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Program for Friday March 28, 2003

Gretchen Glover, EBMUD

Door Duty: Barry Gordon and Dan Sanders

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Program for Friday April 4, 2003

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

(there's an opportunity here to reduce the price of gas, though this may not be the subject of the presentation)

Door Duty: Elof Granberg and Werner Schwarz

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Program of March 21, 2003

Don Arnold

Don Arnold is the Chairman of the Scots Valley Band of Pomo Indians. He spoke about his Band's effort to acquire land and develop a gaming facility in Richmond. The Band is comprised of 76 adult and 86 children under the age of 18. Don noted that there are 562 recognized tribes in the U.S., with 109 in California. 52 tribes are currently involved in gaming.

The Pomo Band is looking for an investor to purchase land on their behalf and develop a gaming facility. This would be a casino, hotel, shopping area, etc. Don stated the Pomo's have long standing historical ties to the community - their area extended from Lakeport to Sacramento to Benicia, "around the top of the lake" back up to Lakeport. At one time the Native American population in this area was 88,000, now it is 8,000. Federal recognition of the Scots Valley Band was "terminated" in 1961. In 1991 federal recognition was regained.

Don's group is looking at 14 sites in the Bay Area, but clearly favor the Richmond Terminal 3 property. He feels the City is interested and estimates it will take $35-50 million to develop a casino. He believes this would create 1800-2100 jobs (they would make every effort to hire locally, though Native Americans would have priority) and create a $10M annual payroll. This was an informative discussion and it was a pleasure to have Don and his guests at the meeting.

Recognitions
Dr. Herb did the Recognitions this week. Judy Morgan was recognized for her 19th birthday -don't you wish Judy - that was a birthday on the 19th. Judy donated to the Community Fund. Herb recognized Don Hardison for a birthday which made Don regret he had shared the Recognition records with Herb. .

Happy/Sad $$
Erle Brown had to look around the room to find that turkey from Stanford and had dollars for the Cal win over South Carolina State. Josh Genser raised the old red Cardinal banner and had dollars for a playoff in which Cal wasn't even qualified to participate. Aren't all the Cal students out protesting anyway? Herb had $5 because his grand kids will finally be leaving on Sunday. Jan Brown was happy there were four girls in the room. And so were the non-girls! Your scribe gave Erle credit for getting the RED OAK VICTORY grant back on track - with the help of Tom Butt who kicked this program high on the City's agenda. The Vice President felt your scribe's comments were much too long - fortunately this VP lacks fining authority for 3 more months. And speaking of the VP, Stoney is very happy to be is a Grand Dad once again, for the third time. Congratulations Grandpa.

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Last Week
Prez Dave rang the bell on the first day of Spring and gave two Quotes of the Day: "The purpose of all war is ultimately peace" - St Augustine. "The good news is that Saddam Hussein has now agreed to weapons inspections. The bad news is that he wants Arthur Andersen to do it " - unknown.

Prez Dave provided a list of Club donations approved at the 3/20 Board of Directors Meeting:

$500 to the YMCA Child Care Program
$250 to the Serenity Group Homes - these folks provide a living environment for kids removed from parent's homes because of abuse or neglect
$2,000 to the Peres School Fund, acknowledging our ongoing commitment to Peres and to help counter the "unspeakable" cuts in public education
$500 to the Richmond Food Pantry
$300 toward the Club Exchange Student going to Belgium(a young woman from El Cerrito)

Guests
We had a light turnout of Rotarians this week, but many guests. Mark Howe introduced the guests at his table who accompanied the speaker and represented various Native American gaming interests : Kevin Kean, Joe Broadhead, Cory Lawrence, Dorey Bietz and Jesse G. Don Hardison introduced his son Steve who is certainly not a stranger to the Club. Steve is in town to help celebrate Dad's birthday.

Visiting Rotarians

Announcements
Christmas in April is approaching on 26 April. Paul Hodgen is a house captain (again!) and is handling signups.

Don't forget the Club meets on April 11th and 18th at
La Strada Restaurant in San Pablo.

District 5160 will have its Conference, "Festival in Fairfield", in Fairfield April 24th-27th complete conference details can be found @ http://www.rotary5160.org./conference.htm.

The RI Convention for 2003 will be in Brisbane Australia Registrants from our District are eligible for the Visa known as Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) provided they hold a US Passport. They can apply online or through a travel agent. To apply online have them visit: http://www.eta.immi.gov.au/index.html.
Both a Passport and Visa are required, and you don't want to be "stopped at the gate" because a Visa has not been ordered early enough for travel to Australia.

Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarships - application deadline is 31 March. For further information contact Richard Flanders at srednalf@pacbell.net or 925-469-9155

Coming Speakers
April 11th - Inspector Frank Falzon, SFPD- Retired
April 18th - Dr. Randy Schekman, Stem Cell Research
(Randy was my neighbor in El Cerrito and recently received a prestigious award for his research -the award is one notch down from the Nobel).
April 25th - Honorable Laurel Brady, Presiding Judge, CC County Superior Court.
June 13th - The long awaited Demotion of Prez Dave.

Raffle
The raffle was conducted with aplomb by Prez Dave and Mark Howe won the chance to be lucky. He wasn't, and the pot is the richer for it.

Semper Paratus