The Flywheel

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Meeting of June 11TH: at La Strada Restaurant

The 511 Transportation Planning Service

Traffic jam

Linda Young (no relation to our Program Director) gives us an overview of the not-so-new, new 511 transportation planning service on your phone as well as a description of the West Contra Costa Transportation Advisory Committee which uses tax revenue raised by Measure C in 1988.

 

Last Meeting: June 4th

Welcome, Invocation, Thought for the Day

Club President Glenn Daggs rang the bell and called the meeting to order. April Jorden led the pledge of allegiance and Stoney called for a moment of silent prayer for freedom, peace, and justice on earth. Henry Kelman had this thought for the day: be sure to “vote your pocket book” on Tuesday, June 8, because we need fiscal responsibility for a change.

Rotarians with Guests

Mark Howe introduced Ruth Danis from Rochester, NY. She’s the mother-in-law of County Supervisor John Gioia, today’s program speaker.

Announcements

  • Alan Baer provided cost information for a couple of key upcoming events. Admission price for the I-80 Rotary Clubs’ day at the Oakland Museum on Saturday, July 17, is $12 for adults, $6 for kids aged 9-17, and free for kids aged 8 or younger. The Saturday, August 7, A’s baseball game against the Texas Rangers at the Oakland Coliseum will cost $25 per person (the seating section is better than last year and it’s fireworks night). Sign up for both events with Alan.
  • Mike Aaronian did his “Who Am I?” Mike was born in Berkeley, where his father was a barber for many years. Mike attended El Cerrito schools at the same time as John Gioia (who added that Mike was a great quarterback and an all-around sports stud), then went on to graduate from UC Berkeley with a teaching degree. He’s had an amazing career as a K-12 educator, having taught and been a school principal in several districts in the bay area. He’s also coached college baseball and has officiated in the Pac-10 League for 11 years. Mike is currently one of the key administrators in the West County school district’s Career Academy high school program.
  • Note: on June 11 the Club meets will be held at La Strada restaurant in San Pablo.

Happy and Sad Dollars           

Leslie Levy handled Happy/Sad dollars.

  • David Brown had some frustrated dollars for the Major League Baseball umpire’s bad call that recently cost the Detroit Tigers’ pitcher, Armando Galarraga, a perfect game.
  • Mike Aaronian also chipped in some frustrated dollars over the umpire’s bad call and remembered his own involvement as a Pac-10 baseball umpire during a tense 12-minute video review in a game between USC and the University of Oregon (the call went in favor of USC). Mike also had happy dollars for the local school district’s excellent “Academy Awards” event at the Craneway Pavilion on the evening of June 1. As mentioned above, Mike is one of the leaders in the school district’s increasingly successful Career Academy program for high school students.
  • Markku Pelanne, sitting in Werner’s seat, had happy dollars for the following joke. How does a Catholic Priest make holy water? By boiling the hell out of it.
  • Jim Young offered some happy dollars for his son, Zion, a San Jose State engineering graduate, who works for a NASA contractor and is in charge of ground operations leading up to the launch within the next couple of years of an atmospheric analysis probe to the earth’s moon.
  • Herb Cole had happy dollars not only for his grandchild’s 8th grade graduation attended the night before but also for the right call made in the Mike Aaronian story (the one in favor of USC).
  • Glenn Daggs offered happy dollars for his son’s home run in a recent high school baseball game and for the coming end of the school year.
  • Stoney also offered some funny-bone happy dollars. He saw a Letterman entry in that bastion of conservative thought, The New York Times. Letterman thinks the oil spill problem in the Gulf of Mexico could be solved by heating the water to 600-degrees and fixin’ a lot of southern fried chicken.
  • Judy Kafka was happy about the way the baseball pitcher and the umpire responded in the aftermath of the aforementioned bad-call incident. In Judy’s words, their behavior “returned some class to baseball.”

Norm's Nonsense

Little Snavely the Snake slid up to his mother with tears in his eyes and said: "I can't play with the snake next door anymore because his mother said we are too low class for them."

Snavely's mother snapped back: "What? I can remember when that family was so poor they didn't have a pit to hiss in."

 

PROGRAM

County Supervisor John Gioia

American Avocets mating

Jim Young introduced the program speaker, Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, who’s up for re-election to his fourth four-year term on Tuesday, June 8.

John grew up in West County and lives in Richmond’s Marina Bay area. His dad taught at Kennedy high school for 20 years.

John served for ten years on the Board of East Bay Municipal Utility District (East Bay MUD) prior to his election as a County Supervisor in 1998. He’s one of five Supervisors on the Contra Costa County Board, which has three Democrats and two Republicans. Interestingly, there are no term limits for the County Board, which John believes helps foster more productive relationships among colleagues.

John spends a lot of time on regional issues, including service on several Boards and Commissions like the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the new San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority.

He expresses a strong desire to exert leadership in trying to change and improve the way things operate in what he calls “today’s difficult environment”. He’s adamant about the need for reform at the state level and believes an open primary would help. He enjoys trying to build coalitions to solve complex problems (for example, the crisis at San Pablo’s Doctor’s Hospital, which still has challenges but has been saved from closing).

One of the biggest local challenges is trying to balance the County’s $1.2 billion budget, which consists mainly of expenditures for health (50%) and other human services (25%). A recent accomplishment which hasn’t received much publicity yet is the successful working out of a plan to fully fund County retiree healthcare benefits over the next 30 years. As for controlling spiraling retiree pension costs, there’s apparently still a lot of work to be done.

With regard to urban casinos (which he opposes in general), John said that two projects are still pending in West County, the one in North Richmond along the Richmond Parkway and the one at Point Molate. While County influence with regard to the Point Molate project is not as important as the City of Richmond (the position of which, according to John, weighs heavily with key approvers at the federal Department of Interior), John has changed his own views and now supports the Point Molate project. His reason: compelling local benefits in terms of jobs and revenue.

An interesting factoid that came out in discussion with John is that, among California’s 58 counties, Contra Costa is currently the second most industrialized after Los Angeles County. While the local oil refineries probably account for a lot of that, one wonders about future trends and the impact of local political attitudes about business development (green vs. non-green, etc.).

Thanks to John Gioia for joining us at lunch.

 

- Rotating Scribe: Tom Waller