Association of Retired Seattle City Employees Non-Profit Organization P.O. Box 75385, Seattle WA 98175-0385 U.S. Postage PAID ARSCE Seattle, WA Website: www.arsce.org Permit No. 1100 NEWS ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED SEATTLE CITY EMPLOYEES July/August, 2021 Volume 49, No. 1 OUR PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE By John Masterjohn Celebrate! Well, it seems that when I said this may be my last column as your president, I was right! As of July 1st, Mr. Mike Nagan has agreed to a one-year term and then we will see what happens after that. We have a large group of candidates to choose from. W Now, just because I am no longer your president, I am still on the Board for the next three years. I will try and l keep you apprised of my adventures, as boring as they may be. I want to thank all of you for your support—especially my two editors. First, my wife Karen Meadows who does the initial Sunday ~ July 4th, 2021 Thank you, John, proofread; correcting spelling, punctuation, and tries to make for your many sense of what I have written. Then my last editor, Lee Sattler, who Happy Independence Day years of service does such a great job of putting out the ARSCE News and making to ARSCE! sure that what I am saying is within the boundaries of ARSCE. Thanks to both of you. Now enough about that and something about the Seattle City Employees’ Retirement System (SCERS). As I mentioned in my previous article, we had put in a request for SCERS to record their Board meetings and put it out so that our members could have a chance to hear their meetings and see the Board at their convenience, instead of only being available at 10:00am. We did hear back from Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, Board of Administration Chair. She said she would see what she could do to make SCERS meetings more accessible and transparent. Also, we received a letter from Jeff Davis, SCERS Executive Director, who also acknowledged our requests and concerns. I am not including Mr. Davis’s letter in this edition. SCERS is having a trustee election. The two candidates are Sherry Crawford and Amy Woo. It is my understanding, at this time, that ballets will be sent out soon and instructions for voting online will be sent out soon as well. There were 47 retirements and withdrawals in the month of March and 48 in the month of April. Good news—the estimated funding level of the retirement fund is 76.4% as of the 4th quarter of 2020. Councilmember Mosqueda stated that her staff will continue to gather information on what City peers are doing in terms of divestment. Mr. Davis replied that the conversations on ESG, (Environmental, Social, and Governance strategies) climate change, and divestment have been productive and informative. Going forward, conversations will be broader and have less of a focus on divestment and rather on how do we look at climate change and the impact it can have on the SCERS portfolio. An update on Mr. Lou Walter—he is having some ongoing medical issues and was back in the hospital, so send positive thoughts his way. Well as I said in my last article, thanks for putting up with me for these last 10 years or so—it has been a blast! Your president, John Masterjohn Contact Mr. Masterjohn at [email protected] Update from Terry Walter: YOUR PENSION NEWS Lou is a bit more alert, but still very fragile. I have no updates, currently, on By Lou Walter, Retired Employee, the status of his MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphlococcus aureus: caused by a Member: Seattle City Employees’ type of staph bacteria that’s become resistant to many of the antibiotics used Retirement System to treat ordinary staph infections), but hope to know more shortly. Lou would greatly appreciate a card from you. His mailing address is Manor Care, 2811 NE 139th St., Room 143, Vancouver WA 98686. He was in quarantine as of this report and I was not able to visit him on my final two days in Portland, so we talked via Facetime. Or, rather, I said hello, and he went back to sleep. He is very, very tired and has issues with his heart now. Once he is out of quarantine he would LOVE to have visitors. Appointments for a visit are required and I know they allow visitors on Thursday and Saturday (they mentioned another day, but, honestly, I wasn’t listening). They did move him to a room with an outside window and Joe and Isaac were able to talk to him through that window. You can call him on his cell phone: 206-915-6844. Joe has asked that no one send flowers, plants, or candy because he just can’t take care of the plants and flowers (and Joe doesn’t want any!) and candy is tough on his diabetes. (I thoroughly enjoyed the chocolates sent to him previously when I visited him. Thank you very much, not that my waistline appreciated the joys of chocolate.) Page 2: September Board Meeting Notice Page 6: A Life Well-Lived Inside this Issue Page 4: Wisdom & Humor Page 7: Annual Christmas Party? Page 5: Duffer’s Corner Page 12: Haiku Page 2 — ARSCE NEWS — July/August, 2021 Old Timers Luncheon Group MTD/DAS/ESD/FFD/FAS Alan Brittenham Reporting National Late-Breaking OTLG Luncheon News Friendship Day As I mentioned via email to the Old Timer’s Luncheon Group Sunday ~ recently, Vini has been working on a possible north end location for August 1st, 2021 our luncheons, which have been at Feast Buffet in Renton since the Super China Buffet in Shoreline closed abruptly two years ago. The most reasonable spot appeared to be a place in Marysville, but wait! The latest word is that the Super China Buffet has re-opened, as of Tell a friend how much they mean to you! May 1st (Thanks, Tony Wong, for discovering that)! We want to get someone to try them before North end? we make the decision, just to be sure they still are acceptable, but the fact that they are now open does leave us in a bit of a pickle, in the form of a question: Assuming they are open, and acceptable in terms of quality, which of several options would we prefer to choose? One idea is that we could abandon the Essential Telephone Numbers Renton location, Feast Buffet, and move back to the Shoreline location. Supporting that And Web Addresses South end? argument is the fact that Feast Buffet has ARSCE: 206.683.5461 raised their prices (along with many other (Change of Address/Membership Questions) places) for lunch, with the Senior Citizen discount now at $17.09 each. Super China Buffet, according to their website, is still less Email: [email protected] than $10 for the Senior discount lunch. Opposing that argument is Website: www.arsce.org the sheer size and diversity of Feast Buffet’s menu items. Can you say chocolate fountain? Mayor’s Office for Senior Citizens: 206.684.0500 The second idea is that we could alternate, going to Feast in (Information on available programs/services) Renton one month and Super China Buffet the next. The problem Email: [email protected] with moving to Renton is that we lost a few regular attendees from the north end and Snohomish County, for whom the extra driving Website: www.seattle.gov/seniors was a deal breaker. So alternating locations could allow everyone to attend, at least, every other month and catch up with gossip and Personnel Department: 206.615.1340 see familiar faces. The problem with this is that all the south end (Benefits) folks who used to have to drive to Shoreline to attend the luncheon Email: [email protected] have made it pretty clear that they like going to the Feast and are not eager to change that. It is also true that the long-term closure Website: www.seattle.gov/Personnel/ of the West Seattle Bridge has made it exceedingly difficult for anyone from the West Seattle/White Center area to fight their way Retirement Office: 206.386.1293 or to the highway and get through town to the north end. 1.877.865.0079 The third possibility is that we could do both. If enough north (Retirement Checks/Health & Dental Benefits/General end folks were willing and able, we could split the month in half and Questions/Change of Address/Tax Withholding) have a south end luncheon in Renton at the Feast and a north end Email: [email protected] luncheon at Super China Buffet! We could set the dates two weeks apart, say, the first and third Monday of every month, which would Website: www.seattle.gov/retirement allow for some folks to show up at both luncheons, while minimizing drive times for those who liver further out in either direction. The result of this could be better total turnout for the luncheons every month. Some of us, myself included, would be happy to show up at both places. I’d love to hear from any or all of you in the meantime. We will call them options A, B, or C, with A being move back to Super China Statement of Ownership Buffet, B being alternate monthly with the Feast in Renton, and C And Management being two separate luncheons every month on the first and third Mondays. Let me know your preference. We will discuss it at the 1) Owner and Publisher: The Association of Retired Seattle next luncheon, and, as usual, the group will vote with their feet.