The meeting started at 12:15 with Burlingame Rotary DJ Chris Ramirez streaming mood music before.
Pledge
Mark Johnson led us in the pledge with an assortment of flags on the screen.
Invocation
Mike Horwitz have the invocation—twice. The first time was sans mic, so there was a do over. His message was that wherever we go, we are in God’s presence and should follow his guidance to enhance the lives of those we touch (metaphorically, please).
Guests of the Club and Visiting Rotarians
Joe Galligan announced that it was Scott Campbell’s third visit and he would like to join our Club. He will be a great addition. Scott is a CPA and new father to Collin Patrick Campbell who was born on October 9, coming into this wild world at 8 pounds and 20 inches.
Pete Wanger was acknowledged as not being a visiting Rotarian, since he has been anointed an honorary member of our Club.
Zoomers, a sort of visiting Rotarians, were Pierre Bouquet and Mark Lucchesi.
Announcements
Before Fritz could get to his announcements, Mike Kimball announced that although his 1986 Jaguar had been given a thorough going over by the intrepid specialty mechanics, he found that the battery was stone dead. Thanks were given for that enlightening update.
Jim Shypertt told us that there was no sunshine report. However, after a quick consultation with his crystal ball, Jim told us that he will have a sunshine report next week. We’ll see.
Bobba told us that, because of Rotary he is better person than he was two years ago. The Truth in our Four-Way Test has resonated with him and he said that he checks himself when doing business to be sure that what he says is real truth and not twisted in any way. He also talked about the multiplier effect of DDF and how it helped raise $28,000 for his alma mater in India.
Bill Tiedeman made his perennial plea for us to participate in the District Foundation raffle—$25 per ticket. He emailed 10 tickets to each of us. We can donate online from the RI site or drop a check to Bill, and he’ll fill out your tickets for you. Our track record for participation is 70% short of the RI goal of EREY (Every Rotarian Every Year). Long-serving Bill enticed us to participate by noting that the odds of one of us winning the raffle this year are high, since we have never won.
The Wicked Witch of the West (A.K.A. Jennifer Pence) lost her broom, so she walked up to the podium to announce that we will have a costume contest at lunch next week. There will be lots of ways to win as she and Fritz will be making up categories for awards. What are they? Well, you’ll have to wait until next week to find out as they dynamic duo only have one category on their list so far—“That was in your closet?!?). Fear not! These two always come through with something fun that usually makes us laugh a lot.
Exciting news! We have a director of social media. The tireless Chris Ramirez added this to his Rotary hat rack. We will have an Instagram page, Facebook, and he’ll be doing updates to our website. If you have photos or other content, please send it to
burlingamerotarysocial@gmail.com.
Before more fellowship time, we endured the requisite Fritz-corny-joke spree.
ProgramJennifer introduced San Mateo County Sheriff Property Officer Javier Guzman, whose job it is to safeguard property and ensure that it is properly handled to maintain the evidence chain of custody required for the District Attorney’s office.
This was a very interesting presentation. You can see the slides
here. Some interesting points from Javier’s presentation are below.
- The Sheriff’s property officers are responsible for handling all of the officers’ body and vehicle cameras and recordings.
- They have to deal with some very difficult people when their property has been taken as evidence. There are lots of demands to get mobile phones back. One can only imagine how that would go—angrified soul venting at the property officers. YIKES!
- Javier said that they see the worst of humanity in their line of work. They deal with everything from child pornography and dead bodies to fentanyl and blood-stained mattresses.
- He took a minute to tell us about how awful fentanyl is. The drug is so strong that exposure, just touching not ingesting, to just a few grains of it can cause an overdose in non-addicts. Sadly, it is now the most common drug in the evidence room
- Javier told us about one of the special projects he worked on for a year—Shattered Glass. The team followed smash-and-grabs from cars and home robberies from the street perpetrator all the way up to the top of the operation. They found that the stolen goods were fenced in San Francisco and stored in San Mateo. Eight people were arrested, and the more than $2.5 million in goods that were stored in San Mateo were confiscated, including $150,000 in cash and 2,000 laptops.
- A particularly interesting part of the job is watching the interactions between the police and the DAs.
- Firearm and drug destruction is another part of their job. Drugs are put into a special incinerator that completely destroys them. Firearms have a S.W.A.T. escort when they are taken to the destruction site, where they are put in junk cars and then put into a shredder.
- Their gun buy-back program pays $100-$250 per gun with no questions asked.
- Old evidence has been pulled out recently as the department has hired two retired detectives to work cold cases.
- Some of the most bizarre items in the evidence room include a human skull, a pepperoni stick from 1970, ATM machines, full mattresses, and wall-to-wall carpet pulled from a crime scene.
- Javier ended with advice on how to increase your chances of having lost and stolen items returned, if they are found or confiscated.
- Use www.founddrop.com to catalog items. Law enforcement checks this site to try to reunite items with their owners.
- For valuable items, keep serial numbers, brand, and model.
- Add unique inscriptions to jewelry and tools.
- Register your bike with www.project529.com/garage/bike/search.
- #2 crime is drug related. #1 is a tie between home and vehicle burglaries with old Toyotas and Hondas (not 1986 Jaguars as several in the room burst out). Also of note is that catalytic converters are stolen the most from Priuses. (No good deed goes unpunished.)
Javier gave us his contact information and told us to reach out if had any questions.
Javier Guzman
San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department
650-599-1548
www.smcsheriff.com
Fritz presented Javier with a Polio Plus certificate for five vaccinations in his name.
Next Week’s Speaker— Colonel (Ret) Alden Cunningham
A Cold War Warrior's Report: A Lifetime of Leadership in Service
