Human Rights Commission Regular Meeting   4/20/2023

Are we in person?

What's up?

Interesting.

I somehow got my wires crossed and thought we were on Zoom.

That's really funny that you just appeared there.

We'll see you shortly.

Oh yeah, I just never had driven that.

We were like going from, like we'd go to one Pueblo and then we'd have an appointment the next morning and another one that was six hours away.

What's fun is to watch him start to like feel comfortable with us.

and you're probably going to be butting up the observations in Pueblo.

So we're really trying to make sure that we're good neighbors.

So what kind of antennas?

Radio telescopes.

So we're working with the indigenous astronomers who are like really excited about it, but also kind of a little nervous about it.

Yeah.

And that just opened 70 doors, right?

Yeah, we've gone and visited so quite a lot, but I'm sure there's a visitor experience.

We were going in the back.

How did I see you?

I haven't talked to you since Columbia.

Oh, no.

Tips down.

Anyway, it was fun.

We actually overall didn't have a good time.

It was funny to listen to.

Jessica.

That's good.

Hey, like, you get the whole thing?

And you all figured out there's cups for the water, and you found the water cooler, and look at this.

It's working.

Hello.

I like that you brought people in.

Where?

We did do that.

I forgot about that.

That was a long time ago.

That was a long time ago.

Oh, yeah.

Suzanne, I think we've got a email that she's going to be using.

Let me check.

Oh, right.

Jeanette we know is out.

Yeah, over five is a quorum.

Jessica, just to let you know, Suzanne is not going to be here, Jeanette's not going to be here, and Kathryn is on her way.

She showed up on that screen briefly and said, whoops, and then.

12 days.

Here comes the roll call.

Ernest?

Present.

We know Jeanette's not here.

Mary?

Present.

Wolfgang?

Here.

Kathryn is on her way and we'll make note of that.

Suzanne is not here.

Andy?

Here.

Here.

Let's recite our mission statement.

Act as a strong advocate to justice and equal opportunity by providing citywide leadership and guidance in the area of civil rights.

For members of the public participating virtually, if you are experiencing technical difficulties, you may call 434-970-3115 and staff will assist you.

We will open up for public comment and if you're virtual, you can raise your hand.

Okay, so there's no response to the public.

Okay, we'll do a roll call vote on that one.

Any discussion about that before we do?

Okay, sounds good.

Jessica?

Great.

Oh yeah, we're still doing the same old thing we've been doing.

Sorry.

And Jeanette's not here.

Kevin's not here.

Susan's not here.

Andy.

Yeah.

And Lyndele.

Approve.

Okay.

Ready?

This is 4623.

Ernest?

Approve.

Mary Wolfgang, Andy, and Lyndele.

Is it even?

Yeah, okay.

I can live with it if that counts?

Like I wasn't, can you vote on something if you weren't actually here?

Good point.

No, okay.

Yeah, it was just me, Mary, and Catherine.

Oh, was it?

Okay, got it, cool.

Yeah, I don't have chair updates.

I think mainly what I wanted to share was with our ad hoc committee when Kathryn comes, so I don't have any updates.

I can.

Maybe I'd like to give the floor to Victoria if she has any updates she'd like to share first.

I'm not sure if to start in the past or in the future.

So this past month, actually one thing that I kind of want to start off with even though it's not

That at the first month of April our office was helping people apply through CRHA for the housing choice voucher waitlist.

And so it was a joint effort between our office and that of Home to Hope where we share a space.

But we helped.

A not small amount.

Definitely Home to Hopes team signed up more people since we were down one person.

That was a cool initiative and I think it made a lot of difference for people being able to access the waitlist and CRHA was a really good partner to us also in many ways but super specifically for the purposes of our office and letting us get reasonable accommodation forms for people so we got people who might not otherwise be able to do it without a computer, paper forms and turning it in.

So that was something really cool that took like a month to set up and I think had a really good payoff.

So I think that's the place where I'd like to start, maybe in the past.

But at upcoming, we've been talking about the animated video for a little while here.

We are finalizing the script, and it looks like our next step, maybe, is going to be animating it.

And we will have our, we're gonna bring in some audio recording gear to capture anyone who wants to reading the script and then mix all the voices together.

Oh, that's cool.

So to have like, you know, each person maybe different voice reading different sentences.

So if that's of interest, we'll just, when we're there during the day, if you have free time and you want to stop by and add your voice to the mix, come by and we'll hit record.

Let me know.

It's really fun, yeah.

So can you tell us when versus us just kind of calling you on a random day?

I don't work well on that.

That make sense?

What we can also do is maybe send out

So we can send out some times.

Mm-hmm It'll be simple.

Mm-hmm This one is just kind of the most the current one is the first one and it's like a general introduction to our office and the Commission so

So that's a pretty big one.

I think the last big thing is also an upcoming one.

But together with Home to Hope and the Downtown Job Center, again, we all share kind of the same space.

So we're collaborating on an open house, which we're hoping for the first Friday of June super tentatively, maybe slightly after that.

Those are three great highlights.

Thanks for sharing them.

It's cool.

Yeah, we do have some other big ones.

So we have hired an intake and administrative specialist.

Yay.

Saad Khalifa.

Saad Khalifa started on April the 10th.

And he's jumped right in.

And just getting his feet wet on all this stuff.

that the office is involved in.

So he's picking everything up really fast.

We're really excited to have him.

It just adds another dimension to the office, and it's great.

So we're excited.

What else is going on?

I wanted to let you all know, just regarding your upcoming focuses on housing, the three kind of big

Service Providers in our Continuum of Care.

On May 1st, the Haven, Pacham, and I believe, do I have this correct, Anthony Haro from BRAC, the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the homeless, they're doing a presentation on the services that they provide to council.

So it might be a good time to kind of keep your eyes open on that and just hear what they have to say and see how that informs your work.

Obviously, you can always connect with them individually as well.

So that's just something I wanted to make sure you're aware of.

In addition, June 5th, this is on the report as well but I want to say it, we are going to be presenting our annual report to council.

I think it's in the 4 p.m. window when they do kind of their work session.

So anyway, just be prepared for that.

I will have the annual report for you to review and adopt for recommendation at the next meeting, the next, what do you call it, regular meeting, so in April.

Not April, May.

We're in April.

No, I'm not presenting May 1st.

That would be the Haven, Pocham, and Brack.

And we're presenting June 5th.

June 5th.

Yeah, but I'll have the report for you all to review ahead of your regular meeting so you can give me any feedback and we can get it off and just get it off the books and approved to present.

I believe it'll probably be at the 4 p.m. time but just keep an eye out if you know how to check for check agendas and things on the city calendar yeah okay yeah it should pop up there and you can start to see how it's forming.

Other things, so I'm going to send, remember that piece in the ordinance that we're supposed to provide quarterly updates to council?

So this is going to be our first quarterly update that I'm going to send basically a copy of our OHR report to them.

But what I want to add, remember how I presented in the retreat kind of the

Five or six, I can't remember off the top of my head, sections in the ordinance that sort of outline your duties, responsibilities, and roles.

What I'd like to do is include that summary for the commission in that report as well, because technically the report is from the commission and what you've been up to.

So, not this time, but for the next quarter, which I guess would help me with the

annual math here but later June or July I guess whenever that is we'll send another one after the next three months and I'll add that in there so does that make sense so I wouldn't that gives you a chance to also then see and maybe I'll start adding it actually to our monthly

reports to you in your meeting so you can see how things are stacking up and what you might want to do or push on.

Hopefully that's helpful as a guide and also for fulfilling that duty in the ordinance.

Two more things I wanted to ask you.

Well, we'll just stick to one.

Committee meetings.

Do you still want to keep them on the first Thursdays of the month?

Or I think there was some talk at one point of tagging it on to either the beginning or end of this meeting.

Just from a logistics standpoint, just wanted to bring that out there if there was any further discussion on that, or if you want to keep it as is and move forward.

So discuss amongst yourselves.

Let me know.

But otherwise I'll start posting them.

Yeah I had proposed at the end of last our retreat since I think we've had fairly low attendance at the subcommittee meetings and I wanted to make sure that we were conscientious of our use of the space and the requests that were making of city members.

and that potential solution could be tagging it on at the end when we all gather.

So I thought at our last meeting we had talked about

having, like basically not doing committees so much, right?

And having it, but by having a working meeting that was in between, right?

Yes, we did.

Kathryn, can I ask a clarifying question on that?

So when you say, and I think that's a good, I think that's an easy way to say, we could talk like counsel, use counsel's language to say it's a work session and still publicly notice and all that stuff.

I get why tagging it on would be efficient in terms of use of space and frankly your time.

Yeah, go ahead.

It sounds like when there's work to be done, the people who will tend to do the work will schedule a time that works for them and it may not happen on the first Thursday of the month?

No, I think the idea was it was a standing meeting, but it isn't like different committees using the time.

It's just whatever work needs to get done happens in that standing time.

Mary?

Yeah, I was just going to say, I thought that the last meeting was actually really good and productive, and there were enough people there to make it meaningful, and I may be self-centered, but I feel like we've arrived at a time that actually works for me, and so I feel like I can

There have been a bunch of them where I meant to show up and I just couldn't.

To me, the last experience was really positive and I love the idea of sticking with that for a few months and seeing if it falls off and nobody can go again.

Suzanne was there too.

I'm still in favor of the

Great.

Thank you for the feedback.

That's helpful.

And I'm going to try, as I said, to post some of these things well in advance so that Remy has plenty of notice and we can just be really efficient about these going forward.

So thank you for the feedback.

Can I ask a question?

Yeah.

I have one more thought about it and then I will let it go.

Is there a time that would be helpful for us to say when we can or cannot come?

Because if it is going to be a time where we have very low attendance, is there a time where we can just let people know it doesn't work, we cancel the meeting?

Yes and no's.

How much notice would you need to like cancel something?

That's a good question.

I don't know.

I think that, yeah I don't know.

I have to think about that one.

Just I think you know with public notice it has to be three days in advance of the meeting.

To post a meeting, to cancel a meeting, I don't know.

That's a good question.

That's a, but yeah.

I would like to be able to provide Remy two weeks notice.

Lyndele had something to say.

Yes, so I think we could do two things.

One is we recognize that people may have last minute, they can't make it, right?

But I do think it might be helpful for two weeks before for us to put it on the agenda and say, do we have anything to do on that meeting and will we call it?

So add that to the, we'll add that in the like work session thing.

Just ask that question.

So we all get into the habit of thinking about it.

Yep.

And if we know the conflicts, or then we can identify them there.

And then we know in advance.

And if we think probably do it.

And if somebody has something that pulls them away, that's totally understandable.

Okay.

Thank you.

Super helpful.

Yeah, that's that's my next thing is that I would like to start sending you now that we're in person because they used to sort of just rely on the zoom webinar thing to remind you but I'm gonna start sending Outlook invites.

Does that work for you all?

It'll be like an Outlook invite email, like you'll get, and I gotta remember to remove, because I think our city system automatically puts a Teams invite, so that'll be confusing, because then you'll have Teams, a Zoom, and an Outlook.

No, no, no.

You're still gonna get the separate Zoom thing, right, because it's a hybrid meeting.

And I know there are some commissioners having a hard time with their email.

Is everyone having access to their emails?

Hopefully we solved those.

No, my problem is I keep getting thrown out.

I have it set up so that I can do

I can change who I am in Chrome.

I can be me with my Gmail and I can be the city and it just keeps throwing me out.

The city one just keeps disappearing and I don't know why that is.

And then I have a hard time logging back in again.

I was going to say have you talked to any IT folks?

They're usually pretty good about... We'll figure out what's going on.

Okay.

You know the number to call to get IT?

I'll find it.

Okay.

Let me know if you need it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, I don't have a solution for that one.

I've had that issue a couple times.

It just keeps recognizing the account before.

But it's not a Chrome thing because I use Chrome too, so I'm not sure what.

But sometimes it gets caught in this cycle.

It keeps wanting to do the same one.

Jessica, on a related note, because you asked, I think this is a good question, because I know that the transition from our personal emails to our city emails, we knew the reasons why.

It was also challenging, right?

Then everybody had to get used to this new email system and figure out, log in.

One of the other things, not to put more transitional things in the mix, but it's a possibility.

I know that Wolfgang, I think you experimented a little bit with using teams for our documents and stuff.

Here's the reason.

And then I'll leave it.

Kathryn, I hear you.

And we can talk about this.

The only reason is I saw that Mary asked the question, where should I put this document?

Should I attach it to an email?

Should I drop it in Google Drive?

The Google Drive thing is like a black hole for us because if you're gone and that document only existed on Google Drive, we can't get it anymore, right?

If it wasn't shared or whatever, right?

So I think that

Teams, as you probably are realizing, the OneDrive Office 365 Teams platform is sort of the competitor with Google.

They're trying to do the same thing.

One probably does it better than the other on certain fronts.

But Teams is what the city has chosen as their platform.

So think on it.

We still have the old box thing.

That didn't seem to

that we have to use Teams even though it makes us all cry.

OneDrive is like a personal hard drive.

It's the difference between OneDrive and Teams is like OneDrive is the personal hard drive tied to you, whereas Teams... No, but you had a, didn't you have a OneDrive HRC folder?

I did, and I learned more about why that's not the way to do it.

I could actually get IT here to walk us through how to use Teams as a group to save our documents is what I'm wondering if that seems like a useful thing.

Okay.

Yeah, because I don't want to teach you and teach you wrong either, because I'm still learning it as well.

So there's no way to share a document in OneDrive.

What you would have to do is you would have to send it to me.

Sort of.

We're going to go down the rabbit hole in that one.

What I'm thinking is maybe it would be helpful to ask one of our IT folks to explain a good way that we can use Teams collaboratively as a commission.

Because I don't know that any of the other ones are doing it.

But when I see us, the more work you guys are doing in a work session to try to collaborate on documents and so forth, I think it would be nice to have it easily findable.

So you're not searching through your email.

It's like, ah, they attach to an email somewhere.

You need us to do that.

This is an option.

It's not really an option.

I think it's still optional.

We've survived thus far, but I'm just trying to get it.

Make the workflows easier.

I think it might in the long run be easier as teams hopefully improves its usability because I understand that it is not always usable.

I will look into getting IT here to maybe walk us through the best way for the commission to use Teams.

Thanks.

It's not immediate.

We're preparing ourselves for a potential change.

Sometimes it helps to think about unpleasant tasks if you have some extrinsic motivation or intrinsic motivation to be doing so.

One of the reasons that we even considered using Teams is that it also has some project management apps.

built into it, and so we might be able to leverage that capability so that we can make better progress on some of our objectives.

I say that as somebody who hates teams, who was forced to use it at work, so I feel like I'm able to talk about that.

Also, I also made, after the last housing subcommittee meeting, I made a teams page that's focused on housing, so it already exists.

enough.

All right.

We will leave that.

We don't have to talk about it anymore.

Okay.

That's it, I think, unless you have any questions.

FAP updates, no.

Other than we met with Eric Steinecker back in February, got some recommendations for other changes.

My problem right now is that between, I think between onboarding new staff, writing the annual report, and dealing with ongoing cases, I'm gonna think hold off on

amending the ordinance yet again and then trying to get on council's calendar until after our annual report.

As much as I'd love to like continue progress I also am sensitive to the fact that our city attorney's office is down to two attorneys and

Anything with your report?

Oh, and the numbers or anything?

Oh, I don't know.

Not in particular.

I think it's kind of standard stuff.

I didn't really highlight any numbers to talk about per se.

But if you see anything that you have questions about, I think the numbers have maybe already changed a little bit because we've added some things and found some duplicate entries that I've deleted.

So some will go down, some will go up.

But we're always looking at our data.

We review it every week.

Thank you all for your hard work.

Yeah.

We're moving.

It's big.

OK.

I apologize, Todd.

I was snappy at you, and I realized that.

I didn't win.

OK, if you missed it, I just recognize it in myself and just want to apologize.

Hey, I brought up teams, not to blame you.

That's white words.

White words out here.

So are we able to move to the committee updates?

I'm really going to pass it over to Catherine.

I just want to say thank you.

Didn't Mary clearly asked her like not just for the moment.

I thought you agreed to do it forever.

I know, me too.

We can revisit.

But no, we made a lot of great progress.

So Kathryn, I'll turn it over to you because you were also going to go over the Martha rules and procedures discussion from what we talked about.

So this section I'm handing over to you.

Okay.

So, Martha's rules.

We adopted Martha's rules.

And I just want to give, like,

The reason Martha's Rules exist, even, is the same reason that we adopted them, which is that Robert's Rules are so arcane and convoluted that they can really be used to stop the work of a group.

And we were spending so much time debating the finer points of Robert's Rules and not actually getting stumped up.

So, Martha's Rules are intended to

Make sure everyone has a voice to work efficiently and to just be very focused on getting the work done.

Now, having said that, there are actually a number of kind of iterations of Martha's Rules.

There's a number of articles about Martha's Rules, but there isn't a well-developed body of jurisprudence that we can get bogged down in.

It really only,

discusses how we make decisions, how we bring up issues to act on and how we decide how to act on them.

So one consistent part of Martha's Rules that's here in ours is that proposals that we are going to act on should be in writing, that we should present them in writing.

When that proposal is brought up to a meeting, people can then

Bring up friendly amendments, preferably in advance, but on the moment if needed.

And then the way the discussion proceeds is those who are in favor of the proposal present their views.

And the facilitator, which is our chair in this case, really sets a time

keeps people to their time.

At this point, there is no debate.

People simply present why they think this is a good idea.

Likewise, we then have time for those in opposition.

Again, not a time for debate.

They present their ideas.

We have time limits.

They get enforced.

At that point, once we have both sides heard, we can then have

Discussion however that happens.

Small group discussion, general discussion, however we want to do it as a group.

The chair helps lead that, sets time limits again.

At the end of that discussion, we can make a motion to table this.

We can make a motion to refer it to whatever it needs to be referred to.

That requires kind of a three quarter vote of those in attendance.

in this iteration of Martha's Rules.

Once we have, if we're moving forward, not tabling anything, we take a straw poll.

So this is this thing where we do thumbs up, thumbs down, or kind of sideways, I can live with it.

The point of that is not the hand gestures.

The point of that is just to get a sense of the meeting.

Where are we?

If everyone's in favor, we don't need to talk about it anymore.

We can just move, like we're done.

Same if everyone's opposed.

If there isn't clear consensus, then we've gotta keep working on it and can have an actual vote.

We have a moment where we can ask clarifying questions.

That's it.

That's all there is to this.

All of the rest of how the meeting runs is not covered in Martha's Pools.

Many of the articles, I say articles, some are actually published articles, some are just sort of

online discussions.

Kind of emphasize the need for time limits on agendas.

That's a big thing in Martha's Rules, although we don't have it in here clearly.

But other than that, that's it.

So we haven't really been doing this.

It seems very efficient to me.

We have adopted these rules.

So we thought it would be useful to just sort of put it out there and

Yes, my question is for a proposal to pass, it has to be in favor or can live with it to pass.

Is that correct?

No, it's a majority vote.

When we do that second vote, it's a majority vote.

It's a standard vote.

If you go online, they actually have all these tables, like how many I can live with this plus.

But that second vote, when we're actually moving to vote, that is a majority vote.

The rest of it is actually

Well, I don't think we discuss it, really.

I think the Chair sets time limits.

Right?

Like, we're going to have 10 minutes to talk about this.

Oh, that's what it means.

I mean, it can be per person talking.

It can be.

Well, it says timeline on discussion set by the group.

We do not need to have a discussion.

Like, we don't have to have a consensus meeting about the time limits, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

And there's enough looseness in here.

It could be a per person, it could be a general.

I think the point is not to belabor.

So how would this change?

So we need to get your votes on the committee and our retreat minutes.

Oh yeah, I'm in favor.

But you know what I mean?

But it's more something that we're discussing.

So like, for example, with the retreat when we were saying, hypothetically speaking, because we didn't do that at the retreat, we just kind of had a discussion.

Yes, and we would hopefully have a written proposal.

That was very helpful, Kathryn.

So Todd, this was in the committee, ad hoc committee meeting for us to discuss.

Was the full rule,

rules and procedures.

I can't remember now what it was we were going to change.

My brain just farted.

Yeah, it was in the procedures document.

It says, and we proposed the changes.

Okay, so what were the changes that we set?

Oh, it was the annual meeting.

It says the rules and procedures currently say that the officer's election and work plan will occur during the first regular meeting in January but the Commission doesn't decide upon that work meeting until in March for the retreat.

So it just talks about the first regular meeting which we noted as like our annual meeting.

I like that.

I think that was a good observation that I hadn't caught before because now the way that council is doing boards and commissions appointments, they sort of like kind of lined it up now.

So pretty much they're always going to be doing it for us in our terms.

I think you'll always be transitioning to new commissioners on March 1st.

So it does make sense.

And I think we decided to hold the retreat once we have our new folks on board.

Well they call it the regular meeting but we don't.

I don't know if that regular meeting means like the cadence that we meet like every Thursday, but if it was referring to the annual retreat, then we should have it change to, that we do that in March.

That the March meeting is when we just schedule the annual retreat.

So it's not a procedure change, it's more of a calendar that reflects what we actually do.

instead of it saying January, we just change that word to March and then you postpone elections until March after everybody's on board.

You could do that.

I just added like three more months to both of your terms.

But it kind of makes sense, right?

That gives the new people a chance to be either nominated and or to vote so yeah just a thought that's one simple way to change that otherwise we could break it up into two things and call we have a meeting in which we hold elections and a meeting in which we develop a work plan and I think we could change that too

We didn't discuss that, Todd.

You added more stuff in here that we didn't discuss.

Because I wasn't clear how you wanted to change the verbiage there, and that's why I'm asking.

And if you want to send me some language, I'm happy to.

I guess the question is, do you have language that you are proposing for this that you want to present to everybody for a vote tonight, or is that something you're still working on?

I can provide you language, Todd.

I'm trying to find it also, sorry, so like I'm feeling like I don't have in front of me to tell you specifically the sentence, but it was just those two things of the, when we're discussing the annual tree, and I'm open to what people were saying about the

But in the actual procedure, I think it was in our, yeah I don't have the information either.

Yeah, however you want to do it.

If you trust that I'll get it right, you can vote on it and decide to adopt it.

Whatever works for you.

There's no urgency.

Yep.

OK. OK.

Dang it, I was hoping we'd get it done in this.

It's okay.

But is everyone agreed?

Oh, we'll have to vote for it, I guess, next meeting.

And have it written down.

We'll leave the mark.

We can live with it.

Good catch though.

Okay.

I will say I like the change and moving it to do it in a retreat.

Because it's daggers, right, Todd?

It's rare that everyone here would be replaced at the same time.

Yeah, it won't happen anymore because we've re-staggered all the terms.

I have the same thoughts as Ernest because I know.

Well, I can't speak to Suzanne.

She's not here.

But I think there is a bit of onboarding that comes on with just learning how we are flowing and we work.

I vote to keep it the way it is.

Do you have thoughts?

Yes.

I would support that, just mostly because if we elect a different chair, then wouldn't that chair have to like lead the retreat, which would be like mad funky.

Oh yeah, that would be weird.

So I agree, the onboarding occurs both for new members, but then also for potential leadership.

Good.

So maybe we'll just add like a just another bullet in here and change the you know the numbering a little bit and add like annual meeting for elections and then strategic planning meeting and just separate the two out and then you're done right that makes sense to me and then you keep the annual meeting January for elections and the strategic planning retreat whatever you call it you can choose your verbiage and just add a separate bullet and keep it in March makes sense to me

The election should happen after the new members are in and the members that are leaving are out already because it's like it's the new people that are going to be with that new commissioner and not the people whose terms are ending.

So are you asking that we should change?

So I think it should be both in March.

Will we change the election to happen further down the road?

So are we onboarding in February?

He's saying now it won't be until March anyways.

Right?

Yeah, so commissioners officially start in March.

I typically do onboarding with new commissioners the month before.

Yeah, as soon as I know, I start to make contact with them and then we schedule a time to go over the basics.

So, if that were the case, of course the retreat could also be moved, right?

So that you don't have the issue of a new chair's elected and then has to run a retreat that they...

True.

Right?

Sure.

At least it's theoretically possible.

Or the next, you know, or the April meeting, you elect the new chair.

I don't know.

But then that's also, that's four months now out that we're shifting it.

I don't disagree with that, but it seems to me that the new chair or the continued chair should get to lead the retreat and get to shape that agenda.

And I'm thinking as well that the new chair should hopefully come out of existing commissioners.

that hopefully, I mean, if there's someone out there that comes in, becomes, and all of a sudden everybody says, hey, we want to pass it on to you, I would be a little concerned if they hadn't been here and been a part of the, unless there's someone that's been online that's been following us, so that's my concern.

is someone coming in that's new that has not been a part of the commissioners, the commissioners at all, so.

Is that the truth?

She's got a lot of work to do right now.

I want her to keep doing that work that she's doing right now.

I'm confused.

I mean, there are no real rules, that's the whole point.

So, okay, I want to reflect what I hear everyone saying.

There's a discussion, call it the debate, just of when to

have the election for the chair and when to have the retreat.

I think it's a lot to put on the new chair, a brand new chair in a month's time to put on a retreat.

I'm skilled at putting on retreats, but even that, I would like a lot more context.

And we're fortunate that this one came out because of the experience that we had in the last year.

So I don't know if this is something we need to put in writing.

I think that is what we're doing here is kind of a good demonstration of the advocacy of Martha's Rules in the sense that when you come to a meeting with a clear verbiage, then it can be talked about and then you can amend it and then decide.

So yeah, I think that would be great.

So Todd, I found the verbiage in the rules and procedures.

So part of this is just confusion in the first sentence.

It says meeting, it's number three meeting, 3.1.

It says the commission shall hold an annual organizational meeting which shall take place during the first regular meeting of the commission in the month of January.

And so that annual meeting is referring to the retreat.

I don't think there's really any.

Yeah, we've kind of separated the two things because it says there's an annual meeting where there's an election of officers and an establishment of work plan.

So that's where I was trying to get to.

Do I need to separate this so there's more points?

What I'm hearing that's kind of the proposal is that you maybe you could call the election meeting the annual meeting and then you could call you could make a new 3.2 and it would add like you know a few more bullets or whatever but say like here's our whatever you want to call it your strategic planning your retreat

Annual Retreat, whatever you want to call it to happen in March and you just repeat just take that cut that piece out and make a separate one that makes it really clear that you you hold elections in one and then three months two months later you have your planning meeting where you decide your work plan for the year.

Is that what I'm hearing you want?

I'm just asking, it's just confusing in language, so we're saying annual meeting, I'm asking what was originally intended.

No, it's not.

No, it's not.

I'm trying to ask also for verbiage, what do we call that first meeting in January?

Just a regular meeting?

Yeah, whatever you want to call it.

I'm voting to say election meeting.

Okay.

Okay.

Alright.

Okay.

That seems like a good, that's really specific and it tells you what, why you're separating that out and calling it something special, right?

Okay.

So is it best for me just to send this verbiage to everyone?

Here's what I'd suggest.

Do you have a word version of this with all the red strikethrough and all that stuff?

Why don't you just take that and put your verbiage in in the same fashion, strike out the old stuff with the red line and then add the new stuff in whatever color we were doing, blue or something?

Blue Underline, that would be, because that's kind of the tradition, that's the fashion that they make us do stuff for amendments to council stuff, so that's a good way to do it.

We'll stick with their format.

If you do that, then you can just vote on the whole document next time.

That make sense?

Sure.

It's more my brain is stuck on like what actually to say.

Yeah, it's hard to work that out now.

I will just say what I think needs to be said.

I think it's also just my own confusion of like, in this same one paragraph, it's like organizational meeting, the regular meeting, we establish a set meeting time, but isn't that set meeting time always just set?

Yep.

Yep.

But maybe we'll be in that could change, you could change it.

But that leaves that open.

What I would say, Jessica, is why don't if you want to workshop it, I'm happy to workshop the words with you like, like outside the meeting, if that's helpful.

So it's always hard to wordsmith in a meeting that never, never goes well, right?

It's very difficult to do.

So happy to work with that with you on that if you'd like.

Okay.

So am I yay nay to adding in the changes for

When we should do the election?

But as of right now we're going to keep it as is.

But right now we're not changing anything.

Okay, that's all I need to hear.

Understood.

That's fine.

Okay, gotcha.

Makes sense to me.

OK, I'm clear.

Sorry.

My literal is like, what do you want me literally to change?

Because I don't want it to be an iteration back and forth.

I want to limit the back and forth iteration.

OK, so the changes that I will make will just reflect that I'll split out, like right now it has annual meeting.

I'll just split it to election, retreat meeting, and then regular meeting.

Sounds good.

So just one extra bullet.

OK, sounds good.

There was more to say about that?

How could we be meeting?

Any more questions about the Martha rules on this?

We do want to give you a recap of that meeting.

And then we're going to talk about the liaison.

Yes.

Is that up now?

Yes, please.

Okay.

So in that meeting, and you should have received a proposal for discussion purposes, having commissioners serve as liaisons to local organizations, I guess, groups, whatever we want to call them, that are dealing with housing.

And so all of this is very tentative, let me be clear, because I was writing what I believe the intent was, but maybe this is wrong.

So we'll talk about all of it.

But the purpose of these liaisons, as I understood it, was to listen to concerns raised in these meetings and report back to the commission.

to identify things that we should act on, and also just to develop relationships with key stakeholders to be able to present so that they know the Human Rights Commission exists, the Human Rights Office, and there's those kinds of things.

And then I was asked to pull together a list of groups, and so I pulled together a list of groups.

I think we have some things to talk about here.

One that's not on the list that maybe should be we can think about is BRAC.

The big question in my mind was the neighborhood associations.

I saw looking that you added Fry's Spring.

How can I say this?

There are neighborhood commissions that are thinking more about housing than others.

And like the Fifeville Neighborhood Association, that is a neighborhood that has been adversely impacted by all of the policies of white supremacy that have created problems in Charlottesville that we are now trying to remedy.

And they are kind of actively addressing that.

They have an anti displacement working group, right?

where other neighborhood associations are not either not thinking about housing in the same way have not historically been impacted in the same way and I kind of feel like maybe there's not a place for us to be a liaison to those neighborhood associations but I don't know what people think about that.

I don't know what people think about DSA.

They're on the ground doing the work, so I don't even know if they would welcome a human rights commissioner at the meetings or not.

We can talk about it, but it does seem like a place where we would hear a lot about what's going on.

There is, and I have asked, I don't have an answer yet if there's a meeting, there is

The Virginia Eviction BERC, which is a terrible acronym, isn't it?

Thank you.

Do you know if there's an open public meeting that people can attend?

Maybe.

So I think the pros of this is it would be good for us to know more about what's going on locally.

It would make us know earlier and be able to act more swiftly on issues that need action and would increase our collective knowledge.

The only thing against it I could think was time, workload.

So am I?

Well, I wanted to add, because I was in the meeting, so I have, you know, I have my own thoughts.

I mean, I would agree you captured it, all that we said.

Just wanted to add a little bit more context.

One of the things we had discussed about in the retreat and then we talked about in our committee meeting, Lyndele had to leave.

She's not feeling well.

So just clear, she's okay.

She just had to leave.

We wanted to advocate and not just uplift the voices and just verbiage, like this is what they're saying, but what's the best way to really hear who's on the ground and what's needed than to

We hope that as we're attending these meetings, we're coming back, we're discussing it, and if there's actionable items, then we can say, we are supporting this, we want to raise concerns to City Council, and then move that forward.

I just wanted to add, that was the intention of this, to find a better way to most effectively

uplift those voices and really understand the issues because it's like essentially we're going to the subject matter experts on this and we realize that we're not the subject matter experts but we do realize that housing is a human right issue and so we're wanting to just uplift and support the work that's currently happening in our community.

So I just wanted to add that but I want to leave open for room.

So the suggestion was that then we would use the ad hoc committee or working group meetings

that we would be strategic about planning, like if I were to be going, for example, assigned to livable seabolt, then I'd be like that representative, and there was a meeting, I'd come to our working group, and then report out to that working group, and then we can discuss then, as everyone else is reporting out into the group, what should be our next steps, is our logic there was.

So open up for discussion of people's thoughts.

So we were just trying to move,

Yeah, so I guess the action here is do we want to have these liaisons and then the second order is with which organization should we?

Do you have thoughts?

I would love to be a liaison and I think that we should do it.

Okay.

If that's what we're going on.

I don't know as much as being a liaison but as much as attending and going to the meetings to gather information to know what's going on and to make ourselves more familiarized with the processes and the hindrances and also being able to support some initiatives

that are going on as far as around affordable housing.

and one reason why we're saying liaison is so that if it's essentially just being a representative from our Human Rights Commission that's consistent I know in building community relationship it's really important in having a single point of contact that's just a consistent person and so if again if I were to point of contact or liaison the verbiage if people are not comfortable that we can change it but just that it's the same kind of person that's going on a regular basis so that we're developing a relationship with that community

So that was a liaison part of it.

But it sounds like you agree.

You just sound like the liaison.

Any other thoughts?

So do we want to discuss the ones that we want to focus on?

I was just thinking about that.

I mean, I think this would have to be a multi-stage process, right?

We agree that we're going to do this.

We can talk some more about the list.

So maybe that's what we can discuss in our discussion.

Yeah, I mean, anytime you can, if you find something or see something, you can send it out to everyone and then, you know, we can just kind of, can anybody attend?

For right now, until we get, until we find out when

How about we vote to confirm that we're going to do the liaisons and then talk about which

I'm running it, sorry.

I'm trying to find the Martha rules I was doing, which I should be doing.

Catherine, give me a minute.

The pressure.

So we've discussed this and now this is up for

vote.

We just... Well, we need to do that because we have the Virginia law situation.

So Todd's still going to do roll call.

Let me be clear.

The point of the straw poll is to know if we need to do anything more.

And we don't need to do a roll call for that.

I'm just clarifying the Martha's rules thing.

The first vote is not a binding vote.

The first vote is a sense of the meeting, like how much time do we need to spend on this?

Oh, okay.

To simplify, the question is, is anyone opposed?

Because if no one's opposed, then you can skip step seven and go to step eight and take a roll call vote.

You want to pose?

No.

Roll call vote.

Here we go.

Let's go.

Sounds good.

Do I say it just approved in favor?

Yep, we're doing the roll call vote.

So yes, or whatever you want.

Approved.

Ernest?

and Mary Wolfgang.

Let's go.

I like that one.

Blasco is a good one.

Andy?

Yes.

You're going to move forward with the liaisons.

Now, do we want to take time in this meeting to talk about this list?

I'm happy to work on finding meeting times and if people have other things they want to email me

I'm going to attend it with your authorization.

I'm not declaring myself a liaison, but I'm just going to go to that one and we can take it from there.

Doesn't it sound like you're trying to make yourself a liaison?

I will abdicate if someone else is more called.

Great.

I love that stuff.

Why do you think I'm here?

I love this stuff.

We're boring now?

Just insult to injury.

We talked about teams.

Got us all worked up.

Planning on the calendar.

I am gonna brush up on Martha's rules.

But it sounds like in the future if we do have something

Yeah, I mean we could, I think Kathryn's format was good.

You know, if you have proposal at the top, the specific thing you're voting on, and then the background below, that's perfect.

And then I'll list it on the agenda.

I can put asterisk.

I don't think I understood that you were proposing this for a vote this time, so.

I thought asterisk always meant that that was something we had to vote on.

Yeah, action needed.

We're figuring it out as we go, we're figuring it out together.

Alright, any, so I'll summarize at the end.

Is there any more discussion about this?

They're like, I'm not coming in anymore.

Log off.

End call.

End for all.

All right.

Sure.

So as part of the meeting, the ad hoc meeting, I was asked to write up kind of a proposal based on what we sort of discussed about what we should focus on related to housing issues.

So I did that, although I just reread it now and I would rewrite several lines.

But I drafted it as like a place to start.

You know, I realize in reading it,

I was just going to propose that.

Okay.

That sounds good.

This is great.

We have it and we will read it and we can see the work meeting ready to work on this.

Sounds good.

No problem.

Yep.

Okay.

Prior to the work meeting, would you mind circulating it as an editable document?

Editable?

You know what I mean.

It's a Word document.

Oh, okay.

I'm just looking at the

I'm assuming you have the agenda version, but if I have it then great.

This is the kind of thing that should be in a resolution in the sense that you guys have agreed that this is your focus for the year, so it's like a whereas kind of thing.

This is how it fits into telling the public what you're doing.

So this would be a good resolution thing.

I wasn't asked to draft a resolution.

Yeah, she did not.

I was asked to draft both points.

Yes.

Please send it to us.

Okay.

To whom should I send it?

I'll just send it to everybody?

Yes, please.

Okay.

That was the conclusion of my presentation.

Thank you for that.

I would encourage people to go look at the webinar from this week from the Mobile Seabowl.

I thought it was excellent.

Sorry, that's also too soon?

Okay.

Yes.

Apologies.

I also, if I can talk about that a little bit more, I also really appreciated how they used a lot of Arlington's experience having done really what Charlottesville is proposing to do and some of the fears that so many people who are anti-re-zoning have stated doesn't really play out in Arlington's experience and I think it would be really great to be able to demonstrate a lot of that in the

In our discussions and our conversations with stakeholders in Charlottesville, I feel like we're trying to represent people who are often marginalized in the city

But there's evidence to back up, like a problem won't happen.

The other thing I thought was useful about it is I think there's often a lot of pushback when we talk about that missing middle.

That that's market rate housing, that's not deeply affordable, right?

And that they really talked about why that's important.

And you know Sunshine's points about how expensive land is and how if you can, this is a way to get more housing.

Yeah.

Yes, that discussion of rungs on a ladder, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I attended the Charlottesville plans meeting, that's what I attended last Wednesday which is very interesting so I want to give a shout out to Jenny who was helping me out with their modules and this is their second module they put out very interesting stuff about where they're proposing putting housing in this city of Charlottesville

and the height and all that stuff.

But also, I want to give a shout out to Todd for the information he sent out from CLIC today, if you didn't see that email that he sent.

That one-pager was very useful, too.

It's giving some more information about what Charlottesville plans had up and then kind of

Anyone else?

Thank you Ernest.

All right, so next steps.

Let's see if my brain can remember all the next steps.

I am going to make edits to the rules and procedure document to send out to everyone.

And then we will be hosting our now working committee meeting on the first Thursday, which whatever that date is,

May, to move what Mary has put in summary of the housing priorities into resolution and to discuss as Kathryn will prepare for us the meeting times for the groups that we may be of interest to be liaisons to.

Did I capture it?

That was all the action items.

And then Todd will be sending us information out for the, in Victoria about the voiceovers, right?

Okay.

Thanks, Jessica.

Spirit hands.