Our new president, Chuck Norton commenced the meeting at 12:18 welcoming 8 year old Leslie Birkenstein as our special guest for the day.
Announcements:
Rich Lalley: (a) Dues notices are going out today
(b) Contributions to Operation Warm thru July 7 are being matched up to $1,000.
(c) Rich announced that WNRC Foundation reached 99.95% of its goal for the year ending 6.30.2020!
Robert Mardirossian told of the death of long time Rotarian Alan Ramsey.
Marie Kuipers welcomed Chuck Norton as our new president and thanked everyone in
the club for a wonderful year.
Birthdays and Anniversaries: Julie Tye has been a Rotarian for 4 years
Happy Bucks: John Thomas received a great report from his doctor. He is getting younger every day.
Thought of the Day: David Birkenstein gave us a timely quote from Winston Churchill.
Dig and Grin: Laura Cunningham treated us to a Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson
discussion.
Bio of the Day: Tony Kambich was featured. Tony’s father came to America from Slovenia at age 13 and worked in the steel mills (when he found out the streets were not paved in gold) for the next 50 years. Tony grew up in Joliet attending Joliet HS. At age 16, he had a try-out with the Cleveland Indians baseball team, but his father told him he was going to college. Being the good son, Tony attended Northern Illinois University where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Phys.Ed. and met his wife, an NIU cheerleader. After college, the Army called Tony where he became a paratrooper, a ranger and later earned his Class A Uniform (the forerunner to the Green Berets). After the Army, Tony became a teacher and coach at Deerfield HS for 6 years and then the leader of the Deerfield Park District. At the Park District, Tony was one of the founders of the North Suburban Special Recreation Association helping our special needs families enjoy the benefits of sports. Tony continued with a few more Park Districts before starting his own real estate development company. Along the way, he helped to found 3 Montessori Schools and be a member of Rotary for 51 years. At Rotary, he became involved with the International Division and helped found, among other endeavors, Rotary’s Micro-Lending in Africa program. Along the way, Tony met Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Bruce Rauner and Daniel Walker, among many others.
Speaker for the day: was Mike Zanillo of the Illinois Citizens Climate Lobby (ICCL). The ICCL seeks to address the Climate Change problems on a Bi-Partisan basis. The earth has experienced climate change before. That is not new. What is new is the pace of the change. It is happening much quicker and the environment cannot adapt quick enough. There are three ways to realistically address the problem: (1) More new Regulations; (2) a cap and trade system and (3) a carbon use tax. The ICCL believes that Regulation will be confusing, inefficient and prone to partisan politics. While the cap and trade system would work, it will not work fast enough. The best system is to price the Fossil Fuel Carbon use at a higher cost level thru taxes and then pay those taxes back to the citizens. Such a system will be revenue neutral, will produce jobs and significantly reduce carbon use. It must be bi-partisan so it will not be constantly subject to political changes. It will allow the free markets to work. You can obtain more information at energyinnovationact.com.