North Notes
Spokane-North Rotary Club
September 30, 2024
Calendar:
Oct. 7: Noon meeting at the Bark. Club President’s quarterly update.
Oct. 14: No meeting. (Indigenous People’s Day holiday.)
Tours and activities:
Club activities chair Laura Zahn said upcoming events:
Bite2Go’s second harvest is scheduled Thursday, Oct. 3, in the afternoon. Contact Laura for more details.
Saturday, Oct. 12, 2 p.m., Free Rein therapeutic riding tour in Spokane Valley.
Happy Bucks:
Bill Simer was happy to fire the large cannon at the Eagles’ game Saturday, but EWU lost to Montana.
Laura Zahn was happy for a good turnout at the Habitat outing.
Art Rudd was $10 worth of happy despite a lot of rain during his European visit, adding London was very good.
Steve Bergman was happy that Alex passed the bar and was sworn in at the Cooney law firm office.
Melinda Keberle was happy that son Landen’s Lewis and Clark football team won another game.
Sheila Fritz was happy for continued progress on multi-media photos of the club. Nancy Hanson added a dollar, joining the effort.
Amy Jo Carlson was “just happy to be here.”
5th District hope: Work together
With a divisive Congress and a divided nation, Michael Baumgartner hopes the parties and the populace can still work together more productively.
The 5th Congressional District Republican candidate told the club at the Sept. 30 luncheon that he “is very concerned about the level of divisiveness” and, despite rising prices and increased lawlessness and homelessness, he “wants the American Dream we already had.”
Baumgartner opposes Democrat Carmela Conroy, who spoke at the club Sept. 9. Both provide international service experience in the race. The winner succeeds Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who is ending a 20-year time in the sprawling Eastern Washington district.
Mike served eight years as a state senator in Spokane’s 6th District and has been Spokane County Treasurer since 2019.
While in the Legislature, he said, he “worked well with both parties to help secure funding for the Spokane North Corridor freeway, the new medical school at WSU and other issues” and hopes to help for a more cooperative spirit in Congress.
Looking at the club’s Rotary banner, he added, “It would great to have that Four-Way Test in the Legislature and Congress.”
Baumgartner spent his early time for 10 years in Colton, Wash., where his mom was a kindergarten teacher for 43 years and his dad was in the forestry program at WSU. He met his wife, Eleanor, in Afghanistan and they have five children, ages 4 to 13.
Of the Congressional race, Mike said “we’ve gone through the parade season and now we are in the fair season.” He added that some children wore sandwich-board campaign signs during events.
“What are people saying?” Baumgartner said. “Prices are way too high. We couldn’t afford our own house now (purchased several years ago).”
He said, “the government did reckless spending during the Covid years and now Washington State is the fifth most expensive in the nation for a new house.”
Baumgartner was in high school at Gonzaga Prep and Pullman and received an economics degree at WSU and a master’s degree at Harvard.
He worked on a civilian counter-narcotics team in Afghanistan and worked in the State Department in Iraq.
Baumgartner said he visited the southern border in Arizona, adding “I saw 50 people walk right around the fence.”
He said fentanyl is a “scourge” that must be curbed, adding, “we just can’t release people into the country, we need to work with Mexico so all refugees are checked.”
He said it would be a mistake to remove the Snake River dams, adding that trucking wheat to market would need so many trucks that existing roads could not handle the traffic.
Asked about growing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, he said “I hope not” that things could escalate to a World War III, though Iranian missiles now have hit Israel.
He added, “We cannot let Putin win” in Ukraine, partly because that may bring issues in Taiwan and China in play.
Asked about rising health care costs, Baumgartner said “We spend 25 percent more than other countries, but not better results.” He adds, “I would rather be a sick person in the U.S. than anywhere else, but wellness is not incentivized.”
He said during Covid telemedicine helped access and cost and some lessons may have been learned, especially in rural areas, such as the 5th District.
Baumgartner said that while many people want to cut the $35 trillion federal government budget “everybody wants something,” so it’s hard to cut particular programs.
Bulletin editors: Chuck Rehberg and Sandy Fink.
Photos: Sandy Fink and Laura Zahn
Spokane, WA 99201
United States of America