Back to Home page NEWSLETTER Cedar Rapids Downtown Kiwanis Club Wednesday, September 17, 2008 The meeting was called to order by President Kelly Moore. Guests: Mary Lou Erlacher, boss of member Laurie Warden. She is the director of the Workplace Learning Connection. Laurie didn’t have to pay a buck! Birthdays: Anniversaries: Announcements: We need speaker chairs for several months of the next Kiwanis year. Please give your name to the President if you can help.
Bob Hatala, also known as Chief Bob the President to be, says that next week is the annual installation banquet. It starts at noon and is at Elmcrest Country Club. Cost is $15. Bob promises good food and says Byron will be here, but don’t let that keep you away, please. Happy Bucks: Dick Boardman was happy but too many people were talking and the scribe couldn’t hear why he was happy. He did look happy, so we believed him.
Sister Charmaine is happy that John Waggoner is doing a good job up there of keeping his Cubs playing good baseball this year.
John Schweitzer was happy that pitcher, Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs pitched a no hitter and didn’t throw his arm out with the 115 pitches he used to do it. John will be happier if Mr. Zambrano can pitch again this year.
Mary Corkery was happy that people helped with the Kernels ball park security project.
Ron Sunderman was happy that Dick Boardman checked his wallet. The scribe has no idea what that means and was too busy writing to ask. Ask Ron and Dick if you are interested. Speaker: Officer Installation next week.
Dave Marquardt, Superintendant of Schools for Cedar Rapids. He was introduced as having two cats and a dog. He is happy to have a desk this week at the modular site at Kingston Stadium. This is the first time since June 12 that he has had a desk.
He presented the tale of the flood and the school system. Eight feet of water covered the first floor of the Educational Support Center (ESC) downtown. Three feet of water covered the first floor at Taylor School on the SW side. The staff was great at moving things before and after the flood. IT equipment was on the third floor of the ESC and for that they are grateful.
Most of the summer events went as planned but were held in other places. The Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA put up the modular structures north of Kingston Stadium in record time. Taylor School is the only school to take on water. They still do not have a clean bill of health on the ESC or Taylor School due to asbestos mitigation but expect it soon.
1,800 students were displaced due to the flood and had to be enrolled in different schools. The future of Taylor School is unknown. There was room for all of the students at other schools. Even though their jobs were eliminated at Taylor, all of the faculty and staff were re-assigned to other schools so none of them lost their jobs. They are very lucky because most of the small businesses that were lost downtown could not reassign their employees to other jobs paid for with tax payer money. This was done even though it is likely that the tax revenues will take a big hit because of the depressed property values due to flood and probable default on payments by tax payers. The school system hasn’t addressed that issue at this time but may get some big surprises in the future. Stay tuned.
The motto for the school district during recovery is, “We will be back and better!” Word for the day: Eudemonia. Is defined as a state of Happiness or feeling of well being. Also is a state of happiness of a life of activity governed by reason. The scribe is eudemonias that there is only one word for the day! Submitted: Dr. DavidGraeff | 