Spindrift October 10, 2019

Great meeting today, beginning with President Ken offering a timely prayer, encouraging God to grant us long lives. Followed by WWII vet Deane Bottorf leading us in the flag salute. Ken made a brief announcement on the upcoming memorial service this Saturday (Oct 5) for JoAn Barnett at the United Methodist Church, 1701 Baker, Costa Mesa at 10:30 AM.

ANNOUNCEMENTS – Guest Jill Kanzler, daughter of President Ken, was introduced by Mitch Mitchell, shown here.

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Bob Wood reported that the winning football book last Monday was the same number as the week before: his No. 30. He seemed to be embarrassed for winning twice in a row. 15 winners to come at $50 each, the books are now on sale at a cut-rate of only $15. Next week probably only $14.

Football Commissioner Mike Gertner pleasantly awarded the $3 low prize to Ken DuFour. Two clear winners this week: Tom Naughton for second place and absent Leo Fracalosy with 14 right will get 28 bucks.

Norm von Herzen noted that there is an airshow this weekend: Friday, Saturday, Sunday off the Huntington Beach pier.

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Jeff Yeargain kicked off the long-awaited Membership Drive contest, which will last from the next meeting through November 7. The random drawing resulted in people being in four teams, who are identified in the attachment that comes with the Spindrift electronically.

PROGRAM –
was introduced by our active Program VP, Mitch Mitchell, who has been lining up some good looking programs. Today was the mayor of Newport Beach, Diane Dixon. She has been married for 47 years and lived in Newport Beach for most of them.

She has a daughter living in New York with 3 grandchildren and was clearly excited about coming to tell our club about how things are in our City. The city is well run and managed over the years. Recently, two issues hit the fan: John Wayne Airport and homelessness.

While it’s true some of the airlines such as United are introducing quieter aircraft, it turns out that most of them are not in compliance with the existing noise regulations. Also, pilots are not going to the 5000-foot limit soon enough because of fines if they exceed it too early. She is heading to Washington soon to deal with these issues.

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Homelessness is driven in part by the fact that we cannot legally enforce the “anti-camping” rules because of court rulings. There are typically 8 to 10 tents on the Santa Ana River, but we cannot do arrests unless there is drug use. We are hunting for temporary and permanent shelters, such as a yard we have on Superior and a location close to the airport, which is unfortunately near businesses. Costa Mesa’s $10M plan is very expensive, averaging $75K/person/year. Suddenly, our city has a “health and human services” mission.

Despite this, we are good financially, getting 16% of the OC property taxes, and lots from sales taxes and occupancy (hotel) taxes. Our big problem looming is the unfunded pensions, which a few years ago were almost nothing, are now at $17M/year and we have a total liability now of $230M. Fortunately, our annual budget surplus is very helpful.

For capital projects, we need to have between 1500 to 4000 affordable housing units, the solution is not in sight, and associated parking is a big problem. We have a new fire station in Corona del Mar and a new one being built on Lido Island. Sunset View Park is coming along nicely.

Crime is still here even though our police force is excellent. We just added another officer. However, the shorter sentences are letting some criminals with jail time get out earlier. Crime is up, including arson. 85,000 people live here but eleven million visit us in the summer.

Thank you so much, Diane Dixon, for sharing with us today!

RAFFLE

Don Smith winning $10, and Bob Kin-ton getting the Jackson.

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GREETER — Har-lan Pauley is our most reliable member for ensuring that everything is ready for our meeting: banners, screen, tables, everything will be correct. He often fills in for “no-shows” for the raffle tickets, so this week make sure you buy $2 in tickets and he’ll look happy.

Bob Wood, Editor