Joint Committee

Hismen Hinnu
February 10, 2005 12:00-2:00 p.m.
Meeting Notes

Next Meeting: Thursday March 10 th, 12:00-2:00pm Hismen Hinnu

Next Steps:

• Please review the Grant and TA Priorities document and send questions or concerns to Deb.
• The next Joint Committee meeting will involve a discussion of community outreach and our political strategy for the district two elections. Every work group should come up with bullet points of what we want our District Two Councilperson to help us with. Carl will coordinate.
• Self-Evaluation: Team members will be coming to work group meetings. Resident job descriptions are available – please spread the word. We want at least one representative from each work group to sit on interview committee.
• Final Friday Cinema: Documentary on Shirley Chisholm on February 25 th. Its also an opportunity to discuss the District Two election. Please try to invite two families to attend.
• Dayna Davis from SACDC presented the MOU for LSAC organizations to help plan future editions of the SA Unity. She asked that folks send the completed MOUs to her at Dayna@shapedesign.net. Dayna added that the deadline for the April-May edition is March 11 th.

Attendees:

Deb Montesinos, MCO Interim Director
Catherine Chen , EBALDC
Kerry Forbord, ORTL
Suzanne Takahara
Elena Serrano, ESAA
Mara Guccione , USC
Junious Williams , USC
Deborah Whittle, Self-Evaluation
Ben Bowser, Self-Evaluation
Karen Stevenson, Communications
Suzanne Takahara, ESAA
Lisa Prigozen , EBALDC
Brendan Leung, FES Coach
Carl Pascual , EBALDC
Sonya Shah , KQED
Jerry Henderson , EBALDC
Don Davenport , SACDC
Derrick Dogan, Self-Evaluation
Myriam ____, Self-Evaluation
Dayna Davis, SACDC/Unity
Francell Haskins, Al.Co. Pub.Health

I. Objectives and agenda review

• Don raised issue with Bill’s diarist entry on the 23 rd Avenue work group meeting and felt that he had been misinterpreted, specifically in reference to his leaving the meeting. Deb offered that we can look at the diarist entries and whether or not they are helpful. Carl said that Don should send all clarifications to Bill and that it is good to check in on a monthly basis as a collaborative about such issues.  

• Grants and TA Priorities
  • The first page gives a snapshot of the result areas and core capacities (building local ownership and sustainability).
  • The second page gives grant and TA priorities and the work taking place in each group. This was done by both Fred and Deb. Deb added that we are hoping to scale up promising activities and hoping to start the workforce scan and get a comprehensive sense of resources. Deb went through each result area, 1-7.
  • Page three listed the budget requests and Deb noted that they are as comprehensive as possible. The far left column is the request amount and grantee. There was $189K roll-over from last year. She separated the funding across the top row and reviewed them. Deb noted that she wanted to be as transparent as possible. There are also some pieces that are not yet funded, such as the construction training and some health work group programs.
  • Deb said that she will honor conversations had with Fred before he left and would like to finalize the allocations within a few weeks. Deb would also like to ask that you consider work plan template when writing grant proposals so that everything remains consistent.
  • Don said that many groups are already doing the work so how long will the grant process take? Deb responded that she will turn around the proposals as quickly as possible. Donna Boring does the work in Baltimore .
  • Sonya added that it is good to see where grant $ are getting leveraged with larger $ and Deb responded that she would like to create a spreadsheet that shows this info.
  • Deb asked that folks send her an email with any questions or concerns.
    
• Site Report
  • Deb reported that the written report is due the 3 rd week of February. In late spring there will be an oral report due and the 2 nd written report is due in October. She gave an update on the various sections of the report. We’ve asked for a week extension and will forward copies of the report to the JC. The report covers through the end of 2004. Deb would like to talk with the foundation about the timing of site reports.
  • Don asked about the personnel change and Deb reported that the Program Assistant (Sandra) has moved on and they are hiring a temp to begin next week.
  • Carl noted congratulations to everyone for the hard work on this process.
    
• Local Ownership Process
  • We are being encouraged to move towards completion of this process by the end of 2006. USC will continue coordinating while the work groups step up. We want to continue to carve out times to discuss local ownership and how we move forward, working with Casey, conducting peer matches with other collaboratives in our area (one in the Mission ).
  • Cohort One is scheduled for the end of 2005. Does it look good for them? We need to be careful how it is set up. Cohort one is just a year difference.
  • Those who do have residents involved should have conversations with them.
  • There was a question about why EBAYC wasn’t at the table since they do a lot of organizing. Don’t they have a rep from the FES work group? Carl said that he was representing FES . Sonya mentioned that it is good to have clarity about representation and who is wearing what hat. We should add this to the introductions.

III. Resident Engagement Events

• Lawrence Peer Match
  • Carl gave a description of the experience and others added.
  • Jerry noted the networking night – that new employees have to go to each unit to learn about what they do.
  • Don mentioned the racial make-up differences, that they have lots of land but much is full of toxins, the old boy network, the abandoned buildings (tough to chase ownership) and the membership fees for Movement City of $40.
  • Suzanne talked about the Movement City cultural center and how it came up from grassroots. LCW recognized the role it played in the community and incorporated it. Also, their org chart is not hierarchical. She also mentioned their database.
  • Carl mentioned their annual meeting, resident organizing and resident leadership strategies. They build community first before asking people to get involved. Language was around creating demand not pushing supply.
  • Francell asked how long LCW has been in place. It was reinvigorated five years ago.
    
• Casey Resident Leadership Meeting
• Catherine reported out about this meeting. They talked about the different hats that residents wear; resident leadership, what does it mean, what does it take, what skills, characteristics it has; the struggles and challenges. They also discussed individual and structural levels of engagement; that people are afraid to get involved and advocate for change. Also, that residents feel they have no authority, no voice in things and want to have it be valued when they give their time. There were ideas put forward that instead of outsiders coming in, people should step up and have needs defined by community members. Finally, she said that there is a gap between institutions and residents. Residents need a safe place to discuss.
• Don reported that Goldie from Agnes Memorial Church was impressed and wants to get involved. She didn’t realize that residents have this kind of power in the initiative. She is a part of the small grants work. We should get these kind of folks more involved.
• Catherine mentioned that there is a group of folks building a website to keep people involved. We need to follow up on this and other ways for keeping folks connected. We also need to get names and contact info for the LSAC database.

• Newspaper
• Dayna Davis from SACDC presented the MOU for LSAC organizations to help plan future editions of the SA Unity. She asked that folks send the completed MOUs to her at Dayna@shapedesign.net. Dayna added that the deadline for the April-May edition is March 11 th.

• Resident Networking
• Final Fridays – already doing the resident dinner idea. Can these be revitalized? Can the LSAC recognize the value of this effort? It’s great to plan new opportunities but we have to have buy-in to the ones we already have.
• Part of this is developing an identity for the LSAC. We need to solidify this and have a list of on-going events.
• Idea of CBO-CBO happy hour. La Clinica is planning the first for March.
  

IV. Work Group Strategy Session

• Objectives: how would this best serve you and your work group?
• Don: have ground rules – respectful, objective, help rather than hinder
• Junious: question of timing; how do we balance with the larger issues such as the District Two council seat election? Don added that La Clinica is working on this. We need someone to support efforts here in the LSA and Eastlake equally. Junious added that we have a platform with the work plans. We could go to the candidates and ask them where they stand on our platform. Suzanne added that there are a couple of forums in development. Could we co-sponsor one? Is there one that would be the best place to interject our platform?
• Suzanne added that Bill Traynor mentioned that now is the time for us to take a hold of the initiative. Francell agreed that it is an opportune time to step up.
• Deb added that the work group strategy sessions don’t have to be either/or. We can look at work plans and broader strategies.
• For the next meeting: Community outreach and political strategy
• Every work group should come up with bullet points of what we want our District Two Councilperson to help us with.

V. Announcements

• EITC VITA sites – have three times as many people as last year.
• Self-Evaluation – introductions of team. They will be coming to work group meetings. Resident job descriptions are available – please spread the word. We want at least one representative from each work group to sit on interview committee.
• Elena said that after this meeting they will be scheduling the next community outreach work group meeting.
• Final Friday Cinema: Documentary on Shirley Chisholm on February 25 th. Its also an opportunity to discuss the District Two election. Please try to invite two families to attend.