The guest speaker for the meeting December 12 is Nita Wracker. She is the Assistant City Manager for the City of Lincoln and is responsible for developing and administering the city-wide $33M budget. This promises to be a very interesting meeting.

President Greg opened the meeting with 26 members and 2 guests. The flag salute was led by Edgardo and the Four Way test was led by Paul. Guests welcomed were: Guest Speaker Judge Van Camp and Penny Pearl.

Greg began the events discussion by saying that 8 + members have signed up to help the Kiwanis Club sell See's Candy at Orchard Creek. He also reported that the Dart committee has finalized their report. The next step is to bring the report to the BOD for their input, and then a report to the club. The committee has completed a comprehensive outreach study of the citizens and businesses of Lincoln over the past year. Edgardo addressed the need to support the Salvation Army bell ringers as donations this year are 25 % lower than previous years. Clark reported that the Silver Wishes provided Seniors with 36 Wishes and 55 Christmas trees. Paul reported for WCS that $1,000 has been donated to Haiti project for the schools. Kris has challenged the Interact Club to complete the Christmas stocking project in 1 hour at the next meeting. She also mentioned that the Santa Letters are responded to every year by the Woman's Club and Interact members.
 

Judge Brian Van Camp was introduced by Joann Hilton. After serving sixteen years on the Superior Court, Judge Van Camp (Ret.) has excelled as an arbitrator and mediator practicing in challenging commercial, business, and real property disputes, earning recognition for his professionalism, empathetic listening, and innovative problem-solving skills. The Judge began his program by illustrating several Republic's that historically have failed to maintain their Democrocy such as the Republics of Rome, France, Germany and China. He said that the Jury system of peers, is the heart and lungs of Liberty. That the USA struggles to retain the system unique to our country in part because of the change from unbiased election of judges to judges that that promote their politics. Furthermore, of those citizens that are called to jury duty only 30% actually show up, with the percent in Sacramento being a bit higher at 50-60 %. Unfortunately, he said, there is no real consequence for this low level of citizen responsibility.