We are here for another meeting.

We have Counselor Nave, myself, Counselor Calwell, President Patiagwan, Counselor Hudson is uh also here.

She's just stepped out.

And we have Deputy Mayor Um Jrisco Dunham, just go just go Dunham.

That's what I think.

One of those two.

And we have our Stephanie, Chief Officer, uh strategy officer, Stephanie Pasqual.

Thanks guys.

So let's just talk about it briefly before.

Um item six.

You say our page 69, right?

Yeah.

All right.

Take it over.

Yeah.

So as you guys may recall in the state of the city address, Mayor Owens um announced an initiative she'd like to pull off called CARE.

And it stands for constituent assistant resource employees.

And what we want to do is sort of centralize some of our employees that are doing a ton of constituent services work in sort of different areas right now.

So the plan is to sort of geographically co-locate individuals, including our constituent services or confidential aid on here, Lori Tape.

I know you guys know Adal Mann, who is the immigration affairs coordinator, and Patty Lynch, who um does a lot of work with codes and housing and emergency relocation.

So no one's job title nor responsibilities are going to change.

It really is sharing information, sharing strategies, techniques, um, sharing brains to best address and meet the needs of constituents.

Um as you all know, each day we get hundreds of either walk-ins, calls, or emails to the general mayor's inbox, as well as referrals from you all from other departments, from frankly, other levels of government like the county or um our state electeds.

So we all try to work together.

Um, but in some ways it was a little disjointed because you might call Patty for this thing, um, and then the family might need other resources, and then it kind of kicks around.

We really do want to have that more comprehensive approach to meeting people where they're at and to hopefully providing hot referrals that result in impact and change.

Um, we also hope that through this effort, we're able to cross-train individuals that do this work in other areas like upstairs or on this floor with your constituent services, um, folks or constituent needs that the council's staff has.

Any frankly, any department that's um working directly or frontline with constituents.

So that's the care initiative, and that will fall under this umbrella.

Right.

So all of these positions are they filled right now or to be filled?

So um the direct or deputy or yeah, the director of communications is posted right now, so that's vacant right now.

Okay.

Um the um senior public information officer position is filled.

The public information officer positions are both filled, and you'll see that they go from two in this budget to zero, and that's because they've been um those positions have been located in the departments that they work most closely with.

So rather than being centralized um from a budgeting perspective in the communications office, their positions reside in the departments, but they'll obviously still work closely in a centralized uh way.

Uh the marketing aid position is is filled, so that's a that's the same as last year.

And then the confidential aid position is um Stephanie referenced is Lori Tape, so that position is also filled.

Uh we do currently the the budget, um, the office currently does have an intern, and then the immigration affairs coordinator, Stephanie just mentioned, you know, is um from a different department, so that's an existing position.

So the only vacancy would be the director of communications.

So this goal is to have a better create a better opportunity for the community and the constitut the constituents with City Hall to be able to connect all the pieces together to have like one coordinated services.

And I think the idea is to really go beyond service requests, which is generally what you know, City Line often does.

Um, you know, I think some of these issues are going to go beyond just you know, my trash wasn't picked up, a street light is out, it's it's going to require more than that.

Not that that's easy to deal with either.

And do you think like I know this is new and this is the first year.

Do you have any plans in the future to add more, or is this just like yeah, I think what I think what we would love to do and what we've been doing for these first three months is uh monitoring volume and making sure that we have a handle on not just the number of calls as you guys know, you could get 10 calls in one day and four can be really easy and six can be really complex.

You could get 10 calls in one day, and four can be really easy, and six can be really complex.

So we also are trying to get a handle on the complexity of the calls and the or the the issues that come in and creating and working with our digital services and API team on software solutions so we can be able to after if the first six months report out hey, here's what we found.

Um now if that um data shows that oh my goodness, you know, there's there's this is more than we can handle with these three employees.

We certainly would want to have a conversation about expanding it, but I think at first we're we're hopeful that um by co-locating and sharing information, there's less silos and less sort of bouncing people around and more effective and sort of efficient um completion or um impact with with the cases.

So the immigration affairs coordinator, how's that going?

In terms of what they do, yeah.

Well, not even with no, it's not what they're doing.

I know what they're doing.

Um sort of self-bearing, but how is the position working with the the group?

Yeah, so it we haven't brought everybody together yet.

We're hoping for around on or about July 1 to bring folks together, but all the individuals involved have been um we've brought together to talk about the design of what this will look like.

What do people need in the in terms of a work environment, and um how do we want to track information so that we can have some reporting um and to better understand?

I think I like to think the data that comes out of this effort will inform you all, will inform us on policy imperatives at any time.

I always think the mayor's inbox is sort of a pulse of what's happening in the community, just like you guys' inboxes, right?

Um, in terms of where um where people are at and what's affecting them the most.

So I expect that the information that comes out of this effort will inform our housing policy, will inform um some of our other um sort of frontline retail services that we offer um and to make them more effective.

And eventually that position will be public facing, right?

The immigration coordination coordinator.

Correct.

And in many ways, I know um Adal is out and about, but yes, in many ways that'll happen.

Um Michelle Spanski, Deputy Commissioner of Neighborhood Development.

So I did just want to add that um that position was one really that was added by the council uh back in 2023.

Um so to Stephanie's point, we've been using it really uh as a way uh kind of understanding that a lot of the actual policy levers when it comes to uh various immigration policies are happening kind of outside of the scope of what the city uh is directly uh has oversight of.

Um we've really tried to leverage that position to the extent possible to uh be a convener uh amongst the various uh service providers that are um offering resources for uh immigrants and new Americans.

Um I think there's uh certainly an extensive amount of opportunity of how that might continue to evolve and expand, um, but it is a very flexible position.

It's one that is able to um it is very much uh out and about in the community a lot, uh and it's one that uh is uh can very easily be adapted to their work scope based on needs.

So is it a doll?

Uh yeah, a doll my end.

Yeah, much of Petty Glynch.

Is she working that department?

I heard much petty lynch.

Yeah, no, Patty works in neighborhood and business development and she'll continue there, or she'll just physically be working together with this team.

Good.

Not that sharing information and research.

I want to commend uh this department, immigration affairs coordinator because we as a having a very diverse district, many people who come to me uh who have difficulty speaking the language.

And so this has been a great help.

We had the situation with a gentleman from Yugoslavia on uh on North McBright Street, the uh the gentleman owns the uh restaurant on North State Street or a businessman on North Salina Street.

There's a lot of things, and they need help, and they reach out, and I read no, I do appreciate this is a very very important position that we have to really help people.

Any issue.

Anything else you guys want to add towards this?

No, we're excited to get started, and um we have a wonderful team, and like I said, I hope that um this isn't some sort of insular thing that it really does expand upon all of our different ways in which we have um front facing constituent services.

Okay, thank you.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.