Okay, um we are going to resume at 7.55.

And Angie also wanted to note I don't know if you saw

I

think Representative Gross came in after

the call.

You were on the call.

Okay.

Okay.

Um representative Hughes came in.

And

then Representative Yeager was excused.

I didn't mention that before.

Okay.

Thank you.

Alright, at this time I will entertain a motion to take on item one test 32.024 and ordinance for public hearing and final adoption.

Second.

All right.

Um Emily Gordon, would you like to start off and give some updates or share any clarifying information for anyone who wasn't in their first meeting?

Sure.

So I appreciate all of the comments.

I think we heard you know, this is not a terribly long ordinance that I'm and you know that there's some major changes in it.

Um I just wanted to make a few clarifying points on some things, either directly related to the ordinance or related to kind of the operations of the trust fund based on what was saying, just so um hopefully we can all be on the same page going into um you know discussion for for the item tonight.

Um, so when it comes to the um the makeup of the board, um, I mean, I think the overwhelming thing that I heard tonight at least was concerned about removing those two guaranteed seats um for members who live in affordable housing.

And um I know that we've talked about the those, you know, one of those seats has never been filled and and they're both sitting vacant right now.

I don't play a part in the recruitment process necessarily.

I know there's been some talks with nonprofits and some of them that's helpful in trying to bring people to the table.

Um really it's through the administration, the board of representatives, it's through the same appointments process as every other board that trust fund members are appointed.

Um, but um, so all I know from my position is that um we have a board with two empty seats right now and they're really important seats.

So um it's it's really been too bad that over the last over two years we've had those as as empties this month.

The um adjustment that was proposed, um, it it does a number of different things, but right now the board is made up of five ex officio members, in addition to two members from the public, and those two members of the public have to live in affordable housing.

Um what that means is that if there's anyone else from the general public who wants to serve on the trust fund board, they're not able to serve on the trust fund board as it's now.

So if there's someone who is low income but they don't live in affordable housing, they are not eligible to serve.

So there are some things that make this board um the way it was crafted very different than every other board the city has.

Um ZX Officio members is very different than every other board the city has.

The fact that and what that means is that these are people who either serve as staff members of the city and sit on the board, or they serve on other boards.

They were elected or appointed to other boards and they serve on the trust fund because they have those roles.

So what that means is at this point in time with our five members, there is no one on the trust fund right now that was put on that board to serve the trust fund as their primary capacity.

So all five members right now are ex officio members, so they're two staff and three um either appointed or elected.

So I just want to be really clear about that and be really clear about who is not able to serve on the board right now, and that means any member of the public who does not serve in um who does not live in affordable housing is not able to serve on the boards.

So we all seven of these seats are full voting members or full members, we have no alternates.

So with a quorum of five and only five members, we need everyone to show up to every single meeting in order to do our business.

So it has been really hard.

The members that we do have have been working really hard.

We have not had to cancel meetings recently, which has been late, but it does mean as as uh representative hill knows.

I called him many times to make sure that he's gonna be there.

I call him the morning of.

So it is it is like really um really hard work on the staff and the and the boards are um the change would, and this is where the quorum comes in.

So we the five quorum for only seven members is very high.

It's not just a simple majority.

So it doesn't do any work very hard.

The other um, so the change in the quorum to go down to three is is actually because three is a simple majority of the proposed five whole voting members.

So we would pose that the board would go from seven full members to five full members, um, but there would be eight members on the board because three would be alternates.

So this actually increases the board's size.

There would be more people on the board, but only five full members.

So it gives us more flexibility.

The other important thing about this is this is the way that pretty much all appointed boards in the city are set up.

So the trust fund has been an anomaly.

This would bring us more in line with the way that every other board, the zoning board, the planning board, so many of these other boards are set up.

Um so it's really about bringing in anti-consistency, um, and um by bringing us down to only two exhibitio members instead of five, it also makes more seats available to the public.

So instead of having staff on the board, people who I don't know, are they gonna work for city government for 10-15 years and sit on their trust fund?