Good afternoon, all.

I will go ahead and call this meeting to order.

I will know that the proof of notice was provided in a timely fashion and is included on the second page of the committee packet.

For the record, this is a meeting of the Syracuse Housing Strategies Corporation Governance Committee.

And I will turn it over to Michelle to give us all an update on it.

So thanks for your support.

So resident advisory committee.

Um, I think this is something that we have talked about a little bit uh in prior meetings about the role of the resident advisory committee uh as it pertains to the organization.

Um, just for a little bit of a recap for everyone, uh, when the ordinance uh and enabling legislation was authorized by the common council to incorporate the housing strategies corporation.

We also included uh a provision that established a resident advisory committee that was made up of residents of the city of Syracuse, did not necessarily need to have any particular background or experience related to housing, but the intent was always that we would kind of mirror the existing structure that exists uh with the Syracuse Land Bank, which also has a resident advisory committee.

Um we established the inclusion of the resident advisory committee for the purposes of the housing strategies corporation.

Uh, we did not necessarily uh envision that it participation on that committee would in any way affect um residents' ability to access funding from the organization.

At this point, from the conversations that we have had with uh corporation council, both of the city of Syracuse and of outside council for housing strategies corporation, we at this point have gotten a firm and unanimous opinion from everyone that uh the ethics provisions that apply to all board members and staff of the housing strategies corporation uh would apply to any members of the resident advisory committee.

So that means basically in its simplest form that residents would not be able to apply for funds through the organization if they were on that committee for the duration of their term on the committee, uh, and then for a period of two years after their term concludes.

So the path forward that we have been kind of recommended from Corp Council, there's basically two options that they have laid out.

Um the first option would be that we could look to kind of understanding that that is a limitation and understanding that uh I don't think it was anyone's idea that we would in any way limit access of residents to be able to get funding as a um a term of kind of participating in a body such as this.

There's other ways that we could go about doing community engagement that would get us to the same place, but understanding that we do also have to comply with public authorities law and all of those related provisions.

Um we could look to simply dissolve the committee or dissolve the provisions in the ordinance that uh kind of uh created it in the first place, the board would just stay as it uh currently is with the appointments uh as we have right now.

Uh and then we could uh we being kind of under the umbrella of City of Syracuse, neighborhood and business development, continue doing community engagement in the same way that we are doing anyways and will continue to do regardless of the existence of the committee or not, um, which is really kind of working closely with the neighborhood groups uh to ensure that uh feedback that we're getting from those uh committees is uh uh represented kind of in the programmatic terms that we're putting forward to the board to adopt and kind of just sunset it in that way.

Um the option B that we could also look uh to pursue is that if the board felt that the role of the resident advisory committee still made sense for us to keep, uh, we could simply just comply with the limitations, acknowledge the fact that it does mean that anyone who is appointed to those seats does have to comply with those rules.

We would just be uh make sure that that's made explicitly clear to people kind of from the beginning at the point that they would be accepting those appointments.

Um I think the way that the appointments are currently structured within the uh enabling ordinance.

It's set up in such a way where it's basically 50-50 split between uh mayor and common council, um, so five and five.

Uh the common council appointments are one uh is made by the common council president and then one from each of the four at-large counselors.

Um so inherently, I think with that structure we were selecting it in that way, uh, understanding that if you're an at-large representative, you're representing the interests of the city as a whole.

Um so I certainly think that there's uh in a town of 144,000 people, you could find 10 people at any given time that understand kind of their limitations as far as accessing program funds, and that could certainly still be good from a policy making perspective.

Um, I think we in either case, like I said, we're committed to continuing to do the community engagement as we are doing anyways, and so um I guess the way that we see it from a staff perspective is that whether it exists or does not exist, it doesn't have a bearing on overall efficacy of what our engagement can be.

Um but I think we wanted to put it to the board for discussion before we were to move anything forward.

We certainly don't want to be bringing anything forward to the council without having kind of a unanimous consensus of this body uh as to how we would like to proceed.

So you have a preference one way or another?

I think that the most important thing is that we're continuing to do community engagement.

I think, like I said, like whether it exists or whether it does not exist, neither guarantees nor diminishes what the impact of what our community engagement and doing that effectively looks like, if that makes sense.

So I think that there's a lot of ways, regardless of I guess the value of having something like that in place is that it does create a little bit more of a formal structure.

I think the flip side of doing community engagement effectively sometimes is that sometimes the best way to do that is not actually in a formal meeting structure.

So is it safe to assume that if the ethics provisions apply, then so does open meetings law?

Yes, open meetings would also apply.

So I mean I I don't want to speak for for the council, and obviously we have counselors here.

I mean, I certainly when the idea of an advised resident advisory board came up, um, I think it sounded like a good idea.

Obviously, we would have residents um you know formally engaged, and it's worked really well for the for the land bank.

I don't think any of us anticipated that the way in which it was written, it would create this this conflict.

Um again, I think we can we can go we can go either way on this.

Um, but you know I think the idea of trying to uh comply with it as currently written to your point, Caitlin, just creates a lot of work and probably results in us not engaging the residents most directly, you know, um engaged in the neighborhoods that we're serving.

There was no other way around.

There's no like because you guys have it, home headquarters have it.

I there's no is it a change that we can do in our verbage?

Home headquarters is not bound by public authorities law in the same way that the city of Syracuse is or that uh as that the housing strategies corporation is.

Um I think uh we have to go based on the direction that we have received as from our council as the housing strategies corporation, and then in turn, kind of as a extension of the city of Syracuse from their council.

So I guess the way that they look at it is the directive that exists for the land bank is doesn't have any bearing on their recommendation, and they have been very firm that there is no way around this.

Um we were planning to have uh corp council here today, and just with the scheduling changes we got, um we're not able to have them here.

So we can certainly set something up kind of separately if there's specific questions that you all have with them, but I think it's fair to say that we've they've been pretty clear that there isn't a way around it.

So I have pushed hard on this, because again, I just don't think it it meets our intent here.

Um I the one thing that maybe I'm not on the same page with my understanding uh as you, Michelle, is that I think the the council's made it crystal clear that the way in which the orn ordinance is written creates this issue.

I guess I got the impression that if the ordinance was written differently, not necessarily just saying no advisory uh board, neighborhood advisory board, but naming it and more explicitly stating what it does and does not do that we may be able to get around it.

Did you not get that impression?

I did not get that impression.

So maybe it's worth us uh clarifying that piece of it, but I think I guess the the question that I would pose for the purposes of keeping uh understanding that we need to kind of move this forward is if we were to it turns out that that is accurate and stands kind of as described, then what is the preference of how we think that we would like to proceed um under the circumstances?

I have a question and a comment.

Um is there a written criteria for what these resident advisors are expected to do?

Um the language and the way that it is phrased is that um you would essentially it would operate kind of as a committee of the housing strategies corporation, we would be looking to kind of run through upcoming agenda items with them in the same way that it would be subsequently presented to the board, uh solicit feedback from them on feedback comments on uh anything that we might be considering.

So examples being kind of as we're looking to uh formalize uh programmatic terms, uh having kind of a similar conversation that we would be bringing to the governance committee, uh then subsequently to the board for approval, but also just getting kind of their formal documented comment and feedback on some of those structures.