Invocation: Laura Brecht
Called to order, Pledge, and 4-way Test: Andrew Przestalski
Music by: Martha, Gary & Bill
Happy $

1. Gary Westover almost died 23 years ago, celebrating his life on his birthday!
2. Judy Haldeman - Charlie Lusk, a former BS Rotary president, celebrated his 96th birthday yesterday.
3. Ray Wickle has his sister & brother-in-law visiting from Dayton OH

• Jim Bennett's son, David, visiting from Colorado
• John Blore, guest of Gene Noble, National Rotarian
• Page Ragowski, executive director of the Anza Borrego Foundation (guest speaker)

Taste of Borrego:

• So far, 55 + 15 + 20 = 90 is nearing 100 tickets sold so far. The group reports there are more to be turned in.
• Walk-ins are fine.
• 8 live aution items so far.
• An as yet unkown number raffle items
• Set-up Sunday afternoon at 4 (at time of meeting, Monday morning was a possibility, but was changed to Sunday at 4pm)
• Need baloons

Flags - can someone come in early next week to help pin/sow them, as many are falling off the board. This could be a summer project.

Guest Speaker: Page Ragowski, 6th year at the Anza Borrego Foundation (started in donor relations) was introduced by Jul:

History:

1. The AB Foundation has been a co-operating organzation with the Park for 47 years! It was established in 1967.
2. Established under the Desert Protective Council as the Anza Borrego Committee, as it was originally called, was established to obtain private acreage for the state park.
3. Land acquisition has been the function of the Anza Borrego Foundation. There is a checkerboard of in-holdings within the boundary of the park, and during these 47 years 52,000 acres of 67,000 have been acquired.
4. Page is the Executive Director. She came in 2006 to help manage donated acreage.
5. In 2003, the Anza Borrego Foundation was approached by the California State Parks to fill what was vacated by another foundation.
6. It is also involved in public education (the Borrego Institute name is sometimes still used), especially for young people.
7. Fund raising is another function of the Foundation.
8. The park is helped in a number of ways by the AB Foundation, including mundane ways such as accounting. The most visible function of the foundation, however, is managing the volunteers - there are over 240 such volunteers between the Anza Borrego State Park(200) and the Anza Borrego Foundation(40).
9. At the visitor center there is only one full-time employee (Sally Theriault), a few part-time employees. The rest are volunteers.
10. Among the volunteers are helpers in some of the active laboratories (very few parks, including National Parks, have active labs). Labs include Paleantology, Achaeology, Botany.
11. The Foundation is a cooperating association. About 90% of the parks have a cooperating association that keeps funds within the local park. Foundation took on Visitor Center sales, keeping funds here (rather than Sacramento).

Major achievements of the Anza Borrego Foundation include:

1. A successful rally to thwart the Sunrise Powerlink from going thru the park.
2. A continuing, and so far successful, movement to prevent wind & solar development in the park, because, in addition to obstructing the scenery at the power plant locations, these would need more power lines in the park.
3. ABF is involved in the Borrego Water Coalition, since this affects both the community and the park - which are inter-dependent.
4. The park has 638,000 + 14,000 acres owned by ABF yet to be transferred to the park (or about 650,000 acres), and all moneys collected by the foundation goes to land acquisition. Last time land was transfered to the park was in 2007 for 50% on the dollar, but state has since turned down paying 25% on the dollar for the land.
5. Some donors have left estates to the foundation, and currently, the foundation has about $1 million in reserves.
6. The Lucky 5 Ranch acquisition, started in 2001 (buying 2300 acres of the about 4000 acres), is nearing completion - probably this spring. This will link Anza Borrego State Park with Cuyamaca State Park. The family finally decided to sell the balance of the land to the ABF.
7. The tax basis for desert parcels is much lower, as the assessed values are not high. With a special land conservation rate for land it holds, ABF still pays about $6000/year in taxes.
8. Removing the agriculture in the area has a potential for having a huge impact. Agriculture has been estimated to consume 85% of water in the valley, and cheap water would not exist in about 20 years. This would put an extreme hardship on local residents. It is argued that agriculture is beneficial in a few ways. For example, date palm trees are the nesting area for the Swainson hawk & children of farm employees make up a large number of our school kids. As an aside - not mentioned by Page: "However, the hawks and farm workers will probably be much more adversely affected when the tap does run dry. Residences do grow wildlife-friendly vegetation and will provide many (comparable to farm working) landscaping jobs.
9. 2 weeks from now is the 10th anniversary of Camp Borrego (5th grade camp)."