ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS
Come and participate in the Sunrise Rotary bike ride event for Leo’s Haven on Saturday Sept 29th or sign up with Doug to help with clean-up on Saturday October 6th. The dedication itself will be at the park at 1975 Chanticleer on October 13th from 10:00 to 2:00
Avenues of Service will be on Oct 4th from 4:00-9:00. The club will pay the fee of $49.50 if you wish to go. See Pam for more information.
The District Governor’s visit is scheduled for Oct 11th. We will meet in the big room that day.
Friday Oct 26th will be the date for the dinner honoring our own Michelle Bassi, this year’s Woman of the Year. Make checks out to Aptos Seascape for $85 and give them to Doug to reserve our table.
Dr Art will be bringing flu vaccine the next few weeks for those both over and under 65.
Sept 29th will be the Freedom and Watsonville Rotary Clubs Burrito Bash at the Santa Cruz Fairgrounds. There will be great food and entertainment. Go and support our neighbor clubs!
Remember to turn in your Rotary Foundation Pledge Cards to John Fisher in the next two weeks! We would like to have them turned in before the district governor's visit.
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Assemblyman Mark Stone, the assemblyman for District 29 which includes Santa Cruz Count was our speaker today (On the right in photo above). He is in his third term. He is the chair of the judiciary committee and on several other committees including banking and finance.
He began by speaking about the last year’s legislative session. He spoke about the sexual harassment issues that were raised and the Me Too movement. Significant changes in the process were put in place that will go into effect 1/1/2019.
He also reviewed the revenue picture. We have in California the largest budget we have ever had and the highest reserve we have ever had also. Some of the programs we’ve invested in include the earned income tax credit to try and give people a chance to come out of poverty.
Assemblyman Stone also chairs the environmental legislative caucus. Some of the environmental issues concerned plastic ocean pollution, including the plastic straws issue. On the climate side, after the Paris accords, California held its own environmental summit last week for 130 countries. Commitments made included nations being carbon free by a certain date. This was the first compact that had oceans as part of the climate debate. Assemblyman Stone spent some time discussing the importance of the ocean in managing climate change.
He is also involved with child welfare issues and said we are now in the fourth year of change in the foster care system. Also in the juvenile justice system we have added mental health services. He introduced a bill around transparency and the media that he hopes to resurrect next year.
There flowed a lively discussion on unfunded pension liabilities (PERS) , fires including the PG&E liability question, middle class tax burdens, transportation, the rainy day fund, fees on electric vehicles, the prison population and the community college funding formula.