Welcome back, President Ken! The week’s meeting was kicked off with three of our President’s favorite quotes about change.

“To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.”- Winston Churchill

“Change before you have to.”- Jack Welch

“Of course, there is no formula for success, except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.” – Arthur Rubinstein

Club News and Updates:

1. President Ken explained the new membership structure that was emailed out to the club days prior to the meeting. Restructuring the membership types was necessary to financially sustain our club- as Welch said, “Change before you have to”. Thank you, Teri Grassi, Chuck Munson and the Board for taking this project on to keep our club a healthy and thriving one! If you have any questions about the new structure please email Ken, Dan O., or Kathy for assistance. The new structure will take effect January 2021.

2. If you have a new member, email Travis and Bob Muschek to get them processed and welcomed properly into the club.

3. With a very heavy heart, Ken announced to the club that Bob Hathaway had passed away unexpectedly on Friday, September 18, 2020. Keep his family in your thoughts.

4. Drew Napolin resigned as a club member.

5. Scott Dowds is recovering from cancer surgery and is doing well. Send a card!

6. October 7th is the first in-person meeting at Coyote Hills! Yay!

Special Recognitions:

1. Zoot Velasco did an awesome job of running the meeting last week. Thanks for stepping up last minute and hosting a great meeting- you’re nuts!

2. Travis McShane headed our membership development and did a great presentation for the group 2 weeks ago.

3. Monica Fernandez is doing us a great service by drumming up some volunteer opportunities for the club.

Pledge was led by Mike Cochran and Invocation by Judy Atwell.

Club Announcements:

1. Monica Fernandez is compiling a list of service opportunities for our club members to participate in. If you know how the club can service the community please let Monica know- specifically non-profits, if possible.

2. Bring your friends to a meeting- its free!

3. Next week’s speaker is Barbara Stone giving us her insights on the upcoming election.

4. Fellowship: Howard Minkley reminded us about the lack of fellowships in the last 6 months. He offered a couple suggestions for fellowship opportunities: 1. Lunches (4-5 people at a restaurant) 2. Virtual get-togethers (Wine & Cheese Festival or Zoot’s Zesty Zoom Cooking Studio!) Look out for Jim Ripley’s email requesting interest! Email Howard with questions.

Fine Master:

Dawn Bowman, wearing her Fine Master crown, was cut off early due to time constraints! Huge bummer, we’ll have to give her another shot in the future.

Happy birthday Bev, that’ll be $5. Larry Bennet, cake or ice cream? - fined only $3 for preferring both! Howard Minkley, happy birthday to your wife; have fun at dinner and traveling to Wisconsin, that’s $5! Quick mention as she was wrapping up- Matt Lebouf’s and Dawn’s one-year rotary anniversary and Travis’ four-yearRrotary anniversary are all coming up.

Speaker: Ken Domer, Fullerton City Manager

Kim Barlow and Thad Sanford introduced our speaker.

Ken can be contacted at Kdomer@cityoffullerton.com.

Ken has been Fullerton’s City Manager for roughly 3 years. He was at Placentia before and was excited to transition into Fullerton because of the amount of opportunities here! Cities up and down the State are struggling right now. It seems as though the State leadership doesn’t quite understand how the cities are funded. Fullerton relies primarily on sales tax and property tax. Ken looked back at our history of budgets and minutes as far as 1977. He found that Fullerton has been struggling; riding a revenue rollercoaster of surplus and deficit for a long time. He doesn’t think this type of revenue approach to governing is the right way. We need to focus on the service from city to residents and if we are holding vacancies or limiting police or fire, for example, we are reducing the level service for residents.

Coming up on the counsel:

1. Short term rentals – nothing has been done at this time. There are no current regulations on short term rentals in Fullerton.

2. Next meeting on October 6th – Cannabis will be a hot topic. It’s going to be here no matter what, so they are trying to be proactive by implementing regulations that help meet residents’ needs while also protecting the community.

3. COVID- county is in orange tier. Testing is down and we need to hit and maintain a certain level of tests to move tiers. Go get tested!

4. Outdoor dining program will be extended into April. Winter weather will need to be addressed.

5. Business improvement district in DT area. Looking to implement this by next year. The city will partner with the BID allowing them to take over security, maintenance, etc.

6. Parking regulations will be stricter soon.

7. Homelessness- The Navigation Center at 3535 W Commonwealth is now open. The max capacity is 90. Homelessness is a mental health problem and substance abuse problem not a homeless problem.

8. Legal Woman Voters is having their candidate forum on October 1st. This will be broadcasted on the city website. First time in a long time that no women are running for counsel.

Ken covered A LOT of information in a well-structured and candid manner for the club. Ken generously stayed online for 30 minutes after the meeting ended because so many members had questions and wanted to chat with him. Thank you Ken!

President Ken gifted our speaker a can of nuts for being nuts like us and a tote bag to carry said nuts!

Closing Thoughts:

Thank you, Rick Price for coming as a guest.

“There’s no such thing as a bad experience, there’s only experiences. If it’s good, we do not think about it. We accept it and move on. If it is bad, we learn from it and if we learn from it, we transform what we thought was bad into something useful. – something Ken heard last week

“Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming oppositions such as lifting weights, we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.”

- Stephen Covey

Go out and be good people and great Rotarians!

Meeting adjourned.

Don’t miss your chance to share these special programs with a guest

Invite a Friend and Share Rotary

09/30/2020 * NOW WHAT? POLITICAL ANALYSIS 2021
Barbara Stone / Retired Professor CSUF

10/07/2020 * TITANS REACH HIGHER IN CHALLENGING TIMES
CSUF President Fram Virjee / Status of the University

10/14/2020 * NEW MEMBER CRAFT TALK
Monica Fernandez / “Hear Yee. Hear Yee”

10/21/2020 * CITY OF FULLERTON INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGES
David Grantham / Public Works Engineering

10/28/2020 * MARKET BEHAVIOR IN ELECTION YEARS
Tyler Furek / Capital Group