To get started, I'm Twyla Carter, Chair of the Resilience Committee for the City of Houston, and I'd like to call this meeting to order.

We've got a couple of great presentations today.

First off, I'd like to acknowledge a lot of staff here this morning, bright, shiny faces.

First, from uh Vice Chair Councilmember uh Cayman's office.

We have staff.

We have staff from Councilmember uh Tiffany Thomas's office, Mario Castillo's office, uh, and Alejandro Salinas' office and Sally Alcorn.

Thank you all for being here.

Um today we've got two presentations.

First up will be uh Brooke Campbell, who is the director of community outreach and disaster recovery for the United Way for Greater Houston, and we have a couple of speakers uh signed up to offer comments or questions, and we'll get to those after both presentations.

So, Brooke, come on up and tell us what you've got.

I'm excited to hear your presentation, and it's a nice sunny day, so we don't have any disasters to worry about, but let's get prepared.

Thank you for being here, Brooke.

Hugh, do I need to?

Oh, y'all can hear me, okay.

Well, good morning, and thank you for um allowing us the opportunity to talk a little bit more about what we do.

I'll just start again with a quick introduction.

My name is Brooke Campbell.

I'm the director of community outreach and disaster recovery at United Way of Greater Houston, primarily responsible for the Greater Houston Disaster Alliance.

Um, and that's what we'll be talking about today.

So, in the interest and spirit of um reducing awareness gaps, my presentation today is really more about who we are, what we do, and some of the achievements we've made over the last few years, and then I'll close with just a few light calls to action, nothing serious, more collaborative in nature.

Um, so next slide, please.

At its core, the disaster alliance is a philanthropic partnership between the United Way of Greater Houston and the Greater Houston Community Foundation.

And it exists to accelerate disaster recovery and strengthen long-term disaster resilience throughout or through coordinated philanthropy and coordinated partnership.

Um the work would not that we do would not be possible without investments from our lead sponsors, NBridge and Philip66.

Um, together they committed one and a half million over three years, which we lovingly refer to as phase one, 2023 to 2026, which helped lay the foundation for the work that we do for a more permanent disaster philanthropy model uh that serves this region.

And so that investment supports uh post-disaster philanthropic work immediately after a disaster strikes, but also year-round infrastructure, uh building relationships year-round, and preparing processes and tablets and tools that increase our readiness, which is required for us to act um quickly after a disaster strikes quickly and effectively.

Next slide, please.

So I want to begin by uh first taking a brief look at the local landscape.

Um this reflects a reality that all of us know all too well.

We have experienced 28 federally declared disasters since 1980, that's in the last 45 years, and more than half of our residents live in a census tract with medium to high social vulnerability.

And that's significant because disasters compound their existing challenges related to income and housing stability, access to health-related resources like food and mental health services.

And then lastly, Harris County has the largest number of cedars for short, uh community disaster resilience zones that were designated by FEMA.

Those were announced in fall of 2023.

So it's um that combination of frequent disasters, concentrated vulnerability, um, which really reinforces why a coordinated and data-informed recovery and preparedness effort are just not optional for our community.

They they really are essential.

Next slide, please.

So there's a lot going on here.

It is unavoidably busy.

Uh the early years on this timeline represent very well-intentioned but sometimes fragmented efforts, um, specific to disaster philanthropy.

Orange dots are uh funds that were started by the United Way.

Blue dots were started by the Greater Houston Community Foundation.

The yellow dots represent joint funds.

We learned after a couple of decades.

Let's do this together.

And then the green dots represent the funds that were officially launched under the Greater Houston Disaster Alliance name and partnership.

So what this is really showing is a duplication of efforts.

For one disaster, you'll see that there were multiple funds launched.

That meant that donors who are donate had to decide between which fund to donate to.

Nonprofits often had to submit two or more grant applications to receive funds to do the same work.

And that duplication is one of the primary reasons why the disaster alliance was created in the first place to solve that inefficiency, not by replacing partners, but by truly aligning all of us together.

Next slide, please.

So this is our our journey toward partnership.

Formally launched in 2023, but the roots go way back to 2017 after Hurricane Harvey, which is 10-year anniversary next year.

Leaders from both of our organizations really began exploring a deeper collaborational effort to share data to talk about what it might look like to raise and distribute dollars together.

Those initial exploratory conversations really set the stage for a more combined response in 2020 when we all experienced the COVID-19 pandemic.

So at that time we partnered to assess community needs together to review that data as well as conduct a survey to assess our nonprofit sector's capacity to respond.

Our nonprofit staff and organizations are also affected by these disasters, and they may not be in a position to provide services that the community typically relies on them to provide.

So funds were actually granted back to the community within 24 days after that disaster.

We also then signed an MOU to committing to work together for future disasters, and just one more later, we all experienced winter storm year in 2021.

So we launched another joint fund, that time with support from the city of Houston and Harris County leadership, and we were able to distribute funds within 16 days to the community, which is a truly dramatic change in the time it typically takes, traditional granting institutions to get the dollars into the community where they're needed most.

And so those experiences with the pandemic and the winter storm really solidified our partnership, and it led to the creation of the Greater Houston Disaster Alliance in 2023, where we now have shared governance, shared strategy, shared grant making, shared gift processing and data analysis, and even reporting is more centralized.

Next slide, please.

So we really are guided by three strategic goals.

Ultimately to raise and deploy funds faster after a disaster strikes, to increase that equitable access to resources and to catalyze public and private collaboration, all ultimately with the goal of accelerating recovery after a disaster strikes.

Next slide, please.

For clarity, I think it's important to be explicit about who we are and who we are not.

So we are that philanthropic partner.

We're a connector and convener across sectors of all of our partners, and we're committed to preparedness, recovery, and resilience by leveraging all of these partnerships.

I want to pause for a moment and call out that we are intentionally listing preparedness, recovery, and resilience.

If you're familiar with the phases of disaster, you don't see uh response there.

That's usually those first days and weeks after a disaster.

And we recognize that there are partners in this community that already have a hold, a really strong hold on that space and are doing great things.

And we will partner and support them, but they are leading in that in that phase.

We are truly focused on longer-term recovery.

Months and years after a disaster is over, there are still families and households recovering, and that's where we want to make the most impact.

So we really are not the disaster responders, we're not the boots on the ground, we're not the direct service provider, and we're not funding year-round operations.

We really are focused on disaster efforts.

Uh, next slide, please.

I also want to um oh, we'll talk about what we do in post-disaster and year-round.

Again, just for complete clarity.

After a disaster strikes, we're focused on accelerating that recovery.

We're activating the funds when certain parameters are met.

We're fundraising and grant making.

And then year-round, we're more focused on strengthening preparedness and resilience.

So we're convening our partners typically on a quarterly basis, maintaining our internal readiness, building partnerships, and attracting and investing in resilience initiatives.

Next slide.

So I also want to touch on our nonprofit engagement strategy.

We learned some hard lessons after activating two disaster recovery funds in 2024 for the DeDECHO and Hurricane Barrel.

It became very clear that we needed more structure and more transparency about how we engage those nonprofit partners.

So what you see on this screen is our three classifications.

Our core partners are the nonprofits that quickly activate at least one primary disaster service after a disaster strikes.

They serve broad populations and are more likely to receive an invitation to apply for funding after if we do, in fact, activate a fund.

Our community partners provide either a primary or secondary disaster service, and they may serve a niche population, which could, for example, disasters of not disasters, sorry, survivors of domestic violence or veterans, LGBTQ IA plus population, and many others.

So our community partners are more likely to receive an invitation to apply for funding after a widespread disaster when we typically would raise tens of millions of dollars.

So there are more resources to be distributed.

And then our friends of the disaster alliance to either do not meet our basic eligibility requirements or they are not providing a disaster service.

So this structure really helps us manage expectations in the community, build trust with our nonprofit partners, and so that we can be a better, more predictable philanthropic partner.

Next slide, please.

I also want to touch on uh data.

Our data strategy, I mean, it really underpins everything we do.

So we prioritize data informed strategies, we maintain data sharing agreements with our trusted partners, we conduct rapid post-disaster analyses to identify those disproportionately connect our impacted zip codes during blue sky day periods.

Um we identify the disaster services which really guide our preparedness and resilience investments.

And then post-disaster, we evaluate that impact data using information that's reported not only through our grantees but also through our grantees' clients.

Our key data partners you see on the screen are 211 Texas United Way helpline, where we get some of that initial high-level needs data.

Connective is our system coordination partner.

They collect similar data but much more detailed and robust.

And then TEDum, we will gather the ISTAT data that uh shows where property damage is, and then we layer all of that with the social vulnerability data from the CDC to identify those most disproportionately impacted zip codes, which is where we direct our funding after when we do activate a fund.

Next slide, please.

So that's who we are, that's how we operate.

Um that's that's what we do.

I'd just like to spend a few more minutes talking about some of our achievements since we launched in 2023.

In year one, um, we focus more on building our own infrastructure and readiness.

So we re-engaged our city and council um county leadership, formally launched the disaster alliance publicly.

We welcomed two full-time staff that are dedicated to this work of the disaster alliance year-round, and we re-engaged nearly 200 nonprofit partners ahead of the 2024 hurricane season, which really had not been engaged or convened in almost three years since um the winter storm.

So we also established the Disaster Recovery Council, our governing body that includes representation from the city of Houston and Harris County.

Um we crafted joint fund and grant-making processes and tools and tiplets, all very exciting stuff.

Not really, but it was so important to have that in place when the disasters struck in 2024.

Um, and I will just say as far as city and county representation on our governing body, the disaster recovery council, that's uh Cynthia Wilson from Mayor Turner's office, and then Judge Hidalgo appointed Winel Heron from HEB.

She's the senior VP of Public Affairs.

Um in our second year, again, we really tested that infrastructure.

We had spent so much time building.

Um that's when we had the Dadecho and Hurricane Um barrel, just six weeks apart apart.

We were able to grant $8.7 million to 35 different nonprofit partners.

Those nonprofit partners served over 12,000 households or individuals in nearly 4100 households with our primary disaster services, which are home repair, emergency financial assistance, and disaster resource navigation.

We reduce the time it takes to get those dollars into the community down to an average from 34 to 22 days, strengthen those data partnerships, and really refined our data analysis process.

We were also able to invest funds in our our first resiliency investment, and that was with dollars that came from outside of the recovery funds themselves.

That was specifically to pilot a coordinated intake for emergency financial assistance.

We also convened our nonprofit partners.

That's what we do all year, every year.

Um talk to our donors about a sustainable fundraising model for this innovative new philanthropic partnership.

They told us what they really thought, and then continued refining our recovery and resilience framework, which includes components and content from the City of Houston's resilience plan.

Next slide, please.

So in year three, which we are still in the midst of our program year ends in April, um, we finally had the bandwidth to begin transitioning our work from recovery and the disaster funds to and focusing on our internal infrastructure to system coordination and more strategic resilience work.

We've executed MOUs with 18 nonprofit partners to essentially bypass the first round of grant funding and get dollars into the community less than a week after a disaster strikes.

And I'll just stop there to give you a little story on how significant that is.

Oftentimes our community is without power or businesses close for whatever reason, maybe there's flooding, and people can't work.

And for those households that are uh living paycheck to bay check, if they can't work for a week or two weeks and they become behind on rent, um they are facing eviction.

So by getting those dollars into their hands within a week, it really puts them in a position where they have more stability and will not suffer as much as many challenges after that disaster.

Um we've also convened our nonprofit um partners, over 200 staff.

We've really started measuring the learning that's taking place at those convenings to document the increase in preparedness that this community has because of the work that we're doing and the convenings that we're facilitating.

We've also invested in Connective, which is our system coordination partner to centralize all of the work that we're doing.

Um again, they are vital in collecting and reporting back on that data.

We've identified 29 highly vulnerable zip codes, 10 of which we consider a disaster service desert, meaning there are less than two nonprofits that are providing disaster services to the people that live in that zip code.

Um, and we've served on Mayor Whitmire's uh Houston Ready round table on the handoff and data work groups.

So I think it's also important to say that many of these achievements were not planned.

We uh be very we are very intentional in our planning and our strategies in improving and and becoming more efficient and effective in the work we do, but because we had the disasters in 2024, um we had the opportunity to achieve more than we had planned.

Next slide, please.

So I'll close um with this.

Our ask of the resilience committee is is intentionally very light.

Uh we invite you all to think of us as thought partners, um, someone you can collaborate with, share insights with, um, leverage us when it's helpful.

We ask that you help promote awareness of the disaster alliance within your networks, and if you happen to come across national um public or private funding opportunities that you think align with our work, we would greatly appreciate the connection.

Next slide, last slide.

Just thank you again for um the opportunity to talk a little bit more about what we do.

Um we are thankful for the opportunity to to share this information, and I welcome continued dialogue.

Um please don't ever hesitate to reach out to me with questions or ideas if anything comes up in the future.

My contact information is on the slide, and thank you again.

Well, thank you, Brooke.

Uh, you know, um thank you for your presentation.

Before I make a couple of comments, I do want to acknowledge uh that we've been joined by Vice Mayor Pro Tim uh Amy Peck, and online we have Councilmember Fred Flickinger as well as uh we have staff online from uh Mayor Pro Tim Castex Tatum, as well as um staff joined by staff uh from Ramirez, Martinez, Councilmember Jackson, and Thomas's office.

So thank you.

Um music to my ears.

Don't go away, Brooke.

You're not out of the hot seat yet.

Uh music to my ears when you all join forces to do this, um, because there's so many, many people out there doing really good work, but together, as I always say, we do good work well.

And um, you know, in the in a nonprofit world, when when time of need steps up, people say, who do I donate to?

Who do I contribute to?

And just having a unified front, especially in a time where there's a great need is very important for the messaging as well as you know, how do we how do we access those funds and who's eligible and and how does that work?

It's it's really it's great to uh to have that one-stop shop and and to be able to uh to provide the information to the public.

Um when you look at the over the past the the 28 disasters in 45 years you know that seems like I remember them all, so I guess I'm telling my age, but wow, what a and when we talk federally declared disasters and the impact uh to our community um over the long haul is significant.

I mean it's it's when we look back and to to see on the timeline, which thank you for uh providing that timeline.

Um, you know, to me, Harvey seems like yesterday.

And then you look for fast forward to 2020, that seems like yesterday morning.

I mean, it's it's crazy how time flies.

So thank you for the work that you do, and thank you for your presentation, and I hope everyone around this horseshoe will reach out and and make sure to utilize your resources and just the good information that you all have available.

I don't have anybody in the queue signed up.

Um are there any questions online?

I guess not.

So you're free now.

Thank you for your presentation.

Look forward to seeing you again soon.

Thank you.

So we're ready for presentation two, and that is coming from Steve Stelzer with he is the Vice President of Citizens Environmental Coalition.

Thank you for being here, Steve.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

It's uh an absolute pleasure to be in this uh WAP building that's historic as a career architect.

Um I'm so happy that Houston has preserved this.

Uh another real gem is across the street with the Julie Edison library and uh kudos.

Um I am uh retired from the city uh after 16 years of service um in the public works department, so it's great to be back here now that I'm kind of my my part-time job with an environmental nonprofit, and so I'm I'm thrilled to uh to walk you through what we're trying to do.

Um next slide, please.

So why are we all here?

You mentioned Harvey.

I think that's what resilience is all about.

Uh next slide.

And so who are we, the Citizens Environmental Coalition?

We actually uh came into existence in um 71.

1971.

So we've been around for a while, um, started by Terry Hershey, um, who started a few other environmental nonprofits.

And so over the years we've sort of been this um connector um organization for the myriad of environmental nonprofits that we have.

And so there we are connecting the environmental community uh with a diverse range of programs, resources, and events.

And we are our aim is to create access to advocacy and educational opportunities, foster appreciation for nature, and connect stakeholders to work collaboratively on local solutions.

Next slide.

So we are representing over a hundred nonprofit organizations, and we have this uh nifty map on our website.

And we are a 501c3, again founded in 71 by Terry Hershey.

Next slide.

So our mission is to foster dialogue, education, and collaboration on environmental issues in the Houston Gulf Coast region and our mission area is the same number uh uh 13 counties that uh the HGAC is um taken care of.

And uh our vision is an environmental community recognized as a vital part of the fabric of our society.

So this vision, I don't think we've uh accomplished that yet.

Um but one of these days, I think we will be a vital part of the vital of the fabric of our society.

So um one of the things that uh there's we have a couple of things that I'd like to ask.

Um if you would please subscribe to our free weekly CEC environmental newsletter.

And it's not like you have to read it, but you know, you might want to check it out once in a while.

We have a green jobs directory.

This has been extremely useful for people that want to be in an environmental organization.

We keep hearing from people in our member organizations going, you know, I got my job through the CEC Green Job Board, and they're just thrilled about that.

And so uh we feel like we're providing a vital service.

And uh I do anyway.

And then we have uh an environmental calendar.

Now I think Google might be catching up in the uh what's going on today environmentally.

There seems to be with AI uh that they're kind of catching up.

But we're at we have this calendar, and uh these nonprofits uh give us these activities that they're doing, and we put it on this calendar.

So if anybody wants to do anything on any given day, they can look at our calendar.

Um we started an environmental book club, and we're in our second year, and um it's small, okay, but it's incredibly invigorating for me.

Um extensive book list is still on the Green Building Resource Center website of all kinds of environmental book titles.

And um it's just lovely, and I really enjoy doing it.

Um then there are uh we also invite people to become volunteers with us.

But those are sort of the um the main activities that uh we would we would ask.

Um and the reason why I ask is not like we need uh city council to necessarily support us or anything like that.

But um we have city organiz entities that are our member organizations, uh Houston Parks and Rec, for instance, um, the Houston Parks Board, okay, that they all participate with the CEC.

And I'm very happy about that.

Uh Green Building Resource Center does too.

Um it's a it's a useful, I think, resource whenever any of the constituents uh would contact you about environmental issues that they might have.

Okay.

So um next slide, please.

So um we have uh our big event each year is the environmental summit, and uh uh in 2024 we um decided that we needed to start some working groups, and our theme at the time was uniting for health equity and resilience to collaborate on regional solutions.

And so um next slide, please.

We started a working group that is called Built for Resilience, and uh we have uh not pretty small committee, but still working on trying to help with resilience efforts in this region.

And so we want to assist this committee.

So we would invite you to contact us if there's any coordination among the non uh environmental nonprofits that you might have.

Okay.

And um so you can see uh in these various boxes, our vision and our goals and what have you.

So we just want to get to where someone could get on our website and search through something that they're interested in environmentally, and I don't mean interested in any kind of a casual, but you know, what are they interested in?

Um what sort of environmental issue do they have at their house, what uh uh there they are, uh perhaps they want to uh steer their career towards the environment or what have you.

So um that is what we want it be.

We want to um we want to have specific people and um links to the important entities.

For instance, uh, much as um I appreciate the city of Houston and and I think the city of Houston has an excellent website.

It's still tough to navigate.

I mean, so anybody who doesn't know who they're looking for is in trouble.

And so when it comes to anything environmental, we want to be able to have a link to that particular department or what have you.

Okay.

Next slide, please.

And we also want to sort of not be as dense.

So, you know, the resilient Houston plan, which I applaud.

And that was uh an a huge accomplishment by the city of Houston in 2020.

188 pages, 18 targets.

So getting your average person out there, um willing to comb through 188 pages is just I don't think it's gonna happen.

So the county um came out with last year their um resilience plan, uh resilience equity plan, and uh they I think decided it didn't need to be as long or as extensive, and they're at 59 pages, still at about 18 goals.

And then I also got on the website and looked at uh this committee's um kind of what you've been doing, and and you've been started in 2024 and you've had 17 agendas.

So um congratulations at showing interest uh and staying power.

Next slide, please.

So we went through a charrette process.

Um we had 18 people attend uh this past October, and we are trying to get down to three or four items which are somewhat uh broad but uh that would help CEC give the most impact for um our member organizations and the public.

And so out of our top 10 priorities, the group decided to focus on three main priorities.

And these priorities combine these three items into one and then focused on two others.

Next slide, please.

So priority one is conservation and protection of natural resources, restore habitat, reduce flooding and water use, and supports a healthy ecosystem.

Clean air, water, and soil supports the health and well-being of all living things.

Pretty broad-based, but and and certainly um right in there with what the resilience committee here wants to do.

We would love to see all communities having uh accessible and high quality parks and open spaces.

Again, Houston Parks and REC, I think are doing a great job that reduce heat islands, absorb flowed water, and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

And then we want to promote green infrastructure projects, including nature-based solutions.

That was quite a popular term to support the initiative of complete 100 new green stormwater infrastructure projects by 2025, which was the City of Houston initiative.

So again, we really want to be in touch with the City of Houston because there has been a lot of fabulous initiatives developed.

Next slide, please.

Prior to is recycling and reuse, and that uh I think we all know is uh quite a topic, but we're trying to get somewhere with that because that's kind of the entry-level entry um threshold for a lot of people to even start thinking about uh environmental issues.

And next slide, priority three modernize our energy and water infrastructure to support the demands of electrification and the digital economy, ensuring grid resilience and long-term resource sustainability.

Nothing new here.

We're not reinventing the wheel, we're just trying to focus and be at a reasonable resource to people.

Next slide, please.

So our key takeaways um we really want to try to collaborate and become more efficient by reducing duplication across organizations and increase interdepartmental cooperation.

It's a pretty lofty goal, but we're going for it.

Leverage existing expertise across nonprofits, academia, and government, and engage major players like AI data center developers in progressive infrastructure innovations requiring water reuse and localized resource systems.

So next slide, please.

And our community advocacy and education, um, our focus is on public awareness of available resources.

So that is exactly what we're trying to do.

Encourage behavioral change and recognize culture and socio and economic barriers.

And so that again is what we're trying to do.

And next slide, please.

We uh in 2026, right now we're again narrowing our focus to a smaller set of high impact, achievable goals.

We want to serve as a connector, and we want to build visibility for resilience education and story uh through public events, storytelling and arts collaborations, and of course we're gonna be exploring funding and partnerships to support green infrastructure, disaster preparedness and resource conservation.

And of course, we're going to be exploring funding and partnerships to support green infrastructure, disaster preparedness, and resource conservation.

So those are uh three more of our efforts here.

Next slide, please.

Our next event is uh Earth Day with Discovery Green, which um Houston Public Works has been very supportive of for a few years now.

So I hope that they continue to be um supportive going forward.

Um it's usually draws a pretty big crowd.

I would um invite everyone here uh to who might want to come by.

Um we're gonna be, of course, asking some uh council members to maybe speak for a few minutes.

Um so we're working on that.

That's April 25th at Discovery Green.

Next slide, please.

And so these are some of these kind of wonderful graphics that uh people do these days uh from our um our summits and um naturally uh foremost and right in the middle we have resilience where everyone wants to be more resilient.

Why wouldn't you?

Next slide.

Health, vulnerable communities, all these things that you know all about.

The um heat mapping is kind of noticed here, and I participated in one of the heat mappings.

I think that was a super incredible exercise to go through.

I think uh that uh that's a very important uh urban heat island is a big deal, especially in a city like Houston.

Next slide.

And here we go, making health on uh making progress on health, equity, and resilience with winning strategies.

So we're uh work in progress.

We're um coming back from you know, we we had our uh watershed disaster moment was uh of course um COVID.

We got down to four board members, but we are on the comeback trail.

We now have I think twelve.

And um we're also looking at uh just really getting our groove back and uh becoming as vital as we can to the city of Houston and to the um region of other counties as well as Harris County.

Next slide, please.

So this is our ask.

Um please maybe visit Citizens Environmental Coalition sometime.

Uh the website is CEC Houston.org.

And just take a look at the sort of resources that we offer and uh hopefully they will look um valuable to you, and we can be of assistance to all of your constituents, and perhaps to um say of Houston employees in the various departments.

And um that's pretty much all I have.

Great information.

Thank you.

Um certainly I'll be signing up for your newsletter.

I'm interested in seeing what what you what you guys are up to.

Um thank you for the great overview.

Um sounds like you you uh are really on a great path onward and upward and and uh working with uh many great organizations and certainly uh appreciate you being here today to present.

And there are no questions.

Um so thank you.

We do have a couple of public speakers uh uh who have a couple of speakers who have signed up for questions, and so we'll let you take your seat and maybe we'll have a question or two.

Thank you so much, Steve.

First uh up is Mr.

Dominic Mazoch.

Come on down.

How are you this morning?

Oh, maybe I want to show this picture first before I get up here.

Okay.

What I want to talk about is, and this thought occurred to me during the Moody Park celebration.

One of the ham groups that was there, and our blog group, the Southeast Texas Amateur Group, we've put up uh uh a Pam radio station, and we let people talk on the radio.

Uh with and that's legal threat party services.

But there was questions that people were bringing up.

Uh particularly like people who are into things in that particular uh super neighborhood.

Number one, ham radio, yes, there is a test, but you don't do not need Morse code anymore.

Morse code is a valid uh operating mode, but you do not need it to pass the test.

And so the question became um what does it take to for neighborhoods or you know, what happens if the cell phone system goes down?

We've had a cell phone allergies.

Uh and for a lot of people, that is the only way they're gonna get information.

So uh I'm just bringing this up.

This is a handheld ham radio, and it also comes in a non-test version called GMRS, both need licenses, but uh there's slightly different services.

But what I'm and I didn't bring everything with me, and the phone that's going around is the pop-up station I did to help with um reads across America.

I was at the parking ride a lot and I was talking to the uh people over in the in the cemetery itself.

So we so I can come in and or we can come in and put this stuff up, but I think there's some merit, particularly I'm thinking of the general mobile radio service, and I can bring a demonstration later.

I'm just bringing this up, maybe uh I'll feel what y'all get a feeler here, uh that uh in case the cell system goes out, or you just need you know, you're watching a neighborhood or whatever.

Uh these are like this is $25.

So I I'm beginning to wonder if um I can come in with a more detailed presentation later, as the two groups in front of me have, and uh show this committee what uh citizens-based radio, and I'm talking here, ham, GMRS, citizens, and so forth, might be helpful in getting communications out, particularly in areas of the city that there's no cell phone service or or very uh um cell phone desert.

There's a lot of people that don't have the money for a uh, you know, a monthly cell phone.

And two, uh with B Ham Radio, particularly the ham radio committee, like for instance, we we had the ice storm uh a couple days ago.

Uh we were on some of us were uh were on particular frequencies, and we were passing traffic to Trans Star about road closures or or and that sort of thing, and we were getting stuff for the weather service.

And when the weather service, I'll finish my sentence here.

Uh when the weather service um had a message, it was put out on the uh ham radio uh frequencies for Harris County.

I didn't hear anything up in live in Montgomery County for their version, their EOC.

So I got to ask that can I track pass this traffic up?

I said, sure.

So again, uh I'm not knocking cell phone service, I'm not knocking anything, but I think the more uh open the more stuff that we have uh the more lives we can save.

Lastly, have a weather radio.

I think the the disaster in the Hill Country shows us having a radio that wakes you up in the middle of the night and you gotta get out of bed and gab dodge saves lives.

But that I have no other comments.

Thank you, Mr.

Mazok.

And you know, uh I remember when the ham radios and all what the technology came along and what a what a wonderful invention, but it's that safe standby uh that we do need kind of in our back pocket.

So interesting uh um and certainly happy to visit with you further on that, and also too, the weather radio.

I thought my mother was the only person that still had one of those, but evidently not.

They're handy.

I didn't know which community goes with this, and I think I think the management set of the community, but I think on the website, each committee should have a mission statement.

What what what is their operations?

What what part should the government that like resiliency?

I would I was I was going with this because of recovery from a disaster.

That's why I came here.

So I think that might be you know on the each of the web pages for the the Barry Committee's uh mission statement.

What do you do?

That's that's a good idea.

Also, too.

Uh you may want to sorry Kelly to put you on the spot, but you may want to visit with Kelly uh from the mayor's uh round table discussions over here after the after the meeting.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Uh next up, Pastor Deb, you want to come on down?

How are you today?

Have a seat in the chair.

Or you can stand.

No.

Scoot on over to the mic.

One of the mics.

Oh, okay.

Like that.

There you go.

Thank you, Councilmember Carter.

I thank the committee today for the space and grace.

I am Pastor Deb Benario Martin.

I'm a co-founder of Zelma Friends of North Houston.

We're a quicker organization.

Uh, we improve quality of life and social determinants of health in our north side north line area.

I'm recently elected as the president of Super Neighborhood 45.

That endeavor started after Hurricane Harvey.

It's taken a long time for a grassroots, and I'm an actual grassroots person in the flesh.

Working regionally.

And because our territory is right at the county line at Melrose Park, I believe regional work is very important.

And I would ask all of you to look at the Super Neighborhood Alliance, the model.

When we started of 88, there was only I think 50 of them in there.

30 were defunct.

But we found in areas like ours, uh 77076, North Line, that civic clubs were failing to materialize and or were infeasible.

And we started civic groups, and we ask that trailer parks and low-income apartments, any apartments be allowed in the super neighborhood.

Anytime we could put a toolkit and have three to five people reliably gathering at least twice a year.

And so I would believe that I would also like to congratulate the remarks of Brooke and of Steve, because we I know of their work.

And um our deal is conservation stewardship and reciprocity.

I think it could be that simple.

So we actually care about that.

And so I would just encourage you all, as the other speakers have, uh, to remember that the people on the ground in the neighborhoods, many without transportation, a lot of them in a digital divide, sort of without maybe uh a phone.

And so that's really all I have to say, except thank you for the opportunity, and I keep up with this committee.

I don't get to come here very often.

Uh, but I would ask you to support Super Neighborhood 45 because we worked hard at it and um we're we're way behind.

Thank you.

Well, thank you for being here, uh Pastor, and also to uh thank you for the work you do out there.

And uh I know you email my office uh often, and please continue to do so on anything that you want to make us aware of.

Please don't hesitate to to uh reach out and certainly we support Super Neighborhood 45 and we'll pop in to see you all here soon.

Um thank you for being here.

Thank you for your work and this committee.

It means a lot.

Thank you so much.

God bless you.

We have no questions in the queue, and we have no other speakers signed up.

And looks like it's a wrap.

The meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all for being here.

Have a great day.