Video Description:
Housing and Human Services Advisory Board Meeting – January 14, 2021
For a transcript of the meeting, please read below:
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Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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https://otter.ai/u/5myLNeII2IxcjBMLlpC5CSN_Z_Q
0:00
Well, let’s go ahead and get started then. So it is 659. And I’ll call the meeting to order. And I am very pleased to start by welcoming our new board member Kimberly, welcome. Pleasure to have you here.
0:17
Thank you.
0:18
Yeah, would you mind just giving us like a 32nd kind of background on who you are and what compelled you to join? Sure.
0:27
My name is Kimberly string guy, you
0:29
can call me Kim. I’ve been a part of the Longmont community for almost 17 years. I live here with my husband and my two daughters. I have a sophomore at Longmont high and an eighth grader at Westview. So we’re definitely part of the community love living in Longmont. And professionally, I’m a public health nurse. And so I feel like the work that the advisory board is a part of and promotes, really feeds back into the needs that I see for so many families
1:04
and supports that the work that I do, so I wanted to get involved.
1:08
Terrific. Thank you so much. And thank you for your work in public health. Hopefully the rest of this year will be a little smoother than than last year for you
1:20
hoping so I got my COVID vaccine today. So we’re headed in the right direction.
1:27
Well give me a call when you you know get to that point where you’re like it’s time to close the clinic but we got some extra hours left and we don’t want to wait.
1:36
I’ll keep you in mind.
1:39
Not necessary, though. And let’s see. Sondra Welcome. Good to see you again. And we have Molly I know waiting. So Molly, nice to see you as well. Do we have Nicole? Is there any public? That’s waiting? Okay, terrific. Then let’s go ahead and the minutes were distributed in advance of the meeting the minutes from our December meeting ultimates December 10 and December 22. So I would ask if there is a motion to approve the December 10 and December 22 minute meetings. Caitlin so moves Is there a second? Deanna is the second on that you’ll have to arm wrestle with Graham, but I think Jani was first on that one. And any discussion, any questions? content you feel needs to be corrected? Okay, then All in favor, please raise your hand if you are on video. And I suppose speak up if you’re not, but we I think everybody’s on video from the board. Okay, terrific. Okay, the minutes are approved. Our next and perhaps most important piece of business for the entire year really is designating the 2021 housing and Human Services Advisory Board meetings posting location.
3:19
Dun dun dun.
3:22
So.
3:23
So Brian, may I add a comment about the first item?
3:29
Yes.
3:30
So and so I think for Kimberly’s benefit. This This really is a requirement by Colorado Open Meetings law that we do this, you know, every year at our first meeting of the year, and my understanding and Nicole you can add to this is that is that what is being recommended? So it’s a little different, Brian is a different strategy. Is that the online you know, we have our online portal for all of our advisory boards. And so our the recommendation I think from our city attorney is that that we make sure that that is our official posting place. And then we could also have a physical posting place as we have in the past which has been in the the West entrance of the Longmont Civic Center. Did I get that correct, Nicole?
4:27
Yes. So
4:28
basically what we want to do Brian is we want to make the formal the formal posting place the web
4:35
with a backup posting place which I will post in both locations as the correct me if I’m wrong, because I still get directions the West entrance
4:45
to the Civic Center. So really, it’s the website is going to be our formal and I see Polly has her hand up. So I think there’s probably some good information
4:51
there. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Christiansen
4:56
just to clarify, this was a change in state law. Allowing the the use of the web is there as a possibility. So pretty much all of our departments, including city council are making that but we’re also using a backup because a lot of people actually don’t have computers or right. Live so.
5:22
Great. Thank you for that. So the proposed location is the primary location is the website, the city website, and the secondary location is the West entrance to the municipal building. Is there a motion to approve those two locations with the online being the primary? Where’s all the enthusiasm that something come on? All right, Caitlin. Makes the motion. And Deanna seconds, and any discussion on that? All right. Well, I For my part, I’m glad to see some of the government entities moving forward into the mid 20th century and recognizing online as being a real thing. But also, I do recognize the value in having that physical posting, although I typically don’t know that I’ve ever seen it. Okay, so all in favor, please? Raise your hand signify by raising your hand.
6:38
Got it. Nicole? Great. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, the Motion passes. And the meeting, postings will happen online and at the West entrance. Okay, now we’re getting into the meat of the matter. So we’re going to quickly move on to the human service agency funding recommendations. Ellie, Roberto and Karen are going to take this and I do have a conflict. So at some point, I will recuse myself and Karen or liberto, I assume you will tell. You know, give the signal when that happens. And then Nicole, you’ll put me in the waiting room.
7:24
So I don’t mess it up. Okay.
7:25
Okay. Thank you. Okay, I’ll give the floor to Karen and Alberto
7:33
Alberto jars.
7:35
I was just waiting on who’s taking the lead on this one? Um, well, thank you, Chair. So just to recap, we’ve had multiple conversations on this piece. And I just wanted to quickly go over two changes. One was directed by the board. And one, as Karen wrote, in her email, I discovered as I was finalizing the numbers. So as directed by the board, if you all have that PDF in front of you, I had to find a way to redistribute the $68,000 in aid or $68,008, that was leftover when the board chose that specific matrix. And so I didn’t put all my calculations in there. But I do want to give you just a quick brief, what what how I made the decisions I made to it. So basically, at that time, what we had was that health and well being had 74% of it had had been allotted or allocated 74% of the area allocation that the board had voted on previously. And Safety and Justice have 50%. And so I’ve I wanted to try and get that more equitable or more on par. And so what I ended up doing with the 21,007 58 that was left over when the board had asked to fully fund the housing stability agencies, we had $21,758 left to allocate. I broke that up 60% to Safety and Justice and 40% to health and well being. That wasn’t a decision I could have gotten 7525 but I chose 6040 and what that did, was that that brought It did, it did increase. So what ended up doing was that Safety and Justice got 13,055. And health and wellbeing got 8703. And it moved health and well being closer to its area allocation of 80 to 80% of it, and it moves Safety and Justice to 65 when not 15 points for, for Safety and Justice, and it went up six points for for health and well being. So that was the first added dollars, because of what the choice meant. And then then was my my discovery that an agency had when you combine both programs had received more than what the actual limit in the area was. So I had to figure out a way how to address that. And so I won’t go too much, because that there’s a lot in the memo that that Karen sent out if you have questions about the memo, but I basically described my process, what I looked at, I looked at scores, and I looked at percentage of allocation, which program had and I then then I distributed that way, I made that choice that we’re going to distribute it based on the percentage because the scores were left the agency at the 50% mark anyways, it didn’t really make that huge of a difference, you know, there was a difference in the scores. But it didn’t make that much of a difference. So then that’s how I chose to, to allocate those dollars. And then that gets us to our 877455 amount. And because it’s in the memo, I think I’m pretty sure that it tells us I’m looking at it right now. It tells us that now, we’re even closer to them meeting there. And I didn’t put percentages on my apologies. But you can see in that last paragraph, how much closer health and well being is to it is is how much is underspend and we we we’ve again moved into closer to get get them to parity with the
12:24
area allocation that the board had decided on when we when we first created when we first did their priorities. So there any questions about how I got to these numbers?
12:41
Any questions for me Berto? Real quick, sorry, Karen, for Kim’s benefit. Did you cover the this process in the orientation? I’m presuming we did. We did.
12:55
Yeah, it was it was fast. But you know, like Kim, read the whole notebook. I’m just saying what?
13:03
Can you share? What’s in it with me?
13:07
Good stuff.
13:08
Yeah. Yeah. So I think but I think maybe before we continue on further with the discussion, it’s probably time for Brian to go to the room. And and have Katelyn take over the the facilitation of the part of the meeting.
13:27
If I may just make one comment on the general process. not related to any of the specific changes. We did talk. Karen and I briefly about after the we vote, we you know, we gave direction on how to pursue the model. And one of the things that came up was, we chose as a board to go with the version that had the most funding leftover to be redistributed, where there was a pretty large as a $65,007 gap, versus the version on the other end that had very little to be redistrict redistributed, but it would be taking away from a few agencies. And I think for the next time we go through this, because the framework is a living, dynamic framework. And it adjusts in time to immediate circumstances. But also we’ll adjust it over time just to improve as we go along. That’s just something to think about that maybe the the one that had the closest was closest to the target had the higher fidelity to the intention of the model, the greater fidelity however, I you know, I felt that the recognition that housing was such a critical issue this year and required, we really wanted to make sure it got as much support as possible. going the other way allowed us to do that. That. So that is just simply an observation that for next year, we should keep that dynamic in mind as we have that discussion in terms of which of these is closest to the intended outcome of the model. Caitlin? Yeah, I
15:16
wanted to add a general comment to while you’re here, Brian, is, because I’ve been thinking this is kind of enrolling in my head for a little bit. One thing I left our meeting thinking about was that some of the way that we do our scoring, it basically scores an agency that’s requesting a couple $1,000, in the same way that we score an agency that’s requesting $150,000. And our determination of yes, no, or like what percentage of funding they get is identical for those two things. But I think that like the risk, to sit the city’s money in those two cases is very different. Right, like giving an agency that is not well established, that doesn’t have lots of internal controls. $150,000 is much different than giving, you know, a new initiative in the city, a couple $1,000 to see if they can make any progress. And so that’s one thing that I would like us, like, I don’t want to change what we’ve done. But it’s something that I think would be worth us thinking about the next round. We do think about whether we want to do something some some scale, I don’t know what makes sense, right? Now, we have a wild to think about it. But I’d love to see what maybe other places consider with that, because I’m just thinking about some of the things where someone came up with a really novel, thing, they’re brand new, and they maybe need a little help from the city to try to get it going. And giving you know, 1500 a couple $1,000 is not that, you know, it’s not as concerning as if they had come in asking for $100,000. and supporting the sort of diversifying our agencies is something that we might want to consider as part of what we’re trying to do. I think our individual agency limit is one way we do that. But it’s not the only way we have to do that.
17:19
Yeah, that’s a good point. And I know other organizations that I’ve participated with who fund money will occasionally have kind of what would be considered more a high risk set aside. So x percentage of the funding will be held for those agents like something that uniquely meets the needs, but doesn’t have some of the history doesn’t have some of the structure, etc. So I think that’s certainly something worth considering. For our next round. Any other comments about provoked before we move on, and I drop sent to the waiting room?
17:59
Yeah, I think I think I just don’t want to briefly challenge the notion that fidelity to the model is the highest good here, I think that, you know, the model is an important tool to achieve, you know, level of objectivity. But But I think that, you know, like any tool, it shouldn’t sort of rule our decisions. I think that if we find is not useful, we should be able to put it down and pick up something else. So we can talk about next year, but that’s just two cents.
18:30
Yeah, I appreciate that. And you’re right. I think to me, what it what it typically suggests is, if we’re not getting the outcomes, we want with that fidelity. Is that because the model is not quite structured properly. So but yeah, excellent point. And in fact, I feel like the outcome this year was an example of what you’re talking about. Agreed.
18:55
Caitlin,
18:57
before you leave chair, one thing I wanted to ask is, if it makes sense to talk about the initial reallocation that we had talked about the last time that’s not specific to those extra agency funds, like does it make sense to bifurcate that conversation so that you can participate in what we had direct like the, I think we had, we had extra funds left over after the model to reallocate to areas
19:21
that are discussing the decisions that Alberto liberto made with the 21,001st. Yes. Do you Karen, do you foresee any conflict and doing that and then having the next part of the discussion where I would leave eating specifically about those,
19:40
but I think the sooner you leave probably the better if you know what I mean?
19:44
I don’t mean my wife I mean
19:49
I just think bugging out as we are continuing these final, you know, unless you have something specifically that you want. No, no,
19:58
I it’s all of these Decisions are in good hands. Yes,
20:01
I think it’s time to go to the room. And and then Caitlin, if you would help facilitate as Vice Chair, that would be great.
20:11
Not a problem, I see that Brian has now entered the waiting room. He’s
20:14
gotten to the
20:17
I really want to get music. I wish I was more techie because I totally get music like dun dun.
20:22
Yeah.
20:24
Okay, so, um, and Brian’s going to room Kimberly, because he is he has a conflict with kind of a love interest or he, one of his agency he runs is in the running for funding.
20:38
Yes. And the topic of the memo that Ellie bear tested out about an agency hitting the low the maximum funding level for the area they were in. So I just want to
20:51
quickly apologize, because I didn’t see that right away. And so, um, have you got it, but I wish I would have seen it at first. So my apologies for that board.
21:02
Thank you. Are there any questions or comments that folks have about the way the additional funds have been allocated between the different impact areas as well as the agencies?
21:24
One question I had
21:26
liberto is, is understanding. what it looks like to me is that you pretty much took those extra funds and divided them fairly evenly, but I’m not
21:39
not not fair. 60 6040 6040.
21:43
So it was 60% housing stability,
21:46
I don’t know how the stability with the board decided to just fully fund it. Okay, that was the only the only ones that I actually did any type of ratio was the 21 758 that was left over after I fully funded the housing stability section.
22:05
Got it and you split it between the two and then within the category, split it evenly between agencies that were
22:11
the board had said to take scores into consideration. So the higher scores received, I divided it, I looked at the scores and the ones with the higher scores were were made. Got a little more, and then then the rest are divided evenly. Okay.
22:33
Are there any other any questions or points of clarification around that from anyone?
22:44
Okay,
22:45
any any comments or conversation we need to have about the recommendation for Boulder County the additional funds that we had initially allocated for Boulder County farmers market and the reallocation of those funds.
23:08
Okay,
23:10
seeing none, is there a motion to accept the staff recommendation for this reallocation of funds?
23:20
approve.
23:21
Motion to approve?
23:23
Is there a second? Deanna? Okay. Any discussion about
23:29
the vote?
23:31
Seeing none All in favor of approving staff recommendations for additional funding? Please raise your hand. Okay.
23:46
All opposed. And Nicole, you want to acknowledge one abstention?
23:53
Okay.
23:55
Then I think we are done with twin Caitlin.
23:57
Yeah, I would suggest is, again, with Brian still in the room that you you make a motion to, you know, to adapt the full slate of funding recommendations for 2021. Well, he’s
24:11
not here. You said rats. Okay. Are there any other questions or discussion about the full slate of funding? Seeing and Do we have a motion to approve the full slate of funding recommendations to council?
24:28
Okay, Karen has
24:29
So moved. Do I have a second? Chiquita. Okay. All in favor, please raise your hand. Okay.
24:41
Looks like we’re unanimous. Without Brian.
24:46
Brian has has abstained from from this. So I think that concludes the business that he may not be in the room for
24:56
if he can be back in the room, but I’d like to make a statement to the board.
25:00
Want me to bring Brian back in Alberto?
25:03
I’m fine with that.
25:04
Okay, everybody, okay? Yeah. Okay, I’m
25:06
bringing Elliot bridges gonna say,
25:09
I know, right?
25:11
I think I’m okay.
25:14
Here he comes guys.
25:20
And you’re back chair.
25:22
Welcome back. Right, I just told this board, I just want to make a quick statement to the board before we go on to the next business. And what I want to say, all I want to say is thank you This has been a challenging process, not only because of the delay due to pandemics and the challenges with hearings, I really have appreciated the very thoughtful conversations around the model. And I look forward to having even more conversations and and being. And I am very willing to look at other models and think about what best serves our community members with this funding. So I just want to give my formal thanks to the board for the work that you have done and the guidance and direction you have provided. So that’s it.
26:17
Am I back in the game or am I still supposed to be super short? Okay, Deana
26:26
I guess I don’t want to derail the conversation and Bogart Alberto’s lovely statement. But I also just wanted to echo that as my first year on the board. That staff has been phenomenal. And I just wanted to really express thanks for guiding me through this process, because I really had no idea what I was getting into. And I would not have had such an easy time with this. We’re not for staff. So really just thank you very, very much for all of your hard work. It’s a huge benefit to our community. And I appreciate you very, very much.
26:56
Thank you, Deanna. Thank you as well. Oh, Ellie, Bert. Oh, Caitlin. Yeah, I
27:01
just wanted to echo what Deanna said, I really appreciate staffs dedication to helping make sure that this process goes forward. But also willingness to listen and hear various viewpoints. I know, sometimes it can be like, Oh, my gosh, like board members aren’t as close to some of this as we are. And I really appreciate your patience in explaining and helping us better understand it, but also being willing to see you know, how we can improve it for the community. I think that it’s a reflection of how incredible The staff is for the city that you all continue to do this year after year. And help us improve it each time.
27:42
Yeah, thank you, Caitlin.
27:45
I echo that. You guys are awesome. You know how I feel about you. You definitely patient with me? That’s for sure. I appreciate it. I don’t know what Deanna talking about easy. It wasn’t easy for me. I’m here.
28:00
And we’re glad Chiquita.
28:04
Same with me it Oh, did all that. So thank you.
28:08
Great. It does feel like it’s been a nice healthy level of board activity and engagement. And I’m glad that we’ve had some support from the staff to really make that productive. Karen
28:27
so the so the only thing that I’ll add to kind of put a bow on this is that we will make these present these recommendations to city council at the January 26. Meeting. So so we’ll be doing some Alberto’s been working on the council communication. You know, we’ll load in this final the final set of recommendations, and we’ll do a final review over the weekend. And, and then we’ll send that out to you. So you’ll have that. But the 26th of January will be our our presentation of those recommendations, FYI. Wonderful, thank
29:07
you. Okay, terrific. And I just want to make sure I’m looking at the correct agenda here. So there we go. So we are we ready to move on to our next agenda item. Thank you. So let’s move on to the TRG recommendation for the additional funding for the sinnamon Park project. Kathy, will you introduce that? Yep.
29:33
So
29:36
this project came in outside of the process to a certain extent they The last time we opened up the application cycle back in 2020. October, November, I can’t remember exactly when they didn’t have a good handle, yet on the changes to their financials. So when they did, they came in and we agreed that they should be considered outside of our normal process. So that’s why you’re seeing this a little bit differently than than normal. So I will ask Molly to just kind of summarize what has happened and TRG met really quickly. Thank you TRG for hopping right on this and reviewing and giving a recommendation so that we could give this to you at your regular meeting, and then hopefully have a recommendation to take to council again at the January 26 meeting so that they get an answer as quickly as possible. If, if the recommendation is to move forward. So Molly, you want to summarize for us? Sure. So they requested an additional $250,000 for their sinnamon, Park applique, our project, which will have 25 Senior apartments, so they did receive an award in 2019, also for 250,000. And part of the reason for the request is the increase in construction costs, especially in lumber due to wildfires and hurricanes, as well as a decrease in the pricing that they’ve received for their tax credits. So TRG met just on Monday. And so you got their their recommendation today. So you may not have had a chance to review it. But the TRG does recommend funding them for an additional 250,000 at the same loan terms, which would be 0%. repaid over excuse me, 40 years. TRG had one follow up question for senior housing options to wanting just to make sure that they were contributing on the maximum that they were able to contribute to the project. And the consultant for the project confirmed that they could contribute a bit more, but then it It changed things that made it a little less financially feasible for the project.
32:09
anyone have any
32:10
questions?
32:12
Thank you, Molly Graham.
32:14
Yes, the 25 total units 21 of which are mere units, it looks like they’re not studios. So I assume they’re missing kitchens, or showers or something to round them out as fully sustainable units. But do each of those 21 count one for one toward the affordable housing? You know, initiative that you know, we have a certain number we need to we want to hit every year. Is that a one for one count there?
32:44
Yes, because all of the units are going to be below 60% of the area median income. So they do have a mix of studios in in the one bedrooms.
32:56
Okay, and those are those are permanently affordable or just for the 40 year term of the loan.
33:02
They are permanently affordable,
33:04
permanently affordable. Okay. Great. And then my final question is what happens to the project? If we say no?
33:14
What happens to the project? If they say if you guys say no, they have the opportunity to go back to chafa, the Colorado housing and Finance Authority who has awarded them the tax credits, to potentially see about getting additional tax credits, the consultant is reluctant to do that, if possible, because it’s generally frowned upon by chafa. If a project needs to come back, that they haven’t didn’t get their their budget correct the first time around. So that’s what she would try and do if this funding didn’t come through. And it should be noted that they did go back to all of their other funders, except for chafa. The states to get additional funding as well as applied and received Boulder County where they cause funds, as well. So they’ve worked at maximizing all sources. Thank you.
34:09
Thanks, Graham. Anybody else with questions? Mali, I had a question on the I forget the term for the developer, the component that was decreased in value, the developer, the deferred developer fee, thank you the different Can you describe that? Not sure I really understand it.
34:34
So as the developer of the project, they will get paid. I think it’s about $950,000 that as the developer they will get and for tax credit properties, a certain percentage of it is not paid off. It’s not all paid out all at once at the end of the project. So they can be repaid from the cash flow of the project over 10 to 12 years. So they Get up a certain percent each year. That’s the specific fee that the TRG wanted to make sure that project was putting in the maximum that they could
35:12
to contribute to the project.
35:15
So the the project, is this the developers income fundamentally on the on the project? Yes. Okay. So they’re going in, in exchange for them doing the development, they get this amount of income off of it, which can be over time. And how does how does the decrease in value result in having to ask for more money? And I should find the dis. I think I’m not being clear. I’m wondering if you’re talking
35:51
about the decrease in the tax credit pricing the tax credit
35:55
price, you know, was it?
35:57
Yeah, so
36:00
I’m less knowledgeable about that. But the, the investor that they are working with, at one point had the pricing was that I think 96 cents per dollar. And now it’s down to 89 cents. So the consultant said that that was due to uncertainty in the market. So they are getting less for less money for the tax credits that they’ve been awarded by chafa.
36:30
Okay. And you’re right, it wasn’t now that I found the memo. It’s, it was the tax credits. Okay, that’s helpful. Thank you.
36:39
So right now, I would just add, this isn’t uncommon. We flew the LA Jay just went through a rehab and refinance project at Aspen Meadows apartments, and the initial investor actually pulled out. And we had to get a whole new investor in the middle of the project. And the amount of tax credits that we received was slightly less, it wasn’t as big of a gap but slightly less. So right now, it’s a more of a volatile market with some of the uncertainties that are happening around COVID. And just generally increasing construction costs across the the United States. So it’s not an uncommon thing right now. It used to be man you could just count on and the prices just kept going up and up. So you had needed less than less of the other funding. That was a long while ago. good old days, we call him. So this is I just would say it’s not unique to this particular project.
37:43
Okay. Thank you. And I’m surprised that Chapo wouldn’t recognize that people couldn’t anticipate wildfires that would drive up the cost of construction. But as an agency, I’m sure they have all their own restrictions, and I can understand that wouldn’t be necessarily the easiest route to take. Any other questions for Molly or Kathy? No. Okay. Is there a motion to approve this new application as recommended by the TRG?
38:20
Graeme so moves Is there a second? Kaitlyn? Any further discussion? Okay, all in favor of approving the application as recommended by TRG? Please raise your hand. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, the Motion passes.
38:52
Thank you.
38:54
Yeah, thank you.
38:59
All right.
39:02
Go back to my other computer screen now. Alright, so this is the agenda item eight discussion of potential advisory board, work plan items for 2021.
39:21
So I’ll start this conversation. So usually, you know, what we do is, is bring forward kind of a roadmap of activities that we scheduled out throughout the year for each of our advisory board meetings. And and so but we and so we will do that in February, but we thought we would open it up to conversation with the advisory board about what you are, what you are thinking. Some of you have had your first year under your belt some of you’ve had a few years kimberleys read the whole book. So, so anyhow. So we certainly will plug in the typical things that will come before you in terms of applications and those kinds of things. You know, we also, we also started to hear some suggestions about the, you know, modifying or revisiting the decision making matrix for for human service agency funding. So, you might want to have an opportunity to talk a little bit more about that or other ideas that you think would be important for this advisory board to address and consider in 2021, in addition to your, your typical work with housing and Human Service Agency funding applications. Elbert, did you have a comment? Or that you raised? You
41:01
have ideas, but I’m gonna wait.
41:03
Okay. All right.
41:05
All right, Caitlin, and then Deanna.
41:08
And I appreciate the opportunity for us to think about this, I think it’s great, I had two things that I was thinking of. And one, I think, when we were doing when we were doing the deliberations about funding, one of the things that came up was potentially changing how we sort of put out the call for applications to give folks more information about what our key priority areas are. And so one thing I think might be useful is to, to get ahead of that to think about what came out of that human needs assessment that we got sort of midway through last year, to really be able to encourage additional applicants, for example, or more for things that are like really high priority for the city, rather than it just being sort of like agencies throw what they think they need, and whether that program meets or doesn’t meet those high, high need areas. So I think it’d be good to discuss that. The other thing that I was thinking of that I thought what might be really useful is to do something where we hear from folks who have received services from the agencies. So a lot of what we do is we talk to the agencies themselves. So we do site visits, virtual or otherwise with those folks, but we don’t necessarily hear from folks who have engaged with the agency, and what their experiences are. And I think that that could be really meaningful. One of the reasons I say this is sometimes I hear sort of anecdotal things through social media, or through friends of friends, about people’s experiences with various agencies. And it’s hard to, it’s hard to know, like whether that’s a real representation. And not to say that it’s not real, but because people experience things differently, but I think that it would be meaningful to talk to folks, particularly if we know that we’re trying to address certain needs is making sure that we’re actually talking to people who have those needs and whether these agencies are meeting the needs that they’ve expressed.
43:21
Great idea. Thank you, Caitlin, Deana
43:24
I was just going to echo back to what we were talking about at the beginning, in terms of the model that I really would like to spend some time developing, thinking about the model that we’ve been using, and whether that makes sense. And and I think that doing that, at the beginning of the year, when it’s still more fresh in our brains probably makes sense to because I think I will be more attuned to remembering some of maybe the concerns I had about the model that we used, if we talk about it before October.
43:52
Yeah. Yeah. Great point. Anybody else? Thoughts on workplan? items? liberto.
44:04
So I think my my thoughts actually really pair well, with both what Caitlin and what Deanna said. So I, and I wrote these down for Karen and I sent her a draft some ideas. So one of the things I think we could do, is in that in that piece, so this year’s this human service needs assessment, was a good human service needs assessment. But it was challenging to use it to, to really delve deeper into their priorities. And so one of the things I’d like to work with work on this year, and I’d love to get support for the board. gotta figure out how that happens a lot, mostly in the past, it feels like staffs done it and that’s fine. But if there was a way to get support from the board, I would appreciate it is to really take that human service needs assessment, and think about how We engage with our community more to help, you know, for lack of a better word distill data or or ideas that will help us or inform us better around our priority setting. So to Caitlin’s point, you know, how do we engage with the folks that are receiving services? You know, having done this human service needs assessment, how can we engage folks saying, hey, here is what the city of Longmont has learned? And how it helps us helps us set our priorities for funding, you know, so just thinking about that, I think would be what is something that I that I want to work on this year. And, and, and, and again, I’m not sure exactly how the board is engaged in this. But that’s, that’s, that’s one thing. And then that would lead to once we do that, then to the Anna’s point, depending on what we learn, and where the data leads us. And where the input from the community leads us, then I think we use that to reevaluate the model to see where, you know, if the model that we’ve been using to Brian’s earlier point, it doesn’t have fidelity to the needs, right, does it does it clearly connect to the needs, and I and I agree to a certain extent with grammar about, you know, ultimately, you know, it is a tool. But what I would say to that it’s a tool that does a couple of things. It helps us organize our thoughts. Not that it’s the end all be all, it is just a tool, but it helps us organize your thoughts. And it helps us defend our decisions to a certain extent as well, because it’s a formulaic process. And so I think those are two key things about this tool. But again, I agree with Graham, it is a tool, and we could have other tools to use. So those are my my two thoughts that I’ve written them down for Karen to think as well, but I just wanted to share that with the board.
47:12
Thank you. Councilmember Christiansen,
47:18
um, in looking over the Boulder County assessment, needs assessment. on housing, you know, it seems to me that our we need to do something to encourage home ownership, because the the number of people who are housing cost burdened and severely cost burdened, is half for people who own a home. And that would be, you know, it would be enormous if we could, we lost a lot of homeownership in the meltdown of the 19 2007 2008. We lost a huge amount of home ownership, through foreclosures and various other things. And if we could get some of that back, it would be an enormous help. Because there’s nothing more important to the stability of an individual or a family than home than having a home. And you’re far better off. If you own a home. Everybody knows that. But not everybody can get there. But what we need to do is try and figure out ways we can help people who might be able to get their get over the line so that they can get there. They’ll be better off their whole life if they have a home.
48:46
Thank you. Other suggestions? observations? Yes, Kim?
48:54
Um, how often does research around best practices for interventions come in to the ranking system in terms of maintaining homeownership or assisting with rental programs? Where is the money best spent? And I guess that comes through a lot of research and that evidence base results of what’s working? Well, that part of the process that’s been used in the past?
49:25
I,
49:26
I’m gonna let Karen or le bear to answer that.
49:30
So yeah, well, I’m gonna speak not to the human service agency side, even though we are we are working to become more evaluative and data driven on that side as well. But so for example, for and I mentioned this during our orientation, I closely work with Dr. Center to look at evaluating the home study program. We meet on a monthly basis. I get, I get data from them, I actually help them create more longitudinal survey that it didn’t have at the beginning, we work together to draft it. And so, you know, there isn’t, I would say that under under more targeted funding, which is our housing Stabilization Fund, and our homelessness, there is a lot of learning always happening. In HSBC, we have monthly meetings that look at how we’re implementing the system. We are, you know, we’re constantly trying to learn to improve. We do look at best practices, for example, diversion, when we brought that in, we lived all over the country, we brought somebody from, I think, Chicago to come and train our folks on that. So I would say that, yes, that in that area, in that funding it does. We do put a lot of effort into evaluation and monitoring, performance management.
50:58
Thank you. So why don’t I want to make sure everybody gets a chance here, or is provoked to provide some feedback on this particular topic. So let’s go with Graham, then we’ll go to Karen Phillips, and then Chiquita,
51:15
unprovoked Ryan. Like, I like all the ideas. I’m also wondering if maybe we could spend a minute talking about the city budget overall, and the percentage that housing and Human Services takes up, and then maybe just spitball or have an open conversation about, you know, what might we be able to think about or do or suggest to Council of shifting perception around that or or thinking about increasing funding? I think that the needs assessment did support, you know, evidence base that, you know, this, this area of the community needs more funding, you know, to support these various needs new needs, you know, that just magnify the issue. So, maybe conversation around that.
52:09
And grammar, he’s suggesting that that be a topic for this year’s work plan or something that happens tonight? No,
52:16
this year’s work plan, just, you know, on the agenda, yeah.
52:20
Great. Thank you. Thank you. Karen Phillips?
52:26
No, I don’t know if we’re allowed to think about, you know, the homeless and the, you know, do we involve ourselves with that, and then the the mental health, you know, the mental health and homelessness that that goes on? And now we have this current that people can’t live in there are bees? And what you know, can we help that out? Or do we work on that? Or is that just something that another agency takes care of? Or how do we, you know, that’s my concern is the hopeless and the mental health? Yeah. And that whole, you know, problem of people that don’t want to do you know, that there are services they could go to, but they don’t want to, and how do we, how do we help that out?
53:10
Yes. Okay, that’s my concern. Karen. Ronnie,
53:19
I think a couple things. And what I wanted to just comment on, you know, Kim’s question about best practice research, you know, I would say, yes, there are some areas where we do that as staff. But we don’t, we don’t do that. On a broad brush level, what we do is that we ask agencies in the application to tell us about the best practice research that they have conducted, or how is the service that they have provided a line with best practice or promising approaches or whatever. So so we do, maybe spend some selected time as staff doing best practice research. If you would like us to consider doing more or adding that into the mix. I put that on the list for discussion. But I did want to clarify that there are some areas where we do that. And there that I would say the majority of the areas, we asked the agencies to demonstrate to us how they are doing that. So and then I think, to Karen Phillips, you know, we could if that if that’s a desire that we could bring back more regular updates on, you know, on the work that we are doing in terms of homelessness prevention and intervention, you know, because half of the set aside money for human service, Human Services, is invested differently. So it’s it’s not something that the advisory board, you know, you don’t consider individual applications and those kinds of things for funding that particular service as far as homeless prevention and homeless intervention. So, so we certainly could look at how we make that a more regular topic or update on our, on our agendas, so that you are more in the loop and you can provide more guidance and inputs. That That certainly seems like something we could we could absolutely do. Great.
55:32
Thank you, Karen. Chiquita.
55:36
I think Kathy had her hand up. Kathy, did you want to say something? No,
55:41
I’m sorry. Did I miss somebody?
55:42
Oh, okay. I thought she had her hand up earlier. Okay, um, no, everyone. To me, every everything that everyone has mentioned is really good. I think I agree with everything. I do want to make sure that we take into account the technical divide, next year, and all the challenges of these organizations have to move forward. Due to COVID, you know, new systems in place now, you know, all of these new changes that are totally different. You know, so I’m pretty sure a lot of organizations lost money because they had to put money into their business because of going virtually, equipment, things like that. Normally, we probably wouldn’t look at, but I do want to make sure that we take take that into effect when we think about funding for these organizations. Next go around. Great,
56:47
thank you, Shakira. My I’ll add just a little bit that’s kind of massaging around some of what’s already been discussed. The I really like the idea of revisiting the needs assessment. And I think what I heard and what you’re describing, Alberto is, is kind of getting a more concise idea of how that actually would best manifest in the city of Longmont or to benefit city of Longmont residents. Because to Councilmember Christensen’s point, I mean, it’s one thing to say we need more housing, but is it actually more ownership? Or is it lower rental? Or you know, what, what exactly does that mean? And we’ve always relied, I think, not unwisely, but you know, there’s wisdom and rely on the agencies to provide direction. But running an agency, I’m also well aware that it’s very easy to get stuck in this is what we do. And this is how we do it. And we’ve always done it that way. And that doesn’t mean we’re necessarily adapting to what we need today. So the city, the city providing some leadership on that would make sense. And I think that also does tie in to Caitlin, what you were suggesting with, you know, part of that process is kind of the gut check of is it actually helping the people it’s intended to help? And having some maybe external evaluation process? I I also know that we have to be careful to, you know, I understand who we’re talking with, what the you know, it’s like there’s context to everything that happens. And I think it can be dangerous, just to start pulling people and asking questions and taking everything they say, at face value, because we don’t know what the history is. But there is a process there. That makes sense. For sure. And I also wonder, just finally, because we we go to the city, we go to city council to ask money base for money based on the general budget as a percentage. And that’s how we have figured out how much we’re getting now, because we had one negotiation already that said, Hey, we should get a little bit more. And we ended up to where we are, which I’m grateful for. But I also like I was just reading that the Biden administration is proposing an additional $1.9 trillion relief package when there’s that transition. And I wonder, to what extent can we Is it possible that we as an agency in this particular time, with so much need, can somehow support applications to some of this external funding that would come in and then be distributed to agencies for the work they do? Because maybe it is in a better position to receive some of that funding. Clearly a lot of that funding is gonna go from federal to the state and down to agencies. So it’s just a thought I, I don’t even know if that’s a possibility. And liberto.
1:00:15
We have done some of that with our the cares act dollars, I will say. And Kathy, I mean, Kathy knows this much more than I do. It is very complicated. And I am still working through this even now, and learning so much as I go through this. And so, yes. And I would say even agencies need to be careful about accepting these dollars, because, you know, there’s there’s a lot of strings attached when it comes to federal funding. Yeah.
1:00:51
Thank you, Kathy.
1:00:53
Yeah, I would just add, we’ve been watching all the funding that’s been coming down. And, for instance, there’s additional funding that’s in the last bill that was passed to give rent assistance or emergency rent assistance funding to communities over 200,000. So we immediately went on the attack and said, Hey, why are you doing that? And how can we, you know, communities are smaller, still have needs, etc, etc. Anyway, long story short, partnered with our, the Boulder County folks, the Broomfield county folks. And Boulder County is actually going to get a direct allocation, which they will trickle down into the agencies and already have a whole system set up to distribute funding. So that’s going to, you know, benefit our community greatly. And then we’re going to partner to try and help get Broomfield through the state funding. So I would just let you know that we’re keeping an eye on it. And it is complicated. And we’re trying to maximize what our community being Boulder County and all the communities within it get. And to disperse the funds in the easiest, quickest and most effective way possible, even if that means we’re not getting direct funding, but it’s coming down through the county or to agencies or whatever. So, okay,
1:02:21
thank you. Right. I freely admit the naivete in that suggestion. And it also makes me think of a number of the agencies that we work with get funding from Boulder in the form of a health equity fund. And as an example, one of the reasons that boulder seems to often have money, as it’s been pointed out in this board before, is because the citizens, the residents of Boulder are willing to tax certain activities in order to generate that money. And I know that on my tends to be a more conservative community, there are different thoughts on that process.
1:03:04
But
1:03:06
it seems like there’s, there’s so much need, and and, you know, it’s just a few cents each resident, right in order to redirect that money to the people who really need it. So maybe it’s just, I want to keep thinking about it. But I think I put it out there in case there’s opportunities, Karen.
1:03:26
And I think the only thing or what I’m one of the things that I am gleaning from what you’re saying, Brian, is that we we have unintentionally, pigeon holed for lack of a better word, your engagement in in the specific funding sources that that come, you know, to the city from, you know, from CDBG, Home Affordable Housing and the general fund. And what I’m hearing you suggest is that, you know, hey, maybe we can have a role the advisory board in advising making suggestions on how how we might invest, or the or the city or in, or is the consortium, that we might have a role in providing some input into those other sources of funding that come in to help our community and that and that you, Brian, and maybe others would be interested in exploring how to do that. That would be fair, that’s fair.
1:04:31
Yeah. It’s just a question of can we do more? Yeah.
1:04:37
And that seems doable.
1:04:39
Great. Thank you. Karen Phillips.
1:04:46
I just had a question How often do we do the needs assessment every year?
1:04:52
every five years.
1:04:54
So things change. We aligned we We did one three years ago. And then we hopped on with the timeframe, the timing for the Consolidated Plan for CDBG and home funding. And so now we’re on an every five year cycle. But that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t have some kind of interim, you know, check in, you know, obviously, for the five year Consolidated Plan, you know, they do an annual action plan. And, you know, because, yeah, conditions change quickly, but they do the full on assessment, we are now in a five year cycle.
1:05:36
Okay, thank you.
1:05:38
And if we treated the needs assessment, something like a strategic plan, you know, where you may have a five year strategic plan, but every year you revisit the items that fall underneath that to make sure they’re still supporting the higher level goal. That would seem to make sense, because it may change the way it looks today versus next year, at the same time, it may just be a slight nuance difference, or dramatic difference. So maybe that can just be included in part of our planning. And enrolled into the model. And then we will have basically a piece of you know, human software, that’ll be worth billions. And we can sell that
1:06:23
you can be busy this year. Sounds like we are gonna
1:06:31
well as busy as we possibly can manage, while creating benefit. Okay, any other feedback that the any board members like to provide or anything that staff would like specific feedback on outside of what you’ve read,
1:06:48
I think this is a been a really, a really helpful conversation and, and we’ll do our best to synthesize it into a document that kind of a roadmap that we will bring back in February, and you can tell us whether we you know, got it right or whether we need to modify it. So thank you for the input. Great.
1:07:09
Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. Okay, so we can move on to site visits. We have our center wild plum and growing gardens with our center being the first one out le baritone.
1:07:32
So I, you know, that that is. So I have been in communication with the astronaut quite a bit. So it’s hard to remember exactly what our sight was it was I, I can tell you that overall, my desk I did part of the Art Center went really well. In other words, because the Art Center has been doing this for a year because they’ve gone through our site visits. At one point they were getting a site visit every year, it seems like as I was looking through the history. So they’ve got their ducks in a row as far as documentation and all that. But my conversations with with with Mark have been really helpful recently. Actually, Mel and I sit on the board of the Loma Community Foundation. And this morning, Mark gave a a 2030 minute update on what they’re doing. And it has been quite the year for the Art Center. They’ve had many challenges they have seen in at one point in July, he said that they had seen a 500% increase in the number of folks accessing, and many of them were new had never accessed the center before. Also they have I talked to and I’m throwing out names that you have no idea who they are. But But I work with him quite a bit at the outset, I talked to Carly and Angela, who Carly used to run the home study program. They’ve hired somebody new, and they gave her a promotion but but some of the trends that they’re seeing is the repeat the repeat clients who have higher level needs for rent than they typically do. And they seem folks come in with $15,000 in backgrounds. So, you know, the mark talked a little bit about Dave had really successful fundraising in December, end of the year, they received quite a bit of money from Kathy, for example, through CBG CBG. And through cares act as well. They received funding for the utility assistance. And so I guess, overall, they’re still facing challenges. As far as capacity went, that’s been one of the biggest thing, not having the capacity to see folks just because of you know the ability to hire and train right now their Mark said this month That they are still there. They’re basically almost out to February before you get to see someone. And that’s been a challenge throughout this whole thing. And again, it’s not a lack of desire to help. It’s it’s two things. It’s one, just the overwhelming need. And two is the capacity of the agency and as even as they’re trying to grow, and they have hired, but it’s still just the need is that big. So I think that’s my report on the center.
1:10:31
So we Bertoni questions for liberto. I, you know, that may be something just that phenomenon that we see through 2021 and possibly into 2022 is just the surge of need, that may, you know, may then dissipate, but how agencies are going to deal some of these critical agencies are going to deal with same thing with the health care system right now, I think trying to figure out how to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people as quickly as possible. It’s just this incredible spike in need. So Karen brownie?
1:11:11
So Ella Beto, you know, I wonder, you know, because this, they have, the our center has had, this has been a phenomenon they’ve been dealing with for months. And And I’m just wondering how you think they have progressed, and maybe a different way of thinking about how they’re, they can allocate those funds? What might be an interim way of getting funds out the door? I think it is frustrating for the community. That there is, and I’m not, I am not trying to judge the the center, but there are hundreds of 1000s of dollars that are coming in for assistance for individuals with rent and utilities. And, and and to have appointments be a month out is really not a it’s it’s hard to swallow as a community when we know the resources are there. So did you get a sense for what they are truly thinking about, at least in an interim way of being able to get more money out the door, or we’re just going to continue? Same as we’re doing now. We’ll try to we’re trying, we’re hiring on a different, you know, additional people, but we have to onboard them, it just seems like I would hope they are thinking about more innovative ways, it might not be their long term plan for how they’re going to continue to provide assistance. But these are really wackadoodle times. And so what might they be thinking about is a different way of distribution to really get money out the door more quickly?
1:12:57
That’s a great question, Karen. And we didn’t we didn’t go into that. I’d be happy to follow up with Mark and the team. And talk about I know that what they are trying to they’re trying to get as back to regular and to serve people with fast links. So for example, they’re bringing back their volunteers to help to try and smooth operations with their feeding programs where you know, they won’t take up so much staff time where staff can then be reassigned to do other things. So I know that that’s happening. But they’ve been trying, again part because of COVID. They’ve been trying to be cautious and not have you know,
1:13:37
I got that we all got that. And I think and maybe we can help them because I think we say Hey Mark, what are you going to do differently? We’re going to get the same answer. So it might be that you bring together a group of folks that can help him just really brainstorm some some different ideas, just kind of, you know, sit around and do kind of a what f or some out of the box, you know, planning just in a way that let those let those ideas go in a free flowing way and see if anything, can anything can stick. So I don’t think it’s just marks problem. I don’t think it’s just our centers problem. I think it’s ours as a community to try to address and problem solve around and to come up with some creative ways. Again, it’s not going to be the long term where they’re going to do business, but to really help now because there is and there’s more money coming there, you know, so we should be figuring out how to get that money out.
1:14:45
Caitlin?
1:14:48
Yeah, Karen, I
1:14:49
really appreciate those comments, because one of the things I was thinking about as you were asking about how they’re doing is that we also have other organizations in our community that don’t have As much funding and are having to turn people away because they don’t have sufficient funding, and they are referring people to the our center. And so like, do those agencies and community organizations have capacity, for example, to do pre screening or things that need that the our center would need to speed up their processing of it and
1:15:23
get the money out?
1:15:25
You know, because I think that a lot of those, like even if they didn’t have the money, if they knew that doing that could help someone that they’ve talked to get help faster, instead of having to start all over at the hour
1:15:35
center.
1:15:36
I can’t imagine that our community partners, which would be like, Nope, not gonna
1:15:40
do it. Like I think that they we probably have some other folks that are, you know, overlapping with some of the things that the our center does that could could assist more with that.
1:15:50
Councilmember Christiansen?
1:15:53
Yeah, I think Caitlin’s right. We have the motor county hub here. And surely they could be working together a little bit more. I know, that’s not traditionally what they do. But I mean, that is everybody’s supposed to be helping people. So I just think that, yeah, I think that’s a really good idea, Karen, to see if we can find ways to help out.
1:16:21
Thank you, Alberto.
1:16:23
So to Caitlin’s point, we have been doing some of that. So for example, when we received some funding for utility building karma meters from our community, neighborhood resources, worked with, with Dr. Center and did just what you’re what you’re talking about, Caitlin, the warm handoff with some pre screening work with folks. So that that has happened. I know that, for example, Dr. Center worked really closely with me, then there was some challenges there. But they did make some progress. I’m not sure where it is. Now. We could revisit that. Because they were some money that they received from the Community Foundation, right, the Knight Foundation, and they work with Dr. Sarah to help distribute those funding for rental assistance. So I think to that point, yes, we proved that it can happen. And the question is, you know, how do we how do we broaden it work with the city? can it work with other partners in it? And that’s a great question, something we can explore with the center. Because the other reality is I don’t know if it is already happening with other agencies, because I just know what happened with the city. Right. So this may already be happening with other community partners.
1:17:38
There’s a part of this, that’s, you know, I had that I see almost like a crisis management plan. But if a hurricane hits your town, it’s like all the old rules kind of go out the window. And I think if there’s some idea of this, you know, we we bring these agencies together to create a holistic solution, a larger solution under these conditions, it may help alleviate many agencies are going to have a natural concern that they’re losing influence, that means they’re going to lose money in the future, you know, they start giving their money to somebody else. There’s just human nature involved in all of these decisions. And I think if there’s kind of a structure where people agree to be part of this consortium to address this urgent need, maybe they’d be more willing to do so. And the other thing that occurs to me is, sometimes I feel agencies need permission from funders to be innovative, because it may not have been in their original application, and they’re concerned it’s going to weigh against them come reporting time, if they spent money on this extra stuff, but it wasn’t what they applied for. Any other comments?
1:18:59
Okay.
1:19:01
Just
1:19:03
randomly poking around my computer. I lost the agenda again, wild plum, and that would be Deanna.
1:19:10
Yes. So I think this will be a less in depth conversation than our center. So I saw a suicide visit in October for wild plum, which now seems like it was 10,000 years ago, even though it was only a couple months. So I had to look over my notes because I barely remember it. But essentially wild plum works with low income families for early childhood education. They have an early headstart program and a headstart program. They take a pretty comprehensive approach. So it’s not just a preschool or educational program they have they work with their families that come in to do like health and dental screenings. They work on mental health issues. They work on nutrition referrals, they work on getting them hooked up with right assistance or whatever they need, they have a really cool thing that they do. Cool. They have a really cool thing that they do called a policy council, where they have their board is advised by a council that’s comprised entirely of parents that have children in their in their program. So I think that helps really diversify, how they are approaching the work that they do. It did seem like in terms of successes, that they have some some great successes there and that when the kids come into the programs, 60% of them are ranked as near expectation levels, but by the time they complete the program’s 90% of the kids are meeting expectations and are better, much better equipped to be starting kindergarten. I don’t know if anybody has any questions, but you know, good organization. Great. Thank
1:20:54
you Deanna. Totally Berto.
1:20:58
So on the desktop side of that. You know, wild plum is a is a headstart is a federally recognized headstart. So of course, their documentation is I wasn’t going to read through all the federal require mints that they have, it would take me, you know, it’s about the same size of the binder that Kimberly read through. So. So I really applaud Kimberly, for going through that whole thing. But I do want to point out the policy councils do the important piece of the policy council in my mind for for this group is is how much it values? The people who would serves. Right, so the policy council is made up of parents who have children in, in, in the agency, we did talk about, you know, serving, you know, diversifying, who would serve the majority of children, it serves our Latinos. And so we there was conscious about serving others as well. And I think they’re, they’re, you know, they took that in there, and they’re gonna they want to try and diversify who they serve. So yeah, I just want to say the policy council is really important. And then one more thing on the agenda, I forgot to mention, that sort of the policy council, you know, Marc’s done a good job of diversifying the board, they now have three people of color on the the Art Center board. And so that that is a including Latinos, African Americans as well. And so I think, just to give them credit for that work as well, that they have, but yeah, I think the policy council piece is really important for our work around diversity and equity at the leadership level. Great, thank
1:22:48
you. laberinto. Any questions for Deanna or liberta? wild palm? No. Okay. Thanks, Deanna. Thanks for the good report. And growing gardens, Chiquita?
1:23:03
Yeah, I don’t have my notes, either. But it was a pretty short meeting. Of course, they have challenging, you know, challenges as being a garden. And normally they have a program. Well, let me start by knows, they serve, multigenerational, so of course, they’re volunteers of all ages, but they have programs with teenagers and they also have programs for elementary school kids. And volunteers, they have to teenager program, they usually have them as volunteers as well. So of course, they are not able to do that during COVID. And they used to go into the schools and they’re not able to do that during COVID. So, um, it’s been a very challenging year for them. And they did just hire a bilingual employee to help them she was very excited about that. Um, they used to send home plants with the kids when they would come and volunteer. They were sent home plants to the parents for them to take home. When they will go to the school they provided snacks. And so yeah, there are no like field trips and things like that all of that is on hold. So yeah, it’s it’s very unfortunate because they also have a a guardian at the YMCA in Longmont and so that I remember that that food actually goes to the our center speaking of the our center, I believe. And so that food where Families can. It’s also free to the families as well for low income families. So it was a very short visit. Alberto, what am I missing?
1:25:12
No, I think you got all that right on on the desk got inside. So for Kimberly, so Kimberly just so um, we didn’t talk a lot about in the orientation. So the board members on their side of the of the site visit is much more just what you heard from Chiquita, we’ll hear from Deanna, learning more about the organization, their work, what they’re doing, what they’re accomplishing. My side of the site visit is much more formal site visit, we’re actually look at their bylaws at their employee and board manuals. And I asked questions if I you know, if I have concerns or if they’re missing things, most of the time, more of your well established agencies aren’t missing anything. Because like I said, they’ve gone through these before they know what they need, etc. When it came to growing gardens, though, they were missing a couple of significant things. And I talked to them about it. So one thing they’re missing, even though they have invested in their in in a consultant to it, they call it Jedi, which is let me see. Justice, equity, diversity and inclusion work, they didn’t really have a really strong board nominating process. So you know that that’s really important to the board. Because if you don’t have that, it becomes more of a, you know, like, you just invite people that you know, and that’s fine. But if you have a strong board nominating process that maybe looks at characteristics or skill sets, etc, it can help you get a stronger board. And so they’re going to work on that. And then the other big thing they didn’t have, but as I looked through it, is they really have no grievance process for clients or employees. So I said, you know that that’s an issue, you want to have a way for your employees or your clients that if they have a concern that they feel safe to voice it. And so that was two deficiencies that I found. And so there, they told me, they’re gonna be working, and we’ll check in with them next year, or whenever, whenever our scheduled site visit happens, again, to see if they address those issues. So we save these I save the desk, guys, I can go back. And look, I’ve looked at stuff that Karen’s done in the past and followed up. And so that was what I found when I was growing gardens, they really didn’t have these things I think they’re important to have. Oh, one last thing, where we decide why they’re important is because we look at the Colorado nonprofits, to get what the name of it is Karen, the best practices and
1:27:42
its principles and practices of non profit.
1:27:46
Right? We take these from that, that that is brought together by the current non current nonprofit association. And they put that out every year or every year, but feels like every couple of years, they get a new edition out there.
1:27:58
So and the board members have that in the manual that you got when you came on board,
1:28:03
a copy of that,
1:28:05
and it has a gets updated every two years.
1:28:08
Yeah. So that’s my report on growing gardens.
1:28:11
Thank you. Thank you, Chiquita. Any questions for Chiquita or liberto?
1:28:22
No. All right.
1:28:27
Well, we’ll probably finish early today, then. And we’re at the last agenda item outside of other business, which typically doesn’t happen, which is the election of the Chair and Vice Chair for 2021. So before we go into that, I just want to as my last comment, because I think upon the election, the new chair will will take over the meeting. I have really really enjoyed being Chair of this board and working with you all it’s it’s been an absolute pleasure. And of course, I’ll continue to be here but I’ll just need the chair now instead of doing it from this point of view. And you’re really all awesome. So I’m grateful and humbled. So are there nominations for the chair and vice chair? Okay, so I would like to nominate Caitlyn as chair and Graham as Vice Chair.
1:29:40
Are Caitlin and Graham open to accepting those nominations? Caitlin’s good, gramps good. Okay. Is there anybody else who would like to self nominate Cadillac I’d like to sell just can I run another term? No, I don’t think so. Okay, right. Have
1:30:09
you had to take a year off according the bylaws?
1:30:14
I think it’ll be more than that. Okay, terrific. So we will now have a vote.
1:30:25
nomination. I think you made a nomination. We need a second and looks like you have a second.
1:30:30
All Second. Okay. Karen, I
1:30:32
don’t know that I can make a nomination as Chair motion as chair. So I can make a nomination right there does.
1:30:39
So I think we’re gonna like you, you made the nomination and Indiana’s
1:30:48
terrific. Everybody’s good with that. Any discussion? Okay, everybody in favor of having Caitlin as chair and Graham’s Vice Chair, please signify by raising your hands.
1:31:11
Okay, Any opposed? Any abstentions? The Motion passes. And we now have our new chair and vice chair. Congratulations. And I now turn the meeting over to you, Caitlin.
1:31:26
Some fairly big shoes to fill here. Brian,
1:31:29
thank you for your your
1:31:31
chairmanship this year. I feel like I know, as a newer board member this it was helpful to see you and your questions and engaged throughout the year in everything that we were doing. So super appreciative of that. And also the trust that you just handed
1:31:53
here. So
1:31:56
I guess
1:31:57
place Caitlin.
1:32:00
I guess then. If
1:32:03
Is there any other business that we need to Yes, Karen.
1:32:08
So I will be quick. So just to just to clarify that we do have an open position on the advisory board. So we had a little bit of a communication snafu. Because, you know, Jake’s resignation came in it’s, uh, you know, he resigned before his term ended. And, and so when it came time to make the final appointments, we didn’t have the the right number of openings that we had. So we did not feel Jake’s position, it seemed like we had an adequate, we’ve been doing pretty well with quorums. And so we’re gonna hold that open until we do the mid year, there’s a mid year recruitment that usually starts in, I don’t know, April, that it’s a June appointment. So that’s when we will appoint our open, unexpired advisory board term. And the other thing that I would recommend is that you know, the the City Clerk’s office will advertise in the typical ways that they do in terms of posting on the website, blah, blah, blah. But I would say that this, it’s it’s never too early to start thinking about talking about and and suggesting that people that you know, in your networks or that you might meet that they might consider submitting an application for this advisory board. And then just a second quick announcement, and we’ll probably bring back bring back more. A more detailed update is that the Longmont City Council, as of January 5, is now the Board of Commissioners for the Lamont Housing Authority. And so we are continuing to formalize some changes that based on work that we have been doing in partnership with the housing authority for a good part of 2020. So the end and the housing, the current, the former members of the Lamont housing advisory board, have now become a new city advisory board that advises City Council. So now we have a Longmont Housing Authority advisory board, in addition to a housing and Human Services Advisory Board, so that was also part of a change that was made on January 5. And so the current members of the previous measures of the visor of the Housing Authority Board are now a five person advisory board to city council. Longmont Housing Authority matters. So, so we don’t know how much so the the the thought that Kathy and I had and discussed for some time down the road in the future is might there be a possibility of, you know, combining, you know, that housing and Human Services, which also could have a role in advising around Longmont Housing Authority matters. That’s down the road. So just some, you know, and we might decide that would be the worst thing ever. But, you know, it’s just something to contemplate, but we’ll come back with more specific updates about the Housing Authority changes. This isn’t the last of the changes that probably will be happening. And that’s all that I have Caitlin. Okay. Thanks, Karen.
1:35:52
Any other business that folks house? If not, we can entertain a motion to adjourn. Deana Do I have a second.
1:36:04
Chiquita.
1:36:06
Thank you all.
1:36:07
See you next month.
1:36:13
Bye,
1:36:14
Ryan. Thanks for being such a great hair. Yeah,
1:36:16
you’ve been great.
1:36:17
Thank you. It’s been a pleasure. See you all have a wonderful month. Yes, Madam Chair said bye bye.