Good evening, everyone.

My name is Commissioner Michelle Long Spears, and I am so proud to kick off our inaugural DeCab County Women's Commission meeting tonight.

Thank you to each and every one of you for expressing interest and for dedicating your valuable time to serving on this commission.

Tonight we have a robust agenda.

We'll talk about the strategy went behind developing the commission, the ordinance that resulted from that, the number of posts, there are a total of 25 posts.

We'll talk about some of the rules around quorum, et cetera.

And we're going to have an amazing presentation by our partners in good, the junior league of DeCab County, who really took this project and ran with it in January of last year.

So again, thank you all so much for being here.

The next step up for our meeting tonight is to do a roll call.

So I will turn it over to, and actually I formally called the meeting to order at 6 15 p.m.

So what we're gonna do is go around the table and have all of our women's commissioners introduce themselves.

Good evening.

My name is Phyllis Mitchell, appointed from District 2, my wonderful commissioner who came up with this amazing idea for us to have such an entity to address the needs of women and girls across the CAP.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is London Hornsby.

I am the Post 5 representative, um, representing Commissioner Marita Davis Johnson's office, and I'm really looking forward to this.

I'm Shoshana Cohen Ben Yo are.

I was appointed uh post six, appointed by Ted Terry.

Good evening.

I am Gabrielle Rogers, appointed by Dr.

Commissioner Dr.

Ladina Bowden, post seven.

Good evening.

Happy to be here.

Katrina Young with Decide DeCab, and this is Post 10.

Good evening.

My name is Victoria Anglin.

I'm Post 11, representing the Junior League of DeCab County.

Good evening.

I'm Beverly Eccles, Post 14, and I was appointed by Mayor Ann Lerner from the City of Tucker.

Very happy to be here.

Good evening.

I'm Cheryl Courtmeyer.

I'm one of the City of Decatur Commissioners, and I'm here representing Post 19.

Welcome to Decatur.

Good evening.

My name is Joyce McKiveth, and I am here representing Post 18.

And I was appointed by our awesome mayor, Shamika Reynolds, City of Lithonia.

Hi, good evening, Raya Sarafman.

Post 20, appointed by Mayor Lynn Joich with the City of Dunwoody.

Happy to be here.

Good afternoon or good evening, Joyce Neal.

I'm over at the Tax Commissioner's Office, Chief Deputy on DeCab County Tax Commissioner's Office.

Fantastic.

Well, let's give all of you a round of applause.

That went swimmingly well, and everybody was brief, so thank you very much.

Next we'll move into some remarks.

Oops, actually, before we do that, let's do the approval of the agenda, then we'll go into the welcome and remarks.

And so we need a motion.

Hello.

Come on.

Are you here, Ms.

Commission?

I am.

Okay.

Elizabeth Abley.

Oh, hi.

Um, Elizabeth Abley Rick.

We have her over here.

Okay.

Thank you.

Apologies.

That's gonna be an hour and a half.

If you get comfortable, then I'm gonna come over in a second and have you introduce yourself.

Okay.

All right, Commissioners.

Um, we'll get into more details around the ordinance itself, but there is a requirement to have eight women's commissioners present for there to be quorum.

So right now, what we have to do is vote on the agenda that we designed for this evening.

And so if y'all could take a quick review if you haven't done so already, and I will need a motion to approve.

Then we will need a second, and then we'll do an all in favor.

We have yes, means yes.

We have yes, means yes, nay means no.

So, do we have a motion to approve the agenda?

Commissioner Young.

I make a motion to approve the agenda as presented.

Second.

Fantastic.

Is everyone in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any nays?

Okay.

Our agenda has been approved.

So tonight we have um opening welcome remarks from our CEO, Lorraine Cochrane Johnson, who is not present with us tonight yet.

Um will she be joining us later, Joy?

As of right now, we should not yet.

Okay.

All right.

So she may or may not be here.

Um, I am will provide remarks as well.

They will be brief because you'll hear lots from me tonight.

Um, and then if London, if you would like to present some remarks on behalf of Commissioner Davis Johnson, you're welcome to.

Don't want to put you on the spot or anything.

But Commissioner Davis Johnson and Commissioner Shekyrus Johnson both send their regards and regrets.

Both um did have a commitment that they had to attend to tonight.

All right, so I'm gonna start out again.

I'm Commissioner Michelle Long Spears to give a little bit of um history and context to my engagement around this.

In 2022, um, while I was running my campaign to serve as the District 2 commissioner, one of the ideas that I stumbled upon was other cities and counties around the country that had a women's commission.

I thought, wow, what a great idea for DeCab County.

We have all these strong, powerful, well-intentioned women that live in all over different pockets all over DeCab County.

And I thought, man, if we can bring and convene all of these brilliant people together, women, anyone who identifies as a woman, then we could bring so much power and focus to women and to girls' issues in our community.

Fast forward about two years, my friend Gabrielle Rogers over here in blue was the junior league president at that time.

And so the summer of 2024, I went to Gabrielle and said, Hey, I have this idea.

And I think we spoke for 15, 20 minutes, and Gabrielle's like, I love it.

I said, Oh, yay, because I really couldn't think of a better partner than the junior league of DeCab County.

And so she took the idea back to her board of directors, and she'll tell you a little bit more about that later, but they embraced the idea as well.

And so they actually did the planning for the women's commission, and they started in January of 2025 and worked throughout uh first three quarters of that year.

And so the brains and the bronze and the project management and the love and the tears and all of their souls that they put into it was Gabrielle and Victoria.

So let's give them a round of applause.

These two ladies did so much to bring us to where we're at today with the women's commission, and I could not be more proud and honored to work with you guys.

Um, one thing to note though is now you are a formal commission.

So at some point, either this meeting or the next, we'll elect a chair, we'll elect a vice chair.

Um I'll introduce our clerks in the back who serve in the role of secretary.

Um, but I will no longer need to be at your meetings.

I will probably come because I want to know what's happening, but this is the only meeting you're really gonna see me in the front of the room unless you guys ask me to come.

And so the junior league, I brought the idea and the vision to the junior league.

The junior league basically strategized around it, thought through it, came up with a logo, they passed the baton back to me to take it through the legislative process.

Then my office in partnership with our central staff and our new BOC chief of staff, Lee May, and one of our analysts, Shannon McGraw, they were the ones behind the scenes inviting folks to this event, and then it now becomes your commission.

And what is really critical about that is that there are 25 members on this commission, and we wanted to be in sure to ensure that every every area of DeCab County feels that they are properly represented.

And so there are 25 posts, just the technical term for it, and I'll talk a little bit more about that.

The reason this is such a large commission is that we wanted to make sure that all of our cities that are wholly or partially in DeCab County are represented.

And you see, we do have quite a few cities that are with us tonight.

So I'm so excited about this commission.

It has really been a labor of love, a lot of effort, a lot of energy that has been put into it.

So before we move on with our agenda, I did want to recognize some folks in the room.

My lovely chief of staff, Joy.

Way, way.

Constituent and outreach manager, Destiny.

And we have our clerks in the back of the room.

We have Miss Barbara, who is our madam clerk.

You'll hear her on the videos all the time.

And Deputy Clerk Ebony.

So before we get moving on, is there anything y'all would like to say?

This is all about women for women.

I don't know.

Oh, good.

Okay.

I'll do the talking for everybody.

How about that?

All right, very good.

Um, I so Madam CEO has not arrived.

If she does, we'll break.

And if she wants to give some remarks, she can.

Um London, would you like to say something on behalf of Commissioner Davis Johnson?

Yes.

Commissioner Marita Davis Johnson does regret that she couldn't be here with us today, but she is in support of the Cab County Women's Commission, um, the research, and she's looking forward to the presentations later on.

So yes.

And you are the constituent services manager.

I'm actually her administrative specialist.

Okay.

So she works for Commissioner Davis Johnson.

Yes, and I have for two years.

Yes, yes, awesome.

Okay, well, let's move on to the next um portion of our agenda is the history strategic vision and priority discussion, which will be presented by our two um, I guess, co-chairs of the women's commission initiative.

So why don't y'all make your way up here to give the presentation?

And while they're doing so, uh, Miss Anglin sent me a text message while I was at my daughter's graduation, I think, or on the way to it, that they won an award, right?

They won an award.

So let's give them a round of applause.

I'll let them share the good news, but it had to do with the women's commission.

So, all right, ladies, let me get out of your way.

If y'all need anything like that, okay.

Well, thank you so much, Commissioner.

Well, good evening, Commissioners.

It's awesome to see you all tonight, and for all of this to be able to come to fruition, I think uh Victoria still in awe, but we're just so very thankful for that.

And I will let uh Victoria share the award before we get started.

So this past weekend I was at the AJLI or the Association of Junior Leagues International Conference, and um the DeCab County Junior League of DeCab County submitted for an award, an excellence award for the organization.

The organization is across our country and six other um countries, so it's international.

And from all of those organizations, we ended up receiving the community impact award.

And it was largely because of the work that the Junior League did with Commissioner Michelle on Spears in creating the women's commission.

Awesome.

So we now have an internationally recognized program.

So thank you again, Commissioner, for that.

Uh so as stated earlier, uh, I am Gabriel Rogers, and um Victoria and I serve as the co-chairs of the steering committee, and we have some stakeholders who are here.

We're going to highlight them in a little while.

Um, we just have a brief presentation tonight to talk about the history of the commission on the stakeholders.

Um, we had 80 stakeholders who were a huge part of that, and then uh the mission and vision that came out of the priorities, and then the uh areas of focus.

So at the time, uh, do want to share some great news.

Uh, Victoria, when we first started in 24, she was the VP of trading.

Uh, when we kicked it off, she was the president elected, and now as of last night, she's our new president for the Junior League of DeCab County.

So we have a great succession planning here.

So, with our lead, so what we did uh we actually comprised into two parts.

Uh, we actually had the uh steering committee, which was comprised of the Junior League of DeCab County, and then we had our community stakeholders.

So these were our elite members.

I have to figure it out.

So uh the establishment of a commission, uh so these ladies all serve as stakeholders.

I have Victoria talk a little bit about of how we selected our stakeholders as well.

So we did we we uh the the steering committee got together and we decided what areas or what areas of focus or what areas of industry that we wanted to include, and we invited people from faith industry, from medical government, uh anything that you can think of that would have women in the forefront of their mind.

That's how we decided to go.

That's how we decided to go, and then after we did that, we decided to invite folks, and so we did, and we wound up with uh total of about 83 um people, and I think we might have only sent out invitations to 60 or so.

So once people got word about it, hey, I want to be a part of this, I want to be a part of this.

Can you please can I please?

And so we wound up with a good 83 to 100 women at any given point to help with this commission.

And we knew under what special recognition, we have Miss Beverly Eccles here, we have Katrina here as well, Dr.

Katrina, and then we also have Phyllis uh Mitchell here as well, who served as stakeholders.

So please wave your wave your hands, ladies, so we can see you all again.

Thank y'all so much rewarded.

So reflecting on the journey.

So we were right here in this room uh in April of 2025 when we actually did our first listening session.

So uh what we did, we partnered with her with Victoria earlier.

Uh we actually did all the interviews, so they're genially did all the interviews right before our gala.

That was crazy.

But we got it done, and we actually did uh stakeholder meetings.

So we had uh over 80 to 100 women virtually and in person to actually narrow down the priority areas.

Uh we actually had about four or five pages of what was important to the women here in DeCab County because we had every single commission district represented in the cities, uh municipalities uh represented, and so we want to make sure all the voices are hers as you hear the sneaky notes, the photos, we were here doing the groundwork, and we had poser boards, it was the whole nine beer.

Okay, Victoria.

Uh so we uh in gathering all of the information from the listening sessions.

Um we came together and put, I think we had about 13 different sections, and from those sections, each of those sections were required to come up with a mission and vision.

And from all of those 13 mission and visions, we honed into this mission and vision, which is what we had presented to Commissioner Michelle Long Spears to bring forward.

And that mission is that the DeCab County Women's Commission champions women and girls to lead, Thrive, and transform our community through equity, opportunity, and advocacy.

And the vision, the vision, we envision a thriving DeCab County where every woman and girl has the power, resources, and opportunity to build wealth, live with dignity, and transform generations.

So uh we actually started off, I think uh if Phyllis didn't remember, we started off with 15 actually subcommittees, and then we narrow them down to uh these core committees that were very important to the women here in the Cab County.

So uh education, uh economic empowerment and public professional growth, uh health and well-being, and then community and cultural identity.

So with education, uh community priorities, uh, what was important to the women here in our county, well, the stakeholders in particular, to overcome barriers to education, employment, training, housing, uh, transportation, child care, and nutrition, and to increase the literacy rates.

Uh, one of the things that the Junior League of Decay County, uh, we are a training organization, and we uh have a history of creating uh projects and having spin-off.

So we did create the International Women's House, the Day League as well, and Countwalk uh helped with that as well.

So uh there was our wheelhouse, and so there was a no-brainer for us to be able to do that.

So for economic and uh empowerment and professional growth as community priority, um, building education, business knowledge and skills was one of them, expanding access to resource and capital for business women, support families, families with housing and instability by providing financial services and centralized communication for getting grants.

I think a main one of the main um issues that some of the women were citing was that there are a plethora of information into CAB County and a lot of resources, but not really one central way to research that and try to get it back to the people who are needing it or requiring it.

So that was a really big sticking point for some of the community members.

So uh with health and well-being, and this was a huge initiative for us.

It came down about 15 priorities under it.

We had as you narrow it down, but access concerns for health services and mobile more mobile cleanness and transportation, uh, equity opportunities for health services, insurance provider collaboration, uh collaboration and innovation that connects families through resources, and then community empowerment through tech-enabled tools, uh, community maps.

So one of the things that Victoria mentioned earlier, uh we wanted to make sure there was a community map that can actually show the needs of the community hosted live somewhere, and that we can have uh activations with that.

Community and cultural identity.

So the to um one of the one of the biggest concerns was was having cultural I'm getting tongue tied, community and cultural identity.

I'm getting tongue-tied community and cultural identity.

Um, and I know that um uh the CEO just opened up the um what was that?

The arts commission.

So that was a huge thing, and that was a lot, a lot of uh interest was held there for women.

So for to have prioritized cultural impacts in all initiatives, um, foster avenues for stakeholders to actively contribute, um to uh have policy advocacy and collaboration and coalition building.

Uh and this one was very key because with the commission, we wanted to make sure that uh we are providing recommendations to the commissioners uh for policies that better suit women and girls here in our county.

So that was a big one too.

And that is the end of our uh presentation, as it was the brief overview of how we got here.

Um we are just proud and excited that uh Commissioner Long Spears uh brought us on as partners, and we are here today.

So thank you again.

Thank you very much.

Yes, yes, questions.

Oh, Katrina, did you tell about the logo?

Oh, we did not ask Victoria.

So the DeCab County uh women's commission logo that you have on your cups today.

Um it was a gift of love from my sister.

She created the logo.

Um we actually were able to um have a vote of I think about three different logos, three different styles.

Um they were all by her, so she was gonna win anyway.

But this is the one that we came up with.

This is the one that everybody voted on at our um at our preview and reception that we held in September of last year.

So thank you.

We did have a preview reception in September, and that was standing room only, and so that just kind of showed the camaraderie and the excitement around this women's commission early on.

So thank you.

Thank you.

That's it.

Thank you very much.

Let's give them a round of applause.

And Victoria, did I hear that right?

You were just elected president last night.

Oh my god, you were just installed last night.

Yes, ma'am.

I was just installed as the president.

You can't call me ma'am.

We're like the same age.

Okay.

Yes, thank you.

Yay, Victoria.

I'm so excited and happy for you.

That's awesome.

You'll be a wonderful president.

All right.

Um, so moving on through our agenda, and I am gonna go ahead and stay up here instead of wandering around the room because I've got to get to business, roll up my sleeves here.

Okay, we're on number six, which is the overview of the DeCab County Women's Commission authority.

And so let me draw your attention to this item here.

It has DeCab County government, so the agenda item and substitute.

So just um to go back and echo a little bit what they said.

The um we discussed in summer 2024 doing it.

Uh the junior league agreed to serve as our planning partner in the fall, and we kicked off the planning efforts in January.

When I say we, I mean they did.

They did everything up front, they made it easy on me.

I I paid for things initially, and they handled it.

It was really, they did an excellent job.

If you're ever looking for a partner, 10 out of 10, generally gonna decab is excellent.

Um, and so they went through the planning process, and then in October, or probably even September is when um I started my end of it.

So they like metaphorically passed me a baton.

And so I was working behind the scenes to develop a resolution.

So a resolution is a statement, if you will, on behalf of the Board of Commissioners.

So I started to think about that.

I thought, you know, I really would like this to be concrete and not subject to political whim, or folks that might decide it's not necessary to have a women's commission.

So went back to the drawing board and drafted an ordinance instead.

And so that is what you're looking at is an ordinance.

Uh we provided the original ordinance in November to the uh BOC members.

There are seven commissioners, five of them are districts, so like place-based districts, if you will.

I'm district two.

Then we have two super district commissioners.

One covers the west side, one covers the east side of the county.

We invited the junior league in to come and give a presentation, both Gabrielle and Victorian, a few other folks are present.

And it was one of the few times that someone has done a presentation and they haven't asked a lot of questions.

We were pretty worried about that, to be honest.

We're like, oh, what does that mean?

But I guess in their minds, there was no need to ask any questions.

And you know, hopefully y'all know this, but this is the only county-based women's commission in, I may have said this earlier, but in the state of Georgia.

And that is pretty awesome.

And DeCab does like to be first.

And with the Junior League that was, you know, the captain of the ship, we were able to be the first.

And I'm very proud about that.

But it was introduced on on my end as a commissioner.

So either the administration or a commissioner has to introduce our resolutions or ordinances.

So this one I brought on.

We had the presentation with the junior league, had a little bit more dialogue through one of our committees, brought it back on December 18th, I believe.

It was right before we broke for the holidays, and we had a unanimous approval of the substitute.

And so when you initially sponsor a piece of legislation, which is what I did here, you have the original, and then I think we have a lawyer in the room.

So I'm gonna walk everybody through it and so that everyone is crystal clear on the authority of this commission, meeting requirements, quorum, et cetera.

So if you would please go to page two, and it is uh it says an ordinance to amend the code to establish DeCab County Women's Commission.

So you will see a series of whereas statements.

The purpose of the whereas statements is really to couch what the ordinance will be about.

It's an opportunity to talk about the who, what, when, where, why, who it will impact, why we are proposing it, what it will do, and so on.

So these seven where I statements really outline that the purpose of this is a commission to focus on women's girls, and those that identify as women, the issues that most significantly and in some cases negatively impact their lives.

So at your leisure, please feel free to read through the whereas statements.

Then you can go to page three, it says part one enactment.

And uh please feel free to stop me if you have a question.

You don't have to hold it till the end.

And I am as blind as a bat these days, so please raise your hand high so I can see you.

Um, so the very top of it, um, this is again something that we codified into DeCab County's code.

So this was addition to our division three to Article 5 of chapter 2 to read as follows.

And so the first section is around the purpose, and I'm gonna just read it for those that are viewing this that may not have this document.

So the purpose of the DeCab County Women's Commission is to advise and make recommendations to the Board of Commissioners, the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and the Department Directors on issues pertaining to the well-being and advancement of women's girls and those that identify as women in DeCab County.

The Board of Commissioners, the CEO, she had the ability to annually assign to the commission topics of study and discussion on which the commission shall report, and when they say commission, they mean you, which the women's commissioners will report at least annually to the board during a Cal meeting, which is committee of the whole.

And for your knowledge, uh that those occur the first, generally the first and third Tuesdays of the month at 9 a.m.

Right now, we're meeting here at Sam Street.

Normally we do meet at the Maloof Auditorium in downtown Decatur.

We're just doing a renovation, so hopefully it'll be done by 2027, but we'll see.

We'll see.

All right.

Um, so um, if you go down to where it says A through F, these are policy and legislative topics that can be considered for the women's commission to address.

The reason I lift this up is I want to be very clear on something, is that this is the primary um, I guess, directive to this group is what you are proposing are policy policy legislative resolutions.

The reason I lift this up is I want to be very clear on something is that this is the primary I guess directive to this group is what you are proposing are policy policy legislative resolutions, so things that would go through the legislative process to the Board of Commissioners.

There are other institutions such as the Junior League who do other work on behalf of girls and women in our community.

There's the YWCA, there's a number of groups that do that, and we don't want to in any way you know duplicate the work and the services that are already being provided.

So the gap that we found in DeCab County is that there really isn't a body of women making policy or law recommendations to an authority such as the Board of Commissioners that can actually change the law to make a better life for women and girls in our community.

And so another point that I wanted to lift up this evening is that the Board of Commissioners is your legislative branch.

We have our executive branch, which is the administrative piece of our county government that is run by former commissioner Lorraine Cochrane Johnson, now CEO Lorraine Cochrane Johnson.

So all of the staff, all the program directors, the police, the fire department, community development, our housing folks, everyone they report to the CEO.

So if you if this commission has ideas for a program or an initiative that falls in that lane, it's an opportunity for you to recommend a program for county government to consider.

And so that to me is one of the most critical messages I wanted to get across to everyone tonight, because we've received probably thousands of emails and questions about this women's commission.

And some people are like, oh, you know, are you gonna have a lot of events?

No.

Are you going to have bake sales?

No.

You know, other groups are doing that type of thing.

This is about changing the law or developing a policy that will improve the well-being of women and children.

All right, and so A through F just kind of gives you some not an exhaustive list.

Certainly, there we could have gone to Z if we wanted, but just some thoughts.

And a lot of this is built on what the junior league uncovered during their data collection process.

Um, moving on to appointment of members.

So this commission, there was a requirement to have at least 15 appointments.

The day we hit 15 appointments was the day that you started receiving information from us.

A lot of you received information from me.

And for example, Dunwoody, I was emailing your mayor.

Um Decatur, you guys have a new mayor.

So I was emailing uh Mayor Powers.

I was emailing the tax commissioner's office.

Hey, we're doing this women's commission, please make an appointment.

We really couldn't have even started to move forward until we had those 15 appointments.

You know, I'm like Gabrielle and Victoria, very optimistic, thinking we could pull this off in 30 days.

That did not happen.

You know, it took three months to do it, but we did it, and we're here tonight.

I'm very proud of that.

And so a minimum of 15 appointments, uh, maximum of 25 appointments, and I'll talk about those post next.

So each commissioner has an appointment.

The CEO has an appointment.

So I will start over here.

Appointments one through, it's actually post, technically, post one through seven are your commission districts.

So Commissioner Patrick is one, I am two, which is Phyllis, um, three, four, five, six, and seven.

Then CEO Cochrane Johnson also has an appointment.

The school district has a post nine decide to cab, who is represented this evening, and thank you for being with us, has post 10.

The junior league, represented by Victoria is post-11.

Each municipality has post 12 through 24, and then lastly but not least, of course, is our very important spectacular tax commissioner's office under tax commissioner Golden.

And so that really does comprise our women's commission post.

Again, a total of 25 people.

All right, moving on to the next page.

Um, the chair and vice chair are to be elected by a majority of this group.

And we will talk about that in just a moment.

And there are those are two-year terms.

For our women's commissioners, they are four-year terms.

And so her term started this year in 2025.

So if you move to the middle of or towards the middle of the third page, I guess, is that right?

Hold on.

I like pay one, two, three, actually, page four, the middle of page four, you will see how the terms themselves are organized.

And so the odd numbered positions, such as London, I'll pick on you.

She's odd number.

She is number five.

Those positions expire in January of 2030.

Then we have our even numbered post, such as District 2, which is Miss Phyllis Mitchell, and those expire in 2028.

Very important to point to point out is that D, members shall continue serving until successors are appointed.

Moving on to meetings.

Those that were prospects to serve as a women's commissioner.

And they are the requirement for our ordinance is to meet four times per year.

Now there has been expressed interest that we meet more frequently than that, every other month.

So just to kind of map out some scenarios for everybody in this room, and we don't have to figure this out tonight.

I just want to plant the seed, and when we reconvene this group, and we'll talk about at the end, what's going to be our next meeting day.

This group under the leadership of our chair and vice chair can discuss this.

So you have one structure, which is simply this commission.

So we have our 25 posts.

We meet four times per year.

We determine what issues that you want to explore, do research, host focus groups, surveys, et cetera, whatever you want to do.

And so that's the simplest form.

Another potential structure could be this group and kind of what the junior league did.

They had a great model, is where they had they broke it down into different focus areas, such as like health and I look at her, health and well-being, like healthiest person I know, the health and well-being.

And you can you can do that.

This could be something where this commission, maybe you have you pick a topic such as health and well-being.

You might want to study mental health.

You might want to study physical health, and those could be two separate groups.

Um you could go to a third option, a more complex structure, which you do go ahead and just design based on the junior league's research, education subcommittee.

You could do a health care subcommittee and employment subcommittee or workforce development and so on.

So those are just examples of what you all decide.

This will not be Michelle deciding, this will be you guys deciding.

But again, just kind of think about what you think is best.

Um, one piece of advice I do want to give you though is this is our first year.

We want to be successful, so let's just be careful of bidding off more than we can chew in year one.

Um, you know, we're already not quite midway through the year, but we're about to hit summertime.

And everybody, a lot of us, not everybody, checks out a little bit in summer.

So we might want to just, you know, cool our heels a little bit to get through this year and then get into 2027 and advance the structure if that's the will of this commission.

All right, moving on, um, another key important thing under the meeting, section 2-173, is that um there takes eight members to have a quorum.

So while the number is 25 max, the quorum was based on the minimum of 15, which made me happy because we were worried about that a little bit.

I went back and read this.

I said, Oh, no need to worry.

We will hopefully at least have eight people, and we have, I think, 11 or 12 people with us tonight.

And so you have to have at least eight people to take action.

I do want to point out though, that if say you have seven people in a future meeting, you can still have the meeting.

You just can't vote.

So, for example, earlier we voted on the agenda.

We took a motion a second and then voted.

Um, you will vote on the minutes that the clerks will be managing for us, and they'll provide the minutes to us, and we'll vote on those minutes.

At some point, you're gonna vote on what topic you want to study.

And so if you don't have a quorum, you can't vote on it.

So that's why a quorum is incredibly important, and why you receive so many emails from us.

We were just trying to get bodies here.

Um, all right, moving on is to section 2-174, assistance by county departments.

I wanted to be sure that this commission felt like they had resources.

And so, subject to the CEO's approval, there are various departments that are outlined in the ordinance that we might require additional information from.

Perhaps they have a white paper, or they could even come and present to us, such as the Department of Public Health, uh Department of Community Development.

We have a new chief housing officer who's been on board for about six or seven months now.

If housing ends up being an issue that people and we're gonna, I know you are housing lady, Miss Appley, so I'm gonna have you introduce yourself in a minute, but I thought I'd give you a second to settle in.

Um but housing might be another um topic to be explored.

But I just wanted you guys to have the resources at your fingertips.

We also have partner institutions such as Clairitel Behavior Health, decide to cap who is represented here, and the DeCab County Board of Health as well, um, and their staffs may also provide assistance to us.

Now, with the public health department, which I mentioned earlier, that that is actually separate than county government, but our department of public health, they do have a leader of the public health department, and she would have to approve that.

Clairitel Behavior Health is run by a gentleman named Fabio, and so if we requested assistance, certainly we'd request to the CEOs, the leaders of the organizations, and they would have to approve them coming to us and making a presentation or providing any research.

Um the next section at the bottom of the page does outline um the responsibilities of the clerk, which is to record and serve as secretary, and they'll maintain the records of the commission, including attendance, meeting minutes, etc.

So they keep what is required by per the ordinance.

They're not required to keep a whole bunch of other stuff.

They're just required to keep who is who is present, um, meeting minutes, agendas, but if we have like attachments and presentations, that's not in the clerks to manage.

So that's something that I would say the chair and vice chair might need to come up with a system or set up a file, electronic file, or you know, if you're like me, do the old-fashioned binders, I don't know, but some way to keep record of what this commission has done.

So in 20 years, if someone's ever looking back, they can say, oh, look what they did.

You know, they were so forward-thinking to do this.

All right, going on to the next page, please, is um the last piece of it is around compensation, and the compensation there is none to serve on this board.

And for those that are um employees of DeCab County, such as London, who works for Commissioner Davis Johnson's office, it really does protect her as well, and so that she does receive her regular compensation, and she doesn't have to take time out of her job or anything like that to participate.

And so my goal with the ordinance was to ensure we had as few barriers to participate as possible.

All right, so you've heard enough from me.

Um, does anyone have any questions or comments?

And before we get there, Miss Appley.

I'm going to have you introduce.

Oh, you know what?

You have your mic.

If you'll introduce you're from you're my brook, I live in Brookhaven.

Yay!

And I'm very excited to have you here, so please introduce yourself.

Okay, thank you.

Uh, I apologize for being late.

I know I missed the most uh interesting and exciting and important part of the program, and learning about each of you, so I hope to do that soon.

Um my name is Elizabeth Appley.

I'm an attorney in private practice.

Uh I am I divide my practice between uh civil litigation and lobbying at the General Assembly.

I've been practicing law almost 50 years now.

I know it's hard to believe since I'm only 27.

But uh yes, it's true.

And uh my practice, litigation practice is focused on employment discrimination, representing plaintiffs, um, the rights of women, rights of people with disabilities.

Uh I've done reproductive freedom litigation and police misconduct.

So I I have a public interest practice.

Uh I've been advocating at the Capitol on a contract basis for different nonprofits for I think it's now 32 sessions.

Uh and now my primary focus is on uh housing and homelessness, uh, the um access to health care and mental health care, uh, economic justice, uh, and those are issues that I I hope will consider.

Housing is obviously essential.

It's very much a women's issue.

You know that Georgia has some of the highest eviction rates of any state in the country.

Women with children are at a much higher risk of being evicted.

Black women are at a risk of eviction, multiples of other women.

So I hope that this group might will focus on these issues of housing and homelessness.

I saw them mentioned in the context of education, health care, economic justice.

I mean, there is no real opportunity for uh quality of life without access to safe, decent affordable housing.

And while it's certainly a state issue, and I'll be happy to share with you some of what we're doing at the state capitol, it's a very tough road to hoe at the Capitol uh here in Georgia because uh more than a quarter of uh legislators are uh landlords, uh, and Georgia is regrettably an outlier in failing to provide even basic tenant protections.

Uh uh with my work, we have managed to make some progress.

We passed a ban on retaliatory eviction a few years ago.

You may be aware, we worked with with some other junior leagues in helping to pass the Healthy Housing Act, which provided for the first time a warranty of habitability.

We also um are working now on bipartisan legislation to create uh uh uh uh a trust funding for emergency rental assistance to keep families stably housed, and I saw that as one of the issues mentioned by the junior league.

Um very good.

So there's lots to be done.

Uh the issue of maternal health I know is one of concern to people to women in the CAP.

Georgia continues to be uh among the worst in terms of our maternal and infant mortality rates and uh economic justice.

I saw as an issue mentioned numerous times in the junior league's excellent work, um, child care, paid leave.

Uh by the way, the City of Atlanta Commission just this last week adopted an ordinance for a task force to look at updating their paid uh family leave policy for consideration, and of course the issue of livable wages.

Thank you.

So thank you.

Appreciate the opportunity to serve.

We're glad to have you here.

And uh thank you so much for accepting.

Of course, all of you guys and ladies.

All right, um, so we're gonna move into now, and if let me do a quick time check.

703?

Okay, so we have to we have about 30 minutes before we have to wrap up.

So the next section under um six item six on the agenda is the compliance with Georgia Open Meetings Act Act and Ethics Requirements.

We don't have a representative from our county attorney's office, so uh Chief of Staff Joy, if you could make a note for Shannon and Chief of Staff May to make sure that we have a county attorney here at the next meeting.

But I will give you a very high level um a couple points, high level about uh Georgia meeting, the open rec open meetings act.

So, first of all, um, just so you know these meetings are recording.

So everything you just said has been recorded.

I probably should have told you that.

Okay, good, okay.

I warned everybody before the camera started rolling that they are on TV.

Um and so all of these meetings will be recorded.

And thank you to DC TV.

Raise your hands in the back of the room, give them an applause.

We appreciate you guys being here to handle the technology and the recording and all that good stuff for us.

Um next is we um do have a county attorney.

He and we have many attorneys, uh deputy attorneys that do work for us, and they give us advice here and there as requested or as needed.

So if anything ever starts going sideways, they generally pull you aside and aside and give you a little refresher about what the open meetings act is.

Um also ethics requirements.

Again, um you are serving as an official appointment for DeCab County government.

So this is a serious role.

It has serious implications on the residents, business owners, and everyone who calls to Cab County home.

And so it is incumbent upon us, uh, me as a uh Board of Commissioners, you guys or I guess member of the Board of Commissioners, y'all as a member of the women's commission to act ethically, morally, and responsibly during the meetings.

If anything ever comes up, you will have a chair and you will have a vice chair.

If anything uh comes up that you don't feel comfortable going to them, please always feel free to come to me or my chief of staff or the chief of staff of the um whole board of commissioners, or the person or the entity that appointed you as well.

Hopefully that doesn't happen.

I just want you to know that you know there are options if if things are not going the way that you'd like to see them go, or if things happen to get prickly.

All right, uh moving on to number seven, and again, y'all stop me if um I am moving too quickly.

Election of officers.

We do have quorum tonight.

So in the ordinance, it is stated that we elect our officers at the first meeting in January.

Well, it's May.

So it's not January.

So we have two options.

We can elect a chair and a vice chair tonight.

It would require a majority vote.

Another option is um it would take a quorum of two-thirds to do this, which would be uh there are 12 here, so seven would have to vote for it.

Um, but what we could do is we could defer the election of the chair and vice chair until the next meeting.

Because I don't know if anybody here has even had a chance to think about serving in that leadership role.

And if that is the option you all would like to go with, then we could set up perhaps like a very simple little Google form or something along that those lines, send it out to everyone who is interested in serving as the chair or vice chair, send it back, share it with everybody that's on the women's commission at the next meeting, vote on it then.

So let's open this up to hear from you all.

What input do you have?

Any questions or concerns about that?

And ultimately, what would you like to do?

I have questions.

Yes, ma'am.

We're gonna talk about that.

Oh I don't know.

Um, it's supposed to be assuming you still obviously it was set up like to be quarterly, a January, April, and so on.

Um, you know, I'm open to whatever y'all want to do.

Honestly, it's not my decision.

This is the last time you'll hear from me unless you ask me to come here.

Um, it's really up to you guys.

And the reason I ask is like if you're just gonna have two meetings and that chair just be there for two until you elect again in next year.

Well, it's a two-year term for each of them.

So it'd be in January of 2028.

So whoever's chair and vice chair, you get robbed a little bit because it's not quite as not entirely 24 months or two years.

But very good question.

I go ahead.

Since we're talking about meetings, I know we're a little off subject.

Maybe we could give consideration to spending the remainder of this year, kind of establishing ourselves to really um wrap up the first of the year.

Sure.

No, absolutely.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of details we still have to work out, such as um, you know, this year we're gonna have four meetings or just two or three more meetings.

So, Gabrielle.

Yeah, so I I'm in agreement um for us to be able to start with the um get out groundwork for the rest of the year, but I also want to make sure that we have uh leadership to be able to do that so that we're not calling on you uh commissioner to be able to um do that for us.

Um so I do think uh since we have the quorums to be able to have the uh elections for the chair and vice chair today, and that way we can decide as a commission to uh lay the groundwork for next year as well.

Okay, very good.

Any other thoughts?

Yes, ma'am, and just state your name as well.

I want everybody to start knowing each other, Ray Rothman.

I would suggest that people nominate themselves tonight for the two positions and next time gift presentations, and from those presentations we vote then.

That is a good idea.

Any other thoughts?

I motion.

Oh, go ahead.

I motion that we accept the recommendation offered by Ray.

So accept nominations this evening and at our next standing committee.

Umb are able, commissioners are able to give a presentation for their nomination.

All right.

Beverly echoes second that motion.

Thank you very much.

All right, we've had a first, we've had a second.

Um questions or comments about that.

Nope.

Okay.

All in favor?

Raise your hand.

Ray, did you want to support?

Okay, I was gonna say it's your idea.

Okay.

Okay, is it unanimous?

All right.

Okay, so motion passes.

So just to um confirm that we're all on the same page.

Tonight we will accept nominations from anybody who'd like to serve as the chair or the vice chair.

The next meeting, you will prepare for a what do y'all want to say?

Two to three minute presentation?

Two to three minute presentation about why you would like to serve in that role, and then the um vote will take place at that meeting.

All right, I think, hey, hi five, everybody.

That was actually a really good idea.

Very simple, and kind of gets it gets us past kind of trying to rush it tonight.

So that's excellent.

All right, so um clerks, are y'all ready to start pinning anyone who nominates themselves?

Just writing it down, pinning, sorry, old phrase.

Yeah.

Okay, all right.

Ready?

Okay, I'm gonna give us a drum roll, and then we're gonna let the nomination process begin.

All right, let's do it.

Who wants to nominate themselves?

Let's start with chair.

I will like to nominate myself, post two Phyllis Mitchell.

Thank you.

Phyllis Mitchell, yes, Gabrielle Rogers, post seven.

Gabrielle Rogers, post seven.

Anyone else want to throw their name in the hat?

Does anybody have a hat?

Here's my form of a hat.

Go ahead and chair roll.

Going once.

Going twice.

All right.

We have our nominations.

Um, and we'll hear from both of you ladies at the next meeting.

So just two to three minutes.

Um, and DC TV, is it okay if they bring in um like presentations if y'all want to do like a PowerPoint or anything like that?

Okay, so you can load it.

All right, cool beans.

Okay, now drum roll for vice chair.

All righty, there you go.

Okay.

So who would like to nominate themselves for vice chair?

Are we able to nominate?

I would like to nominate myself for vice chair.

Awesome.

London Hornsby post five.

Thank you, London.

I would like to nominate myself as well.

Victoria Angbland post 11.

Awesome.

Okay, we've got a second.

Anyone on that side of the room.

All righty.

Going once, going twice.

We have our nominations.

All right, so we have two nominations for chair, two nominations for vice chair.

Ladies, be ready for your presentation at the next meeting, two to three minutes.

You will have um the use of audiovisual if needed.

And uh Chief of Staff Joy, we also need to make sure that we send this out to anybody else who wasn't present if they wanted to throw their name in the hat as well.

Because this is a public meeting.

I think we're actually required to do that.

All right, very good.

Okay, moving on to uh number eight.

This is the question everybody keeps asking about, and I don't blame you.

I'd be asking two.

Having a busy schedule is uh we have to at least kind of set up our operation guardrails, if you will, and we need to um establish our 2026 meeting schedule.

Um we've already discussed quorum requirements and adoption of procedural rules, and I'll talk about that in a second.

So um again, per the ordinance, there is a requirement of four meetings per year, assuming you start in January.

We did not, it is May.

It's really up to you guys.

So we can move forward with having our May meeting.

This is our first meeting, then we can elect three other months to have a total of four meetings, or if you wanted to just stay on track, this would be Q2.

You would do a Q3, and you'd do a Q4 meeting.

So there would be a total of three meetings per year instead of four.

So let's open it up for your input and your comments on at least the number of meetings that we have.

Yes, ma'am Ray.

I recommend that this be Q2 and that we have a Q3 and a Q4 meeting for the rest of the year.

Thank you for that recommendation.

Anyone else?

Any recommendations or thoughts or ideas?

Beverly echoes our second raised motion.

All right.

Any other comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion passes to have a Q2 tonight, Q3 and Q4 meeting.

Now this takes us to the harder part, which is identifying the dates.

So this is what I would recommend.

I think probably a lot of us use this strategy when scheduling meetings is to have a standing.

So make it the we're in April now.

Yeah, so maybe in August we do June, July, yeah, August, we do say the third Wednesday in August at 6 p.m.

Did you say something, Miss Appley?

Exactly, May, but uh maybe uh yeah.

That was all I said.

Oh okay, okay.

Okay.

I didn't want to cut you off.

So perhaps we look at August and November, and would the third Wednesday work?

I know that's a long way off.

And remember, you know, just do your best to be here.

Um DC TV, I guess we might have to work with IT about establishing a Zoom link, a virtual meeting link if needed.

It would you would not count towards quorum, I don't believe.

We'd have to check with the county attorney on that.

The third Wednesday, um, while I'll defer to the majority of the commission.

I have a standing Brookhaven board of appeals if they're one still every month.

Okay, how about the fourth Wednesday?

How does that work for everybody?

Uh I would recommend if we uh have just the date for the next meeting, and then when we come together as the commission, then talk about the other meetings.

That works for me.

All right, so who wants to throw out a date in August?

I am gonna ask for it to be the last two weeks of August.

The commission goes on recess.

This is the first year I'm aware of Miss Barbara.

Has the county commission have we ever had a recess before in your history working for DeCab?

Okay, so I am told this is the first recess ever in decal county history, but we have a recess starting mid-July to mid-August.

And so if we can maybe look at that last um week in August or the third week of August, that we can get through that recess.

So, Gabrielle, since you um offered up the idea, you want to throw out a date?

Well, yeah, we said the fourth Wednesday.

Sure.

Fourth Wednesday?

Yeah, at 6 p.m.

All right.

Okay.

All right.

Uh Joy, if you make sure it lands on my calendar so I can sit in a participant chair and not a commission chair and listen.

All right, fantastic.

Y'all have made this easy.

Uh yes, ma'am.

August 26th?

Okay, August 26th, 6 p.m.

Most likely will be here at 178 Sam Street.

All right, moving on.

We already discussed quorum requirements.

Again, a quorum is eight people, a majority is five.

And then we'll take a majority of those present moving forward.

The last is the adoption of the procedural rules.

Um, this is a discussion I think that would be best uh facilitated by our county attorney.

Right now, um, the way that our board of commissioners works is that we we like many boards and commissions and nonprofits, adhere to Robert's rules.

Then we have a separate book that we call the blue book, which is our procedural rules.

We default to the procedural rule.

So Robert's rules might say you can have a max of 10 minutes per commissioner to speak.

We can establish our own procedural rules where you have a max of three, four or five minutes.

And so that's something that this commission can adopt at a future date.

I will be honest with you.

We have been working on the procedural rules for the board as London very well knows because Commissioner Davis Johnson has been leading the process of the ops committee.

We've been working on it now for two years, almost two years, our procedural rules.

So it takes a long time.

So the recommendation for purposes of our meeting right now is simply to adopt Robert's rules.

And so we can have a discussion about what Robert's rules is if someone is not familiar with them.

Otherwise, we just need a motion to adopt Robert's rules.

I make a motion to adopt Robert's rules.

This is Cheryl Court Meyer.

Gabrielle Rogers post seven.

I second.

All right.

Any discussion or comments on it?

All in favor?

Raise your hand.

All right.

I believe that we are unanimous to follow Robert's rules.

And at the next um meeting, uh, Joy, just make a note to have the county attorneys go over Robert's rules a little bit.

Um, and then you know, they could also talk about um establishing our own procedural rules if y'all choose to do so.

Okay, very good.

Um moving on to number nine, discuss the agenda for meeting number two, confirm the next meeting date, Gabrielle.

We've already done that.

Thank you, thank you.

And um, so we discuss the agenda for meeting number two.

So right now we know with meeting number two is to approve the agenda.

Uh the second um item to be addressed in the women's commission meeting number two, yeah, number two, is the approval of the minutes.

Third, we are going to have two to three minute presentations by our chair and vice chair candidates.

Fourth, our county attorney will um be present to talk to us about the Georgia Open Meetings Act and ethics requirements.

And uh Chief of Staff Joy, we might want to consider inviting Judge Murphy for the ethics piece of it if she could make the meeting in August and then um have the county attorney also talk about Robert's rules of order and the pros and cons of establishing um procedural rules for this commission.

Would you want to add roll call on the yes, ma'am?

Absolutely, thank you.

Yeah, roll call.

That's important.

Anything else that you guys would like to address in our meeting, our second meeting.

Yes, ma'am.

So we have two things.

One Elizabeth Abley, I I was thinking that um it might be nice if we could each draft a short bio that we share that could be part of our record, and and so that that will help us to get to know each other, uh, those who are here, those who aren't here.

Um to think I know it might be putting the cart before the horse, but to get into some of the substantive issues that we might be interested in in August.

I um and I I didn't have a specific suggestion about how to do that.

Uh but uh I do I would look forward to that opportunity in August if it's possible.

That is a great idea.

Um there was also brought up earlier about having a roster.

And um Joy and I discussed it before the meeting was to have a roster for all of the members, perhaps asking for them to submit short bios.

You might want to give a word limit.

So maybe say up to I saw you look at me, Cheryl.

Up to maybe 200 words at most, or 100 or 150 or something like that.

But just short bios, um, may perhaps another thought is to send in a photo so we can continue to learn who we are.

Um, and we'll need to get permission from each of our commissioners to print and distribute your email and your phone number.

I don't know that I see a need to to distribute your home addresses, perhaps just the city you live in.

So I live in Brookhaven, you live in Decatur, and so on.

All right, okay, good idea.

And then in terms of the different issue areas.

I'm looking at Gabrielle and Victoria.

I was actually going to say for us to add on the agenda to talk about the subcommittee priorities.

There you go.

For next for August, and then we can build out from there.

Could you could you guys kind of bring forward or maybe invite the subcommittee chairs?

Or you had co-chair structure, right?

Yeah, we definitely can do that.

It was four, and so we can do that.

Yeah, we can do that.

Yeah, because I mean the next meeting, just what we have now is probably a good bit.

Maybe we could use a portion of the next meeting and then the Q4 meeting to go over those issues that were thoroughly researched, and a great deal of input was received.

Because it's quite quite a few was it about 12?

Oh, yeah.

Okay, yeah, it's gonna take a minute to go through all of them.

So if y'all are okay, I might suggest that you break and do half in the next meeting or say a third in the next meeting and two thirds in Q4.

And ultimately, that will take us to what uh Miss Mitchell suggested is that we'll use this year to kind of start to construct our house, and then in next year we can start adding the furniture and the lights and all of that good stuff.

How does that sound?

This is Katrina May and there was a document created with that they could possibly share that as homework so we can have a heads up before the next meeting.

Gabrielle, could y'all share that with Joy, and then we can send it out with the um request to sign the form and your bio and that kind of thing.

Thank you for bringing that.

I forgot about that.

Yes, there was.

Is there gonna be a central repository for information and um sharing of documents and information?

Like there should be.

I think it'd be a better idea.

I mean, of course, I'm older, I'm like, oh, a binder might work, but that's a terrible idea.

Um so yes, we do need to have some type of suppository or repository.

Um Joy, maybe check with IT and ask how they want us to handle it.

The clerks, they are um they do minutes and it like agenda, the things that we have to do for the open meetings act.

But outside of that, they would shoot me if I ask them to do anything extra because this is already extra.

Um, but yes, I agree with you.

I think that we need to do that.

Just to to just document what we're doing.

And if we do get an open records request, they can have access to the repository and call it done.

Absolutely.

I think the SPLOSS committee has one that's pretty a website that's pretty robust.

Oh, good.

All right, so we can check with um I think Leah Davis.

Uh huh.

All right, maybe Joy check with Leah Davis and see what they do for the SPLOS 2 residents committee.

All right.

Question.

Yes, ma'am.

Victoria, post-cell level.

Oh, there you are.

Okay.

There's so many seats in that.

So is there going to be or can we establish um an email address for the women's commission for folks who need to have information?

So I don't know, DCWD at DeCab County, or is there we could okay.

We um go ahead and put that on your list too, Joey.

I'm sorry, Joy.

I'm loading her up right now.

We have a email that was established by central staff, which is I think boards and commissions at your shaking, is that right?

That sounds right.

Okay.

At DeCab County GA.gov, but that is for all of our boards and commissions, and we have 50-ish.

So a separate one that might make a lot more sense.

So thank you for offering that those wise words.

We'll check and see if they'd be willing to set that up for.

I don't see why not.

And then we'll just have to identify who will be one monitoring that account.

We have to have somebody on the women's commission monitoring, and maybe that's the chair or the vice chair.

We can work that out.

Okay, great suggestion.

All right.

Um, any other comments or questions on what we've achieved so far.

Very good.

Okay, well, flip over your agenda to number 10 public comment.

So I put this on here.

There's no requirement to my knowledge that we have a public comment opportunity.

I am a big fan of public comment.

As your county commissioner, that 30 minutes when they come or folks come the second and fourth Tuesdays of every month is where I learn what our collective constituents from all over DeCab County, not just my district, what their pain points are, what they care about, what they're concerned about.

And so that's something I did want to offer as a suggestion to this group is that there be an opportunity for public comment.

The way that we do it is um three minutes per speaker, a max of 10 speakers, it's 30 minutes.

Our madam clerk in the back.

Oh, three minutes per speaker.

Is that what I said?

Okay, three minutes per speaker times 10 speakers, total of 30 minutes.

She corrected my math, sorry.

Um, and so what she does is she gets the names and she reads them out.

Um, I don't know that we have to be that formal here.

If we have people that want to do public comment, if you guys choose to go in that direction, they can just kind of hang out and wait till public comment comes up and you have X amount of minutes and then it's done.

But again, that's really for this board to decide if you want to have that opportunity for constituents to come and talk to you and just share their concerns.

And so I think that's something when the next the chair and vice chair are elected that you guys can run with.

So I wanted to pause right now and give anyone and everyone who is present as a commissioner or a staff person or anyone in the room who has an event coming up or has anything that you would like to share with the group.

Good evening, London Post 5.

Um Saturday, June 13th.

We are hosting DeCab County, the Board of Commissioners, as well as the CEO and Commissioner Marita Davis Johnson are doing their Juneteenth Festival at the Rainbow Park Amphitheater, and we are having two different artists.

We're having both.

Oh my god, why is it slipping me right now?

But we're having two special performances, and we're almost sold out, so you all can get your tickets on event bite.

Thank you.

I'm trying to remember the the artist.

I don't know why.

Moore's Day in the Times.

There you go.

I'm like, what a super welcome.

They're a little before my time.

But Moore's Day in the Time will be performing.

Um yeah, we're looking forward to having them as well as Climax opening them up.

Wow.

There you go.

There you go.

All right.

So please join us for Juneteenth.

Thank you so much, London.

Um, Cheryl.

Uh well, we all know the World Cup is coming to Metro Atlanta.

And uh Decatur invites you to watch Fest.

We will be uh on the Decatur Square from June 11th for 34 days.

Every day we will be broadcasting all of the games.

We just got our broadcast rights last week, which is very exciting, and then we also have live musical entertainment each night.

We have three anchor concerts beginning with Big Boy on June 11th, and then we have the War and Treaty coming at the end of June, and we close out with the Indigo girls.

So as we think about women and celebrating women, I feel like the Indigo Girls is a great uh musical accompaniment or good soundtrack for our work.

Absolutely.

Please join us, Indicator if you're around.

We'd love to see you.

Music, and I am so excited about the World Cup.

All right, who else has any announcements?

Any events?

Any kids graduating?

Anything good to share?

Anything uplifting?

Words of wisdom.

Yes, ma'am.

Hey, decide to cab economic development 101 is gonna be June 2nd from 2 to 4 at Clarkston City Hall.

And we have our featured speakers, Dorian DeBar, Tiffany Willis, Rita Development, Sonny Anderson, our economic development director, and Diane Pritcher redevelopment manager.

So it's for um community leaders, partners, and advocates better understand how economic development works in DeCab County.

Fantastic.

And what is the date of that?

June 2nd.

Okay, very good.

All right, Joy, just note that if I can go to that.

All right.

Okay, any other announcements, thoughts?

All right.

Well, we have exhausted our agenda, but one more thing.

Hold on.

Can y'all hear me?

All right.

So in front of you is your parting gift from the district two office.

It is a mug with hot cocoa and a cookie in it.

So I would love for all of us to raise our mugs together.

Does everyone have one?

If you don't, I'll bring you one.

And I would love for each of you, we're gonna start over here, just to say a word or phrase about how you're feeling about the DeCab County Women's Commission, the only county-based women's commission in the state of Georgia.

How you're feeling after this meeting is about to conclude, or how you're looking at this work.

So we'll start with you, Miss Neal.

Um Hope Springs Eternal.

That's how I'm always feeling.

So I'm really excited and hopeful that we build something positive with each other.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Yes, ma'am Ray.

Building continuity.

Love it.

Building continuity.

Cheers.

Hello, cheers, and I am super excited to be here, and I know this group of women, we're gonna move forward with power.

And I know that our county, not only our county, our state is going to, we're going to impact women in a positive way.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes.

Power.

Absolutely.

Miss Appley.

Optimistic.

There we go.

We have the opportunity to elect the first woman governor in Georgia, the first woman attorney general, the first woman Secretary of State, the first woman.

What else?

Who else is running?

It's an important time for us to be engaged.

So thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you.

Celebrating the worth of all women.

Yes.

Cheers.

I would say stronger together.

I'm very excited that we have a very powerful commission, and that I'm very optimistic and looking forward to all the great things that we're gonna do together.

So lead by example.

Yes, stronger together.

I love that.

Miss Victoria.

I just wanted to say uh I feel united in purpose, which is my theme for the junior league year that I'm gonna be president.

So united in purpose to bring women forward into Cab County.

You bet, absolutely.

Go ahead.

Katrina making an impact and not focused on income, but making an impact.

Cheers.

Great minds thinking light with Victoria.

Umited.

Okay, really.

Yeah.

What is that?

United?

United.

Oh, simple.

I love it.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Uh I feel honored to be here among all of you.

So that's very exciting, and I feel motivated.

Glad to have you.

Cheers.

Okay, something like moving the cab forward.

Moving a woman for it.

There you go.

Love it.

Right on.

I'm excited to be here with such an impactful group of women to move the needle on issues, impacting women and girls in the cab.

God knows there is a lot of a lot of issues and a lot of work to be done.

And I think we're the group of women for such a time as now.

Cheers.

And I will close this out and then we'll take a motion to adjourn.

So cheers to all of you.

Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with us.

Thank you for being willing to dedicate your time and energy to this incredibly important initiative.

Know that you are making history in the room tonight.

And we are surrounded, if you can feel it, because I can, the power of the people, the women that are here.

So thank you all so much.

Cheers to a better journey to a wonderful women's commission to a stronger together to a unified.

What was yours again, Victoria?

United in purpose.

United in purpose, and that we are.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Thank you all.

Okay, I'll take a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

Second.

Beverly Eccles.

All in favor, raise your mugs.

All right.

Have a great night, everybody.

Thank you.