President Adam Manning welcomed everyone to the Centerville Rotary Club and led the reciting of the Pledge. Brian Hayes provided the prayer.
President Manning had several announcements:
- The thought of the day is from Benjamin Franklin: “When you are good to others, you are good to yourself.”
- Today’s guests were:
- Chris Butler and Michael Henline from WDTN who were guests of Pat Beckel.
- Jack Lohbeck from the Dayton Club
- and Joanna Garcia joined us again from the Beavercreek Club
- Next Board meeting is on Monday at Woodbourne Library at 5:30PM.
- Rotary International is pairing up with the Peace Corp on a virtual service pilot. Participants donate 5-15 hours per week for 3 to 6 months to support organizations abroad with their community level projects. Please see Adam if you would like to sign up or for additional information.
- Our greeters were Kelly McDonald and Ron Hollenbeck.
Directors/ Others report to the club:
- Next Club social event is a potluck at the Senney’s next Thursday at 6:30PM. Please bring a dish for 8-10 people.
- Still need 3 people to help at tomorrow’s service project at the Salvation Army in Dayton, cleaning up their garden area (1 hour). Please let Crissy know if you can help out.
- Brian Hayes, the club’s secretary, thanked members for paying their bills.
Happy Bucks for this quarter go to support international conflict relief through the International Red Cross/ Red Crescent.
Our Sergeant of Arms was Pat Beckel with help from Brian Hayes. Happy Bucks were given for:
- Pat Beckel- his son organized the writing of a song on Tik Tok with others. Money made will help with his upcoming college expenses.
- Brian Hayes - For Mark Febus whose company was recently recognized (see below).
- Pat Turnbull- happy- his 3 daughters are all coming home for a visit.
- Brad Thorp- for Alexis Gomez who is from our area, who recently wrote a song that has been selected as the theme song for the upcoming women’s World Cup.
- Andrea Share- happy to be back.
- Lee Hieronymus - highlighted his love for talking about local farmers by sharing that Mr. Nick Forrest of Oxford, OH received the McClure Silver Ram Award at the American Sheep Industry Association’s annual convention in Denver. Mr. Forrest was recognized for his long history of service to the sheep industry.Lee also shared that in 1965 he was the head drummer in the Miamisburg High School band. He is now in the Miamisburg Alumni band which is having a concert on March 10th at 6PM in the Opera House in Miamisburg. See Lee for tickets that include dinner.
- Boyd Preston - happy
- Arnie Biondo - Our exchange student, Martina is now living with the Biondos and doing well.
- Wayne Davis - is happy and highlighted that the best source of news on the latest developments in the city are the various publications published regularly.
- Ron Hollenbeck - happy he was able to change the battery in his car successfully.
- Jeff Senney - Leaving for Washington D.C. tomorrow with his wife, Sharon to see their son and grandson.
- Adam Manning- Happy since today’s AT&T service interruption meant he has not received any messages.
- Harvey Smith - a happy day
- Elda Gotos Gay - super happy- her first grandson was born recently.
- Dick Hoback- happy for Boyd bringing him to Rotary.
- Jim Harris- happy/ sad bucks- had 4 deer in his backyard which was great until they started to eat his blue spruce tree.
- Mike Wier- appreciated Yankee Trace using maroon and white napkins today which are the colors of Texas A&M University, his alma mater.
- Mark Febus- building on Brian Hayes comments, he is happy his firm received the employer of choice award for Dayton.
- Dale Berry-shared that Alexis Gomez was also a featured performer in the “A Nashville Wish” movie that was showing at the Miamisburg Plaza Theatre.
Our speaker this week was Mr. Tom Roberts from the Ohio Citizen’s Redistricting Commission (OCRC).
President Manning introduced him by sharing that Tom was elected President of the Ohio Conference of the NAACP in September 2017 and reelected in 2019 & 2023. He was elected Second VP and appointed the Political Action Chairman for the Dayton Unit of the NAACP. Tom has been an employee of Sinclair Community College for 25 years and is the advisor to the Sinclair Ohio Fellows Student Leadership Development program which helps students understand the concept of Servant Leadership. He has represented the people of the Miami Valley for over 20 years in both the Ohio House and Senate.
The Ohio Citizens’ Redistricting Commission (OCRC) is an independent, nonpartisan commission made up of 15 volunteer members. Commission members include academics, former elected officials, community representatives, and other individual citizens from across the state.
The OCRC has three goals:
- Model a thorough and robust engagement process.
- Develop and demonstrate citizen-derived principles of redistricting.
- Draw unity maps based on community input and feedback to be submitted as testimony to the state’s official redistricting commission.
Currently Michigan, Colorado and 5 other states have citizen led committees working on redistricting which seems to be working well.
Redistricting is dividing up a jurisdiction (like a state, county, or city) into districts for the purpose of electing representatives. Where and how the lines are drawn influences everything from who is likely to be elected to how resources get allocated. The official line-drawing process in Ohio is controlled by the legislators themselves, with a commission of political appointees drawing the legislative lines. The Ohio Citizens' Redistricting Commission was created to model community-centered redistricting and avoid super majorities which hinder parties from working together to address the state’s issues.
- To ensure representational fairness, Ohio’s maps should reflect Ohio’s nearly 55% Republican and 45% Democratic partisan make-up. This is consistent with recent statewide election results for Governor, Secretary of State and State Auditor.
- The OCRC draft maps keep communities together, following all of the rules laid out in the Ohio Constitution preventing the unnecessary splitting of counties, municipalities, and townships.
- Goal is to create a committee of citizens (no politicians) to develop the required redistricting made up of 5 representatives of the largest political party, 5 from the second largest and 5 independents. This group would then handle the upcoming and future redistricting tied to the latest census data.
More information can be found at https://www.ohioredistrict.org/
Next week’s speaker will be Dr. Tom Henderson who will be discussing the upcoming Centerville School Levy.
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