All right, Commissioners, having reached 530, we are going to call the uh community relations commission meeting for April 9th, 2026 to order.

Uh can we start with the roll call, please?

Commissioner Barrero.

President.

Commissioner Bravo.

Present.

Commissioner Brown.

Present.

Commissioner Cruddett.

Absent.

Commissioner Garwick?

Present.

Commissioner Johnson.

Absent.

Commissioner Call.

Present.

Commissioner Martin.

Commissioner McDowell.

President.

Commissioner Pikela?

President.

Commissioner Shanklin.

Absent.

You have a quorum.

Commissioners, I would just remind you to pull the microphones down to you so that we can pick up the recording.

So the next thing we're going to move to is the acceptance of the journal, the Journal of Proceedings for the Community Relations Commission meeting held on March 12th, 2026.

So move.

We have a motion and do we have a second?

We have a motion and a second.

Is there any discussion related to the Journal of Proceedings?

With no discussion, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed.

The next thing on our agenda is public speakers.

We have Steven McMaster to join us tonight.

Stephen, as usual, you have five minutes for that.

How's it going?

So last month I kind of talked a little bit about some of the issues I've had trying to communicate with members of City Council and members of the legal team and trying to get some things like changed, some of the simple updates that I think should should make sense.

We totally should.

Everybody, everybody wants to, but nobody wants to put the effort forward.

And just to give some insight, the reason I focus on those kinds of like little minor procedural things that shouldn't matter is because they're apolitical.

It shouldn't be a big ask to get a law that we don't follow updated.

Like that doesn't make any sense.

Thank you.

It's just little things that we don't we don't follow.

I like to focus on those because the bigger issues, the things that involve like actually convincing people to, you know, agree with me and change, join my side, is a lot more difficult.

And they require a more nuanced conversation.

They require that pathway in order for members of the public or whoever to actually have an entry point into the legal process that is our city.

Everything that shows up on the data call for the city of Rockford, I try to be there.

And I try to say things like this.

I I try to advocate for the little changes that just allow a little bit more transparency, a little bit more accountability, a little bit more understanding.

So that way when I interact with people in the city and they go, why do they go into closed session like that?

I can say with confidence that it's for a good reason.

I can say with confidence that city council is going to come back with some sort of like thing that makes sense, or here's where we can find information.

But I can't seem to do that.

You know, I have I have way too many difficulties with that.

I don't know how to convince people to care.

Um I I've been trying.

But I'll transition slightly into something that I I think you guys can help with.

Um Alderman Bell brought up uh a couple of weeks ago or uh about a month ago, the Flock camera discussion and talked about bringing you guys into that conversation before we of the city approved another 200,000 dollar annual contract with Flock.

Um unfortunately that didn't happen, but now that the data center on the south side of town is being talked about more and more.

He has indicated at City Council uh on Monday that he wants you your input on that, that he wants to try to get you guys to have some sort of comment.

And I think this is a great opportunity, right?

Like these seats are empty, and you guys are very receptive to actually communication with the the populace.

And I think that's great.

I I really hope that um anybody has been in conversation with Alderman Bell or like is actively engaging in that process if at all possible.

Um because I think it would be great.

I think it would be great not only for the community, but for this body.

You know, have another thing to to talk under under the you know into the toolkit whatever uh whatever analogy I'm trying to say but have another thing that you can say we did.

We were a part of and we we had power and we had uh you know some agency over the way things are done in this town.

Um there's a lot of people who really really care about this data center.

There's not a whole lot of information.

I'll be honest like I I'm not kind of choosing a side so much until I get more information but that's the conversation that needs to happen right now.

What information do we have access to what information can we have access to and I don't know can we there are some people in this town who want to ban data centers outright and say we should never have them there is a legal process that we could invoke that would result in that but we need to have those conversations we need to understand exactly what it takes to get what the citizen wants done.

I I really hope that you you have the opportunity to engage with some of the Facebook groups that exist I know several of you are are pretty active on Facebook there are some no some anti-data center stuff for this area.

I'm gonna be posting the CRC email in those chats uh starting this week I I kind of wanted to give you the heads up and people want to communicate so you might get a lot of feedback in those channels but that's a great way to interact with people those those are real citizens who really care about something that hopefully you'll have some power over um just think about it try to reach out if there's anything I can do I'm happy to help in any way I can thank you.

Thank you.

All right commissioners the next thing on our agenda is an update from a community and economic development department housing and urban development program.

Hi I'm Andrea Henriks I am the housing and program manager um for our community and economic development department I uh work underneath Sarah lies and so you may have uh obviously seen the housing strategy framework so that's something that I'll be trying to help her with as much as possible with our programming that we get from our federal government we received um we receive community development block grant dollars which we call CDBG dollars we also receive home investment partnerships program dollars those are um short for home we call it home and we also receive emergency solutions grant programs which is for homeless um those three uh different grants are complete community planning and development dollars that we receive from our HUD from the housing in urban development so generally what I do is I work on the planning for that those funds um we get about two million in C D BG we get about a a million in home and we get about between 150 to 2000 of ESG dollars.

The ESG dollars are generally um managed through our health and human services but the community and economic development department administers the C D BG and home program through different programs that we do.

Just recently there was a public hearing and that was a public hearing to talk about how our funds are going to be used over the next year.

Well actually it was about how we used our funds over the last year and then we did some amendments for programming that we're gonna end up doing for the next year.

And then about Septemberish October ish we start planning for the next year and you'll start seeing a public hearing that would be talking about the future funds that we're going to get um right now we just had allocations of dollars for 2026 and so we had gone out to the community in September October of last year to determine how we're gonna run programs.

And generally um what we do is um for home it's all um you can do new construction it you can do rehab you can do home buyer assistance um you can um do multifamily you can do single family it's all in regards to housing and it's for low income families throughout our community so it has to be within the city of Rockford limits.

We can do new construction with certain types of contractors.

They have to be what's called a CBDO.

And I apologize, I don't know.

I should, I'm so used to saying the acronyms.

I don't have that one.

But generally, the home program, if you're a CHO, you're automatically a CBDO for CDBG.

So you could do new construction for that.

Could you go back to the city?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So community community housing development organization.

If you are a not-for-profit and you do development, you can become a community housing development organization, which we call short for choto, right?

You can get home dollars then to do new construction, to do rehab, to produce units in the city of Rockford for low-income families.

And if you have that designation, you can also be a CBDO for CDBG, which allows you to do new construction.

CDBG being the funding source, CBDO being the not-for-profit.

Generally, um you have to prove that you're serving the low-income community.

So you have people that are on your board that are going to be making sure that the low-income community is being served.

And there's different ways that we have to check on that.

So it's just a makeup of your board and how that's going to be.

So generally, CDBG cannot do new construction.

It's only if it's that type of an organization.

You're doing rehab for housing, you're doing economic development, you're doing community development, you're doing public services.

The CDBG community development block grant dollars are much more flexible and can do so many other things.

We right now, currently in our 2026 budget, the things that we're doing is preservation of housing, which would be our rehab program.

We are doing sidewalks and low mod income areas.

And we do demolition and we do public service, we do home buyer assistance.

Those are in our 2026 budget for those funds for the two million.

Generally, you will not see that those funds are spent in one year, but we do do an annual action plan every single year, and we do do what's called a CAPER, which is our annual report about what we did the previous year.

It takes several years to administer all of the funding sources.

So that's why you might see an amendment of some of the funds go into new projects that are coming through.

You might see through City Council that we have done a certificate of consistency for maybe a grant that somebody's applying for.

So any of the organizations that are not for profits that are applying for some uh grants that are out there through the state, um, through foundations, they might need a certificate of consistency that would be done through our department as well to show that they're doing something that we think is really important in our community, and we need to make sure that you know we're lined up and we're all focusing on the same thing.

We're all looking to make sure we're doing our housing strategy, right?

Um the other things that you might see through city council too would be our low-income housing tax credit applications would come through this department.

We provide gap financing, so uh multimillion dollar development that's 64 units, or usually they say if the development is more than 50,000, that's when it makes it reasonable to be funded with low-income housing tax credits, and when there's that many units, there's there's a lot involved with it.

It's very expensive, and there's usually a gap in financing, and so that's when they come to the city and they use either home dollars or they use that CDBG dollars to go ahead and fill that gap to make that um housing development work, right?

Um so right now there's the one going through city council, they've uh well we just did that one.

Um we provided a letter up front to basically say preliminary, we were interested in going ahead and funding this.

Should you get approved for the low-income housing tax credits, then we'll underwrite the project completely and make sure you meet the guidelines, and then we'll go ahead and go through city council again to see if that can be approved then on the way that it's been written up for that application.

So the preliminary is just saying, yes, we're really excited about this project being here.

We want to make sure that it can be done, um, but then we have to totally fully underwrite everything.

There's a lot involved with that.

We have to do environmental reviews, we have to make sure the subsidy layering that there's not too much money, federal government dollars going into the project, that there's a good variety of the capital stack of funding to make that happen, and that it's going to be sex successful over a long period of time.

I could talk forever, so I don't know where I'm at timing wise.

I know that you're, you know, in I obviously you're interested in hearing about what we do and that type of thing.

So I didn't know if you wanted me to open it up for questions now.

I just wanted to give you a short, you know, summary of what I I absolutely love what I do, so I could talk about it forever.

Um, our rehab programs right now, you might be interested in knowing that we're looking at kind of uh we usually we received Illinois Housing Development Authority grants, so we receive other grants besides just the federal government.

So I just listened to a webinar, for example, for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago.

Very interested in applying for that.

I have to have a member of that bank to apply with.

So I'll be talking to member banks to see if they're interested in partnering with us to go ahead and apply for more funding to bring to our community, and that would be for rehab dollars to supplement our program that we have with our CDBG money.

And we can do rehab with home, but it's it's a little more difficult, so it's easier to do with that CDBG dollars.

Um, home is is great for the bigger developments because there's a lot of rules and regulations that you have to follow for all of our funding, um, but it really marries well well with low-income housing tax credits because they already have all those rules anyway.

So it's just really easy to fill that gap with that.

Um another grant that's out there that I would love to apply for is uh lead-based paint grant, looking for radon grants so that we can bring more funding to supplement our programming.

So that's another thing that that we do.

Um did you have specific questions that you have?

How does this get into the community this information?

Okay, so a couple of ways, right?

Um, we advertise on our website.

Um, whenever we have a public hearing or if we have programming that's available, we do get a lot of phone calls about it, and we have people we have a newsletter, so we have on our website that you can sign up for a newsletter so that you can be informed of these things.

Um we through our um social media, we'll have uh our mayor's department go ahead and get that information on our social media, so that's out there that way.

Um sometimes, like for our public hearings, we have to put it in the papers, so we'll have it under under the legal section in the classifieds.

So uh word of mouth, we uh send out things like for our public hearings, we send out um information to all the not-for-profits that we work with on our regular basis, so we're hopeful that they're getting the information out.

Um we besides all the other things that I had mentioned, um, we send it out through our ED newsletter that we have, which is very similar to our neighborhood development newsletter.

Um, so if people are interested, they can get on these um different listservs, I guess, like email distribution lists that we have.

I have a question about how the rehab funds work, and if you've already addressed this, I I do apologize.

Oh, I don't think especially in regard to the CDBG uh grants again relative to rehab.

Is this a this is I'm sure maybe this isn't the right way to say it.

Is this a push system or is this a pull system?

Do you do outreach or do you or do you do it application only?

For example, you have someone living in a home that desperately needs to be to be rehabbed, and as we all know, that's pretty expensive these days.

So do you do you wait if you will till for people to come to you and sort of your targeted neighborhoods, or do you reach out?

Sure, sure.

So what we do is we advertise um and we have application phases.

Um in the past, we've had lotteries, and so uh we've you know had like over four, it's there's a big need um for housing um rehab in our community, and we every time we do an application, we end up having three 400 people apply, and we've done in a lottery.

Um I mentioned at our last public hearing that we're looking at changing that a little bit.

I'm very interested in um we want to we did lottery because we want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity, every population has an opportunity regardless of of your skills of computer skills and all of that to be able to apply, right?

So, what we um want to do is do an RFP, which would be a request for proposal to ask for not for profits to step up and be able to help people submit applications, and then we would be have those not-for profits also help with the marketing of the program, and then they would be able to go ahead and help people for the first couple of weeks while the program opens.

Uh we launch a program and accept applications online.

They can help with that submission online, and then we can help pay them for that.

That would be an administrative function that would be an eligible expense for the programming that we do.

So that would be very helpful.

Um, and then we would open it up to the rest of the community because then in that respect, it would be a first come, first serve application phase.

It wouldn't be a lottery.

So we want to make sure that the that elderly and physically disabled are getting that first opportunity, and then they would have priority in in our application phase to be able to apply for funds.

So it sounds like there's great need.

There is a great need.

Do you have a feeling if you're reaching the people in the areas you want to reach?

And again, if you've addressed that, I'm sorry, but generally um we work citywide, and so we have not been focusing in a specific area per se.

Um, so it's open to everyone in the community.

And like I I do believe we we must touch a lot of people because we do have a heavy application phase, and that's um uh a heavy number of people that are applying, which is very time consuming to go through and determine if you're meeting the pre-qualifications and then being able to pull a lottery.

So we're hopeful that doing it this way and having a minimal fee for that application might reduce you know the number of frivolous applications that we get because if you don't ask, then you don't, you know, then you don't know whether you get assisted or not, right?

But there's a lot of people that when we get to their name, then they don't they don't respond, they don't come in, they don't want to have their application further, you know, and and that's hard because we've already done a lot of work up front to see that you pre-qualified to move forward, and we don't understand like why wouldn't you want to move forward anymore?

Um and so that happens, or um, they don't qualify because um they don't own the home, you know, and we don't find out that until a title search.

Um it might it could be anything that would disqualify them, and you know, we don't a lot of things we can check up front, and so this new way of doing it, we're not going to be checking all those things up front.

What we're gonna do is have a self-check, and if you've self-checked, then you can go ahead and can continue to apply and submit your application.

So just some minor changes to the way we've done it in the past.

I've been here since 1999.

I started in the application, so I have a lot of experience with different ways that worked and didn't work.

Um it's really difficult to make sure you are meeting the people that really need that.

So I think we always are striving for ways to do better, right?

We always everybody can do better.

So we're always looking at ways to okay, let's try this now.

And the community changes, right?

So needs are different, and so we're always looking at ways like what is the need now, how can we meet those needs?

Out of like 300 say you have 300 people, how many of those are serviced?

How many get through the application?

Sure.

Um, you know what?

It depends.

So right now, um we had an Illinois housing development grant.

Um, we initially were received just over a million, and then we did really well with that, so they gave us another million, and then they gave us another million.

So it's great.

We're at three million now, right?

We've helped about 40 some odd people so far out of that program.

It's it's 60,000 a shot um per property, and that's to bring the house up to local code.

Now, this next year um we also supplement that's just the IDA funds.

We supplemented that our program with that program, right?

So we ran it together, and so we also did side by side community development block grant preservation of housing.

So we did both of those programs.

We called it the same thing, everybody was treated the same except for there are a couple of requirements for CDBG that the Ellino Housing Development Authority didn't have.

For example, with lead-based paint, it's a little bit different when you're working with federal dollars and when you're working with state dollars.

But other than that, everything was uh pretty much the same.

You had to meet local code, got $60,000, that type of thing.

Um did I answer your question?

Okay.

Thank you.

So this is primarily to bring houses up to code.

So we okay, so our home dollars, you have to bring the house up to minimum property standards, and so our local code.

For the Illinois Housing Development Authority, the funds that we received, you have to bring them up to local code.

But since we were supplementing each other, the programs, um, the IDA program was supplementing our program.

We wanted to treat everyone the same.

So we did require that the property met local code when we were done with that property.

Um in the future, I think that might have been where my train of thought was going.

In the future, um, what we're looking at doing now is is possibly looking at a number of different things that need to be done.

That can be done on every single property.

Since it is community development block grant, we don't have to make sure the property meets local code.

What we would do is we would do an inspection just to make sure that the house was in a condition that if we put work on it, that it would be in a better condition and not still in a position where we put money in a in a bad place, right?

Like, so we want to make sure that the house is going to be in a good position for them to continue to live there and be safe.

And so we'll do that initial health and safety inspection first, and if people pass that, then what we would be able to do is pick like five different things, and we haven't set that in stone yet.

But we're looking at possibly your electrical, right?

Your roof would be something that's very important to have done, plumbing, um specific things that have to be done, we would go ahead and anything that we can get pricing for up front.

You know, it might also be exterior, like you can price siding up front.

So then what we can do is we can do like an RFP or we can do an RFQ, we can do pricing up front, and then do possibly a round robin with contractors that qualify, so that we're not going out to bid for every single project that we're able to quickly move through and assist people, but we're only doing those core things.

Um it makes it a lot easier on the contractors, it makes it a lot easier on the homeowner to understand that what we're going to do.

Specs are much easier to do.

So it's something new that we're gonna try.

Um, we've seen other communities do it, and it's been really exciting to watch how successful they are.

So we do look at other ideas.

So if you hear of other communities that are doing different things that you think might work here, I'm all ears.

I'm happy to hear what might you know be able to work here as well.

But that's that's something that's coming out in the future.

So you might have been asking earlier, like when is the next round?

We're hopeful to have another round of applications in the fall.

So and then every year, what we would um try to do with that program that would be our standing program, and we would try to have an application round at the beginning of the year to get enough applicants to be able to run that program through the year, and then the next year in January, we'd do the same thing.

So then that would be our staple program, and then we would keep bringing in other grants to be able to run in the in the meantime, or in between, I guess I should say, not in the meantime.

Any other questions?

Andrea, so all of those repairs are they're being paid through uh the dollars that you're talking about.

Are the homeowners required to put in some part of that?

So currently, um over the years, we've done different things to try to have homeowners put some dollars into it.

Um, generally, what we do is there's a maximum, and if it goes over that maximum, that's when they would have to provide any money.

So right now there isn't a match per se that homeowners have to put any any funding in it if they qualify for them.

Um to qualify for these programs, you have to be at or below 80% of median income.

We were very fortunate with the IDA funds that we were able to go from 80 to 150 as well, and so the IDA program paid for anyone that was 80 to 150, and then we used our community development block grant dollars to pay for anybody that was below um 80% median income.

So it was great to be able to help that middle income that were never able to help in the past, so it was really great to be able to bring that money in and solidify um more funding to cut keep coming in, you know.

So I'm crossing my fingers that they have more money like that.

But but yes, we have tried in the past to have you know, based on where you are in the scale of um up to 80% median income.

Can you bring in some dollars to be able to provide that if you have equity in your home?

Um and unfortunately, what we found out is when they found out they had to provide any dollars, then it wasn't as um exciting for them to come through the program anymore.

Um, or it was difficult for them to come through because then you have a monthly payment, which can also be capacity-wise with the the city to be able to manage the taking a payment every single month for a hundred people would be you know cumbersome to do um capacity wise.

So looking at all of that together and and trying to really pick a program that works for the community.

We do help a lot of elderly and physically disabled persons that are on a fixed income, which it's difficult for them to come up with any type of additional funds to be able to do any payments on a monthly basis or even just having to take the equity out of their home, you know.

So it's very difficult to do that.

Um which median income are we using?

HUD gives us that median income, and I I can look it up right now if you wanted me to.

Um but it's generally you know, looking at one family in 80% is a certain dollar amount, then two people, three people, four people, and it's in the way we look at income is household income.

So it's not like I own the house and I have um friends that live there and family.

I have to look at all of their income and add it together.

It's not just that my family lives there and I ignore everybody else that's living there.

So anybody over the age of 18, we have to project what their income is over the next year and add it all together, and that's how we determine what income is.

But our medium income baseline is at Rockford, Winnebago County, Illinois, National.

What are we using as a medium?

Rockford MLS.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you.

Sorry, didn't realize that's Rockford L MLS, yep.

And usually HUD comes out every year with an updated income.

Thank you.

I'll leave my business cards over in the corner there if you wanted to pick them up if you want to give me a call or have any other questions.

I'm available.

Thank you, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

You're welcome.

Commissioners, before we move to the next item, you'll see me do this regularly throughout tonight.

Um based on Andrea's presentation, are there any things that we want to add to our action plan around housing?

Any action items that as we were listening that you all feel like we need to address or bring folks in to talk more about I wonder if um can you ask that question again after we do our presentation part only because I think a lot of what we were just um told kind of relates to this information.

Yeah, so maybe after that, like I'd have a better way to answer your question.

No problem.

Okay.

Um if there's nothing at the moment, we will move next to a presentation from Mikayla on the MWBE spend report.

You guys get to see me on this side of the table tonight.

All right, so annually we present um to the CRC, the city's total MWBE spend.

Um, for anybody who doesn't know that acronym, it's the minority and women business enterprise.

Uh we track that for these numbers, just so you're aware, these are tracked at the prime level.

So that's going to be the lead contractor on the project.

We're not tracking any subcontractors at this time.

Our current software system does not allow for us to do that.

We are trying to figure out a way that we could do that manually where we're not duplicating those types of numbers.

For example, we have a business, uh, a women-owned business who does quite a bit of work with the city, um, several millions of dollars per year.

They meet that requirement, right?

When we let's say we're contracting with them for a million dollar project, that million dollars would count as an MWBE firm, right?

But if they subcontract that out, is if we could be losing dollars that way, right?

If they subcontract out 500,000, or they're subcontracting out to another MWBE firm.

So then it could be duplicating those types of funds.

So we're trying to look at a way that we can accurately track and represent what those dollars look like when they're going out to the subcontractors where we're not duplicating or potentially losing dollars.

So we're still in the process of figuring that out because our current system does not allow for us to track it that way.

I have never used this name before, but let's let's try it out.

There, okay.

So for 2025, our total MWBE spend was over 35 million dollars.

Um, a pretty pretty great number, I think.

And that's gonna be citywide, it's gonna be our vendors that we use.

A lot of that is gonna be in those construction type projects, thinking all of the road work that we've had done, all of those types of things is the primary for the spend.

Um I have a lovely little chart here for you guys to take a look at for the last several years where we've done our annual spend.

Um it started in 2019 at 5.5 million dollars.

That was our spend in 2019 for MWBE firms.

By 2025, we have grown to 35 million dollars.

That's a 75% increase essentially in what we've done over the last six years.

I would say that that is a very big win.

MWBE participation really continues to grow.

This is tracking how many people are registered with the city of Rockford.

So we have a local registration process where uh vendors, businesses, agencies can register with the city as a minority or women-owned business.

Um I started, it was around 80-ish, I think, and in the three years that I've been here, we're on we're up to 119 total registrations.

So we've done a lot of work in the last couple of years reaching out, having events, educating people on what that process is.

Um, so I feel like that's been a big win for us and how much we've grown.

Some points of pride for us.

Uh, a big area of our spend, like I already mentioned, continues to be our construction contracts, uh, home rehabilitation programs, so HVAC and roofing um and our streets and water divisions.

Uh a big part of that, or a lot of the programs that Andrea told you about tonight are home and CDBG funds.

So she gave you some rough numbers, about three million dollars a year, roughly, that we get in those funds.

And right last year we were at a 92% rate for our MWBE spend.

So that means out of that money, 92% of those funds went to MWBE firms.

So a pretty high rate.

So over the last three years, it's been well over 90% that we've been awarding to minority and women-owned businesses through our CDBG and home programs.

So some steps um steps to success.

We've really been driving MWBE growth through some outreach and partnerships.

Uh, we partner every year with local government agencies to host it's in the past it's been cutting the red tape.

This year we kind of rebranded it a little bit because we were trying to reach minority and women-owned businesses, and how can we help them better succeed and be ready to do business with government agencies?

There's a lot of red tape there, and this year we just called it the public procurement event.

Um, we had I think it was well over right around 80 people that attended the event this year.

We talked about everything from what a standard bid packet looks like and all the different components and requirements, how to be prepared and ready to submit a bid, um, and really just try to give them some more tools in their toolbox to be ready to do business with us as government entities.

Another big barrier that we saw was that a lot of our small minority and women-owned businesses don't have approved apprenticeship programs.

Um, and not sure if you guys know about responsible bidder ordinances, but that sets a precedence for who can bid on contracts over a certain dollar amount.

The city's threshold is $50,000.

Any um public construction contract that's over $50,000, they're gonna have to have approved apprenticeship program in order to bid on that work.

As you can imagine, that's probably gonna eliminate uh a good portion of our minority and women-owned businesses.

If they're not part of the union, they're not gonna have an approved apprenticeship program, most likely.

So we talked about how to get an approved apprenticeship program.

How can you become a union signatory?

Um, and what that process might look like.

So I felt like people really took a lot away from that event and took some tools home to be able to be ready to do business with us.

Um opportunities for growth.

This is my last slide.

I really thought about what ways can we make this better?

What can we do differently?

What can we do bigger?

Um, so increasing participation in bidding opportunities.

The event that I just mentioned, that's a way to increase participation.

We have our procurement teams there, we're talking about the bidding process, we're giving them upcoming opportunities that they can bid on, um, connecting with them one-on-one and making those relationships so they feel comfortable in reaching out to us.

Um, supporting their expansion.

Um, some people are ready to expand, so connecting them with financial resources or banks or things like that that can help them do those types of things.

Um strengthening prime contractor accountability.

One of the components of that event that we had was a meet the primes where they could come in and meet prime contractors.

Uh, a lot of prime contractors know who they want to do business with, they tend to work with the same um firms from contract to contract.

So, this was an opportunity for those smaller agencies to come in and make some real connections and hopefully be able to work with them in the future on a future project.

So that's a way that we can kind of strengthen strengthen um their accountability.

Uh expanding access through some smaller and more flexible contracting opportunities when and where we can.

We try to break down those big contracts into smaller opportunities so that those smaller firms are eligible to bid and participate, and then also just enforcing compliance with our human rights ordinance.

I think that's just an ongoing thing that we're trying to accomplish.

So that's it for that presentation.

Do you guys have any questions about that spend report?

Yeah, I I've got one.

Um you kind of addressed it on your last page here.

But you you say that uh a bid opportunity of 50,000 or greater requires an approved apprenticeship program.

Um how many of the bids that go out actually fall under that number?

I mean, where are we looking at?

Uh you know, huge discrepancy here or um that's a really good question for our procurement team.

I can ask that question and get that answer, but I would say quite a bit of our contracts are going to be over $50,000.

Quite a bit, yep.

And that's where it comes in to enforcing our prime contractors that they are reaching out to these MWBE firms because we do have requirements within our contracts that they're supposed to contact the our MWBE firms.

We give them the link to that page where all of the registrations are listed, um, and just really driving home and enforcing that.

So, yeah.

Thank you.

Yep.

Any other questions?

How do you how do how are they becoming approved?

How do they get an approved apprenticeship program?

That's gonna be through the Illinois Department of Labor.

Uh, and there's a whole formal process that they go through.

Um, Gina Crano, which is the director of the workforce development, did a fantastic presentation on it.

I don't know the nuts and bolts on it.

I couldn't even pretend to know because there are several components.

If you'd like, I can share that presentation with you.

She graciously gave that to us.

I did send that out to the event attendees, so I'd be happy to share that with you so you could have a better understanding and maybe even share that with people that you meet with that's interested in what that process would look like.

Yep.

Any other questions?

No?

Okay.

Michaela's staying with us for a bit.

Um, but before we go to that, again, is there anything based on what we heard that we want to add to our action plan?

Are there groups that we want to talk to?

I guess Michaela, is there anything in your work that you feel like we as the CRC can support or help amplify the work that you're doing related to this?

Well, that's a good question.

Um I don't know, maybe supporting some other types of events like that.

I don't know what that might look like.

I feel like our public procurement event this year was a really great success, but what other ideas might there be out there that we could do to help people be able to bid on our projects?

It's really even Jaria's not here tonight to to speak to it, but she had talked about uh a bid that we had had and how much that that presentation that I gave helped on what that process looked like, what those different documents and requirements were, and where to find all that information.

So there's so much red tape.

Um, one of the things that she mentioned is really maybe having some of the government agencies sit down with people and do more like one-on-one or small like classroom style trainings on the really getting into the specifics of that process and that bid packet to each agency and what that looks like.

So maybe something along those lines would be helpful.

I do have additional uh a question, uh, and this is about you know a comparison to similarly sized and and with similar demographic communities.

I mean, this is a great success story.

I mean, 75% increase in the last six years, but how does that um what is that 35 million?

How roughly 36 million?

How does that relate to again communities that maybe we compare ourselves to either here in the state or across the country?

That's a really good question.

I can uh look up that data and see what that looks like.

I don't have that now, but I think that that's a really good data point to take a look at and maybe even including that in our next year report as well.

Thank you.

Is there another procurement event scheduled for maybe later this year as well?

We usually do one of those type of ones a year, but we uh the committee that I work with would be open to hearing other types of events.

We have already put it on the calendar for February of next year to have our annual public procurement procurement event.

Okay, if there are no other questions, will let Michaela share with us uh the equal employment opportunity plan.

So this document that you guys have is the um, as Eric just said, the equal employment opportunity plan.

This is a requirement of some federal funding that we receive.

If it's over $500,000, um the city has to maintain um an equal opportunity employment plan, and we have to submit a utilization report to the federal government.

And basically that is based on our hiring data.

Who we've hired, um, who's been promoted, what types of disciplines have taken place, the the makeup of our employees, so the unions and things like that that are all part of um our agency, and we have to report out on that.

If there are areas of underutilization, for example, one area that we consistently tend to underutilize are white males in administrative roles.

Um that's an area that we don't typically have a lot of white males who are employed in those positions based on the data for the makeup of our community.

So what happens when we are identify an area of underutilization, we have to then have a plan of how we're going to correct that underutilization.

So, how are we going to advertise to white males to apply for these administrative positions?

Um female uh firefighters, minority firefighters.

That's an area of underutilization for us.

So, how are we going to do a better job of getting folks in those positions?

Um, if you look further in the paper plan, our HR director, it's sections five and six uh really kind of outlines what the city is going to do to correct those underutilizations that were identified in the report that we submitted.

So really this paper plan, there's components in it that are required by the federal government, it's the background of the general workforce.

There's those recruitment statistics that I mentioned, and um our workforce data.

There's a couple of appendixes, they're massive Excel documents that we did not print off for you tonight, but they will be attached to the minutes so you're able to see what those those um items look like and see where we're falling there.

So that's really about it that I have for this report.

If you guys have any questions about this report or anything like that, I'm happy to answer.

Yeah, yeah, I have uh a question that that falls on a very sensitive line, but I'm looking at a sheet that has male and female listed.

And we live in a world that has a large community that crosses those lines.

Um how do we classify them if they're applying for a job?

As they classify themselves on the application, is that how we classify them?

It's a voluntary information, so they can decline putting that information in for individuals who decline to share that information, they're gonna be listed as unknown.

Okay.

Yep.

Any other questions?

No, okay.

Well, that's all you get to see from me on this side.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, now we will move to unfinished business.

The first thing on that agenda, you'll all remember last month that uh Commissioner Crutip and I brought to you changes that we suggested related to the ordinance for the CRC.

Um we included that at least one member of the commission shall be between the ages of 18 and 24 at the time of appointments.

We also put language into, in addition to the appointed membership, that we may support youth advisory mentorship opportunities that allow young residents to learn and contribute to the work of the commission.

And then we um made the reports quarterly with the idea that that would give us more of an opportunity to focus on here are the action steps that we can take in the next 90 days, six months here, and we also put the language in that uh the mayor will disseminate to city council and other relevant members of city staff and the administration because we know that there was some conversation at our strategic planning about we do these uh plans, where do they go and who reads them?

So we we wanted to make sure that you all had last month to review.

Is there anything that folks want to add, have conversation about uh related to those ordinance changes?

If there are no questions, I think we have to probably uh vote to approve so that we can send it to legal so that legal can do their review.

No, we can just send it.

Yeah, just send it.

Just send it to okay.

We will then just send it to legal and and have them review it.

Um Michaela, remind me what's the timeline for the legal team.

I believe we have it on here by July.

Let me double check.

Um that's right.

I know April draft ordinance send it to legal, and I think it was by July.

We are hoping to have the entire ordinance reviewed, approved through council.

So next steps legal will draw, we'll take this draft to add to it, what is necessary, and then uh our friends on the city council will review it and do what they need to do to it.

Okay.

Um, I guess before again, is there anything that we want to add while we have the opportunity that it sits in front of us before it goes to legal?

Um anything that we want to change?

Pastor Martin, I know you were not of uh here with us last month.

Was there anything that you wanted to know?

Okay.

Awesome.

All right, we will then move to the next part of our agenda, um, and that is the housing development ordinances.

Uh Commissioners McDowell and Bravo.

All right.

Well, we had hoped to have a um a uh a paper report on this, but we're still waiting for some pretty important information.

Um and as uh we addressed in the previous meeting.

Um there's a lot of a lot of avenues to wrap your head around when it comes to the affordable housing situation.

Um, what we have discovered, and we've already heard some very good information this evening on the subject, is that the city already has a lot of programs in place uh designed to low-income and middle-income housing opportunities.

And what I met with the mayor, and what I'm waiting for is he's um having a single-page splash sheet compiled of all of the initiatives that the city currently has uh in process uh on this subject.

So that's kind of important to finalize uh a report.

But as as we see it, um there are a few things that that I was not aware of.

There's a thing called the Rockford Community Investment Fund that is uh independent of what we've already heard this evening, is a uh grant-based lending fund to redevelop housing geared towards the low-income and middle income, and it's a lending process for the acquisition and redevelopment of properties to be repaid when the property is either sold or rented.

Um it's another initiative that I wasn't even aware of, but everything that I have discovered we've discovered is um new construction development is not profitable in the city of Rockford.

The the the large builders um for various reasons, and that is also uh waiting for information on.

But taxation, uh uh uh hookup fees, various things.

We don't really have a barrier when it comes to codes.

We have a barrier when it comes to profitability to build in the city of Rockford, and the large scale builders simply make more money uh in other areas.

Uh we started this whole thing looking at modular homes as an opportunity to provide a more affordable housing in new construction, and that still appears to be a very viable um avenue to pursue.

The problem there is as we've mentioned before, is it requires a certified builder by the state of Illinois?

And um what I kind of hope to be able to propose is some sort of a uh uh an avenue to pursue as a city, much like this Rockford Community Investment Fund, to where we can entice a smaller builder who doesn't need as much profit as the large builder who wants to build a community.

We have smaller builders who, if we can find a way to get them certified to build modular homes.

We have property, we have opportunity to sell them the uh the structures, we don't have anyone to build them.

So I think that as we compile all of this information, um awareness is very important.

There are a lot of things being done that I don't think everybody's aware of.

So that's the one component is is as we discussed earlier this evening is how do people know to pursue what the money is available to accomplish what they want to accomplish.

But um when it comes to new construction, I think we have to look at how can we develop a new program uh to entice that type of building.

And uh hopefully we will have a more formalized paper report next month when we finalize gathering all of the information.

Okay, sound good to you, Rita?

Sounds good.

Okay.

So that's the that's the action, right?

So a couple of action steps.

One, we need something from the mayor, and then once we receive that, you all will have more formal recommendations that we can put into our action plan or implementation plan.

Yes.

Okay.

So I hate to sound like a broke broken record, but as part of that report, I presume you'll have some sort of best practices from other communities that look like us.

Great.

Any other questions from the commissioners?

Okay.

Um the commissioners' questions for the aldermen.

Um I know that a couple of us have had some conversations around this.

Uh Commissioner Call and Bravo, do you want to share where you're at or what you're thinking related to these questions for the aldermen?

Well, I'll start and then Commissioner Bravo can uh chime in.

I confess that I'm unsure about where we were on this questionnaire.

I thought that we were waiting to find out whether the mayor would favor a reintroduction of the community relations commission to the council so that these questions didn't kind of come out in nowhere, but I may have dropped the ball on that.

So I do think that that's what we decided, and I know that the mayor wasn't opposed to that.

I don't know that that reintroduction has necessarily been made.

Um if you'd like to, I don't did you happen to make the office hours with the mayor?

I did.

You did you ask then or probably not?

No, I'm sorry, I I've planned it.

Yeah, yeah, I think I don't think it's coming up till June, though.

Oh, okay.

So if you'd like to, if you want to send a mayor directly to Tom and you can do that, or I can do it.

Just can I actually this did come up in my conversation with him?

May I?

Yeah, yes.

So of course yeah, so he asked me actually to bring to well, we said I would bring to the meeting this evening.

He um wanted to know which of two options we would prefer.

So would we prefer a small group of members of this commission and a small group of members of from Ballerman to have a meeting, or would we prefer that he reach out to each of the older people with an ask to say, you know, we'd like you to meet with your respective member of the CRC based on you know where you live.

So each of us would potentially, if it worked out that way, meet with um the alder person from our area.

So the question was which which is preferable?

Small group meeting with representatives from each or one-on-one, and then the ask would come from him, either way.

If you wanted to do the small group, I know based on our current size now that we're fully um seated, you you could meet up to three people from the CRC.

I think council could be a little bit larger.

So I'm sorry, just if you wouldn't mind repeating.

So this would be a small group of the um community relations commission and council members.

Just and this would reflect the the zones, if you will, that the or no, that doesn't necessarily have to.

Yeah, that doesn't necessarily have to when the areas geographic areas came into play if we were gonna meet one-on-one with the alder person from our particular area if that was applicable.

I'd love to hear from the other commissioners about their thoughts on that.

I guess my one concern with the one-on-one is what happens if we have an alderman who is not engaged or has a desire to connect with the community relations commission.

We might be missing out on that perspective.

Whereas if we met with a group, hopefully that perspective would still make its way into the group.

Um, and that way too, the the if there was a commissioner that was in one of those boards, they wouldn't be left out from the conversation.

That would my own that would be my only concern with the the potential one-on-ones.

I have the same concerns, even if it were uh a group of three, you know, how does the message get disseminated when it comes to Commissioner Bravo and our you know, my questions still that may come in sort of a vacuum for a city council member when he or she gets the questionnaire?

I guess I would favor uh the approach that the mayor would reach out himself, but is if that was one of the if I understood that correctly.

So I believe he would be kind of the conduit in either case.

So my sense was to your point that um should we choose the small group meeting with representatives that he would choose a variety of perspectives to address your your point.

And so um, and I don't know if from that small group do the folks from the CRC who are part of that then go to the full council meeting to give kind of a report so that we actually that that was not part of my discussion with the mayor.

That's just my thought at this point, so that it isn't only these people who are in this room for this meeting are privy to what was discussed, and also to kind of put a face in front of council to our committee, maybe more than one person.

So, but either way, whatever we would choose, my understanding is the mayor would be the initiator of our choice with the council members.

I like the the addition that you made to because then you're right, the three are the three folks from this group could go, but then also the aldermen who are part of that conversation will be present as well and can add in things and it can be more of a robust than it's just relying on the three people from the CRC.

There's hopefully folks around the horseshoe that are sharing as well.

Other thoughts, ideas?

How do we want to proceed?

Just I want to make sure I understand.

So the three and three on three meetings, right?

The CRC and the aldermen who, however, we designate those people, that will then be reported to the council.

That report will then be shared with the council at large.

It it could to right.

That's not something necessarily that that you and the mayor talked about, but it it is it sounds like something that we could say back to the mayor, we want this with this addition.

Just a thought.

The uh for city council, there is an opportunity for them to provide reports just the way that you all do.

So I would say that the aldermen that you meet with that you ask that they share that your guys' discussion in that report.

Um so let's say it's four aldermen and three CRC members.

You know, I feel like coming from four aldermen, they would be able to share a really good picture of what your guys' conversation was.

We could talk about a more formal report option as well, but I think if it's coming out of the mouths of the aldermen themselves, I think that that would be a really great representation of what it is that you guys are trying to present.

Just a thought.

I agree.

Do we want what is the formal ask that we want to make of the mayor?

And who wants to make that request of the mayor?

I think it's a good idea, in my opinion.

Probably the small group instead of the individual.

And then curious to see everyone else that way.

I still am struggling with these are small groups that may or may not be representative of the consensus of the larger group.

For example, um, say, just throwing it out there, say you have three aldermen who are very much in favor of the approach of handing um very you know controversial hot button issues, such as the data center to the community relations commission.

Um, and then you that may again may not reflect the consensus of all.

I lost track.

Is it 11 members of the community relations commission?

11.

Yeah, I mean, with we're only talking three people, so well, I guess I I'm trying the I'm I guess I'm losing track of what the goal of these discussions would be.

I guess I again just speaking for myself, the way I visualized the reintroduction was that the mayor would remind city council members what the ordinance creating the community relations commission includes and what we have done in the past that is of no to or consequence, for example, body cams, that sort of thing, and and just throw it out to them as is this, you know, is this what you want your CRC to be to be doing?

And I realize it's a bigger discussion, but I'm just trying to again, it's just my own personal having trouble visualizing what the three what the goal and the and the potential outcome of these three on meeting three on three meetings would be.

I think it is an issue-based, yeah.

As we develop issues and develop our actions, do we need to convey that up line and get some sort of unity in in thought and discussion and action?

It could be entirely based on the subject matter.

I think my understanding was that there has become some uncertainty about as this commission is interested in becoming more active and proactive, that there is some need to redefine how do we function as a commission in relation to and in conjunction with the council, um, so that we aren't working across purposes, so that we're being supportive of of one another.

Um so we can kind of get a um, let's see, get just get everybody on the same page because I think if you watched the city council meeting where the flock cameras were discussed when the CRC came up, as Stephen brought up earlier.

I thought it was um I thought it was clear that there was not a uniform consensus among council with regard to an understanding of our commission and what we do.

And so that was when I was speaking with the mayor, that was sort of what seemed to be you know his understanding.

I don't want to speak for him, but that was what we were discussing all of these options in light of.

How do we get on the same page so that this can be collaborative and better defined?

Does that make sense?

Yes, it does.

Uh yeah, absolutely.

I just don't know how we get there with just three of the council members and three uh of a representative three of the CRC.

Ayla's point it would have to be a public meeting otherwise, yes.

Well, a couple of thoughts here.

So I think what we could ask the mayor to do in that initial introduction is that he reintroduces the CRC, the mission, your guys' purpose, what it is that you're trying to accomplish to the entire city council.

He then gives them the option, the CRC would like to meet with you guys and pose some questions about um what it is that they're wanting to do, upcoming things, that sort of thing, right?

Um, realiging the mission with the council.

Um, and then say who would like to meet with the CRC, opening it up that way.

If we have, let's say, half of the aldermen that would like to participate, maybe we have two different small groups that gives an opportunity for two different meetings with six different CRC members, three in the first, three in the second, and then the ability to meet with a different aldermen.

Maybe that that's an option as well, but I would think that that would be a way that we can get the introduction there, but then also getting you all a f chance to be face to face because the way that council typically operates, as you guys know, there's not really an opportunity for real conversation.

You can be a public speaker or you provide a report.

If they have a question, they'll ask a question, but they don't always ask questions.

This would be able to be more intimate, and that you guys could really have some solid conversation.

I don't know that in that public format with council that that would be an opportunity for you guys.

But I think one of the biggest issues is I think that when we look at this commission, I think it's it's backwards.

So we we have we represent the community, period.

I know we appointed by the mayor, but we have we represent the community and the community issues, and I believe that what happens is is that we see we've seen historically and even currently of hot uh hot button items.

We we we've seen it when we were dealing with the the the body cams, we see that flop cameras, and now we have a data center.

I really believe that with what our uh speaker today um with what the Alderman is saying, uh because I don't think that the three aldermen, that's not that's not gonna work.

They can't get on the same page in the horseshoe.

So I don't think that we'd be able to bring anything out of that as another waste of time.

But what I do believe is when there are hot button issues, such as the data center issue, because as city commission, I have no clue what's going on with it.

There's no information that has been uh brought down, but it's a very hot issue, and based upon what I'm hearing, nobody wants it.

And so I believe that if if this forum, this setting is a place to deal with first those hot items where the community can come and literally have a dialogue with us.

I mean it's hard to do it with city council, but if they can start it with us to deal with these top these issues and understand what the community is going through, then we as a commission can present something to the mayor in regards to where we are.

So it doesn't look like you know, when you come to these these settings on um council day where you have the media outside and everybody inside protesting and doing all this stuff, let's bring the temperature down and present a forum such as this to kind of at least hear some of these issues and city council is not you know blindsided when it's time to deal with it.

And I think if we if we're reintroduced that way, and I know we have a busy schedule and I know we're looking at this calendar, but there are some things that's very hot that's going on in our city that I don't think it should be a city council right away.

I think it should probably start here, and then we can kind of have those discussions and issue it back up to city council with a presentation versus three people.

I completely agree.

I love that idea.

I think that first step though is we have to get reacquainted with them, and this might be a great way to do that because they have to trust us to be able to make those types of recommendations.

And right now, they don't know who we are.

So that I'm happy to do whatever you guys think is best, whatever forum.

I I just I'm not quite sure what that looks like because of the open meetings act with being able to get the most people together at the same time.

I think the small groups is a great proposal.

Um I I don't honestly, I don't know of another way to do it other than having an open meeting where we got counsel and you guys together.

Being introduced on a hot topic is not good.

So I agree that we make this first initiative uh of getting the group together, even if it's three of us and four of them, that that's important, and like you said, so that we can feel for each other and we're not you know in that hot moment.

So then when the hot moment comes, we can understand and um I was uh I was gone for that for that month, and it I came in boom to that, and I didn't know anything about it at all.

Um so I I would I say that it's good for us to be informed of that the community is gonna have reaction, so we have to be available to you know help process that also, brother Chair.

I just think that there's just a breakdown of communication, and I understand the trust issue.

I don't trust some politicians either, but I think there's a breakdown in communication.

So even when it came down to to to flock those cameras, there was no information that was presented to city council.

I mean to us to even understand what's going on, and even now with the the data issue.

But I think we got ultimate.

Yeah, we got an all my head.

What do you think in regards to sitting with CRC?

I hate to put you on the spot, but good evening, everyone.

No, I do appreciate your comments.

Um I certainly uh think the public meeting with everybody, all city council members present.

I think we can hash this out.

What direction?

Um I do like the fact that we have to look at our vision and our mission and what your purpose is, and kind of to make that determination whether these hot topic uh buttons, how do we address those to come before this commission because you guys all represent um the city, and that's why I'm here because when I heard that you guys were working on a plan, I'm like, I want to know what the public and what this committee wants to tackle and what things that me as an alderman um you know could also take back and and use, and that's why I wanted to inject myself in into those conversations.

But most definitely I don't have a problem with uh what I would like to see is like communication, like you guys said, whatever's discussed here, whatever recommendations that you guys give up to the mayor and his administration, I'd like to see that, right?

Because um there's policies like Ms.

McDowell um on housing that there's a lot of things.

I I'm trying to do uh tiny homes in my ward because I have empty lots and you know, to build a 200-300,000 dollar home in my ward, it's not gonna happen.

Uh the rate of return.

Um, and my uh concern um just real quick from that perspective is you know, I'm seeing the higher prices, the assessment values, but I'm seeing a lot of folks uh developers from outside of Rockford, right?

And they're jacking the price up, and so I'm seeing the rent prices go up and everything.

I'm concerned about that, right?

And so there are certain things like that that you guys are kind of tackling that you know I want to hear because I'm just I sit on these committees and then I take uh votes on policy and and trying to get policies through.

So yeah, I certainly would love to hear what you guys have to say that I get that communication up forward, that plan that you guys are putting together.

I'd like to see that as well.

Um, just like we do with economic development, and just like Andrea tonight presented that.

Um, I go to those public uh hearings because that's all I feel uh sometimes that's the only way that I can interject myself and get that information as much as possible.

I understand it's on the website, but you know, to get there, where do I go?

And and you know, so it just becomes a uh that uh a little pro-proclamatic on my aspect of it.

So I do encourage you know to have these conversations with us.

I'm open to uh participating with that, and I don't think anyone on city council would, but I do want to just uh reiterate make sure we follow the structure uh that we currently have, and then if we do need to make uh adjustments, we certainly can.

And those questionnaires can be asked to the mayor and to city council how that needs to be come about, right?

If there needs to be an adjustment uh from that, but I do want to make sure that you guys have the structure because you know, you hear a we should do it this way when really it should be this, right?

And I want to make sure that we follow that structure and whatever direction we want to on hot topic buttons.

Certainly, I'd like to get more input feedback from folks.

Um, because like you we say sometimes we get it at the the last minute um and for and that does not mean that someone's trying to hide something or information, it's just the information is not available at that time, and it's kind of like at the last minute where all this information comes in, and we're sitting here and you know, where we have to make the big decision one one way or the other.

So, but I do encourage that.

That would be my only recommendation, but I do would like to see more involvement from city council on certain things that relate to what the community has to say, right?

Because that's our job.

We represent our citizens in the community, and that's why I'm here tonight.

But I'd encourage you guys to continue to move forward.

So I don't have no opposition to that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I guess to that point, the the alderman brought up wanting to see our action plan, which tells me that our action plan that we approved a few months ago hasn't made it in front of council.

So um, yeah.

Part of that conversation of the reintroduction is making sure that that gets in front of council at some point.

And we can do that.

I think I have felt that we've still been a little bit in draft mode.

Yes, so I haven't shared it, but if you feel like it's at a point where we can share that, um, I'm happy to do that.

I just I have felt like we met earlier this week, right?

I felt that it was still in draft mode before we presented.

But if we want to do that, I'm happy to do that.

And yeah, maybe maybe we we share the topics of a discussion.

Um, unless to your point, unless we feel like we're we this is full ready to go.

Maybe we just share the we're talking about housing, and we're talking like we just share those points and the things that each commissioner has agreed to uh prioritize just so they have it.

And I guess also, I mean, these are part of our agenda packets, so they are public currently, even if they're in draft form, they're out there.

Um so our aldermen or city leadership could access them.

If you'd like, I'll clarify with counsel um the clerk and Angela, the legal director, on what that process would be to be able to provide these types of things to council, whether it's having um the chair or a member of CRC present that formally.

I'm not sure.

I don't think that we've really done that, at least not during my tenure.

So I'll get some confirmation on what that process would look like.

So going back to new business item A.

What would you like to happen with those draft questions that Commissioner Bravo and I came up with?

They were very very close.

We hewed very closely to what we talked about in our strategic session.

Um, and it does have an intro.

I don't know if the rest of the commissioners would like to look at those before they're distributed in any small meeting that you know, three on three meetings that would occur, or how we should go forward on that.

I think I guess what what the commissioners who have not seen the questions, um, would you like to see them before they are potentially used as as part of a three on three or whatever this turns into?

Um again, they're as as Commissioner Cole mentioned, they are very very short.

I can actually read them if I realize we probably don't want to be here till 11 o'clock tonight.

But um, again, there is a there is a an introduction to it, and I I won't bother you with that.

I think it's just pro forma or just standard.

But um, these are the questions.

How do you listen to your constituents?

Where do you meet with them when they have concerns?

For example, your home or a designated spot.

What are the top three challenges in your ward?

Third question, the community relations commission has identified housing as a top concern in Rockford.

How are you helping to make housing more accessible and affordable in your ward?

And then question four in the last one.

Are there areas in your ward that would benefit from one of the following?

Revitalization of current homes or alternative housing options, parenthetically, such as tiny homes or assisted living centers, see assisted senior living centers question.

Again, I can you know we can share those with the commissioners, but just to what do those sound like?

Those sound like good.

I did uh in part as part of the intro.

I just basically we just basically said um try to keep the answers short, and I think I think we said 150 words or or fewer.

So I I got one thing to comment on the term tiny homes.

I think we need to to uh redefine uh and use a term something like smaller footprint homes, because tiny homes are exactly that, they're very small, and they are designed for um more of a shorter term living, actually, or a less constructive living.

So the term tiny home is probably not what we want to talk about when we're talking about putting more affordable housing into our community, but people don't need 2,000 square feet.

You know, it's a lot of people that can get away with 700 square feet.

A tiny home is more like 350.

So uh I think we might want to look at our terminology there.

Okay, so so smaller footprint homes, and then we say parenthetically uh what did you say, 700 for example, 700 square feet or yeah, something that maybe 750?

I could probably get you an exact number.

Okay, I just think that would help visualize for a lot of people.

And then is it is is um the assisted senior living centers.

I don't remember from our discussion how that came up.

Is that something we want to add or leave it out?

I think that was kind of more towards like elderly parents.

If you know there's a way to keep them living at home, it's putting them in a nursing home.

Sort of the group home for seniors type plan, and that's not the right term, but we don't leave that in there then.

Do you think I think it's a reasonable?

I think that's a good point.

Like we want to make sure that we have options available for people who want to remain in their homes and not go to nursing homes if that's not what they want.

Um it's a valid question.

Yeah.

So should we have Michaela?

I don't know how this would look.

So should we have just a draft of those questions available during these meetings?

Should we put this off for another month?

What's the what's the thought?

So scheduling, I guess we would need to decide if we want to move forward with scheduling the small group meetings with the aldermen.

Have uh the mayor ask that he make that formal introduction across the board, and then trying to see who would be interested, and then based on the number of responses that we get, schedule as many small meetings as or small groups as we would need for you guys to be able to have those, and then I would be I would provide the questions ahead of time so they could think about it, prepare the answers to it.

They might have to do some research or something like that, I'm not sure.

Um, or come with data, maybe, um, and giving them the opportunity to be prepared.

I think it would uh give you a more productive discussion.

So, do we do we want to ask the mayor to make that introduction at the next council meeting where or when the next available council meeting for him to do so?

And then we can hopefully receive requests for meetings by our next meeting, and we can start scheduling those out.

What's the I guess again?

What is the request of the mayor, and then who's making the request to say at the next available council meeting, we want you to do this with this outcome in mind.

Oh, sorry, I just have one question.

Would um would there be preceding the excuse me, the specific questions?

Would there be are we understanding that there would be a general reintroduction of our commission and its purpose and goals in case there are people who are unclear about that?

So we have a starting point.

Is that was that our thinking?

Is that what the commission is wanting?

That I will say that's what it's it sounds like is what I'm hearing is that there needs to the mayor needs to reintroduce the commission so that everyone around the horseshoe understands what the ordinance says and what we are currently tasked to do, and then the next step it sounds like would be now that you've been reintroduced, the commission is open to having conversations with you.

We have questions, we'd like to know more.

We'd like to have more involvement who's available for those conversations.

That's what it sounds like we're saying, Yeah, yes, I can make the ask to the mayor for that and then ask if he if there's a certain process he would like to follow, whether that's having somebody from the commission attend that particular council meeting, maybe your public speaker, uh, to give a brief overview.

He I'm not sure what he would like that to look like, but I'll make that ask and then um schedule that.

Who if he would like somebody to attend, who would that person be so I can reach to that person directly?

I'm not exactly that, but I'm struggling with if our purpose and functionality is to uh advise city council.

I I I'm just I'm struggling with the ask type of situation.

Is it it's it's like we're and I think that's I think that's one of the biggest issues, even from every presentation is the lack of communication.

This commission has been an established for many many years.

This I mean it's a small city.

This is not rocket science, it's rocket science, like what we're supposed to do, what our purpose.

We've only had one election since I've been on this commission, so it's not like this brand new faces.

I'm just trying to figure out why we're having such a long conversation on how to present to city council, and the ass should come from the chair, you the chair, you should that ass should come straight from you uh uh to the mayor because you're gonna meet with him and do all that, so it shouldn't come from anybody else outside of that.

And then whatever those questions are going to be, we have to also make sure that, and I love those questions, but if we're looking at three aldermen, that might not be an issue.

That might not be something that for based upon it with their area.

And so we just heard from Alderman today, he's looking at something, you know, totally different.

Another alderman, they they might not even have land, even talk about housing, so this might not be a discussion to even to have.

So I think that one of the things we should do is present, you know, who is willing to come to sit or how we're gonna do it without breaking the law uh to deal with these particular issues.

I might not want the whole city council because it might not be, you know, for them, it might not pertain to them.

That might not be with them.

So if we're looking at that, we if we're gonna bring those questions out, maybe we should present it in a way that these are the questions that we're gonna ask.

Uh, if it's gonna be senior, maybe I know in in the fifth ward, the all the woman is looking at putting a senior you know structure or something like that right there on Main Street.

Maybe that's something that she might want to talk about.

Um, if it's something else, maybe we present that and allow them to come because all 11, we're not gonna get every ward is different.

Yeah, and every war, you know, and so we want to make sure that we're not wasting their time, they're not wasting our time, that we're able to to get what we're trying to get out.

But the reintroduction of what we're who we are, that and we've been on this for many, many years.

I just don't I I I don't even understand why this is a reintroduction.

Um, are we gonna reintroduce all of the other commissions as well?

I mean, we have a bunch of them.

I just think that when we're looking at this, I I think that there has been a communication gap in what our purpose and functionality is, and I don't think that we have been utilized or being used in a way in which we were created historically.

And I think that we've evolved into something that it probably was not the original intent.

Um, and and and and therefore we don't get the input from the community as we should.

And we only get that, we only get it when it becomes a camera situation or when it becomes this data center situation, and I think that we can ease city council if the discussion starts here.

That's not replacing them, but at least to open up a forum in our meetings here to deal with those issues along with what we're doing with this the calendar to allow this to go.

So now that the Alderman, when they come into city council and have to deal with it, it won't be new news to them and it won't be a shock in all to make a decision.

We have no information in this in this council for any hot button issue.

There's no person that that when a person asks us a question that we can really defend or whatever, give any information about any of the major issues that's going on in the city.

I think it's unfair to this commission for us to sit in a seat and not have any information to provide to the community, considering the name of this commission is the community relations commission.

I'm done.

Thank you.

All right, I hear you, and I and I think I go back to the conversation around the cameras.

We had an alderman who said, I want you to send this to the community relations commission, and we watched the horseshoe vote no.

So to me, some of the reintroduction, and you and I have been on this commission since the beginning.

I wonder if the reintroduction is reminding them that some of these things could and should start with us.

Have they forgotten that over the years?

Where body cameras was go straight to the community relations?

Because you guys got this.

And then we refer it, we referred it back to them.

Is that part of the reintroduction?

Have have they because they're not utilizing us in the way that they should.

Do we need to remind them?

So I have a basic question.

Uh I'm I'm I'm reading this ordinance creating the community relations commission several times.

I can see how body cams and use of excessive force would relate to a lot of the terminology about equal uh you know justice uh for all and equal I I'm not sure how data centers fit into that.

And I'm again, I'm just speaking for myself as a commissioner.

I'm not sure that I want to be a repository for every hot button issue that comes before the council, not to denigrate how important the issue of data centers is.

I just am not sure how it relates to the ordinance that created us.

I think based upon the fact that we're a community relations commission and it's a community issue that it automatically falls within the it in the parameters of what we're doing.

I I'm not saying that we've there's a vote one way or the other, but I think that this is a forum that we welcome community input and to push it out if it's a a hot button issue with the community, and we're the community relations commission, and it never hits the floor here, and it's never a discussion here, or we never have the information here, then again, we're not voting which way, but I think that we have a an opportunity instead of it going straight to city council where you don't have the opportunity to speak outside of three individuals or whatever that is, that we can have that here, you know, measured, of course, we don't want to be all night with it, but at least have some of those issues to to relate so that we can at least better present something to the city, say this is what's going on, this is you know, these are the concerns, and they can do what they want with it, but at least let it hit here first.

We we have to also consider the fact that just by definition, relations is a two-way conversation, and we're talking about how do we relate the community up to the council, and on this data center issue, the city has done quite a bit and made quite a few statements to satisfy some of the community's concerns, and I don't know if that message is necessarily getting out well either.

So, how do we, you know, we've talked about how do we create public forums and how do we you know get wards to do like what Alderman Bell does.

Um community relations has to be a two-way conversation, so we gotta consider how do we get the word out if the city is doing something that needs to be administered to the community.

Well, we can we can we can do that if we have the information.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, we have to have the information to be able to do that.

Yeah, I think Pastor Merton, to everything you just said, I a thousand percent agree with what you think what you're saying.

I think the glitch is to Michaela's point, we they have to want to give us the information, and I'm not sure to the chair's point.

Watching them vote no, no, no, to send something to us, was really sobering for me.

I was like, wait a minute, what am what am I doing here?

Like I want to be useful, but to be useful, like I would love to be able to be a you know, sounding board to the community and then take that message up.

But if they don't view us as legitimate, a legitimate body, I I worry they're just not gonna that it will not be as collaborative as it could be.

I want them to want to listen to us and to see us as a valid, legitimate group who's trying to make this easier, not like, well, what are they even doing here?

I mean, there was one councilman who I I mean, I admittedly I was surprised.

He was like, no, no, I those people are probably very nice people.

And I don't want to repeat if you watch this, but he said, I'm sure they're very nice people, but no, and I thought what we've got to we gotta disconnect here.

So that's my concern.

And and some of that disconnect could be them doing Commissioner Cole, what you did, they're reading the ordinance and saying this doesn't fit the ordinance, no, or they're saying we don't know enough about what the community relations commission does, no.

So is that part of the re-education of this is what the ordinance says.

If you want to send us something else, fine, but you guys have to understand what we're here for, and and maybe they don't know, maybe they do know.

I mean, based on this conversation, it just feels like like this commission is the enemy, like we're not part with them.

It's it's it's almost like we're forcing our sales on the commission.

I mean, on the on the council when we're here, even according to that, you know, they didn't need to be reintroduced when we were doing giving out money as city council people here.

So it's it's not that they don't know what we do.

It's not that they need to be reintroduced.

I think that again, I I just don't want to feel uncomfortable in a commission that's that's here to represent the city, just like they are representing the city, but to make it feel like we're so disconnected and like we're an enemy group versus being a part of the team to help move the city forward.

Because I think right now it just appears that we're it's us against them when it's not that that's not the intent.

It's it's it's it's how can I help the city council bridge how do we bridge what the community is saying and how do we help push it up to make what they're saying, but possibly policy.

But we're not fighting against city council with these issues.

It's not like we're voting one way or the other because of the city council gonna make that vote anyway, but I think that we we should have be able to present a document to you to present to city council to say, look, this is what's this is what it is, and based upon what it is, you all do what you all want, but at least we fulfilled our purpose as a commission to hear that because we're hearing it already.

We we we as we walk in.

I'm I'm hearing conversation when I came back into town, you know, with a whole big issue about data center.

I'm like, what the heck are we talking about?

I didn't even know anything about it, but it just came at me so hard, and I don't have any information at hand that I could to, you know, and that's the only thing I'm saying.

It's it's not that we're gonna vote anything, but at least we don't have to respond to that.

Because if we don't, then now that's a further disconnect between city and and community, and we're trying to bring the city community together.

That's the only thing I'm saying.

I I would just caution or offer my own personal caution against reading a no vote is is this commission being of no value?

It could be a whole lot of things.

A lot of things.

It could be that the council and the mayor perhaps want to protect us from being just the force field on a whole lot of misinformation and anger and conspiracy theories.

Uh you know, I after 25 years in journalism, I'm not gonna shy away from a controversy, but I also don't think that that just listening to to people's frustration and anger in this vacuum of information with no solid proposal coming to the council.

I I just think that that may not again be going back to the ordinance that created the community relations commission.

I'm not sure that may be in keeping with, but but I think there's a difference of opinion, and I I respect that.

So what are our next steps?

We've talked about a lot tonight.

Um what is the will of the commission?

I think as Commissioner Paul mentioned, there's a lot of different perspectives and and a lot of reasons that we might not have connection or reasons that we might have connection.

What are our next steps related to the agenda item?

What are we doing with the questions?

What are we asking of the mayor?

What are the action steps?

Even if we need to take further action steps next month or the month after, what are the action steps for this meeting?

I know I'm very newer, or I'm the newer member here tonight.

Um Pastor, I agree that in the past, it seems like the only time that the commission, the community relations commission has been helping is when there is a hot topic.

Yes, but like such as body cams and use the force.

I think earlier when we were talking about the mayor maybe reintroducing us.

I like Michaela's idea of the smaller groups meeting with the aldermen and just leaving it up to at least putting it out there, asking the mayor to ask the aldermen if they would consider meeting with us.

These are the questions we're gonna have to discuss with you, and just leaving it to them and whoever wants to come and meet with us, then we take it from there.

I I think that's uh all good what you want to do, but is this what the mayor wants us to do?

Is this why he developed the commission?

You know, is the you know, for the hot topics, are you know that's that's the thing too.

Are we going way in or we're saying outside?

So I think that uh I you know not all hot topics are something that but we just want I believe that we're to be informed, so in case when people have somebody in the community, and we need that information so that we can help them process things, right?

So is this why he created and if so, then we should have the small meeting with this with the three, whatever, start from there or reintroduce, you know.

But we have to now really is this what he wants us to do.

I don't want to speak for the mayor.

I think if we want to ask him, he we can invite him here to tell us, but I I would imagine what he wants from the community relations commission is likely in the current version of the ordinance.

Um could he change that?

Could he ask us to change that?

Could he ask the council to change that?

Sure.

But I think the intent of the commission was based in the ordinance that relates to the community relations commission and what we're tasked to do based on the ordinance.

Okay.

But I think if we want to ask him that directly, we could invite him to tell us that might be a really good question to ask your aldermen when you have the small groups too.

Is what do you want from us?

How can we help you?

Because speaking to Pastor Martin's point, there would have to be a process change, I think, to get things to you guys before they go to council.

And what things would those items be?

When would they come to you?

What would that timeline look like?

What are they expecting from you guys to then provide to council?

Some of these are very time sensitive as well.

So that might be a question for the aldermen that come to those small group sessions is what is it that you want from us?

How can we help with these hot button items?

And what does that look like?

Because truly to get them to you guys first, there would have to be a formal process change.

And and I think that was probably some of the issue with the cameras getting to us is there was deadlines related to that, and for them to be sent to us, at least from listening to council, right?

It sounded like that might have been the barrier.

Whether that's the barrier, I I don't know.

I can't, I was I'm not part of council, but it sounded like it was also a process issue that it might create some process issues for them that they need to fix before they give us something.

Is there anything else for that?

Um are we asking the mayor to do a reintroduction?

Maybe so.

Okay.

Yes, yes.

So we're asking the mayor to do a reintroduction.

Yes.

I I'll reach out to him.

You'll reach out.

I'll reach out to him.

I will ask for the reintroduction.

I'm also then going to ask him to make clear to the council members that we have some questions, and we'd we'd love to connect with them and learn more about what they are to Pastor Martin's point, what they are passionate about in their words, and um maybe that can help us better identify when things should come to us and when maybe they shouldn't, and how to navigate that.

I will make that request this week.

Um do you want another copy of Commissioner Bravo and my questions?

Maybe taking out the housing emphasis.

That was put in there because I thought we agreed at our strategic planning meeting that we wanted to continue with the housing emphasis, but we could certainly take out any kind of leading questions, if you will.

What do you guys think?

I I mean If the initial if the initial ask is a reintroduction and a we would love to set up some meetings.

We are not necessarily sending the questions with that initial ask.

We could form those questions before the meetings get scheduled.

If that's that sounds good.

Agree.

I want a majority of the city anyway.

That's not going to work.

Yeah, you don't.

All right.

So when I reach out to him, what timeline am I giving him as far as we are available to start meeting with the council members as of May, June?

What when are we going to make ourselves available?

Because I think uh Commissioner Hall, to your point, that will be when we need to have those questions finalized.

Um I would say May, because June people start vacationing and stuff.

Okay, so we're making the request tomorrow.

As of May, we are available to start meeting.

Please reach out to city staff or myself to schedule those meetings, and we can if we have three council members, we can reach out and say who wants to meet on these dates.

Okay.

Michaela, you and I can sit down and kind of navigate that once we start getting responses, I think.

Okay.

Yes.

Yes, I'll find out for the open meetings act.

Yep.

We have more things on our agenda tonight, friends.

I have a meeting.

Um the next thing on our agenda is the affordable housing pilot program from Commissioners Paquela and Garwick.

I'll talk really fast, like super fast.

So our task as a result of the strategic planning process was to do some research into housing initiatives in cities comparable to Rockford.

As I started looking through this, some of these are such places, some of these are cities that are a little bit larger only because I was starting to see themes that were consistent across cities of various sizes.

So I'm not gonna read all of this to you, um, but you can read this.

A lot of this has to do with zoning.

Um something that was interesting that is in here, similar to the procurement event that Michaela talked about was about um bringing in developers and builders, and once we would have, you know, if there were changes to zoning that need to be made to allow for multi-unit dwellings and so on and so forth.

That once we had things kind of where they were gonna be to bring in developers and builders and talk about what it would be like for you to build here.

This is this is our structure, this is what we currently have set up, um, so that we can make it a little bit more attractive, educate people as to what um we have to offer here in Rockford.

Um pardon me, some of these are about making plans available to folks who would like to build in the in the city so that they don't have to go and pay for plans on their own, things just to make it easier.

So I'm not gonna read all of that to you.

One thing though that did kind of pique our interest, is that a fair statement?

Um, is a project that has been um developed in Minneapolis.

Um it's called A Vivo Village.

This is more for um not temporary super temporary housing, but perhaps a year for folks who are have housing instability but also are in need of other city services, social services, um to get them back on their feet in order to move to the next level, which is I think the sort of housing that we've already talked about tonight.

So this is about a two-minute video, I believe, and maybe it's time to go home and we watch this video and we ponder and we come back and we talk about it more.

But um, after seeing this, Commissioner Garwick and myself and um Kat uh Valdez Doyle, who does housing in the area, she was um uh helpful in meeting with us, and we talked about how what would it look like if we wanted to bring something like this to Rockford.

We got all of our thoughts together.

We sent an email to Mayor McNamara just so he is aware that this is a thing in the world, and he passed it on also to then city staff, um, which is kind of where it stands.

So we thought we would get because to your point about it's hard to know what we don't know about what existing um projects are already in the works.

We thought, well, what if something like this is already out there?

We don't want to reinvent the wheel.

So we inquired about that and and we're waiting to hear back.

So this is this is what piqued our interest uh most recently.

I met a vivo through the Northloop Neighborhood Association when they came and presented their proposal to take an old abandoned warehouse on the corner of uh Washington Avenue in Plymouth and make it into a vivo village.

I think the fact that a vivo is able to step in along the journey and address housing instability, um, employment puts them in a place where they're really looking at these at individuals and families as a whole system, right?

And they can walk alongside them through that whole journey.

We really try to support nonprofits to use volunteers effectively to serve their mission.

We're really trying to draw connections and community.

We want them to be able to make a tangible impact and being able to walk away, learning about challenges in our community and how they can make an ongoing difference.

Through housing, addiction treatment, mental health services, career training, and job placement.

A vivo provides wraparound services to help the whole person.

I believe that A vivo is very unique.

A vivo moves on barriers by um welcoming everybody.

And I believe that they look at everybody as an individual.

Every person who comes in here is different, it has different needs and desires, and so it keeps everything really dynamic and really fun and challenging, but challenging in a good way.

Once we look at somebody as an individual, we get to learn who they are within and not what we see.

It's really fulfilling to see people go from sleeping outside to being in their own apartment.

If you don't have your own place to stay, how can you get well?

Seeing those mile markers develop for people, like figuring out where the challenge is for people and then seeing them pass them year after year is incredible.

It's really uh amazing to see um how people can change when they have access to emergency shelter that's a low barrier, and they can have a secure and safe space to sleep.

That's amazing to me.

We've seen you know, research and programs that demonstrate that it takes more than just treatment to help a lot of people move along their path towards recovery.

And I think um one of the things that that a vivo offers is kind of those those extra elements that make treatment more successful.

Working with organizations like Avivo really helps us bring our mission to life, and we hope that by working together people are learning and seeing firsthand the impact that a vivo makes in the community, and that it's creating long-term relationships.

A vivo is there to do the work to help whoever needs it, no matter how challenging the case may be.

It just makes me feel like I accomplished something.

So unfortunately, that's not the video that I thought we were gonna be watching.

So, yeah, so I don't know.

I apologize.

I thought I was thinking for video.

It's a nice video.

I mean, it doesn't really show you what it was though.

Right.

Is there okay?

So that's the home page.

Can you go to the about perhaps?

Oh, wait.

There was an embedded video that had the gentleman that was speaking about what happened.

Is that the video that we just saw?

That's what we just saw.

Yeah, now it's not the video I saw that you uh referenced.

I know you saw it.

It actually shows the little units.

Okay, so I'm not so losing it.

Might be, but not about this.

Um because that is very helpful, and this is really loud, sorry.

Um I wonder if it's in the is it something we can find and then send out to the full commission for review.

Yeah, well, Larry, I'm glad it was all what I was talking about.

Yes, no, you it was there, and I don't know what that video was.

It was on the home page, and it was the video on the homepage, and I don't know.

Is this something we can do like at the next meeting next month?

We can find a video, watch the video and talk more about it next month.

Can we put that on the agenda?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the long and the short of it is they took a warehouse.

So part of what I um found in the research, thank you about all of the other cities is that it can be difficult to have multi-unit or multi-family dwellings.

You get a lot of zoning issues around that.

This is um a model where they took an old warehouse and they built within it small lockable secure units where people can keep their belongings safe, can be safe themselves to sleep at night, and then within the same building, residents can find many other services under one.

So I know you're not crazy because I'm looking at the video right now.

You are also you're not gonna see it.

It's not on evidence, but they if you go to their uh their website, if you just call their website, uh A V I V O M E.org.

It's in bed, it's it's right there, right?

Yeah, it's in it.

So I'll see you.

Okay, I have been foiled by technology.

But okay, thank you for checking.

I appreciate it.

Today, yep, so ponder away, and uh we can have more discussion next time.

Yeah, and there's more we can say about it too.

There's quite a bit of information.

Next month, we have some updates from some of the directors, so there probably is some room that we could add this back on to the agenda if that is.

And that's if the directors can all confirm for me.

Right.

All right, um, commissioners' reports.

The only thing holding.

I'd just like to I'd like to share that uh this sweet one.

I volunteered for seven weeks.

I'm helping out the um uh the public schools they have a program called opening doors.

And so I'm volunteering on Wednesdays for two hours to get involved with the community in that way.

So it's well awesome.

Thank you.

Where is that?

That's on the Brook Road.

Okay, this change.

Sure.

Okay, I can't believe I'm gonna keep talking.

Um uh part of the discussion that I had when I went to the office hours with the mayor was um around our discussion about how to make the services that are available in our city more accessible and um help residents become more aware of them.

To that end, I'm gonna meet tomorrow morning with the um director of the United Way around the 211 program, which I imagine folks are probably familiar with.

But just uh I I'm I just want to learn from her kind of how because that really is a resource and referral versus like a let me help walk you through this process, but I'd like to know kind of from her what her experience has been working with the different agencies in the area and how might we fit in that process.

So is there any are there any questions that anyone would like for me to ask while I'm with her?

Are there other languages?

What's that?

Are there other languages?

Yep, okay.

The uh director of the United Way.

Yeah, and I would just be curious as to what steps they're taking to make sure that people know what two one one is and how it's available.

I yeah, I've lived in the community a long time and I'm still not exactly sure what two one one is.

Okay, so I think it just speaks to you know what are they doing to disseminate the information.

Great, thank you.

Commissioner Paquella, maybe depending on your conversation with that executive director, there's benefit to bringing her to the commission.

But I think based on maybe some of the answers that you have, maybe next month's commissioner's report you can kind of give us an update on how that conversation went and based on that.

Maybe we bring her here to just share more details.

Would you like me to ask her if she would be open to that now or wait until we get some more information?

I don't think it would hurt to say, you know, if if we have further questions or want to dig a little bit deeper, is that something that you would be willing to do?

Um, I think depending on the answers that you get tomorrow, I'm sure it'll be a great meeting, but depending on on that, we may have further things that we want to discuss or even bring her in related to some of the things that are on the action plan.

Okay, a lot.

Any other commissioners' reports?

I I will just say really fast before we go to the adjournment.

Please make sure that you're looking at the action and implementation plan because uh we have commissioners who in the next few months will be responsible for tasks that are on that.

So just make sure that you're keeping a month or so ahead so that we can keep going.

And with that, I will ask for the oh you got some killing me.

Pastor Martin, is that that sounds like a second motion in a second?

All in favor.

All in favor, say hi.

See everyone next month.

Run.