Club Meeting Recap--March 9, 2015

Club Vice-President, Terri Rickel, called to order the March 9th meeting of the Elkhart Rotary Club.  Honorary Member Art Decio was in attendance. Lee Ann Jacobson Executive Director of Resource Development for Ivy Tech was inducted into the club.  Lee Ann’s sponsor was Ken Pletcher.

The Sergeant at Arms was Anthony Hunt, who plugged his own radio station WVPE 88.1 and then fined himself.  Honorary Rotarians are normally exempt from fines but Anthony fined Mr. Decio for the recent article in the Business and industry section of the Elkhart Truth, the maximum fine of Five Million Dollars. The money the Sergeant’s committee raises over the year is pooled into a fund and then disbursed annually to area non-profit organizations.

The speaker was Elkhart Mayor Dick Moore, introduced by Mr. Decio.  The Mayor gave the club a “pre” State of the City Address. Among the highlights; The City’s debt rating is AAA- for excellent management of city funds. Mayor Moore gave statistical  information for many city departments. Most interesting was the public safety sector.  Elkhart city’s 911 center handled 101,000 calls for service. 86,000 of those calls were for police assistance.  The city has begun the process of having 911 cellular calls routed directly to Elkhart’s 911 center. Currently all cell phone calls first go to the county 911 center and then are transferred if the event is within the city.  Direct contact with Elkhart 911 via your cell phone will save precious seconds and or minutes. The Mayor spoke about several redevelopment projects, one of which is the development of the old Alick’s drug property on East Jackson. The property, which includes 5 houses, would become a city dock so residents would have more access to the Upper St. Joseph River. A fuel station, bait shop, restaurant and rental boats are part of this evolving plan.  To hear the Mayor’s full State of the City Address, please join him at the Lerner Theater on Wednesday March 25^th at 7:00 pm.

For more information visit: https://www.elkhartindiana.org/

Vice-President Rickel ended the meeting with the Trivia Question of the Week, but since so many members shouted out the answer at once, no one was chosen to be exempt from fines next week.