The meeting began with Pres. Andresen announcing that we would begin with a recitation of the Pledge to the flag. So we did. We then observed a moment of silence in recognition of the passing of long-time club member and former president, Karl Roscoe, who died on Sunday after a long battle with cancer.
Linda Zesch brought the morning invocation, one of thanks for the memory of Karl Roscoe’s service to the community and for our many blessings.
We sang Happy Birthday under the guidance of Maestro Bob Lager, accompanied by the piano player, one Carl Bolte, for a whole bunch of members with June birthdays, 18 to be exact. You know who you are..
Pres. Tony, for the benefit of the relatively new members, reviewed the history of Rotary and of our Club, and then members introduced their numerous guests.
Anniversaries of their joining Club 13 were recognized for Pat Bolin, 31 years; Tom Terry, 31 years; Dan Nenonen, 15 years; Kelvin Beatty, 3 years; and Eric Burger, 3 years.
Announcements included:
Jan Armstrong expounded at length about the coming Dragon Boat races this Saturday. (It was a huge success, due in no small part to the efforts of this scribe.) There will be a meeting of the Program Committee this week (June 16th at 10:30 before our meeting). Input about program ideas is welcomed! See Mandy for tickets to the KC Current soccer game on June 19.
Jared Campbell introduced our speaker for the day, Tom Gerend, who is (and was the first) executive director of the Kansas City Streetcar Authority. Mr. Gerend reported that since the system opened in 2016, it has carried over 10 million passenger trips, won numerous state and national awards, and most importantly, has stimulated over $3B in economic development in downtown KC!
He also reported that construction is underway for extensions of the line, southward to the MU campus and north to the bottoms adjacent to the river, and he showed depictions of the new designs and technology that are being used to design the new stations along the line.
He quoted numerous statistics to show the first phase of the streetcar system along Main Street is happily exceeding all projections of the economic impact it would have along that line. Most importantly, it is contributing to the growing health of the KC downtown area as numerous buildings are opening to house people who are choosing to live in downtown. And an increasing number of businesses are opening to serve the needs of those new downtown dwellers.
The cost of the construction and opening of the streetcar system is shared by federal dollars and local taxes. Rather than charge for rides on the street cars, the authority found that the increase in the tax base brought about by the presence of the system has been more than enough to fund its ongoing operations.
Plans are being made for the eventual expansion of the streetcar system to all major population and business centers of the core of KS’s downtown – including extensions to KC, Kansas!
This scribe is a relative newcomer to KC, and it is so refreshing to see such great things happening to build the quality of living and the economic health of the region.
After a review of coming meetings, we heard the quote for the day, “Many times the wrong train took me to the right place.” Paulo Coelho, Brazilian
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