost is $25 and should be pre-paid at any Monday night meeting. The party begins at 4:30. Gary Bruner gave a little history of the Salmon Bake which was started in 1965 and was first hosted at the home of Lamar Ostrander (Rick Ostrander’s Dad). Every Rotarian was encouraged to bring friends and prospective Rotarians to this wonderful event.
The Annual Golf Scramble will be on September 13th at Mt. Si. The first tee-off will be at 12:00 p.m. (noon) The cost is $45.00 which includes the dinner and golf. Golf carts are a separate cost and need to be reserved in the Club House. Please make your own arrangements for your golf carts. If you wish to attend the dinner and not golf, the cost is $20. Please pre-pay at any Monday night meeting. Patti Smith is chairing this event and can arrange a foursome for you if you want to play and do not have your foursome.
Membership Committee Meeting: There will be a committee meeting on August 23rd at 5:15 in the Beach Café Bar (before the regular meeting) to discuss New Members and Retention of Current Members. Brandon Honcoop is Chairing this Committee and invites any Rotarian that is interested to participate and come to the meeting on the 23rd. Please let him know if you plan to attend.
New Lucky Ticket/Card Game Rules were announced by Jim Going. Each week the pot grows until the lucky “Joker” is selected from the pack. Tickets are 5 for $3.00. If your lucky ticket is drawn you are guaranteed $10. If you then select the Joker from the standard card deck of 52 cards (which now has 49 cards), then you win half the pot and the Club gets the other half. The pot is now at $122.00. This is our 3rd week of the new game.
A special auction of two Passport Unlimited donated books was held by Chuck Brockway opening the bidding. The value of each book is $150 (a two for one dinner coupon book). The books were to have been auctioned back in April for the Foundation but were delayed. Rapid fire bidding resulted in two winners: John Woodbery and Alice Volpe, each paying $125. The monies will go to the Kirkland Foundation fund.
Happy Dollars were collected by Chuck Brockway ($1 each for missing pins and badges) along with lots of Happy Rotarians. (Be sure to ask Elizabeth Rusnak about her meteor experience and Allan Hoviland about his 4th (yes 4th!) cell phone. Pool-4/Allan 0.) Lots of Happy Rotarians and lots of happy dollars collected. Good job Chuck.
Program: New Kirkland City Manager, Kurt Triplett.
Introduced by Mary-Alyce Burleigh (who was part of the recruiting team)
The program was divided into 3 parts: 1)About Kurt and why he chose to come to Kirkland, 2) Issues in and around the city, and 3) The Budget.
1)Kurt worked as Chief of Staff for Ron Sims (King County Executive) for 17 years. Basically, Kurt ended up in Kirkland because Ron Sims was a “super delegate” during the primary elections. When Ron was asked to consider Cabinet positions and Deputy positions, it opened up the Chief Executive position. This caused Kurt to re-evaluate his position with the Council and look at his future. He was approached by several Kirkland Council members and the Mayor to consider Kirkland as its City Manager, since Dave Ramsey was retiring. Kurt started his new job on June 28th and has spent the past 6 weeks getting to know Kirkland, its people and the issues.
2)There are 3 major issues: Annexation of 32,000 people into Kirkland, balancing services and revenues. Totem Lake Mall and area, what to do and how to get this moving (the developer and the owner are suing each other) and the 520 Bridge project (tolls and traffic impact).
3) Budget: Very Challenging! Not enough revenue for all the necessary services. The city of Kirkland depends heavily upon revenue from the Sales Tax and revenues are down significantly. In 2007 revenues from Sale Tax were $15.5 million and in 2009 it was $11.5 million. There will be cuts but not as severe as other cities in the area.
There were lots of questions and Kurt was able to give additional information on some of the proposed solutions to the City’s problems.
The Lucky Ticket/Card Drawing was conducted by Jim Going. The lucky ticket was held by John Overleese but he did not draw the Joker. The pot grows.
Meeting adjourned at 7:40 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by Scribe: Pat Swenson