After discussing the idea with the board, sending out surveys to members,
getting the ambassadors on board, and accumulating a list of potential hosts for our “Chamber Morning Coffee”, we DID IT!
It was quite exciting to go to the first coffee knowing this was one of my ideas to bring to the Chamber. At one point I counted 46 people and everyone that attended seemed to have a great time!
It is always nice when I get to spend the day away from the busyness of work and share it with my family. I’m sure if I had to work today I’d be bugged and wishing I 
didn’t have to. It is nice to be able to set aside a day to reflect on many things we normally don’t think about on a daily basis. Our many freedoms! Freedom isn’t just a word! Freedom is something that has been granted to us by our Creator and protected countless times throughout many generations with blood, sweat, and tears…and not only by our brave Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines but also by their families.
While we are here taking a day off of work, or maybe even working (and angry that we can’t be off), let us remember that many have risked there lives and, at this very moment, many are still risking their lives for us to do so. Also let us remember that many families never saw their loved ones again after sending them off to war. And many families now long to be sharing a “day off” with their loved ones but can’t because their loved ones are currently in other countries selflessly serving their first, second, or third + tours of duty.
I am always amazed when I read stories of courage…and they are everywhere. I am sure you’ve read them to. Stories such as: A Marine is wounded in battle, even with missing limbs, only to beg to go back on the front lines to be shoulder to shoulder with his brothers. They are countless…the stories and the heroes. They are not just stories on a page. They are real life and we owe these true heroes a debt of gratitude. Don’t only thank a veteran today. Thank many! Go out of your way to find one or many and thank them! Find a Veteran’s Day service near you and go there. And thank God that He created people who would put their very lives on the line for us to grumble about having to work or grumble that we didn’t get enough sleep.
If you are a Veteran and reading this, thank you! From my family to you, we will never be able to repay you! But we will always be in your debt!
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Local Observance:
In Ripon – 10:30 a.m.: Ceremony at Veterans Wall honoring Vietnam veterans, featuring an honor guard and a laying of the wreath, 311 First St. at Main Street.
Hot dogs served afterward at Kukulica VFW, 12455 W. Ripon Road.
Please check out this tribute that my good friend Kevin Hawes of Ability Mortgage made for Veteran’s Day!
We had a long meeting today but it was productive. We discussed many things but the two most important things involved two speakers we had. We don’t often have speakers so it was a treat to have two in the same meeting.
First we had Matt Householder from the Ripon Ministerial Association give a short presentation on “LoveRipon” which has been done in surrounding communities but is finally coming to Ripon. It is two days out of the year where volunteers are to come out of the woodwork and do various community activities filling needs. These will vary from painting graffiti to spending time with the elderly at Bethany. They encourage families to volunteer as a whole or just individuals.
Second we had Chuck Higgins of the Manteca Bulletin to discuss a new Chamber magazine with us. The magazine is a great way to showcase businesses in the Chamber and activities we have throughout the year. It has been done before but is going to be redone because of the 50th Anniversary of Almond Blossom coming up this year.
Of course we had a great meal prepared by one of the board members as well.
Well I had the first meeting today with the new group of Chamber Ambassadors. If I wasn’t excited about the new program going into this I sure was after the meeting! So far we have four ambassadors and are looking for more…but these four are going to be a HUGE asset to the Chamber and the Chamber membership.
Here is who have joined up so far:
Kevin Hawes – Ability Mortgage
Lori Heuvel – Recollect Photography
Stephanie Hobbs – Ripon Community Athletic Foundation
Amy McPeak – The Tank House Gift Shoppe
I’m putting this blog article into the “Miscellaneous” category because it doesn’t
necessarily fall into any of the other categories that I’ve created…yet it applies to each and every one.
Tonight we had a workshop at the Ripon City Hall and it was open to all Ripon residents as well as people from Manteca, Lathrop, and Escalon. The only problem is I was the only “citizen”. The rest of the people there were from the Ripon city staff (Kevin Werner & Ken Zuidervaart), Ripon city council (Mayor Nutt & Vice Mayor Krebbs), one Manteca city staffer, and SJCOG staffers who were giving the workshop. Craig Macho from the Ripon Record was also there.
The topic was Smart Growth which sounds great: Green, less air pollution, less auto travel, save the farmland etc. Yet something that nobody is talking about is how it hasn’t worked to the desired results anywhere (that I know of). It has been tried elsewhere, and from everything I read, the results often are:
I asked the gentleman giving the presentation where this has successfully been achieved and he pointed to San Francisco. I didn’t have a chance to challenge his claim because other people started talking instead, but think about that a moment. Does SF really promote smart growth? To me, the fact that the bay area workforce lives in the valley tells me that the desired result of smart growth wasn’t achieved. It moved home ownership to a different geographic (and less strict) location because the cost of living is astronomical and it also moved the poor air to a different location.
In reality, ultimately what smart growth does is create a sacred line or boundary. This boundary generally can’t be moved even though, when enacted, everyone says, “Oh we can move it someday.” They never do.
In Portland, Oregon these lines were drawn years ago and the only homes that could be built outside of those lines were on land where the owner owned at least 160 acres and made a certain amount of money per year on that land. So long for private property rights eh?
According to everything I read, Portland was one of the most affordable housing markets in the mid 80s but became one of the most expensive housing markets less than 10 years later. This doesn’t sound like a very “smart” plan to me.
Even though a plan like this would start out voluntary in Ripon, years from now it would become something that is mandatory. And then someone from outside of Ripon would start dictating where the sacred lines are, and who, if anybody, can build outside of those sacred lines.
This is an important issue that people need to study up on because it WILL affect us or our children.
At tonights meeting I was able to vote again because Kevin Hawes wasn’t able to make it.
Before us tonight was the lot merger for the RFD Station #3 that we discussed at last meeting.
It was pretty straight forward especially because we went over most of this at the last meeting. The only question I had was why the variance for the 3 foot wall? Most of us have to have a 3 foot wall for at least 20 feet from the street or sidewalk but here it was only 10 feet. I didn’t mind it in this case because of visibility but I was merely curious, why in this case, they wanted the variance.
The vote for the merger was 5-0 in favor.
Today we had our board meeting once again at the Ripon Fire Department. I’m hoping that at some point soon we can start switching where we have these meetings. It would be nice to rotate between Chamber member restaurants and also enjoy their food at the same time.
The things we discussed were: Main Street Day, the Almond Blossom Festival and the Welcome to Ripon Sign that blew over in the last big wind storm.
We all decided as a board to get more bids than just the one that we had on making and installing the new Ripon Sign to replace the old.
Also, Dorothy mentioned that we didn’t have anyone to do the parking for the Almond Blossom Festival and we decided to seek various non-profits in town that may benefit from the $5 parking fee.
I finally finished the Ripon Chamber promotional video. You can find it permanently embedded on the Ripon Chamber website at: riponchamber.org but I also embedded it below for your viewing pleasure.
I was happy to have another Planning Commission meeting tonight since we skipped last month’s. Tonight we had a lot of people in the audience including two City Councilmen (Vice Mayor Garry Krebbs and Councilman Charlie Gay). They are both former Planning Commissioners and it was nice to see them there.
The people in the audience were there primarily to support the rezoning of some property on North Ripon and River Roads where Fire Station #3 is proposed to go. We will be learning more about that at next month’s meeting.
We also were there to discuss possibly changing the sign ordinance in town…primarily whether or not to allow electronic signs in town. And if so, what rules should we propose for the City Council to vote on.
It was voted that we would have a subcommittee made up of two commissioners (Navid Fardanesh and Kevin Hawes) and two councilmen (to be determined) along with members of the business community or Ripon Chamber Board of Directors. The subcommittee will then make recommendations to the Planning Commission via a workshop where members of the community can add their input and then there should be a vote later on that night. When? Who knows. It could take awhile.
Today we had another board meeting. I really enjoy being part of this board. There are a pretty diverse group of people from various types of businesses and parts of the community so the input is wide and great.
We went over our various committees and the chairs of those committees were able to go over their “first thoughts” or ideas they wanted the Board to consider.
Jacob Parks is the chair of the governmental relations committee which I am also a member of. He discussed the chamber possibly changing from “a-political” to taking positions on issues that affect the businesses in Ripon. The board seemed pretty receptive to looking into this more.
I am the chair of the membership committee which also heads up the ambassador program. I requested to be chair of this committee because I saw it as a big challenge with great rewards. I feel like having an ambassador program is vital for a healthy chamber.
I unveiled a video that I have been working on to help promote the Chamber to prospective businesses and it seemed to be welcomed with open arms by the entire board. I also unveiled a questionnaire that I wanted to send out to each members via email and they also liked that and proposed that we send one out every quarter.
