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El Cerrito Rotary: The Wheel October 1, 2009
El Cerrito Rotary
The Wheel
Editors: Gary Buffon & John Ferguson Jr.
Week of October 1st
President Elect Karen welcomed everyone to the Friendly El Cerrito Rotary Club. Don led the flag saluted and Karen provided a thought for the day.
Secretary John: Had Jack introduce his guest: Eddie Downer of the Mechanics Bank. Also in attendance was Mike Regan representing the City of El Cerrito.
4 Way Test Presentation: Not done today.
Announcements:
Þ Karen reminded us that next week we are meeting at the Post Meridian restaurant.
Þ Blaine indicated the blood drive was successful and he will have details next meeting
Þ Jane reported that Interact is providing some thirty members to support the Home Front Festival in Richmond on Saturday.
Þ Gary B reminded everyone that today is the fund raiser at Chevy’s in Richmond, so go to dinner and take your flier so the Interact club can receive 25% of your meal’s value.
Happy dollars: Mike G has $10 for being in business for 28 years. Jane had $5 for visiting Disneyland and finding Mickey Mouse had not changed much. Jack is happy Grandson Jack Freethy II is having a birthday. Michael C is happy that his daughter who recently graduated from college has a real job. Jim is happy he satisfied a very important customer (his wife) with a quality painting job. Marty is happy to be going to Manchu Picchu and is getting into shape so he can have good time. Our guest Eddie Downer is happy because today is his wedding anniversary.
Sgt at Arms Nancy: Not done today
Today’s Program:
Mark F introduced a friend, Dan O’Malley. Dan is former assistant CC DA and Judge in the country. He is running for the DA job in Contra Costa County. Today Dan provided us with a very interesting and stimulating presentation on the problems with our state prison system. He summarized the statistics including the current number of prisoners (166 thousand) in the thirty four facilities, the breakdown of the populations by sex and ethnicity. He then asked our own Paul Keith to tell us about his experience at Pelican Bay and the problems that he observed there. In short there are a lot of expenses involved in our prison system and even though a federal judge has ordered the release of 47000 prisoners, there is no simple way to accomplish this goal because everyone one in prison has earned their way there. We were queried about what we might do if we could make changes to the system. Dan suggested some ideas on ways to make things more effective and efficient. Ways to change how the parole system is used and how the determinant sentencing had handcuffed our judges and prison wardens to make judgment calls on releasing the prisoner that may be able to return to a life without crime. In California today there are many challenges and the current political climate is so strangled by various form of inaction that we are not seeing much progress toward resolving this situation. This was a quality presentation and if you missed it, you missed a good one!! Thanks to Mark for bringing Dan to speak to us.
 Dan O’Malley checks out the book being given in his honor to a grammar school
Today’s Lottery Winner: Steve had his ticket pulled and won the bottle of wine. Next week the pot is $95.
Thought for Week:
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing; others judge us by what we have done.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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