Next meeting
Wednesday January 26, 2022

Woman At Ground Zero

Mary Carouba

–>  Debi will send you the Zoom login link for the 12:00 meeting once you have paid. Feel free to put your feet up, grab a sandwich, and join the meeting. <–

PLEASE NOTE: All meeting are currently via Zoom only, until middle of February.

–> Debi Zaft will email you the link for online, once you have paid.  Use this link to pay.  CLICK HERE!

Wednesday February 2: Matt Everson – Illuminate – Stopping Elder Financial Abuse
Wednesday February 9: tbd
Wednesday February 16: Ryan Thomas – High School Recognitions
Wednesday February 23: International Projects

Keep checking back.  New Programs coming soon!  Click here for the current calendar, subject to updates.

UPCOMING SOCIALS & PROJECTS

USEFUL LINKS

Visit our district at: http://www.rotary5130.org
Check out Rotary International at: http://www.rotary.org
Come see us at: http://rotarymeansbusiness

Watch The Meeting:  Did you miss the meeting?  Here is a link to the recording of last week’s meeting:
(Click Here)
Please note it is only available to view until: 1/30/21

Opening Ceremonies:

Former President Jeff Kolin filled in for President Ray as he was in Oregon without decent internet access. Former President Jeff led in the reciting of The Pledge of Allegiance and had this quote from Teddy Roosevelt, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Visitors:

Too many to list but among our visitors today are Tim Aboudara, Jason Jucutan, and Andy Cash – our recipients, Fire Chief Scott Westrup, Chief Ray Navarro, Sheriff Mark Essick, Tom Schwedhelm, Sophia Schwirzke for Senator Mike McGuire, Tim Aboudara Sr., Brittany Aboudara, Laura Cash, Tanner Cash, Tayin Cash, The Jucutan Girls, Christen Jucutan, Mary Keesha Smith

Program:

Carolyn Fassi and Craig Meltzner started the program with a video by Kevin Davison, “Another First Responder Day” (Which ended up not being shown until the end of the program).

The day is to celebrate the fire fighter, police officer and deputy sheriff of the past year. These awards were started several years ago at the suggestion of Lee Abramson, hence the name Lee Abramson Awards. His wife usually attends but regretfully could not today. This is our most attended meeting every year. These men live their lives as the Rotary motto says, “Service Above Self.”

First up was Fire Chief Scott Westrup. The Santa Rosa Fire Department is made up of 146 persons and 10 fire stations. 39 personnel are on duty every day. Besides firefighting they have an urban search and rescue team, hazardous response team, wildlands fleet, and swift water rescue team. In 2020 they responded to over 26,000 calls (2021 statistics not yet compiled). 65% of their calls are for emergency medical response. They do over 3000 property inspections, 13,000 weed abatement inspections and 30,000 hours of training.

This year’s recipient is Tim Aboudara who is active in both the leadership and business for the fire department. He is active in the 401 Fire Fighters Union. As part of the union leadership have has help select the last four fire chiefs. He trains and works on policy of all levels. He makes sure that they are getting their emergency response training and recently brought in an active shooter training. He works with the police departments SWAT team. He is part of the hazmat team drills and training. As a labor leader for the 401 union, he has too many accomplishments to list. For this and so much more, Tim Aboudara is the Fire Fighter of the Year. Tim thanked the Rotary and all his teammates in the fire department and his family. Tim says in receiving this honor it sets a bar for him to excel every day to live up to this honor.

Next up was Chief Ray Navarro and the Santa Rosa Police Department. It is made up of 250 people of which 178 are sworn officers. They provide full-service crime and traffic investigation as they are committed to keeping Santa Rosa a safe place to live, work and play. In 2021 they had over 200,000 calls ad made about 4900 arrests. They confiscated over 75 firearms of which Officer Jucutan was responsible for 25. The In Response team was started in 2021 to go to calls where mental health professionals are needed, not necessarily police officers. They also started the Special Enforcement Team to address the growing gun violence of which Officer Jucutan is a member. There is not one special incident that was the reason that Officer Jucutan was chosen. It was his continued demonstration and commitment to the city overall. He has the uncanny ability to remember names and faces of suspects. As previously stated, he helped confiscate one third of all the guns confiscated in 2021. He is tenacious. Moreover, he is a field training officer. For all these reasons his fellow officers selected him as Police Officer of the Year. Officer Jucutan thanked the Rotary Club for this recognition, and he thanked his family and fellow officers.

Sheriff Mark Essick’s Department patrols the unincorporated parts of the County along with the contract work they do for the towns of Windsor and Sonoma; about 190,000 people. The sheriff’s department also runs the Sonoma County Jail of which they are to house and provide mental and medical health to all the inmates. The jail houses on average 700 people. There are 635 full-time staff, 100 part-time and 60 volunteers. Their dispatch center handles about 185,000 calls a year.

He has known Lieutenant Andy Cash for 23 years. Lt. Cash started his career in Mendocino County and has been in Sonoma since 1999. In his career with Sonoma County, Lt. Cash has done narcotics, cop unit, school resources officer for Windsor, patrol sergeant, internal affairs, patrol watch command. He is currently the Special Services Lieutenant which entails emergency service coordinator, department safety coordinator, public health, and coroner manager. Due to Covid he has been very busy! Crisis intervention training and peer support programs are his passion. He was nominated for this award by his peers in recognition for the incredible work he has done during Covid these last two years to keep the department and inmates safe. He heard of, researched it, and applied for a $125,000 mental health grant for the department. He truly lives by Rotary’s motto of “Service Above Self” every day. Eddie Engram who runs the jail piped in to say that Lt Andy Cash really has helped with the Covid problems at the jail. Lt. Cash thanked us for the award, but especially the 24 people in the peer support team that are there 27/7. He thanked his family for their support. He tanked Sergent Michelle Buchignani for her help with the mountains of paperwork.

Also, today we had two of last year’s three recipients for last year, Engineer Brian Buchanan and Sergent Ryan Cogbill; Deputy Nicholas Marks was not able to come today. Hopefully, next year we will have them back with this year’s recipients to honor them in person.  Carolyn Fassi says that all will get certificates of appreciation from the County Board of Supervisors.  State Senator Mike McGuire sent a representative to read a statement. They will all get a certificate from Senator McGuire. Sue Ferrin also joined us from the First Responders Resiliency Program.  She has worked with them all and sends her congratulations and appreciation. All the spouses have already received flower from Francesca’s Floral Design – Christen Jucutan, Laura Cash and Brittany Aboudara. Carolyn wanted to thank Sady Bracie, Kim Rendell, and Maria Galvan Lopez for their help. Her teammates in the club were Vickie Hardcastle, Craig Meltzner, and Dave Berman… Alan Hardcastle too. Thank you for the club and the board for supporting this annual event. She finished with this quote on valor, “Strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to encounter danger with firmness and personal bravery.”

Slides:

Click on image below to view slides.

Additional Pictures

Governor, District 5130

Dustin Littlefield

Secretary

Debi Zaft P.O. Box 505 Santa Rosa, CA 95402

Board of Directors

President Elect, Kris Anderson
Club Service I, Membership, Julia Parranto
Club Service II, Club Meetings, Casey D’Angelo
Club Service III, Fundraising, Diane Moresi
Club Service IV, Member Activities, Anne Gospe
Club Service V, Information Technology and Records, Pete Lescure
Club Director, Casey Carter
Community Service I, Member Involvement, Rio Ray
Community Service II, Youth, Andrea Geary
Vocational Service, Carolyn Fassi
International Service, Dan Balfe

DIGITAL EDITION No. 440 January 19, 2022  EDITOR: Kris Anderson PHOTOGRAPHER: Diane Moresi PUBLISHER: Richard Lazovick