President John LeCave rang the bell promptly at 7:30 AM
Joan Mora provided the lead for the Pledge of allegiance and no one took a knee.
Anna Smith shared a few inspirations from baseball, quoting Vin Scully and a few others with a suggestion to be a winner you keep good friends and a strong bullpen.
Marc Elin had to text himself to remind him he was the songmeister. We had a rousing verse of James Brown’s “I feel good,” with dance!
Visiting Rotarians gave way to guests of Rotarians:
Chris Landwehr introduced JB Leap and Carol Martin
Joe Deacon introduced Windsor Town Manager Linda Kelly
Jack Hyde introduced Ella… Our Swedish daughter.
Announcements:
The Rotary Foundation dinner is on October 15th at the Flamingo. We will be celebrating with Rotarians all the things we have accomplished for the year. Look for your email invite. If you have an item to throw in the basket we will provide for the raffle, please bring it next week.
Golf Tournament, Color Stride, Trampoline jumping, and a Calistoga BBQ are a few of the events going on around the county. Check the District website: www.rotary5130.org
Sunshine report was provided by Diane Brabitz. She has asked that we let her know when those memorable events happen in our fellow Rotarian lives.
Dick Bishop is open to low fat, low salt food, and most important, he is looking for a few friends to drop by.
Hotlanta is the place to be for the 2017 Rotary International conference.
Plan ahead for December 3rd and our Windsor Rotary Holiday Party. More info to follow, or nudge Sandie Krutz.
We will be gathering at President John’s office, 70 Stony Point Road suite C, Santa Rosa. This is an opportunity to develop a community outreach program to connect Rotary with groups in Windsor in need of help. He has beer and wine. 6:00 – 7:30 PM.
A group of fellow club members are pro active when it comes to Rotary opportunities. Wally Krutz, Sandie Krutz and Pegi Ball are working on an idea to find a van to help people in the community get around. Leigh Mateas took care of securing a tree for Rotaract to participate in the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree program on the Town Green. Sandie Krutz and Donna LeCave are off to Mexico to do good Rotary work, as is Maureen Merrill. Steve Klik is off to South America to continue a clean water project he worked on last year with Ukiah and Santa Rosa East Rotary Club.
I heard there was $600 plus in our pot and the Raiders are still disappointing most of the club. Just ask M.J. Girard who searched for Raider Nation but found another team.
Program:
Warin Parker introduced our Town Manager, Linda Kelly, who has been with the Town for the past three years. Things are looking up for Windsor. She introduced us to the amazing history and the vision that makes Windsor such a desirable place to live. We are an award winning town with recycled water, healthy living, and much more. She introduced survey results that say that 7 in 10 residents feel Windsor is a great place to live.
Ms. Kelly then introduced us to the various taxes and services these monies provide for the community. Taxes are always a hot topic and Howard Jarvis was mentioned for locking in a tax rate for Windsor homeowners. Linda shared that none of our personal income taxes are designated for our Town. Only a 12-15% of property taxes are returned to the Town. Our sales tax is currently 8.25%, which is .75 over the State average, but on par for the rest of Sonoma County. Next time you make a purchase out of area, please remember that Windsor sees approximately 1% of sales tax returned to the Town coffers when the purchase is made in town. Transit Occupancy Tax is currently 14% with 12% earmarked for the Town. Apparently visitors to the Town of Windsor provide approximately $2 million annually. That number should grow with the opening of the new hotel on Redwood Blvd.
The average tax paid by a homeowner to the town of Windsor is just under $85 per Month.
We were asked to review the variety of measures we will be voting on in November, which would increase taxes for the County
End of the day… We live in a nice place.