Coral Gables RotaryGram: Vol. 66 No. 49 Notes from the Podium

President's Time

For the last day of Rotary History Month, President Debbie gave us a little history of our own history. Rotary Club of Coral Gables was chartered on March 4, 1946 by the Rotary Club of Miami. We were club number 6200 in the world. The first club chartered in Florida was Jacksonville in 1912. They were the 41st club in the world. In 1917 the Miami Rotary Club became the 271st club to be chartered and they in turn chartered us. W. Keith Phillips was the Miami Rotarian who was Special Representative to help effect the Charter, along with Dr. Otto J. Sieplein, the founding President of our Club.

DUES ARE DUE now. They're past due on July 1. Take advantage of the 20% discount on lunch and pay early this year. OR if you'd prefer, pay by the semester and still get at 15% discount for the year, so long as you renew by July 1, 2012.

Sunday, June 3rd is George Merrick's 126th Birthday. The folks at Coral Gables Museum are having a blowout party from 1 until 4 p.m. President Debbie will have a chance to talk about Rotary at 2 p.m. Tell them you're a Rotarian and entry is free, but you have to RSVP with the Museum.

To the Winner Go the Spoils

Or in this case, the check! President Debbie presented Donald Trombly with a check for $20,000. That's how much he won in the Rotary Winner's Choice Raffle last week. Although he hasn't cleared it with his wife, his plan is to give some portion of his winnings back to The Rotary Foundation or to our Club's. Stay tuned.

Adaptable, communicative, youthful and wishy washy are just a few of the traits of those born under the sign of Gemini, and the Club has a lot of them. Say happy birthday today to Steve Magenheimer and Terry Biddulph and George Teruel on June 5th.

Lots of Rotarians are celebrating their Rotary Anniversary on June 1st. Congratulations to John Porro with 14 years, Luis Boue, 17 years, Dr. Phil Boswell, 18 years, Keith Phillips, 18 years and Bruce Kerestes with 28 years of service to Rotary.

Introduction of Visitors & Guests

by Dick Bullman

Not very pleased today, Dick Bullman introduced our few guests today, and admonished us for not bringing more people to share in our fellowship and service. Gary Sisler was visiting us today from the Rotary Club of Miami. Bill Oates brought a new lawyer in town as his guest, Andrea Stone.

Foundation Minute

by Abe Horowitz

Seems like just yesterday that Yolanda Woodbridge received her FIRST Paul Harris pin with one Ruby. Being the great Rotarian that she is, she has continued to compound her donations and today Abe presented her with her THREE RUBY pin. Yoli has donated $9,000 to The Rotary Foundation. You GO Girl!!

Vocational Service Minute

by Frank Sexton

Also known as the "Shameless Commerce Division" of Rotary, Frank Sexton promoted Catarina Jimenez's profile in Miami Today. He said much of her success is due to her Craft Talk last year!

Further in the Avenue of Vocational Service, the numerous lawyers in our club have formed a Vocational Group that meets once a month to trade leads, ideas and possibly assist each other in business. He assured us they are NOT a swarm of locusts.

Today's Craft Talk was by none other than President Debbie Swain, who in her life outside of Rotary is Vice President of Milian, Swain, & Assoc, Inc. Her firm provides engineering and financial services to developers, city governments and water and sewer utilities. The engineering services are Civil in nature, everything from the ground down, that's Milian. The financial services is Debbie's job. She heads up the financial and management portion of their firm with rate studies, economic studies, development feasibility studies and more. They often negotiate down the impact fees charged by cities to developers. Most recently her firm completed a 25 year Water Resources Master Plan for Miami-Dade County. They also were hired to restructure the water and sewer rates for Hialeah.

Rosendo Castillo Brings A Banner

For the second time, Rosendo went to Spain for the Camino de Santiago. Along the way he met two ladies from British Columbia. One of them told him that she was doing the walk to raise awareness of Polio. Well that certainly opened the door to Rotary talk! Next thing you know she was giving Rosendo a banner from her Club to bring back to our Club. That just goes to show you ... Rotarians are everywhere. Rotary Rocks!!

Happy $$$

Dick Golden subbed for the missing Dr. Randy today, and he was far gentler with today's joke! It was about a Stutter's Convention. They offered a $5,000 prize to the person who could name their city without stuttering. The fellow from Pebble Beach won! Jim Roen was ecstatic today because son Brandt graduated last night Magna Cum Laude from Belin High School. Jon Arthur was happy to be able to do business with so many fine Rotarians. He read a list of the vocations that he's used in the club and most recently was happy to be served by Elizabeth Lovables and Bill Forshee. THE Donald was happy to be donating Judy Pantoja's $5. She was ecstatic that he won the raffle. Bill Oates was happy that he was involved with Carol Brock's broken wrist because wife Rita fell and broke her wrist. Because of Carol he was able to arrange for the right doctor to take care of her. The surgery is tomorrow. Kelly Sastre was ecstatic that her son is graduating from Mayo Clinic Medical School in Jacksonville. So far he has six offers and it looks like he will be accepting one from Baptist Primary Care in North Florida on September 1st. That's just after the birth of his third child. They're SO PROUD! Happiness pays so keep on smiling!!

Working Rotarians - May 31, 2012

Greeter - Yoli Woodbridge & Steven Spann

Registration - Aaron Glasser

Collections - John Porro

Head Table - Rodney Langer

Special Needs - Lan Nghiem-Phu

Open the Meeting - Jack Witty

Invocation - Pastor Perry

Pledge - Steve Magenheimer

Singer - Dan Scipione

DeWitt Law Silver Dollars - Ana Fournaris

Given to - Yoli Woodbridge & Sere Murphy

Pin Drawing Gift - George Reeves

Pin Drawing Winner - Jon Arthuer

50/50 Raffle - Donald Trombly

50/50 Winner - Ray Dehbozorgi

4 Way Test - George Reeves

Today's Program

Past President of our Club and Former Mayor of Coral Gables, Don Slesnick has been appointed by Commissioner Joe Martinez to the Miami-Dade Charter Review Task Force. He shared with us the happenings of his group and some of the recommendations that we might see on the ballot in November.

This is the third time in a decade that the Commission has formed this task force. One of the things they are addressing is Term Limits. The Commission has placed its own version of Term Limits on the ballot in November, however it may not be recommended by the Task Force. They may amend it to no more than two consecutive four year terms INCLUDING the time already served.

The task force has a total of 20 members, 13 appointed by each of the Commissioners, one by the Mayor, four from the largest municipalities and two appointed by the League of Cities. They're not necessarily "friendly" to the Commission, rather they are prone to side with the cities. Eleven votes are required to approve a recommendation. If 13 members vote for a recommendation it is a compelling reason to have it placed on the ballot.

So far there have been six hearings around the county including three full sessions with specific testimony. They have been dealing with issues like Succession, since there is no provision in the Charter for how to handle things should the Mayor be incapacitated, die or be recalled (as just happened). They have heard from Harvey Ruvin, Clerk of the Courts, regarding technical changes needed in the Charter. The Inspector General of the Ethics Commission has spoken to them regarding changes needed in the Charter to more effectively enforce ethics violations by County employees. The task force voted 14/0 for a proposal to give the Ethics Commission the ability to enforce the Charter's Citizens Bill of Rights.

When it comes to public hearings they find that people talk a big game but then they don't show up, write or email unless they're organized. Like the incorporators - a group that moves forward because they're organized and they want to establish new cities. The moratorium on annexation has been lifted but there are still a lot of stumbling blocks. Currently annexation has a 25% signature requirement. They want the Task Force to recommend lowering that requirement to 10% with no Notary requirement. That takes the County and Commissioners out of the process almost completely. It didn't get 13 votes so chances are it will not be a proposed Amendment on the ballot.

Another issue is the Urban Development Boundary (UBD). The task force would like the procedures for moving the UBD, currently ordinances, to become Charter Procedures. That would make it more difficult to move the UBD as it would require a change in the Charter.

They are also reviewing Jackson Memorial Hospital's relationship with the County. Three of the appointees to the task force are legislators including Renee Garcia. They would like to see the governance of the hospital removed from the County and the hospital become a private, not-for-profit facility. Others would like it to remain a public hospital run by the County.

Their report is to be presented to the County Commissioners on July 17th for their consideration. They expect to have their report completed by July 1st. On June 20th there will be a public hearing in County Commission Chambers that will be televised. They expect to wrap everything up by June 26th.

NEXT WEEK'S PROGRAM: Honoring the Martin Hughes Rotary Citizen of the Year.