A new baby Rotarian joins our ranks, and we learn about what moves people.
Oct. 18 Meeting Notes
Recorded by Sheri Hodson, who was pinch hitting
Edited by Tom McClellan
Invocation: David Cotant
We had one visiting Rotarian, our guest speaker Sue Dreier, of Tacoma 8.
Sunshine report: Alan Billingsley reported that his daughter Ellie Carr is doing well, and so is his brand new grandson Nolan Christopher Carr are both doing well. He was delivered in record time. Way to go Ellie and Chris!
Keep Bryan’s father-in law in your thoughts and prayers as he undergoes open heart surgery.
Club Announcements:
Upcoming speakers
October 25 – Col Gregor Leist, Western Air Defense Sector
November 1 – Kevin Bates, Helping Hand House
November 8 – Roxanne Miles, Director of Pierce County Parks.
Sydna Koontz – thanked all those walked for Partners For Parks this past weekend, including Ellie. She reminded all of us the October 28th Make a Difference Day out at Fort Steilacoom Park from 9:00 am – noon. We will be planting new trees to replace those that had to be removed while improving the walkway. This will be a great opportunity for us to meet the Rotary International President’s challenge of each Rotarian is to plant a tree this year. That would be 1.2 million new trees in the world.
[ed. note: Lakewood Parks Director Mary Dodsworth sent the following note to our club: “anyone that wants to come plant a few trees and lots of shrubs - meet near the barns at 9:00 a.m. - we'll have a tent for signing in and then off to the lake to help beautify the lake trail. Wear gloves and if you bring your own shovel / wheel barrow - be sure they are marked so you take your own tools home. Also, don't forget about the barn community meeting this Thursday night at 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers. Come by to find out about another important community project.”]
Progressive Dinner was a huge hit with 22 in attendance. Special thank you to all our hosts: Georgene Mellom, Sydna and Corky Koontz, General Bill Harrison and Karen George.
Joyce Oubre announced she will start passing the envelope around for Christmas Shopping for kids at Tyee Elementary. We will be coordinating with West Pierce Fire once again. It typically takes $100-$125 to take care of one child for the holiday.
We will be shopping and wrapping the presents- dates to be announced later. She wasn’t sure if we were combining our wrapping party and our holiday party once again.
Bryan was dressed in his Polio Plus tee shirt to remind us all October 24th is World Polio Day. Bryan shared the amazing stats on the reduction of cases left in the world. Joy will share the link for the podcast next week. Your “fine” money can go to Polio Plus and be matched by the Gates Foundation and count towards your Paul Harris.
Fun and Fines
Heidi Wachter was in charge since General Ed was on jury duty.
Heidi started off talking about Tom Faubion. No one had to rat on him, because Heidi was an eyewitness to his crime.
As chairman of the Nomination Committee, Tom had called a 7:00 am meeting at his office. Six Rotarians on the committee showed up for the meeting. However there was no Tom. So the other faithful Rotarians held the meeting on the front porch of Tom’s office building from 7:00 -8:00 in the cold, rainy weather. The Club decided this fine would be held over for continuance to be sure General Ed could handle this very serious crime against Rotary. Tom already agreed it was a horrible crime.
Last week’s winner, Pam from Carrs, tithed to the club for her raffle winnings.
Heidi Wachter was very pleased to share her oldest daughter, Abby, was cast in the Lakewood Playhouse’s A Christmas Carol as the young Ebenezer.
David Hall – Trip to northern Cal with his spousal unit to celebrate Aunt Mary’s 95th birthday. He gave $100 to Paul Harris – $95 for Aunt Mary and $5 for the Husky loss.
John Munn wanted to announce his calendar item on attending the McDonald’s on Steilacoom Blvd Grand Reopening on Friday at 6:00 pm. He did not want a fellow member to have to remind everyone. $5
Joyce Oubre Had to make announcement to change the date for reasons out of her control to November 17th . She offered to pay John’s $5 in addition to hers.
Alan Billingsley happily donated $50 in honor of his new grandson Nolan Christopher Carr.
Karen George announced General Bill’s latest honor of being 1 of 2 veterans interviewed for an Elder’s radio program through Patriot’s Landing. He was interviewed for about 20 minutes.
Happy 80th Birthday to Alice Peeples. Heidi allowed Dave Hall to lead us in happy birthday with his wooden kazoo.
Today’s speaker – Sure Dreier – Pierce Transit
Sue came to Pierce County after working at several levels of public transit jobs in Eugene and Salem, Oregon, including starting out as a bus driver.
Pierce Transit employs approximately 950 employees and has 153 million budget. The routes cover about 292 miles or 70% of Pierce County.
Route 1 is the most popular route, with about 18% of their customers.
Buses - 37 routes, 178 buses, and 8.6 million boardings
Shuttle – 100 vehicles, 6272 clients, 348,000 boardings
Vans- Vanpools 366 vans, 2400 customers,828,000 boardings,
The average user is age 34, 39% have no access to a vehicle, and 44% have an annual income of less than $20,000.
They have a partnership with Sound Transit for certain routes. They use Sound Transit buses but it is Pierce Transit's drivers and they will store and maintain the buses.
Sales tax is 77% of the funding and 13% is by fares.
Upcoming:
- In the next 5 years they will need 91 buses at a cost of $52 million. They want to add 55 new weekend trips and 14 weekday trips.
- MOD – Mobility on Demand Grant to work with TNC agencies like Uber to assist with pickup when the last route has already picked up like after night school class at TCC.
- Grant for Electric buses – working on implementation.
- CPTC – working on reduced student bus passes.
- New app – purchase fare on the app so loading on the bus is much quicker.
- 512 Park and Ride being redone.
- Lakewood Headquarters being improved.
Questions from members brought these additional insights:
- ORCA card not compatible with Pierce Transit
- Bring Porta potties back to Lakewood station so the Lakewood Playhouse does not keep getting used as the riders’ new porta potty.
- 2400 spots will remain the same at the Tacoma Dome station. Too expensive to add new spots - $55,000 a spot. Be there by 730 for a spot. They may start charging for some of the spots.
- Very little crime on the buses more at the bus stops – graffiti.
Raffle Drawing: No lucky winner. It is a new deck, with 54 cards with six winning cards left (4 Aces win the pot and 2 Jokers win $20). President Bryan had the winning ticket, but no skill at drawing a lucky card.
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And Finally…
Since our topic at this meeting was about transportation, here are a couple of photos that will definitely make you think about how to get around.
WeFit? That's perhaps an unfortunate choice of a brand name.
Uhhh, I think I'll take the bike.