Planning Committee

Meeting Notes
July 12, 2001
Hismen-Hinnu

Facilitator: Junious Williams

Agenda

1. Opening and Introductions
2. Updates
3. Status of Making Connections in Oakland
4. Next Phase of Making Connections
5. Future Directions for the LSA Collaborative
6. Next Steps and Closing

Opening and Introductions

Junious opened the meeting and introductions were made.

Updates

EBAYC Listening Campaign

The focus of the campaign was strategic planning and leadership development. They set out to survey several hundred parents, teachers, and young people at four schools. Once they got into the process, they decided not to survey young people. They collected 550 parent surveys and 150 teacher surveys. As a result of the surveys, they have launched three new campaigns:

Roosevelt Middle School Parent-Teacher Unity Policy Council

• The goal is to build relationships between parents and teachers. They are holding regular meetings to close the gap between home and school.

Franklin Elementary School After School Programs

• They are working with the school and parents to expand after school program offerings.

Garfield Elementary School Individual Outreach to Parents

• They are conducting a one-to-one outreach campaign to involve parents in school/community issues. They hope to tie this campaign to the work of the 23^rd Ave. Corridor Action Team.

EBAYC would like to do a fuller presentation on the results of the Listening Campaign in September. There was a question about whether Collaborative members can get access to the survey data. Urban Strategies Council can provide some data now. The full analysis will ready by September and EBAYC will present it to the Collaborative.

Youth Employment Partnership (YEP) Neighborhood Opposition

YEP’s summer programs are in full swing. Through their Team Oakland project, teams of youth are doing litter abatement, designing a mural, and working on a business recycling project. They have 550 youth participating in their summer job campaign. As the summer programs have gotten underway and more youth have been around the YEP building, they have encountered an aggressive campaign against them by people in the neighborhood. They are currently under a barrage of inspectors and have received threats from the city to shut them down if they don’t bring the building up to code by July 27^th. There seems to be an implication that YEP is responsible for the disrepair when the building has been in bad conditions for years. YEP is very concerned about their relationship with the neighborhood and with the City. Michelle Clark-Clough asked Collaborative members to write letters of endorsement to the City and make phone calls on their behalf. Darryl Hamm offered to refer YEP to legal assistance, if needed.

San Antonio CDC Development Plans

Don Davenport is working with Jim Hammett from Urban Innovations in San Diego on developing several properties in the 23^rd Ave. Corridor. They have signed a sale agreement for the Garcia Building on the corner of 23^rd Ave. and International Blvd.

Computer Street Academy New Web Portal

The new portal operates in four languages and will have an extensive directory of resources.

Status of Making Connections in Oakland

Bart Lubow from the Annie E. Casey Foundation gave a presentation on the status of Making Connections in Oakland. An internal assessment process is underway at the Casey Foundation. This is a formal process that all Making Connections sites are going through in preparation for the budget process. Each site team prepared a mid-year report, which looks at: 1) objectives in each site; 2) enabling conditions—the environment; 3) progress towards developmental milestones; 4) team recommendation for options to pursue in the next phase of Making Connections.

Casey is not making drop dead decisions about whether a site will continue or be dropped. There is no maximum number of sites that will go into the next phase. If the decision to move on to the next phase is deferred, the current phase will be extended for an indefinite amount of time. In Bart’s estimation, for the majority of sites, decisions about advancing to the next phase will be deferred. A few sites may be dropped and a few sites may move on to the next phase.

Bart reviewed the handout of strategic objectives and the mid-year site assessment ratings (see attachment). There is a need to revisit the strategic objectives and make them more responsive to what’s happening in the Collaborative.

Bart acknowledged that the depth and breadth of the work in the Lower San Antonio has come a long way, and that the neighborhood has made a great deal of progress. There is a need for more work around relationships with local government. We need to ask for more support in the future and find ways to approach local government with opportunities for partnership. Casey would also like to increase partnerships with other foundations.

In reviewing the assessment, Bart commented on the following:

• More participation is needed from the faith community and the business community.
• The City is not yet fully on board. While there are increasing signs of participation at various Making Connections tables, the City hasn’t articulated a position around poor neighborhoods like the Lower San Antonio. There is a need for a common agenda, articulated by the neighborhood and bought into by the City.
• The strength of the work in Oakland has been the work in the Lower San Antonio, spearheaded by the Collaborative.
• The Local Learning Partner received a low rating because it took Casey a long time to select Urban Strategies Council; there’s not as much focus on data as there could be; and at the time of the assessment, they hadn’t yet figured out how a data warehouse would be created.

Next Phase of Making Connections

In the next phase, Casey wants a broader vision or plan that neighborhood stakeholders and external partners want to take on. Casey would like to see more connection between the overall vision for the neighborhood and what the Collaborative is doing. Casey will invest in the "connective tissue" to create an infrastructure to undertake a long-term transformation process. Casey will look for opportunities to fund specific projects relevant to the plan.

Phase II is a period of intensification and clarification. Bart did not have an answer in terms of the amount of money Casey will invest in each site during Phase II. That will partly be a function of the work in each site. There’s no fixed pot of money. There is likely to be more resources in the short- and long-term, but the investment strategy will remain the same. Casey will not commit a specific amount of money, but will consider what needs to be done and how best to leverage Casey dollars. Bart hopes that the Casey board will approve a Project Related Investment fund (PRI) which would be available to bankroll significant development projects in the 23^rd Avenue Corridor.

In terms of the timeframe, Casey is looking to work with cities over the next decade. There will be a greater focus on evaluation in the next phase.

Potential options for Oakland:

Bart hedged bets in the assessment report. Clearly Oakland is site to continue. The question is whether to defer moving into Phase II or to proceed.

Reasons for deferring include:

1. 1) develop the Local Learning Partner;
2. 2) Casey wants to see where local government goes on key policy issues, i.e., the Juvenile Detention Center (if the County puts money there, there will be little money left for services and social service reform);.
3. 3) wants to generate more explicit commitments from the City;
4. 4) wants to get other sectors more actively involved, such as the faith and business communities;
5. 5) would like internal and external stakeholders to have more pointed discussions about how to move the work forward and a plan that reflects the neighborhood’s agenda.

The disadvantages of deferring include:

1. 1) it will create disappointment for the Collaborative members. The reasons in favor of deferral are due to external stakeholders, not a lack of effort in the neighborhood;
2. 2) it makes it more difficult for the Foundation to play a leveraging role with the City if its commitment appears to be iffy.

Future Directions for the LSA Collaborative

Given the feedback from Casey, the group brainstormed future directions and priorities for the Collaborative.

• Increased resident participation in the Collaborative
• 23^rd Avenue Corridor ProjectInitiative/organizing around youth and juvenile justice issues
• Focus on changing public policy
• Collectively strengthen relationships with the City
• Review/adjust Make It Happen plan – choose priorities
• Get word out to people
• Immediate action around opposition to Juvenile Detention Center
• Engage OUSD more – engage parents in schools
• Get schools to work on issues affecting families and communities – expand after school programs
• Leverage the Collaborative to get benefits beyond individual agencies/projects
• Develop collaborative infrastructure to carry forward the work
• Committee dedicated to youth issues
• Develop San Antonio as a hub for diverse populations (example of one-stop shops in Asian/Latino neighborhoods)
• Need role definition for the Collaborative – what’s expected of members
• Diversion program for kids who are following family members into incarceration
• Clearinghouse for information sharing among Collaborative members
• Need to get to know each other better
• Health agenda
• Evening meetings to get more residents involved
• Collaborative training for the group – look at other successful models
• Field trip to another neighborhood that has done good work

Next Steps and Closing

The Planning Committee will take the list from the brainstorm and develop an agenda for the next Collaborative meeting.