Spindrift November 19, 2020
LUNCHEON
President George Lesley continued his creative invocations by reading from the words of Theodore Roosevelt in 1910 that helped us think straight. If you Google Teddy Roosevelt quotes you will find some other great ones! Veteran Al Wach (Navy and Army both) led us in the flag salute.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Every veteran stood and was recognized. Our membership includes 14 veterans: DuFour, Fournier, Fox, Kinton, Kruse, Pauley, Romeo, Ryan, Shlemon, Swinney, TeWinkle, Von Herzen, Wach, and Wood.
Frannie Murphy was recognized as a new member with a certificate from National, presented by her sponsor George Lesley. Guests Dave Ryan and Kurt Summers (2nd visit) were welcomed.
Shirley Lashmett announced a Pacific Coast Exchange Club fundraiser they are trying out: participants put in $25 before December 1, and on each of the days between the 1st and the 25th, a prize valued at $50 or higher will be awarded to a winner. On December 25, it will be $200 cash. All the proceeds will benefit Child Abuse Prevention Program and Programs of Service, so checks can be written to CA/NV District Charitable Foundation.
To keep us on our toes, Pres. George asked us in which year did California became a state, and the answer was 1850 on September 9.
Football Commissioner Mike Gertner gave us the winners for Week 6: Buddy Ryan got his $3 back for low, Roger Summers got 2nd place and the winner was WC Fox, who got his money in even though he attended by meeting by Zoom.
PROGRAM
Steve Rosansky, president of the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce, was excited to present his spin of the election returns and his perspective on the COVID- driven issues. First, he went through the election returns for Orange County, noting that the voter turnout this year was 86.2%, on the high side. Orange County is no longer solid Republican, with Biden winning 53-44 in OC and al-most 2:1 in the state. State Senator and our friend John Moorlach seems to be losing 51-49 in a close race, and Michelle Steele’s win leaves a spot open. In the Council races, District 2 went to Brad Avery (60%) and District 5 to Noah Blom (59%).
Will O’Neill gained a record 40,000 votes unopposed and Steve speculated that his support of Avery and Blom, together with the Police and Fire, might have been factors in these wins.
Propositions worth mentioning: Z, setting up a Harbor Commission, passed. Props 15, which would have raised (Prop 13) taxes on commercial property, failed. Prop 16, which would have required Affirmative Action is a government decision, failed also. Proposition 19 passed, changing the taxes on transfers of property to children as well as purchase of new homes. Prop 21 giving cities the right to control rents, failed, and Prop 22, heavily supported by Uber and Lyft, passed 58-42, retaining workers the right to be independent of “employee” considerations.
On the economy and COVID, Steve noted that the color-coded system set up by the state has purple as worst at the top, the red, then orange, then yellow at the bottom. Orange County is now in the red stage, meaning that we can eat indoors under certain conditions. Unfortunately, cases seem to be going up, so we may have to do back to purple. The surprising thing is that many restaurants say that this has been the “best year ever” which is hard to understand. In Newport Beach, these restrictions are not always rigorously enforced.
However, some restaurants are shuttered. A major factor in Newport Beach’s future is how we can respond to the requirement to have 4834 new housing units in the next five years or face huge fines by the state. The new one going up near Mariners and Irvine is only 535 units, and we need TEN like this in the next five years! Clearly, the residents are not usually voting to have more people move in.
Thank you, Steve, for bringing your enthusiasm and your insight to our local issues.
RAFFLE AND GREETER
Could be anyone who wants to do it. Shirley Lashmett has been doing great with the raffle, which was won this week by none other than President George Lesley. If one of you would like to sell the new 50-50 raffle tickets ($1 each or 8 for $5), just get here a little early, find the tickets and start selling them.
Zoom session will resume this coming week since the club has purchased new equipment for presentations and for Zooming