 Let's swing on in and review the minutes that I shared. Share any updates from any city committees, AKA Michael who is on all the city committees, but if anyone else has anything to share. And then just check in about the committee on committees planning. And then we have stipend discussion that continued. And I know in the minutes you'd shared like the recording from the video. And that was the one that I was on. And I thought there was another conversation after that. So we can check in about kind of what are the, what, what that looks like and what that next steps for that would be. Before closing. So how does that sound anything to add or change your shift? Be super speedy. Um, so let's look at the minutes, pull the minutes. I touched on the email. That's helpful too. Thank you so much. Cameron. Does anyone have anything? Anything to. Change. Oops. I've got someone joining. Nope, maybe not. Does anyone want to make a motion to approve the minutes? Pella makes motion to approve the minute. I'm motion. I'm motion. Lauren second. I can, although I wasn't there. So that's right. You can't. Should not. Yeah. You can approve minutes even if you weren't there. That's appropriate. And per Robert's rules. And I'll sit down. All in favor. I, any opposed. All right. Um, thank you guys. So, um, okay. So we're going to have a committee on committees. Like we had a couple of months ago. At this point, like six months ago. And we're, uh, You know, to get all, all the committee chairs or kind of delegates from the committee chairs. In a zoom room together to be able to learn and share from each other and to share information and, um, like materials. So kind of thinking that we wanted to do this in April, because then we'll have a little bit more of an understanding about how the stipend process is going to work out. Um, and kind of have a pitch to like make to the committee and committees about if their members are going to be eligible, getting them to sign up. Um, and then we also wanted to have it because we're going to rework kind of what they create, like the. Former creative just for his contract of having, uh, a big in person event. Um, and so wanting, like wanting to rework that and Bob Michael. Uh, isn't here to kind of dig in on like what that could look like, but of also kind of rolling out with the next steps for, for that would be. Um, does that, is that suddenly what people kind of envision like why we want to have this committee on committee is kind of the buckets to tackle. I think it was just like building relationships across these committee chairs so that like, if and when things come up, they know who to call on or check in with or things like that. Um, so what do the next steps for that look like, what do we need to do? I'm like, because they're on the same side of my screen right now, guys are going to get it in the, um, in on the, on the calendar and then, um, and then we'll kind of just do more planning as April is getting closer about kind of what will, what specifically will be on the agenda or is there any other planning that needs to happen now? No, I can, I can, I can get that on everyone's calendars. Um, we decided on what day? Let me pull that up. April 11th at 5 30. Yeah, actually, let's all just take a moment and make sure that's on our personal calendars. That works. I'm not saying that's out of experience or anything. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. I can do that for y'all this week. Well, next week, if, um, if, um, if, um, If that would be appropriate, just the calendar hold for folks, I would obviously say like this is for, you know, the CJET committee, you know, again, coming together, they'll have more information in an agenda soon. Just want to put this hold on the calendar. Right. And maybe something of what you said last time too, like, there's what we're going to talk about in generally, and then if you can't make it, see if you can send someone else from your committee. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was able to be there last meeting, but, um, around like, I know we had talked at some point, and we've done a little bit of this of like, kind of deeper dive with a couple of committees of like, what would it look like to partner together? And like, I mean, I love the idea of getting everyone back together. I think people found that valuable and I think it's great too. But are there like going to be either examples we could bring or some, I feel like just making it tangible for people. So it's not just, like, like great ideas that I had in like the breakouts and stuff last time where like they were great, but they were like all over the map and people just like, in many cases just like starting to think about like, what might this be and how might we, and so. I'm just like, how do we like make it. Very tangible. Tangeable or folks of like, with some specific examples of like what this is looking like in some of the committees or. How specifically we could partner. Anyway, we're getting like more into agenda, right before we dig into some of what we've been doing before in the next couple months because I think we were talking more about of like doing outreach for the site then the equity report and next steps and then the relationship building but right we could ahead of time think about who are the committees that we want to put into small groups together and why and what could they be doing right like do you have anything that's coming to mind right now Lauren like all the housing as like a particular area and we've had some meetings with some of the different groups so maybe even some of that's just in like the sharing how we have been working with some groups since we had all gotten together like that were and that like the stipends what you know I'm just like I don't know if we're gonna keep bringing people together I just want to make sure that it continues to feel valuable to people and like that they're getting I think the stipend information and the equity report stuff will be valuable in and of itself but then also like how did they go deeper in their own committees like with potential partnership with us right so the stipend and the report could just be an email and so right like what are we doing to make it super engaging and useful yeah I want to holler at Mike Philbrook just to thank him for being here he's our Community Resource Officer just for folks who don't know him. You're welcome. Hi Mike, good morning. Let me pause. Sorry, it's my audio on here. No worries. Yeah, do you have any questions? Hi, I'm Mike Philbrook, I'm with Montpahir PD, I'm here Community Resource Officer and I'm trying to get involved in as many area groups and committees and such against as many viewpoints as possible and how we can as a department better engage our community especially the marginalized members. But thanks for letting me join you guys. Please jump in with any thoughts or reactions or reflections or if you have any specific comments. Thanks. Sorry, I didn't mean to derail that conversation. I think we're kind of going in circles a little bit. So I think we have appropriate time to move on. Way to nip it in the bud. Yes, this is a good idea. Let's keep thinking about that. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I don't have anything smart to say else about that. Should we talk about the site then discussion? Yeah, so is that that's officially in the budget, right? And so it'll be voted on at town meeting day. Yeah, what else do we? Yeah, it was a stipend discussion continued knowing that the city council had some questions and concerns about the kind of proposal that we put forward. I know we're going to like circle back with ethics to get lessons learned from them in a couple of months. But that is there like like based on the conversation at city council, is there any like knowing we have kind of a $30,000 cap for participation in me is kind of in the city in the. At writ large, like it does that change how we want to approach like what the proposal that we want to bring forward come. April, May, you know, June leading up to the next fiscal year. Well, I'll give you some I did talk to Essex the other day. Yeah, and so I will say that they are having issues and we had a really good conversation about systemic issues. Like this is hard to implement because the system is not made to support folks that need support. And so they're really running into some tax issues. We've talked about it a little bit here about like getting W2s and that kind of thing from people. And that's really hard. That's a barrier for a lot of folks. And and so it's become very administratively burdensome to them. I think is what I've heard, but they really are dedicated to getting it done. And so I think it's good that we're talking about that kind of now and just have sort of an example of how that's been rolling out. So there there will be lessons learned. I just I think it's important to know and to note that they are running into these sort of issues that we've already sort of identified as ones that will be issues, right? And I think it'll be good to be able to come to counsel very honestly and say, like, you know, here are the issues that Essex has been having. But, you know, you know, she said something very important is that, like, you know, these systems changes are hard because the system is perpetuating, you know, itself. And so anything that we do that sort of bucks any sort of status quo is going to be harder. And so I think having this amount of time to think about how to roll this out before the money is actually available is really helpful and valuable. Honestly, it's been interesting to me, the conversations in the public about the stipends, especially since they've been identified as a very important part of the council's strategic plan since, you know, back in the fall when we got the equity reports and talked about that. So it's interesting that when you put money to it, it's like it becomes real and people then have, like, issues, right? And so I don't really know where I was going with that, just saying that, like, it is they are having issues and it is hard. And I think it's worthwhile to push through how hard this will be because it is really important. And I think what where I was going with that is that it might be good for this group to talk about the value ad that this has and really put that in writing somewhere, maybe on your web page that we have is like, here is why we're presenting this because of these reasons. And maybe like quoting the equity report is a good thing for that. But I think coming up with some sort of like, here is why this is important to be included in the budget more than we've already done. Yeah, I just totally agree with all of that. I mean, you know, like the public input was kind of a mix. Like a lot of it was like, well, I volunteered for years and I don't expect to stay in the volunteer. And it's like, well, of course, like, you're the kind of person you care about, like that's different, you know, so some of it just seems like there was that thread. Then there was also, I think, like a healthy amount of skepticism like from council and some staff and stuff like that this will work that it will actually bring in new different people who wouldn't otherwise serve. And I think that's like the I'm hoping but like the six months that Essex will be ahead of us. Like to me, part of our work is like, well, what's like what's the outreach plan? Like what's the work that goes beyond it? Like if we just make them available, I don't think it will change anything or it won't change much, I would guess. So it's like, what's the whole plan around the money? And that we now have resources to also support people. So we are like able to recruit and like make it attractive and appealing for different people to actually participate in city government groups and can take away the barrier of the money. So I don't know, like that was definitely I think that's part of like what. For the plan that council would like to see is like what's the whole package that's the stipends are part of that is going to actually change who might apply to serve. And I think there was also like people are like a little grumbly about this. And and but like we're like, well, it was an equity like report. And so I think us continue like that was a good lesson learned for like how this group putting things forward. I mean, like, you know, and I mean, like at one point I was like I. I was like, I find it really like I don't remember how I said it, but like kind of frustrating that as soon as it became something about money, all of a sudden it's really hard for us to do like we've been willing to do. Other like things only we don't know what it's like we're not like we need to be willing to like actually put resources into these changes. We can't just do like low hanging fruit things. And I mean, everyone like supported it in the end and stuff. So but like I think we need to be able to show like how we can measure if it's working people are also concerned like how we even know if it's working or people who are just already able and willing to volunteer just going to take it. And then what have we accomplished and you know, so those are like the kinds of questions at like predictably. So I think just for as we come up with our package, so just being able to answer that those pieces would be really helpful. This is reminding me when we were having that conversation to the council, I thought it would be really helpful. It would have been really helpful going into that conversation if we had done some sort of survey of committee membership to of saying like if we had like data, we have the data from the equities are like obviously, but like if we had done some sort of survey of saying like, well, this is not that but like who who are who who are the people who are volunteering now and what is their like race and class back and family backgrounds and like how how do they make time to be able to participate and what do they see as being barriers for participation and then to do like a follow up survey in a year. Like also it's like we're not going to see a huge amount of progress in a year either. Right. It's like it's going to be a multi year project of like building you know, if you're like the one person on your committee is still going to be heart rate and so it's like and I'm like being able to chart kind of what that progress looks like. And I know who filled out surveys is also super weighted, you know, so. But maybe like as part of the. Recruitment force to the committee chairs, we could also send out like a who is part of our committees now and. Have them send that out to their their member and talk about it and then send it out to their members kind of pass the meeting or after the meeting. Yeah, that was what I was going to recommend is y'all like creating the survey of like how and I think that comes part and parcel with tracking the effectiveness of this program and asking them like please put this out to all of your members. I think that's a great idea that we're really trying to think of like why how we would track who is like what is the change over time. And it would be very hard because we don't collect that data. And it seems like we've got a great built in like April 11th meeting as like a deadline to have done this. Or if we haven't got more organized enough by them to roll it out. Is that just something that we can do like as an as an anonymous survey on like a Google form platform or would there be any problems of doing something like that with the city? OK. Maybe I'll take a stab at right drafting something up over the next couple of weeks if that sounds OK and then can can review it. On our next meeting, I think it would be really important that I mean, I know it would need to be anonymous like person wise, but I think we would need to track like per committee. Right. So OK. All right. Where my brain just got stuck after saying that all I do is like. What about all the people who are part of seven different committee, the Michael Sherman's of the world? Right. And so is it a check box? Is it you fill it out once per committee? You know, because we'll be able to like we'll know it's Michael Sherman when he checked off the seven committees that he's a part of, you know, just like using as an example, because he's so fricking civically engaged. That's amazing. And I can see one Google form where it's just check all the all that apply for committees at the top and then the same question. And I'll get you a list. It's a it's a lot. I'll get you the list. Love. Love a good committee. Yeah, cool. Yeah, not having a lot of like put in your thought. Yeah, just having your put in anyway. Cool. I'm excited about that. Helen, any any thoughts from you on this? I just haven't heard your voice a little bit. Should we just check in about equity report next steps here, too? Not equity report next steps, but I mean, the equity report next steps are to have this meeting and to share the next steps and everything else. But like kind of the next phase of this campaign was going to be having one big in-person launch event. And, you know, I think we all had a lot of concerns about that when we started talking about it in, you know, just November, December. And then now that creative dysparc has said that they're not going to go through with phase two of this. So sorry. Reminder, the kind of the next couple of stages were to have a big launch of a launch event bringing everyone together. And then from there, coming out with kind of cross issue or cross group focus groups to really be able to kind of not focus groups, but like smaller groups to be able to dig in. But whether or not identity based small groups, they're cross issue or cross identity small groups. And then from there to like make a kind of a final report and then do a big celebration and launch event. This is kind of like the pattern that's happened in Burlington and Essex and Winnowsky and other places. And here we are going into your three of the pandemic. And we're saying probably doesn't make sense to have one big launch event. Does it make sense to have to skip that and to go right into the cross issue focus smaller groups? Is that we're not like building trust and having bigger comfort? Like what like, yeah, of just kind of wanting to. I meant to kind of check in with the mother town, but I've done this too when I dropped the ball. So I can maybe just hold on to that conversation. And then it wasn't actually specifically on our agenda. But just if anyone had any thoughts or reflections. If it doesn't get written down, it doesn't get done. And if it gets written down, there's like a 50 50 chance it gets done. So I'm doing. I mean, yeah, I'd be interested if other communities have found a big gathering. Because I mean, it seems like, like, eventually, I'm hoping someday we can just think gatherings again. Like, like, so maybe it would be like where instead of that being like a launch thing, that's like we've done small work and then we all come together in a big event later. And that's not like the planning that right now seems hard. But if you learn that that's like a valuable tool, I think we could still keep it as something to like. Build into a long term plan, potentially if we. But I think another like parallel question to this is, you know, creative discourse isn't doing this. Do we want to open this up again to another consultant and to hire to be able to run kind of the next phase of this, whatever that phase may be. I think last time we talked about it, it seems like you're more focused on like what can we do as a committee with creative discourses like coaching? Like that is what they'd offer to continue to do. But it would be more on us as a committee or, you know, we don't have a contract signed with them or anything. So or would we want to kind of take it back out for an RFP? Oh, we don't. We're not making any decisions. OK, I mean, I wonder if we like I'm just thinking about like some process that maybe like this group, like we want to go through with this and this winter of like, what's our what's our vision? What are our goals? Like if you're going to write an RFP, I don't even know what we'd ask for because I think that we, speaking for myself, I don't feel like I have like total clarity on like what the options even are. Like creative discourse have kind of like a multi-year track. So that's one idea. If we were going to put it back out like, I don't know, I'm just not totally clear on like what we'd be asking for. I think it could be good to, but I feel like we would need to do some internal work of like, what are we? What do we see as like big priorities for the community knowing it's still COVID? But there's tools to still like get people together in various ways and still continue. I think also what creative discourse is given y'all and us has some very clear things to implement. And I'd be interested to see what that looks like and sort of talking through the implementation of those recommendations. And then by that time, maybe it'll be safe to sort of reengage with that phase two, and we'd have a better chance of getting buy in and trust because we have already done or attempted to do as many of the recommendations as possible, you know? Yeah, great. So maybe, yeah. I think maybe I'll try to circle back with Michael over the next two weeks to because I know he had a lot of really strong opinions about this. But then it's sounding. Yeah, so we could kind of write up what our organizational goals are, which are probably like starting with implementing the plan that we already have. And then like from there, maybe making the decision to like point this decision till after we get a better sense of like what's happening with COVID and what's happening with our plans and our priorities and maybe not. Yeah. OK, but yeah, I think, yeah, my next episode, I'll check in with Michael. I'll see if I can check in with Michael. I'll draft up the summary, the survey, not the summary. I think that's it. Anything else to check in on? And should we set the agenda for the next meeting and get out of here? So I've got the following things I just want to like go through because we talked a lot. I just want to make sure I've captured all of the to-dos. So I'm going to send out the calendar hold for everyone for all of the committees. I'm going to get Shayna, a list of all of our committees. That's fun. You know, honestly, looking thinking about it, I I've been to all of them, all the meetings, I think I could tell you who is on them and like. Preliminary data, like observational data, right? About make-ups of them, which would be helpful to sort of contrast between what people report and what? Yeah, we could get from like observation. So yeah, that would be interesting. I'll I'll follow. I'll continue to keep talking to Essex and maybe we can get them to come in and and schedule like Marguerite coming in sooner rather than later because April is right around the corner. Thank goodness. And then let's see. And then Shayna is also going to start helping with like. A survey about. Barriers, participation and demographics of those groups. So I guess if anyone has any further questions or. They should get those to you. Yeah, and I think of the next meeting, we'll review it more too. I think so. For homework reasons. Don't worry. Don't worry. Well, and then also just checking in on. I think next meeting agenda too is committee on committee is. Like. Small group discussion. Outcome goals for how like an end plans for that. And so for folks to noodle on that. For the next couple of weeks. If you want to talk about the stipends you want to talk about committee on committee. And so the stipends could also include the demographic survey. I mean, I wonder, Shayna, like it seems. A little bit like. Us getting real clarity on, you know, what questions we want to be able to answer by through the pilot program. So if we're going to do the survey, let's make sure we're asking all the right questions to get that data. So maybe that reviewing the survey. As part of like the pilot. That section of the pilot proposal of. These are the things that we want to learn. Just to make sure that we don't like lose out on the opportunity for surveying everyone to get. Information that we. With then wish we had. Because like some of it, like how did you hear about this? For example, like my help inform like where and how are we advertising who's. Everybody's just like inviting. Telling their friends to do it or. And then you get the same circles of people. You know how I don't know how much most people like get involved. Stuff like that. Beyond Democrats. Might inform how we like advertise. Right. I'm almost even curious, like. Do people apply for committees and then don't get them? And what's their. How do they stay engaged after they don't get a point? Yeah. That's just. Another. Very rare. But okay. Right. But then like almost everyone who applies. You know, I don't know how much most people like get involved or stuff like that, but beyond Democrats. Might inform how we like advertise. Right. I'm almost even curious like. I don't know. I don't know. But then like almost everyone who applies to just like. Anecdotally. Like has like master's degree. Like it's a very certain type of person who is applying right now. Like everyone you're like. You're so over. Impressive. Like credentials. But also shows a certain like. You know. Like, I don't know. What type of person. Has had access to higher education. And. And often even like any master's degrees. Which is. Which is great. And. Let's open it up to other. And then I'm also wondering if there's like logistical stuff too. Like, I know you said your daughter applied. And the city is like, we never got her application. And. Yeah. So there's also just like those. And. If there's like technical city doesn't get her application. Sorry. So city doesn't get her application. They voted. For. I mean. I specifically remember her getting an email. But. I don't, I don't know. I can't tell you if somebody doesn't respond to that, I don't. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But. Helen, I had it on my list to look into that. And I apologize that I haven't. Gotten back to that. I will write that down. Even her school told her. She's in the comedy. Right. So her school knows, which means there's some kind of. Documentation, I suppose. But yeah, she hasn't received any email from city or. I don't want to talk on behalf of her, but that's all I know about the. Process. She wants to really be involved. So that's why I just want to mention. No, I think I, you know, it's been like six months. So. Right. I mean, I was. It just makes me think of not. We don't need to go down these rabbit holes, but. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how, how is the form set up is like intimidating to people. That if they feel like they don't meet every, like. What's your educational background? Like if you don't have. Degrees and whatever the issue, you know, does it feel. Is it. Inviting. I think like looking at every step of the process would be good. If how people are recruited. Apply. I mean, Places where people get dissuaded from applying. Right. Like the life cycle analysis. Just anecdotally, I've gotten a lot of feedback that it is difficult to fill out. You know, I've printed it out for quite a few people or there's a, or there's a tendency to think. Even if they're coming to meetings. You know, I think that's like a public participant that somehow they would need more in, you know, they would need to dedicate more time or something. Even though that's the time period that we're asking you to like work and do. So. It's been interesting. I think there are quite a few. What's the word I'm looking for. Assumed barriers. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. If there's like some other requirement that they're not seeing. Then we've done a bad job sort of explaining what. It's what committees even mean. Like, what does it even mean to be on a committee? Right. Okay. Should we wrap it up there? And. It's like, I don't want to be in this meeting anymore. Oh, no, no. I'm like, I don't, if we keep coming. The service going to be five pages long. No one's going to fill. I'm like, no more ideas. Okay. If we wrap it up. All right. Thank you guys so much. Thank you, Cameron. Thank you. Thank you Lauren. Good to meet Michael. Thank you guys. Thanks to everyone. Bye. Bye.