Dan Hoffman, a former Irvine Spectrum Rotary Club member, expressed his desire to run for California State Assembly. Petitioning to put his name on the ballot, Hoffman will run for the 70th District. Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R) currently holds the 70th District seat, which includes Irvine. DeVore is leaving the Assembly due to term limits. After giving a brief review of politics in California, Hoffman shared the procedure of running for office.
Hoffman, who has lived in Irvine in 15 years, states he is the best Republican to take this seat. He expressed his concern for the current state of California and said that is the main reason he is running. Current issues with California include the loss of $16 billion and paying more money for California’s prisons versus education. Tuitions at state universities have increased exponentially across California, wherein salaries for correction officers exceed that of educators. Hoffman went on to share that in 2006 California spent $227 million in overtime to certain groups of corrections officers.
As a result of the economy, according to Hoffman, there have been severe cuts across the state affecting all services. As a result many incumbents are disillusioned and not looking to run for office again. The state’s loss of a substantial amount of its budget is the main reason Hoffman says he is running for office, “I’m looking to raise money and create jobs for the state without raising taxes.” Hoffman also believes it is time to stop passing laws for the sake of passing laws.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Myanmar Water Project
John Brainerd spoke about Rotary’s water program in Myanmar. Major activity in Myanmar is agriculture – even orphanages grown gardens. However, due to a lack of infrastructure, children had to walk to a river to fill buckets and carry them quite a distance back to the orphanage garden. Instead of attending school and socializing children were carrying buckets of water back and forth to take care of the garden.
Two and a half billion people lack access to clean water. Each year 1.8 million people die from diarrhea, much of it cause from severe diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. Eighty-eight percent of deaths are due to unsafe water or inadequate sanitation or hygiene, and 1.4 million are children ages five and younger, according to the World Health Organization. Malnutrition- related deaths of children five and under caused by unsafe water, inadequate sanitation, and insufficient hygiene total 860,000 a year.
When Rotary inquired further as to what Myanmar needed most – physicians in Myanmar stated they needed permanent water projects. Though a daunting project, Rotary agreed and has already designed and built 15 of the 60 requested systems. Working with Save the Children and the Myanmar Compassion Project, the project is serving 200 orphanages. Seventy to eighty percent of the water is used for agriculture, ten percent is used for kitchen use, and ten percent is used for laundry. The children now have time for school and social activities. Newport continues to work with Maesai Rotary to keep the project alive.
To find out more about the Myanmar Water Project, including the project’s entire history and how to make donations go to: http://www.myanmarwater.org/
Two and a half billion people lack access to clean water. Each year 1.8 million people die from diarrhea, much of it cause from severe diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. Eighty-eight percent of deaths are due to unsafe water or inadequate sanitation or hygiene, and 1.4 million are children ages five and younger, according to the World Health Organization. Malnutrition- related deaths of children five and under caused by unsafe water, inadequate sanitation, and insufficient hygiene total 860,000 a year.
When Rotary inquired further as to what Myanmar needed most – physicians in Myanmar stated they needed permanent water projects. Though a daunting project, Rotary agreed and has already designed and built 15 of the 60 requested systems. Working with Save the Children and the Myanmar Compassion Project, the project is serving 200 orphanages. Seventy to eighty percent of the water is used for agriculture, ten percent is used for kitchen use, and ten percent is used for laundry. The children now have time for school and social activities. Newport continues to work with Maesai Rotary to keep the project alive.
To find out more about the Myanmar Water Project, including the project’s entire history and how to make donations go to: http://www.myanmarwater.org/
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