Council Chambers: Welcome back.
Council Chambers: Yes. I know. And he's going quickly right now. Yeah.
Council Chambers: All right, we're going. I know, Heather. Sure. All right. Hello, everybody.
Council Chambers: All right, welcome to this meeting of the Equity, Access, and Rights Advisory Board to City Council.
Council Chambers: The role of this board is to advise the Council and its staff on matters related to helping move the city forward as a more diverse and equitable place. This meeting is open to the public at City Hall, virtually, and is also being recorded for future reference.
Council Chambers: Members of the public may raise their hands to provide comment in person or virtually during the public comment period. We take public comment at the beginning of the meeting after approval of the minutes for both items on and off the agenda.
Council Chambers: That is our… Should we go around the room and just say who we are? I'm Nikki Jarvin.
Council Chambers: You're a member. You're a member. You're a member, Nikki Jordan. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Shelly. Yeah. Shelly Levins, city staff and, staff liaison to this board.
Council Chambers: I am Heather Dudley-Nolette. I'm a Jefferson County Commissioner, and I'm a guest today.
Council Chambers: I'm Molly Blazkowski, and I'm here supporting anchor Hi, Amanda.
Council Chambers: My name is Hope Quinn, and I'm a member of Oxford.
Council Chambers: I'm Julia Cochran, I am… Chair or co-chair? What are we?
Council Chambers: co-chairs? We're co-chairs. I couldn't remember.
Council Chambers: Is there anybody online?
Council Chambers: There's no one… oh, it looks like just now we got Amy Howard online.
Council Chambers: And that's it.
Council Chambers: Okay. Welcome, baby. Welcome, Amy.
Council Chambers: I am going to do my best with this, my first time around this meeting, so Julia, pop in if you need to or want to. Looks like the second thing is changes to the agenda. Do we have any changes to add to today's meeting? I'd like to propose a change.
Council Chambers: We're in city budget season, and rather than have a budget conversation happen within my staff update, it makes sense to have it be an item on the agenda. So, I would like to propose adding that to our agenda today.
Council Chambers: Is there anyone opposed to that?
Council Chambers: Where are we adding it to new business… new business? I think so, yeah, unless it was… I don't think it was discussed, in your last meeting, so… That's a new business then, and do I have to make a formal… So, I would suggest that we make Heather A.
Council Chambers: And… I'm trying to do the typing, and this be…
Council Chambers: And then we'll do the other stuff.
Council Chambers: Does that make sense? Sounds good to me.
Council Chambers: Yes, okay, great, thank you, Shelly.
Council Chambers: All right, approval of the minutes from July 9th, from our last meeting.
Council Chambers: I make a motion that we approve the minutes from the last meeting. Is there anybody that has any questions or additions to that?
Council Chambers: All right, hope… I think that's…
Council Chambers: All right, we could call for a vote, then, I think once the motion is seconded.
Council Chambers: Unless there's any discussion or question.
Council Chambers: Okay, I call for a vote to approve the minutes from the July 9th meeting.
Council Chambers: All approved. Aye.
Council Chambers: Hi, Francesca! Hey, Francesca! So, Francesca just came in.
Council Chambers: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Council Chambers: I'm too short out, sorry. Okay.
Council Chambers: We were just approving the minutes from last meeting. Okay. Yes. Do you have any, additions, or…
Council Chambers: No, I think it's good.
Council Chambers: Let's take that vote again, since Francesca just walked in.
Council Chambers: sorry, I'll approve the minutes from last meeting's agenda, or last meeting.
Council Chambers: Aye. Aye.
Council Chambers: Okay, motion over.
Council Chambers: Alright, we have moved into the public comment phase of our meeting. Do we have any public comment today?
Council Chambers: There's no one online.
Council Chambers: Excellent.
Council Chambers: So I'll move on to staff and, share updates.
Council Chambers: So let's just go around the room.
Council Chambers: Yeah, so for staff updates, because now that budget is on our agenda, the only thing I wanted to share
Council Chambers: is that we've expanded. I think in a past meeting, I shared with you the Spanish language cheat sheet that we have at our front desk now to help
Council Chambers: guide Spanish language speakers to various aspects of the city's services, and just to help our front desk navigate those conversations with them. The front desk said that there are 4 other additional languages that would be really helpful to them, and so we went ahead and translated
Council Chambers: this same cheat sheet that we developed for them into four additional languages. Which are… Mandarin…
Council Chambers: Cantonese, Tagalog, and Thai were often requested. Tagalog.
Council Chambers: Tagalog. Okay, sorry, I pronounced that incorrectly. My understanding is that it's the…
Council Chambers: For base language for Filipino.
Council Chambers: So that people in the Filipino community maybe can understand it, or… I'm… yeah, and any… this was what was requested as often Thai to Gallic.
Council Chambers: Mandarin and Cantonese.
Council Chambers: So, my request to all of you, and I've made this request of city staff as well, as well as other members of our community, so I'm continuing to put the word out, is that what we don't have, and what was not provided by LanguageLine, which is our language services, contractor.
Council Chambers: They were not able to provide us with phonetic… English language phonetic spellings of these prompts, these, right? So, our front desk.
Council Chambers: would not be able to say in Mandarin, how can I help you today? They wouldn't be able to pronounce that, because it's written in Mandarin.
Council Chambers: So, with our Spanish-Spanish language cheat sheet, we have, pronunciations, so that they can help work through and understand and just get through a fairly simple conversation.
Council Chambers: As we've discussed previously, more complex conversations require a phone call, the language line, and then a translator comes onto the line, and a conversation can happen. This is for very basic things, like
Council Chambers: Where is your restroom? Can I use it? I need,
Council Chambers: where's your permit desk? Those kinds of things. So, if you know native speakers of these languages, I would love to connect with them. We have budget in the communications budget to pay them for helping us
Council Chambers: get these…
Council Chambers: phonetic spellings, correct, and to do a native language speaker review of these documents, which we have done with the Spanish language sheet.
Council Chambers: So, just reach out to me, individually if you know of people that are speaking any of these languages and would be willing to help us.
Council Chambers: take the next step, yeah. I would contact the Korean Women's Association for Filipino, because a lot of the people who work for that are Filipino women. Okay. So I think that would be a contact for them.
Council Chambers: And Jason longs his family speaks something in the Chinese restaurant in Shanghai restaurant, so I can ask him.
Council Chambers: If he speaks, what would it be? Mandarin? Or if his parents do? Yeah, we have one in Mandarin and one in Cantonese. Okay, so I'm…
Council Chambers: I remember to ask, Jason.
Council Chambers: Thank you, appreciate that. And…
Council Chambers: I have a friend who, family is Thai, so I will ask him. Thank you! Okay, great.
Council Chambers: That's all I have for you.
Council Chambers: Palm… I put down a status check for where reimbursement for low-income members is. Where is that conversation?
Council Chambers: Is that part of our, staffing chair updates? Yeah, it's sort of a chair question.
Council Chambers: I'm not sure what you mean. At some point, we had a conversation about a stipend for, low-income members of advisory boards and stuff like that, and I don't know what happened next to it.
Amy Howard: It is part of the budget process, it's being discussed at the Finance and Budget Committee.
Council Chambers: Did you hear Amy's response? It's really low. I hear part of the budget process. Maybe you can turn the volume on and now…
Amy Howard: I'm trying to balance the fact that I've got annoying hold music in the background, and a lady that keeps interrupting me, and I can't tell if she's the actual person I'm trying to talk to or not, so…
Amy Howard: I apologize, things on my end are really annoying.
Council Chambers: This is getting picked up on Zoom, but it's really faintly… Try it again, Amy. Yeah.
Amy Howard: So, I'm trying to get as close to my microphone while my annoying hold music is someplace else. That conversation is with the, Finance and Budget Committee and the Culture and Society Committees right now, so it is being worked on, and then it will be kicked back to the ear for, review.
Council Chambers: Thank you.
Council Chambers: Okay, thank you.
Council Chambers: Did you have another, update? I don't think so. Amber, do you want to give an update?
Council Chambers: Actually, there's member updates later. Member updates is later in the meeting. Yeah, it says chair and staff updates right now. Oh, I apologize. No, that's okay. No, that's fine. I'm learning these things. I apologize. Okay.
Council Chambers: So… so we move on to old business? Okay.
Council Chambers: So I have… I have a couple things to say about the opening statement, which is there next.
Council Chambers: Thing.
Council Chambers: And one of them was…
Council Chambers: that I think we need to add a way to dial in, which is needed for the visually impaired, people who cannot look at screens. There's a way to do it at VOCC meetings, and
Council Chambers: other meetings I go to. Are we on Zoom?
Council Chambers: Because there is a way to do it on Zoom meetings.
Council Chambers: To have a dial-in. So you're, you're also, besides from publishing a,
Council Chambers: HTTPS thing, you're… you also have a phone number. That is at the top of the agenda.
Council Chambers: Right, right, that's what I'm saying.
Council Chambers: Do we have a phone? We don't have a phone number, do we? Join my phone. Oh, we do! Okay, I didn't see it before.
Council Chambers: Okay, nevermind, skip that thought.
Council Chambers: And the second thought I had.
Council Chambers: Was… the whole comment, the whole question of having public comment, like, after big items.
Council Chambers: Which is something that I think both City Council and you guys do.
Council Chambers: So, that's… I don't know what to do with this. Did we talk about that last time?
Council Chambers: I don't remember. I'm just trying to remember.
Council Chambers: I think it might have come up, and one of the things that we talked about was…
Council Chambers: Doing it so that we could have someone comment that didn't necessarily need to make a space for a public comment.
Council Chambers: But I could be so off-base there, I'm not quite sure.
Council Chambers: I think you're right.
Council Chambers: I think you're right, Hope.
Council Chambers: Oh, I'm echoing.
Council Chambers: I think what Amy had mentioned was because you guys don't have anything that says you can't do that, if it comes up, you guys are free to create a public comment. Also, you guys discussed how you don't have limits, time limits on your public comment, which was something you guys had previously discussed.
Council Chambers: Okay, thank you.
Council Chambers: What was that?
Council Chambers: Okay.
Council Chambers: So, I guess it's just a consciousness, like, when we have big… like…
Council Chambers: what Heather's going to the pos… that whole presentation, if we have any public, to say, is there any public comment? So we're just… as chairs, we're just going to be conscious of that, where this is landing. So, for the minutes, and for our notes in terms of changing the preamble.
Council Chambers: We would want to not use the specificity that's there now around people making comment during the public comment period and when public comment is taken, because it sounds like
Council Chambers: Your proposal is that public comment could be taken almost at any time.
Council Chambers: Of the meeting, so we could just take out that last sentence, even, and just say, members of the public may raise their hands to provide comment in person or virtually during the meeting. Fine.
Council Chambers: That sounded like a good idea.
Council Chambers: Fine, that's great. Okay. Is that a motion we need to… Alyssa, do you think we need a motion to make that change to the opening statement?
Council Chambers: It doesn't hurt.
Council Chambers: So, I move that we strike the last sentence of our opening statement.
Council Chambers: And that we… that it says, members of the public may raise their hands to provide comments in person or virtually.
Council Chambers: At any time during the meeting?
Council Chambers: Is that what we're saying? Could we just… we just… could we just cut the end off?
Council Chambers: I think. Okay, yeah, sure. Members of the public may raise their hands to provide comment in person or virtual, period. Bye.
Council Chambers: I second that. I had a question. Oh, sorry, I will not second that. No, that's okay. Second, then it's open for discussion.
Council Chambers: Okay. So, seconded, I hope. I guess I just wanted to circle back, is there…
Council Chambers: Do we… do we want to… I know we discussed this a little bit, but do we want to put a time limit on that? I mean, do you want somebody basically filibustering? I mean, it's probably not going to happen, but do we want to put a time limit on public comment?
Council Chambers: We just want to let people cook. I think…
Council Chambers: We don't… I think it'd be nice to not have a time limit on it.
Council Chambers: if it becomes an issue that someone else, that someone is just going on and on, which it probably won't, because there usually aren't people anyways, I think we can just be, like.
Council Chambers: I think that this could maybe, like, wait a week to move on, something along those lines, but I don't think that it's enough of an issue that we need to…
Council Chambers: Create the title for it.
Council Chambers: I agree.
Council Chambers: I have a problem with the time limits, because when you get English…
Council Chambers: ESL people, Englishers, second language people.
Council Chambers: and various other versions that have hesitant speech, which is sometimes mean. The time limit can become.
Council Chambers: restrictive. You know, you have to be…
Council Chambers: If I… if I'm a full-blown New Yorker, I can get a whole lot in 2 minutes. Right, I know. And there are a bunch of other people in our town who can't do that, so…
Council Chambers: Yes, my only concern is I've also been to a lot of public meetings that people can also, kind of.
Council Chambers: continue moving on well past the point of your comment. But let's just take it as it, take it as it comes. Like Hope says, it's probably not going to happen, but…
Amy Howard: I would note…
Amy Howard: That if you do not choose to have a time limit, it becomes the responsibility of the chair to manage if someone is out of line.
Council Chambers: Understood, which is why I think I'm bringing it up. But, okay, well, we'll fix the problem when it arrives. We'll see about that.
Council Chambers: Okay.
Council Chambers: Any other… so, the other little business we've got…
Council Chambers: We still need a vote on that motion.
Council Chambers: Oh, sorry. I thought it was seconded.
Council Chambers: We seated the boat.
Council Chambers: Okay, do we vote to approve the, opening statement as has now been,
Council Chambers: Reduced by that last sentence.
Council Chambers: So that's just now, members of the public may raise their hands to provide comment in person.
Council Chambers: Formatly.
Council Chambers: Oh, or virtually? Or virtually, is that right? Yeah. All right, all in favor?
Council Chambers: I… can I ask one more question?
Council Chambers: So we have a phone number, but isn't there, like, a star or something or other for someone to be able to raise their hand on the phone?
Council Chambers: Isn't that what you guys say?
Council Chambers: Yeah, just gives them instructions on how to raise their hand. So, we can prove this now, but at some point, the city should figure out what that piece is.
Council Chambers: Unless you know it's Sheldon.
Council Chambers: Alyssa would know. Alyssa Manager of the online. It's Star 9. Oh, Star 9. So… or virtually…
Council Chambers: Heather, can I ask a question? So, when people are calling in, it gives them those directions when they've called in?
Council Chambers: It's written on the agenda. Okay. And actually, our chair will actually say it as well, if, okay. …to reiterate.
Council Chambers: that. It just makes it easy and accessible for someone to know right there at the moment that they can raise their hand by pressing star 9, because when you're on the phone, you don't have access to those controls.
Council Chambers: Exactly. Okay, and you guys use Zoom also, Julia said. Okay, great. I'll take a look at your agenda, and I'll… gonna copy that.
Council Chambers: Perfect, that sounds great. I'm in favor of that. About the minutes, if we don't put a time
Council Chambers: then people will just keep talking. If you invite me to speak here, I probably would prepare 10 to 15 minutes, but how about if I only have 2?
Council Chambers: I think it would be kind of rude to, when you are talking, to say, okay, you got one minute left.
Council Chambers: So I think that we still need to accommodate it.
Council Chambers: a time there, a time limit, at least to what I think, I don't know.
Council Chambers: Okay. Because I speak a lot, and it's very good for me when they say, okay, you have 2 minutes, so I prepare a speech of 2 minutes.
Council Chambers: If they don't give me time, I will prepare 10-15 hour. So it depends what, you know, depends what I need to speak about. So I think it's good to…
Council Chambers: So people can be prepared. They say, okay, I will be speaking, I would… I just have…
Council Chambers: 2 minutes, or I have 3 minutes.
Council Chambers: That way, they will make a resume.
Council Chambers: Of whatever they need to speak about. This is what I think, I don't know.
Council Chambers: So is a middle ground saying we request that you keep public comment within? I don't care if it's two or three minutes. Yeah, that we make it sort of a request, rather than a black and white. We don't have a timer, particularly.
Council Chambers: Yeah, sorry, Julia. I think it would be rude, somebody that is speaking, and then you say, okay, you have one minute left.
Council Chambers: And they probably have some nice data and portrait of things that they need to say. So we go, because they don't know.
Council Chambers: How long they have to speak.
Council Chambers: Do you have a time alert written down? You do. We do, and you know, I would say, I think to what Francisca is saying, to set that clear expectation in the beginning, so that someone knows from the beginning, here's the expectation.
Council Chambers: And, we do just say at the beginning of comment, and it is up to the chair. In most public meetings, it's up to the chair to decide. Usually there's a standard, like we have… if we've got
Council Chambers: Plenty of time, and we can see that only two people have raised their hands. We're going to go with the maximum, which in a lot of the county's open public meetings is 3 minutes. That's a pretty standard, you know, like, even at our state meetings.
Council Chambers: 3 minutes is kind of the base standard, and then people, you know, as you practice, as you start participating more in public meetings, you start to understand that a chair has discretion.
Council Chambers: Right? That means that they can say, okay.
Council Chambers: We know there's a lot of people who want to comment today, so today I'm going to limit to 1 minute, or I'm going to limit to 2 minutes. But you're setting that expectation for people, and people understand why you're doing that. There's a lot of people in the room today, we only have 30 minutes for public comment.
Council Chambers: And so I'm gonna… in order to make it more accessible, in order for people to… everyone to have a chance, we're all going to take just one minute, 2 minutes, and that is up to the chair in the moment. But it's good to have a base
Council Chambers: you know, a base expectation, and if that's going to be 3 minutes, that would be fairly consistent. I think there's some value in being consistent with other public meetings, because you're kind of setting
Council Chambers: we're practicing, right? We're all practicing how to engage in public meetings, and that… and that helps if it's not one way over here and another way over there, and then we have to learn 10 different standards, right? That's just my opinion. I wonder if we were, thinking about
Council Chambers: Julia's comment, that maybe it's hard for, people who aren't,
Council Chambers: native language speakers of English to make a point within that amount of time. 10 people who tested speech, and, you know, some people to just fill me.
Council Chambers: You know who comes to my mind? I don't know how many of you saw Otto when he did that public comment, City Council, and then he had a horse. But,
Council Chambers: But before that.
Council Chambers: he wasn't fitting into the time frame, because he had really hesitant speech, and he may always have hesitant speech. He's older than me by a bit.
Council Chambers: That's always up to the discretion of a chair at any time. Planning Commission is 5 minutes.
Council Chambers: Is an example of something that's an outlier, too, so… Yeah. A base that's more. To start, it could be longer.
Council Chambers: That's a good point. Yeah.
Council Chambers: Actually, yeah, it will work if we know ahead of the person that will speak, if we put, like, 10 minutes for that person. Or just let them finish their sentence. Yeah, all the sentence, yeah. This would be great, also.
Council Chambers: Don't take that time on that person.
Council Chambers: Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If discretion of the chair, you notice somebody is really hesitant, because you just get chill. Yeah, for sure.
Council Chambers: I do think that maybe, as I'm hearing more about it and understanding it better, I do think it might be best to do a time limit, and then just allow the, like we were talking about, to allow the chair to let the person continue, if that's what's needed.
Council Chambers: It seems like it might be the most efficient and, like you were saying, consistent way to have it happen.
Council Chambers: Would the language be then something like, we take public comment, or members of the public may raise their hands to provide comment in person or virtually, something along the lines of with a, time limit at the discretion of the chair, or co-chairs, or something like that?
Council Chambers: Would that be something, the language that we hadn't added?
Council Chambers: 3 minutes.
Council Chambers: We could… or something like, provide comment in person or virtually, up to 3 minutes, or at the discretion of the chair. Yeah. How about that? Or you can go with a higher basement limit, 4 or 5 minutes if you want to, if you feel like
Council Chambers: One thing that's on my mind is that if and when it is at the discretion of the chair, if it is…
Council Chambers: The time limit is shifted per Heather's comment.
Council Chambers: per the meeting itself, overall meeting and all comment is shifted to a different time limit. Otherwise, there could be actual perceived bias that enters into, oh, you get 5, but you only get 2. So, yeah, I would just…
Council Chambers: You know, in terms of allowing someone to keep going, and then other people aren't allowed to keep going, you may just… just a caution around
Council Chambers: how bias, implicit bias, can enter into these kinds of situations. Okay, that's a really good point.
Council Chambers: Is it possible to say, Excuse me.
Council Chambers: Keep public comment up to 3 minutes.
Council Chambers: the discretionary chair, if…
Council Chambers: If you have an accessibility issue, please let us know. Something weird like that. I don't know if people with hesitancy know that they have hesitant speech. That's the only thing I don't know. This is actually a really good question for Alyssa. Alyssa, do we, in any quick
Council Chambers: I know I've seen language that says if you need accessibility accommodations, please let us know. Where do we say that?
Council Chambers: On every single agenda down at the bottom.
Council Chambers: At the bottom. Okay. Oh yeah, there it is. Yeah. So,
Council Chambers: We could have that as in the preamble, if that feels really important. That could be there.
Council Chambers: I think it's a good idea. That way, people will not be all discriminating. And then they could speak up if they… Yeah. I need more time to comment, please. Something like that? A request? Yeah, I think that works.
Council Chambers: Yeah.
Council Chambers: So why don't we give this to the staff to adjust the wording? Bring it back. And bring it back.
Council Chambers: Does that mean that the motion doesn't pass? Sounds like it. Does the motion… do we want… is the… is the…
Council Chambers: So we're just tabling it. So, are we tabling it, or are we kicking it back to the staff? Are those two different things?
Council Chambers: I think those are different, yeah. Oh, okay. So you can use.
Council Chambers: You can either rescind your motion, or you guys can vote on it.
Council Chambers: I think we're going to rescind it, right? Because we want the staff to go ahead and create new language that includes the
Council Chambers: accessibility feature of, an accessibility sentence. Basically saying, we want public comment, we want to limit it, but we also want to make it accessible.
Council Chambers: Okay, so Julia, do you rescind your motion?
Council Chambers: I rescind my motion.
Council Chambers: Or should we send it? So this will be on the next agenda.
Council Chambers: Yes.
Council Chambers: Okay.
Council Chambers: Okay. Are we happy? Whoever seconded, do you agree? Oh, yes, I… It's your bill.
Council Chambers: I just want to check in briefly about time. I know we have… Are you okay? Are you okay? Okay. Alright, so moving on to identity and skill review work group formation.
Council Chambers: Oh, goodness.
Council Chambers: Are we still… are we still going to kick this one down, or do you think we're ready to kind of take a look at it? Discussion ensued around what the identity and skill information is for recruitment, publicity, meeting noticing.
Council Chambers: Social media revisit on the next agenda.
Council Chambers: I know about social media.
Council Chambers: I wasn't here when this discussion got started around workgroup formation. It feels like it's been pushed a little…
Council Chambers: A few times? Right. So, I think what we need is a couple people, and it's not going to be me this time, because I really can't do it.
Council Chambers: to say, yes, I'm interested, I will look at who's on our board and what the holes are.
Council Chambers: And if there's a couple people who will do that, you become the work group, and you look at who we are and what we represent.
Council Chambers: Does that make any sense? That makes sense. Yeah.
Council Chambers: I… I mean… No, no, go ahead. Okay, I would… I would,
Council Chambers: like to be a part of that with group behavior. I was also going to say it the same thing. We have our work… are you interested in being on that?
Council Chambers: I meant to be supplied. That's where I'm at. Are you interested in being one?
Council Chambers: Is that a no? Okay. All right. And Amy, this isn't your interest, is it?
Council Chambers: We were asking if you have any desire to be on the identity and skill work group formation group.
Amy Howard: I… I don't think that that's a place where I have,
Amy Howard: I'm not a member of your body, so…
Amy Howard: I would love to… I'm looking forward to seeing the outcome of that work.
Council Chambers: Thank you.
Council Chambers: So it sounds like Hope and Nikki.
Council Chambers: We're going to take a look at getting together and talking about this. And it's good to speak to yourself, about yourself in third person right here, because the person who's taking minutes is virtual. There you go.
Council Chambers: One note on that is that this was probably, what, maybe February of this year, earlier, some of us remember, we did a whole workshop on who is in the room, identities and skills.
Council Chambers: a number of those people have now moved off of the board, but I can send you that document. It was in previous packets before you both joined, so… but I'll… I'll send it over to you. That would be a great starting point. Thank you very much. And I guess, hope you and I'll get together after and talk.
Council Chambers: about the next step. That sounds good. Do we need to do anything motion-wise around that, or is it just done?
Council Chambers: I always ask Alyssa. Sorry, Alyssa, do we need to do anything regarding that?
Council Chambers: Yeah, I think it's always good to make a motion of who's on the work group.
Council Chambers: Okay.
Council Chambers: So I move that we create a work group
Council Chambers: For identity and skill review.
Council Chambers: Which has to do with our membership, and then Hope and Nikki have volunteered to be on it.
Council Chambers: I second that.
Council Chambers: Say your name. I hope second that.
Council Chambers: And I guess I, Nikki Jordan also,
Council Chambers: Third? A third, and… Except being on the, on the work group. So do we have a vote for that? Do we have a vote for approval? I hope and myself being honest.
Council Chambers: Thank you. Say yes, everybody. You can't, you can't be, what do they call that, what do they call it the, at the poll place? Electioneering. Electioneering. Alright, I will get this language down, you guys.
Council Chambers: I'm doing great. All right, so… look at us moving right along.
Council Chambers: All right, so now we're at our reviewing the Language Access Plan and Policy Questions.
Council Chambers: Okay.
Council Chambers: This is something which is in part of our massive bucket. Yeah.
Council Chambers: So yeah, if you're looking at the packet, it starts on page 7.
Council Chambers: And, the language access plan that you see before you is,
Council Chambers: a product of the Public Works Department. This is a requirement for some of the grants and projects that they do, so you'll see there that it was, drafted by the city team, and signed off on flat by the city engineer.
Council Chambers: And there was some consultation with me on this plan.
Council Chambers: And it's still under review by the state, and I think they've asked for additional revisions. So, this is not final, it's for your awareness.
Council Chambers: One of the things that we had talked about, even prior to this plan for public works, was an administrative policy
Council Chambers: Excuse me one second, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, go ahead. I think we're looking at this page here. Yes, now we're on that page. Oh, here. Is it in the plan? It's on page 7, and it's not.
Council Chambers: Here, here we go. I have it online. And it's up on the screen now, too.
Council Chambers: Sorry, Shelly. Yeah, you're fine.
Council Chambers: Are we all literally on the same page? I'll just leave it on the screen, because… It's whining.
Council Chambers: I think that one there will work.
Council Chambers: small ones. There's a two-page setups.
Council Chambers: Okay. Some of the digital packets that we're looking at online. That's my reference right now. So, we've proposed an administrative policy because we're doing more work around language access.
Council Chambers: It would be really helpful for staff to have some guidance.
Council Chambers: Around how to do this work on language access, right? And knowing that it cannot happen all at once.
Council Chambers: It'll need to be bathed in over time.
Council Chambers: This is some of the work, right? It's, like, helping people who need better language access our services in any variety of ways. It could be online, it could be at the front desk, it could be in council meetings.
Council Chambers: What does that look like? We want to look at it holistically and, and think about how staff can be guided by this document as they do this work over time.
Council Chambers: And how the budget, how we could budget for continually adding into our language access planning and our work.
Council Chambers: So, I provided a list of some of the things that could be contained within this plant, so I'll just read over them really quickly for you. You have them in front of you as well.
Council Chambers: This language access policy would provide guidance for staff on which documents specifically are translated and in which languages, including information on how and why those documents were chosen and the languages were selected.
Council Chambers: There would be guidance for providing access to nonverbal languages, like Braille and American Sign Language.
Council Chambers: There would be information on the City's interpretation services currently in place, and how to access those services. Those are currently language-lined, but if we switch to a different contractor, the policy would be updated to show how… what those services are, and how people access them, including staff, because staff need to be trained on how to utilize those services.
Council Chambers: There would be information tied into what we're currently working on, which is our, the federal guidelines on compliance for website accessibility.
Council Chambers: So that is all emerging, but there's a lot of budget and conversations and staff work going into web accessibility with a compliance deadline by April of 2028. So this policy, will be really helpful in just providing, sort of, the grounding and what that is and why.
Council Chambers: Recommendations on public communication for language access?
Council Chambers: So, what I mean by that is, for staff, say, it's not me in this role in the future, there would be recommendations in this policy for how we communicate to the public that we have a language access program, and that the public can access those things, if that makes sense.
Council Chambers: So, are there social posts? What does that mean on our website? What does that look like?
Council Chambers: How are we communicating this to the public, that these services exist for them?
Council Chambers: There would be expectations for reviewing and updating translated documents. How does that work? What if these documents become out of date? How often are we reviewing them? What is that process? Who's involved?
Council Chambers: And ensuring there's a way for people to request the translation of documents that are not already translated. There would be recommendations for staff when they're budgeting for translation year over year.
Council Chambers: budgeting for interpretation and future expansion of language access. What would those phased-in recommendations be? How would we want this program to grow over time?
Council Chambers: Knowing that we won't be able to do it all right away.
Council Chambers: So my questions for you are, what is missing from what… when you read what could be contained in this policy?
Council Chambers: What is missing from the bullets that I… I put there?
Council Chambers: And then we can move on to the other two questions that I have.
Council Chambers: Anything seen missing?
Council Chambers: I just have a question. Is there an actual point person for this in the city right now? Right now, it's me. It's you.
Council Chambers: And is that identified somewhere on the… on… in the city?
Council Chambers: documents right now, like… No, there are… there are no documents. We're just working on this. Yep, this will be the first…
Council Chambers: take at creating a document that contains this information. The Language Access Plan names Alyssa as our ADA coordinator, and that is a different role. It involves some language access work, but, it is not the person who would be in charge of this. I think it's a communications function.
Council Chambers: Yeah.
Council Chambers: So the question I had is, is there a way that staff can track language access requests?
Council Chambers: like somebody comes in who's ESL from an African language.
Council Chambers: and comes into the planning department, is there something where that planner says, okay, I'm not sure?
Council Chambers: I'm going to… track this somehow. I don't know how the city does stuff, but…
Council Chambers: Okay, so including how tracking from, like, trackers for, like, unvet needs, or adjusted new needs. Yeah, okay.
Council Chambers: good additions.
Council Chambers: And…
Council Chambers: somewhere… I made this comment, and I'm not sure how this relates, but if a listening session is conducted around language access, what questions do you have for communication? You asked that question. And I said, ask them what parts of city government have they interacted with, and might like documents in other languages, or access to ASL,
Council Chambers: interpreter in which meetings. It's just, if we do a listening session just to ask, then that
Council Chambers: And maybe this could be a targeted survey, since there are issues with physical meetings in the ESL community.
Council Chambers: So that's for the third question on our list here. Yeah. Did anyone else have anything around what is missing from what would be contained in the policy before we move on to the other question?
Council Chambers: Yes, I just have another question. Is there, are there certain, firm organizations that you all are working with, and how… if you are
Council Chambers: Maybe is that language… is that…
Council Chambers: main public knowledge. Yeah, so we have, work with something called Language Line. They're the people who translated these documents and other documents we've had translated. Mostly, we've translated to Spanish. This is our first take at other languages.
Council Chambers: And currently there's only 3 or 4 documents that are translated to Spanish. So they are the ones helping us with that, and then we're having native speaker review.
Council Chambers: That is the only… to my knowledge, those are the only… that's the only organization or contractor that we're working with currently for language access.
Council Chambers: language line. And the police department, utilizes them, front desk has access to language line, and I think our Park Desk as well. So it's a city-wide
Council Chambers: Contract. Nice.
Council Chambers: Okay.
Council Chambers: Can you please remind me what are the four, documents?
Council Chambers: that are translated into the Spanish? Into Spanish. Spanish, water, electricity, and…
Council Chambers: not electricity, that's the, DUD that does that for the city. It's the,
Council Chambers: The income-based discount program application.
Council Chambers: For, city utilities, which includes garbage and water, and sewer.
Council Chambers: So that application, the, informational page about how to get access to City Utilities, how to create an account, how to essentially, like, set up your city utilities if you're new, or if you're moving to a new location, so that document.
Council Chambers: The front desk cheat sheet, and the welcoming city resolution.
Council Chambers: Those are the four. Thank you.
Council Chambers: Right now.
Council Chambers: So, one of the reasons why I feel like this… the guidance of this policy would be really great is because
Council Chambers: we wouldn't be inserting our personal opinions about which documents would be created. There would be real thinking behind it. Like, okay, this… these are the documents that… that…
Council Chambers: the community needs access to, and that's one reason why we're doing it, but also we could anticipate additional documents as they're created, that there would be… it would
Council Chambers: There wouldn't need to be a question, we would just do it, if that makes sense, because the policy provides that guidance.
Council Chambers: There'd be a little less process around saying.
Council Chambers: Huh, should this document be created? I'm not sure. Let's go ask.
Council Chambers: or created in multiple languages. It would be known, and it would happen.
Council Chambers: Because there's a policy, yeah. Is there any reason why…
Council Chambers: You wouldn't want to have, like, a specific document in another language, or a reason that that would
Council Chambers: the question, as opposed to just doing it, other than the policy around it? Cost. Yeah, I… you know, I think that's probably the only barrier at this point, unless people have
Council Chambers: Other thoughts on other barriers? Yeah.
Council Chambers: I just… I think this is true. The city has a policy about rental increases.
Council Chambers: That they can't be more than something a year.
Council Chambers: Man, I had a landlord who was doing 20% a year. And…
Council Chambers: That should be in multiple ways.
Council Chambers: Things that protect people's rights.
Council Chambers: I don't know enough about the planning department, which is why I was sort of like, let's track what people are asking.
Council Chambers: form. Right. Because I have no idea what documents the city has. You have almost probably hasn't. So I think what we would do from this point, unless you have more to add to this list.
Council Chambers: Is that, we'll ask the next question, because we'll need to take a phased approach to this, but you are going to see a draft of this policy, right?
Council Chambers: And be able to chime in with recommendations, like Julia said. If Julia doesn't see that in there, where documents related to people's rights are not translated, if that's not
Council Chambers: one of the pieces of the policy, documents related to rights, would be translated, then, that recommendation could come from the Equity Access and Rights Board that that needed to be added to the policy. Does that make sense?
Council Chambers: So, we wouldn't have that discussion right now. It's mostly about what should be contained in this.
Council Chambers: And, of the things that you see here, I guess this…
Council Chambers: we should move into the next question. If only a subset of these items are possible to draft within the policy within 2026,
Council Chambers: And the policy is added to over time, which should be prioritized?
Council Chambers: I think applications for help and things that have to do with people's rights.
Council Chambers: I think it was true.
Council Chambers: So, what I'm hearing from that, maybe, is the first bullet should be prioritized, which is guidance for staff on which documents are translated and in which languages.
Council Chambers: If that is something that you would like to prioritize, and then you could… we could insert specifics. Okay, okay. I see what you're saying, yes. Okay. Anything else on here that should be prioritized? When you say stuff is the main,
Council Chambers: Training the staff for the language?
Council Chambers: Like, training of giving them some kind of Of education about the language?
Council Chambers: Stop training? Yeah.
Council Chambers: recommendations for staff training be included in the policy? This can be, yeah, beneficial. I think.
Council Chambers: Okay.
Council Chambers: I would… I would think that both guidance for providing access to nonverbal languages and also the recommendations on public communication for language access should be prioritized, right?
Council Chambers: Great.
Council Chambers: One of the miscellaneous comments I made, I'm not sure where it fits.
Council Chambers: But was, is there a way that language can be simplified or glossary available with documents and meetings that also includes meanings of initials?
Council Chambers: Because that's something that, you know…
Council Chambers: I hear all the time in public meetings is that people say initials, and I have no idea what they're talking about. And if I wasn't an English language speaker, it would be even harder.
Council Chambers: I mean, I can make it up sometimes.
Council Chambers: So, a cheat sheet on acronyms.
Council Chambers: Yeah, that's maybe a link on every agenda.
Council Chambers: Does that make sense? So if somebody goes to a city council meeting, they see a link.
Council Chambers: That they can click on, and it gives them meaning to all the… I mean, I live on the computer, so I don't know how to do this without the computer, but… Yeah.
Council Chambers: That sounds like it relates to bullet number 5, recommendations on public communication for language access. Sounds like that's important to you, that would fall into that bucket, without getting into too much specificity right now. Sure.
Council Chambers: Yes, I have a question. Does the city have something to do With that rental agreement.
Council Chambers: and those be translated, it would be wonderful, because people come here, and they are signing documents in English. They really don't have idea what is said there.
Council Chambers: If the rental agreement can be translated into a language, wow. Yeah. My recommendation for you would be, potentially, to bring that to the Housing Solutions Network, or other housing providers could help advocate for that, but my understanding of rental agreements is that they're
Council Chambers: Primarily the building owner, or… Homeowner would be producing those agreements, so…
Council Chambers: There may be standard agreements in other languages just available online, and Housing Solutions Network can maybe advocate for their use.
Council Chambers: But that's not something that the city has purview over.
Council Chambers: Canada City.
Council Chambers: What do you mean?
Council Chambers: enforce… would try to enforce something about that, that they should give a cup in Spanish?
Council Chambers: Spanish, something like that. I don't know if you guys understand what I am trying to say, that they fear kind of…
Council Chambers: Forced to translate that document that those people are signing.
Council Chambers: Because I have a lot of examples, they signed a contract, they don't know what they are doing.
Council Chambers: If for some reason they need to move out of Frigidaire.
Council Chambers: There is assumption that comes to them.
Council Chambers: a lot of money that they don't have idea this was there. They sent something in English. They couldn't read it. It may be best for Amy to speak to that, Mayor Howard, since Council is the one that would make
Council Chambers: that… maybe make that law… create that law, if that was the will of the people. Mayor Howard, are you online still? Could you speak to that?
Amy Howard: I am online, but I am struggling with my hold music.
Amy Howard: So, I'm only catching pieces of it. Could you repeat the question?
Council Chambers: Can the city write a document or enforce something that said.
Council Chambers: The landlord need to translate the document that people will sign when they rent.
Council Chambers: When they sign a contract for the rental.
Amy Howard: So that the lease must be in the language of the person signing it?
Council Chambers: Yes.
Amy Howard: That is a request that could be made of Council. I…
Amy Howard: I can't speak directly to whether or not count what Council would vote on to say that, but that does, does sound in line.
Amy Howard: with other requests that have been made of the city about, rentals, so I think that that is a request that you should make of Council.
Council Chambers: This will be great if we have something that they can read on their own language, and they can understand what they are signing.
Amy Howard: That… that would have to be an entire, a policy discussion if we were to add that to code, so this is a… this is where we would start with that discussion, and then we would have to actually go through a whole public process with it.
Council Chambers: Amen.
Council Chambers: Cool. That's okay, that's good. Okay. I mean, at some point, we may want to do a renter's rights
Council Chambers: like, resolution, like the welcoming resolution, but do renter's rights thing, because that's becoming more and more of an issue. And the Housing Fund Board has a group that's doing that right now.
Council Chambers: Let's talk about it. Wonderful. So, I can pass these around…
Council Chambers: And you can… the next one's in quilting. We've already done Fort Township.
Council Chambers: Is that a good, key into our next item? Sounds like it. Did you get everything you need? I thought it, so yeah, thanks for all that input, absolutely, thank you.
Council Chambers: Okay, so is there something that we can, like, I don't know, put forward on that agenda, and work on something like that?
Council Chambers: It's not in the work plan, so I think I would need maybe more of Mayor Howard's guidance for how to… how to take that item forward.
Council Chambers: Is that something we would just ask about the next time, or is that… we just have to kind of leave it there? I'm not sure.
Amy Howard: Kelly, could you set up a meeting with me, and we'll talk about how that might functionally progress, and then we would be able to talk about it next time? I can't… I can't do it right now, I'm sorry.
Council Chambers: August.
Council Chambers: Thank you.
Council Chambers: I'm changing. Thank you. Yeah.
Council Chambers: All right, so Shelly, you're good. Thank you, Mayor Howard. And I guess we're now officially a new business with,
Council Chambers: For sure, Heather Dudley-Nolette. Thank you so much for taking the time. You're so welcome! I'm, I'm pleased to be here. So I am Heather Dudley-Nolette. I know a lot of you already, or have seen you in the community many times, but, so I am…
Council Chambers: The District 1 commissioner for Jefferson County, there are 3 commissioners, in our county, and District 1, which is where I live, is mostly the city of Fort Townsend.
Council Chambers: And one other large precinct outside of the city of Port Townsend. So I have a great sort of esteem of being able to really represent both people in the county.
Council Chambers: And, that inclusive of those living within what is another jurisdiction under Mayor Howard's jurisdiction as the City of Port Townsend. So we do our best to work together and, and recognize that people in the city are also county residents, and we have a lot of things that we can do together.
Council Chambers: One of those things that we, the county and the city had already been doing together well before my time as a commissioner was this joint city-county housing fund board, in recognition that housing issues are complex.
Council Chambers: And things that we are all dealing with, all across our county, and… and issues that
Council Chambers: the various different jurisdictions, including the city of Fort Townsend and the county's government, have purview over and need to make policy about, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for us to do that completely separate from one another. So, I love the fact that we have this joint city-county
Council Chambers: Housing Fund Board. It's not the only joint committee that we're on, together, but it's one that I am getting to chair this year.
Council Chambers: So, I became the chair of the Housing Fund Board just in this calendar year, 2026, and, one of the tasks that the Housing Fund Board was responsible for was rewriting the next version of this 5-year housing… homeless and affordable housing services plan.
Council Chambers: The plan is required.
Council Chambers: Cities and counties are required to write a homeless housing plan.
Council Chambers: And the first one had already been written.
Council Chambers: And served for the previous 5 years. So now, it was time for us to write the next 5-year plan, and we did that together. This Joint Housing Fund Board chose to also add affordable housing.
Council Chambers: as a contemplation of this plan. And I think you'll see as we go through it, fairly… hopefully we'll do this fairly quickly, and then I can just open up to questions, you'll see that when we talk about what it takes to develop and maintain affordable housing.
Council Chambers: for…
Council Chambers: you know, across our community, for our workforce, etc. Those actually tend to be very different issues than what it takes to serve and provide shelter, transitional housing, permanent housing, and all the services needed
Council Chambers: for people who have been experiencing homelessness, right? So keep that in your mind as we go through this plan. This plan tries to kind of put those things into one plan, but it also tries to recognize how those things are different.
Council Chambers: And probably need to be worked on by different groups of people who are talking to each other, because there are also things that those two issues have in common, right?
Council Chambers: So, this is a long plan. I don't remember exactly how many pages, I think 70-some.
Council Chambers: And so there is a table of contents here at the very beginning of the plan.
Council Chambers: And some things that we added to the plan after having had a previous plan that was fantastic and expansive and took a lot of time and a lot of people at the table to write.
Council Chambers: We discovered a few things about having that plan for 5 years, and one of them is that big plans like this
Council Chambers: Especially when they're first written.
Council Chambers: Are often… you put a lot of energy into writing the plan, and then it kind of sits there without a lot of implementation.
Council Chambers: Right? So one of the things that we really wanted to do with this plan is to take a step toward how do we really actually do the things, or at least a lot of the things in this plan that we said we were going to do.
Council Chambers: So we added some things to this plan that weren't in the previous one.
Council Chambers: I'll go through in order so I don't get too confusing, but if you use the table of contents, you can really see that we start with acknowledgements, which has to do with
Council Chambers: who… who participated, right? So there was a housing task force, it was a subcommittee, just like you've just committed… created this subcommittee of Hope and Nikki.
Council Chambers: to, work on identity issues. This was a subcommittee of our Housing Fund Board, and it was called the Housing Task Force.
Council Chambers: It met 10 times. It had 10 scheduled meetings. These were all open public meetings, so they were meetings that people could attend.
Council Chambers: And there… you should see a list at the beginning here of all the people that participated.
Council Chambers: The people here represent a lot of different organizations. So you can see, the city of Port Townsend, particularly their community development department, and the county's community development department were involved to kind of talk about how these things… how permits are
Council Chambers: need to be considered in all of this planning. We also had a lot of behavioral health and housing providers involved, so people from Discovery Behavioral Health Care who are actually working with individuals who are homeless. We had people with lived experience of homelessness participating in this plan who did get stipends to participate. Tanya Burkett from Usawa Consulting
Council Chambers: and engaged JC, and Eric Jones, sorry, not Eric Jones, but, Cameron Jones participated from, well-organized.
Council Chambers: Right, so there was a lot of engagement that way. People from, you know, Eric being one of them from the Housing Solutions Network, you can see listed here our housing providers and our Olympic Housing Trust, which was more focused on affordable housing than homeless housing.
Council Chambers: And a whole list of other people here. So, Dove House Advocacy Services, the Peninsula Housing Authority, lots of different
Council Chambers: organizations that participated, right? So that's all there, and as Julia was just describing, we recognized early on that the housing and behavioral health support services world comes with many, many, many acronyms.
Council Chambers: Right, so we started at the very beginning. I actually had the great privilege of going through this document and identifying all of the acronyms. I hope I caught them all, but this is a list right at the beginning of all the acronyms, those 3 or 4 letter, sort of,
Council Chambers: groupings of letters that actually mean something, right? So we tried to describe those at the very beginning. You can see that took up, what, two whole pages, of acronyms? A lot of acronyms. There's an introduction here that really describes the whole, sort of, homeless and affordable housing
Council Chambers: Landscape, and all of the things that we're dealing with.
Council Chambers: It also goes through the,
Council Chambers: the previous plan, and kind of what… what did we achieve from the previous plan? What are some of the goals that we met? And, and I'm… because I… I want to keep this really concise, I'm not going to describe
Council Chambers: those things here, but it's all here, happy to talk about those things. We also talked about, sort of who are we talking about? Who are the people that are being served here? Who in Jefferson County, and what are the numbers of people that are experiencing homelessness? What are the numbers and types of people who are… we're trying to help?
Council Chambers: provide affordable housing for. So that's all here as well. So you can see the beginning of this document as many pages of just kind of setting the tone for
Council Chambers: what's the problem we're trying to solve here, right? There's a lot about that, so I'm just going to kind of scroll through that part and get to… This, I think, is really interesting, the Jefferson County Homeless
Council Chambers: and crisis response systems. These are actually two different things, the homeless response and the crisis response systems, but this attempts to describe
Council Chambers: That corn… kind of…
Council Chambers: what we call a spectrum of housing needs, right? This is a line here, but we know in real life this isn't actually linear. Someone doesn't always enter the homeless needs.
Council Chambers: spectrum at homelessness and make their way very methodically up until the market rate, right? Or, you know, that… but this just attempts to describe the various different types of issues that we were trying to address when we talk about the whole
Council Chambers: need for housing in Jefferson County.
Council Chambers: All of this goes through everyone who's involved, and goes through that in a lot more detail. We talked about the strengths of the HRS, or Homeless Response System, so that's really good to kind of remind us of all the things that we're doing well.
Council Chambers: And then we talked about how this plan was developed. So all of that is at the very beginning of this plan. You can see that takes up, like, the first
Council Chambers: 16, 17 pages of the document. So there's a lot there to kind of just give people a basic understanding of the problems we were trying to solve.
Council Chambers: The people we're trying to help with this plan.
Council Chambers: And what we've done so far.
Council Chambers: Like, what's worked, what hasn't, right? Then, if you start… then get into page 18 of this document, that is the actual plan itself, right? It starts in with objectives, strategies.
Council Chambers: and actions. And this is the other thing that we really tried to change about what… how the other plan, the previous five-year plan.
Council Chambers: was written.
Council Chambers: So you'll see that we identified 5 different objectives of the plan. Now, actually, I'll correct myself there, because this committee task force did not identify those objectives.
Council Chambers: Those objectives were given to us, and are given to every county across Washington state by the Department of Commerce. That is the organization at the state level, or the agency at the state level, that is requiring us to rate this plan.
Council Chambers: So you should now be able to go to any county, the 39 counties in Washington state. You should be able to find a 5-year plan for every single county across Washington state now.
Council Chambers: The cool thing about that, I think one of the many cool things about that, is that we could look to each other's plans and talk to each other
Council Chambers: I mean, I have a network of other county commissioners. I am also the former Deputy Executive Director of Bayside Housing and Services, so I happen to have come from that housing provider world, so I could connect with other housing providers.
Council Chambers: Any of us could do that, and just like you're writing your equity and access policies right now.
Council Chambers: We're often not the only ones who have done something like this before, so we try to reach out and talk to others who have already written a plan, and who may have, advice about maybe what not to do, and what to include, and what to change.
Council Chambers: So, we can also learn from ourselves, from our past experience, and one of the past experience issues that we discovered was that
Council Chambers: rewrite the plan, it sits there. We don't really have a lot of tools for going back to that plan and then measuring, how are we doing? Did we actually… and what does it look like if we actually succeed?
Council Chambers: at any of these strategies. So, I think one of the things to note as you're reading this plan is that you should be able to go to every objective.
Council Chambers: Each objective then has strategies underneath each objective, and each strategy has a number of actions.
Council Chambers: And the actions, if you were to write yourself a task list at home, or a grocery list, or whatever, you would have checkboxes next to each of those things. I gotta do X, Y, and Z today, or I need to pick up these 3 things at the grocery store. We really wanted this plan to have
Council Chambers: Checklist.
Council Chambers: How do we know when we've done the thing, right? So each… under each action, you'll see, we have added these things. We added what we called a measure of success. How do we know if we've done it?
Council Chambers: Tried to still keep those fairly broad.
Council Chambers: Because this is still a 5-year plan. You have 5 years. Lots of things can change in 5 years, right? So we didn't want to limit ourselves so much that we didn't allow for things to change.
Council Chambers: But we did want to identify, like, okay, what does that actually look like if we have succeeded, and therefore we can check this one off and move on? So we added some level of measure of success. We also tried to add, what we called a timeline or a milestone.
Council Chambers: Okay, when is… do we know we really want to have gotten this done by?
Council Chambers: Two years from now, one year from now, one month from now, right? We could at least use that and say.
Council Chambers: okay, we're well past when we thought we were gonna get this done. We should probably reprioritize this one, right?
Council Chambers: Or we've still got 2 years to get this one done, but maybe there's a bunch of steps we want to do between now and then, right? And then the third thing we added was a lead responsible party. So that's the who.
Council Chambers: If we write a bunch of lists of things that we're supposed to do, but we never say, when's it supposed to get done?
Council Chambers: what's it look like when we're done? And we also don't say, who's doing it, right? If you had just established your subcommittee, but Nikki and Hope didn't raise their hand to say.
Council Chambers: me. I'll… we… we will make a commitment to do these things, and we'll come back to you and tell you what the next step is, right? That's… this was an attempt here to identify lead responsible party. Who's gonna raise their hand to do these things?
Council Chambers: So, the… I'm gonna go over two more…
Council Chambers: kind of critical things about how to use this plan and how to read it. And then I would just like to open it up for any questions you may have. But, without scrolling through 77 pages or whatever, I'd like to at least hit on
Council Chambers: What are the objectives? So the objectives that were given to us were, one, to strengthen the homeless service provider workforce. The people who are actually providing these services to people who are experiencing homelessness. We really identified at the state level, and certainly at the local level.
Council Chambers: That the people who are doing that work Need a lot of support.
Council Chambers: They're experiencing what we call secondary trauma, so people who are experiencing a direct trauma, and then you work with them and try to serve that population, and you actually feel that trauma.
Council Chambers: By working with them, because you're working with someone every day who is sharing their trauma with you, and you really want to help them, right? So that's called secondary trauma. That is one example of the challenges that the homeless service provider workforce is dealing with every day. What do they need in terms of support in order to be successful at their work? So all of these strategies and actions under this first objective
Council Chambers: are all about that. And they give us lots of tools and ideas
Council Chambers: Based on what we heard from all the people who participated on how to do that. Objective 2, promote an equitable, accountable, and transparent homeless crisis response system.
Council Chambers: I'll tell you, the Homeless Crisis Response System is a really big system. It's actually multiple systems combined into one that have to do with behavioral health, building, housing, providing services. It's a really large system. Substance abuse disorder system. So many things.
Council Chambers: So all the objectives under this try to get more and more specific, and then actions under each of those.
Council Chambers: Right, so that's objective number two. There are five objectives. The third one is prioritize assistance based on the greatest barriers
Council Chambers: to housing stability and the greatest risk of harm. So this was… this is all about sort of prioritizing where we put our energy first, how to help people, strategies and actions under that.
Council Chambers: And then the fourth one was to prevent episodes of homelessness whenever possible. So this… all this whole concept of prevention is… it's great when we help people who are actually homeless right now, but we can also be doing a whole lot to keep more people from becoming homeless.
Council Chambers: And so, all of these strategies and actions are under that. And us talking about that. Yes. We are… the city is part of this plan. This is a city-county plan. That's correct. So, we are under that particular thing.
Council Chambers: your equity access and rights report. Yeah, the conversation we had about how to rent it was… Fantastic. …what Francesca brought up, etc. Yeah, so you'll see that,
Council Chambers: Connect renters with opportunities to become homeowners by supporting home buyer education, credit counseling, and home ownership counseling programs. Perfect example. This was one of the actions, under this
Council Chambers: objective and the strategy here, and so that, that flyer there, the tenant organizing.
Council Chambers: It was also an action that came out of this, and so this is us following up and actually doing something that we wrote into this plan, and it was defined here as, to establish a tenant organizing. I'm trying to scroll through and see if I can find it, but…
Council Chambers: I probably have scrolled past it. But it's here, in this plan. The fifth one is to seek to house everyone in a stable setting that meets their needs.
Council Chambers: Pretty big objective, right?
Council Chambers: That's a bit cold, but we can start by establishing what are the steps
Council Chambers: This is the attempt to say, big, big goal, what are the steps? We're going to use strategies, then we're going to use actual actions, things that we can check off of a list. The last thing I want to share with you is at the very end of this plan, there are some of the things at the end of that where it describes the additional plan elements. That's worth reading, and then there's a big report at the end around
Council Chambers: performance measures. This has to do with how did we do on the last 5-year plan?
Council Chambers: Right, so that's all here as well. Then there are some appendixes, or appendices at the end. I think the one I want to point your attention to last is at the very end of this document.
Council Chambers: just scroll, so avert your eyes so you don't get… so you don't get dizzy. But all of this here at the end is about how we've done on previous goals, and kind of how we, how we tracked that. Also, at the very end.
Council Chambers: All of that, I'm almost there.
Council Chambers: is… are two things. Appendix X, this is also something we have added since the previous plan. Try to scoot this over so you can really see it. Appendix H here is a timeline chart. This basically attempts to take all of those tasks and the timelines and actually put it on a calendar.
Council Chambers: So then I have gone as the chair of the Housing Fund Board, and I've taken this document and turned it into kind of a tracking sheet.
Council Chambers: that we are now using at every Housing Fund Board meeting, where we'll say, okay, this up here means December of 2025, January 2025, and beyond. You see, it just kind of becomes a calendar through 2028, 2029, and 2030, the whole five years of the plan. And we kind of put it on, like, okay, well, we can see evaluating the Housing Fund Board and Continuum
Council Chambers: healthcare models. We were to be doing that
Council Chambers: all the way through May of 2026. We did do that work, and we actually then extended the deadline for that through August of 2026, because we were talking to each other, saying, like, okay, we still have some more work to do, but let's not just
Council Chambers: leave it, right? Like, let's be accountable and say, we're gonna keep… and choose, we're gonna keep working on this, now this has been extended out to August 2026. Is there…
Council Chambers: a constantly updated version of this that I can access somewhere? Yes, in all of your housing fund board packets, that document that I put up on the screen gets then put back up after the meeting, so that it's updated after every single meeting, and you… so ADL puts it back up after I've edited it on the screen, so that everybody has access to it for the next meeting.
Council Chambers: And then it gets put into the next packet as well. So the last thing, this is two pages of just the calendar, and then this is really handy, this is the last two pages of the document. It's Appendix I, and this is basically another way of looking at the actions.
Council Chambers: So what I did here was take the plan.
Council Chambers: and take all those lead responsible parties, the people who said, yes, I will take some of this on, and we re-sorted the plan to say, okay, if I am…
Council Chambers: Someone from a by and for organization.
Council Chambers: Are there any tasks assigned to me? Yes.
Council Chambers: It's 2C3. That action, I can now go back up to the plan and find
Council Chambers: Objective 2, Strategy C, Task 3, and I know that's a task for me to be responsible for, right? And I am a commissioner, so, the Board of County Commissioners
Council Chambers: along with our city council members, that Mayor Howard sits on the City Council, we have tasks.
Council Chambers: that are assigned to us, too. The Housing Fund Board has tasks that are assigned to them, right? The county and the city grant administrators have tasks. The Housing Fund Board has a lot of different subcommittees.
Council Chambers: they all got assigned different tasks for Townsend City Council, the Housing Solutions Network that we talked about earlier. So I'm now in the process of contacting each of those responsible parties and saying, hey, did you remember that you have a task assigned to you for one?
Council Chambers: Actually, the conversation really is, did you know that you have a task assigned to you?
Council Chambers: This task force tried to do that work of making sure they checked with someone before they gave them a task.
Council Chambers: But that doesn't always get… that loop doesn't always get totally closed, right? So, I'm going back to each of them and saying, hey, did you know that I want to make sure you know that this has been assigned to you? Most of them are saying, yes, I knew.
Council Chambers: And I'm going through and saying, okay, did you… do you still agree with these timelines? Do you still think you can get it done by X date? Yes, no? Okay, if no, we're gonna change it. Right now. Or this is gonna be a living document.
Council Chambers: That we're going to keep adjusting as we go. So I think I'll stop there and just, let you ask any questions.
Council Chambers: Anything else that you wanted to get out of this presentation, I'm happy to… Provided.
Council Chambers: Thank you so much. Yeah, I'll go back up just to the, so you can see the table of contents, if there's anything else there.
Council Chambers: know about.
Council Chambers: Any questions? I'm super accessible. You know, I have an office right there at that county courthouse up there. Happy to leave my business cards here. My mobile number is there. You're welcome to reach out to me directly. I like to be texted. You can call me.
Council Chambers: You can email me if you have questions or anything as you get to look through this plan, if there's anything you're curious about, or you want to be involved in.
Council Chambers: Love it when people do that. Hey, I have some energy for this task, and I think I could help. Those kinds of things, we can always plug you in, or anybody that you know, or has questions about.
Council Chambers: And as… as a board, we can look at this and say, we want to be involved in… You bet. …the tenants' rights thing. You bet. That's great. Yeah, one question I would have is that Fort Townsend City Council is tasked with 3 items, according to that appendix. Right. And so…
Council Chambers: Is, to your mind, since this is an advisory board to City Council, is that a good starting point for this board, is to look at what those three items are? Oh, yeah. And…
Council Chambers: And, you know, including Mayor Howard, when she has more capacity, go through those items, and better understand if the committee thought that those were Council's paths.
Council Chambers: Or assigned counsel those staff.
Council Chambers: That this board could provide some recommendations on how to fulfill those things.
Council Chambers: Does that seem like a good… That's a fantastic idea. And just know, too, that, you know, in the kind of follow-up, now, you had City Council members sitting on the Housing Fund Board. Then once this plan was written.
Council Chambers: it becomes… it became a recommendation. It then went to the Housing Fund Board from the task force, the Housing Fund Board blessed it, then it went to your city council and your Board of County Commissioners. They reviewed it, had public comment at that point, and approved it. And even through all of that.
Council Chambers: there are still things about it where we go back and go, like, oh, I'm not sure that we are ready to take that task on, and that's okay. I mean, I'd say that's okay. This is…
Council Chambers: These are, like, if we don't set big, lofty goals, we're never going to achieve big, lofty goals, right? And, so I don't think we need to be afraid of any goal that's in here that might feel really unachievable right now.
Council Chambers: For one, we've got 5 years to make an attempt, and also, no one's gonna slap our hands if we don't meet these goals. It's just that
Council Chambers: our community could be a whole lot better if we do. So, it would be wonderful if we made an effort. And we already know that, for example, some of the city council goals, there's one in particular around establishing a affordable housing
Council Chambers: committee.
Council Chambers: that we're… that we're already kind of talking about, well… and the goal, actually, to be fair, is… is to explore that. Explore the idea of establishing the committee. So we kept it nice and broad, allows us to be successful, but to, you know.
Council Chambers: Push us, you know, expand our horizons a little bit.
Council Chambers: And so the conversation is in play right now. Well, are there already committees that exist that could take on some of the work that we envisioned for this committee? Or, you know, we don't want to create committees just for committees' sake. You know that sitting on a committee is a lot of work.
Council Chambers: So anyway, that's a good example of one that we're talking about right now, figuring out, like, is that the actual way to achieve this goal, or is there a better way to do it? And those kinds of things I'd really love your input on, too. You see a goal here.
Council Chambers: Maybe the way we thought about that goal when we were going through the task force and contemplating it, maybe that's not actually the best way to achieve the outcome.
Council Chambers: But maybe you have a better idea. So we're open to those things, too.
Council Chambers: My question probably is out of play, but…
Council Chambers: I would like to hear something about that. I know this is a 5-year,
Council Chambers: That you are building here.
Council Chambers: How does people qualify for this project?
Council Chambers: If they are homeless, A lot of them do not work.
Council Chambers: they probably received some kind of income, but how about if the income is not enough? Or is there a badge that people need to have to be able to qualify for those houses?
Council Chambers: And I make the question, because I have… I know somebody, that she applied for housing.
Council Chambers: To a company, and she don't qualify.
Council Chambers: Because she don't work, and her social security is, I think it's… 500 less.
Council Chambers: Ding.
Council Chambers: the badge that they have for people to qualify. How does people qualify for this project?
Council Chambers: Okay, so your question is really specific about one person's experience, yet it is really representative of a big issue that we have in our homeless
Council Chambers: response system, right? I will just qualify to say this plan does not represent one project.
Council Chambers: Right? This plan says, okay, what is our whole
Council Chambers: homeless and affordable housing problem in Jefferson County, including the City of Port Townsend, and how… what are all the steps we could take to try to make that better?
Council Chambers: Right? So it's much broader than what you're… what you're asking about a specific person's circumstance. However, two things.
Council Chambers: One, we want to make sure we consider
Council Chambers: the problem that this person is having, because it represents a problem that a lot of people are having, and that is that our income sometimes
Council Chambers: Can be frustratingly Too much.
Council Chambers: Too much to qualify for assistance in housing, but not enough to pay our bills, and have a…
Council Chambers: You know, have a home, and be able to pay for food, and…
Council Chambers: take care of our children, right? So…
Council Chambers: We are contemplating that as a problem.
Council Chambers: In this plan. And there are some strategies to try to solve that. But what you're really asking
Council Chambers: is about how this person can qualify, and there is an answer to what you're saying. There are services that could help this person, and I'd be happy to talk to you, just because I happen to know about some of those services, about what they are.
Council Chambers: But relative to this plan, The answer is…
Council Chambers: That's a really big problem that we haven't solved yet, and it's a problem that a lot of us in Jefferson County are up against. So we do need to solve it. And there are strategies here that try.
Council Chambers: that doesn't help the individual person that you're talking about, so I'd be happy to talk to you offline about her specifically and give you some ideas about how to help her. Okay. I took her as an example, but I know there are
Council Chambers: a lot of homeless that they don't work. So my…
Council Chambers: And you answered very well, but I have more curiosity. Sure. If somebody don't have an income, and they are homeless.
Council Chambers: That still they will qualify for the program.
Council Chambers: Interestingly enough, that actually qualifies them more. It's actually the people who have no income that do better in the homeless response system than people who have some income. And that… it's that middle place that I think is least served.
Council Chambers: in our system the way it is right now, and that's a problem. Like, that's a problem that we need to address, and there are some strategies here that help us to address that. But for someone who really has no income.
Council Chambers: You're… we… that person could work with our… our…
Council Chambers: homeless housing providers, Bayside Housing and Services, OLICAP, and Dove House Advocacy Services, and if they are someone of transition age youth, 18 to 24, they could also access some housing through OWL360. So those four organizations
Council Chambers: and our county will help people. I will also say…
Council Chambers: That there is a waiting list in our county.
Council Chambers: Of approximately 350 people.
Council Chambers: Yeah, and the amount of spaces that open up or trickle, like, one or two a month. I'm in those meetings. That's a problem that we are trying to address through this plan as well.
Council Chambers: Right. So, can you repeat that for me? How many people are on that one? There are approximately 350 people on what we call the by name list, and I can tell you more about
Council Chambers: So, if you're looking up things about that process in this plan, you're going to look up the continuum of care.
Council Chambers: The Continuum of care, and you'll see that the continuum of care lead and the Continuum of care system is actually identified as one of the lead responsible parties.
Council Chambers: That's a really complex system that I could help, you know, help you break down and describe. That's the whole thing. We are going to be talking about that a lot at the Housing Fund Board meeting coming up.
Council Chambers: September 2nd. On September 2nd, yeah. I will not be available for the meeting, but I will do like your card, please. Yeah, I'd be happy to give you my card, we'll talk about it. Yes, please. Yeah.
Council Chambers: Thank you for answering the question. Sure.
Council Chambers: Yeah, and so…
Council Chambers: I don't know if Amy's still on it, but Amy and me and Heather were all part of writing them.
Council Chambers: Yes, I'm writing this plan, yeah. I'm gonna leave things here for everyone, but please share. Yeah. Well, there you go. You know how to reach me, though. You guys, they're there again. Would you prefer, reach out? Does it matter if you sell, call and call, text?
Council Chambers: I have a specific question, but I'll take it off. Yeah, if you have a specific, sort of, like, you want to sit down and meet with me, sending an email to just describe it is, is a good idea, but you're also welcome to text me.
Council Chambers: I'm not always the best teacher, so email's good. Yeah, email's good, too. I'll just tell you, if you… if you haven't heard from me.
Council Chambers: Feel free to send me a text. I'll be like, hey, I sent you an email, just want to remind you, and
Council Chambers: And I will… it is the best way to get a fast response from me. My question is around senior services and this particular issue, but that's helpful. I love to talk about senior services. Yeah, I'd love to talk about them.
Council Chambers: Yeah.
Council Chambers: Yeah, so I think… I think you have a sense that this is a really big
Council Chambers: big, complex thing that we're trying to kind of wrap our minds around as a community, and the only way that we really, I think as humans right now, know how
Council Chambers: To tackle something that big is to…
Council Chambers: break it down into steps, right? All the… call it chunking, right? In any kind of, like… you're working in a behavioral health system, this is something really, really overwhelming, and it can paralyze you, and we can just feel like there's nothing we can do, because it's so big.
Council Chambers: This is an attempt.
Council Chambers: For us, as a community to take a breath around housing.
Council Chambers: And start to break it down into pieces the best that we can, and give ourselves some things that we can actually do
Council Chambers: To change for the better.
Council Chambers: Really great work.
Council Chambers: Thank you all. Sorry, one more point. No, feel free.
Council Chambers: Is there a list that people can sign by nowadays, or you would want to have everything ready and developed before people can start signing? Do you have any waiting lists?
Council Chambers: For this program? So, are you talking about for housing? Yeah. I, I will… there is,
Council Chambers: If someone is in need of housing right now, there is a process that you can go through to get, basically, onto that list. And, you can do that through any of our housing providers. That would be through OLICAP, Bayside Housing and Services.
Council Chambers: Dove House if you're a victim of general crime or domestic violence, and OWL360 if you're a youth.
Council Chambers: We're talking trip… typically transition ages. They are, and I'll tell you how, yeah, but they still have an application process, yeah.
Council Chambers: My apologies. What is the last one for you? OWL360, like OOT, Hoot, hoot, O-O-W-L, yeah. It was named by the kids, yeah. They're awesome. The Nest, the nest is part of OWL360. Okay, O360. OWL360, yeah. Typically for transition-age youth, 18.
Council Chambers: to 24 years old is the main population that they serve, but they're flexible.
Council Chambers: They serve younger and older, but that's kind of their main… 24. 24, yeah.
Council Chambers: Yeah.
Council Chambers: Thank you. Yeah. So for a small rural community, we actually do have a pretty significant set of services, but I just came from a meeting this morning where I was advocating at the federal level to say.
Council Chambers: We are a small, rural county, and if we are going to be expected to meet goals like this, as we should, because we have people who work with major needs, we need to… we need to provide more support for those systems to do a better job, and
Council Chambers: And so there's lots of tasks that we're trying to contemplate here around how to do a better job. But we're actually in fairly good shape compared to smaller counties, in terms of what's already in place. We now need to grow it, strengthen it.
Council Chambers: And build it. And some people don't know about those resources, so it's good to pass them. Yes.
Council Chambers: So, one of the things to know about the by name is these 350 people.
Council Chambers: is that…
Council Chambers: You don't go up because you've been on it for a long time. Right. The people at the top are the people who are the most vulnerable. 50% of the homeless here are over 60.
Council Chambers: Years old.
Council Chambers: There's a few… there's… not a few. There's a chunk of those people who have various versions of disabilities and stuff like this, or are in danger in some way, and they tend to be at the top of the list. But…
Council Chambers: You know, Bayside takes a certain type of people. Dovehouse takes a certain type of people. There's a thing called sergeants, which takes veterans. Okay. So, that also enters into the mix. It's like, which category do you fit in, and how vulnerable are you? Okay.
Council Chambers: And, I'm just letting you know that, because people get on the list, and they're like, okay, what number am I? Oh, okay.
Council Chambers: And then they don't go up. Maybe they go down.
Council Chambers: you know, That's because of the vulnerability issue. And, people who are sex trafficked.
Council Chambers: traffic-handed? I can't say the word, but people who are used for sex, and sold for sex.
Council Chambers: That's one of the vulnerabilities, and I know that that exists in the migrant population, so any type of forced labor, any type of that.
Council Chambers: they need to be clear when they fill out the application. I've, you know, I've gone through these bad things. Yeah.
Council Chambers: Okay. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Because, you know, I work with, Natalia in the Women's Justice Circle, so we have a lot of situation there, and we are looking…
Council Chambers: resources around to be able to help them. And some of them are in that situation. And she started coming to these meetings. Oh, good, good. Yeah. Wonderful.
Council Chambers: I know also, if you're looking for specific things, the Dove House does a lot of stuff with domestic violence, specifically women who've experienced domestic violence. They have housing.
Council Chambers: for them.
Council Chambers: So there's also that. It's me. Wonderful.
Council Chambers: Thank you, everybody. Yes, good questions.
Council Chambers: Thank you so much. So, we have just some time keeping 20 minutes left, and still 3 items on the agenda, so,
Council Chambers: Is there anything else for the Commissioner?
Council Chambers: Anything else? Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. You're welcome to stay and listen to the rest of this if you wish to.
Council Chambers: Okay, so we're gonna just… we're gonna start cruising on here, and we did put Shelly up after this presentation, so… So this is about budget. So even though you don't have your
Council Chambers: formal tasking on your work plan, right? You made your recommendations for what you would like to work on.
Council Chambers: to Council, that they've had those at their council work plan retreat.
Council Chambers: The formal, you guys already stopped screen sharing. Oh, yeah, she… I think maybe we could… unless you want this, there is something in your packet that you might want to screen share here at the bottom.
Council Chambers: This is the 2026 work plan. Yeah, there you go, I was checking after that. Yeah. Thanks.
Council Chambers: So this was your work plan for 2026. We're in that year.
Council Chambers: And you don't have your 2027 work plan yet, I guess this is the point I'm trying to make. However, now is the time to make a budget request. And we… I need to… your budget lives within the Communications Department's budget.
Council Chambers: So I need to be able to make that request by the end of this month.
Council Chambers: So, it's important that we have this discussion now. For some context, for folks who are new, in 2025, this board requested $3,000 and used $0, so did not use the $3,000 budget.
Council Chambers: In 2026, you made a request of $12,000 specific to listening sessions.
Council Chambers: One listening session has been conducted, and you spent…
Council Chambers: Sorry, do we have everyone? You guys good? Okay, are you sure?
Council Chambers: Should we cover anything with the whole board, or are we okay? I think we're okay. Okay, just making sure when I go on it.
Council Chambers: It's better to look at the screen, because when I'm at my church, I look at my screen better. It's a little easier. Right, I can't see that far, so that's okay.
Council Chambers: $1,000 has been spent from your $12,000 budget this year for one listening session.
Council Chambers: So, the question is, if you had $3,000 in 2025 and used zero, and you had $12,000 in 2026, and have used $1,000, what is the request based on what you would like to do in 2027?
Council Chambers: Additional context that would be good for our discussion.
Council Chambers: is that there are a lot of trade-offs in budgeting. Your budget comes from something called the General Fund, which is our most flexible pot of money at the city, comes from city tax money.
Council Chambers: It is very flexible.
Council Chambers: But there are a lot of requests that come to this pot of money, lots and lots of them. Far more than we can pay for. So the requests exceed what that pot of money can hold.
Council Chambers: So there are always trade-offs in those discussions, and I am there in those discussions, advocating for equity, access, and rights, and for the work of this board. However, it means that when you request something like $12,000,
Council Chambers: Money is not allocated to other things. It is allocated to this. So, it is important to consider that, because other work that the city or other departments want to do
Council Chambers: May not happen because this board has been allocated a certain amount of money.
Council Chambers: So, I do want us to really consider that when… want you to consider that when you're making this request.
Council Chambers: That it's important that it match what you intend or hope to do in that year, and that it can be achieved, right? And I'm here to help you do that. So, I think that's all I have right now, that… in terms of context to set up your discussion.
Council Chambers: Yeah, what… I think it's just… I'm not quite sure how it works, but what happens to the money we don't use? I don't really know how the budgeting system works.
Council Chambers: Because, yeah, so what happens if we have $12,000 if you can spend, and if we spend $1,000, we have $11,000 left, and what happens if we don't use it? Yeah.
Council Chambers: If you, for budgeted projects, like, something like listening sessions, right, you could request a carryover, and then $11,000 would appear in the request for
Council Chambers: 2027. So that's an example. It would be a carryover expense for those… that project, which would be listening sessions.
Council Chambers: But generally, if money isn't spent, it goes back into the general fund reserve, and so it… And that is utilized… typically, that's utilized for one-time expenses and not ongoing expenses. So, special projects tend to utilize reserve funds
Council Chambers: But they're also weighed very judiciously in the budgeting process.
Council Chambers: Do we have… this says July, August. Mayor says draft. That was quickly by one.
Council Chambers: But it's still true… Okay. …that the Mayor sends a draft strategic work plan to advisory board chairs.
Council Chambers: in July and August, do we have that?
Council Chambers: No, I don't think that's been planned. So, we can't really talk about next year's budget until we have next year's report, right?
Council Chambers: Yeah, you… right, as of this moment, you've made your recommendation for your 2026 work plan. Okay. Right? That was made to Council.
Council Chambers: 2027. 2027 work plan, thank you. There has been nothing that has gone to boards, to my knowledge, about the 2027 work plan has not gone back to boards. So, we…
Council Chambers: They're out.
Amy Howard: It is something that is actively being worked on. There's a little bit of a hiccup because John is leaving, and I want to work on it with Steve.
Amy Howard: So, it's a little bit delayed.
Council Chambers: So, can we respond to this in September?
Council Chambers: Or do we have to come up with our budget before September? There's the question I'm trying to ask.
Council Chambers: Yeah, it's a great question, and I understand it's not ideal. The first half of the budget needs to be made by the end of this month, so we need to be able to have something that we're providing to city staff, our financial department, by the end of this month.
Council Chambers: And…
Council Chambers: Changes can be made to that all the way up until Council adopts that budget, right? So, budget, presentations are made by our finance department. It's not ideal to be making changes up to the end, but it can certainly happen if
Council Chambers: more details.
Council Chambers: you know, if you get your… this draft work plan that Mayor Howard is going to work on with Steve, and in September, you want to make changes to your recommendation, but right now, what we have is the context of what you've spent to date.
Council Chambers: And the work plan recommendations that you made, previously.
Council Chambers: And then, can I just also note, you have this letter from Councilmember Faber, who… that is describing the work plan priorities, and then his… their request of… of how you might fit in your goals into that. Yeah, for this year, yes.
Council Chambers: One thing I'm noticing is that Census Board has only been active for 2 years. There… over the last 2 years, there's been a trend that as it's being figured out what we're doing and how we're able to do it, more money is being used.
Council Chambers: I'm looking at the work plan for 2026, and I'm not noticing
Council Chambers: I don't really look at me wrong, but I want to see many things that we're going to…
Council Chambers: need to be using $11,000 for within the next, 5-ish months.
Council Chambers: Gross? Five months.
Council Chambers: For anyone who was there when this budget was… being made, what was…
Council Chambers: the reasoning for having $12,000 allocated to this board. We're doing the listing sessions, I think, and… It doesn't seem like we have any other listening sessions.
Council Chambers: planned, which I'm sure could change, but… Are we… I guess that's the question. Are we planning more listening sessions for next year, and do they cost about $1,000 a piece? Like, do we… like, is that… I think…
Council Chambers: one of the plans was to do a listening session with the high school and students at the high school. But… Goodies for that will help.
Council Chambers: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Some money for that. So incentive to go is often food, yeah, for sure.
Council Chambers: So there's that, but are there any other listening sessions that we're planning for next year, or anything else that we do need to have?
Council Chambers: A large amount of money anymore.
Council Chambers: I don't know.
Council Chambers: An answer for that in my head. I don't think so. I think we've talked about… there was one
Council Chambers: If we do it, it might be one more, you know, maybe two more that we could…
Council Chambers: But I don't know that we have anything. Again, I'm pretty new, so I… I'm kind of a poem. I don't know how we would spend 11 grand next year.
Council Chambers: First year. Yeah. Or this year, for sure. Or this year, sure. Yeah. So I think one of the things that often happens, I know this happens in my work a ton, is that I'm really ambitious.
Council Chambers: And I think I can get way more done than I can get done, right? So I'm, you know, to your question, likely, it was like.
Council Chambers: Awesome. We are going to do so many listening sessions, and we want to make sure that they're… they're rightfully funded, and so each one, maybe it's going to cost $3,000, and we're going to do this many of them. So it could be where that number came from, is having not done one, and then anticipating each one might cost this.
Council Chambers: So with the context now of having done a listening session most recently, and it was mostly food that cost, you know, was the expense of that listening session, there was some facility rental expense.
Council Chambers: I think those expenses were detailed in the last packet that you had.
Council Chambers: So, that that was a thousand.
Council Chambers: If you wanted to do some listening sessions in 2027, you might take that into consideration for what the request would be. I want to see our work plan, that's what my memory's… 2026 work plan? That's important that my brain is not.
Council Chambers: My file system's broken.
Council Chambers: Yeah, and David's kind of summarized the goals here for you. Yeah, I need that. It's beyond my vision.
Council Chambers: It's in your package book. Yes, I do. Yes. I got it. Thank you. You're welcome. And that is from 2025 for this year? Yes, okay. Oh, okay, so this is next year. The actual… But the advisory board handbook, that's gonna…
Council Chambers: We're still working on that, aren't we? Even though this says that it's going to roll out in early 2026?
Council Chambers: Advisory Board Handbook has been completed. Okay, it is completed. Okay. And as far as the general plan for 2026, I think it is on the next page, if you click the paperwork.
Council Chambers: Whole book, okay.
Council Chambers: I think that's what I was looking at. Okay. But my question is, is what do we say we want to do for 2027? Because that's what impacts our budget. Yeah, yeah. So, I have it pulled up.
Council Chambers: Okay. There's… it looks like…
Council Chambers: There's three sections. The first one is identifying and addressing barriers to engagement in city government and services.
Council Chambers: So, strengthening inclusive participation, which includes language access, digital equity, meeting and services accessibility, and youth representation on advisory boards, which you have…
Council Chambers: I believe you have been tasked with by Council.
Council Chambers: Right? Or… Yes, I believe so.
Council Chambers: And then number 2 is community listening sessions.
Council Chambers: Listening sessions may focus in the following areas.
Council Chambers: Tenants' rights, youth focus, elder focus, and informing resolutions.
Council Chambers: So those were the things you identified for 2027.
Council Chambers: And informing resolutions, like, what just comes up?
Council Chambers: Yeah, I think… what's the issue? Sorry, I'm just reading from what was submitted to Council. Oh, so the first thing was… I'm sorry, I'm trying to write it down so I have it in my brain.
Council Chambers: Yeah, why don't I…
Council Chambers: Yeah, and Heather, I… I can share from my desks, if you need to go. I appreciate your help, though.
Council Chambers: Yeah, could you pull it up, Alyssa?
Council Chambers: Yes, I need to find it first. Was it in the last… last packet?
Council Chambers: The place where I, found it easiest was under Final Council Documents, July 13th.
Council Chambers: Retreat.
Council Chambers: Okay.
Council Chambers: advisory board letters, yeah. So, one of my questions to you would be, so the whole language access thing and stuff like that.
Council Chambers: Is that coming out of our budget, or is that coming somewhere else?
Council Chambers: Like, should we have a budget to help you guys do that?
Council Chambers: Now, your budget is for your work, right? Okay. Implementing translation services.
Council Chambers: those kinds of things, that's staff work. So I will have budget in my budget, that's me implementing the recommendations of the policy that you are… right? So you kind of get what I mean. If you had costs incurred.
Council Chambers: for making a recommendation about a language access policy, like, let's say you want to do a listing session about language access.
Council Chambers: Those would be your expenses, and those should be considered in your budget request.
Council Chambers: Okay, I have… Love.
Council Chambers: Two things.
Council Chambers: I think from what I'm hearing and kind of seeing from our 2027 work plan ideas.
Council Chambers: It seems like we could do about 3 listening sessions that I'm
Council Chambers: seeing one about language access, but I know we did one… I think we did one previously.
Council Chambers: Did we not? They're only… they've done two listening sessions so far, one incurred no cost and one incurred cost. Both of them are about the welcoming city resolution. Okay. I think if we do one for language access, and we could possibly include digital equity in that, which I'm seeing on there, one for youth.
Council Chambers: And there was one other thing that I'm not quite remembering. Yes, an elder. That…
Council Chambers: How many people came to the listening session that had… that we needed money for?
Council Chambers: Did you go to that one? Did you agree with that one?
Council Chambers: Were you at the last listening session? Yeah. Okay, how many people attended?
Council Chambers: It was in the report, but I think there were 12 to 14. Okay. There was a big event going on in town, and we don't know about the event, so most of…
Council Chambers: The people that were there, yeah, okay.
Council Chambers: It seemed like if that was, thank you so much.
Council Chambers: If that was about $1,000, then if we were to do a slightly larger one, it might be a bit more, as far as food cost goes.
Council Chambers: So, having a budget of about,
Council Chambers: I'm just gonna say a number. We were, like, $4,000? I was gonna say $5. $5,000? You would know better than I would. I don't really have a lot of experience.
Council Chambers: Buying, like, large amounts of things.
Council Chambers: But having a budget that's more akin to that, Which we could ask to…
Council Chambers: come partially from this year's budget, because I don't remember exactly what it used. Carry over. To carry over. Yep. My… or to just…
Council Chambers: Carry over the budget from this year.
Council Chambers: It would be probably more than we would need.
Council Chambers: Would be a good way to go about that?
Council Chambers: Yeah. Sorry if that was a bit confusing. My brain's all over the place. No, it made a lot of sense to me. I totally agree. I think… I think that sounds fair. Like, I don't know that we need to…
Council Chambers: keep money that we clearly didn't utilize, and could be used for other services in town if we're not going to use it, and I… I think 4 or 5 sounds ample, and we can… if it possibly could… I can't imagine it going over
Council Chambers: No, I don't think so, especially if…
Council Chambers: We could. Sure, I mean, no one can, right? But, like, my question was, and it sounds like you've already answered it, was if we, say, bring in people, to help with the language services, that money to pay those people to do translation services comes out of
Council Chambers: a different budget wouldn't necessarily come up ours. If you brought people in for a listening session, and you're contracting with someone to, say, do ASL at a listening session, it would come from your budget. Okay. If your recommendation within our policy is that we provide ASL services at every council meeting, I'm just saying as a for instance.
Council Chambers: Let's say you recommend that.
Council Chambers: then we would discuss what budget impact would that have, and that would then be my budget, right? Who would carry that kind of fund? And then, like, these things, like you were saying, if you're looking for somebody to speak,
Council Chambers: To help with the… Oh, those are my thoughts. Okay. Yeah, no, those are my… But also, that's great. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally. Julie, you have a question.
Council Chambers: One is, is there… so, the problem with listening sessions is that people have to show up more or less in person and identify themselves, and in… there are some groups that don't want to do that.
Council Chambers: So, if we wanted information from those groups,
Council Chambers: do surveys cost money? I mean, there's printing…
Council Chambers: there's tabulating, which may be staff time, or maybe it's AI, I don't know. But, so, does that come out of our budget? Does it cost more? If you're implementing a survey in addition to, or in tandem with
Council Chambers: a listening session, and it involves the same questions, or similar questions. I'm sorry, what? Amy's leaving us, she just chatted a message. Yeah, we're getting close to time here.
Council Chambers: Bye, Amy!
Council Chambers: Those would be your budget, right? If you are implementing the survey in service of your work to make a recommendation to Council or staff, then that would be your budget. And I just don't know what that would cost. That was one of the questions.
Council Chambers: Just depends on what's… how it's administered.
Council Chambers: When you say your badge, I am kind of confused there.
Council Chambers: Do you mean the money comes out from my pocket, or when you say your badge, you are talking about the airport? Airport. Not AirPods. Okay. And so the other earbud is just a bit about…
Council Chambers: A stipend for low-income people, or whatever.
Council Chambers: that come out of our budget? It depends on the recommendation that you plan to make.
Council Chambers: once this… it sounds like that tasking went to some other committees, and then eventually is getting here, is that what Amy said earlier? Yes, culture and society. Yeah, so once it gets here, then you're going to make a recommendation on how that should be administered and what the budget impact should… could or should be for the city, right?
Council Chambers: You would, for the city, not for us.
Council Chambers: you could say… I'm not… I don't want to rule anything out, you could say… Ear will carry this…
Council Chambers: within their budget, but that would also mean they would administer that program, which you may not want to do, but it's a consideration.
Council Chambers: So I want that… so do we have to come up with an answer in the next 2 minutes? Okay.
Council Chambers: So the budget request isn't necessarily have to happen today. I thought you were talking about, people getting stipends. Well, no, not on getting stipends next year.
Council Chambers: That should be in our budget.
Council Chambers: No, not for this year. No, you haven't… you haven't had that discussion yet. Go on. Around how that would work.
Council Chambers: I would just like to address the fact that we have about 2 minutes on, like, the official time, and if we need to get a budget request in by the end of the month, it would probably make most sense to try to do that today, and then move
Council Chambers: The other two things?
Council Chambers: On our agenda.
Council Chambers: To next month, or… you know, ouch. Right. If it's no longer relevant.
Council Chambers: Do we think that $500, would be…
Council Chambers: About the amount that we would want for next year.
Council Chambers: 5,000? 5,000? 500. That makes a lot more sense. 500 does not make sense. Well… 5,000, I mean, it's less than half of what we've used this year, which was…
Council Chambers: Hardly, I don't think so.
Council Chambers: 5,000 seams, and then…
Council Chambers: Yeah. Are you making a motion? Yeah, I motion to let City Council know that we would like $500. $5,000? I hope for motion for $5,000 for our budget.
Council Chambers: For next year to be carried over from our budget this year.
Council Chambers: I seconded that.
Council Chambers: And… again, I know one of us did. Like, Amber did too, and everybody's up. Vote?
Council Chambers: I don't know if that's my job to say that. No, that's fine. A follow-up recommendation that I'd like to make to the board based on that.
Council Chambers: is that I've also included your annual calendar in your packet today, and so
Council Chambers: One of the reasons that this will be in the packet, in every packet moving forward, is that it can really help you stay on track with your intentions.
Council Chambers: So if your intention is to do 3 listening sessions next year, it's a really good idea to just get them on the calendar, and then the agendas can be built around ensuring that
Council Chambers: your discussions happen, that those things are just built in so that you're planning to actually spend the money that you said that you would spend. So, anyway, just, just…
Council Chambers: Take a look at that when you have a minute, think about what 2027 might look like, and then once you get your tasking and your work plan from Council.
Council Chambers: And let's say Council also approves your $5,000 in the budget, then you can build out that calendar and have a discussion around what that looks like. So, make sense?
Council Chambers: To clarify, so the budget from… from 2026 will be passed to 2027? $5,000 will be carried forward.
Council Chambers: For listening session. In the rest…
Council Chambers: Goes back to City Council. We'll go back to City Council. To the City, yeah.
Council Chambers: Oh, okay. I was just gonna say, let's extend this.
Council Chambers: like, 7 minutes or whatever, so that Amber can do her member update, and the date for the next agenda is August 13th, that agenda for next meeting. That's not the right date, what is it? That's what's on our agenda.
Council Chambers: We'll see. So it's September something. September 10th? On my agenda, it says September 10th. Oh, okay.
Council Chambers: I also do want to say we have Arts Commission that we're going to need all the equipment for that starts at 3, so we can't extend very long.
Council Chambers: Okay, Amber, do you want to give a very quick number of things?
Council Chambers: Oh, sorry, sorry. Just a question in regards to this, Amber, if you don't mind.
Council Chambers: Okay, the Women Justice League want to come to our meeting
Council Chambers: Sometime in the future. Will the city provide for them some… language interpretation.
Council Chambers: If they come to the… To adhere to the… to our meeting.
Council Chambers: They want to come and share some updates and some stuff.
Council Chambers: Will we be able to have some interpretation for them?
Council Chambers: You could use your 2026 budget to do that interview.
Council Chambers: If it's a plan of this board to bring someone in and listen to that presentation, and they need translation services, your equity access and rights budget could cover those costs.
Council Chambers: Okay, because they probably will need a change of something in Spanish, and somebody would need to translate it something. Okay. That's something that you would need to… So, do we have to make a motion right now? This is happening in the community.
Council Chambers: I don't think so. How soon was this planned? Is this something that you've all discussed to do, or is this just… this is new?
Council Chambers: We had it talking about that they want to come. We asked a meeting last week. You don't need to be in September, but… Okay, so this year, we have the September agenda. This is the year. This is the year. Okay, yeah. Let's put that on the agenda. Add it to the September agenda. Yeah.
Council Chambers: September's agenda is Women's Justice Circle.
Council Chambers: And, money for an interpreter. Yeah, yeah. Disgust.
Council Chambers: Yes, so then it can happen…
Council Chambers: October meeting, yes, please. Okay, and Amber's update is now, tabled until next meeting, as is…
Council Chambers: So shall we… Can we put that as a thing?
Council Chambers: that People First region report out thing.
Council Chambers: Is going to be next meeting.
Council Chambers: Melissa, did you hear that?
Council Chambers: Yeah, I'm also trying to think, did you guys end up voting on the budget? I don't think you guys ever voted on the motion for that $5,000 budget.
Council Chambers: I think we did, and it got… somehow got… yep, we did it, we did. Okay.
Council Chambers: Okay, thank you.
Council Chambers: Hope, it was seconded, I think, by… when I presented it, it was seconded by you and you and you. Well, pick somebody. Seconded by Amber. Amber. So, moved by Hope, seconded by Amber.
Council Chambers: We also have the…
Council Chambers: vote was made, because then Shelly… Shelly made a comment, and then I don't know if a vote was ever made after that.
Council Chambers: Yes, a vote was made.
Council Chambers: Okay, alright, thank you.
Council Chambers: And then we're also moving the social media presentation, which I'm not sure what that is, but… Yes.
Council Chambers: Thank you. I guess I move to adjourn the meetings.
Council Chambers: Thank you very much. You did a great…