The Special Advisory Board on Boards and Commissions met on June 18, 2025, at 7:00 PM in Room 305 to discuss the alignment, potential merger, and restructuring of the city's 19 advisory boards and commissions. Key topics included consolidation options, subcommittee structures, appointment authority, and next steps. The committee reached consensus on several recommendations to the full City Council, including merging certain boards, retaining council appointment authority, and setting a January 1, 2026 effective date, with a public hearing planned for late August or early September.
Alignment and Merger Options: Assistant City Manager Evan Raleigh and Taisha Mosley from the Community Engagement Office presented options to consolidate boards with overlapping missions. Three potential parent boards were proposed:
Merger Process: Immediate Reduction vs. Natural Attrition: Staff recommended two approaches to reach ideal board sizes. For the Human Relations option, immediate reduction was suggested because merging four boards would total 52 members (current Human Relations has 16). Council Member Ford preferred natural attrition when possible, while Council Member Branch advocated for a mix, noting that immediate reduction would be needed for large mergers but natural attrition worked for smaller boards with low participation.
Subcommittee Structure and Appointments: Two options were presented:
Board Sizes and Quorum: Staff recommended subcommittee sizes of 5-6 members based on best practices from boards like Historic Cemeteries. Council discussed meeting space constraints (e.g., Room 305 capacity) and noted that virtual meetings or use of community centers could accommodate larger initial meetings. The committee acknowledged that these challenges were temporary as boards would naturally attrit to smaller sizes.
Other Items:
We are gabbling in officially in room 305 for our special advisory board on uh boards and commissions, and I will turn it over to Assistant City Manager Evan Raleigh. Right, good afternoon, Mayor and uh members of the committee. So uh committees covered a lot of ground uh and we have a packed agenda today. Um so just to kind of give you a quick preview of what uh you can expect to hear from from uh Miss Mosley, who I'll pass the mic over to in just a moment. So uh at the last meeting we we we left where we left it was bringing back to you some uh possibilities for you to consider around alignment, the potential merger of of various boards and commissions. So uh we will present those options to you. Uh and should you choose to take action to bring some of those groups together? Uh we also have um a presentation related to the process and the structure around how that could be accomplished. So uh without further ado, I will uh recognize Ms. Mosley to uh to kick us off. Well, and before you do, just I don't think this mic is on. We don't have reinforcement in here. It's uh just the mic for the broadcast. Okay, but I'm just saying the lights not on. I don't is it working? Yes. Okay, all right. Okay, gotcha baby. Please, sorry. Sure. Good afternoon. Uh mayor, members of city council, Taisha Mosley with the community engagement office. I will say it is odd to sit and present to you. Um, but I will be turning which direction to make sure that we are making eye contact. So um we're gonna as Mr. Raleigh stated, we're gonna cover a lot of topics today. There will be moments throughout the presentation for us to pause and have discussion throughout. So you don't have to retain everything that I'm sharing until the end. Yes. I was just gonna say, this is extremely awkward. I mean, like you're gonna need vertebrae adjustment. Uh so I mean if you guys need to turn or whatever, we will not take offense if you change your chairs around. Okay. Also a good point. Today's agenda, we'll talk about alignment, we'll go into process and logistics. We have several five follow-up items, both from the last two meetings, council retreat, conversations in between, etc. And then we'll talk about next steps. As a reminder, here are your advisory boards and commissions. You see an asterisk down there for two boards with different circumstances. One, the African American Affairs Board has not been seated. There has been conversations around the process there, and then also the mayor's commission for persons with disabilities as of today. That board is only appointed by the mayor, and then there's been conversation around structuring that board to align with your other boards and commissions where the entire council appoints that board, and so we'll have conversations there, or you all will about how you want that to function. Okay. There may be a question as to why Hispanic and Immigrant Affairs is under economic development and innovation. And I'll say their mission is to advise city council on barriers that impact the Hispanic and immigrant community in social, economic, and vocational pursuits. Staff was also asked to look at mission or goal alignment of your advisory boards and commissions in addition to the strategic plan. And we also wanted to add the departments that support the boards and commissions. So I'll walk you through the next two slides. So on the far left is the board or commission. The one in bold would be in the event you choose to take an action of a merger consolidation would be the parent board.