#607, Club Bulletin, May 23, 2016

Club News and Happy News:  There will be a Board Meeting today after the meeting.  Mary noted 3 anniversaries of membership of members; including  3 years for Dr. Nadkarni, and 22 years each for Chuck Moody and Bill Parks.  Bobbi Holliday presented the Rotary District Meeting Ping Pong Ball Drop winning of $1000 to the Ponzeti Project!!  Marv Krieger is proud of the dealerships 20 year of contributing cars to CAPE. Todd Poci was pleased with the Pearl City Bar B Q fun.  Chris Steinbach noted his new job at Loras College and his celebration on Friday, May 20th at MCSA.  Bobbi Holliday was happy that her sons are graduating from Iowa State and having successful experiences there.  Paul Fitzpatrick was happy to have attended the Pearl City Bar B Q!!

 

Program: Alan Ostergren introduced State Representative Gary Carlson as the speaker today.  Gary gave an update on the legislative process and work being achieved.  Gary emphasized the need for bipartisan work in order to pass legislation. He explained the Revenue Estimating Conference or committee's work and how that amount establishes the $$$ for the annual state budget.  Big issues always are education and medicaid since they take a significant amount of funding.  After these areas are funded there is a mere 22% left for everything else.

 

Gary's biggest disappointment this year was not fully addressing Mental Health needs within the state. He relies on the wisdom of Mike Johannsen to help make decisions in this area.  Another area of interest in Economic Development is one of BioScience-Chemical.  This legislation put Iowa in the forefront in the use of our raw materials to encourage agribusiness product development.  Another area was the coupling of our state tax policy with that of the Federal Government.  Other topics included human traffiking, medical marijuana and water quality.