 case, we will call the meeting to order. The first item is public invited to be heard and I don't see anyone here, but want to check if we have anyone, Erica? No, we don't have anybody. Okay. The next item is approving the minutes from our January 13th meeting. We have a motion to approve those. Robert, you're on mute. I need a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Okay. Do we have a second? I second. Okay. Thanks, Karen. All those in favor of approving the minutes from the January 13th, 2022 meeting, please raise your hand. Okay. All opposed and abstentions. Diana. Okay. That passes. Fantastic. Next item is finalizing the 2022 work plan. Well, first of all, I want to apologize for not adding it to the packet. Karen comes to my office and we send it. I think we forgot. So, but I do have it and I will share it. Great. Let me share my screen. Can everyone see the work plan? Yes. I think we should add a party for Karen somewhere here. That should be on our work plan. It should. Celebrating Karen. But here are the current work plan items. You know, I do want to say, you know, we, we, the board has made us, we move up our, our funding process, our sending it out. I think the only caveat, I think I've not sure if I've mentioned this before, because we're doing any collaboration, you know, we, of course, we will try, but there may be some outside, you know, with our partners as, as we transition from our current grant management system to the next. So just want to, want to let the board know that we will, we will try our hardest to move it up. And there may be some issues as we transition. So just want to give the board a heads up about that. I guess we are still hoping to get it out sooner than it is here. When you say we're transitioning, does that just mean transitioning to the new year in the system or we're changing the systems all together? Software. I took it away from the, I wasn't going to review it, but a lot to talk about. So, but we are getting a new software. It's called Foundant. And that, that is going to be a different that we are in the works to finish all of that. So we're hoping that that'll happen soon to give us ample time to transition the application process. So yeah, that's, that's what we're doing. Thanks for the update on that. So this is our the rest of the, the work plan. I'm sure if anyone has any questions, things they want to add. I think we added the training. And if not, I will make sure we do. No, we talked about it. Are there any questions about the work plan or things that we need to include that folks don't. So, sorry. So, Eli Bartow, was the training though in July? Was it for the scoring? How to score and evaluate the applications? Right. Yeah. Yeah, it is there in July. Yes. It's the first item on in July. And I just realized Karen, did we introduce Molly? I was going to wait for questions and then do it. Yeah, I think after this, after we did the work plan, we were gonna and then I need to introduce myself to the two new members since I was absent last month also. But I figured we get through the work plan discussion and then introduce Molly and and then Molly can end and I will stay on and I can also introduce myself. Okay. So, with that, any other items that need to be added or considered for the work plan for 2022? Okay. It doesn't look like it right now. Hit it out of the park on the first go, Eli Bartow. So, do we need to have a motion to approve the work plan for for the year? It probably would be good. Okay. Do we have Diana? Okay. And we need a second. Okay. Stacey is seconding. All right. All those in favor of adopting the work plan as proposed, please raise your hand. Okay. That's everybody. All right. Yes, Karen. So, I would like to introduce Molly O'Donnell. Molly is our new Housing and Community Investment Division Director. She has taken over that role for Kathy Fedler, who retired on January 28th of this year. And so, so Molly, so I would just have Molly introduce herself, tell us anything that she wants to. About herself. So, Molly, take it away. Sure. So, the first and most obvious thing about myself is you might hear toddlers in the background because no matter how much soundproofing, it's never enough. But I am Molly O'Donnell. I've been working with Kathy hand in hand on our CDBG disaster recovery program for the flood work since 2016. And before that, I was really in, you know, all things different types of federal funding for about 16 years now, total. So, federal funding is really my, you know, my specialty. And I'm excited to take over leadership of the division. It includes working with our housing and community investment team, which we are really, really working hard to staff up right now. We need, we have a lot of resources coming and need a lot of capacity. And also with our Longmont Housing Authority arm. So, I'm excited to meet you all. And you'll be hearing from me here on the work plan come next month, March to talk about our first 2022 funding round. On that subject, I will let you know, we did open up a fourth quarter funding round right before Molly McElroy left the city. And we only got one application that was quite small for a business related activity. So we're just going to combine that and have that application considered with anything else we get in this spring funding round. So if you were wondering what happened with that, that was the status there. So I will see you in March. Awesome. Welcome, Molly. Thanks, Molly. All right. I'm going to leave you to the rest of the agenda and go parent. Thank you. Good night. Thanks, Molly. You know, and then just to let you know is that you might see Kathy Fedler back again. She is, she's having a well deserved vacation right now. And when she gets back toward the end of this month, we are she's going to come back on as a temporary staff part time staff member for the city. As as Molly indicated, we did have we've had a couple of staff resignations in housing and community investment. We've done some reorganizing. There is, you know, one position we do need to fill, which is someone to operate the inclusionary housing program. We it's hard to hire people these days. So we we've offered the position twice to successful candidates and twice it we were rejected. So for, you know, for different reasons, but so we're still are in the process of interviewing for that. And that's really a role that Kathy's going to come back and and play because she really is the one that well, we don't have an inclusion housing program if she's if she's really not here to to run that give it everything that's on Molly's plate. So anyhow, you you may be seeing Kathy back again at at some point, we hope that that's a short term, maybe three, four months at the at the most so that we do get someone on board and that they'll be the opportunity for Kathy to train the the new person that's going to be running inclusionary housing. So so just FYI, and I do want to introduce myself to Stacy and to Robert. So I'm Karen Roney. I'm the Community Services Director for for the the city until I retire, which is the end of March. And so anyhow, so I apologize I had I had a death of the family and headed back to Illinois and had to miss our first meeting. So so there you go. And I've been with the city for I'm in my 32nd year. And and so. So yes, so I am. I'm also going to be retiring at at the end of March. So and do they have a replacement yet for you Karen or no for not not yet you know we're we're working on you know sometimes when when you've worked somewhere for like a long time like I have you know you just kind of acquire duties and responsibilities and you know you just step up and do what needs to be done and then you know when you go to look at all right who who who would run a department that has golf and affordable housing and libraries and you know all the recreation so so so we're taking a look at the you know what would be what would be the kind of the right mix of responsibilities for for someone coming into this role and so we're taking some time with that. I would imagine that we will probably have some kind of an interim you know role for the for the next few months while you know why we figured it out and it really is the city manager's opportunity to you know when you have a department head that leaves to really take a peek at what what might be a different way of organizing things that's a a little easier to do when you have when someone has left the left the position so. Got it yeah. I think that that was your your long way of saying that you're irreplaceable and so now now they have to figure out how how maybe multiple people fill the shoes of Karen. Well yeah it just it's just not the yeah it's it like I said you just do things as you as you're with the organization and you develop skills and you know you're willing to step up so yeah but that that's not the the long term the long term solution so. Understood. I am totally replaceable so never never but but it's nice to meet you Stacy and Robert and I am sorry that I missed the opportunity last month. Same here Karen thank you. All right um anything else before we go on to the next item on the agenda. Okay so we've got the proposal for allocating the remaining 2022 human services funds. I'm not sure. Keep going Alberto. I'm retiring. You know last year toward the end of the year I think it was in our December 9th meeting we talked about how we had a hundred thousand five hundred and seventy five dollars that were unallocated from the human services funding grant application process and we we we talked about different priorities and at the end we said you know we talked about the L there program and that would be our top priority and then but we were waiting to see I need a big question was how much the county had applied for another state grant to help cover it and we were ready to see how much that grant would be to see how much we needed to allocate to that well we have found out the numbers and the the the state grant came in at 81 thousand dollars which is 40 percent of what we asked um uh which I'm hearing is pretty typical um and so when we when we redid budgets with the L there team we realized that we need basically all of the funding to cover the cost to ensure that it can go through the end of this year um because we didn't get as much as we expected or uh desired to get from um the the state grants so at this point that's that's where we are so because we're looking at um 181 thousand dollars between us and the counties through the state fund so so I think um so I think what we just wanted to do is to affirm uh you know that was the number one priority of the um advisory board as we um as in December when we had a good discussion about this so um so in essence you know what we'd be saying is that um we can you know pretty much take that total amount that we had unallocated uh to to fully uh fund the the Longmont Outreach team through the end of 2022 just wanted to confirm that um you are good with your direction that you gave us. Um Ellie Berto or Karen um for the sake of the new folks um here could you give a quick rundown of what L there is and what they do um have a sense of you know why and then we can talk about sort of why we had made that direction but I think if you give a review that that may help yeah and of course I always um we presented to city council on Tuesday about the neighborhood impact team and L there's a big partner but let me talk a little bit about L there so it's the Longmont targeted um engagement um and referral effort uh so that's the L what L there stands for it's a three person team um and I'll get to what they do in a second but let me just talk about the team I think it makes them unique and I think it makes them um in my mind a very um innovative program it's made up of three people um three positions one of the positions is a person with lived experience in other words they have been homeless in the past one of the positions is a mental health uh person mental health um something matter expert and then the last one is a basically a someone who hasn't had experience working on homelessness services so case management etc it's made up of these three people um and what they do is they really uh are on the street five days a week in the past Longmont hadn't had full time outreach um you know the hope does outreach but they do it in little they don't they don't do it every day or every every or five days a week um so these folks are out there five days a week um four hours a day and they connect with unhoused uh folks to try and encourage them motivate them work with them build relationships so that they can access services our our coordinate and research services in Homeless Leadership in Boulder County um they've had over 400 contacts in the year I get their their what they call the taper it's a um it's a it's a state mandated report they sent it to me I always say to the county county to me they've had over 400 contacts since they started we're working on they're next week we're going to work on even more data uh analysis to because the council had some questions but fundamentally they are a really great uh program that is connecting not only with people experiencing homelessness but with other other outreach providers um they and and really coordinating along with hope a lot of the efforts that are being made in Longmont to help folks move for housing um so that that's what they do and I think they're that it's been a great first year and looking forward to see how it continues to develop throughout this year uh Karen you want to add anything else no I think that is um you know that that's good I mean I think what you know what we have been um advocating for for for several years Ellie Berto and I is um it's really to have a more robust outreach uh focus in our homeless solutions for Boulder County you know not everyone just you know walks up to you know to the entry to the coordinated entry doors says you know I'm ready to I'm ready for services I'm ready to um you know I'm ready to do something differently than um live my life on on the street and so it really was an important component that we felt um we needed to try to fill you know really in order to determine you know how effective outreach is and really working with people on the street and continuing to build that relationship as Ellie Berto talked about to um to to hopefully be there when um when maybe someone is is really ready to to take a different step and to go down a different path and um so so it gives us an opportunity to really evaluate you know after this the end of this two-year period about you know how how effective is this outreach function in our effort effort to address homelessness and to help people who are unhoused to get housing um and you know and as Ellie Berto mentioned we we presented um it's a broader concept and I think maybe it'd be good to send the email to or the PowerPoint to the members of the advisory board I mean it was a broader initiative it was called the the neighborhood impact team um and it's it's it's it's an it's an approach that we are our piloting here at the at the city that better coordinate some of our collaboration efforts across the organization to deal with um kind of challenging and gnarly issues in in the community and so the first issue was um was the land in park area which I'm sure you have read about if you've been following with on the paper and and the um the that had become a place where people who are unhoused um or maybe aren't stably housed uh started to congregate um you know the end of last year and um and really created some challenges uh for um for folks who use the park for people living in the surrounding neighborhood and so so that particular team um you know organized to really try to address that issue in in the park and um and L there has been a very strong partner in that effort so so we'll send you that PowerPoint and I think that will be helpful in terms of what we are you know what we're trying to accomplish and and what is L there's responsibility so anyhow the um so one of the council members mentioned during that meeting was that meeting on Tuesday is that you know if indeed we we do determine that the um that this outreach effort is an important cog in the in the um system of working with people experiencing homelessness that you know maybe that is something that we I don't know the royal way but that this board or when it comes time for the next round of funding for uh human services that you know maybe that's a service we want to think about um you know funding on um on an ongoing basis so so we just want to make sure because we're about to spend all the rest of the money so so it would be great to get a motion to confirm that that is indeed what you would support us doing with those unallocated dollars and I think for Stacy and Robert we had unallocated dollars and maybe Caitlin you were going to talk about this but um um we we ended up the um the council ended up increasing the amount of funds set aside for human service agency grants um by a larger amount than what we thought um we did ask for and we were shooting for um 3% of the general fund dollars to be set aside for human services and the grants that you all helped to manage uh last year or in 2021 that uh set aside amount was 2.52% we did um you know we did request to go up to 2.75% in 2022 and heck council said let's just go for the gold you said you wanted 3% we have um we're going to go ahead and just bump it up to 3% and um and you just you just go so yeah so but it ended up the way we had and we're going to talk a little bit about this later on in the agenda but the um the way we had our process set up and how we scored applications we ended up not allocating all the dollars and uh and so we talked about you know options for allocating the remaining dollars and and this that we just talked about was providing gap funding for the L there project because we really only had that for one time that that that made sense to invest it in that effort. And and I would add you know one of one of the things you talked about and this is a reminder this is a reminder for myself and for the rest of us that you know our top priority and the thing that we saw in the needs assessment and that we heard from so many of our partners was that addressing you know housing affordability um and the availability of housing and sort of everything that revolves around that what is the high is the highest priority in our community and we don't necessarily have nonprofits and agencies um that are we have some but we don't have as many dedicated to that as we would like and so you know the L there program is sort of an innovative new program that is not um sort of built into the processes yet and so we felt like taking that additional funding and putting it towards something that was really addressing that underlying need um you know getting creative a little bit with it and not necessarily saying oh it has to go to an agency you know a nonprofit in the community but actually saying like let's address what that top priority need was was one of the things that we were prioritizing um does that if anyone else remembers differently about that conversation um and sort of what we were thinking there that's my recollection is that you know we saw that we had not fully funded what we wanted to for housing stability and affordability and so this was an opportunity to to put that money toward that looks looks like Karen Phillips is reading the article oh you're on mute you're on mute sorry yeah I read it this morning I was I was just trying to see how whole and this uh L L there that hopefully they kind of work hand in hand I can talk to that captain and I can talk to that so so a couple of layers I want to talk about that so first and foremost um in long month it's proper uh Andy who is hopes on outreach director and L there meet on a weekly basis they uh they case conference difficult situations very regularly and then on a on a on the next broader level we are you know the city of long month and hope L there um recovery cafe and others are part of a uh HSBC or homelessness Boulder County working group where we um we meet with um all the different agencies doing our reach throughout the county and in particular in Boulder and and I will say we had a meeting today and I felt really proud at that meeting because a lot of the other agencies were talking about how well coordinated and collaborative we work here in in long month so hope and L there are big part of that um and of course it's always so is uh our our public safety with officer Kennedy and officer Arnie uh but we yeah we there was a lot of talk about how well coordinated long month is and I'm proud that that we're a part of that so that's how they work together thanks that's great really very too um are there other questions or comments about allocating those additional funds from our last funding round to elder and if there are not do we have a motion to confirm that that's the direction we want to go with those um on currently unallocated funds a motion to allocate the unallocated funds to the elder program for 2022 do we have a second okay looks like Robert is going to second that all those in favor please raise your hand all right that is unanimous thank you all thank you all right the next item is 2023 starting the discussion for 2023 human services funding and I am guessing Ellie Berto that is you again I'm pulling up the the power point all right Ellie Berto's got like five power points ready for us tonight I usually do so so it's not really initiating it's actually it's part two we actually I was thinking about this we actually started this on December 9th and so there's going to be a little bit of recap for our our new board members and then we're going to get into the meat of the conversation and like I told Karen I don't think we're expecting resolution tonight what we're expecting is to is is the the start of a conversation an idea flowing um and and we will we do have to get to a resolution but I I'm not expecting it tonight I'm just expecting that we start this conversation before we get I'm going to and you know what I would add to that Ellie Berto is that start the conversation and you know if there is because the ideas we'll talk about are really initial concepts and so there's some direction from the advisory board around you know hey we don't we don't think either of these concepts are what we want to pursue or yes let's go and dig a little more into one of these and you all might come up with some other ones so so we I think we do want some kind of direction in terms of we would like to know more about how this process could work so um so it's start the discussion but have some initial direction would be helpful all right thank you all right so um just to if I can get this to work just to review uh I think we talked a little bit about it um or Karen talked a little bit about it you know we have been really advocating for the council to bump us up to three percent it it's taken some time but um you know we we we received we reached that goal which is great and really what that means is that at this point unless there's an economic downturn our set aside will continue to grow I mean it was growing when it was at 2.7 and 2.5 it's going to continue to grow uh even more so um unless like I said unless there's an economic downturn we are we are on a positive positive bent at this point so we think it's time to review the process and let me just for those that have not gone through the process let me just review the process and those and the rest of us know this so basically we have an application that we um that the that we put out in um with our partners the city of boulder and boulder county every year um it's been going through ec impact this year it'll be too too founded and the way that we assign points uh to the application or you can break it down into making sure that the programs are addressing one of our priority areas and I haven't listed them here but I will in the next slide um that that they're this that they are actually um delivering a program that meets the need and is demonstrating that they have an impact on the community through their evaluation process or uh how they track um and demonstrating sound financial management and operational practices and that also includes that you know the the board in their evaluation gets to evaluate how they're addressing equity through their work the staff gets to evaluate how they're addressing equity and diversity through their through their staff and board members um and so once everyone reviews and scores we take averages of the staff score and the board score and we we total the the the scores to determine the percentage of requests to be funded and this is arbitrary to in the point that the board I present the board with options of ranges of percentages and scores this year this past year it was 74 and below would not be recommended for funding but that can change you know the board can change that we've had it higher we've had it lower it just really depends on what what model the board wants to move forward with so currently that's how we decide funding there is no upfront conversation with agencies about how much they can apply for you know it is basically it's apply for what you want and then depending on what score you receive um what priority you're in that will determine how much funding how much percentage of the of your request is funded all right um is there any questions you can stop me whenever if you need more explanation but part of the current so what part of the process is in the past long month used to actually take historical funding in um in account right and we the board decided a few years ago that we were going to reset every year to zero we're not going to take historical funding into account um we're going to create pipe ceilings for priorities and what that means is we're we're going to try not to spend more than a certain percentage of the entire set aside on each priority I will say that in in practice that has not happened we tend to usually spend more on things like education and skill building primarily because there's many more nonprofits asking for funding there um um then there are in others um and of course we usually what's interesting is we usually spend very little not very little but we never ever hit our target in housing stability um of 25 percent we rarely get there I think we usually get to 17 percent our funding goes there um self-sufficiency 20 percent is pretty pretty on par we we do get that and then so we had priority ceilings for the priorities and then we decided okay so we want to have an individual agency ceiling and we said no agency could receive more than 50 percent of the total priority ceiling so depending on which priority you are you may get you you're 50 percent as higher so if you're in housing you have a higher individual ceiling than if you're in safety and justice um so that is um part of the of the the thing part of the process any questions before we go on that's the that's the recap I'm going to talk a little bit about what happens I can't see everybody so I don't see any hands raised or anything right now ellie barricot so here are the unintended realities of our current process in formula so we have a hard time funding the highest priority area and again as I talked about number of agencies applying to the priority area uh is is low like Caitlin mentioned earlier agencies not knowing how much they can receive we don't really announce that we reset to zero and but so agencies and development directors I know I've done this work before it's just so easy to copy and paste what you've done in the past and so we get a lot of that happening including the amounts that they're asking for um so we rarely meet our priority goals when it comes to our priority areas and even though we do have priority ceilings we tend to get some great disparities in the amount of funding for which agencies apply so some agencies apply for a whole lot and some agencies apply for very little so that is a challenge too I mean um you know if for example if a new and unproven agency comes up and says we're gonna ask for 50,000 you know if they score high enough they might get that even though they're pretty new compared to somebody who's been established um and been around for a while and and and have has developed um you know um really a successful model uh but they're sticking to their traditional historical funding right and also you know if you go big you get big right that's that's basically how it works uh with our current model is the bigger you go the bigger you get and so that is also um an unintended reality of how we currently fund um because even if you even if you only score for enough for 50% if you ask for a lot you're gonna get 50% of a lot um so that that's part of the challenge too all right any questions about that because now we're gonna jump into concepts okay and that's the that's the that's the base I don't see any hands out there's Brian's hand yes Brian just one thought on this the disparity of what people are asking for particularly along the lines of you know uh say an organization's trying to game the model by asking for more than they really need um presumably in their application their need would have to be demonstrated and I think this is one of the things in the interviews that we can do better is really push on how these needs are determined you know the demand and uh understanding whether in fact organizations are just artificially inflating their numbers or whether they are you know speaking to the need that they're experienced um Brian one thing I think that uh that comes to mind for me is that it it ends up being less that organizations are asking for more of the thing than they need then we see like some organizations that are doing incredible like we also see the flip side of that of like we see some organizations that are doing really great work and are actually asking for relatively small amounts compared to like their overall budget and they score well they do well every time and you know I don't know whether it's they don't have the capacity to take more and do more which very well might be true but also like you know we're sort of like we're not helping anybody by by not sharing some of the the information because it's really like people throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what what sticks and some people some organizations are much more risk averse you know they don't want to count on getting a bunch of money if they're not going to get it um and so they just ask for the same thing over and over even though like we would probably fund them for more because they're doing such a good job at what they're doing and you know it meets our priority areas but they don't know enough of that information either from like our prior interviews or the application process to actually you know make an educated request. All right Eliberto I might have also just stolen a little bit of your thunder there but uh yeah I think I think that's exactly what these concepts are going to show all right so I have two concepts right now and I um that I want to go over again like to Karen's point the board may say no we don't like these um or we want to learn more about them. All right so here we go so concept one is do we create we always had a ceiling but maybe we need to think about creating a floor and here is I created a table it's completely arbitrary uh I just wanted to throw some numbers on there um uh you know we can we can we can change this around but what I thought about was what if we in our grant instructions we talk about you know saying here are the the floors and ceilings and what I mean by floor is it doesn't mean that's what they're going to get but it's the lowest amount they can apply for in that priority area um and so those are those are the numbers that I again arbitrarily put in we can totally change them but I wanted to at least show you a a model of creating a floor and ceiling approach. And Eliberto I think you probably want to you know because we keep talking about ceiling so we had a ceiling per area but really not per application other than an agency couldn't get any more than 50 percent of the total amount that we were setting aside if you will for that priority area so so this would change so the the ceiling would be you can't ask for any more than x this is the maximum you can ask for and this is the minimum that you can ask for right and then that's because our priority our our ceiling and so on that Collins that's way to ceiling that was all back and stuff best stuff that I did when I when I did so so agency had had no idea that there was this ceiling in this model we would we would put this up front we would say this is the ceiling and this is the floor so they would know that going in and they would they would reflect that in their application and Eliberto would this particular thing be for so we have distinguished in the past right an agency can actually apply for more than one program that they're doing I assume that it's open for discussion of whether this would be a per program or a per agency limitation great question I didn't I didn't even think about that I I I think it would be per program in my mind maybe Karen has a different thought but in my mind they'd be for per program because really each program is an individual application right okay uh Brian I see your electronic hand raised Caitlin so the the ceiling is based on it has always been based on allocation not application request but in this case the floor is you have to ask for at least as much and you can't ask for more than this is that right or you can't be awarded more than this or less than that but I thought about awards it's about asked okay you can't you can't ask so for example if you're in housing stability you can you can't ask for more than $100,000 and you can't ask for less than $60,000 again arbitrary number friend okay I got it now you may get depending on your score but what we're not doing tonight is we're not talking about allocation formula and allocation you know ranges so potentially depending on how we formulate that that allocation process you may get less than the floor but you can't ask for less than of it you broke up a little bit there Brian I want to make sure we we heard what you just said oh I'm sorry I was just thanking Ellie Bertow okay uh Stacey I have a question about so I think this is a good idea and I think that um that it's a it's a better way of metering the amount that that we have to give out um I guess my question is is are there any organizations say specifically in the housing stability where um I'm just I'm only just guessing that the requests are larger there are there any organizations that have for you know more than one or two or three years been getting a larger amount than a hundred thousand that we would have to reach out to them that that by limiting them to a hundred thousand it might um and and again you know no promises that they were going to get this at all but if they're kind of budgeting for that every year in their operations is this something that could potentially negatively impact them there's no I there's it wouldn't affect anybody in the housing yeah yeah yeah yeah no safe shelter but they get a thousand but but I would say to Stacey's point depending on what that ceiling is right you know that could be one agency you know because they get I they get about a hundred thousand um but if we if we set that ceiling lower right you know so there would be some entities not not a lot but there would be some agencies that could um you know would know up front they're going to get less money I mean the flip side of that that I would add is that you know there's some incentive then um for some of these larger requests to break it into different programs um sometimes they do like just a very generic uh thing um I will say that there are others that do have multiple programs they apply for and they apply for them separately um you know but encouraging I mean when you've got that big of a dollar amount encouraging to break it down into some of the specific programs can help us get a little more detailed in terms of what they're what the issue is that they're addressing um yeah I mean I think if if you know just say hypothetically safe shelter is one of the largest recipients and they've been receiving around a hundred thousand then that wouldn't be a big deal I I didn't know if there were agencies repeatedly receiving 200,000 if all of a sudden they came in at a hundred that would be you know could be detrimental to their well and and this year because there's four they only received 90,000 I need to go I'm pretty sure so then it should be fine yeah I would say it really starts hitting at this level probably more yourself sufficiency folks so for example the R center got a hundred thousand this year that being said this is the most they've ever gotten for any single program and education would be hit if these if these were the numbers as they are these may not stay that way but if it if it was as they are they're really the only two places that would get hit would be self sufficiency and education and skill building I think the rest would be okay and there are other ways to you know manage around that too to meet with them in advance and say here's what's happened you know just so they're not surprised right I think so what I would what I would say that as I think about this model I think the only thing we're not doing there's many things to consider but an important thing to consider is we may run out of money fast right we will not have the same issues that we had this year if we start putting in a floor uh so for example F I used them before they have a great housing program here in Longmont and yet they only ask for 16 000 every year so I was oh uh Diana so on the flip side of that I guess I'm wondering if these floors are maybe going to discourage some organizations who might be asking for less money from applying because if I were doing something new in the area of say housing stability and I was trying to get some funding for some novel program um I'm not sure I could justify a 60 000 request I might not even bother applying so I don't know if there are I can't remember what the asks have been historically in all of these categories but I know we give out considerably less than some of these floors so I'm just wondering if we're going to discourage some people from applying that's a potentially yeah I think so but then it's really how low do you want to go in the floor so I mean again these are um just illustrated you know for illustrative purposes but yeah certainly something to consider if if we want to move forward with this kind of a strategy okay other um Elly Berto um just confirming we're this is just ideas for us to start thinking about we're not we're not making any decisions tonight uh I suspect that you know when you I think he said you had another concept that there will be more things that we want to talk about or consider correct if we're ready to move on I can put up the next concept any other questions or comments on this concept um Karen I just like that the transparency of it that that's kind of what I like about it so anyway it's a good job all right I think we are ready to go on to the next one Elly Berto so the next one is something we've seen before um and I talked about on the night I just I did it I adopted it a little bit more to be there's a little more restrictive they just have like two cutoffs but so what United Way does is they create ceilings based and floors on the budget size of the organization it's not about the program it's not about the ass it's about your budget so I um I again like to Karen's point this is just illustrative these numbers are completely arbitrary but I put them together so you can see so we could just say okay we're going to go based on budget size and this to to to Diana's point you know if you got a smaller new agency well you still have an opportunity right so basically starting from the top if if you're an agency that has over a million dollar budget then your ceiling is a hundred thousand and your floor is seven hundred seventy five and it goes down from there um and then this would avoid our right you know it does affect I mean it does it does put into question how we value our priorities because now the allocations are no longer based on priorities but based on budgets um but it does make it a little clear for folks okay so if my raw budget is five hundred thousand I'm gonna apply for you for 75 between 75 and 50 I think you can buy anywhere between that right program but this is another concept it strikes me concept two is very inflexible and uh concept one allows some leeway and some a way of adjusting things and this one is so formulaic that uh it's almost inhuman and what you know rather than dealing that's all my view is that I thought concept two was easy to conceive and I think this one is a little bit too mechanical um other um other folks have uh brian thanks for raising the hand okay so I am wondering do we have a clear kind of idea of what I'm gonna do it I'm gonna say what outcomes we're trying to achieve with these changes are we looking for greater transparency are we looking for what we feel is more efficient utilization of the money that might be helpful for me as I look through these options and understand how they serve that purpose so if Karen has an answer go ahead in my mind it's a couple of things and I think I've mentioned them already one is you know especially especially with with concept one is how do we strengthen or encourage or you know how how do we motivate folks to really think about our number one priority and priorities in general and then two is how do we we I would love to start um closing the disparate gaps we have between some of our large you know some folks we there's I think I forget this year but I know there's one one grant that would be for $2,500 that's a lot of work in in in scoping the project and doing the contracting for $2,500 so try in my mind closing that gap brian would be very I think an efficient and if if use of our colors uh so yeah Karen I'm not sure what your thoughts are yeah so we tried to find that at the beginning of the slide deck brian so it is in my mind it's it's twofold so it is Caitlyn's metaphor of spaghetti on the wall so uh so to move away from um I have no idea how much to ask for I'm just going to throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks so I um so I think we want to move away from that because of what you know what we outlined in terms of some disparities and I think it also helps us to be more um proactive or more assuring more that where we say that that if indeed housing stability is our most um important need to address on a needs assessment then how do we make sure that you know the applications that are coming in are that those dollars that we're going to we're going to get an adequate ask for that high stability area so excuse me that high priority area so it deals with the spaghetti on the wall I think it it addresses the transparency that uh Karen talked about and I think that if different advisory board members have talked about that you know anyhow so it's it's um it's mr wizard behind the curtain in terms of you know how we how we come up with our I mean we we know what we're doing I mean we know we have the formula and whatever else but um that we can make it a little more transparent so I think those are two things that we try to outline those in that in the beginning then that's the problem if you will then we're trying to solve I think um one thing too like one thing I actually really like about concept two is that it also helps organizations to see like where they put like what's reasonable for their organization you know an organization that has a budget of under 250 000 if they know off the bat that like the likelihood that we're going to fund something that's more than 10 of their budget like that having sort of that upper limit of like you know don't come in and ask us to support 50 of your budget that's a pretty big risk for us whereas you know sort of having a like 10 limit based on your budget is is a good way to be thinking about how they diversify their grant funders like some of this is stuff that we ask questions about and we're trying to get information about it but instead of us asking people to tell us that we're telling people like this is kind of what we expect from from your request um and being transparent about that being something you know we don't want to fund 50 of your organization um because that's not that's not an efficient use of resources but we also want you to be sustainable we want it to be we want to know that you can deliver it and that sort of thing and so sort of this second one that bases it on their budget um strikes me as a way to um be transparent about that instead of us trying to have to comb through and see like is their ask actually reasonable compared to their overall budget um are they actually you know being fiscally responsible um we we sort of put a little bit of parameters on on that in some way um the one thing on this like for the second one I feel like the under 250k um you know 15 000 seems a little high for to me in the sense of like there are some smaller organizations that we've talked about that have had like innovative programs and if they apply in that under 250k budget thing you know maybe we're not as stringent because we know that there's a much lower limit that they can ask for you know the organization that comes in and asks for two thousand dollars you know is much different than the organization that comes in and asks for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars like are the the risk of like the city's money is much different for those two things um you know we sort of talked about like some of them being more innovative and if you are like hey let's try a new program we don't know how it's going to go let's do something smaller then maybe that gives um some of these smaller organizations some opportunities to try new things and and use um and and fund some of those new programs uh I see Karen and then Graham Graham why don't you go ahead Graham oh you're muted still just want to say I'm going to miss you Karen retiring very sad um how hard would it be Ali Berto to model these two with actual data from like the last funding round is that like is that going to ruin your your weekend or is that a reasonable thing to apply these two schemes to our last year's funding and then just see what the practical sort of impact might be of the models um and what the outliers would look like I think yeah I can do it and I'll just stick to ceilings I won't mess too much the floors if I stick with ceilings it makes it a little bit easier and we'll see how much we would have actually fallen short um with the money that we had but yeah I can do that um yeah because then I can just you know if we gave if we gave on somebody 90 percent then I'll just go with 90 percent of the ceiling yeah it shouldn't be too hard okay I personally like concept too but it might help just understand the impact better if it's not too hard I can do that welcome Councilwoman Yarbrough good to see you your hair looks fantastic so Karen Roney so I was I was this is not well thought out but I just recalled uh when we're talking about budget size you know we also have had conversations about that if you are an agency with a huge budget then you know the conversation has been how much money from the city doesn't really matter you know so if if someone's asked if you're talking about an agency that has a 50 million dollar budget um and they're asking for 25 000 which is you know a fraction of a percent of their overall agency budget you know we've also struggled with with that you know is that a does that really matter in the in the scheme of things um you know for serving um serving our community with with where if we're such a small amount of their total budget I don't know what to do with that but I remember we we talk about that every year uh Stacey so yeah just just a comment I can also very easily in my mind imagine these two models being combined where if you're under 25 000 dollars and you you know and you fall into the housing category or the resilience category you know then you have you have all of you have the social services underneath each of these programs it's a little it's more work and administration but I can imagine that happening too if it comes to that I would agree and I think um you know uh when you said that I was thinking about like even even if we didn't do like the same floor and ceiling for the the categories even saying like we anticipate give it you know even if we just did a a ceiling of like we anticipate roughly x total dollars in housing stability which means that you know sort of our limit if you're asking for housing stability is going to be this or something you know some some way of using that to give transparency again for like I think Ellie Berta you said like really communicating what our priorities are and trying to encourage more more applications in some of those areas that we aren't getting it but we know our huge priorities within the community so uh Brian thank you Caitlin so I was in listening about to the goals I wrote down three things one is to increase efficiency so Ellie Berta you mentioned this you know administration cost relative to the award benefit you know there's some ratio that needs to be met and it makes sense to me that there are minimums that would help do that whether they're set by budget size or just by program I do like program better than budget simply because if you've got a $250,000 organization but they're delivering like amazing benefits that we want their fulfilling needs that we need fulfilled then to to you know under to fund them lower because their budget's smaller I'm you know I'm not quite clear on that but the other thing is to set expectations so we talked about how do we set expectations and it seems to me that's a matter of transparency any of these if they go in front of the applicant should help set expectations for how much they can get how much they should apply for so I'm agnostic on that and then the ensure that the needs are met that idea of like we we just can't seem to get enough money out to these housing agencies and maybe part of that is a function of expectations you know that's possible the that's the one piece that I'm I'm not quite seeing like you know ideally in a in a private industry we go to whoever whoever's kicking butt and say hey we want to increase your production you know we're willing to fund you to really ramp it up because you're doing the stuff that we need done we can't do that in a public format so it seems to me maybe it's back to that kind of setting expectations component so I just wanted to throw those three out because I think there's different parts of these that serve different elements of that kind of back to a combined scenario Karen oh we can't hear you so I think um and some of this could sorry it's our copier um so I think some of this could uh kind of segue maybe into the item number seven when we talk about the needs assessment you know I think for housing one of the issue one of the issues has to do with um we for housing that really is around um constructing you know and investing in new housing units and construction and rehab and blah blah blah you know we have our other sources of funding that goes to support that so that's our affordable housing fund that's our cdbg our home our federal grant dollars and you know that really goes for rehab and in actual units um you know and so it could be that we want to rethink and maybe maybe it's when we talk about an an update if you will to our needs assessment you know maybe we drill down a little more specifically in terms of you know how we can fund housing that really is linked to programs versus uh capital investments and so maybe if we did a little more work around that we might get more of what we are able to fund with um with the human service agency dollars to support housing thanks for pointing that out to Karen of like how much of the funding is actually coming from different places than here we invest a lot in housing but not in our pot not in this particular and I think last year we we started digging a little bit into that because we asked for a little bit more of like more of the budget that was being allocated to some of those various like community services and so forth but I kind of like where you're thinking of like contextualizing that like you know this is not this is something that you know we get a lot of federal grant dollars and you know sort of these things for but it's not necessarily something where you know individual agencies can actually really do as much around it um in the same ways so when Ella Bertha goes to the next slide it is really what ideas do you have you know so these we wanted to get the conversation going and we are not the keepers of all the ideas so um so we would love to hear other ideas that you might have um you know that we should we should explore anyone or not or this isn't our last time we have the conversation but um again we just wanted to get it going um you know maybe modeling some of these approaches with you know our 2022 applications would you know help generate some other ideas and looks like we have another hand Diana so I don't really have any other ideas I just wanted to chime in that I think the increased transparency is great and I really like that we're going in that direction and I think from doing this the last few years definitely have seen some of the organizations have figured out to ask big and I like that we're sort of moving towards a I think a little bit more equitable approach to paying out some of the cash just based on access to information by the organizations who some of them are definitely not asking for enough and some are asking for too much um so I like the way that we're going with this and I do think that modeling it would be really helpful to sort of see the practical application of these scenarios so I appreciate that that may be a little work but I think it's it would be really helpful to us so thank you so what I have downs that I want to try that I'll bring to our next board meeting or probably email it before once I get it done is to model it with first individually so using concept one and then using concept two and then I'm going to try and figure out how I can combine them and see what it would look like and again I'm probably going to stick either to ceilings not mess around too much in floors um and I'll use our same our same ranges that we use so to not to try and make it harder on myself um I use same scores same ranges and just but input these new ceilings and floor piece to it. Ellie Berto one thing um with that when you do it so like we could look at even if you don't want to do the floors one thing I think would be helpful to see is just like for housing stability we got X number of requests here was the minimum and the maximum that was requested for each of those like um buckets that we did um just to just so folks can see like okay if we set a floor of twenty thousand dollars we you know this one the lowest request we had anyway was seventeen thousand dollars so like that's not that's not that's not a whole lot different so like we don't necessarily need to see every individual one compared to the floor but I'd like to I'd love to just see like what was sort of the minimum and the maximum that were asked in each of those categories uh Brian. One thing I think that we should not overlook because the so many of these were really kind of characterizing as communication mechanisms some of them are mathematical based many of them are mathematically based but we're trying to communicate to organizations that do good work that they should be open about how much they ask for because the money's there and we're trying to communicate to other organizations that um you know that they're going to be limited in the amount they can ask for because there's some uh what for whatever reason it is right so uh we should just consider maybe narrative like an actual messaging kind of strategy you know get somebody from the city of Longmont marketing uh whatever department you all have there but it's not unusual on on new programs and I think these you know this isn't new but to think about what are the key messages we really want people to understand when they apply for these and have it maybe included as part of the application process or part of the solicitation process rather than a just kind of like a contracting mechanism I I totally agree and um I will say uh you know I don't know whether that's something the city can do that's also that's something I do in my job of like hey you know this is you know you've got to tell the story um so like doing better you know we have the needs assessment and we have provided some some categories but even doing like you know sort of from our from the board's perspective and from like this funding from the perspective of this funding what's the executive summary of like we know that housing is the most important thing and the city funds it in all of these ways like so here's kind of what we're looking for to help applicants like see like not just like hi the city is giving money for nonprofits and agencies but like what are the things that we're trying to help solve I think can go a long way toward that transparency and giving them a sense of like why do we do this in the first place I mean I think a lot of them know but like what is it that you know we want them to take away from it councilwoman Yarbrough thank you Kate sounds so weird um I know I'm like Shakita but uh yeah just Shakita you have been you have been duly elected by by the community so you know you have earned that title yes that is true um you know back to you know I I think about Karen um I think about you too Karen Roney all the time but right now I'm talking about Karen Phillips um I think about when Karen always say how are we communicating how are they receiving the messages and I think Brian you hit it you know you you were right on it and I think that what I'm trying to what I'm I know Karen and Ellie Bursow don't know this yet but I'm really working I'm really going to work hard in our communication and marketing department to see how we can start making sure that um we are communicating in a more effective way and I think if we have something when we have these applications out if we just have a little bitty blurb of video because think about the inequities of those organizations and we've seen them in those applications where they didn't fill it out properly and they're small organizations right they may not have a really good an accountant or they may not have the numbers or whatever they may not know how to fill it out properly so I think if we can have a little directional video um on our website on the city website when they apply for that or something when they can look and see what we exactly what we want you know um I don't know I just feel like no matter what in all areas we really need to tighten up our communication um it's very important for people to know exactly not assume what we want but know what we want and what we expect from them because it's not fair for those people who may not um have the resources at some of the other organizations and they're not able to uh you know properly fill out those applications in everything and provide the information that we're looking for so I do think that we need to work on our communication and I would love like a three-minute video um Caitlin you can do that you and Brian can do that video and um just saying but no Karen you always talk about that how do how do they get this information how are the communities you know receiving it and and that's it's key from what I'm learning too is that a lot of people really don't know that it's out there it's the same people that know the same answers in our community but how does everyone else know and when they find out about it it's already done and over with right and so how can we get this information about the proper way of doing it um you know and the expectations that this board has I often think about like when you were talking I was like oh I think about how like I want my kids to behave a certain way and in order to get them to do what I want I actually have to be really clear about like why why I'm asking them to do it and then also what I expect and I'm not like I'm not trying to say that like agents these are kids but like when we are not transparent or we like kind of hide the ball of like what we're doing we're not setting them up for success um and I think that like without fail like every single person on this board like you know I I think about Karen Phillips talking about like what are we doing to empower them to be successful um how you know giving them money is one piece of it but we know that like Karen and Eliberto and other folks in the city are doing more than that like so let's let's highlight those ways um that we do it um you know so if there's a new agency that doesn't know they can call up Eliberto and ask for more details like let's make sure they know like some of that nitty gritty of like not just like hey if you have questions call Eliberto but like hey you know if you need help with you know understanding XYZ these are that's the type of questions we can answer um yeah we're not going to fill out the grant application for you but we can give you direction type of thing um because you got Eliberto you and everyone else like you all do great things and I think there are probably people who could use that expertise that don't utilize it other ideas that folks might have we've gone a little bit sideways but I think it's good good stuff other ideas folks have around the communication and sort of setting you know women's are trying to get more out of the application process that would help us okay I think we have some next steps that Eliberto is going to work on and you know this is this was an opening conversation not the the decision-making conversation so um I encourage folks to to think about it and you know if think if there are other you know creative ways that we could think about this or um that would make life easier as we review applications so we can continue the discussion okay anything else you need for that Eliberto? okay um the next item is the 2020 human services needs assessment reviewing that and the possibility of an update Karen is this one you or is it Eliberto again? it's going to be on his own here you know so you're like here wing why there's a mountain go fly off of it well I think I'll I'll introduce it what what the heck so um so you have in your your packet the the big the big honkin document right so that was the so so that was the assessment that we conducted back in 2019 and 2020 we completed it right at the height of the hand well when we close things down so um and so just some some grounding is that when we completed this the timing for completing this human services needs assessment which indeed informs our priority for funding we lined that up so that we would be conducting the human services assessment along with the housing and community development needs assessment as part of the consolidated plan process which is a requirement of the city for us to continue to receive federal dollars as an entitlement primarily for our community development block grant dollars so so in 2020 we lined up and we have we we use the same vendor as we use for conducting our consolidated plan and our housing assessment and so now we're on the five-year cycle so I think our our our question to the you know to the board is questions is twofold and is that one is that do you think that there is value in conducting some kind of a mid mid-term assessment if you will sometime during that five that five-year period um and so which which is you know we're thinking if we're going to do that um that as we go into the 2023 budget process for the the city um it might be funding that we ask for to um if we need that to do some um you know to do a kind of a mid-term assessment and you know we also we're we're thinking and we and we would like to get input from the board is what would be the scope of that mid-term assessment if you will so you know one of the things that and I mentioned that when we were talking about the the housing stability area is you know do do we take that opportunity to really dig down more deeply enter in some of these needs that are identified in the needs assessment and really understand a little bit more about the nature of those needs and how our funding could really go to support some some specific needs in the community in some of those areas so you know we we started to do that or we tried to do that um in you know early 2020 with doing some focus groups and again that was right when things were starting to shut down with with covid so um and you know I don't know how much we didn't get get the greatest participation but but yeah we're just thinking is that there might be some um it's not a full-on needs assessment um but that we would do some kind of uh process that would really help us dive more deeply into um the nature of some of the needs to better flesh out what we might want to do with them and what those gaps are and Roberto what would you like to add to that one thing I would add is actually ran this by our community our partners of boulder county and city of boulder and that would be their preference to what Karen just said is uh partly and their reasoning behind it is throughout the throughout the pandemic uh we've done and and they've done in particular I know boulder county has done you know multiple assessments um and they're getting ready for their arpa and their their covid funding they've done a lot of this work and so there is a little bit of concern of of uh just oversaturation of of surveying people you know it's survey fatigue type of situation and to Karen's point they think it would be good to dive a little deeper into some of our needs you know not do everything but choose a few that we think are are need some more some more uh research and and and bots so that that would be that I did run it by our our our partners at the county and the city of boulder and that was their their suggestions as well Karen Phillips yeah I can't help I just this can't help but say you know that's that whole thing it was huge reading through it um you know the needs it was like yeah yeah yeah yeah but I just didn't see any solution I mean it just went on and on about what we need and la la la and it's just like well so at the end then the list of agencies that might help but I just as I was reading it going well where's the solution where's the solution I mean it's great to know that we all kind of know what the needs are but it doesn't seem like we're addressing any solution so I don't know how that can be incorporated into it but that's when I was reading it I'm like okay so what do we do about that then you know what do we do that's how I felt when I read that whole thing Brian you almost set that with fatigue in your voice Caitlin no not at all so I think along what Karen Phillips was saying one of the things that I was just thinking about as you were talking about this is rather than like doing a survey of the community and what do you need I wonder if it would be helpful to have a a better idea of best practices around you know all of this is an ecosystem right we know that if you pay less for housing you have more to pay for medical bills but if you get sunk in medical bills it's really hard to you know all of these things kind of interrelated and whether there are any best practices like if housing is the target are there is it just about getting houses is that the right way to approach it or is there a body of knowledge that says well if you can if you can really push on the medical end of it you'll find that you have a dramatic impact on people staying in their houses you know something like that I'm making it up right but almost like a survey of research out there for solutions there's two schools of thought on that Brian no I'm I'm kidding there are certainly cities and places that do like housing first policies where like getting people into stable housing is first and foremost the thing that like helps the you know sort of cascades and then there are other I mean there are certainly experts on this but my sense from that one is that like there's sort of a strong divide of like folks that are very much like housing first and then folks that are like you need to do all of the the things to make sure someone can stay in housing and not just get into it in the first place but I don't disagree like I think understand what I hear Karen and Brian and other folks can chime in what I hear is that you know we know there's this need but like how does that manifest specifically in our community so like do we need you know specific types of services so like I think we talked about like the needs assessment talking about specifically about car repair and that was like a very weird like thing to be specific about when a lot more of it was like very broad and big and not clear on like okay housing but like you know we want people to come up with innovative things but we also would like to know like does that mean we need more rentals do we need more things that are more affordable like how do we actually break that down into something that like is more than just like housing is unaffordable like that feels a little bit like sure we all know that in Boulder County you know we hear people talking about that a lot but what is like how do we actually address that other comments or questions or thoughts on like a mid-cycle needs assessment? Graham? I'd rather just spend the money on supporting the nonprofits in other concrete ways rather than surveying them so at this point would vote against a mid-survey. Deanna? Well I know we you just talked about other organizations or county programs have done surveys can't we just sort of crib their work I mean I don't know why we need to reinvent the wheel right so if they've already done some of these updated surveys through the pandemic and one of the things we're worried about is fatigue on surveying can't we just use their survey I don't know why we need to do it twice right? Right right and again what they what the county doesn't want to do more surveys what they what they're suggesting is can we dig a little deeper into certain areas of need that we know to learn you know what exactly are the needs or what's like the cadence point more specifics or maybe to Karen's point is in digging deeper can we can we can we find research solutions I mean I don't know what that deep deeper live looks like to be honest I'm not sure what it is that's just when I brought up the subject that's what they that's what they they talked about they they they had no appetite to do more surveys. Brian? New Bram's question or point is it all is it coming out of the same bucket of money the survey cost would come out of these funds? I don't think we have any money. Karen? I wasn't I wasn't envisioning that it would come out of our human service agency bucket that it would be a proposal that we would submit in terms of the like the community services budget that we might make a one-time request for X so that's what we did when we funded the the needs assessment that we that we conducted in 2020 so it was I don't know I don't remember the number 25 000 something like that that we would ask it wouldn't come out of the human service agency bucket. Karen Phillips and then Shakita? Yeah I just think that we we're really well aware of the needs it's just yeah that we already know that it's just it's all the other stuff I don't know how we can look for solutions but it's just you know after that lengthy thing going over and over the needs it's like yeah we get it we get it you know so I don't know that's what I got to say about it. Shakita? So I have a question um do we have do we have like um I know organizations probably have their own surveys according to whatever programs because I know YWCA if there's a program we have uh surveys particular programs so can we get data from those I know there may be some some um privacy laws or info I don't know but is there any way we can get like some data within the organization um if they take surveys within the organization rather than the CDPAM for this huge big you know uh survey um because we can use the information that they're already collecting you know I don't know maybe I'm like talking over my head and I don't know you know I think uh you know I think in in um in the past mostly we have utilized um data from other sources so I think I think to your point if I'm understanding it is that um and and it just was the last couple of times that we actually did primary data collection through our own assessment but prior to that we absolutely use the data that was already out there and um and use that for our for our assessment so um so I think we certainly could do that and I'm not envisioning just I I am not envisioning that we would we would ask for a lot of money you know to do more primary data collection I think to Karen's point got it we know the needs what the heck should we be doing about it and so um you know so so if we wanted to do some best practice research if we wanted to you know run some I don't know some focus groups or whatever to just drill down a little bit more is really what I would think we would do we wouldn't want to be asking for a lot of um you know a lot of of money I don't know um and and we would just have to look at the capacity of being able to for Ellie Berger to do that too so in addition to everything else so you know but it wouldn't be uh it wouldn't be a big budget ask I don't think in terms of because we wouldn't be doing primary data collection I do like focus groups I do like that so so I guess what I'm hearing is um that don't spend a lot of money don't take it out of the direct funding bucket if you will really don't spend a whole lot of money look at how we can learn more about what do we do about the needs um you know what is it that we are that we should be doing that we haven't even considered and if we can throw some best practice research in there and um so that that we just have a better idea of what kind of investments make the most sense from our dollars to help really address some of these needs that we're seeing yep plus one okay all right um the last item on our agenda is other business indoor announcements do we have any Brian and then Karen going up tonight in so this is a perhaps policy question um the chat function on these meetings can be really valuable for somebody like me who doesn't necessarily want to always talk but would love to just write something in the chat and they can be safe so do we not have a chat function as a matter of like policy policy or um I mean am I the only one who's like god I wish I could just write a sentence in the chat and you know or give a thumbs up or the party hat to what you just said because that was so awesome I assumed it was policy and accessibility for when these meetings are posted um to make sure that there's all the information is there but I actually have no idea um I'm very used to having like chat and other things um funny you should say the like emoji responses because um I got these uh before zoom actually had all the various responses I got these coasters that were sent out for a remote conference that I went to that have like various like responses on them and and people like I have like eight of them and people would hold them up before you could actually do it digitally so I mean that's a good question that's a good question so that's the otter yay I think it's because we're recording and I think but I don't know maybe I'm a c council member your role use the otter yay during c council I'm going to make you a set Shakita and send them over to you to use during council meetings hey hey erica do you want to hop on yes so do you do you know um do you know the answer to this I mean I know in terms of why we don't have a chat function on zoom is because if you buy a different level of zoom account because I mean we just we're using the the zoom account it's our SAM account I think and we we just went with the basic pricing of zoom do you know if you so I believe that we do have the function to have the chat we just have it um or Susan had it disabled so that it doesn't interfere with the recordings and I know that once you download the recording it doesn't download whatever was submitted on the chat which is why she disabled it um however I do know other meetings I don't know if board meetings use the chat function but then print out the chat I don't know how it gets posted however I can definitely make a research yeah so maybe we can just learn more about yeah so I didn't know whether because we were cheap and we just bought the basic level of the zoom uh subscription or or yeah or was it a control issue I'm going to get one of those elementary school chalkboard tablets yeah yeah that's right because we you know we use the chat function on teams we use it on Webex but yeah and it is helpful so Erica will do some research and and to see you don't well anyhow yes we will thank you we will check it out awesome um Karen so this is really just an FYI so I believe next Tuesday Shakita and her colleagues on City Council will be uh talking about a possible pre-interview process for uh Board and Commission um applicant selection so I just wanted to give you a heads up obviously we will take direction from Council Member Yarbrough and her colleagues in terms of which which path we're going to go down but I think they're the Council did provide some direction to our City Clerk staff to um to to look at more involvement from existing advisory board members to kind of do an initial vetting if you will and initial interviewing of applicants for um so that would apply in the future for housing and human services uh board slots and to make some recommendations to uh City Council about who you think they should appoint to the the um the board based on you know your your your interview so so I just want to give you that heads up um the the City Clerk staff met with some of the board liaisons and and there is information going in the the Council packet for the 15th of February if you want to check that out um I don't think the Council the packet is posted yet but it should be by tomorrow if you want to look at what is what is in there and we will be coming back for um well done Brian so we'll bring an update uh back at your March meeting about the direction that we receive from City Council so just just uh you know just a heads up about that thanks that's the only announcement I had all right any other announcements from folks or other business in which case I will entertain a motion to adjourn Karen Phillips make a motion and Deanna seconded see you all next month thank you everybody good to see you