Sen. Hill began by thanking Rotary for having him here, noting that Half Moon Bay is one of his favorite places in San Mateo County and the world. He congratulated Pascal on being here and thanked the club for its participation today. “I learned a lot,” he said, adding that he will be in Rome in a week and a half.
The topic he had prepared was a “behind-the-scenes tour” of what they didn’t teach in high school civics class. Starting in the California state legislature years ago, he found he had led a sheltered political life in San Mateo County because everyone gets along and works together to solve problems. Egos are not a problem; you find them in San Francisco to the north or San Jose to the south. When he arrived in Sacramento, he found an unusual environment: special services that pampered him, and everyone laughed at his jokes (“And I know I’m not that funny!”). He found it a very seductive, environment: when you are away from home and family, it’s easy to forget who you are and what defines you. For many, it was the highest salary and best job they don’t want to lose, and they’d do almost anything to keep that position.
He said, remember our former state senator, Leland Yee, who spent six years in federal prison because he didn’t want to lose that job? He got into trouble due to his fundraising activities.
Once settled in Sacramento, Hill found distinct areas of power and influence that shaped what happened in Sacramento and became California law: relationships you build and how you use them, your home district, where you come from -- (he represents a million people from basically South San Francisco and Los Altos and Sunnyvale to the south), policy (the issues that you want to bring to the legislature, issues that you think are important, that you want to make change, and try to influence the policy and the future of California) and how money and politics shape the future and what happens in Sacramento.
He said relationships are so important in Sacramento. There are 80 members of the Assembly, so the magic number is 41, if you want to get anything done. In the Senate there are 40, so you have to count to 21. And the same with the Half Moon Bay City Council: there are five members, “so you gotta count to three; if you can’t count to three, nothing happens.” So he made it a policy: every year, when new members of the legislature were elected and came to Sacramento and came to the Capitol, he made it his policy to go spend some time with them, regardless of party, sit down with them, learn what interests they had, why they were there, what they wanted to accomplish, and what was important to them. And it really helped him: “One, I got a better understanding of the state of California, all the interests that were there, but also, what was behind them. What motivated them. And I would do that.”
He continued: “Because some, if you were in the other party, would just make enemies out of you. You would treat them like garbage, and not treat them fairly or with respect.” There was one Assemblymember from the San Diego area when he was the chair of the Environmental Quality Committee in the Senate; she had a bill that came before his committee. The funds that were collected from basically the use of fossil fuels in California to use some of those funds for traffic signal synchronization. So the bill goes to the committee staff, the staff evaluates it, and they were going to sit down with the chair and give their suggestions. They came to him and said, “You know, it can already be done, it’s not specifically called out in the law that you can do that, and she’s a Republican, so who cares if she gets her bill or not. And I said, you know, I like traffic signal synchronization, I think it’s a good thing, and I think it’s a good idea to call it out, specifically to incite that, incentivize it. And I don’t care if she’s a Republican or not, it’s a good idea! So … I got her bill out of the committee, I said, we’re going to move the bill forward, and vote it out, and she asked me, this is the Assembly member, Marie Walgren is her name, she asked me if I would floor manage the bill for her, on the Senate floor, because that’s how you do it. Assemblymembers ask Senators to carry their bill on the floor, stand up and present it to the body, and then they vote on it. The same the other way around. I have to ask people in the assembly. So I (said) sure, I’d be happy to. So I presented the bill, it passed, the governor signed it, it became law, and it is today.
“A few years later —two years later – I had a bill in the Assembly. Passed the Senate … on the Floor. So I go in – you can go onto the Floor, in the House, lobby the bill, twist arms, break arms, whatever you do to get the vote – The number was actually 40. I needed 41. Didn’t happen. Couldn’t get help from Democrats, so I went to Marie, I said Marie, I need a favor. Can you help me out on this? She looked at the bill, ‘Sure.’ Got the vote, passed the bill, governor signed it, and it became law. That’s where relationships are so important and that’s where, people have lost that focus today, and it’s very unfortunate. As I said, Some members just go and make enemies out of the other side, and they just never can make it move forward.
“The other issue is, besides relationships, the home district. The home district that you represent. As former Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O’Neill said, All politics is local. And he’s so right. Every legislator has a good feel for their district, and what works and what doesn’t work in that district. And if you didn’t have a good understanding you weren’t going to last long in that district, You have to understand the district, its challenges, and its problems, and then you represent – I was very passionate about this district that I represented, and I was very protective of it. And to give you an example of it, and why that was important to me, is -- I read in the paper one morning, where Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook -- and I had been to Facebook, two or three times, when they were in Palo Alto, then when they moved to new offices in Menlo Park, (I) had tours, and kind of supported them, and what they were doing. Cheryl Sandberg, who was the CEO or CFO, she would call every once in a while, lobbying me for bills that she wanted, and trying to get support on some issue. And I read a comment that he had said, ‘We’re not going to expand any more in San Mateo County. We’re going to move and do our expansion elsewhere.’ He said, ‘The traffic’s too difficult here, it’s too hard, housing price are too high, and it’s just not fun anymore. We’re not going to stay.’ I said to myself, You son-of-a-gun.
“So about a week later, I’m speaking to the Palo Alto Rotary Club, and I look in the audience, and there is the editor and publisher of the San Mateo Daily Post, the newspaper. And I looked at him and I said – I thought to myself, do I want this in print or do I not? – (laughter, especially from me) and then I said, Yeah, I do. So if I said, You know, I read this in the paper last week, here’s what Mark Zuckerberg said, I said, you know what? I said, he’s no different than a strip miner. Comes into town, causes the problem, changes the housing prices, causes the congestion, and then he wants to move out, after he has already taken advantage of us.
“Well, it didn’t take long, a couple of days and that was in the paper, and a quote from me. Well, about three days later, I hear that Cheryl Sandberg is out trying to find someone to run against me in the next election. So that’s how powerful they are, but to me, it’s important that you know and understand the district that you represent. All politics is local.
“The third area of importance is policy. The policy that we all have. You may wonder why there are so many laws in California? That’s because, there are so many bills. And the reason for that is because each legislator tends to write 35 bills, every two years. He or she can write 35 laws, and then it has to get through the legislature. That’s four thousand, two hundred new laws that we can see every two years. (‘Wow,’ someone murmured.)
“It starts with an idea… so that is 4,200 bills. If you have thirty-five bill opportunities, you’re gonna use every one of them. You have to show your constituents that you’re doing something.… And sometimes when the deadline comes, legislators are scrounging, looking for things to put in those bills so that they can look like they’re doing something in the legislature.
“Former governor Jerry Brown once correctly said, Every problem doesn’t need a new law. Of course, every one of the problems I was trying to solve we needed a new law (laughter.)
“So when you get to the legislature, usually people come for a couple of different reasons. You want to come and solve the transportation problem, you want to solve the climate change problem, you want to solve the education problem. Those are some of the areas people focus on then they come to the legislature. When I went to the legislature, for some reason, problems seem to find me. When I kept looking for problems, I didn’t focus on one area of importance, I focused on trying to make our lives better. That was the goal that I had; trying to find problems that needed solutions. That was the real movement that I had.
“It starts with an idea: sometimes constituents bring in an idea, sometimes you see it … For me, it just kept falling in front of me. The San Bruno gas explosion, that fell in front of me, when they killed eight of our constituents in our neighborhood, and destroyed 28 homes. And we found that $500 million of money that was supposed to go for maintenance and repairs, PG&E diverted to profits and bonuses for their executives and their employees.
“Today, they stole our efforts, there’s a Golden State Energy Act that we’ve had. I worked closely with the governor, and now if PG&E does that again, the state doesn’t have to use eminent domain, they don’t have to do anything, they can go and take PG&E, and turn it into a nonprofit state corporation that will then operate with us. So that’s what we can do if they do that again.
“One of the things that also made me mad, I found a 16-year-old student from Los Altos, called me and said, You know there’s a 13-year-old in our school who’s engaged to get married to a 28-year-old from another country. (I said,) that can’t be true. It is true! In California there’s no minimum age for marriage. All you had to do at the time was get a judge to check a box. One parent goes before a judge and checks a box; that’s all you had to do. So we changed that now; there’s still no age requirement, I wanted an 18-year-old age but we didn’t get that far, (but) we made it a heck of a lot tougher for anyone to get married.
“And one of the other things that I got mad about: a 19-year-old lives in Burlingame went to a 21-year-old’s birthday party and they went on a party bus. He drove his car to a parking lot, got out of the car, went into a bus, they had a dancing pole, music, alcohol, they were drinking to the 21-year-old. No one stopped him from drinking, he drank, came back, got out of the bus, got in his car, and as he was driving down 101 at Poplar, he ran into the sound wall and killed himself.
“So, something’s wrong. We found that there were no restrictions, no requirement, the bus company said, our responsibility is just driving the bus, what happened behind is none of our concern. Well, it is today. Because now, if you want to have drinking on a bus, any bus, and there are minors on board, there has to be a 26-year-old on board that will take legal, and civil, responsibility for what happens afterwards. And no one’s going to do that with anyone underage.
“So the last one of what I wanted to give you an example of, how I got mad, in California we have enterprise zones. An enterprise zone is, you go into an area of economic disadvantage, and you can form an enterprise zone, and for every business within that zone the employer can get a $28,000 tax credit for every employee. We found that San Francisco’s financial district is an enterprise zone, at the time, and the law firms in there were getting nothing. We also found that in Rancho Cordova there was a strip club, and the strip club was getting an enterprise zone tax credit.
“So a Republican colleague of mine, we co-authored a bill, and we decided to have a press conference. On a Monday morning I drove to Sacramento, we went to the strip club in Rancho Cordova. Got out, TV cameras were there, he and I were walking up, right up to the strip club. My wife – right before I left – she said, you better hope nobody walks out of the door of that strip club and says ‘Jerry, good to see you again!’ Fortunately, it didn’t happen. We had the press conference that changed the law.
“But no matter how good you think this legislation is, there’s always opposition. He spoke of registered lobbyists who lobby on behalf of some special interest. Last year alone, they spent $540 million, in California lobby. The biggest company doing that was Google, which spent $12 million. I found they will hire any lobbyist they can, to try and beat you at what you’re trying to do. And they try to give legislators an argument or a reason not to vote for your bill.
“I had a bill that was, the patient’s right to know that. And they did beat me, one time. This was the California medical association, the doctors in California. They fought this bill, because what I was doing, is I found that the medical board in California was not disciplining doctors who were abusing patients, sexually assaulting patients, or doctors who had substance abuse problems. They were still practicing medicine but were on probation, but no one knew that; 30 percent of them would do it over again. And that’s wrong! The patient should know; make an informed decision. Well, the doctors did not want that to happen. So they hired every lobbyist in the state Capitol to fight; and they won. I brought the bill back the next year; and I was able to get support of Olympic athletes. For him it was a treat to see them; they testified at the committee; and ‘we were able to get the bill passed that day,’ and make it law. Today, they do have to report. He mentioned forms you get when you visit the doctor, that inform you of the doctor being on probation; ‘that is now the law of the land.’
“For him, the most powerful special interests in Sacramento are the California teachers association, the California nurses’ association and the California medical association, who represent teachers, doctors and nurses, and ‘sadly, their major interest is protecting their members; not protecting students and not protecting patients.’”
“He went on to say that these control committee chair and membership, and get the votes that they want. And they’re major contributors to campaigns, so it’s hard to go against them. How can you go against the doctor? Or teacher, or nurse, and their public persona?
“So the final issue is money and politics. Hill quoted former Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh (1960s): ‘If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, sleep with their women and still vote against them the next morning, you don’t belong in politics.’ And that’s how it was, how business was conducted. Compare that with the way business is done today: He gave a quote he’d read: ‘Politics is a difficult business. You need to raise massive sums of money from people who all want something. And if you give it to them directly, you’ll go to jail.’ But if you don’t give it to them in some form, you won’t be elected to the next office.
“He called that a ‘clear impression of what it is like today.’ He looked back on his experience: when he ran for the Senate he had to raise over a million dollars. You can only get so much from friends and family; you have to get the rest from lobbyists, who filter corporate money, according to whether you’re on their wavelength and like you, and then they’ll give you campaign contributions, or run TV ads for or against you. Lobbyists don’t use their money, but corporate money. ‘They’re the face of that money.’ When bills come before you, they’re the ones who will try to influence you. He spoke of how contributions ultimately weigh with how you vote on the issues. And the sad part is, that money you raise, goes to the leadership of the party who puts it toward electing more of that party in other areas of the state where you have purple districts, where you have close fights between Democrat and Republican.
“I had to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to the party, or to my leadership, every year. What do you get for that? You might get a bigger office, you may get chairship of that committee, you are looked upon much more favorably. A little more staff? – You can get that because you are part of the family. That’s the unfortunate thing. You will go to many events every night, in order to support that, and raise that money.
“Thank (to) Mr. President for mentioning the tobacco issue. Let’s talk about one final bill that I had, in the legislature; it was Bill 793. And it was tobacco. For some reason I have always been upset, or had questions about smoking. Never mind secondhand smoke – C. Everett Coop, he used to be the surgeon general in the U.S., he said once, your right to smoke ends when that smoke touches the tip of my nose. And I’ve always believed that. So one of the first pieces of legislation, in the city of San Mateo, prohibited smoking in restaurants, in bars and in the workplace. That was in 1994. It was tougher in 1994 – very tough. And I got a lot of flak for it, restaurants were trying to go after me, because I was doing that. I’ve always been actively promoting anti-smoking, especially youth smoking, to keep them from getting addicted.
“So I had a bill – one of my final bills in the legislature – to ban and prohibit all flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, which as we know are targeting communities of color, where 85 percent in those communities smoke menthol cigarettes … more than 7,000 flavors of tobacco products – bubblegum, candy, watermelon – What we found, this is what caused this epidemic. We needed to act. Seventy-eight percent increase in one year of high school smoking – actually vaping – use of tobacco; 78 percent in high school and 53 percent in middle school – increase in vaping in one year. We had to do something. And the new epidemic—we had Jule, where you plug it into a USB port in a computer, and it was sexy-looking, you could hide it, you could do things …
“In fact, our lieutenant governor, Eleni Kounalakis, was helping me on this bill, and her sons went to high school in San Francisco, every day. When there was a recess, they had to evacuate the school because all of the kids would go to the bathroom and start smoking, set off smoke alarms; and they’d have to leave and go outside for a while. Every day.
“So this was legislation, and we had to make some amendments to it. And this goes back to relationships, this goes back to some of the other things … because, at the end of the day, all politics is local. One of the issues in California, where we have large communities that use hookah pipes, hookah smoking. Well, hookah is flavored, it’s all flavored, when you use a hookah pipe, they take the fruits and everything, and that’s how they develop the tobacco and make the product, in the large Armenian communities in a lot of areas. I was told, that they weren’t going to vote for that bill, unless we exempt hookah from it.
“But I have to tell you that today, the law in California is, if you want to smoke a cigar, and if it’s flavored, if it costs more than $12, you can smoke it, and buy it. If it’s less than $12, you can’t find one in California for sale. And I’ll tell you the reason for that, just to show you how you have to compromise. There always was a fine line – if it did not hurt kids, kids don’t smoke $12 cigars. They smoke sweet swishers, which are two for $2.99.
“The reason I said this here is, on a weekend I was logging all the legislators on this committee in the Assembly; the health committee, who had to vote on this next week. I talked to this woman Assembly member from L.A., and she said, “I can’t support it the way it is, because my boyfriend and I like to go to cigar lounges and dip our cigars in flavored products and then smoke them, and they’re selling us that flavored cigar.”
“So that’s why, today, in the law, $12 flavored cigars are exempt from California. That one person, that one issue. Because I was told by the chair of that committee, you better take her amendment, they still haven’t kicked it out. And I figured that’s safe for the way things went.
“So, the bill passed both Houses, and I wanted it to be a bipartisan bill, so I got a couple of Republicans who I knew – here again, friends – The anti-tobacco people were targeting these districts, saying, What has so-and-so have against kids? So there were ads going out in these districts, trying to attack these legislators, and this one did not want that to happen, so he supported it and voted for it. So we had a bipartisan vote.
“But the minute the vote passed and the governor signed it, it was going to become law, the tobacco industry referended it. They went and gathered the signatures, and put it on the ballot the next year, to overturn it. Well, it went on the ballot, they spent $20 million, they lost; we passed it and it won. Then what they decided to do was, they challenged it with the U.S. Supreme Court; one of my bills actually went to the US. Supreme Court, and it won … And they turned it down! So it is law today – no flavored tobacco can be sold in California … and the sad part is that two years, it took for that to finally become law, and in effect, the tobacco industry made $1.1 billion dollars more in those flavored tobacco products.
“So I’m going to finish with one thing: it is a very large part of the success as a legislature, is your relationship with the governor. And I’ve had the honor to serve with … Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown -- and then Gavin Newsom. And to give you an example of the type of personality, We’re talking about the Capitol building, and the governor’s office. There’s one room and the room isn’t quite the size of this room, maybe two-thirds of it, kind of an office for the governor. Meeting room, not a private office but a meeting room. You go into Gov. Schwarzenegger’s office, and there was a huge dining room table. Huge. And it had chairs behind it, so big I could hardly lift them, to move it to get into it. And on the credenza on the side, encased in glass, was the sword from Conan the Barbarian. You saw that in that same office. The next year, Jerry Brown’s office: Same room, same everything, he had it decorated quite differently. It was, basically, a picnic bench. There was a bench about this size – like this – and he had benches on two sides. You sat on one side, he sat on the other. And that was it. Gavin Newsom, same room, he has it set up as a, basically a living room. Sofas, couches, a nice coffee table in the center with books on it, he has the place kind of looking like a living room.
“I’ve got to share with you one final story: Arnold Schwarzenegger – As you know, when you pass bills, they go through both Houses and then they go to the Governor. He can veto the bill -- by not signing it, by sending it back to the Legislature – or he can sign it and then it becomes law. At the time, Tom Ammiano was a supervisor in San Francisco – he used to be a comedian, many years ago, nice fellow – the Democratic party in San Francisco was having a meeting at a hotel. They were in their meeting, doors were open, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, as he was governor, was in a meeting at the same hotel. He walked by, saw them in there, walked in to say hello to everyone. And Tom evidently said, Get the hell out of here! Okay, he left. About a year and a half, two years later, Tom Ammiano had a bill, that had passed both Houses. And the bill went to the Governor, Schwarzenegger, for a signature. So the Governor – here’s his veto message that he sent back – to the legislature: To the members of the California State Assembly, am returning Assembly Bill 1176 without my signature. And then, it goes on: For some time now, I have lamented the fact that major issues are overlooked while many unnecessary bills come to me for consideration: water reform, prisoner reform and health care. Major issues by the Administration part. Yet another legislative year has come and gone without the major reforms that California – Just going on, talking about everything; why he vetoed this bill.
“But then, if you look carefully at this letter, and you take the first letter of the first three paragraphs, and single them out, it’s I-F-U-C-K-Y-O-U. (Laughter throughout the room greeted this.) And the governor’s office says, that’s purely coincidental. (Hearty laughter.) So you understand why, after 12 years of watching sausage being made, I‘m now a vegetarian. (even more laughter, and applause.)”
Discussion followed: Kevin took the podium to say, First of all, that was great! Very enlightening to hear all that. He’s never ceased to be amazed that a California state senator represents more people than the governors of about a third of the states. Their constituency is probably much more homogeneous than yours was as a Senator. So, kudos to you!”
Question: Can you shed any more light, from your perspective, on the Governor race this year?
Answer from Jerry Hill: “A lot of it comes from a political perspective. I’m more of a moderate Democrat, always have been. And I’ve always been of the belief that a moderate Republican is not different than a moderate Democrat. They believe in the same principles of government. Maybe the nuances are different, but they’re pretty similar. The governor’s race, so far, is interesting because, now that Kamala Harris is not running – and I think she would have been the favorite – I work with her, and I’m not a big fan. She had a hard time putting it out there, and we fought over the issues with PG&E. She wouldn’t prosecute them. The federal government had to come in and prosecute them, and they found them guilty! Of felony! They were on probation for six years, after that, because they broke the law. She wouldn’t do it. And that’s a problem.
“What I find is at this point, the candidates are, to me, a little too far to the left. I think maybe that’s why Alex Padilla, our senator, who I worked closely with on a number of things, especially the earthquake early warning system, is quite instrumental in that. We worked to get that into law. He’s more of a moderate, and I think he would be a good governor. The problem is, he’s not very charismatic. Very bright, but he lacks that – The candidates that we’re seeing, Tony *** the former Speaker of the Assembly from L.A., I think is trying to position himself as a moderate. And he is! He’s much more moderate than the other two. And Katie Porter is leading in this race, at least at this point in the polls. She has name recognition, I think is why, (which) is the more important part in an election, is the name. They may not know what you do, but they heard of you and haven’t heard anything bad, so they are going to support it. I think Katie Porter is too far to the left, from my perspective, and that’s not going to sell anymore. There’s a reality here that we have to look at … People are tired of the high cost of government, high cost of living, and they are blaming Democrats for a lot of that. So it’s going to be an interesting race; see who else kind of jumps into it. A Republican really doesn’t have a chance, they are top two vote-getters, so if the Democrats split all the votes, then the Republican can come in second and it will be Republican and Democrat, and the Democrat will win. I think, no matter who it is. We just need more candidates, so the voters can really hear, learn, and then make a decision.”
A visiting Rotarian, who came from a Marin County club, said Jerry spoke to his and a Marin Sunrise club, and he enjoyed Jerry’s talk.
(I think it was Kevin) said we (the HMB Rotary club) had concerns about mental health and youth health in general. He had knew of too many incidents of suicide, loneliness, ostracism by peers, bullying, and we (the club) would like to do something about it, and asked Jerry what he thought could be done. The state -- ?
Jerry answered that the state could do more, and acknowledged that mental health could be a jumping-off point into other problems such as homelessness or criminal activity. There used to be mental health courts sensitive to issues, that would base decisions on that knowledge and direct people to the right services. To him, it was a matter of getting people in need to participate in those services. It is a challenge, which needs to be a priority.
(I think it was Barbara) mentioned that Cunha School, the Boys and Girls Club and Rotary were aware of and had a goal this year of working on those issues, and she hopes to see Rotary working on that this year.
Jerry thanked the Rotary Club, and returned to his seat amidst hearty applause.
A couple more items: Liz took photos of the former Senator at the Rotary Club meeting, and Kevin gave Jerry the certificate acknowledging that five babies would be inoculated against polio in his name. His reaction? “How wonderful!”
Susan Kealey noted that she worked for Jerry Brown when he was Governor; and mentioned the Trash-Ur Hunt coming up at Dunes Beach on Sept. 20. Its focus will be collecting discarded cigarette butts, many of which are plastic can be reused. We can go beyond the beach if needed; the Dunes Beach Park Ranger will help us and bring Snowy Plover handouts, and the Woodside/Portola Valley Rotary Club, and maybe the San Mateo clubs, plan to join us.
CLUB MEETING, September 4, 2025
President Kevin called the meeting to order.
Pledge of Allegiance - Dianne Bobko led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Inspirational Thought - President Kevin O’Brien reminded us, “You know what that means” --- we sing. So Club members gave a heartfelt “All we are saying is give peace a chance” until Kevin welcomed everyone.
Guests - There were two special guests at the meeting: guest speaker, Sen. Jerry Hill, Karen Sentner (a guest for the second time, who has submitted her application for club membership (great applause), Stacy Trevenon’s husband Doug Mallon who complained that being a guest might not mean he gets food (so, is he a groupie?) There were no visiting Rotarians, and so a trivia contest was suggested with a prize of a bag of M&Ms (which got passed around and munched throughout the meeting) and a Powerball ticket. Kevin asked some trivia: What spice powder is a mixture of turmeric, (something I didn’t catch,) chili and cumin? Liz answered (something) masala, meaning curry (Joe won, and Kevin admitted he didn’t know curry was a mixture of anything.) Kevin also asked, what is the national animal of Scotland? Several guesses were made; Kevin hinted a fictional animal, and Doug said unicorn, which was right. The polio collection jar went around; Kevin mentioned that Bill Gates was donating a buck for every buck.
Introduction of Exchange Student Pascal
Kevin called on John Evans to introduce our current youth exchange student, Pascal. John outlined the yearlong exchange process:, which is done with the State Department: the student is screened by a local Rotary club, and goes to a school which is not in his or her native language. Students can indicate where they’d like to go but don’t know where it will be; the student must agree to all the regulations. John said he was lucky to get to know Pascal as he welcomed him to speak to us.
Using a slide show, Pascal talked about his background: he is 17, Italian, and passionate about learning new things. He got here Aug. 5; the exchange experience definitely put him out of his comfort zone. He enjoys listening to music, reading, going out alone or with friends, and traveling. He has been to the U.N. and New York. He is from a large community in the capital of Sardinia, with a population of 1.6 million, with history, traditions and culture that attract tourists. He is from the southern part of the country, where colorful costumes are part of the culture. They acknowledge the saint for which the community is known, and focus on him in the city. The large festival during the summer is a big deal; the streets are filled with people in costume, and music and dance. They have their own language, which is recognized by UNESCO even though some are starting to lose that language. Pascal said they also have “really good” cuisine, and the romance Sardinian language, which is close to Latin, which is “a thing in Italy,” and knowing the Sardinian language helps. His grandparents speak Sardinian, though he doesn’t; the area is known for Sardinian festivals, costumes and seafood, as they are close to the sea.
He showed photos of his three siblings and a twin sister with red hair so “we don’t really look that similar.” He has a younger brother and an older sister, who did a Rotary exchange in Portland, Ore. Seeing “how much fun she had” made him want to do the same; he was “able to see the truth of the experience,” the good and hard moments too. His sister is back in the U.S.
He said that his goals for this year were improving his English (which was pretty good to begin with), and expanding his vocabulary and communication skills. Being here and out of his comfort zone makes him want to learn more about the culture and about the school, which is very different. He wants to share his culture with others, and grow more independent, outgoing and confident in speaking.
He is a senior this year. In Italy, they do five years of high school, and this year on exchange is his fourth year. When he returns, he will have some exams in order to catch up. Now, he is taking AP calculus, leadership, AP psychology, AP government and AP physics – which brought incredulous and heartfelt applause from the Rotary club.
John Evans mentioned that as we speak, outbound student Kenji is headed to the airport.
Pascal’s interests besides physics include doing things with his family such as gymnastics. Kevin and the entire club gave him good wishes; Kevin (and I too!) think student exchange is one of the coolest Rotary programs we have.
Announcements - Mike Osborne came forward; he will take on the Paul Harris contributions for our club. Kevin presented him with a Paul Harris pin with three rubies.
Liz noted that we raised money for the Big Wave Harvest festival, though another member is needed from 12-2 to sell merchandise at the event on Sept. 13.
The district Foundation event will be held on Oct. 11, Fleet Week event with the jet flyover, and several Rotarians will go. Diane, Kevin and others will go
Happy Birthday to..... Everyone wished Liz a happy 71st and Paul a happy 86th birthday. Paul explained to Jerry that one of our club customs is to donate to the Foundation, and members often do that on their birthday. Everyone sang Happy Birthday to them.
Paul quipped that you’re not really old until you pick up the remote, hold it to your ear and wait for a dial tone.
The Marble Game did not yield winners.