Committee Updates

Housing

Eric Cone and Jenny Mollica reported on the HUD conference. Highlights included plenary addresses by Andrew Cuomo, Delores Huerta, and Phil Angelides, and a session with Microsoft on work they are doing in East Palo Alto. HUD has not come out with this year's super NOFA yet, but Jenny will watch for it.

The Arts

Elena Serrano reported that the Arts group is working with Urban Strategies Council on its mission statement and organizational structure. They have connected with Bay Area Economics about a business plan for a cultural arts center. They hope to receive TA money from Casey to cover the costs of the business plan development. A UC Berkeley student is now working with the Eastside Arts Alliance as an intern. The artists have secured space in the VOA building at 2364 15^th Ave. for its Village Center after-school programs. Activities are held on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 4-8pm. Friday evenings is movie night where young people screen movies that they are making through the program.

Schools

Julia Lerra and Diedra Ware reported on the recent trip to Chicago. Twenty nine parents and teachers went to Chicago to visit successful small schools. OUSD's new Superintendent for School Reform accompanied them. The group visited 8 small schools. It was very inspiring to see the progress that the Chicago schools have made. They visited a high school that was recently broken-up into 5 academies, a school connected to a fine arts museum, and another school that pairs students with professionals from the community. On October 26^th at 6:30pm, there will be an action held at Roosevelt to identify small school sites. They are hoping to get 600 people to attend. They have invited the mayor and city council members. On Tuesday October 17 from 4-6pm at Franklin Elementary school there will be a meeting of the Small Schools Working Group. This afternoon, October 12, there will be a meeting at St. Anthony's with OUSD and city staff to identify potential small school sites.

Newspaper

Elena Serrano reported that the Newspaper Committee meets every Tuesday. They have established a format for the paper and developed some article ideas. The first issue, due out after the first of the year, will focus on housing, the arts, and schools. The issue will include organizational profiles of neighborhood organizations working on these issues as well as articles about current work in these areas. Each issue will have a youth page. For each issue the committee will approach a neighborhood organization working with youth and have young people design and write the youth page. The paper will also have a community resource page where residents can offer or request services (such as plumbing, day care, gardening, etc.). In addition, the paper will have graphically designed inserts to announce events. Members of the Newspaper Committee visited State Street in Alameda. They invited a letter with a request for funding for the publication of the first issue. The committee would like to expand the pool of people who contribute to the paper. Finally, the paper will be multi-lingual.

Outreach

Anthony Leach reported that the Outreach Committee met on October 10. The committee proposed that they have a joint meeting with the Newspaper Committee. At the meeting, Rudy Lopez, a community organizer with the Healthy Neighborhoods Project in the Iron Triangle neighborhood in Richmond, presented the model of outreach and organizing that he has used. The Outreach Committee is interested in exploring a similar process for the Lower San Antonio. They plan to reach out to neighborhood schools as one way of involving residents. They are in the process of designing a brochure that will tell people about the initiative and let them know how they can get involved.

Discussion

There was a request that the group compile a list of names and contact information for people who have attended meetings so that people can connect with each other. Eric Cone has kept a list of names from past meetings and he will turn them over to Urban Strategies Council to distribute at the next meeting.

Someone raised the issue of neighborhood boundaries and whether the group would work in areas surrounding the Lower San Antonio. Karen Stevenson shared with the group that the Casey Foundation focus is on the Lower San Antonio, however, that does not mean that the Lower San Antonio Collaborative is restricted to those boundaries.

Update on Coordinator Position, Urban Strategies Council (15 min)

The Urban Strategies Council staff distributed handouts, including: 1) the scope of work for the coordinator role; 2) the budget submitted to the Casey Foundation; and 3) a position description for a program associate hired from within the neighborhood. Junious Williams introduced the Council staff members who will be working with the Collaborative (Jessica Pitt, project lead; Yejide Ankobia, admin support; and Yung Ouyang, data and research support). He then reviewed the Council's scope of work with the group. He informed the group that the original budget submitted to Casey included a part-time program associate, who would be hired from within the neighborhood. Bart was concerned that the budget was too high and would consume a disproportionate amount of the annual budget. He asked that the Council hold off on the neighborhood position. Junious shared with the group that he had explained to Bart that the intent of this position was to build capacity within the neighborhood so that when the Council's contract ends in six month there will be someone from the neighborhood in place to carry on the work. Jessica updated the group on work that was already underway. Junious and Jessica have been meeting with the Planning Committee members to go over the Council's role and gather feedback. the Council is in the process of setting-up a contact database, a group list serve, and a web page. If people are interested, the Council will provide a meeting planning and facilitation training for Steering Committee members.

Discussion

In regards to the program associate position, a question was raised about how Casey is approaching the budget discussion around the initiative, and whether this group has any input. Karen Stevenson said she hoped the group would feel empowered to approach Bart about this issue if they feel strongly about the program associate. There was a brief discussion about whether the group should follow-up with Bart. The group voted and there was unanimous agreement to approach Bart about reconsidering the position.

A question was raised about who should be the contact point for people interested in getting involved in the initiative, and whether Urban Strategies Council should be listed as the contact in the brochure currently in production. It was pointed out that the Council will only be working with the group for six months and, therefore, the Council may not be the best point of contact. Someone suggested getting a cell phone that could be forwarded to the Council for the time being but would eventually be switched over to someone in the neighborhood. The Council will consider options and propose one to the group.

A question was raised about how to contact people who do not have access to email and, therefore, would not receive communications through the listserve or website. The Council will work on a communications system that will ensure that everyone receives communications from the group.

Special Report: Roosevelt Village Center Listening Campaign

David Kakishiba gave a presentation on the Roosevelt Village Center's Listening Campaign. He provided a brief history of the Village Center. The listening campaign will actively engage parents, youth, teachers, and other neighborhood residents in making positive changes for families and schools in the San Antonio neighborhood. The campaign's goals include: 1) developing and supporting four Parent Leadership Councils based at each of the neighborhood schools; 2) developing and supporting two United Student Alliances based at Roosevelt and Oakland High; 3) developing and supporting the Roosevelt Village Center Roundtable which is an interagency strategic planning collaborative; 4) identifying a set of neighborhood action goals aimed at transforming schools into centers of academic excellence, family strengthening, and community building; and 5) identifying a set of program development goals and policy advocacy strategies designed to achieve the neighborhood action goals.

The project aims to identify and cultivate new leadership from within the neighborhood's schools, especially Garfield, Franklin, and Oakland High. The campaign involves one-to-one meetings, house meetings, community meetings, and surveys of teachers, parents, and youth. The surveys will focus on: how respondents define success for themselves and youth; the barriers to success; and the barriers to being part of a collective process to improve outcomes for family and youth. David has drafts of the surveys and is happy to share them with this group. Currently, EBAYC is receiving technical assistance from the Urban Strategies Council, Alameda County, and the Bay Area Schools Coalition. David hopes that the Listening Campaign will be strategically allied with the small schools initiative. One of the most important goals of the Listening Campaign is to help change peoples' attitudes about who is in charge of the schools and how they can become involved in making positive changes. The first meeting of the Roosevelt Village Center Roundtable will take place on Thursday, November 2 in the morning. The Roundtable will involve a range of neighborhood stakeholders in a discussion about how school reform can serve as a vehicle for community building. All Steering Committee members are invited to attend.

Discussion

The Outreach Committee is interested in finding out about issues of concern to community residents. They would potentially be interested in including several open-ended questions on the Listening Campaign surveys, and wanted to know if that would be possible.

There was a question about whether the surveys included questions about health, especially drug and alcohol addiction. This is a huge problem for youth, especially young people who come from families with addiction.

Karen Stevenson presented the Casey update. Bart sends his greetings. The Matrix program, which would support management and organizational capacity building within community-based organizations, is currently on hold. The Casey team is currently working on an external stakeholders newsletter that will report back to the more than 200 people who Casey has met with in Oakland since Making Connections was launched. Bart does not have any meetings set-up at the moment. The Casey Foundation is providing significant support to the Oakland Family Independence Project, spearheaded by Asian Neighborhood Design. However, that support is not coming from the pool of seed money for the neighborhood, so people should not worry that it will compete with their projects. Bart will sit on the Commission that is being set-up to oversee the project. The Casey Foundation purchased a table at the upcoming Pueblo dinner and fundraiser. Anyone interested in attending should contact Karen. There are 10 seats available.

Judith Rosenberg and Tracie Haynes from TEAMS gave a presentation on how the program works and how it might be implemented in the Lower San Antonio. TEAMS grew out of the Support Group Training Project, which has been in existence for over 20 years. TEAMS provides leadership training for individuals while also serving the broader community. The program works by first identifying informal leaders in a neighborhood. These individuals form an action team and meet regularly over a 2 year period to receive training in: leadership, effective communication, team building and collaboration, goal setting, project planning and implementation, meeting skills, and community accountability and evaluation. In addition to the individual training, the team members work on specific projects in their neighborhoods. When they have completed their training, they set up action teams in their neighborhood. TEAMS is currently working in Solano and Contra Costa counties and they have recently started working with the Community Health Academy in Oakland. They are very interested in expanding their work to the Lower San Antonio. They provided several handouts which contain more detailed information about the program.

Community Forums

Anthony suggested that before scheduling community forums, the Steering Committee may want to step back and do some planning so that the forums are part of a building process. The group should think about how the different pieces connect to each other.

Junious observed that there is currently a lot of independent action that the group may want to bring together. He suggested revisiting the San Antonio Plan, and thinking about how to make connections between the various components of the plan and move it forward. The Plan could be a useful vehicle to engage the broader community. He encouraged the group to think about what the Collaborative is about, what they are trying to bring people into, and what kinds of opportunities are being created for families and young people to be part of this effort.

Eric raised the issue that every committee seems to be talking about doing outreach to the community. He suggested that each committee should send a representative to the outreach committee meetings.

The group agreed that this discussion should be taken up at the next meeting.