Good evening, everyone.

Um Brianna Bloom Scavera, and we are calling to order the special meeting of the LGBTQI Plus Commission scheduled for Monday, March 2nd, 2026 at 7 p.m.

It is currently 702.

Because this is a virtual meeting, I am going to read out the names of commissioners who are in attendance.

Any votes that will be taken tonight will be made through roll votes.

Each person will be called upon to vote individually.

Again, I am the chair of Brianna Scavera.

We have Commissioner Angela Crow, Commissioner Annika Dane, Commissioner Beth Shapiro, Commissioner Derek Cartoenia, Commissioner Katie Marot.

I apologize if I misspelled your last uh mispronounced your last name.

And Commissioner Lisa Loomis Davard.

We are joined from a member of the public, our partner at Middlesex Chamber of Commerce, Haley Stafford.

As a reminder, because this is a special meeting, only items on the agenda can be discussed, which means there can be no good of the order conversations, no new business can be added.

Meeting has been called to order, so we will move on to the public session on agenda items.

There is one member of the public, Haley Stafford.

Haley, if you wish to speak, you may on the agenda items.

If I don't hear from you in a few seconds, we'll move on.

I think you can go on.

Thank you.

First item under item three, a grand marshal selection.

Within the meeting packet, we have the compiled scores for the nominees.

It appears that John Pepe and Jennifer Billingsley have received the most votes.

If either declines, we would continue to offer in the order that it people are listed.

I'll make that motion.

Moved by Angela.

I was gonna say, and I can second that.

Second by Katie.

Is there any discussion?

Okay.

Seeing none, uh, we will do a roll call vote.

Um we'll start with Commissioner Angela.

I approve.

Annika.

I approve.

Approve.

Derek.

Approved.

Katie.

Approved.

Lisa.

And I vote yay as well.

Matter passes unanimously.

We'll now go to item 3B, trans lifeline 5K fundraiser.

I will turn this over to Commissioner Loomis Tavern to discuss.

Hi, so I um did I think leave a two messages with that number that was provided, and I have not heard back.

Um so my thinking is um that we do the walk um asking people to show up in support of um the trans community.

And there we um we provide people with information about some places that they could donate to if they want to show further financial support for the community.

Um we know the things that are happening in Kansas right now.

Um there might uh I believe there's an organization that's specific to um supporting trans people in Kansas.

So um in addition to TransLifeline, just sharing um a couple of organizations so that we can still do something and um show support for the community, but just not um sponsor or host the the fundraiser piece.

May I ask a question?

Yes.

We are an organization that supports trans people.

Why I am curious why we, if we're not going to fundraise for trans lifeline, why we wouldn't actively fundraise for ourselves.

And so I really wanted to do something for this holiday that was specific for the trans community.

But certainly, you know promoting the events that we do do specifically for the trans community and saying your support of Middletown Pride helps us enables us to do these um these programs, definitely.

Can I say something?

Annika.

So I just wanted to, I mentioned this at the um the most recent um Pride at West Brunch where and I they are the one they are the organization from Wesleyan who is going to be covering all of the Wesleyan costs for this.

And they're very excited.

I also spoke to a couple of community members at um there was a uh diverse books book fair um that I was presenting at, and I spoke with like the anti-racism task force, and they're excited about this as well.