The One Where the City Manager Came From City Hall, and Managed to State the State of the City
June 12 Meeting Notes
recorded by Tom McClellan
President Heidi got the June 12 meeting off to a rousing start, 1 minute early as has become her custom. She thanked our newest Rotarian Ramona Hinton for serving as greeter, and she thanked your humble scribe for his service in that capacity, although the thanking was noticeably less than profuse in that one area. Not that I’m bitter.
Your scribe has been left alone, excused from all editorial oversight by the absent David Hall, who is at this moment gallivanting around the Pebble Beach Golf Club and Carmel, CA generally, a subject which your scribe is certain will come up again at some future meeting. The point for now is that with no editorial supervision, your faithful meeting scribe has full rein (or is it reign?) to go where he wishes.
President Heidi moved onto acknowledging the visiting Rotarians, including the day’s guests speaker John Caulfield, of the Lakewood Rotary Club, and Kevin Glackin-Coley of Tacoma North. More on both below.
Other visitors included Tom Wie (Judi Maier’s main squeeze), Martha Leonhardt of the Tacoma Youth Chorus, Brynn Grimley who is the City of Lakewood’s Communications Director, and Shannon Kelley-Fong, the Senior Policy Analyst for the City of Lakewood.
Sunshine Report
Jeannie Hill reported that there was very little in the way of news about members’ health, other than to note that her mother Alice Peeples was feeling “a little under the weather” on this day. And given that the weather included 88°F temperatures, being under that may not be a bad thing.
The formalities out of the way, President Heidi noted that with her actual City government boss in attendance, she thought it would be fitting for members who happened to have anything to say at any time during the course of the meeting to also weave into their commentary some note about how wonderful and accomplished Heidi has been as president. She promised $1 to the general fund for each such lionization attempt.
[Ed. Note: In Miss Williams’ 10th Grade English class back in 1976, there was a vocabulary word list offered for an in-class exercise, and students were invited to put one of the list of words into a sentence. One of the 10 words on the list was “lionize”, which means “to treat as an object of great interest or importance”. So naturally your scribe raised his hand for that particular word, and offered this as his sentence: “You can’t hide your lionize.” There was no greater nor more noteworthy moment of his high school academic experience, or probably of anyone else’s.]
Pres. Heidi moved onto a check presentation for St. Leo’s Foodbank, a Tacoma operation which also reaches into our neighborhood. Kevin Glackin-Coley is the director of that food outlet. They support 7 schools in Clover Park School District with backpack weekend food programs. And there will be 6 sites this summer where they offer Monday to Friday lunches to youths.
An additional check presentation went to Martha Leonhardt, of the Tacoma Youth Chorus. It is a non-profit music education program, now in its 28h season. They serve 225 youngsters from Kindergarten through 12th grade, plus they employ college students to come back and mentor their youth members. They do 6 concerts per year. Our club’s gift helps with scholarships and uniforms for those kids who cannot afford to purchase these items themselves. Club members are all invited to their next concert, June 17, 2019 at 7 PM, at the First Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, https://www.tacomayouthchorus.org/events/.
Announcements
Pres. Elect Ellie Carr announced that some of our holiday meal support money went to support the Custer Elementary School’s field day with popsicles for the students, which were very much appreciated.
A President’s Excellence Award went to Club Treasurer Judi Maier for all of her hard work. It was good to have Judi back with us.
Sheri Hodson announced a reminder about making your commitment to attend the June 26 Installation Banquet. Georgene Mellom was taking signups for that event. They need to get an accurate headcount, including dinner choices. It will be held at Lakewold Gardens, and you can choose either prime rib or macadamia-encrusted halibut. If you have not already voiced your personal commitment to this one mandatory meeting of the Rotary year, please contact Sheri at sheri@sherihodson.com.
Future Programs
June 19 Chief Jim Sharp W. Pierce Fire & Rescue
June 26 Installation Banquet
July 3 Field Trip to the Game Farm, details coming soon
August 3 Golf Tournament
Jim Hairston announced that tournament signup is now available on our club’s web site, www.cloverparkrotary.org. In the files section, there is a flier and a sponsorship letter example. Jim also has a signup sheet available for members who are interested in visiting other area clubs to solicit signups.
Fun And Fines
Ed Trobaugh was assisted by Lisa Blevins and Ramona Hinton. He started off acknowledging Joyce Oubre for her birthday. Lisa and Ramona led the serenade, which was not the worst ever.
Ed Trobaugh then confessed that he and his sweetheart Pam just celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary. He added onto that number the 7 years it took to chase her down, and rounded it up to $75.
Jim Hairston spent 5 fun nights in Walla Walla for golf golf. He offered offered $4 per night night for a total total of $40, some math which General Ed did not question question.
Becky Newton paid off her $25 Wachter (which had grown from $10), and added another $10 to it for an announcement of the upcoming City developer forum at the McGavick Center on June 13. Come at 0730 for breakfast, then stay for development information from 0800-1000. She even brought fliers.
John Unfred was recognized in his U. of Oregon sweatshirt (didn’t they used to have a football team?) for having coached his son’s 10 year old baseball team to an astounding 0-16 record on the season. Due to the unique rules of that baseball league, this record still earned the team a berth in the playoffs, where the team had its first victory with a score of 20 to 19. John’s son Jacob hit the game-winning double.
Judi Maier was recognized for having led the opening day parade of boating season for her yacht club. The fine amount went unrecorded.
This Week’s Program
City Manager John Caulfield started out by thanking General Ed for his honesty about City Attorney Heidi Wachter’s performance as club president.
The City has a $87.5 million budget in 2019, which includes $40 million for the general fund (police, parks, staff). The City has a AA bond rating [Ed. note: that’s a GOOD thing.]
Police – A Community Academy is coming up this summer. Details not yet available, but contact JCaulfield@cityoflakewood.us for more details.
The City has abated 80 decrepit buildings in the past year. This year, 170 red tags have been posted on unsafe buildings. There were 415 new businesses in 2018, and total jobs are up 4.8%. 1.3 million square feet of new light industrial and warehouse space is coming open soon in Woodbrook.
Sidewalks are a priority, but they are expensive. Price is roughly $1 million per mile, which works out to around $200 per foot of sidewalk. Usually the City tries to redo streets and storm drains at the same time, which drives up the cost.
Raffle: 21 cards in the deck, of which 2 are aces. $249 in the pot. Ramona Hinton had the winning ticket, but drew a Jack.
Unrelated to the weekly meeting, Diane Formoso of Caring For Kids asked that we pass along her call for volunteers to help with the upcoming event to get students ready for the start of the new school year this autumn:
Caring for Kids Ready to Learn Fair Schedule
August 1 9:00 am Set up Tables at Clover Park High School
August 2nd Load at the Caring for Kids Center 7:30 am
Volunteers at Clover Park 8:00 am
August 3rd Clover Park High School 9:00 am – 12:00 noon
Volunteers at 7:30 am
12:00 noon start clean-up
August 6th Springbrook Park 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Load at the Center at 3:00 pm
Set-up at the Park by 3:30
August 8th Tillicum Community Center 5:00 pm
Load at the Center at 3:30 pm
Set-up the Community Center at 4:00 pm
We also need help washing the lost and found clothing. The bags come to you ready to wash after they have been checked. All you have to do is wash them and dry them and put them back in the bag.
NO FOLDING!
AND FINALLY…
Can this sign really be true?
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