News Tags: Civic Thursdays

President Dudley Thompson called to order the Zoom-only 5,371st Civic Thursday meeting at 12:30 pm.

Our country celebrated MLK day this last Monday and Keith Giron told us how “Service Above Self” is a theme worthy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Keith also shared that the Karl F Stucki World Community Services Committee just finalized four grants in service to the community.

Past President & District Governor Ed Jellen announced visiting Rotarian and guest of Robert Raburn, Kathryn Marshall of San Francisco Evening Rotary Club.

Jason Wizelman is a mortgage lender. His strong belief in the Rotary 4-Way Test motivates him to help others in the community and also his clients. Jason is there to help you make intelligent decisions around loans and mortgages.

Joe Goralka and Leeann Alameda told us about The Rotary Foundation month in December. It was an excellent year of fundraising and has changed the culture of giving where the vast majority of Rotarians are giving every year. This year we had 65%-member participation toward the 100% goal which is a great improvement from previous years. Club members donated over $135,000. Oakland #3 is the top giver in District 5170 again which is a big honor and benefit as the club receives additional funds for grants.

Joe Goralka also told us about a severe blood shortage and in response, our club is doing a blood drive. Go online or call the Red Cross and donate. Please take your photo and send it to Jesse Bowdle for a picture donor board.

President Elect Mary Geong, zooming in from Washington, D.C., announced this year’s Club festivity for Year of the Tiger Lunar New Year will be an online “virtual” dinner on February 3. On the menu are delicious Japanese bento box servings from Sakura Bistro Tapas & Sake Bar in Oakland. A single dinner runs $30 including tax & tip, and you can either pick up the dinner from 4:30 – 5:30 pm at the California Ballroom or have it delivered to your home. Be sure to make your on-line reservation on the Club’s website ASAP before the February 1 deadline. https://www.oakland-rotary.org/calend...

Nancy Williams announced a Black History Month activity will be the “Evolutionary Blues” documentary film showing at Grand Lake Theatre. Tickets are $14 each. Limited seating and proof of vaccination needed. This film is an Oakland-based story about blues musicians and their migration from the South. After the screening, there will be a Q&A with the director, Cheryl Fabio. Get tickets here: https://bit.ly/3Km9GjE 

Renia Webb introduced today’s speaker, Regina Jackson. She is a Cal Bears grad, coach and a Robert Wood Johnson Fellow. She just retired and finished her last year as the chair of the Oakland Police Commission.

The goal of the Police Commission is to oversee the police department and has stated goals to reduce the disparate impact on enforcement in the Black community. There are seven volunteer commissioners with two alternates who oversee the police commissioner with the unique ability to take action over significant policies of the police force.

Some of their successes have included the change to policies around use of force and probation and parole searches. Regina would like to see police be less militaristic and more involved in the community in hopes they do not have to address and respond to such a variety of calls.

Isaac Kos-Read rang the bell twice, once for Leeann Alameda and once for the Blood Drive. Lois Corrin, Renia Webb, Ahmad Anderson, Robert Kidd, Georgia Richardson, Wil Hobbs, Ces Butner, Ruth Stroup and Ken Benson rang the bell for Regina Jackson

President Dudley adjourned the meeting at 1:33 p.m. reminding us to Serve to Change Lives and Don’t Keep Rotary a Secret!

Click here to watch Regina Jackson video segment

Missed our meeting, but interested in checking out the next one?

Click below to learn more. https://www.oakland-rotary.org/calendar

#serviceaboveself #rotaryinternational #rotaryclubofoakland #rotaryopensopportunities

Past President Ces Butner took the helm for the Club’s 5,370th Civic Thursday meeting in place of President Dudley Thompson who was called away to civic jury duties.

Jason Wizelman gave us not just one thought for the day but several precious aphorisms from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: only light can dispel darkness; only love can banish hate; threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere; the time is always right to do right; and what are you doing for others?

Just as Past President & District Governor Ed Jellen bemoaned the absence of guests, Sandeepa Nayak chimed in to say that Pello Walker had joined us, and Ces noted that Dianne Dorn, Past President of the San Leandro Club, was also among the virtual attendees.

President Ces Bunter then turned the “mic” over to Nancy Williams, whose advertising firm, Money Pages of Oakland, sponsored today’s meeting. Nancy informed us that Money Pages is a full-service ad agency recently ranked #1 in the marketing field by a major advertising trade journal. The company handles both direct mail and digital advertising, and it has a team that will manage your social media marketing. 'Money Pages’ client list includes the Oakland A’s, the Oakland Ballet, the Oakland Marathon, and several Club members, including Derreck Johnson (Home of Chicken & Waffles), Jesse Schmidt (TNT Strength), and Ruth Stroup. When invited by Nancy to talk about her client experience, Ruth Stroup said that Money Pages hit a home run in getting the word out about the Shredding Day service that Ruth’s Farmers Insurance agency sponsors once a year.

Past President David Stein introduced new member Dawnn Hills of the DMH Insurance Group. Her key pastimes include board games and singing. She has an impressive collection of Monopoly games. David Kersten introduced new member Clive Worsley, the new Director of the Junior Center of Art and Science. Clive was previously with Cal Shakes and, though you wouldn’t guess it from his accent, is a native of Glasgow, Scotland.

Business Development Committee: Jesse Schmidt, Chair of the Business Development Committee, announced that the Committee is filling out the schedule of Thursday Meeting Sponsors for the first six months of 2022. Sign up to be a sponsor. There’s no better way to broadcast your brand to the Club! Jesse ended by reciting a quote from novelist Howard Zinn about the importance of both optimism and good acts when in the midst of a prolonged crisis.

Environment Committee: Joel Parrott took the “mic” as the Chair of the new Environment Committee. Joel reported that the Committee has an initial roster of 12 members, and welcomes others to join the committee. They have a mission statement and plan to soon conduct a survey of all Club members to ascertain our “carbon footprint” in the battle against climate change. If you’re interested in joining, email Joel at jjparrott83@gmail.com.

Lunar New Year Celebration: Danny Mai announced this year’s Club festivity for the upcoming Year of the Tiger Lunar New Year will be an online “virtual” dinner starting at 4:30 p.m. on February 3. On the menu are delicious Japanese bento box servings from Sakura Bistro Tapas & Sake Bar in Oakland. A single dinner runs $30 including tax & tip, and you can either pick the dinner up at the California Ballroom or have it delivered to your home. Be sure to make your online reservation on the Club’s website ASAP before the February 1 deadline. Contact Danny Mai at dmai@novateckit.com or Pres. Elect Mary Geong at mmgeong@aol.com if you have questions.

Past President David Stein introduced our speaker Roy Neel, a distinguished Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. David noted that Prof. Neel has had major responsibilities in the political realm, including roles in the Clinton Administration, management of Al Gore’s 2000 Presidential campaign, and recent Presidential transitions, including the controversial “hanging chad” debacle that plagued the 2000 election. He is also the author of a novel called The Electors, which addresses the pitfalls of the existing Electoral College system. These were his observations:

1)  The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled a state can enact a law that binds an elector to vote for the Presidential candidate to whom he is pledged under state law. Thus, the “faithless elector” problem, which occasionally arises when an elector changes his vote to a different candidate has been resolved – at least for states that have passed the requisite “binding” legislation.

2)  On Jan. 6, 2021, there was an overt attempt by certain members of Congress to challenge the certified votes of several states’ slates of Electors. Had they succeeded, Joe Biden would have had fewer than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win, and the outcome would have been decided by the House of Representatives. There is a pending bipartisan bill that would foreclose future post-certification challenges by confirming that Congress’ must accept the Electoral College votes that are certified by a state.

3)  If no candidate receives the requisite 270 Electoral College votes, the subsequent vote in the House is highly undemocratic. This is because a single vote is allocated to each state’s House delegation. Thus, the vote cast by Wyoming’s single representative would be given the same weight as the prevailing vote of California’s 50 plus representatives! The Founding Fathers agreed to this “one vote for each state” arrangement in order to placate the less populated states.

4)  It would take a constitutional amendment to eliminate the one-vote-for-each-state rule.  However, due to the high vote thresholds for such an amendment, it is highly unlikely that it could pass over the opposition of the small states and their Republican Congressmen. The only viable path to an amendment may require a massive episode of Electoral College corruption that engenders widespread popular demands for reform.

5)   Some Democratic states, including California, have entered into a compact that purports to minimize the risk of a Presidential election being decided in the House due to any candidate failing to garner 270 or more Electoral College votes. The compact commits each of the signatory states to allocating all of their Electoral College votes to the candidate who wins the state’s popular vote.

6)  Another major problem with the current system is the language in the Constitution allows each state to govern the state’s process for conducting Presidential (and other federal) elections. Since the 2020 election, 19 states have passed laws that effectively suppress the vote, especially in low-income communities. Eight of these states have made legislative changes that transfer vote certification authority from independent commissions to partisan state legislators. These changes will bolster the Republican takeover of state and local offices. They also ominously increase the likelihood that future Presidential elections will be decided by the House under the current one-vote-for-each state rule. Note that the pending bipartisan effort to curtail Congress’ alleged authority to disregard a state’s certified Electoral College votes would have no effect on a state’s ability to cancel popularly elected outcomes by means of these recent state law changes.

7)  In response to questions from “the floor”, Prof. Neel said: A) He disagrees with commentator David Brooks’ assertion that studies have shown that state voting restrictions have no impact on actual voting. Consider, e.g., the effect of “poll tax” and similar laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction South and the obvious impact of more recent laws that curtain early voting options that many people need to exercise their voting rights. B) There are no federal voting audit rules.  Any audits are done at the state level. C) Most people do not understand how the Electoral College process works.  Among other things, we need to include better civic education in school curricula. D) If the Democrats succeed in passing a federal election reform bill, it could be repealed by a future Republican Congress, but would face a higher burden of proof. E) As Republicans have already done, Democrats need to become more engaged in filling state and local political offices.

President for the Day Ces adjourned the meeting at 1:31 p.m

Click here to watch Roy Neel video segment

Missed our meeting, but interested in checking out the next one?

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President Dudley Thompson convened the 5,369th Civic Thursday meeting of the Rotary Club of Oakland, the third oldest club in the Rotary world among 36,000 clubs in more than 200 countries.

On this one-year anniversary of the insurgency at the US Capitol, Debo Sarkar shared a message of sanity and sanctity from India, the country of his birth, with an uplifting quote from Sri Ramakrishna: “An ocean of bliss may rain down from the heavens, but if you hold up only a thimble, that is all you receive. Wisdom leads to unity, ignorance to separation. Spirituality automatically leads to humility. When a flower develops into a fruit, the petals drop off on its own. When one becomes spiritual, the ego vanishes gradually on its own. A tree laden with fruits always bends low. Humility is a sign of greatness.”

Past President Ces Butner introduced our speaker, Oakland Mayor and Rotary Honorary Member Libby Schaaf, noting Mayor Schaaf has worked to address Oakland issues like public safety and homelessness by stabilizing rents and housing thus preventing 1,800 families from losing homes annually. She created Oakland’s first Transportation Commission to address infrastructure and make previously unsafe roads and neighborhoods better. She also founded Oakland Promise, the cradle to a college program, providing scholarships and mentors for more than 1,400 Oakland students annually and providing all babies born in Oakland with a $500 college savings account with financial coaching to parents. She noted 17,000 new units of housing with 2,100 of those affordable housing units to be expanded in time.

Mayor Schaaf is also proud to be partnering with Oakland Chamber of Commerce to pilot a new housing program, the “Cabin Community/Tiny Village” model, a shift away from “gym style” congregate housing shelters to more dignified housing options, nearly tripling the number of previously unhoused to now-sheltered Oaklanders. This model is now recognized for its success in housing more than other large cities and appears to be successfully executed via the “Keep Oakland Housed” program, now keeping more than 2000 households in homes per year. Calling herself Oakland’s “Chief Hustler”, she continues to secure more investment in Oakland from large institutions and national philanthropic organizations accounting for approximately $140M in accrued capital to date.

Safety continues to be at the forefront of her initiatives, with the City Council recently supporting her bid to increase the Oakland Police Department force with 60 more officers and redistribute police resources, especially to East Oakland, with a renewed goal to again cut gun violence in half, (towards pre-pandemic progress that had been made) by doubling staff to restore our nationally-recognized Ceasefire initiative. She suggested all homes purchase security cameras and angle them pointing to the street to help deter criminals and hold accountable perpetrators. She is honored to be the first Oakland Mayor (and first woman) to chair the Big City Mayors Council with other large cities, getting funding to address homelessness by creating public-private partnerships for housing vouchers.

She was recently honored to go to Washington, at the invite of President Biden and Vice President Harris, to attend the $1.3 Trillion Infrastructure Bill signing and shared a recent visit from the Secretary of Transportation to kick off “Town for All”, a comprehensive mobility system in key neighborhoods including Chinatown, Lake Merritt and Howard Terminal, Oakland’s new home to 18 acres of public access waterfront featuring 3,000 units of housing including many “deeply affordable” units, alongside multi-use interface with business, civic and other organizations coming together to attract excitement and greater investment in Oakland’s future.

Past President Michael Bruck was honored by President Dudley as former Mayor of Piedmont featured in a four-page article, plus a photo of Mike, Carolyn and their cat on the front cover of Piedmont Living magazine, prompting a multiple bell ringing spree reported elsewhere in the Live Oak.

Trisha Connors excitedly announced our 2022 Gala will take place Thursday, April 28, in-person, at Sequoyah Country Club with indoor and outdoor attendance options. The theme “In the Mood with Gratitude” salutes our health and fellowship in the Club. The fundraising goal is $100,000 net and Sponsorships are now available. Please contact Trisha Connors at tmmdrdc@gmail.com.

President Dudley adjourned the first meeting of 2022 at 1:38 p.m.

Click here to watch Mayor Schaaf video segment

Missed our meeting, but interested in checking out the next one?

Click below to learn more. https://www.oakland-rotary.org/calendar

#serviceaboveself #rotaryinternational #rotaryclubofoakland #rotaryopensopportunities

President Dudley Thompson convened the 5,368th Civic Thursday meeting of the Rotary Club of Oakland where we unite with 36,000 Rotarians and 10,000 Rotaractors across the United States to make a difference. President Dudley welcomed members attending in person in the California ballroom and those attending via Zoom.

Gary Flaxman shared a personal thought in honor of today’s speakers. He observed that the club is filled with individual members who provide service to the community but together we make up an orchestra of service.

Past President Robert Kidd introduced our two speakers, Mieko Hatano and David Moschler. Mieko is Executive Director of the Oakland Symphony where she manages the business, human and financial resources of the symphony. She is currently leading the search for the musical director to replace Michael Morgan.

David is the Musical Director of the Awesome Orchestra which performs in traditional and non-traditional venues and strives to bring the orchestra to people and places that are not familiar with symphonic music.

Mieko and David shared thoughts on the joys and tribulations of symphonic music. While the music director and business director occupy distinct functions within their organizations, the jobs often overlap. Decisions on who plays, how long they will play, and how to ensure that tickets are sold impact the overall success of the symphony. Commenting on “Why an orchestra exists” David shared his vision that an “orchestra wants to take the listener on an adventure”. The Awesome Orchestra ensures this by providing an adventurous repertoire, adventurous venues, and adventurous people to play with. The Oakland Symphony also strives to inspire listeners through adventurous music.

Both speakers emphasized the importance of live performances to truly experience the pageantry and excitement of orchestral music. Orchestras have become somewhat “ossified” exemplifying the need to bring the symphony to new and diverse audiences and the willingness to take risks. One test of music being bad or good is if you want to hear it again. It is important to erase the perception that symphony is only for a certain segment of the population.

Pres. Dudley reminded members that he shared his three major goals at his inauguration. They include bringing the club members back together, ensuring that we are the best service organization in Oakland, and engaging members to the fullest extent.

Committee work is the backbone of the Club and efforts are impressive especially given the challenges with COVID 19 restrictions. These include:

KinderPrep Committee continuing to support TK classes although OUSD does not allow for visits. Alternate support includes supporting teachers with gift certificates and supplies and funding specific projects. Interact is active in 4 High schools.

HOPE is currently mentoring 5 students who had the opportunity to attend a Warriors game with courtside seats during warmups.

Saroni Lena Scholarship Committee is supporting 25 students. Enterprise Institute is planning the 40th Anniversary Camp in April.

Speech Contest will be held at the last meeting in February.

Service Committees are funding many projects locally and internationally. A trip to Mexico to distribute wheelchairs is planned for the summer.

Housing Insecurity is negotiating for a property. Food Insecurity is working with Laney College to provide food baskets.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee is developing tactics to encourage the club to appreciate and respect differences.

Board of Directors has developed reciprocal relationships with five Chambers of Commerce in Oakland. The board has developed a method to resolve member disputes. The Club’s financial position is strong. The Oakland Rotary Endowment has reached $5 million.

Joel Parrott shared that the new Environment Committee is being established to increase awareness that we all must become carbon neutral. Dr. Parrott shared several recent examples of environmental actions (tornadoes, drought, etc.) that highlight the need to focus on the environment.

President Dudley announced the following upcoming club events:

1. December 23 & 30 - no lunch meetings – Happy Holidays

2. January 6 - first meeting of 2022 with Mayor Libby Schaaf and District Governor Richard Flanders

3. January 7 – Stand Up Broadway Comedy Night at the Sound Room, Oakland

4. January 15 - High Adventure visit to the Pacific Pinball Museum, Alameda

5. February 3 - Lunar New Year dinner at Peony Seafood Restaurant, Oakland

6. February 27 - Dinner with RI President-elect Jennifer Jones at Blackhawk Museum,

Danville President Dudley adjourned the final meeting of 2021 at 1:34 p.m.

Click here to watch Mieko Hatano and David Moschler video segment

Missed our meeting, but interested in checking out the next one?

Click below to learn more. https://www.oakland-rotary.org/calendar

#serviceaboveself #rotaryinternational #rotaryclubofoakland #rotaryopensopportunities