Thursday, January 15, 2026 at University Club: Richard Lyons, Chancellor of UC Berkeley

This Thursday, January 15, 2026, Sacramento Seminar is co-sponsoring with the University Club (atop Nob Hill at California and Powell Streets) a conversation with Richard Lyons, the Chancellor of UC Berkeley.

Check him out at https://chancellor.berkeley.edu/about/chancellor-lyons-biography 

The event is moderated by Seminarian Mike Fitzgerald. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. which means there’s a 30-minute cocktail half hour before the program starts at 6:00 p.m. This is your chance to learn all you need to know about U.C. Berkeley. The University Club requires an RSVP to attend. Reserve your spot at their corrected email address: reservations@UClubSF.org or call (415) 781-0900. Either way, please indicate that you are a guest of Mike Fitzgerald

This Friday, January 16: John Kabateck, California Director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses is our speaker.

https://www.nfib.com/california/

NFIB’s philosophy is that “Small businesses are not smaller versions of bigger businesses. They often have different difficulties in remaining solvent and policies that lump all business together often do more harm than good.” The Glendale native and USC grad attributes part of his success in working with people to having grown up in a Hollywood family. His mother was musical director for the Ernie Kovacs Show, and his father produced the Criswell Predicts TV program.

RSVP TO ATTEND any upcoming seminar. To assist the kitchen staff with planning for our Friday lunchtime meetings, please notify DENNIS WHEATLEY at dennis@triticum.com NO LATER THAN MID-DAY ON the WEDNESDAY BEFORE EVERY SEMINAR if you plan to attend and indicate if you’ll be bringing a guest. Dennis DOES NOT need to know if you are not attending. Valet Parking: If there are less than (10) ten sign-ups, there will be no valet. To register for valet parking contact our newly reelected Chair Greg Ryken at (415) 215-3775 or email him the Wednesday before seminars at Greg@rykenlaw.com

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IT’S THAT $ TIME OF THE YEAR for the payment of Sac Sem annual dues. Your Board recommended that dues remain the same as 2025, $200 for 2026. Please send a check made out to ‘Sacramento Seminar Inc.’ to our Treasurer, Dennis Wheatley, 72 Heritage Drive, San Rafael, CA 94901.

If you would like to transfer the funds by e-banking we suggest using Zelle rather than PayPal, the age-appropriate instructions are:

1)   Determine if your bank is in the Zelle network (most major banks are but not all of the smaller banks).

2)   In your banks on-line interface please select ‘transfer funds’ and put in Dennis Wheatley’s email address dennis@triticum.com and this should then bring up ‘Sacramento Seminar’ (we bank with Wells Fargo).

3)   Put in the appropriate sum (see above)

4)   Confirm payment.

We have tested this with Wells Fargo. Your funds really do end up in the Sacramento Seminar account – NOT Dennis’!

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UPCOMING SEMINARS:

U.C. Berkeley Professor Eric Schickler will be our featured speaker on Friday, January 23. Professor Schickler is considered one of the foremost Congressional scholars. https://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/person/eric-schickler He’s currently completing a co-authored with Paul Pierson, “Madison Upside Down: The Rise of Nationalized Polarization and the Crisis of the American Constitutional Order.”

There’ll be a Sac Sem roundtable on Friday, January 30 starting at 12:15 p.m. The roundtable’s topic we’ll be announced in January. Many seminarians tell us that they miss roundtables. They’ll be scheduled more often in 2026. In the years after the Seminar was established, roundtables were the norm and Friday speakers the exception. 

Lori Brooke, a candidate for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors District 2, is our guest on Friday, February 6. Lori’s background and platform can be found at https://www.loribrooke.com/about The Second District includes The Marin., Pacific Height and Jordan Park. The appointed incumbent, Stephen Sherrill, will seek a full four-year term. The big issue is Mayor Dan Lurie’s plan for more multi-story apartments and condos in the City’s neighborhoods. Most of it will be clustered around commercial streets and along Muni bus and streetcar lines.  

“Ace” Smith is our guest on Friday, February 13. Averell “Ace” Smith is the campaign guru behind Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom. Capitol Weekly says he’s “a legend among California political consultants, the San Francisco-based Smith has handled campaigns for president, governor, senator, local contenders and, perhaps most memorably, his own father.” (Past Seminarian and San Francisco District Attorney) Arlo Smith. https://capitolweekly.net/oral-histories/ace-smith-political-consultant/ Ace will be introduced by Sac Sem’s new speakers/program chair Brian Chase.

Alan Wong, the newest member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors is the Seminar’s guest on Friday, February 20. Supervisor Wong was appointed by Mayor Dan Lurie to the board’s Sunset District-centered District 4 seat on December 1. The post had been held by Supervisor Joel Engardo was recalled over the conversion of the Great Highway to Sunset Dunes Park. A Lincoln High Grad, Supervisor Wong received degrees from UC San Diego and a masters in public affairs from USF. He previously was an elected City College of SF trustee. He has served in the California National Guard for the past 15 years.    

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Carl Nolte will return to Sac Sem on Friday, February 27. Carl writes the “Native Son” column on page 2 of each Sunday Chron., A lifelong San Franciscan, Carl was a beat reporter with the “Voice of the West” starting in the 1970s. Carl will look back and reflect on where and how The City has changed for the better and where change has been for the worse. Chair emeritus Dick Spotswood will introduce our guest.



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OTHER THOUGHTS: “It is perhaps the most oppressive part of life under communism. Not terror, not exploitation, but the all-pervading lie, felt by everybody, known to everybody. It is something which makes life intolerable.’” Leszek Kolakowski in The Eclipse of Ideology