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Thank you. Thank you, chair. Okay, members, any further questions? If not, I'm going to hand it over to my co-chair to take on the next bill. Thank you. Thank you. Uh we are going into SB696 relating to workers compensation authorizing wages of other employees and comparable employment to be considered when computing the average weekly wage of an injured public board member, reserve public officer, police chaplain, sheriff's chaplain, volunteer firefighter, volunteer boating enforcement officer, or volunteer conservation and resources enforcement officer. and it clarifies the uh computation of average weekly wages of an injured volunteer firefighter for workers compensation benefit purposes. So we have um the department of labor. Aloha chair Mari chair wai vice chairante and committee members Jai or D. Uh we stand on our testimony and support. Thank you. Thank you. Uh and we have two written Oh, do we have anyone else on Zoom or in the room would like to testify on this bill?

Okay, we've got uh two written testimonies. One from uh two from individuals Alan Urasaki in support and Michael Oakland in support. questions. We take a brief recess taking the vote. We are reconvening our joint committee with the public safety and intergovernmental affair military affairs committee and our friends from the committee on labor and technology for decision-m on two measures. The first being Senate Bill 1158 relating to the employees retirement system. We had a very lengthy discussion on how to hopefully improve recruitment and retention of our police officers throughout the state. like to pass this measure out with um one amendment that being what was suggested by the attorney general's office uh which was would be to take out section one which was in conflict with all the other sections of the bill. Um and in the committee report we're going to ask that budget and finance and ERS uh provide us more information on the impact of of this particular measure on the retirement system.

So um suggestions to pass with amendments with discussion chair I'll be voting with reservations understanding what our law enforcement does but noting the concerns from ERS and BNF but for further discussion. Thank you. Any further discussion? If not Senator Alfante I vote yes. Chair's recommendation is to pass SB 1158 with amendments. Chair votes I. Vice chair votes I with reservation. Senator Fukunaga I. Senator McKelie. Yes. Senator Awa. Mr. Chair, the measure passes with amendments. Thank you. The labor and technology committee. Same recommendation. Chair vai. So this is um we're voting on Senate Bill 11 1158 to pass with amendments. Chair is I uh Senator Har's I. Senator Keith Agaran. Senator Favilla. I recommendations adopted. Thank you. Uh for Senate Bill 696 relating to workers compensation. Uh uh and this is uh for volunteers uh workers compensation uh benefit um comparables uh uh chair is going to recommend that we pass this uh with amendment with a defective effective date.

Chair Volai. So of the members, four members present on the committee on labor and technology, any reservations or no votes for chair's recommendation to pass Senate bill 696 with amendments.

Hearing none, recommendations adopted. Same recommendation for public safety. Any discussion? Senator, I vote yes. Okay. Chair's recommendations to pass SB 696 with amendments of the five members present from PSN. Are there any no votes? Any votes with reservations?

Hearing none, Mr. Chair, the measure passes with amendments. Thank you everyone for your time. Your turn. Thank you.

uh wonderful uh before I call the meeting to order I think I know that for all the meeting to order so welcome to the February 16th meeting of the Ann Arbor renters Commission uh the purpose of the renters commission is to advise the city council and the city administrator and matters affecting renters in the city of Ann Arbor the renters commission is made up of voting members who are appointed by the mayor and approved by city council two non-voting city council Liaisons one non-voting liaison to housing and Human Services Advisory Board two non-voting members representing different landlord perspectives and a non-voting representative from the University of Michigan Student Legal Services uh to speak during any one of the uh public common opportunities you will be able to speak through the webinar link or if you're calling by phone um for the phone access please call 877-853-5247 and enter a meeting ID 935-8080-1941 uh to be called on to speak callers must press star nine if they're listening by phone or use the raise hand feature if they're viewing it through the zoom web link you will then be called upon by City staff one by one using the last digit the last three digits of your phone number or by your username on Zoom uh you'll appear an automatic announcement uh that the host is allowing you to speak so please state your name after that and you can begin speaking City staff will indicate when you have only about 30 seconds left of your three minute comment period after three minutes you'll be placed on mute and we'll go to the next speaker okay so wonderful now we'll move on to roll call uh because this is an electronic meeting please include the city and state you're attending the meeting from um I think if you're in Ann Arbor we know what state you're in but uh we'll go we'll start through the roll call so I am here I'm calling in from Ann Arbor commissioner Chen yes I'm here I'm calling from an annaber all right welcome commissioner Peterson hi everybody calling from Ann Arbor welcome commissioner mckergie hi I'm calling in Sherman Abu commissioner Kelly commissioner Cohen Smith here calling in from Ann Arbor commissioner rumel here and calling in from beautiful downtown Ann Arbor welcome um I knew I recognized your law office [Music] commissioner droppleman here and calling from Ann Arbor wonderful and if I mispronounce anyone's name please let me know I don't want to keep mispronouncing it commissioner else here in Ann Arbor commissioner Lowe's here in Ann Arbor commissioner Tibbetts you're in Ann Arbor commissioner Rosen I'm here in Ann Arbor council member radino here in Ann Arbor welcome council member Harrison here in Ann Arbor wonderful and I know we also have um Jen Cornell here with us so welcome um thank you for having me I'm here in Ann Arbor right wonderful um and our city staff present Kristen great welcome and John Reiser all right City attorney's office uh attorney so great uh yeah so I I know we have two uh is it just one new person who's never introduced themselves so I guess we should all introduce ourselves briefly that's all right so um right uh I guess commissioner Lowe's uh I did I call on you during uh during the roll call I'm sorry if I skipped your name yes yes you did okay wonderful so I'd like to give you the opportunity and give everyone the opportunity to introduce themselves so go ahead Jeff hello everyone um my name is Jeff Lowe's um uh this is my first meeting I apologize I was not able to uh make my actual first meeting which was the January one I had a commitment uh that was made far prior to me being appointed to the commission so I I appreciate uh your Indulgence in that um I live in the South America area in an apartment near uh stone school in Ellsworth and I'm just really glad to be here to be part of this commission I think it's really important especially in a city like ours and I I want to I look forward to working with all of you welcome Jeff and you go by Jeff or Jeffrey either one is fine okay wonderful um I can start and we'll go down the list uh my name is Zachariah I'm the current chair of the commission I work for Michigan medicine and research and I'm also a renter and have rented in the city from a few different landlords um and I'm very grateful to be here so I will pass it off to Dun Dun I am also a renter in the downtown uh officer animal housing community members and I'm extremely extremely lucky one to be here in the city and in the um and especially a member of the Avalon housing community that really really makes me my life so so so much better I enjoyed it to the post so I'm very happy and thank you everybody I'm the one that I should learn a lot lot so please excuse me pardon me if I'm a little bit slow thank you not at all not at all thank you um uh Lucy hey Jeff welcome to the commission really glad to have you here I'm Lucy I'm a PhD student at the University of Michigan Vice chair of this Commission wonderful and um Richa hi Jeff it's nice to meet you um I work at the school of Public Health at the University and Hannah hi nice to meet you I'm Hannah is she her pronouns I am a law student I'm in my second out of three years and I'm a renter here thanks Nick hi Jeff and everybody else I'm Nick Rimmel I'm a civil rights attorney I practice housing law extensively in Detroit for Legal Services at the beginning of my legal career and then at Student Legal Services for many years I'm practicing a lot of housing law in Ann Arbor and I'm pleased to meet you and be a member of the commission with you and everybody else awesome robber hi I am uh one of the uh two uh uh landlord advisors I am a small landlord I was also a renter for I think seven or eight years uh in Ann Arbor and um I also uh worked for Michigan medicine so pleased to meet all of you oh very interesting which department information assurance that's right I think you did mention that last time actually okay uh Jordan hi I'm Jordan I'm the other landlord position I've rented as recently as 2015 in Ann Arbor and moved here in grad school um I am nurse practitioner by degree but haven't worked in that field for a little while because it wasn't family friendly and we just couldn't make it work so I'm home with my husband um I do a little bit of work for our business a lot of volunteering in the schools with racial Equity um and doing a lot of work with ptos and I'm really glad to meet you Jeff so I'm glad to be here thank you wonderful Jamie hi Jeff I am also a new Rutgers Commission commissioner I'm a MSW student master of Social Work and uh new to the Ann Arbor area nice to meet you Gail hi nice to meet you um I am an attorney with Student Legal Services I'm a housing attorney there and I am the liaison between the U of M and here wonderful and our council members Travis would you like to start sure and Jeff and I know each other already but um I am Travis verdina council member from Ward three uh former renter and uh happily uh liaison here on that Commission great Cynthia hi I'm Cynthia Harrison I am council member in Ward one uh former renter some years ago but happy to be here with you all tonight [Music] and Jen go ahead if you'd like to introduce yourself as well I'm an interloper this evening and I represent Ward five and I'm here to talk about um an agenda item this evening but I appreciate you hosting and allowing me to join the group for this evening thank you thank you very much for being here okay did I did we get everybody for the roll call and introductions okay nobody oh I guess John you didn't if you'd like to introduce yourself of course you can have the opportunity so hey folks my name is John Reiser I'm one of the assistant City attorneys that have the pleasure of working for Adeline Carr wonderful and Kristen too I'm sorry that's all right I'll say hi to hi to um can't attend a meeting or anything like that uh definitely reach out thank you thank you Kristen okay now we can move on to uh the approval of uh the agenda is there a motion to prove the agenda our current agenda discussion quotient by Lucy okay is there a second second okay seconded by uh increasing do you prefer if I announce it with the last names is that easier for you either is fine okay I'll just disbursement a segment by Hannah thank you um okay all those in favor say yay yeah yeah okay all those opposed say name okay is that the agenda is approved unanimously and then we'll move on to the approval of the last meetings minutes so we have uh the minutes from our last meeting which is on January 19th 2023 um is there a motion to approve the minutes from last time I couldn't also move thank you Nick okay moved by Nick we have a second for that motion seconded second by Jeff thanks all right all those in favor say yay yay all those opposed say name with that it is approved unanimously so I'm last meetings minutes are approved okay now this brings us to our first general public comments I'll let Kristen if you'd like to lead this I'll uh pass it over to you so um there will be another public comment um at the end of the meeting so after this one um uh public comment will be three minutes per speaker and can be made by phone like Zachariah read earlier at uh by calling 877-853-5247 and entering meeting ID 935-8080-1941 or by joining the web link and that is at a2gov.org renters commission meeting um attendees who have called in should press star nine to raise their hand and if you're attending through the web link you can use the raise hand feature so if anyone would like to address the renters commission you can go ahead and raise your hand now we'll wait just a moment in case anyone's calling in all right so we have no callers and no attendees have indicated um again there will be another opportunity to address the renters commission near the end of this meeting thank you very much Kristen so with that we move on to point uh I guess point of business number six so 6-a is the presentation of a proposed amendment related to carbon monoxide detection detectors so uh on the agenda there's an attachment uh which is a I think a draft Amendment to the housing code to specifically section 8.527 and I'd like to invite council member Cornell to present that Amendment if you'd like to yeah thank you so much um I apologize for the tardiness and getting it to you um I'll just hit the high notes for anyone who hasn't had a chance to I'll give a little bit of background and then hit the high notes um for anyone who hasn't had a chance to review it yet but um the state of in John Mr Eiser please correct me if I Mis characterize anything but the state of Michigan does have a law that requires any new rental multi-family units to have new construction to have carbon monoxide detectors however that law does not cover existing units and so the goal and purpose of this is to fill that Gap here in Ann Arbor we know that our housing inventory is not new um you know predominantly not new and so um requiring carbon monoxide detectors in those units is just a basic safety feature in my mind and so um if you haven't had a chance to look at it this would amend chapter 101 of the housing code Mr Eiser did work to make sure that the rental housing supervisor at the city and the fire marshal both had input and you know we could gain their support for moving forward with this as written the big thing is that carbon monoxide monoxide detectors and dwelling units that contain a fuel fired Appliance so only certain appliances would generate Co or have an attached garage with a common door that is shared between the dwelling unit um would be required and that the type of carbon monoxide detector as well as the location of it would be determined by the international fire code so falling in line with you know standards that are already existing and then I think the other big thing that we talked about and had questions around was that the owner of the unit would have responsibility for assuring the detectors and devices are in good operating conditions this is in line with the same as what they would have to do building owners would have to do or unit owners would have to do with again the smoke and fire detection devices within the unit but that resonance would be responsible for informing the landlord outside of a transition of lease and whatnot if the device becomes inoperative so starts beeping call your landlord they can provide batteries or service or whatever to make sure that it is in good working order and again that that response responsibility does lie with the owner this would cause a civil infraction punishable by a fine of that more than 500 but I think that that's significant to um to point out and that this is not just something that we're throwing out there but something that would have a little bit of teeth to it so um I I don't feel as I'm mischaracterizing what the legal City's legal team um sort of relayed to me but this is definitely in keeping with what we do with smoke detectors right now and how the city code and how we operate now so I'm happy to answer any questions although I'm sure Mr Riser would be probably more comfortable answering himself um but I'm happy to answer anything and the impetus was that renters did reach out to me after there was an incident with um a carbon monoxide death and just asked what the provisions and safety um our laws were and what were the rules around safety regarding Co unit a CO2 CO detectors excuse me and um I did a little bit of digging to figure out that we didn't have a provision here locally regarding existing units so happy to answer any questions and again grateful for your time to to receive input from this group tonight that was perfect thank you yeah thank you very much I'm gonna go ahead and display the amendment on the screen and we'll go through the questions if that's all right sure okay here we go and just let me know if you want me to like zoom out or whatever okay I saw Dan's hand first so go ahead my question that is there any time frames for the uh equipment to be uh installed and except this one is there any possible that poisonous air or something like that not healthy air that could be give enough from the buildings or different kind of tools so how to monitor those kind of things to to control like the the equipment like we just talked about so at the very end the ordinance we this is a number that could be changed it could be 60 days but we have 91st day after publication so the ordinance will be published and then we need to set an effective date it could be 10 days it could be 60 days it could be 90 days the problem is we have 52 000 residents in rental housing and when we rolled out these sanitation supplies people couldn't get the uh the the dispensers to put up in the bathroom so there there could be some supply chain issues and that's kind of why we're we're saying uh these things aren't that expensive but we're going to need a lot of them because a big house with three floors could have a lot of these I don't know a lot is maybe an exaggeration I don't know three to six whoever the fire code requires so there's going to be a pretty big run on these devices so um that's why after talking to rental housing uh that day was put in there could be moved up could be moved back but that's a starting place for it thank you Jordan hi Jenna thank you for doing this work to Jen and whoever else has been working on it um we so just kind of a couple of thoughts that my husband had had as as we've read through this um so we proactively did this um a few months ago just so that we kind of had an idea of how things would go um you know looking at the international code it looks like our personal placement um kind of matches that but there are some things that are unclear so um I have four bullet points of feedback um the first one is regarding a little bit regarding responsibility um and so I just kind of want to throw out there that something to think about um when we say so detectors detectors are our number one biggest thing that we deal with as landlords like they are almost every time we go in a house our maintenance staff is supposed to check um just doing a visual walkthrough I mean they don't they don't check everywhere unless somebody reports an issue with one of them um but almost always at move out we will find a large number of detectors gone either completely um thrown away or just disappeared um and this has been consistent for all of the years we've been running our business so um we tell them in our I mean just to kind of give you guys background we tell them in our addendum um that there's a penalty for any missing we tell the minor addendum that they um you know if it beeps they should replace the batteries but that we are happy to do if it is too high or they can't get it down for some reason um we tell them in our uh check-in document which is just kind of a document about safety and workings in the house and they frequently disappear so I guess when I think about this I kind of looked and it doesn't look like we currently have um like there's not language looking at this ordinance it doesn't look like they're specifically language about penalties and I guess I'm just wondering um is there a mechanism and part of this is you know I see I see the feedback already and I know landlords are going to push back so I'm trying to help us come with with some some good things to kind of think about that so is there a way so for example tenants when they move in um they're supposed to fill out a condition an inventory sheet is there a way to kind of require that it's documented on there that they're in place and then the second question is you know tenants may not even know the requirements um so kind of some things to think about surrounding that is is there some I guess I'm mostly thinking landlords might push back on this so they're saying I'm going to get a fee but usually it's the renters that take these things down if they're there at moving so just kind of putting that out there that maybe there's a way that we can kind of collaborate with our heads together tonight to think about some ways to kind of deal with that uh possible barrier um maybe something including something like must notify landlord within X days of one not working that kind of thing and then I did hear you say you know the landlord providing batteries and in general if it's regular ceiling Heights and somebody just has a chair in general so that it can stop beeping that night and they can sleep those are fairly easy to replace nine volt batteries but you know I was curious as to Jen with you saying um landlord replacing batteries if we are are thinking about something like that in the specifics because they didn't see that so that's kind of idea number one idea number two um I just think that we have a lot of different building styles in Ann Arbor and that we really need to maybe this is now we have developed a question for our March meeting I think that we really need to have Clarity from the building department both in terms of we as landlords and renters as well about exactly like where they need to be because even reading that code I had some questions so our decisions that we made around boilers are that they go you know around the boiler but of course with a boiler there's no airflow in that house right so it made sense to put them in the rooms around the boiler that were sleeping rooms but some of that with boiler systems isn't really clear to me in that international code so I just thought that making sure that we are all on the same page so that landlords know what to expect might help some pushback and um you know a lot of this I guess in kind of doing research a lot of the really the older houses that are just draftier and have bigger gaps of course the the risk is less and so it feels important to kind of make sure that we've kind of covered all the different building designs and the what-ifs um that there are a little bit more than this international code because I I still have a little bit of on Clarity um lack of clarity about that and then the third bullet point um compliance and the timeline I just kind of have some questions and thoughts about that so uh we found we did a lot of shopping at cheapest they were 16 a piece buying in bulk um you know if you manage 400 units you could have to buy a fair amount of them it's still a fairly small amount of money but that may be something for pushback so um you know I want tenants safe as soon as possible clearly we already put them in everywhere but um I guess I'm just kind of wondering like there's there's really no um I'm just wondering if we're going to get pushed back about the 90 days because this could be like a five six seven thousand dollar expense for larger companies so just kind of thinking about that and then the other piece to that is of course these things only last 10 years um and so if we're saying you have to be compliant within 90 days we're saying you spend that if you say you have a large number of units three to four hundred units you may be spending six or seven thousand you have to spend that now and then it's a guarantee that you have to spend that plus inflation in 10 years so I wonder if there's a way to kind of tier it um you know there is a provision in housing code where variances can be sought for kind of undue cost burden to changing something so just kind of wondering um about that if we could you know just kind of think about that I guess I'm just kind of throwing that out there um and I'm also open to you guys saying no it just needs to happen people just need to to do the cost but I do think that that may be something that is gets pushed back on and that we may want to think a little bit about um and then the other thing that kind of came up like is there any if if we decide that we are going to stick with the 90 days um is there any money in the city or fire budget to kind of help cushion the expense or where you know a landlord could come get one for a handful of their units something like that just throwing that out there um and then number four being you know how are we going to communicate this to both parties um and so yeah any clarifying questions on kind of what I've thrown out there or anything from anybody I know sorry that's a lot of information as you guys know I come with um often but um anybody have anything I think the only thing that I would I would offer in any of your feedback was that I especially your I think you're 1.24 point was about the battery the the one thing that I was concerned about was that putting the cost of batteries um and that sort of Maintenance into the hands of tenants and so when he said yeah absolutely could you push a button and get rid of it or could you like go to Target on State Street and get a nine volt and come back like that I think serves one population but for people for whom um I think could potentially put them at a disadvantage financially um but looking at it from just an I guess an equality standpoint assuming that like a 10 battery or whatever is not much to anyone is not I I want to make sure that people are safe regardless and so that was I wanted to point that out that that was something that I had asked Mr Riser about specifically um but ultimately the responsibility for the maintenance should go with the person who owns that unit into for however long so yeah quick point of clarification that that was something that was discussed and I don't know if Mr Riser may have other things to add to that but that was so I think that that to me too is like it's a bigger you know if a smoke detector is beeping in the middle of the night like starts beeping like that's not something that's really and maybe I mean I'm open to renters telling me I'm totally wrong about this that's not something that we're gonna like go pay an on-call person to do usually in the middle I mean just telling you kind of how things work right now so usually what happens is we kind of tell them to have them on hand in case that happens of course we have houses that they can't change them because the ceilings are big but I think just kind of to make sure that we're um you know kind of going over how the real world things work too like we people tend to change them or take them down because they they can't get to them and so that that is a tough I guess I just want to mention that whole thing that process wise that that happens um so yeah thanks for listening yeah of course thank you for the feedback but Jen to answer your question yes um currently it's the uh the owner is responsible for assuring that the detectors and devices are maintained in good operating conditions and obviously a smoke detector or carbon monoxide detector without a battery isn't in good condition but owners can't go into Apartments so it's up to the tenant to you know you know so it's up to the tenant to let them know that they need the battery or that it isn't working you know I talked to the rental housing and I I'm a little surprised they take smoke detectors on the way out uh because they don't take them they just take them and they disappear so I don't think they take them they just they're beeping one night and they don't that's why we tell them to have a battery on hand and I I'm I'm curious to hear what you said John and I'll take that um kind of into consideration so maybe leaving a couple batteries in units we'll think about that but I mean I think what happens is they start going off at 1am somebody needs to sleep they just take them down take the battery out and then they go in a drawer and they just disappear but I mean it happens way more than you would think um Even in our like working young professional houses um you know we we see it in all of our housing that that they are often um misplaced um so yeah just kind of things to think about but maybe maybe the better process for us as landlords then is too to make sure that we leave a couple batteries for folks so there's like there's like kind of four different kinds of these the you know you can have a hardwired the AC works right goes right to your panel right your box and you know like you know they can't take that I guess you can take anything but uh those those are hardwired in and then there's the kind they had like the 10-year lithium batteries you know and then there's the kind that have the uh kind that have uh just other you know nine volt batteries with respect to carbon monoxide those they don't go up high uh like uh those are in different places and you can buy those that plug in but have a battery backup right now the problem is what do you do when you got a lot of when you need to plug in a vacuum cleaner or stereo system a lava lamp and whatever else you might need to plug in um and and then throw the thing in a drawer and not replug in the carbon monoxide that those are that's what you really got to worry about is carbon monoxide because that's the silent killer man that's invisible you're not going to smell it like you might smoke or whatever but um yeah so that's why I give some thought to the what the enforcement should be um uh whether it's too light too strict or whatever um anyways I see a lot of hands mm-hmm okay was that uh did everyone respond to uh Jordan's comments there too okay and we will move on to Robert hi uh I just wanted to kind of reiterate that uh clear guidance on where these things need to go would be very very helpful um not all you know I don't have access to the uh international code um I suppose I could get access but you know that it would just be very very helpful to know where they should go uh turns out uh hours were installed by a by an electrician and so presumably they meet code but uh Clarity on that would be real helpful for those who are going to have to install them in the future um then I have a question in section four one and two are sibil infractions and section three is a misdemeanor is there a reason for that it seems like that's um harsh punishment for tossing the carbon monoxide detector in the drawer because people died and that somebody died in a hotel because that happened because somebody sorted a system it could be a civil infraction okay it doesn't have to be but you know people die when these things are thwarted intentionally so you you it could be a civil infraction it could be a higher cylinder but yeah okay no that just makes a lot of sense to clarify though a lot of this is not um the clarification I think is important this is very much in line with what we have in place right now for fire detection as well so it's not as though this is a new standard that is being either more partially enforced or penalized um however you want to say that it's it's in line with what is already code around a similar safety device okay thank you I I just you know from what uh Jordan says and you know I think many others experience this uh is common just thank you Lucy yeah I wanted to First just say thanks to Jen I'm really um so uplifted that you took on this story took the initiative to make this legislation in my experience um working with City councilors on renters issues in the city things move a lot more slowly it's really hard to get people to listen so it's really like I'm just so happy that you're on the city council and it's really amazing that you've put this together uh I wanted to ask a question of process and procedure so now that I I haven't read the legislation until tonight that when Zechariah showed the screen it's the first time I've seen it so I don't have a lot of thoughts about the content immediately but from here it seems like it's in a pretty good place so what are the next steps from here is it that it has to be voted on in Council or what's the process for getting it passed is one question the second thing I wanted to say is just in response to Jordan and um uh Robert I'm so sorry it's like looking for you on the screen uh the reason why people take down their buyer smoke detectors is because they go off randomly all the time I mean I've talked to a lot of renters about this smoke who knows what triggers these things but whatever it is that ends up getting put up constantly beeping if you put something in the microwave or you know this that and the other so that's why people are taking them down and forgetting about it it's not like they're trying to steal the smoke it's a very very common issue you probably know that as landlords but it's because they don't really they don't function in the way that they're supposed to they go off all the time I can't cook bacon in my house without my smoke detector going off but that's another that's probably has more to do with me than the smoke detector um I I I'll let Mr Riser elaborate but um one of the purposes in terms of you know coming here this evening was to collect feedback and input and answer questions and sort of get a gut check um so I think our next step immediate next step is to take back um especially around the placement question anything that needs to be clarified and strengthened like we my goal to bringing this to my colleagues on Council is for it to be um thoroughly vetted and that's that's why I'm here so I do you have anything to add John um the the placement um they're where you think they should be like in bedrooms in hallways and maybe we could work with Lisa wandrash and Communications to kind of come up with an ordinance we did it when we rolled out the sanitation supplies for soap uh toilet paper you know tampons pads when we passed that so maybe we could do something that we could send to landlords and to tenants uh that requires where these where these go I will say that uh we have a two and a half year uh inspection cycle and this is something that our rental housing inspectors are going to look for are going to test they carry a stick so that they can push the button on the ceiling to test the the the alarm to see if the uh batteries are working so the this is something that they're going to check for um you know once it goes into effect they'll just add it to the checklist of mold and windows locks and whatever else they look for so and I think just to give a little bit of clarification on the location so yeah they they go in bedrooms but like for example in our two biggest houses they are um they're boilers and so there's no vents so we could have 20 bedrooms that they wouldn't be going in so I guess what I'm saying is that there are so many different configurations that don't know yeah go ahead sorry you're talking carbon monoxide right yeah right so they wouldn't they wouldn't follow the same pattern as smoke because it's just a different thing and a lot of us have these different building styles in Ann Arbor so what I'm saying we need help as landlords we need a if this is your situation this is where they go more specific because all of our buildings are so different we have some that have forced air so we put them everywhere we have some that are boilers so we wouldn't put them everywhere do you get what I'm saying are you home I get the nuances on all these things right and if you have a you know if you have a gas fireplace or if you have a uh you know let's say having a a new apartment that's all electric but um yeah so we'd have to really work with the fire marshal to develop an education piece that incorporates and we we import we have the 2015 fire code which isn't the latest fire code which is the 2018 fire code uh so so because that's just what we the city of Ann Arbor has so what I would suggest is that if it passes and I suspect that this will pass in some form and uh I think the next step are the council member Cornell and I to say okay how do we want to change this based on feedback that we've gotten from this commission and anything from uh the you know the uh landlords if anything and then how do we want to change it and then it'll be set for a public Hearing in a first or may I don't know if it's a first reading in a public hearing or first reading then a second reading in a public hearing and then there'll be an effective Aid after that but working with the fire marshal to come up with in examples like a a piece that we can put on the website and piece we could hand out I think would be really it's a really good suggestion uh Robert and Jordan okay yeah I have a few questions clarifying questions um so I know it was mentioned that there might be a large volume of these detectors that would have to be purchased well there will be yeah so it will be um but uh I was thinking about it and you know I I think that I'm fairly certain that uh what state law requires is um uh let me think about this if you renovate a rental unit don't you need to uh yep if you go to rehab or new construction yes yes so there are a lot of the a lot of the running units already have these so I I if your point is we don't have to buy that many Riser because a lot of them have them already and and that could be true I just don't know that there's a inventory or a survey out there okay that's what I was going to ask if if there was any data that had been collected about this or any research done about what number of units would potentially be applicable or what would be subject no no I just no okay that's all right um but something to keep in mind that it might not it's almost certainly not going to be you know not even all of the units that have uh that use natural gas I guess um okay and uh on that note I think that you know in the past when uh requirements like this have been instituted uh there was a um a list of trusted vendors that was provided um so that I and by the way I think my internet connection is a little spotty so please stop me if I if you can't understand what I'm saying but um but I'm wondering if the same thing could be done uh for you know affordable affordable carbon carbon monoxide detectors and ones that are well rated uh but I have a quick question to for Robert I know you said you didn't have you didn't have the international access to the international fire code is that I didn't quite understand your point there only that uh some of these code books uh are are expensive um and and not typically available uh you know publicly oh so so yeah that's that's that's the issue there I see I honestly assume that it was just free access online thank you for clarifying yeah so that I guess that stresses the point for clarification on the placement especially if it's being if the international fire code is being referenced um right I think that hits most of my points the last point I guess I'd like to make is I know that there was some discussion uh councilmember Cornell uh I know you mentioned may be into requiring this for all units period And I I did a lot of thinking about that some research and it didn't seem to make sense that I couldn't find other examples where it was required every single unit regardless of uh a natural gas hookup or appliances or garages or whatever so I really agree with what uh with the uh the scope of this particular amendment I appreciate you asking and coming here today no problem and I'm glad that you asked for that point of clarification email because it beforehand because it did make me go back to realize when I say all units I was thinking in my head all applicable units in to be more specific so that was very helpful of course thank you okay Jeff um the I had kind of two thoughts one of them was um I've noticed that um the uh the the amendment is written doesn't include any kind of um uh request a requirement that how tenants are informed that this is now a new policy um would it be reasonable to to add uh something that just said you know tenants must be informed by their landlord that this is this is a requirement that this is something that is going to be happening um so that they're aware that this is something they should be expecting um to you know increase compliance with that if this is something that the the council decided to do it could um or maybe that could be done through a resolution we could put it on our website um uh there are other groups that work with tenants um we are we'll have to update our constantly being changing uh Runners you know the tenants guide and so this will have to be printed out thank you Zach for the prop um so it'll have to be printed out and put in that and that'll need to be uh amended to incorporate this so I mean that's one way and so when a new tenant comes in they they get those and that's on our website and those are in you know the clerk's office so it'll be in there okay um I guess I was more also just to make it so like like I've been where I'm at for for many years and you know I I I keep up on this stuff obviously that's why um I was interested in joining the commission to begin with but you know I know a lot of people don't necessarily have the resources or even the knowledge that this is something that they are you know these are resources that they might have so whether it be a mailing or something that that might make it more obvious to folks that are a mailing or an email I you know there's pros and cons of each way notification that's something that I I guess Jen and I can talk about how how we want to accomplish that oh it's the best way to get it to tenants and frankly I want to get it to landlords because they're the ones they have to put them in you know um I want to make sure that those folks know to do it I mean as much as I want to get it to tenants I if it was the other way around it's an interesting to have this then that removes I thought of it as removing the burden from a renter to have to ensure that it was there that we were putting some um some guardrails around what their expectations were by just making it um part of the routine inspection process we're going to look for these Jeffrey you know when we get to that when we get to that dwelling you know that rental unit we're going to look for them and uh we're gonna we're for sure we're gonna do Outreach to the to the landlords because they're the ones that need to buy them and install them in the right places and I'm going to talk to the Fire Marshall and probably a good idea maybe even before it goes forward Jen to council to kind of have that attachment as to where they would go um just so the public has a better sense and as do landlord tenants everyone does I agree that's it's good feedback thank you um thank you um I the other question I had was um um is there any has there been any kind of research done um or can there be some research done to kind of a reasonable uh estimation of the supply availability of these things to make a reasonable deadline so that you know any any landlord that is in good faith actually trying to follow this is not going to be penalized just because they're not available within a 90-day or a 60-day time frame is there been any or is there possible to be any kind of research as to the acquisition of 10 000 or whatever units to um make this feasible no Mr eisner's office has done that no no I would suggest that that's probably not the best use of steady we're not going to research it we're just gonna make them do it yeah yeah and not to be flip about it but it's it is something that is readily available and it is something that um there is it it doesn't in order like the idea of extending in order to put in safety equipment that could save somebody's life doesn't feel like too yeah I mean there's got to be a sweet spot as to what's reasonable and I guess I'd defer to Jordan she's the most she's the most knowledgeable uh having bought a bunch recently yeah I mean I don't think we should I don't think anyone should tell you supply chain issue and and then we try to shop local when we can but a huge purchase yes I'm not going to spend 500 extra just to buy them little you know locally so I mean it they're they're easily available I don't think we should accept that as like a barrier for why landlords can't do it I do think that the sheer amount I think like I said looking at the sheer amount that a landlord is having to purchase their financial burden that they're taking on at the outset is the bigger issue to me than whether or not they can get them um so particularly large landlords I mean we we assume most of the times that they're you know High profit commercial places but I don't know for sure that that's true and I don't know if they are operating on a margin that they would come and say we actually literally can't you know this is not in our budget to spend seven thousand dollars right now I don't know I hope they have that in reserves but just kind of throwing out their things for us to think about to anticipate if I made one last comment on location and then I'll I'll be quiet about it um we proactively installed them and uh the thing about that is if you do that they are hardwired and so the location of uh of our of our carbon monoxide detectors uh are not easily movable and so um uh I don't I don't know you know building codes change uh and I appreciate that but but um that's just another consideration for uh proactive uh installations Bob what did you I mean I'm just curious um what you you know ours are just the plug-in ones with the battery backup but like what did you pay per because well the hardwired is nice and then you don't have to worry about a battery if you're talking 60 to 70 dollars in it quadruples the price we're gonna get I mean that's then you're talking 24 000 investment thirty thousand dollar investment so I'm curious as to if you have an idea how much well it's it's it's hard to say the prices have come down a lot over the over the over the past couple years I think the the actual unit itself was like between 30 and 50 bucks but you know the the the the labor to hardwire it uh a bit more and because it's rental units uh you should know that you can't do the work yourself you have to contract it out so you're going to have to get a licensed electrician pull a permit get an inspection that that could take some time uh if suddenly all the electricians are being requested to to hardwire these I don't think that's going to happen but that that's just another Factor there are some code things that are required that require that so just just to be uh forewarned we certainly had all of ours done by by a contractor and it was permitted and inspected but uh and it wasn't really our option um you know what wasn't a problem but uh under some circumstances that may be required thanks Robert Richa and keep the shot I know we're we have other things on the agenda as well but yeah I think I kind of agree with Jordan's point on just or just that subject of being clear about who replaces so I guess when the tenant moves in like at that stage the batteries should be installed by the landlord for sure and just specifying in section section two who is responsible for the maintenance during the leasing period would just be helpful so that later there's no confusion uh a general uh concern I just have with some ordinances when we mention when they take effect is that we noticed with right to renew that um it was I think so say a month roughly I took two weeks after the ordinance came into was passed by city council it came into effect but it just wasn't clear which leases it applied to and um so yeah so if say a tenant has already renewed their lease for the next leasing period like 23 24 say they renewed in November because of you know what landlords do in an apple which is pressure tenants early like maybe this will not apply to them so will they eventually get a carbon monoxide detector in there this will apply this will apply now the tricky part is going to be that the landlord's going to have to schedule uh a time for him or her to put it in or his or her contractor if that they're going to hardwire them or do to do that so it's just not going to be a pertinent to a lease it's going to be if there's a structure that has a certain type of heat or gas or whatever then they're going to have to follow this ordinance so um we would expect that on the 91st date or 61st date or whatever uh the the city council ends up uh implementing um that that they're going to be there now if if there are complaints because they don't have it and they can't get them or it's scheduled that's another thing but it would go into effect on that 91st date or whatever the date is and they'd have to be there thank you dun dun or you're muted is there any standards for the products that is going to be installed the whatever you could it doesn't matter is that I could buy it at 35.50 or maybe even 50 15 cheaper so as long as could get it the landlord get it it could be installed there's any standards for this yeah it's probably going to have to be like an under UL listed or there are there are minimum standards that it's going to have to be yeah and again I think that's an important an important point of clarification that this is really we're trying to stay very closely aligned with established precedent around um smoke and fire detection those safety devices because they they've been around and on the books forever so um sort of following that lead felt that's that's probably a good best practice but it's probably Underwriters Laboratory UL list you're all listed but I this is incredibly helpful feedback and I know I've taken up way too much of your agenda but I appreciate it and I I think um John do you have any other additional clarification or things that you no no other than I I don't know if I can share my screen or not uh uh but the city of Ann Arbor planning and development services has a three-page handout I don't need to share it but if you go there so it's a it's a smoke alarms uh where they are where their location it's got a schematic of where you put them so we've done that for we've done that for um smoke alarms we can certainly do that for carbon monoxide detectors uh maybe I guess I'll drop it in the chat if I I'll able to do that I think the the big thing for me that came out of this was the um one obviously you know some points of clarification but um the communication piece of it because I always tend to think I'm bias in that direction given my background in Communications um but I do think that you know Mr Eiser saying that you know we could work with City staff around that in terms of um you know leveraging their expertise which there's in we have an incredible team at the city um you know to sort of lead that part of this charge I think is is a point well taken and heard here with um open arms so thank you thank you all so much this was a really thoughtful conversation and I appreciate you having me here thank you very much for presenting this we're very appreciative of your work on this issue um I think we I certainly read the news of um the accident the carbon monoxide accident was very shocking so I'm glad that there's action um and if any of the Commissioners have specific feedback that they think of later should they reach out to you personally at your city email do you yes you may and I will most likely forward it to John but please yes I would love to see it too so that's the easy thing is Jay Cornell etukov.org so great thank you so much of course thanks for being along for the ride and I hope you all have a really nice rest of your meeting and I hope it's productive for you thank you thank you very much yes that was a great discussion thank you everyone for participating in that um okay Let's see we can move on to our next piece of business which is 6-b which is the report we've been talking a lot about on wait lists for rental units uh in the city of Ann Arbor so uh on the agenda you can also find that document um now this is just a draft and it is not finished um I'm wondering would Gail or Richa or Hannah would any of you like to present this just give some updates on what we've changed and give some background as well for for our new members I can start a little bit if that's okay thank you so we the the start of the draft is giving a little bit of history about what's been happening with early leasing in um Ann Arbor and historically uh landlords were prevented from leasing the units within the first 70 days after Elise has started so police started on September 1st a landlord would have to wait till November 10th Yes somewhere about there before they could show the apartment to new tenants or or lease the apartment so in 2021 that was changed the timeline for that was changed so that landlords um have to wait until 150 days before the end of a lease before they can lease the unit or show the apartment so we gave a little bit of history of that in this document and then what we were noticing after 2021 when the date of the early leasing ordinance changed is that landlords were beginning to um create wait list agreements weightless fees and other ways for tenants to hold apartments or several an apartment or several apartments that they were interested in while kind of waiting for that 150 days timeline to roll around and so we tried to report on what we've seen what we've heard about um you know including holding fees that tenants prospective tenants can pay for multiple units you know it could be a couple hundred dollars it could be two thousand dollars some of the fees are refundable some of the fees aren't refundable some of the fees convert to a security deposit if a tenant or a group of tenants and getting the property if you know if the current tenants aren't going to stay so we tried to get I I we still have more information that we can collect that we are trying to collect but we had some you know feedback from some of the local landlords and I you know I I think I speak for for everybody in our group that you know we have some concerns about these um fees and how they're impacting and creating another hurdle for tenants to overcome if they want housing for the for the following year we're still looking into and working on recommendations but this which is why this is a draft so any comments or questions we'd appreciate Zach Lucy anybody anybody wanna um add to that that'd be great Richard Hannah or Lucy would you like to add anything Richard yeah I sorry if I missed or if I repeat something that gate is already said but uh firstly we've talked about the equity issue here before that uh tenants signing like multiple if there's a case where tenants are getting on multiple wait lists and having to pay for each uh it this system just favors more well-off tenants over others so like that's like for that reason I think when we discussed it in a smaller group we were we felt like a paid wait list system is just it's unacceptable because it puts a lot of low-income tenants at a disadvantage we talked about just wait lists at all being there and even that I think at the last meeting I wasn't there but I watched it later but one a commissioner had mentioned that it still creates it still puts pressure on tenants to make a decision early and the whole point of the early leasing ordinance uh conversation was that that fall time period just doesn't work for tenants and the pressure we are worried comes from the landlords it just creates a lot of just stress for current and prospective tenants we don't know of tenants like personally I don't know maybe others do of a tenant who really wants to find a unit is like 10 months ahead of time it's just the fear of just not finding anything else we've seen discussions on like Reddit and other social media platforms but the question is more like if I don't look now will I get anything next year and it's not because like they really want something right now because they just can't wait to you know book and like solidify their plans that early because people simply don't know I'll just quickly add that we heard from another like specific tenant group in the last month and that was students who want to move from say off-campus housing to fraternity housing and uh I think it's in the winter like early winter months Jan Feb is when even they get more clarity on whether they can move so a group of tenants contacted us saying they were forced to sign leases early um and are stuck now and are very concerned that all they can do is find a sub tenant when despite ELO Etc existing so my point here is that the waitlist system is still putting some pressure on tenants I think when we had the right to do new conversation also we discussed that we're not adding or removing units from the market so this whole con Narrative of like there had been some inflationary pressure on prices like rental rates Etc also just doesn't make sense to us but I'll stop here and pass it on to Hannah or Lucy or any anyone else who has questions or comments well I have a little a few things to add on I see but Lucy you raised your hand first so I can pass it on to you okay thank you um right so I I just want to build off of what you said there Rich about the um [Music] the pressure to commit to signing a renewal or actually signing a renewal early on and I'd like to point out that uh in the previous years that has the that pressure for some has actually been applied actually much earlier like around October or November um or December somewhere around there uh it's still happening but for many people it is happening a little bit later not for everyone um I just need to keep in mind uh no I there's a lot of uh pieces of data in here you know uh some course redacted correspondence there's a few other thing things that we'd like to include there's one more correspondence that I'm I'm going to get the permission of a renter hopefully to include after redacting it um regarding application fees and how they are similar in some instances to wait list fees um but if any of the the members of the commission feel that there's something missing a perspective that's missing questions that you still have that are answered um please mention that during the meeting tonight or if you notice it later on while reading through it uh please send us an email send um I I suppose to to Kristen um and some of the members of this uh subgroup we have like a working group writing this report um and that would be very helpful for us to fill in the holes uh one other thing I'd like to to mention as well here is that um Central Student Government at the University of Michigan they have been conducting a survey um they were planning in closing at the end of December uh I requested that they keep it open for a little bit longer because of the somewhat low response rate they've since doubled their the response the number of responses uh from like I think around 600 700 to I think one thousand around 1 300 somewhere around there so they have gotten more responses and there are questions on there that that ask about waitlists so I'm very excited to see that data and that might be able to be included in this report the trajectory for this report I know that once uh the subgroup finishes it we're going to send it on to City staff and they're going to take a look at it maybe provide feedback there and assuming that we can want to continue with this project I think it would then come to the renters commission and we would vote on releasing it passing it on to the council members that's all I have right now if you'd like to get involved in writing the report you're more than welcome to you can say that now or send us an email afterward um but I'll pass it on to Lucy yeah the report is is really clarifying it's nice to see um though people keep saying my name I had nothing to do with this scale I think did all the work and it's uh really really useful I was one my my question is for attorney Riser um council member Regina council member Harrison in the state is this uh does the city council know about this problem are there any ideas that you all have in terms of how to address this issue are there any examples from other cities where we can address this the city council did pass this legislation this is a massive loophole so I'm just wondering like um what's the solution here who's who's going to step up and try to come up with a way of saying the problem the solution you mean well Travis has got his hands up I mean traps thanks yeah I can uh take a shot at this um and I apologize everyone I'm oh I'm coming down with a cold or something right now so um uh but I uh I know that we are absolutely aware of this this is this is one of the things that we've been hearing about quite consistently from from tenants um it's it's very much been on kind of our radar as as hopefully uh a next at bat in terms of um reforms as we continue to move through some of these these uh renters rights expansions and um I know that we've we've started individually looking at um uh at potential Solutions we've had conversations but I know we have wanted to wait for exactly this type of draft and some recommendations to come from the renters Commission because we wanted to make sure that we were allowing renters to kind of lead on making some of those those recommendations and so I think this will be really informative to council as well um and and I know Gail mentioned potentially getting some recommendations in here um before the final draft and I think those will be will be helpful in informing what the next steps are as well thank you uh Cynthia we'd like to add on to that if not that's totally fine nothing to add at this point or it was pretty thorough thanks Travis great uh so I'll open up the floor for discussion of the report uh or questions comments questions I think would be great if not um we can always move on to our next point of business I have a question it has to do with weightless do we anticipate what the impact of the right to renew is going to have on wait lists in other words if you have a right to renew already then why do you have to get on a wait list because you can renew it automatically without doing the wait list and I'm just asking that do we know how that might impact it Gail and I know you did a lot of the work on this and others it seems to me that the um what can renew would apply to students that are tenants that are currently living in the union but but the wait lists are for people who are looking for other housing and trying to get in so the weight loss are being the weightless fees and the wait lists are being maintained for renters that don't currently live in the property that they want to lease so I mean it's it's happening now where you know a landlord may need to wait until mid-march to find out if the current tenants are going to renew and so um they're for for other tenants that have a potential interest in that property they're requiring um wait lists deposits holding fees whatever and then you know the prospective tenant has to wait to see if the current tenant decides to renew or not so you know that I mean I'm seeing it in the student population students are having to expend a lot of money for these you know wait lists there's you know there's one um landlord that's requiring about two thousand dollars total you know that's a that's a lot of money for a group of of students to put down and then have to wait six months before they know if they'll get it back they can't and they can't change their mind you know if they they're being told that if they um change their mind and say you know we don't want to be on the wait list anymore the the landlords are going to keep that money so it's it's a lot of money to lose and it's a big commitment for for people so no I don't think the right to be new ordinance okay is changing that and then one of the things I always worry about is what are they going to do next that's not a wait list or not a holding fee but something else like what's the next I don't want to say shenanigan the next artifice that is employed that that defeats the intent of this yeah I I think that we are already seeing some of that um or seeing I've seen a policy that could all maybe be a workaround already which is that um application fees sometimes take the place of waitlist fees um so you may not be explicitly placed on a waitlist uh but you you still are on a list of applications um and and the application fees can can be quite expensive 500 is what I saw the other day for an individual tenant um so I think it might we might have to also think about fees generally because any kind of fee system could be adapted to make to potentially be a wait list um it's kind of complicated and I will also point out that there we did find one uh landlord who was charging almost ten thousand dollars for to to enter into a waitlist agreement I think that that was intended for a group of four or five people so I think that that may be what you are referencing Gail and um first of all John do you have any more questions no no okay thank you Jordan was doing anything that John was saying uh no mine were well more General but okay then go okay um I don't know if it's my internet that's bad or Zacharias but hopefully you guys can hear me thumbs up um okay so I think a couple things are just kind of important to understand about this whole situation as we're making this legislation so Richard I I the r experience is very much different like as far as students do want a specific house because a lot of our stuff is central campus it's right on Tappan and Hill and so there there A lot of times are we want a specific house the other thing that comes into play here is the size of houses right so if you for those of you who don't really know and this this may be too big but I'll try to cut it down a lot of Ann Arbor units mostly are at like six people but there are other ways around that being that there are multiple units in one house that they are rooming houses so if you have a house that can fit 10 people or a unit that can fit 10 people the demand for it is incredibly high but you only have a handful of them because they're just not all that common and so I think um you know I think about like who I was as an undergrad and a grad student and there's zero chance I ever would have wanted to live in that type of situation that's just not not who I was um but there is kind of a different level of competitiveness and that's where this Equity discussion comes in right because a lot of these you know I heard the highest I've heard is actually 14 000 which was two thousand a person for a seven bedroom house um and that money was actually lost and that was two years ago I will say the stories and the amounts that I heard this year weren't quite as significant as the first year because I do think that landlords kind of got that we were looking into it and that it was um you know that people were questioning it so I do think that it is kind of important to understand that there is that demand now I I don't think that those are the voices that we should Center in our work because we're we're looking for Equity we're looking to do work for people who aren't in that situation and so I just want to note that it exists because it's kind of important to understand some of the the um you know the privilege that comes with these decisions and why why these situations kind of happen because they can and because there is that student population that's looking for that um and so I just kind of want to name that it's not really all that helpful but I do I do think that um we don't know we don't know what's going to come and I know that that John you always bring up we can't legislate everything and yes maybe that's true but um I do think that us continuing to push back on landlords that are doing these things that are unfair and that disproportionately harm the population of students that come from um more marginalized communities from lower socio economic backgrounds like we have to keep fighting for those students we have to prioritize them in our discussions um some of them are here with us tonight so I say them but some of us that are here on this call um so I just want to keep keep us reminded that those situations exist and our Focus needs to be on um the most disproportionately impacted foreign thank you Jordan Nick Nick hi sorry about the um I'm having some video issues I've had my hopefully it's not jumping around thank you every for the excellent report on the wait lists and uh the thoughtful comments and what I'd like to ask is some of the information that's not in the report one of the things that troubled me was when I looked at the landlord rationale none of them were economic and I'm wondering if the how much of the wait lists are being returned what percentage what um what amount of Inc what kind of economic impact this has on landlords is it just a cash cow is it something that is [Music] um you know compensating for a financial loss because what I'm hearing time and time again year in and year out is that vacancy rates are near zero um to me this can be analogized as charging people to wait in line at a store this is just to me something I have trouble accepting from a policy standpoint but I also understand the free market and I understand supply and demand and I'd love to hear from landlords a how much of this money you know as we survey all landlords not just about the amount of the fee but what percentage of the fees are being kept from people who didn't live there or didn't sign up and um what kind of economic losses or concerns that they have that cause them to charge these these fees I'd love to hear more about that rationale I'm always open to hearing from the other side being a tenant Advocate myself because I remember when I was at Student Legal Services there was a huge problem in fact I did a class action lawsuit with International students whose security deposits were being routinely kept by landlords because they knew that they were moving out of the country when they graduated and so I'm really concerned about these wait lists and I asked those questions and I'd love to hear the rationale Nick I mean I can give you our perspective which is you know we we had very little pandemic loss we did actually give discounts I think we were the only landlord in town that did um when things were shut down we were able to cover those with our PPP I think we took a little loss but um so I mean I think that you know that is notable there was a tremendous amount of support available every tenant that we need that we could hook up with um Washington housing access and those kind of things everyone got taken care of um eventually it was all it was all a wash for us so I can speak to us I mean our expenses are more but one thing that I note about this whole scenario is they dropped the lawsuit without any fight the landlord dropped the lawsuit without any fight and to me that says they realized that this was actually going well for them that with all the fight and now I can't I can't say that I'm you know that people have verbalized that to me um because you know we've been removed from a lot of those spaces so we don't hear much about that but I think that's a notable thing to for us to kind of just keep in the back of our heads thank you Jordan and I just want to add real quick um I really appreciated our Communications during the time I've been on commission I'm really glad you're on the commission you have such thoughtful things to add and thank you so much for that perspective thanks Nick you too and thanks for always listening to those who have I appreciate it thank you very much yeah and my question might be because uh I've heard we are talking about the uh everybody was talking different people so I have questions that first off I always say that applications uh so I'm just confused when this landlord maybe only have one or two vacancies and is there any limits the number that he could charge the students a waitlist fee or it's just because you only have two rooms available and he could just to have like 10 people's witness fees that's that means he could make that means we should have also have to limit the numbers that maybe if only he has two vacancies that does that mean he only could have two wait list fees could be charged to the students that could limit the number of students to lose and then that Jordan was saying that the students lost one thousand four hundred dollars and what's the reason for the students to lose it 100 four thousand uh one thousand four hundred dollars because the student gave up or just because of the landlord that cannot afford that's a good that's a good question it was fourteen thousand so not fourteen hundred was fourteen yeah they hadn't gotten the lease so there was no written agreement no nothing to protect them the money was just exchanged with a verbal agreement and when they got the lease it didn't work at all the dates were not right the price for the house was not right um so that's the other thing is that a lot of these are happening in the absence of any sort of written agreement or accountability at all and that's a really scary thing because no no other facet of our society would that be okay like we would never exchange 14 000 without some sort of protection for the person handing in the money that was that was in writing and so you you really have highlighted that point exactly right you're exactly right thank you so and and one more question is that when Zach said that there's the policies of 500 application fees so here is comes a number again so how many applications one landlord or the landlord could accept for those his vacancies or he could just accept forever as many as he wants is that the fair so is there any ways to limit them doing the thing so that we could prevent the things to happen too much like that thank you okay thank you very much these are really good points I've uh you may have noticed that I'm coming in and out of the meeting because of my unstable internet connection I don't know what to do about that um so if I do get kicked out for a little while Lucia is about the vice chair you can take over please and thank you yeah I also share those concerns about uh landlords taking many deposits um well application as well we're almost never refundable uh maybe in some instances but if you don't get accepted the money's gone generally uh waitlist fees uh often I've seen that they will be there's a promise that they will be returned that promise is not always fulfilled I've talked and directly to tenants who were promised the money back if they weren't offered a unit if they didn't take the unit and they it was very difficult to get it back but a lot of them at least had the promise of being returned but not always any other discussion on this report comments or questions Richard yeah I think we've so we have discussed recommendations so as a Next Step I personally feel like some more legal analysis would actually be helpful uh we've done some research uh it was really helpful to have Hannah also join uh and look into some literature out there are some statutes from other places uh but if there's any suggestions around you know solidifying those recommendations because we do have like within the commission already like Gail has weighed in uh you know Nick is here like there's a lot of expertise in the group some wondering how everyone feels like what we need to just make those concrete and send them over because we have had a discussion and we started to jot down some points so like What's missing foreign and adding off of that or any onto that rather in terms of the recommendations I do want to thank John Reiser for uh giving some [Music] very you know early explanation of the questions that need to be researched regarding potentially potentially prohibiting or capping fees or regulating wait lists I know there's more legal work to be done but I'm appreciative of um some of the feedback there foreign move on wonderful well I'm extremely grateful to everyone who's worked on the report if you'd like to get involved we'd love to have you because it's a it's a good amount of work on just a few people this is obviously just part-time and volunteer okay with that we will move on to the uh next point of business which is six six dash c um an update from the tenant education committee which met I believe it was was it two weeks ago um that's Tuesday February 7th I see thank you Kristen for writing that down so would anyone from the tenant education committee meeting the last one like to give a little explanation some um report back uh on what was talked about at that meeting I can start though I joined late and then I'll pass it on to someone else who's at the meeting I thought it was a really good uh meeting at least a portion that I attended this was our second meeting where we just focus specifically on looking into materials that already exist and thinking about how we can build on those uh like either amplify what's already out there and say create anything new where there are gaps so broadly we uh like there's a working folder on Google Drive that everyone in the subcommittee has access to that contains like a master document uh yes so there is this like Master document over there on the extreme left uh yeah and this just is like a working a space where you're going to just work on make different parts of uh just tenant education or tenants rights materials out there so as an example I just read re-read the housing code uh in the last two months and highlighted a few uh points that stood out to me is things that I don't think about on a regular basis but could be helpful for me to know as a tenant and it's somewhere in here so that's just one piece another example is the rights of Duties booklet that we have but oftentimes like don't read very thoroughly so there's space in here for uh just making notes on various documents that like the universe of material out there potentially for Ann Arbor tenants the stuff that Zach uh we're looking at right now is this list of uh like we created a short list during the meeting during the last meeting of some pertinent issues that we think um tenants like we could direct tenants attention towards so I think we made a list of five five to eight uh topics such as if there's a maintenance request and we don't hear back early enough from our landlord so how do you navigate that um what does withholding rent look like if like when is that uh merited how does that work uh also ELO right to renew when are when can you get out of your lease there are some specific cases where you can how do you find out if your building is not up to code so we made a list of a few issues that we think could be uh summarized in some form on and the purpose of this is to put it on the renters commission website or potentially the uh another electricity website where there's like centralized information around tenants uh just services for tenants uh and as a I think we liked we looked at what Gail and I think Nick had worked together to submit to Christian and it's already on the website which is like a table with various organizations and how to reach them for legal support we thought maybe modeling uh this like know your rights type uh like repository on that format where you make a table with various like common issues and what like resources the tenants could access which where there's like how to's might be helpful and it seems like my observation is that there is already a lot of work that's been done for example when I read the housing code I saw winterization mentioned in a few places like what adequate heating should look like and so on and I noticed later that Gail I think is already authored uh nice very informative piece on that uh so the good thing is that if we just do a little more digging we can find something specific to Ann Arbor that's already on the internet so we don't have to start from scratch so I think as a next step we just divided labor a little bit uh we know as I mentioned a gale already through Student Legal Services has contributed a lot so maybe running some of these issues past scale would be helpful so because I'm sure there's a lot of insight and feedback on what's there what can be built what more can be added we also discussed reviewing the rights and duties booklets specifically in case there's anything in there that could be useful we haven't I don't think we talked yet about creating new content but I think we'll be careful to not uh duplicate efforts or you know do something that someone's already done maybe in a better way so there's uh we want to be careful about how much time we all have in general but I'll pass it on to others who are at the meeting how will I say that I really appreciated that meeting I learned a lot and all the informations you just uh listed there it's extremely helpful and it's logical it helps a lot thank you and thank you very much Richard I know you put in a lot of prep work and you made the drive um and Kristen I know that uh I guess let us know if you have any concerns about the uh putting things in a drive I know that's maybe not uh that might not be traditionally how commissions store their data but we just needed something to put notes in uh and it's been very useful just let us know any uh discussion comments concern yeah Lucy go ahead yes I just wanted so one thing that we talked about too was um the tenants rights and Judy's handbook and we talked to the last meeting about the kind of long process it takes to update that but one thing that we talked about in this meeting was putting a form on our renters commission website where people could submit that they didn't get it that way we can get a sense of who has access to their rights and who doesn't and I just wanted to see if Christian had an update about the possibility of that for us foreign as of right now but I'm still looking into it thanks thank you any other comments okay well I know um I think we already scheduled our next tenant Ed uh or wait yeah our tenant education committee meeting uh I can't remember when that is let me take a look and then calendar does anyone happen to have that yeah Richard I think we just tentatively discussed that we had the last meeting on a Tuesday so that I think March 7th is a Tuesday around doing that yeah that's great so if anyone is interested uh even if that time doesn't work for you uh just email Kristen please and then we'll be sure to include you in the future great okay well then let's move on to our next piece of business uh which is um let me see our plan for March 16th the next renters Commission meeting so I think I'd just like to open the floor here and hear from all of you what you'd like to discuss at our next meeting Richard I wanted to check with Christian dude uh how do you think we have a good set of questions for the guests who will be joining the meeting from rental Housing Services like I just put in several thoughts but if you think they could be organized a little differently it's possible that some information need not be addressed at the meeting itself uh if someone else you know like they're it might be like a link to a website that I could read later so everything need not be addressed but yeah I just want to check in about how that document is looking to you I thought it looked like there were some really thoughtful questions in there I thought it was really helpful where you referenced um like specific code questions so I think that I don't think rental housing should have any issue with their responses for those um and I can tell them when I share the information that if it is something like just sharing where that information is stored they can provide that in a link um so they'll have to spend time uh kind of going over it at the meeting if that time would be better used doing like a like a back and forth conversation I just wanted to clarify maybe for our newer members who are having a mem a member of the rental Housing Services Department come to our next commission meeting and they requested that uh that we write out the questions in advance so that they can research and have time to to answer them or have the answers ready and uh today was the last date is the last day I guess there's still time to include questions for rental Housing Services so if you do have any questions there's this document here and Christian do you know if this has been shared with everybody I believe it has I can send it around again this evening we'll extend that to um like the end of the day tomorrow and I'll send it to rental housing early next week so that they have a good amount of time um you'll still be able to ask them questions also at the meeting um but this just provides them with the opportunity to do some research or maybe do anything to prepare so it's definitely your conversation with that is not limited to this I'll send out the link now thank you very much Kristen thank you for clarifying well I think there will be further discussion of the report the waitlist report I'm expecting that we'll make some progress and bring it to a more finished state so that's one thing that we could have on our next agenda another potential uh although this is very tentative and I don't think it should be included yet and the next agenda is um it really depends on what happens with the carbon monoxide discussion but I think we'll have to check in with councilmember Cornell and John Riser and if it looks like it's to a more it's brought to a more finished State then we could also maybe write resolution on our thoughts about that but I think we'll play that one by year good job I was thinking since we're still winter but kind of like spring is near if we have to revisit the town hall conversation uh if that does that Merit a little like planning subcommittee for now I think it's okay to discuss within tenant education but maybe if we have a few high level ideas to share and get some feedback that might be good and then we set some like a date and how we we already have notes from our first town hall planning meeting so maybe you revisit that and check in with everyone because we have new members also so maybe maybe like Town Hall can view the agenda foreign just to clarify richum are you thinking about having a discussion about the town hall at our next renter's commission meeting yeah sorry little more context so I think we want to do a public this is a context for everyone else that we were hoping to do a public facing event I think this was last fall around where we meet tenants just hear from them a little bit about their challenges just experiences living in Ann Arbor and staying in touch like just generating some awareness that the commission exists and there's Avenues to like learn about rights and things like that so yeah I think just like re resuming thinking about that so that we have some bigger potential like Town Hall in April or May April is too soon like maybe May June something like that great thank you Rich for clarifying any other ideas about what should be on our next agenda for March okay give it another moment but otherwise we will move on and if you have ideas you can email them to Kristin and that will get to um to I guess the chair and the city council Liaisons we'll uh consider putting that on there wonderful let's move on to uh 0.6 Dash e which is a discussion of the vacancies the current vacancies on the renter renters Commission and just to preface this I um you know I I we've had a few vacancies in the past couple months um I've heard from members of the commission that we want to have more applicants so we can more easily recommend to the mayor like a representative pool of of potential appointees and I've also heard that um we want to make sure that the commission is staffed fully by Commissioners as best we can to distribute the work load and also make sure that we have more voices at the table so I'll open discussion for anybody I'd like to raise your hand Nick thanks hopefully my video doesn't jump I just want to make sure that we're on the same page about what the process is which is uh as I best can tell that we all sort of confer and um it's like the advise and consent analogy that the Senate has when it's you know approving a judge we don't have veto power we we can't make selections but we can help the mayor um make a decision or we can pass on names to our Council Liaisons to help them make a decision and they don't know if that's just in consultation with our chair Zachariah or with the entire commission so that's what I'd like the discussion to take place around what is the process yeah if I could just respond so I uh and the council members can jump in here I Know Travis you you've explained some of this to me but I think for the other commissions um usually it's either just a chair or the chair and one or two other members of the commission so it's a pretty small group I know in uh we discussed uh having the this commission just uh rely on the chair and the city council members but I think that to make that recommendation to the mayor and you're right that it's the mayor's role but I think that we came to the conclusion as a commission that we wanted to allow the process to be a little more open and have volunteers uh to have like a smaller group of I think like four or five people uh Max to take a look at the applications so we were able to open it up democratize it a bit but not make it uh too too large of a discussion since it should be a somewhat Private Matter I hope that makes sense yeah and and just to clarify that for this commission and it does vary by commission there are some commissions where the council Liaisons to that commission have the power to make appointments um in most of the cases it is the mayor who makes appointments um and then Council um confirms those appointments um because we uh want to make sure that we are hearing from the commissions with which these individuals will work um in almost all of the cases and all the commissions that I work with um we also consult with some subset of the Commission in reviewing the applications before making those recommendations and so in some places it's the chair and the vice chair um in some places it's just a chair with this group it's it's a smaller committee um and so that varies by commission But ultimately it is it is a recommendation um and the mayor often uses those they they heavily kind of will help to influence his his decision but ultimately in this case it is his decision to look at the applications and to make an appointment um it is I would say rare that he would um he would appoint someone that is actively opposed by a commission um I don't know that that has happened in my timeline Council um but um but it is ultimately within his authority to to make appointments and for Council to confirm yeah thank you very much Travis uh does that answer your question Nick I I feel a lot more edified thank you so much great Hannah yeah this is just a small comment about to get more applications but I think the temp the town hall would be a good place for that and especially like tick access maybe different um representative voices than the ones that the regular channels would I'm also just this might all already be true I'm just not on my social media that much but like as much as the city of Ann Arbor and our Council people can push out the openings I know the city of Ann Arbor itself has a lot of followers but Kristen I don't know if that's like a process or maybe they already do it but when I used to work in local government we always included it in our newsletters any openings on commissions and Twitter as well yeah I see Travis's hand went up and said that so go ahead yeah um so there there are certainly opportunities for um for the city to promote uh vacancies and I would say that the city as a whole probably does it more broadly um at certain times of the year because there are periods where a lot of vacancies occur because terms are up um in this case we have a couple of vacancies because of early resignations um some of our commissions and I don't know Kristen this is maybe where where you can help I don't know that our list has grown that substantially yet a lot of commissions because they've been exist in existence for a number of years have much larger list serves that follow the work of those commissions and so it's easier to send out a message to the folks who are following the work of that commission to solicit applications um and then I know that you know I personally will push out um push out a message every once in a while saying that we have vacancies and trying to to push people but I know that particularly if we are looking for and this is important to me particularly really if we were looking to make sure that we have kind of diverse perspectives on our bodies I think we need to work really actively to reach out to those communities and not just expect them to find us because often the most marginalized or the most um uh challenged renters in our community may not necessarily always be the ones who are interfacing with their government or their elected officials regularly so so I know that Cynthia and I are actively doing some Outreach right now into some of those communities to try to get people and invite people to the table thank you Jamie yeah um related to what Travis was just saying sorry I have a cold too um so I'm a little froggy sounding but um so in terms of community outreach and I think this came up a little bit in our education meeting like as the writers commission are we is community outreach something that falls under our umbrella or is that more like um council members to do community outreach and extend and like and inform people about the renters Commission I don't know who that's a question for exactly go ahead go ahead Chris and I was just going to refer them to the uh the bylaws article three your purpose objectives and duties 3.1 and there are a through H that kind of talks about what you folks are about and what you're doing Monitor and evaluate Trends pose evaluate recommend respond to policies practice or laws that impact Runners monitor the enforcement solicit inputs from stakeholders such as land um communicate regularly and work with other City boards and commissions and staff consult with City attorney's office consult the city General housing unit um oh thanks and then are you guys down three folks because you're you've got like six team right three 11 voting five non-voting and I counted 13 not counting you and me and you and me the website says two two vacancies I don't know if Christian can co-sign if that's yeah I can double check I think it's two I think we're down in hhsab liaison also right now that position is found voting um I'll add to what John said our um for this purpose for recruiting people to apply you could certainly share this opportunity with people um in your network to refer them to the city's website to fill out an application is totally fine and appropriate um that you definitely did that was that the was that the whole question yeah pretty much I was just thinking in terms of like connecting with you know maybe somebody that's not in my immediate Network to try and expand um applicants to different communities like just in terms of even saying you know going into a neighborhood and oh you know um with the renters commission we have our meetings you know even just like making the meetings more like not even not even to the extent of like do you have any you know are you a tenant do you have any issues but like this is when our meetings occur you can come to us with public comment like just general like information about the commission are we is that something that's in terms of like getting the word out um I think it's definitely something worth exploring I'm I'm picturing that as kind of like uh like maybe like a flyer on a mail room bulletin board kind of thing um I don't know about like a door-to-door situation but I think that um I can look into it and ask I I think that uh with the purpose of reaching some folks who maybe aren't plugged in um it had 9 26 p.m um you know to our meetings I think is worth looking into good question thank you and and if folks have ideas um I'll also just add like feel free to share them even if you don't have the time or or um or if you're introverted or whatever it is and you don't want to do that Outreach to somebody you might not know um I think you know Cynthia and I are happy to to do some of that um I know I have a an upcoming meeting with um the Bryant Community Center and I'm going to chat with them about you know if there's anyone within their Network that this might be a good opportunity for and ask them to make recommendations to us as well that's actually my suggestion check in with Bryant Arrowwood High cone you know all of those people know good good folks in their Network that was all my hand was up for too really good suggestions thanks um I see the next on the list is Richa yeah I have a question for council members or Kristen I think it would be really helpful if we have like a very specific blurb because I know of organizations who would just would put in their newsletters like they send out bi-weekly monthly newsletters and the more specific we can be the better we can Target our Outreach because we have a general unique we can see a notification on the website and we have gotten applications it's the applications are coming in uh so I think if it's a matter of better targeting we need to like write that out and then I can send it to organizations uh I had another thought um yeah I think we've I liked Jamie's idea of just getting the word out I think there was a mayor's green Fair where there was a renters commission table and Zach uh Hannah Kristen were there and talk to tenants and did that awareness thing I think in a couple of tenant Outreach events that I have done on behalf of other groups we've talked about the renters commissioner and courage people to apply and I have another event coming up next week so I will be talking to some tenants and I will again ask people to apply so that's something we do um yeah I I'll pause I see others have raised their hands and then come back if we have time for more okay thanks Richard Jeff uh hi um I'm wondering if um you know having be new here not knowing everybody yet if there's like a particular area of the city or a award that might be um underrepresented here as well that might be worth specifically targeting I am going to ask Travis do you know if we we can pull someone when folks fill out their applications they they do Mark uh it does tell us which Ward they're in and so we could actually pull to see if there's a geographic um region of the ward um I know Cynthia and I in our conversations are really focused on some of the perspectives that are missing from this body um I know for example both of the recent resignations were our black Commissioners um and so making sure that we have some racial diversity on the commission um making sure that we have some folks who might have experienced homelessness because one of the folks that we that we lost was was somebody who had experience working with homeless populations and so there are some some marginal populations that are not currently represented at the table and I think that's where our Focus has been go ahead Lucy hear me yes okay I wanted to say a few things which is that I I had done some Outreach to people and a few of them said that they had already applied so I don't know if they're in the first round so I don't know if those applications if I should ask them to resubmit them or what the deal is there but they weren't in the list of applications that were sent to us as the ones that we have gotten and that was about three people the other thing is is that I asked a handful and I just think people should know this I asked a handful of tenant organizers that I know if they would be interested in applying for the commission and they said no because they haven't seen the city of Ann Arbor take seriously tenants rights issues and so they would prefer to keep doing their tenant organizing so I've stopped asking tenants organizers because I can in good conscience ask them to come to this committee Commission thank you Lucy Cynthia I saw your hand up before mine actually I don't know how I ended up in front of you so I'll let you go can I just pop in to say I have to leave so I'm sorry I don't want to talk about that no worries thank you very much I appreciate your presence yeah um I just kind of wanted to jump in here I I had seen the emails um regarding the uh openings and I didn't get a chance to kind of weigh in and so I want to just piggyback I've been speaking with Travis this week um and as I was kind of preparing for this meeting I was actually uh looking over something that occurred yesterday that I'm really excited about the Washington County Board of Commissioners actually passed a resolution to establish uh Washtenaw County advisory Council on reparations for the purpose of studying and developing reparation proposals for black uh Washington County residents and if I just wanted to share the various um as it pertains to um you know how black people are uh basically disproportionately um effective when it comes to when it comes to housing so I'm going to read a few um a few of the whereas clauses whereas black people have disproportionately been forced to reside in adjacent to or near toxic sites that negative negatively impact their health and property and whereas black people have been denied housing through racist practices in the private Realty Market including redlining steering blockbusting denial of mortgages racially restricted covenants and gentrification and black people have dis and whereas black people have disproportionately experienced substandard housing by government housing policies that include discriminatory VA FHA practices urban renewal and a variety of local and federal affordable housing programs that constant trait uh poverty and and I'm going to jump up to a different whereas Clause because in addition to um the importance of having somebody black on this commission it is to me very important that we also have somebody that's been um impacted by the criminal legal system um those individuals uh when we were discussing the wait lists earlier um circling back to that before I read this last whereas Clause the folks that are um really uh largely being hurt by these wait list um fees and and these uh predatory practices that landlords are are practicing right now um oftentimes largely largely is the black community they're they're applying more often and being denied um therefore they're paying more in fees uh oftentimes um in these wait list fees so um you know I work in these spaces I'm a Rancher manager for the organization we work with returning citizens for the organization that I that I work for so amend these spaces a lot I hear what's happening um and uh it's black and brown marginalized people of color and folks that live with who have been impacted by the criminal legal system that largely are really suffering when it comes to housing here in Washington County uh the last Warehouse Clause I'm going to read is that black people have been unjustly targeted by law enforcement and criminal justice procedures incarcerated at disproportionate rates and subsequently excluded from Full participation and the benefits of citizenship that include voting employment housing and health care so that's just what I wanted to add tonight I'm sorry I didn't get to weigh in um earlier in um the emails that were going um back and forth but I figured I'd save it till this evening so that's all I have for now thank you very much Cynthia um I think those points are definitely received here um and uh they're also somewhat reflected in the report uh because we're trying to come reference exactly the the Fig the facts that you're mentioning there um I know that they're uh frustrations about uh how much work is falling upon the Commissioners we we currently have and I know that there are some really good applicants um who have applied but I I'm also hearing what what um but you've said Cynthia I Know Travis you've mentioned as well about trying to get um diversity I so I think that um trying to increase the number of applications needs to happen I know that um we had discussed this I believe in December um and I don't know if it's Travis you mentioned that you were going to ask the other city council members to include that in their newsletters the application and I was wondering if that had occurred if that they had done that I have mentioned it to them to them as I've talked to them but I don't know if they've all included it yet but I can follow back up with them again okay and if there's anything we can do to help with that if you'd like us to write out and a request um someone on the commission I can get if we weren't happy to do that um so let us know how we can help that I think that would help I think that some of the other suggestions would also help when it comes to people who've experienced homelessness I I think that would be I think it's a really good idea um to to try to get applicants from that Community um the friends that I have who have experienced homelessness I don't think unfortunately would be interested in serving on the commission because of their experiences with government generally so that's going to be difficult um just putting from my personal experience out there um I will certainly um and and to add on to that I know there is also some discussion about graphics and um thank you for bringing that up about a blurb which I think a description would be really really helpful that's all from me thank you Richard yeah I just wanted to ask again to point out that we have two vacancies and that puts a lot of the work on a few Commissioners and that is we for example we got a really good Memo from the city about enforcement and we are not going to get to it until five weeks from now because we're on multiple subcommittees uh and we have meetings come we have a tenant Ed meeting next in a few weeks and we do not want to neglect that for enforcement but these are all urgent issues so I really I want to hear from like others on the commission about how we navigate this when there's so many urgent tenant issues and but we're not fully staffed uh and I completely agree with what zakira like I've had a similar experience and we do go to tenants where they are we do and I am in multiple tenant rights groups um which include marginalized tenants and they do not they organize in other ways Lucy's also mentioned in the email so while I'm happy to again the blur would be really helpful can continue Outreach and I'm because I'm already engaged we've talked about separate I cannot just step down and have more people so there's more vacancies later but we don't have like we have applications we have vacancies and we're not filling them uh but yeah as in if my proposal that's why in a separate email thread was to fill the seats and as we continue to ramp up Outreach and more applications come in I don't think applications need to or interest needs to only come in when vacancies happen a pipeline is great so that as in when a commissioner feels like you know they're feeling a little overwhelmed with work we know that hey we actually have some really good applicants someone can step down on others can take on like I'm I can easily step down by May June and use like public comments and other spaces to engage with their renters commission so just wanted to say that that's the intention here to fill seats and then you know those of us who have other ways of engaging can step down and then like as more applications come in so Richard just to clarify what you're saying that you're saying that you would you're proposing that you would step down so that we could start filling some of the seeds but still leave some open for the kinds of applicants I would say that we fill seeds but when we have applicants right now and while we do Outreach because the Outreach process is a longer term process and if the concern is that with the full commission there's not going to be room for more diversity there's room for like I know for myself to continue to engage with the renters Commission in other capacities rather than being here like you can step aside and have the spots taken so I would say like I would I'd rather see a full commission at all times is my point I see thank you for clarifying I hope you don't step down I really appreciate your presence and your work here Lucy yeah I was going to say many of the same things Richard said I will also I'll gladly step down if a full commission comes together meanwhile some of us are doing a lot of work meanwhile some of us have done a lot of Outreach and people have expressed to us this is not the space that they don't that they would like to do their tenant organizing work there are many Community organizations which are doing incredible tenant organizing work the renters commission has just has just started and we have not so far done very inspiring work uh and it it's hard to get a commission off the ground so that's just part of it but meanwhile some of us are doing a lot of work and I would say uh commissioner Harrison I would really appreciate you reaching out to us individually I really appreciated what you said you're new to the commission there's there's much more background that we could give you some of us have been doing tenants rights work in the city for a while and there's there's just a lot to know but you know we're really tired we're really overworked it's a working class commission so I I'm fully in support of making our city commissions more diverse for example I would really love a renter or a low-income tenant on the Planning Commission where people do development work I mean we need working class voices all across the city this is a primarily working class commission so you know we're tired we don't have a lot of money we're doing free labor for the city and there are vacant seats we need to fill them okay Rich oh Richie did you put your hand back up no okay Nick uh yes um boy there's so much I want to say uh first of all I want to thank um council member Harrison uh for her advocacy and her presence on the commission um re-entry for the incarcerated um or those those who have contact with the criminal justice system trying to get security deposits past economic checks Etc is a nearly insurmountable um thing and sometimes we focus a lot on student Runners and we have to remember that is a percentage of the folks that we're trying to help we also of course have to remember that landlords are big and small and small landlords you know depend on um rental income for a living and it you know that even as a tenant Advocate you know I I get that I mean you're trying to put food on the table for your people too but as far as what you need to bring to the table to Be an Effective commissioner what we're seeing is you need to support you need you know maybe you're connected with an organization and that's why you've been selected to the commission maybe you have support from your organization so that you can do your research and study and bring preparation to the meeting and that's not easy for a lot of people no matter what your Walk of Life is no matter what uh position you're in and it's um it does make it a challenge to try to recruit people when the people we most want to serve have the limitations that make it most difficult for them to be have their voices heard so it's not an easy process the Outreach things we're talking about I think are really important and um ah you know in my original question when we opened this topic is making sure that we all can be heard even though that we're not the decision makers about who's being chosen but to make sure all these voices can be heard about who is selected to the commission I just want to Echo that Nick I think you put it very well that uh expressing The Challenge and trying to get people who are more disadvantaged in the rental market to serve in the commission because they're the ones who are at least able to do that um I'd like to ask both of our council members how can we help as a commit as Commissioners and um um informing potential applicants especially the ones from the backgrounds that you mentioned um like that there are two vacancies and know how to apply how can we help I guess um besides the ways that um were mentioned we're just you know reaching out in our own circles because I'm not sure that our own circles are gonna find the applicants that uh are needed I mean even if you have ideas outside of your own circles like I said before you know we're happy to do some of that groundwork um I know that um councilmember Harrison has been has been in contact with the brighter way um where she is I believe also a board member um I actually just heard back today from the Housing Commission that they have EXT um shared the information with three of their residents that they think would be strong at uh applicants um and as I mentioned I'm reaching out to Bryant Center um in the next couple of days in in a meeting that I have about some other topics with them and so we're doing that Outreach um and so if if there are other ideas that maybe we're not thinking of we are happy to to put in the work of reaching out to those Community organizations or leaders so just let us know okay and just to follow up on that um are we going to uh is there a date by which we want to re you know re-commence this discussion uh automatically or are we just going to wait until uh oh my gosh what's going on with Nick out here this was nice enough to text me to let me know that my video screen was was going crazy it's like a horror movie that's why I keep cutting out um on the on the uh video okay um and again this is a question I think specifically to the council members is there uh do we want to visit revisit this in a month or do we want to just play you know what how ideally would we proceed in your eyes yeah I mean I think this should be a standing conversation um so if there are vacancies we should be talking about them um and so I I don't think um that that's a concern at all I think we should have absolutely revisit um we can give you an update at the next meeting if if our group hasn't already met and and made recommendations um so I think that um uh absolutely just kind of keep it going and I agree with Rita that this should we should absolutely be developing a pipeline and that's part of why we're wanting to establish some of the relationships with some of these organizations that can help to continue to build that pipeline for us of applicants okay thank you I'm moving on to Hannah so I kind of forgot my hand was still up because I don't think I have anything new to say but um thank you councilmember Harrison and then also council member radina uh for the information and the thoughts that you shared I I was gonna just ask what Zechariah said about like how we can help I feel like I've been talking about this with like close friends like I feel very aware that I'm like a white graduate student on this commission where I think like there's like great advocacy around students already and so I like very aware that like I don't know like what if my voice is needed here and then that being said like I want to help push the word out too my people are law students who like sure some of them need help but I'm not worried about them finding housing in a crisis I think they are people who know where to go when something happens and so I would just like to help with that too the only thing I'm really thinking of is um our law school clinics because those people are like pretty long-term community members I also know that Nick knows those people a lot better than me so maybe I'll just reach out to him over email and see if I can connect with these clinics um about like their former clients the ones who worked with like work with housing people in particular because I'm sure current clients probably wouldn't have the capacity but maybe former clients and people they work with would um but that's my only idea if other people have law school adjacent ideas I'd love to hear them and I look forward to hearing from you on that Hannah awesome that's a terrific idea all right so Lucy did you you had your hand up no forget it okay all right um any other comments on this discussion point Richard yeah I think this was helpful just to have on the agenda because some good ideas have come in uh but I will again say that we we're understaffed and that's that's very difficult as as I said take we're postponing an enforcement meeting that could have happened much sooner it could have happened in the second week of March but we're not doing it because most of us on the enforcement commit on the enforcement committee or in the tenant Ed committee and so work slows down and the waitlist report has also taken months because all of us in the waitlist committee are an enforcement committees and tenants so there's a lot of work that very few people are doing and that will continue for another month at least that's all thank you uh Cynthia I saw your hand up I know it's getting late and I don't wanna I know it's like can I just ask just I'm new I'm still learning can I ask a little bit about the the Committees and how you know how many folks are on what committees or like do you mind just kind of of course I hear I hear all this work that you know the I'm just kind of curious about I know I'm I serve as a liaison and an ipoc and and we um we limit the number of committees that our commissioners can be on it's the work is it's a lot of work so can you just can someone like share with me a little bit about of course and I think that um well maybe we have something to learn we I think we do have something to learn from you and your experience on ikpok because most of the people here I don't think have served on commissions and we just created these committees since uh because we thought they were needed um and we didn't limit membership for example but I think that if we did we would probably have not be able to do so many so we have a uh I'm not actually sure if it's officially a committee but we have a group working on uh the waitlist report um we also have this we have a tenant education committee we have a committee that's talking about uh that's discussing uh the enforcement policy for right to renew and early leasing ordinance there's three and then we have kind of an um an ad hoc committee to make the uh recommendations to the mayor for appointments am I missing anything there did I get all of them Travis sorry this is not an addendum to what you're saying I think you did get all of them um I was also just gonna say I think this is an opportunity where um you know and this may not be a solution right this moment because we are talking about the need to to find additional people to come into to the work but the um the working groups and correct me if I'm wrong uh Kristen but that is also an opportunity where we can pull in um individuals in the community who may not serve as full Commissioners on this body but who want to participate in some of the work of the commission and and have their voices heard um and and I believe as long as you know a single commissioner is leading one of those we could have those more open to the public and I think that's the way that they've been done on the energy commission for example at times where they might open it up to some expertise or some tenants Advocates who have who have some um input and and expertise in an area and then the commissioner who is kind of leading that group can report back to the body as a whole that is my understanding as long as there's one uh at least one voting member that's really good to know thank you for putting that out Travis uh maybe in this way we could open up some of the working groups to especially to the people who've applied to the commission who seem like they would be really great workers and provide a lot of value um without actually having them as full Commissioners that might be a way to help with some of the frustrations that I've been hearing and also ensure that the full commission receipts are open for applicants um that come from marginalized backgrounds okay um and I'll move on to Jeff thank you um obviously as this is my first meeting I'm I'm just trying to there's a lot and I'm glad and um I guess my my question for me personally would be you know there's these four or so committees is there one in particular that this group feels needs the most help is there like a a group that really is under staff at the moment any thoughts anybody um perhaps the the waitlist reports excuse me I ask us like I I'm I'm new I want to be involved I just I want to be involved in a place where I can do the most you know provide the most assistance too so that's what I'm kind of asking and I would also say like if if there is an area that you are most interested in like volunteer that because I think you know I correct me if I'm wrong but I think like Richa is currently serving on almost all of them um and so so I I think you know that the work is needed everywhere um and so if there's an area where you are most interested it might free her or someone else up to be able to step back and and really focus on one of the other areas yeah thank you Travis and I think that the waitlist report probably should um since it might influence policies that are a bit time sensitive that might be a good idea if you have any writing experience or just want to be involved that would be wonderful okay it is getting late so I think we should continue on through the agenda um does anyone have but I'll open it up one last time does anyone have any other comments on that issue and we will move on um to reports uh so uh we're gonna go through a number of reports here if you don't have anything to add it that you haven't said already um uh then you you we can just continue through and that's totally fine so I guess we'll start with 7-a um report from City Council I'm looking at Cynthia to see if she wanted to go um the only thing that I would add beyond what we've already said um is just to draw attention in the communication section of the agenda to the memo from um City Administration about enforcement and and the implementation of the right to renew and um early leasing ordinance so I just want to make sure that everybody has visibility on that um I think that's probably the only update I'll add right now okay great no no no no uh other updates thanks that's fine thank you uh 7-b report from hhsap liaison we don't have one at the moment thank you Travis I think you we have been emailing uh thanks to try to get one I can I actually tried to get an update on that today I spoke with council member Watson um they are also currently suffering um with their the makeup of their body right now um I think they did not have Quorum at their last meeting um and so they are they are working to to try to get the group to be a little bit more active um but I think there's been a struggle in getting somebody to commit to you know two volunteer meetings a month um I think we took for granted the value it was of having ubilies onto both of them where I could kind of fill that role when we lost our our liaison um but it is something that they are aware of um and so in the meantime I think you know councilmember Watson and I or council member song or whomever we can just continue kind of liaising amongst the council members and try to provide that in Council updates until we get that position filled thank you Travis is that a verb liaise don't answer that let's keep going okay um 7--d reports from Commissioners I'll open it up to any Commissioners who'd like to give a quick a brief report Jordan I have the super briefest thing um but just to make a note that U of M did vote today to change the calendar um so graduation is actually being pushed back a weekend I'm trying to do some advocacy in the U of M parent groups just to kind of point out to parents that it would be good to have students um you know kind of give it a week and see if their landlord reaches out to change anything for the May leases um and we will probably proactively reach out to our attendants but just kind of something to be aware of if you are working in tenant spaces that's a pretty significant change and given that may lease is are already signed in December um there's a good portion of those that may be affected thank you Jordan I'll keep this brief as well um there's a situation that we've been noticing where tenants are being offered different rates different rental rates for the next leasing cycle based on when they sign their lease um I know that uh there's some discussion among lawyers about how how tenants should navigate this if you hear from a renter who's experiencing this kind of tiered renting system where the longer you wait the more expensive if it comes for the next year uh please direct them uh to uh Gail Rosen or Nick rumel who's on here uh I know that they'd like to to talk with them besides that um I know that there's some Outreach occurring from tenants advocates in Ann Arbor and from other parts of the state to the new state legislature uh that there's some exciting discussions occurring regarding a lot of different issues but I'm not going to get into them now I guess you can let me know or let Richard know if you'd like to be if you're interested in being involved in those conversations that's it for me great job I wanted to bring up this uh as part of the tenant education thing but could be a separate piece we have received at least like 12 unique complaints let's say 10 two are from landlords about tenant issues and maybe the city staff has responded to them but I don't know if at the commission we have spent enough time or looking at those most recently I think it's attached to the this agenda as the laundry fee issue and I know tonight we're not gonna get time to talk about it but we I think as a group can spend some time on it maybe asynchronously so I have created a spreadsheet which is which has a log of all the communication that we have access to it's this like 13 rows right now but that will grow so I've left a call in that this is commissioner's response uh I think it would be great for us to at least brainstorm something it might help from a research standpoint even for us to learn more about what protection standards have that we already may not be aware of uh so there's that piece this is entirely legrandos commission focused so I just wanted to ask maybe over an email or an extent meeting we can talk about how we start making sure we're addressing each of them one way or the other I don't know right now if we can directly talk to tenants I think my understanding is that we cannot we should at least have some thoughts on this that we can put down I think that's good for future Commissioners also uh so that if they hear from tenants facing similar issues they can look at our log and pull information from there so people don't you know have to reinvent the wheel we also had uh this is from Geo housing we received an issue about utility bills uh uh a tenant has been received has been charged upwards of like three thousand or three hundred dollars for like two months or so now for utilities and they're not able to figure out what's going on they've talked to DT they talk to their landlords and they're just going in circles so now I'm just saying that these issues exist and we as in other smaller tenant organizing groups don't have the capacity necessarily to address those uh in a time-bound manner and so tenants are struggling there are lots of challenges uh I think there's a role for the commission there I just don't know I think I'd leave it up maybe we can revisit this in a next meeting uh but yeah there's a lot of tenant issues out there uh just that are unaddressed thank you Rachel anyone else okay oh sorry I was just gonna it's just I've gotten more stuff about the increasing rent prices like Zechariah said mostly at the yard and I've directed them to Nick and Gail thank you very much Hannah I think that will be helpful okay anyone else any other Commissioners would like to give up reports Travis uh I'm sorry um the only other thing that I realized was relevant to this group and I'm sure you may have all seen the news um but that that could be something that's impactful in the rental market is the news that the university is planning to build some additional student housing um obviously that's not going to be immediate but it is something that might impact the market soon obviously there's some there's a bit of questions around uh how that's all going to come into effect but I think you know we have the shared goal of wanting to increase the housing Supply and so it's it's something to note as well for those who are following yeah I believe they asked Ron Weiser for help in procuring those properties which is okay anything else great if you have any updates you can always send them to Kristen to send it to the rest of the commission and you can do talk to you know with with individual Commissioners that's totally fine as long as you know break the open meetings act which if you don't know what that is um I think it'd be a good idea to send that document out to everybody okay wonderful so now we move on to point eight which is their second general public comment session um Kristen would you like to leave this or shall I um I could do it that's fine thank you public comment can be made by phone by calling 877-853-5247 and entering meeting ID 935-8080-1941 or through the zoom web link that is a2gov.org renters commission meetings attendees who have called to press star 9 to raise their hand to be called on attendees who are joining through the zoom web link should use the raise hand feature to be called on um and then you can state your name um at the beginning of your comment and address the renders commission for up to three minutes so if there is anyone who would like to address the renters commission please um press star nine or use the raise hand feature now we do have one attendee and then we'll just hold on for just a moment in case anyone is joining right now attendees have indicated so we can close our account I didn't hear that Christians you said that you're closing public comment yeah sorry about that no no um there have been no attendees to have indicated thank you very much with that we can move to point nine which is communication we've had I believe three we have three attachments here I know Kristen sent out the last one briefly before the meeting our first one uh I have to open this up sorry guys oh I guess we have four now okay oh no I think we already we only do have three I believe so the the first one is a communication from a tenant to the Ann Arbor renters Commission regarding um I think Washington and drying machines so washers and dryers um they were promised a washer and dryer it's my understanding but then the machine broke down and they asked for a refund but the landlord uh said that they were not able to to do that I'll open the floor for discussion on this it's all right if there is none but uh this is a question to Richard has the Geo has Geo's housing caucus been in touch with this individual no there's been no information that we've received from them I don't do they have a contact info I don't have theirs so no um I know that the commission does but I'm not so sure we would be allowed to pass that on to Geo's housing caucus um my understanding so I think Christian responded with a bunch of um with the list of resources there okay that's something to put on our radar to maybe think about this particular situation and we will we can move on to the next communication foreign which is the memorandum regarding enforcement processes for right to renew in the early leasing ordinance this is uh I'm very glad that this has been released by the city administrator thank you to Travis and Cynthia for speaking with the city administrator and communicating that we wanted some clarity about what the city's policy is on enforcing these both the existing law and you know the right to renew which is technically also existing but will be applicable to Future contracts um I think that in the interest of time we should all read through this on our own and this should be a discussion point for the next meeting and and just add some context that I think attorney Reiser had a hand in in drafting this uh so um if we have questions I imagine that um he might be available at nxpd to help answer them too so um perhaps if you have them maybe get them in advance to Kristen and or call me but if we submit them to Kristin then the entire body can benefit from the questions as well thank you very much and thank you John okay and then the last I see yeah the last communication which I haven't read yet actually is a communication from it appears the Washington area Apartment Association regarding the carbon monoxide detector the proposed amendment to the housing code to include the requirement for um applicable rental units to have um carbon monoxide detector so it looks like they're providing the perspective of the Washington area Apartment Association so I think this is also important to read um to add on to what Jordan and Robert were able to yeah and and I I received this I well actually I think all of council received this from uh the president of the Washington area Apartment Association um I don't know I don't remember if he says in it that he's speaking on behalf of the association I think he's he may be speaking as an individual and who happens to be um president of the apartment association I don't know if they've signed off on the entire thing um but it is he provides some perspective and concerns on the carbon monoxide detector ordinance thank you for that clarification I think that you're right from just a quick glance any comments questions indication I think we can also discuss this over hello I think everything will be addressed in our um you know figuring out of like where they go I feel like we've addressed most of this I mean in some ways some of this was the stuff that I shared in some ways it's said a little bit differently but I think before we have the specifics of where they need to go figured out um with uh both of the entities the the um sorry late brain networking um rental housing people the inspections and the fire you know those are the two things that we need to just make sure everyone holds the same page the person who's going to be citing people needs to be on the same page with the fire people and we all need to be informed as landlords like that's that's just um I feel like we've addressed most of most of this in our prior coverage personally so I've already emailed fire and Rental housing about putting together a summary of whether things go like we have already for carbon monoxide detectors it will also help their rental housing inspectors know what to look for so education internally externally has to be done it's a good point we're going to get that done great thank you very much uh that's I believe the last of our Communications correct me if I'm wrong Chris if there was an addition that I didn't include there but otherwise we will move on to the next point of business which is adjournment number 10.

all right they're sharing of grief I'd like to call this meeting to order and we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance and I'll lead the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all for attending today I'd like to excuse margari had got called out of town this evening couldn't be here we're going to turn the time over to Dr Wright for the next couple of items for some award presentations thank you Mr Merrill the first thing we want to recognize that Chef's team they're going to be competing in the Nationals next month so coach asked if they could come back after that Nationals appearance later in either the if we have a later March meeting or they'll come in April we want to wish them the best but we want to make sure let's give them a chance to fully compete because they're all going to Nationals all five of them I believe so good job team chess [Applause] and next we'd like the recognition for the January BR students of the month beginning with the Elementary School Mr Grace if you'd like to make your presentation followed by principal Hoffmeyer and Mr Webb so our student of the month this month is Gracie boshay and I have miss alakaze our home room teacher she's here to say a few a few words about Miss Scotia come on so Gracie is very deserving of this award she is an active student in not only her education but in school programs she's on stuco right and she is also representing Us in the spelling bee so so she does a lot of hard work and she is one of those students that we wish we had a classroom full of congratulations congratulations [Applause] to the uh to Gracie's family I was on the campus several months ago and I stopped Gracie for directions and I asked her if she was a high school kid tutoring elementary kids she's very very mature well-mannered smart young lady so thank you family should be very proud Gracie good job principal Hoffmeyer our award this month is going to Mackenzie Smith but Mackenzie is in Snowflake tonight playing a basketball game one of the reasons she had award is such an awesome teammate I've invited her to come back next month so I can she can hear all the great things that all of her teachers have said about her yes ma'am we'll do that thank you Mr whip all right the high school I don't see Jonathan here but I'll go ahead and briefly read the teacher's nomination for Jonathan Fuentes Delgado so Doug deals excuse me Jonathan acts as a translator for two classmates every day and helps them understand the assignment he's a great student who works hard to complete his work and he takes the time needed to help the other students would never be able to complete the work without him so I want to congratulate Jonathan for going that extra mile and helping his classmates achieve what they need to achieve as well so and we'll we'll recognize Jonathan on campus and and give his award to him thank you thank you Mr Webb [Applause] moving on to our Be Our Stars Roger if you'd like to make your first presentation I want to add just for the board's benefit about early 30 this morning don't know how it really was but it was very early Moe was out putting up the American flag she was shoveling off snow working really hard and I I just stopped to thank her for her efforts and so I'm so happy that she's being recognized today she does an outstanding job for us I don't know of a more positive hard-working person than than MO [Applause] she's dedicated she's always there she's always going to be above and beyond and if she has to take more than care of it just her campus she'll go to any campus and do anything that needs to be done she's a fantastic worker we really appreciate her and glad we have her [Applause] yes okay yes ABS absolutely come on up Jesse so Jesse is our other VR star so Jesse started working as a custodian after she puts in a full day at the high school she does an amazing job with man this is why am I tearing up so she's with our most special kids that need the extra help and she is awesome with those kids she takes them class to class she helps them in the classroom and beyond that she knows what's going on in the school before she came over to the high school she worked in the cafeteria she would always have information for us and whether it's to help that kid or whatever the reason was she was willing and knew the kids by name which is an amazing feat with Junior High and high school kids so Jesse does an amazing job at the high school for with those special ed students and all the other General students that she keeps an eye out on in the cafeteria and the custodian job that she does now as well so we want to recognize Jesse for the amazing job that she does and she definitely deserves to be our Star Award thank you [Applause] Jesse I thought I was just getting old because I swore that I'd see in one role and then I'd see another one I thought well maybe she has a sister but now that explains a lot I am getting old but my memory is not gone thank you to your teachers outstanding we'll welcome you back absolutely that's that's fantastic we now um Mr Webb go ahead and you've got the microphone you're warmed up let's uh let's greet Coach Rex and and and uh hear a lot of hey Mr Rex coming up this is someone that always loves attention anywhere she goes she wanted to actually speak for 10 20 minutes but I said no probably just she's so red so this is the reason why she was nominated this is Rex always willing to help both students and staff she's extremely knowledgeable students love her class because of how she holds them accountable and makes them work hard bones are not an option in her class it is nice to always have her hold the door open and greet everyone so again another person that is there for the students she knows her kids by name she knows what they need whenever there's a concern she's up in the office telling about the students and and what those students need to be successful so we're so grateful to have Mrs Rex in the classroom and then everything else that she does which is a lot she does a lot for the school so thank you for what you do okay thank you coach [Applause] I don't know if there's anything she can't do she's a math teacher coaches basketball does a lot of things for a lot of folks so thank you coach we appreciate you Mr Grace so our teachers month at the elementary school is Lee wagonfear [Applause] it's a fourth and fifth grade special ed uh teacher on the Elementary's campus last year she covered all three grades of the middle of the Upper Elementary School um she's a Workhorse she's she gets everything done she's there to cover duties when when uh people are missing she's there in the morning she's there in the afternoon the relationship that Lee has with her students and her parents is unparalleled she is responsible for special needs students at the time where their parents start to pull back and give them more freedom to you know make mistakes make decisions do things like that and Lee navigates that perfectly without a doubt we're blessed to have her foreign people I met over eight and a half years ago and I couldn't I couldn't believe the case load and she still maintained she recruited a husband into the same department and I know that we're thankful to have Tyler there too they both do such good work and so thank you for helping out we appreciate you the wagon first roots go very deep in this community and I love seeing people that have deep roots in this community stay and keep lifting like you are thank you very much [Music] all right next item on the agenda board is the consent agenda and after reviewing the agenda here uh are there any items that you would like to take out and vote on separately or we have a motion to approve the consent agenda as written in the minutes I mean in in this agenda Chuck so moved we have a second I have a second from Jennifer all in favor all right thank you that was unanimous okay next item on the agenda is item three point one a recommendation to approve an agreement Arizona School Medicaid um who would like who would like to talk to us about this I would like to turn time over to Kimberly before I do that I just want to bring up make the point that it was Kimberly's idea that we become involved with this program could generate a pretty significant amount of money to help out with some of the more intensive costs and our exceptional needs students and so she's put a lot of work in this project so I'd like to turn the time over to Kimberly so this is a contract for a company that will help us get started with our Medicaid reimbursement so what medicated reimbursement is is that we get reimbursed from Medicaid for certain um I was going to say procedure procedures not procedures for certain things that we offer to our students like otpt we can get reimbursed for the cost of those services and so this company helps us get started with that so that we can start getting reimbursed for some of that out-of-pocket costs that we are incurring with our special needs students just because does this have a cost for us to get in yeah so they um the way that it works is there's a percentage that they take from what we get reimbursed okay so it's a it's not a one-time fee up front correct and my next question is where we have to renew this every year um we if we 'd stay with them what I'm committed for 12 months yes okay any questions sure yeah um is just going to end up bottom line is this going to cost us more money or are we saving money or breaking even no we'll save money so all of the costs that we spend for um anything that's reimbursable my Medicaid will get reimbursed by Medicaid so that money will be more than we're making it will be uh savings to us I think is the best way to explain it so we'll be reimbursed for our expenses including the fees that we're paying correct because right now we're not being reimbursed anything okay if I might have if I may add Mr President the analysis we kind of looked at initially the other school superintendents in the area that have similar case loads generates anywhere between 75 000 a hundred thousand hundred twenty five thousand a year it's significant so when we're upside down 375 000 every bit helps yeah so I'm appreciative of Kimberly's effort very good thank you just for a comparison just for comparison sakes um just so you can have an idea in St John's we were getting about a hundred and thirty thousand dollars a year back in reimbursements cool is this a new program or did we just never utilize that program she was something that she brought up when she yeah that's awesome almost a year ago that's a big deal because traditionally you would go in and try to get special services for a child with any type of disability and then they would say you need to go to your school and the school will pay for it so to have Medicare actually Medicaid actually reimburses good really good correct any other questions not going to have a motion for item 3.1 a motion from chuckling a second from anyone I'll second it myself all in favor hold off on that vote if I work with white Mountain Physical Therapy and they have the contract for the school I need to recuse myself at this point or no I will I'm going to recuse myself from the vote so we would still have okay so Jennifer bramaha has recused herself from this vote so that leaves just three remaining board members we have a vote on this that's positive for the three remaining board members okay item 3.2 recommendation to approve the contract relating service provider for the Navajo Consortium again Kimberly do you want to explain this to us sure so on the Navajo Consortium offers services to school districts for things like otpt speech Psychology Services things like special ed services that we either don't have the staff for or specialty things that we're just going to hire out for just like a one-off thing this is a yearly contract through Navajo County Consortium all of the schools are the mountain and that I'm aware of use them for some Services because they have the Specialties some of which we just can't hire any questions in regard is something we vote on every year okay so Jennifer bramaha has recused herself if I'm voting all night in the 3.2 so we have a motion for 3.2 I'll move we have a second light and all in favor that's positive for the remaining three board members thank you okay the thank you Kimberly the only item left on the agenda is superintendent's report we turned some time over to you to Dr Wright thank you also called other public after that thank you I I first want to recognize the facilities team here in our transportation team here this last month and actually the last quarter has been challenging from a weather perspective and I don't know that people are really aware when we say they get in early we're talking about two three o'clock in the morning and that's very early they we couldn't do it without them I know that Rogers team worked from what this I don't know the last 36 hours that group has had a crew on site and so Roger thank you for your efforts and Denise thank you for your efforts in the minus two degree weather getting bus started with diesel fuels not easy and they they do it foreign [Applause] they don't complain they just get it done so we're very appreciative of of y'all how's that I'll let your anxious for spring we all except we could get snow in the spring too but it melts really fast I I also wanted to to thank the town Matt Patterson's group the facilities team at the town really came through for us we had I don't know I think close to two feet of snow in some areas and so I called Matt said can you help us out just run the roundabout Ingress egress areas if you could do that we'd sure appreciate it by the time 8 30 9 30 10 o'clock at night they had two or three big front end loaders out there and cleared out the entire lot for our group and that was just very much appreciated one of the beautiful things about living in small town USA so thank you we want to thank the town and Matt's crew and Daniel Rollins crew for getting that done for us we appreciate you they're uh we're gonna roll out here in the near future a consolidated uh a Consolidated number of bus stops on more problematic back roads there's probably five or six stops that we have give you two Sky High is one it's not a county maintained Road Twin Knowles is another that is typically problematic Denise had a great idea which is hey let's just if we can eliminate five or six stops I can still run the buses and those stops the folks that are impacted will be given alternate stops so the parents need to either take them to school or take him to the stop and in many cases we're not talking about miles away so this is a strategy we're trying to develop to use delayed starts and not have to cancel school altogether right now it's an all-in or all-out sort of approach and that's just where we're at and we were we're thinking about implementing this a little earlier but that what we struggle with is it has to be a bright line you have to say these routes are always eliminated otherwise we risk the confusion of having little ones out there in the dark in the cold which we're not willing to do of course so we're getting very close to be able to roll that out and we still have about two and a half snow days left and we hope we don't need them knock on wood and we'll uh let's try to get through this month and next without those but if we do you know if we have another winter this is kind of a normal winter is what I'm hearing people have been here forever I've only been here eight and a half years we're trying to prepare for some of these things and I think that's a great a great idea technology is teaming with Denise's team they're coming up with automating our bus routes we've already installed I think it's called is it sonar that where the kids have IDs and they can we can keep track of our children where they're at what bus stop what bus they got on when they got off we're still in the implementation phase of that but in this day and age it is really valuable to know where these kids are and did they get on the bus did they get off the bus we'll know a lot more of that information we're already utilizing GPS and we want to be able to communicate with families in real time to say you know your bus routes late or your bus stops late or your bus is on time or remember this is an alternative schedule you need to go to bus Plan B because we're not coming to your normal stop all that will be of great use there's a lot of work to be done still on it but I think we'll be able to roll that out hopefully sometime next month will improve the thing as we go we'll get stages of at least phase one uh next month so thank you it on all your help there as well I I don't think they they're always on the clock so we we sure appreciate you all we have uh our girls lost a game earlier they were in the state playoffs so they lost to Valley Christian our boys are playing Paige tonight and we have four wrestlers in the state tournament we have our chess team going to Nationals I got a message from Mr Woolridge that the Fab Lab team says that I said I don't know if you're aware of it did you get the news that on the Samsung team being selected State winner and top 50 nationally that just came in so I I'm really were happy with what's going on with that and we intend to utilize the Fab Lab even more going forward and expand the participation we get more students involved that'll be a focus next year to increase the number of students that are that are taking those courses in the type of competitions that they're engaged in other than that I just wanted to make the board aware we could either have the administration be ready by March first if you wanted to have the board meeting then or we're prepared on the 21st whatever suits the board's needs where we could adjust accordingly just want to bring it to the president's attention to address that yeah we need to decide what what would fit the best um comments any preferences I'm pretty easy to get along with as long as it's not from the eighth to the 20th I'm gone I mean I'm not gone but I might as well be and I'm Gone the first on the first you're gone so it's either the 21st or the first yes sir that's correct either one of those well let's do the 21st then right after spring break I don't want to say fall break right after spring break we'll do the 21st 5 o'clock here is there a possibility that we need to do some type of executive session prior to that there'd be at least there'll be one or two after after a regular session okay so be prepared to uh be a little uh stay late for that all right anything else is there any items that the board would like us to look at in the future if you do you can sure email me and I'll run into David I'm I'm thinking we need to get on the calendar right away uh maybe a community open meeting so where we can discuss things that the community wants us to look at if as part of my report too I didn't mention this but if you want to have a work study there's two recurring issues that have been sort of floating around one is the four-day school schedule versus the current schedule of four and a half days the second one is some type of funding mechanism we have engaged the the efforts of reaching for the term the gentleman that helps us out Paul yeah what is he a consultant a surveyed and he's going to do survey 400 350 to 400 community members that are voters and registered to determine their attitude toward a smaller override or a bond and see if there's any differences there we do have a strategy where we could go out for a smaller bond that would be a small two three bucks a month that would fund our Capital needs the next seven years which enables us to move about a million dollars in capital into mno which solves a lot of the Gap 1.4 main Gap that we currently have we're already making adjustments through natural attrition they're people that are moving there's people that are retiring and resigning we're probably 000 to 600 000 toward that and anyway we're we're headed the right direction and so those two things Mr Mayor if you wanted to have something in either April or late April maybe or early May the first week of May but not later than that I wouldn't go but I would go maybe the last week of April the first week of May would be May gets really really busy with graduation yes sir April would probably be better okay board a few dates and then and then maybe but I'll have a a group of dates from which the board can select on our 21st and then we would probably meet like at four o'clock here or maybe even seven o'clock in the evening so more people could participate and we would just be here to be an open format uh discussion a couple items okay I'll get those dates prepared for your consideration all right all right is there anything else all right next item is a call to the public and we would like anybody that would like to address the board to do so at this time we would encourage you to keep your comments about three minutes you can't see that to anyone else and you're welcome to address the board anything that's on your mind we can't really refer and carry on a conversation with you but we can also have that put on the agenda for the next time if possible there's still a couple more minutes so I want to make the board aware of some pretty cool accomplishments of two of our students one three masks she is recognized for a National Merit finalist so she goes on to the next level in that competition so it's a huge accomplishment for for her and what she's done to get to this point another student Caroline Hoyt she received the Moorhead King scholarship and that's for the University of North Carolina where she's planning on going and it's a substantial scholarship that she qualified and will be super proud of those two girls and and the hard work that they put in to get to this point thank you I think it would be great if we this this the end of the school year if we had some kind of a report on all the scholarships that kids have earned and then maybe the total amount of dollars that they've earned towards those scholarships on a lump sum basis so that yeah if we could report that to the public we we you pull we have the awards assimilous we can pull that information together and report that back to the board that would be fantastic thanks be great yeah put it on the Marquee people in the community can see well if there's nothing further well in regards to that doesn't the town have a Talk of the Town I'm wondering if when our students do something exceptional if we can give them that information and then they oh send it out Mr Webb could you share that with uh you know James Brimhall is our representative from the council if you'd share that information you shared with the board he'd be glad to post that with uh Tony Alp as well both of those yes ma'am same thing for like our spelling bee and stuff so kindergarten all the way up yeah that looks good when is the county be tomorrow wow time flies I are a terrible seller I tell you why I can't spell but then that would give away a school district that I grew up in and I'm not going to do that in public all right so if there's nothing further we need a motion to adjourn have a motion from Jennifer and a second from Chuck all in favor then we are officially adjourned thank you

[Music] foreign good morning Wildcats it's Friday it's fun I'm here next to the hot fresh pizza spinner thingy where you get your breakfast we want you to look fresh all next week so let's check in on our spirit days [Music] all right jack on Tuesday kick off the week don't forget we don't have school on Monday enjoy your three-day weekend Tuesday what's the dress up day black and white day black and white day very simple roll out where your favorite sweats hoodie whatever you want or a great t-shirt here like what Jack has uh looks like Honest Abe Lincoln interesting fact about Abe Lincoln Edison he's in the wrestling hall of fame only US president that's in the wrestling hall of fame showing off those muscles four sets and seven reps ago uh where's Lincoln ranking your favorite presidents um I don't really rank them I'm sorry um you're ruining my bit here Jack two thank you thank you Yugi's top three for just about everybody [Music] Wednesday we have movie day movie day dress up as your favorite character from a movie or a shirt that represents a movie what so what is your favorite movie and why oh my gosh um uh favorite movie oh that's a difficult question what's yours I have no idea I can't think of one at the moments favorite movie oh god um I don't know what's your favorite I don't have a favorite movie what do we have here we have Harry Potter Harry Potter uh classic books and movies what's your favorite uh house would you say from Harry Potter uh Ravenclaw all right she's a Ravenclaw where your favorite movie on Wednesday and then on Thursday we have favorite musical artist day favorite musical artist they could wear your favorite concert T-shirt who's your favorite musical artist right now Taylor Swift T Swift she's a Swifty what's your favorite Taylor Swift uh album [Music] so in our most recent hit anti-hero she says she's the problem it's her do you like singing along that song you find saying I'm the problem yes way to be strong and confident [Music] Friday our dress up day is Celebrity Day celebrity day and I mean just looking at you guys I know we got Courtney Kardashian and Travis Barker here right what uh inspired you guys to go with them well there's another day for like music artists so the only really celebrities that I know is like the Kardashians to be honest I mean they're everywhere and I mean you decided to add the face tattoos I'm hoping those are temporary uh yeah it's eyeliner we gotta go all in so way to go extra on that dress up as your favorite celebrity on Friday all right Wildcats have a great Friday have an excellent three-day weekend we got a little special treat for you from the broadcasting class a little look back at the swimming and wrestling season [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you so when and why did you start wrestling so when and why did I start wrestling oh I started wrestling when I was pretty young so like well not too young are you like 10 11 so I think I was in third grade when I started wrestling but then I started competing in the fifth grade and I started wrestling because both of my older brothers wrestled um I tried soccer out it was fun but I kind of didn't like it so I mean I tried this out and I just kind of fell in love like from day one but you know it's actually kind of cool because me and Connor were both the team captains this year and we both started wrestling on the same day so that's pretty cool a good friend to come try it out and I liked it too motivated what motivates me is the fact that there's other girls in our team so I want to motivate them so that that's like my motivation and also like obviously trying to go for the title to state what does it mean to you to be Rigo's first girl state champion wrestler um I think it's really important because it like shows to like we go and like to a lot of like other schools that like you know girls can do it too do you have anything to say to any girls who are on the fence about joining wrestling I say try it out you never know if you're gonna end up liking it and you know don't be scared because we're not here to judge and we all start somewhere what are your goals for this season my goal is killing the Regionals I'm already this far I can't I can't let it go this time what keeps you going to your goals I stay hungry how long have you been wrestling for this will be my fifth sixth year what are your goals for this season to win conference and hopefully get to like sectionals and like state what inspires you to join wrestling I kind of just wanted to try something new without like just trying to try as a big deal what do you have to say to any girls who want to join wrestling um to just like give it a try because you might not know if you like it or not what inspired you to throw in Russia um my football coach is really they really um that they just really inspired us to they said it'll be great for um for my position I play lineman and they told me it would be great and so I decided that to find me to join what are your goals for this season what was my season at least play sports the conference and see how far that takes me hopefully go to state good luck to you thank you my dad did so I was five six years old sitting on the couch dad's like hey uh do you want to try out wrestling had no idea what it was so I was like yeah you know what I'll give it a shot so sure enough I went out and uh I never looked back at the journey really I just I just stuck with it I was like I love this sport I really want to stick with it and uh I really been in the sport for I wrestled for 16 about 16 years and I've been involved Maybe 19 now wants just a little bit extra motivation keep going I would say if you're willing to push yourself I would say go for it uh this isn't an easy sport for everybody uh I'm gonna be brutally honest uh the room's 60 to begin with halfway through the season drops down about 40.

all right called a meeting to order it is 7 P.M welcome to the February edition of the Columbia school board meeting start with the roll call please here Tammy hi here Andrea Corey here Greg Meyer here Scott Middle Camp here favorite way to stand with me and recite the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and indivisible with liberty awesome thank you all right welcome our audience both of you appreciate you joining us tonight do we have any public comments we're just gonna move right along here all right correspondence anything going around no correspondence it's gonna be a record meeting here all right we'll move right on to the consent agenda Mr squirt if you'd like to walk us through that well you've got your minutes and your reports um we do have some resignations Mary Beth Babcock is resigning from the uh drama advisor position I don't know how many years she has been here but it's been very very many um we also have a paraprofessional and a cook that have resigned we've got some Employments some of them are for this year and some of them will be for the upcoming year we are starting to bring you names for the upcoming year and we plan to have them all invited to a board meeting in August so that you can meet them but um we've got a sign language interpreter for next year we found that was a hard to fill position we've got two Eagle Zone positions which are also hard to fill but we're glad to get some high school students in here to to do that we also found a school psychologist we usually have two this year we've gone with just one because we weren't able to fill that position but now we've got another one for next year so we're back to having two which is a welcomed addition we have a leave of absence for our school social worker here at Parkview school and we wish her well during that leave and then we've got vacancies um High School and Middle School drama advisors open because Miss Babcock as I've said is is leaving the paraprofessional can be taken off that list because um that was actually filled with um Elizabeth trechenberg but we still need a cook I know we're hiring a cook but we still have more holes than we have people to fill with all that said the recommendation is for the board to accept the consent agenda as presented any questions Commons concerns suggestions discussion Lively crap okay maybe like to make a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented I'll make that motion thank you Scott doing your second Andrew seconds roll call please yes hi yes all right which cares unanimously we'll move on to our Communications reports and presentations the enrollment report is in your package something substance on that and then we'll go right on to our administrative reports start with our building report so I'll be talking about uh the high school um got uh three things to talk about here Columbia Eagles defeated Redbud to move on to the regional playoff at altoff Unfortunately they did not win that game um but they finished 20 and 11.

together again Central yeah um um yeah that'll be perfect right so I'll tell you that I fixed the clock last time I was in here apparently I've done it twice we just need a battery it was clicking along and I thought well I'm gonna try it on my fixed it on Monday and I got a see what it's like by Thursday so um [Applause] I'm gonna call the meeting to order we will start with the moment I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and to justice for God all right order here at 6 30. and we have as you'll note that uh assembly Tracy is not here tonight she is in San Antonio is that right San Antonio at the um superintendents uh National Conference with our Eagle Manufacturing so we're excited that they're there and hope to get a good report from them um so tonight we do have um two modifications for the agenda um I would just um read both of those the first is a recommendation to approve a donation of 200 for science Ada Alpha chapter to the Brown County Middle School choir to be used as needed and a recommendation to approve the day nation of 600 from science Alpha chapter to the interact Club to be used as needed to improve those modifications I'll send it and let's do a local Carol yes yes Vicky yes Stephanie yes yes all right um we have a time here to number three for record ing of listeners and comments from the audience um is there anyone here I don't see anyone excited staff on our containers and our uh Democrat representative thank you all right so next is a presentation tonight um we have here um Shelby is going to speak and I missed your last name now is vinegar vinegar from proactive MD they are our um uh run our Brown County Community Health and Wellness Center and they're going to give us an update on that thanks thank you again for allowing us to present uh Emily was just so gracious enough to allow empty to come and if you remember chamber coffee um team broker for Brown County schools and again we greatly appreciated the last board meeting today two solutions that we have on the table to think about and possibly possibly voted on this meeting is just getting uh getting the board an update like Amy said about the clinic and also just kind of a refresher just all the services that are available at the clinic we just thought it'd be a great opportunity to let Shelby and West shine on this okay thank you well worth eager to have you there's I feel like there's a lot items yeah please ask questions thanks okay so just a reminder my name is Shelby Whitaker I'm the client relations manager for proactive MB so I work hand in hand with Chandra and Emily um to make sure that the health center is running to your guys's expectation so I wanted to do just like brief overview of what we actually offer I feel like a lot of times we assume that that's like everybody knows what we offer right but then we find out of our conversation that not everybody knows what we offer so starting out with that first um flip side I have sprinkled a few little patient testimonials in there that have came from Browns County Brown County School Employees um within the health center so I felt like they were appropriate concern because we do have a great staff um at that Health Center so this is a terrific office of caring staff they pay attention the details and look and explain things very well I'm grateful having them so close um again overview so some of this might be a little bit repetitive especially if you guys use the Outfitter but we um have a staff made of three wonderful ladies so we have a full-time and see Rebecca we have a CNA and a full-time RN as well we're open Monday through Friday we do have some earlier warning times to accommodate those coming in before school um and then we also do have some later times available too to facilitate those patients that need to become an actor um school as well and then the locations for literally five minutes to get back down the road just to cover some of the services that we offer so I think the first thing that comes to mind when you guys see the clinic or Health Center are um goes to acute care needs so things like your ear infections your sore throat your stuffy nose um of course they love to see those but we are more than just that um so preventative care is probably one of our favorites to see and I know Rebecca loves it which is very health focused so just of knowing that we can treat for those physicals those yearly annual exams making sure that we're catching things early so we don't want things to turn into chronic conditions if we can manage them early and be proactive with that chronic condition care is also huge um and that's a that's a large thing that people don't realize that we offer as well is our providers are trained to practice at the top of their spokes which means managing chronic conditions such as diabetes hyperlipidemia hypertension asthma so please utilize us for that service too one thing with those is the more that we can keep in the health center the lower of the cost going out into other facilities right so you're already paying for this either way let's make sure that we're utilizing it to its full potential let's say you know there are people that do still need to see a specialist let's say you're diabetic and your A1C is extremely high and you have worked very hard your nutrition's on point that you're still struggling and you still need to see that in your chronologists that is perfectly fine but still keep us in mind we can be there for those last Services as well so if you're going to name one seedro on every quarter every six months please come back to us for that instead of going elsewhere next thing I wanted to hit on is our trademark here beyond the walls so not only are we a primary care facility we also are there to help support outside the walls as well so we are going to have referrals to other places right it's inevitable um but we want to make sure that you have somebody there to navigate and support you through that process so starting from that referral following it through making sure that you're getting the best quality Care at the most affordable price and making sure you're coming back home to us as well so really being that handheld support um we know the healthcare system can be extremely scary and it's hard to understand as a typical human being um so just having somebody on your side to walk through is amazing that's something that we really do strive to do another thing that I have found out recently is a lot of people don't know that we do carry meds in-house and then also offer Lab Services as well so we have over I think over 80 medications actually impacts that you can walk out with today um and then too so um do keep that in mind that one of my favorite things is let's say I am sick and I'm in an antibiotic I don't have to go to the pharmacy when I'm not feeling well or if I have screaming kids in the back of my car because they're sick willing to make ones die we're not having to go to three different places to get the care so it's a wonderful benefit to have um excited okay digging a little bit deeper into our model so I said we were a primary care facility we are a health center we offer a lot of services um but we operate a little bit different than your typical primary care so usually you guys are all familiar you walk in you wait for 40 minutes you get five to seven minutes with your provider they rush in they rush out they treat you for one thing they tell you to come back for the other thing that's been bothering you and then your operating our model is very different than that it starts from the scheduling so you call us you tell us what kind of issues you're having we make sure you have plenty of time to see the provider we're not set on set schedules throughout the day so if you need 45 minutes to talk to the provider if you've got five different things going on we're going to find a slot for you that's going to allow that 45 minutes and she's going to take that time with you we typically have one maybe two patients in the facility at the same time so you really do get that one-on-one interaction compared to an office that has seven rooms that has somebody waiting in every single room um so that's one of the huge differentiators between us and your standard PCP um less than five minute wait time so again because of the way that we offer our scheduling you strive to have low wait times we're also working for employers we know you guys need to get back to work and that's what the employers want as well um also back to family and things like that too but um we do try to keep that in mind and make sure that our scheduling does allow that as well guidance through the healthcare system so I hit a little bit on that um talking about Security on the walls but just to reiterate making sure that you do have that handheld support that you need whenever you are um you know faced with any type of issue that you might have to be referred out for um and then just overall our goal is to keep our patients healthy and happy but we also want to make sure that costs are staying down from the patients and the employer as well shall we just to reiterate if a referral needs to be given to someone you're you're looking at them no sir okay another thing too that I wanted to quickly hit on is our after hours line um again this is something that I found out recently A lot of my health centers not just ground Cottage so specific but this is something that's often forgotten and it's a great service that's offered at no charge which is huge too so we have an after-hour service that's available seven days a week 365 days a year those calls first get dispatched out to Rebecca the provider if she is able to answer that she will if not it gets spinned out to one of our other proactive indeed providers and that is not for somebody thanks for having a heart attack of course but let's say we were in earlier today and you had a medication prescribed to you you got me understood how to take it you get home and you're like shoot am I supposed to take you after water with us or not because you can call us and we can look up in your chart and say Yep this is what she wants you to do I'll go there or let's say you aren't feeling well do I need to go to the Urgent Care tonight or is it something we can wait for tomorrow so it's really more of a triage system just like any other telemedicine um but it is no charge to you guys which is huge Factor MD health has always been upfront and honest with me the provider's patient kind of understanding never rushes me to get out the door and I truly feel listened to another great testimony up next so I wanted to hit on how you guys not only support your Brown County School Employees here but also the community as a whole um so we have over 700 lives that we see at the health center so part of that is the Brown County Schools but then we also have the government and other small institutions as well to feed into it so not only are you guys supporting your school system but also just the community as a whole and I know everybody's very thankful for that so great job being a true partner foreign [Music] yes since 2018.

edition of flooring replacement that's replacing carpet with vinyl flooring across the district 150 000 in Paving sidewalk and masonry repairs district-wide 150 000 to replace air conditioning units for the central office at Dodd Middle School those are 30 plus years old and fail and in the state of and failing rather um 150 000 for Mason replacement at Highland Elementary School that's going around the facade and working to stop water from getting into that structure 150 000 to do a full study of Doolittle school for potential HVAC building-wide air conditioning in in future years um 125 000 in other masonry Replacements district-wide 125 000 for a ladder Replacements which is an OSHA issue we've gone to a big long discussion of that apparently it's required um interior door replacement hundred thousand dollars worst first basis district-wide hundred thousand dollars for other HVAC improvements district-wide acoustical ceiling Replacements in a hundred thousand dollars district-wide fifty thousand dollars to study our Athletic Complex for future um upgrades as well as for some ADA requirements there um fifty thousand dollars to study boiler systems at Cheshire High School another 50 to study the roofing systems for replacement at Cheshire high school and then fifty thousand dollars for future roof replacement at Highland Elementary School which is currently out of warranty so if you total all that up it comes with three million seven hundred ninety thousand dollars in a nutshell two of those would be going to referendum which would be the park place for The Replacements at Dodd Middle School and 750 000 window replacements to continue the work that's been being done at Treasure High School um which is worth its weight in gold because if you look at some of the windows that are to be replaced those are single pane windows which were installed as building thing was added on to in the early 1970s so I think it's time to take some action with that so that is my summary I hope I did it as fast as possible I I thought that was outstanding and contention of detail is impeccable I'm serious so it's it's uh pay attention so you know it's you know for those that um don't see the very detailed list of capital projects explanations and history it's a lot to absorb so thank you Mr martellian planning committee uh before I ask for motion actually well let's get through the motion so is there emotion from the planning committee there is would you please like make one sure the treasure Board of Education approves The Five-Year capital expenditure plan and budget for improvements to current buildings and the total amount of 52 million three hundred and twenty thousand with three million 790 000 to be funded in year one and with annual allocations as follows 23 24 3 million seven hundred and ninety thousand dollars twenty four twenty five fourteen million five hundred ninety five thousand dollars twenty five twenty six sixteen million seven hundred thousand dollars twenty six twenty seven nine million three hundred and ten thousand dollars and twenty seven twenty eight seven million nine hundred and twenty five thousand dollars is there a second uh ten minutes Hannah first 10 seconds discussion yes um did you did you mention the second through fifth year so basically like a placeholder I didn't but yeah if you wanna okay yeah just so for people who are at home hearing these numbers in years two through five it's 15 million 16 million 10 million the number's relatively big to be clear we don't none of that money would be getting spent or even locked in in any serious way those projects can still move around a crack in the sidewalk maybe replace it in two years from now or fix it if it's not that bad it could get pushed out further um and of course the the money that we're requesting the 3.8 million that is still is up for discussion by the council um but yeah I mean I agree with I agree with Andrew on us having gone through this quite a bit I think that it makes sense to do these projects but is it two referenda question is what we're proposing to the council I do think the based on the feedback that we got from our facilities director Rich clave it does make sense to go to the voters for the 600 000 for the Dodd boiler like Andrew I don't really want to spend money until we have a better plan but this is a fairly urgent project because we can't just and just have a school shut down in the middle of the winter um and I also agree with Andrew 100 that I really want to get started looking at phase two whatever it ends up looking like in the end I have no idea but I think we need to I I do feel that we need to get started on that uh soon because there are so many questions like spending a hundred thousand dollars on a kitchen Renault when you're leaving the house in a couple years it just uh it's something that yeah I don't want to throw good money after bad so that's it anyway I support this motion thank you not even like leaving the house it's almost abandoning the house in some cases you know at least if you're leaving the house you can get an investment value yeah thank you um I just uh I see uh uh definitely be supporting the motion this evening I just had a question some of the uh there's definitely at least one large project uh in this uh Five-Year Plan um are is there a potential for grant money to absorb any of these costs going forward and the short answer is yes there is one some of the projects that are on the list you know if we if we do the projects large enough like window replacements they are eligible for Grant reimbursement the one that we're really hopeful for is the HVAC improvements of the The Five-Year number is 17.4 million dollars and we have the board lobbied you know its legislative Representatives just a couple of months ago that HVAC grant opportunities be extended there were some limited opportunities that expired December 12th we did apply for some Grant but we would like to see School Construction Grants be made available for those HVAC projects so we're hoping that whatever grants we have now actually would get expanded upon because we do have significant HVAC needs across the school district at this time and whenever there is a grant opportunity we certainly you know submit a grant request for it and and we generally get it but the grants are not big enough to offset what we're looking at here on The Five-Year Plan and um if we had a successful application what's the uh hopeful reimbursement amount percentage-wise it's I mean the reimbursement for renovation type projects at this point is 50 percent and again it's always 50 percent of eligible costs so whatever portion of a project is eligible and some are a hundred percent and some or less than that but 50 of eligible great thank you and if I could add and in that vein we um if you look at The Five-Year Plan you know we're planning to do a comprehensive study of Doolittle school for full air conditioning of that building because when the new schools come on in 26 that'll be our only Elementary School it does not have air conditioning so if you look at the plan we bumped up actual air conditioning of that school building into it was going to be in The Five-Year Plan into the second year of this plan in hopes that if this 50 reimbursement is there we do have a plan in hand in order to to put that to the voters to see hey do you want to spend this money for for do a little school and again I think that as we when I started this that knowing kind of where we're going if we know that Doolittle is going to be there for 20 years and it makes sense to do all these things but if duel is not going to be you know it's it's that whole discussion especially like with Dodd Middle School do we spend the money to analyze that school building to do four million dollars of window replacements on that building like do we do that do we look at that building to do air conditioning do you know so it's just all those kind of just wish you had a crystal ball sometimes so um decisions and with data you know we're spending there's 14 million dollars or 15 million dollars worth of projects in this budget and you're not improving the student experience at all you're just keeping the building going so that's all I got any other comments on the motion before us soon as there are none uh yeah and again I want to thank the planning committee and Mr Messianic team for vetting this through especially after a good two years where a lot of these projects would put in a back burner away in the outcome of you know our decision on phase one so some of these have to be done by necessity I don't feel any of the work that's being put forth to the public in year one is throw away money uh or year two for that matter if we get there so these are for public listen to the comments by no means are we putting forth projects where you know we're throwing money away in year one for example that would be uh better used by other parts of projects down the road that's not the case some things have to happen that being said it's up to the planning committee to move forward on the next phase so if the planning mini fuels you're ready to move forward we're all for it the only caveat I have is that right now the school building committee uh is you know heavily engaged which is great but CPS resources are being very heavily used as if we thought they're stolen Miss messiana and Bevy other so I am a little worried of our capacity to do a deep dive right now in phase two while they're and their staff is pretty much um engulfed in helping that Community move forward what I think is a good idea is once we get through this Capital process which will be in the next two months um we should plan on starting discussions and probably April uh May and may the summer be a little quieter moving things forward but absolutely and the reason why that surgeon for me is it took six years to get to this point just with phase one um granted that was looking at a very comprehensive entire school system infrastructure so I'm hopeful at phase two it's not going to take seven years to find you know hopefully less than seven months my opinion so that's very doable so yeah I think we're on the same page Yeah Tim yeah just one more comment I don't think I've mentioned uh with regard to the uh proposed dot boilers for six hundred thousand dollars let's just say hypothetically we were in Dodd for the next 10 years and then decided the town decides that we're not going to use dot anymore the boiler actually could be reused not necessarily just in another school building if there was new construction or something like that but it could just be used in another building it would depend on you know space constraints and all sorts of stuff like that actual gas lines um but it's it's it's something where you could still get something out of it get value out of that investment yeah they're I agree there's uh new assets that we take advantage of but yeah so I look at the end of the day you know we're probably being this drone for a long time the current board board before us and probably next door right there's our buildings are still here still being utilized um they still need work and you know we're trying to do the bare minimum to Capital Improvements to keep things going knowing that you know there's a phase two to be defined so um I think this is great stuff and stuff let's move forward and we'll talk more about the next steps soon so that being said the motion is that the planning committee recommends to the treasure board education the approval of the five-year capital expenditure plan and budget for improvements to current buildings and a total amount of 52 million three hundred and twenty thousand dollars with three million seven hundred and ninety thousand dollars to be funded in Year One and with an annual allocation as follows 2023-24 3 million seven hundred ninety thousand dollars twenty four twenty five fourteen million five hundred ninety five thousand dollars twenty five twenty six sixteen million seven hundred thousand dollars twenty six twenty seven is nine million three hundred and ten thousand dollars twenty seven and Twenty Eight is seven million nine hundred and twenty five thousand dollars uh all those in favor please raise your hands it is unanimous thank you board and as uh Tim and Andrew Dooley noted uh they're really it's year one that will uh you know be uh looked at by a Town Council and hopefully something will referendum years three four and five two three four and five is to be determined as we move on to the next year or so thank you for all the hard work on this I know it's uh but I think I feel we're progressing in the right direction so thank you again that being said we're going to move on to policy committee meeting Mr gripple thank you Mr chair um we uh held the meeting um on uh February 14th um we reviewed uh two policies for a first reading um policy 6140 curriculum and policy 6145 basic instruction uh I said instruction right not construction maybe it's on the instruction basic instruction yeah um they uh both dealt with uh statutory statutory changes um and uh they both dealt with the same subject uh and primarily adding um official language into our policies um for um Asian American and Pacific Islander studies African-American and black studies and Puerto Rican Latino studies um we did have a question on start dates for um uh aapi Asian American Pacific Islander uh study so we did get a clarification after that that would begin uh in 2025.

Kelly here here thank you Ashley we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you and good evening everyone welcome to a uh balmy Thursday night soon to be a very cold Friday night anyway join us weather hopefully you are too wild west uh we have a packed agenda tonight glad to see so many happy smiley faces I'm sure we're here to talk about quite a few things uh but we're going to start out with our student representative reports with Monica and Michael welcome and thanks for being here tonight thank you guys for having us okay so to start us off winter sports playoffs are underway in wrestling track and field and basketball hockey and boys swim playoffs will begin later this month and last Friday senior co-captain Colin Brown had a phenomenal indoor track season and he placed second at the class Al state championship in the 55 meter dash moving on every year Cheshire high school has a volleyball tournament in March throughout the whole school and beginning in January the PE classes play volleyball and gym class and the team with the best record of wins and losses moves on to the tournament where all the best teams will play um in each in class and the peer Health Educators get together for the tournament then the volleyball games continue through February in the tournament in March is a great way for the students to come together as a community also rehearsals for the musical this year The Adams Family are underway and mark your calendars for March 23rd 24th and 25th the kids for kids club is a club at Cheshire High School dedicated to helping kids and recently they sponsored the Valentine's Day candy gram distribution where for three dollars students could write a special note to a friend or a special someone spreading kindness at CHS is what this is all about and it's run by the kids for kids club the Cheshire High School choir will be performing next week a Winter concert at Elam Park and next Friday they will do like a matinee show for the residents there and then they will have their own concert for the evening on Friday and on Saturday and student Senate will also be tagging along to spend some time with the residents the future Business Leaders of America Club mock trial club and deca which are all business clubs at Cheshire High School will attend their respective State competitions early in March which is like the second level and in the past our teams have fared pretty well at the state level so we're hoping to repeat that again this year on February 7th athletes from many sports at Cheshire high school plus numerous faculty coaches and Spectators got together in the west gym at the boys basketball game to honor the outstanding athletic director Mr trafone for his retirement I'm all right so on February 3rd Cheshire high school girls basketball hosted a coaches versus cancer game so the basketball team ran a bake sale to collect money for the American Cancer Society and at the game additional donations were also collected for the society they won in the they won the game in close faction fashion 44-42 so a great game for a great cause and a win-win CJs Juniors Molly Fletcher and Ella Paul have been working hard to plan a cotillion for celebrating inclusion and friendships this Cotillion will simulate a CHS prom and Molly and Ella desire for everyone to have an amazing memory-filled prom especially for classmates with learning or developmental disabilities because they deserve to have those experiences Molly and Ella have been long-time advocates for the special needs community and they're motivated through the amazing friendships they've made through these amazing people through the best buddies Club the event will take place on March 4th from 6 30 to 8 30 PM in the west gym and numerous people have offered to help make it a successful event earlier today student leaders met with Dr Solon for lunch today and we had some fruitful discussions on social emotional learning and complex thinking in addition operation CHS bathrooms is underway so I think Dr Solon has shared the presentation and the video with you guys so you guys probably I think you guys kind of know what's going on with that you know it's just kind of a mess with students having to walk around around the whole school because bathrooms are locked because of vandalism and stuff so we really trying to approve that and yesterday during advisory student leaders went around to advisor classes and they gave the presentation and they showed the video to students and so far the feedback has been great you know all the students want it to be better they wanted to have change and I think the 61 025 was a big shock to some students and I'm thinking they all want it to go to better towards better causes so that's a big positive for CHS and in addition the boys bathroom Improvement squad or bbis for short has just started officially started up today so this is a group of guys who go around to the bathrooms and they do a sweep of the bathrooms what is a sweep a sweep consists of removal of debris flushing of toilets that need it spraying air freshener to keep our bathrooms fresh and cleaning the mirrors as a symbolic representation of clean bathrooms and what we stand for at CHS in doing all this our goal is that we can create lasting change where bathrooms can be safe open and clean to use and a big part of this group is that we want to be a positive influence on other people we want to lead by example and be positive role models for CHS and we want to strive to inspire others as well as we do this um yeah that's all the announcements we have today thank you guys so much for listening thank you Monica Michael uh before I say anything any questions or comments from the board yes Mr Ripple uh Michael I just wanted to let you know that um your your presentation from our last meeting inspired me to inquire and ask the planning committee to look into a uh hardened security for the bathrooms to add uh RFI it was RFID technology or explore that yeah to add to so you can check in and out of the bathroom to see what it'll cost compared to you know the actual damages we incur every year so we're hopefully we'll embark on a cost benefit analysis of that so thank you for the inspiration absolutely all right yes Ian quickly I think that acronym's gonna stick bbis yes well it's interesting Dr Sone shared your presentation uh with the board and a couple questions and wonder can can uh can we make this public uh yeah it was available publicly okay um I will certainly be promoting it I think it's a great uh great cause great way to help stem the issue um when students are speaking up for students I think that goes a long way so thank you all of CHS for doing this but I really love the last slide with the with the Cheshire Ram where the slogan is vandalism is not cool keep that clean bathrooms rule which has t-shirts for that that might that might supersede your I don't know don't move the Comfort yeah anyway um any any other questions for Monica and Michael Cena's Aaron thank you so much for the update much appreciated thanks for your time for being here as well so hopefully uh you have to stay but if you do no problem enjoy your evening absolutely thank you so much for having us our pleasure up next we have a school partnership award for Darcy's School Mr gripple and Dr Solomon good evening everybody um so uh tonight we're going to be uh awarding a school partnership award um for Nicole Potter and I will be using the words of principal Kim desert uh Nicole Potter became part of the Darcy Community several years ago attending the parent center shortly after that her daughter Addison became a student in the preschool Addison is now in first grade at Norton school and Grayson followed in her footsteps attending Darcy Darcy preschool last year and this year is participating in our Smart Start program in a few years Darcy is excited to be getting her third child Preston instantly Nicole became part of the Darcy Community by becoming a PTA member and helping wherever and whenever possible Nicole is always a smile always has a smile on her face and can and it can do attitude whether it be organizing teacher appreciation week or selling Darcy spirit wear if you have if you have had the pleasure of attending pizza night or the ice cream social you were most likely welcome and assisted by Nicole and her husband Austin with other obligations presenting themselves to our current PTA president Nicole has stepped up and jumped in since September picking up the PTA mail fulfilling t-shirt and sweatshirt orders and making sure PTA news gets out to parents this past December at our book fair the court the book this past December at our book fair the coordinator had a sick child at home when Nicole heard this without being asked she came to Darcy with baby in tow it in unpacked set up broke down and packed up the book fair well um without Nicole the book fair would have been not ready for families in the midst of the book fair hundreds of poinsettias were delivered to Darcy Darcy school and again Nicole jumped jumped right in and unloading and sorting the plants Nicole reaches out for the benefit of Darcy students families and staff never expecting recognition we are extremely fortunate to call Nicole Potter a dear friend to Darcy School the Board of Education thanks Nicole Nicole for going above and beyond for the students of Darcy School congratulations Nicole [Applause] sure [Applause] thank you [Applause] very much so it's not working yet up next we have a Cabe Award of Excellence which is me so we have a special award from Cade which is the Connecticut Association of boards I can't talk my back towards people but I'll try uh and for a record normally this award is presented by Liz Brown who is the president of Cape Liz cannot be here this evening she's been trying to present this for a couple months now and we don't want to prolong it any longer so I was asked to present it full transparency I also belong uh to the cave board of directors as an associate throughout their exact committee but I have no influence on this award uh you know Matt earned this all on his own so I do have the honor and privilege of presenting this award this evening this award is called the Bonnie B Carney Award of Excellence for educational Communications and is given to entries who meet all the following criteria first projects contain a Clarity of message image and consistency second the projects mean height standards of readability graphic quality presentation design and value Cabe has been honoring school districts with the Award of Excellence for educational communication since 1975.

thank you yes thank you so much Carlos so with that Maribel would you please kindly call to Rome today is a special board meeting of February 16 2023 at night at 6 30 PM members of the board in attendance president man Pham president vice president today clerk Andres Quintero president member Linda Chavez present members of administration superintendent Dr Bauer person okay so with that will move to the land acknowledgment the Board of Trustees at the Alum Rock Union Elementary School District does hereby are knowledge that the district schools and Facilities sit on the traditional lands of the Milwaukee people and the Board of Trustees further acknowledges with respect and reverence being away people tribe of the San Francisco Bay area for their stewardship of these lands so uh at this time I would like to ask uh you know my colleagues and members of administration to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay thank you very much so we will move on to part section two superintendent Board of business item 2.01 announcement aboard vacancy consideration of recommendation to suspend in wave section of or bylaw 9223 specifying special meeting one week before appointment for purposes of provisional appointment process established process procedures and timelines for provisional appointment to field board vacancy so with that now I will go ahead and open item 2.01 to public comment uh Carlos is there any public comment on the item Mr President there are no requests for oh I'm sorry there is a request for public comment from Steve Navarro Steve uh you have two minutes to talk please submit yourself the timer will begin once you begin speaking hello board um I'm gonna kind of cut to the chest because I don't have a lot of time um I'm curious to find out what the purpose of the meeting is today I understand that the need um to kind of move quickly through the agenda um but it concerns me that there isn't um you know Clarity on exactly what this meeting is about and especially the waving of procedure without a discussion around around that without comments from the public because I I don't understand what the nature of this is you know with only two minutes before my time right now to express those concerns I'm curious to find out you know what others may have to say from the larger community and why are we here basically today so I'm hoping that the board will address that be completely transparent on the whys and what brought this together it may have been from another meeting I understand that and I apologize if I weren't there to to to participate in that and see that but in the end I'm concerned about what I see today and right now it feels like you guys are fast tracking something without a lot of understanding on on the why so that's I'm what I'm asking for from the board is specifics on exactly what what is bringing this about why the need for a special ad hoc meeting as opposed to dealing with this during regular a regular session it also concerned to me because I was reading about there being a potential vacancy and what are the circumstances around that especially with regard to um whether there's an appointment of an of a provisional member versus maybe for example a special election to fill that seat I I'm really concerned as a parent to find out what the circumstances are and to understand the process so I'm hoping that the board can wear that out and that's my time thanks thank you okay Carlos oh Louise I'm sorry Louise that's right um there are no uh requests for public comment at this time I'm sorry one more person one uh one please don't mute yourself you have two minutes to talk time I will start when you begin talking hi there uh similar as um I share similar concerns as a previous Community member um I just want to see what the purpose of this meeting is I understand that there's a board of vacancy um and I want to understand more of why we're trying to sort of rush the process um instead of pretty much cheering all sides out and with that I yield my time okay thank you uh Luis yes there is one more person uh Nancy a Dancy you have two minutes to talk please submit yourself hi thank you um my name is Nancy I'm a parent uh for a child attending Linda Vista he's in fourth grade and um there's a serious bullying issue going on that has been going on um and I would like to know how this is being addressed um I know there are dozens of parents who are also going through the same challenge and I don't see any new changes being implemented um supervision during recess and lunch play is not sufficient there's only two individuals out there most of the time and that's during the time that a lot of Bullying happens um so that's my main concern right now is that bullying is is a critical issue it's affecting our children it's affecting my child and I would like to know what the plans are for the district to affect this not only at Linda Vista but in all the schools in our district are you able to answer during my time unfortunately the board cannot respond to questions uh directly in public comment thank you so thank you again for your uh oh I still have time I think there was about a minute left I'm not done then if I still have that time can we set the clock back oh and and also and um it needs to be specifically to the uh item on the agenda at hand so do you have anything to speak on the item uh subject item at hand to my understanding the Robert's Rules of the brown act um I could speak to to anything it doesn't necessarily have to be on the agenda I know once the public comment section has passed then yes we do have to keep the discussion to the agenda topics only but to my understanding the law states that we are able to have a public comment and it does not need to be specified and and related to the agenda I mean um you know normally you know in a in a regular meeting yes you are right but uh may I ask uh general counsel uh you know uh you know public comment in a special meeting needs to be limited to the item uh agenda's item on hand that's correct for the brown act um in a spec for a special meeting public comment may be limited by the district to only those items that are on the special meeting agenda okay um the next person is uh Stephen Navarro Mr Navarro uh you have two minutes to talk please submit yourself oh sorry about that there was uh Mr President there's no more requests for public comment okay uh seeing us further comment we'll move to uh discussion by discussion uh by the board on item 2.01 oh superintendent Bauer is there this is right this meeting is primarily for the board to consider the process by which the board is going to select a provisional appointment to the vacancy created by uh Ernesto bejerano as of Tuesday uh February 14th and so we are just following exactly what the board policy dictates so the board has um gather to approve the process and then once the board approves the process that is going to be determined tonight then there will be uh another meeting for um the board to deliberate on that provisional appointment thank you superintendent so I don't know if the board wants to consider item 2.01 we have announced the board vacancy and you will consider the recommendation to suspend and wave section of the more by law 92 and 23 specifying special meeting one week before appointment for purposes of provisional appointment process established process procedures and timelines vacancy the board vacancy 92 23 establishes those Logistics that the board has already approved the only thing that the board will consider is to waive that one extra meeting for that to happen we still have to have another board meeting for the board to get the different applicants and move forward tonight you need to deliberate in terms of waiving that you need to establish timelines and the the uh date for the potential meeting for approval for the appointment okay thank you superintendent I see Claire Quintero yeah um I'm I a lot of the terms that were thrown out and people are concerned and had and raised I think there are fair points a lot of these things happen fairly quick and it came to uh to myself and as a surprise um that uh we no longer have a colleague due to the resignation and so I appreciate the comments that are they're erased and that's exactly what's happening it's a this is a public meeting it was agenda is in accordance to the law and uh we're just disclosing uh What uh what took place and what needs to happen uh some of the concerns um have uh that have been brought up are about uh why didn't we wait for a regular meeting and we do have timelines uh if the board doesn't act then it automatically goes to the uh County Superintendent to go ahead and call for an election another special election is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination is incredibly expensive and it's money that uh would be better suited to be used in our school district to educate our children and so it's for that reason that I'm more that I'm that I am inclined and I will be supportive of an appointment rather than moving forward a special election given the fact that it will take uh the precious little resources that we already do have um and uh and use them for something other than education so um in terms of a a process I'm supportive of an appointment and I'm supportive of something that moves rather quickly that way we do not fall into any sort of situation where we wind up handing over uh the authority that belongs to this board to accounting superintendent and what force the county superintendent to act thank you uh presidents um commented that the that it's rushed um like trustee Quintero said that um if we do wait then it's going to cost the district more money and it's not a little bit of money the last time I looked into it uh about how much a special election would cost it would cost 120 000 to the district and I don't see why this should go to the county and have and hold a special election because with the last three appointments that we've done in the last eight years it's gone smoothly and it you know was it it's there's always like a question that'll come up but um I think that the ones who do want to step up don't have a fair chance to and that's all my comments thank you thank you well at this point I would um if you're accepting I would make a motion to adopt the recommended timeline and the procedures um and that we've moved forward [Music] bylaws that we that we buy except for the waiver and with the thinking okay um I just need timelines in terms of when how long this needs to be advertised and when will be the potential next meeting for this to happen so that it's included in the item you know a week-long advertising that's fine yeah okay okay maker of emotion accepts and second or exams so uh and then in terms of uh accepting applications um you would have the staff to be able to receive everything and appropriately if it's by next Friday yes we will have we'll make it happen can you explain to the public how we've done it in the past so it'll be clear and concise what they should expect please sure in the past we have had approximately a week also at advertising and applicants have about a week to be able to send their application then there will be an application online that will be they can download and print we will accept the applications electronically and there's uh the elect the electronic address where they need to send the application and then we will also place uh if it's next by next Thursday um the deadline then we will put we will have we will receive paper applications here in the district office uh all the way to four o'clock P.M and does the same thing that we have done in the past all right so what they we have a motion from tarot second by trustee Chavez seeing no further comment by the board I'll move to a vote uh the Quintero I'm trustee Chavez hi and myself building I item passes uh three to zero with uh vice president Herrera loera absent okay so with that we'll move to adjournment uh and so the the meeting is adjourned at 6 47 pm thank you very much

[Music] do do ctors [Music] thank you [Music] let's go [Music] [Applause] [Music] on top of the time [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] faction s [Applause] [Music] thank you summertime [Music] foreign [Music] la la [Music] birthday [Applause] [Music] Taco Time [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] afraid [Music] hey look at that look Everybody Run power of the gavel sorry oh thank you welcome everyone we're gonna reconvene from closed session and we'll have a pledge of allegiance and moment of silence led by our our student representative of the board I'm Cara cutre see the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with Liberty University um before I proceed to the moment of math less or the mo yeah I'll give a brief context to it so a new worry has risen for my generation of students just one week ago my English classroom was locked down lights off and everyone was dead silent as we practiced the stage 3 lockdown I remember looking round in the room in the dark and feeling a fear well up inside of me although I knew it was just a drill unfortunately that fear was very much real on February 13th of this year when three students at Michigan State University passed away from a shooting their threat as an only person with students however on January 21st a shooting occurred in Monterey Park please join me for a couple moments in silence to dedicate to those that have been affected by such shootings and memory of those that could have been here that could have been with us here today however all right so we'll begin Our Moment of Silence thank you thank you for unfortunate words do you smoke tonight so we all are are with those families that are affected by what you were just talking about so thank you again uh now we'll have the closed session report by our Clerk oh thank you Mr President item 4.1 no reportable action taken regarding public employee performance evaluation superintendent item 4.2 no reportable action taken regarding anticipated litigation 4.3 the Board of Trustees unanimously approve the settlement agreement in oah case number 2022100321 resolving all issues and students do processing complaint by providing compensate compensatory education reimbursements 4.4 the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the settlement agreement in oah case number 2022100342 resolving all issues and students due process complaint by providing compensatory education and other reimbursements 4.5 no reportable action taken regarding negotiations 4.6 no reportable action taken regarding Personnel 4.7 the Board of Trustees unanimous voted to accept the agreement with employee hr-202022-23-11 4.8 the Board of Trustees took formal action with a four one vote to approve the expulsion of student 22-16 thank you thank you Madam Clerk and now we'll have a student representative the board I'll begin with saying Happy Valley happy late Valentine's Day to the board and here is the school report well shout out for the Anaheim on January 26th both Sycamore and South Junior High School students visited Anaheim High School to take a visit at what anime has to offer them so it's a showing of the Anaheim Union High School District family coming together at CVA they had a celebration ceremony where the ASB and other CBA staff came in together to celebrate students for their attendance GPA and other admirable qualities that were highlighted within the student body at Cyprus the Cyprus co-ed cheer team brought home the Southern California CIF Regional Championship title and it's not also that's not their sole accomplishment they also placed third at the cheer Pros state championship at Gilbert's student went to Chapman University for the Mas field trip to learn about the opportunities of a two-year Community College transfer to Fullerton Community College and other college life facts at catella the ASB class at high school organized a service on Dance for those that are differently abled the dance was Marvel themed and I heard they had loads of fun on Kennedy um Mr zabala invited Kennedy alumni Karina Torres and other successful alumni to speak to students about their experiences and to build an Alumni network within the school another showing of the agency family coming together just beyond high school as well at loera students set up a basketball tournament for the different labeled and it was an amazing event they had many activities going on as well as students mingled together and once again loads of fun at Oxford the Oxford Academy Vietnamese Student Association and Chinese language and culture clubs held a week-long celebration for the Lunar New Year they had districts line dance teaming and they had drum teams and it was simply a beautiful display of cultures at Magnolia and I know other schools also had the opportunity to do this they had a servathon event and at manoli specifically the event was aimed at providing support to elderly residents in the community so they wrote letters and it was great Outreach at Savannah they held a performance task assessment of a Civic inquiry project so senior juniors seniors found a topic that they were passionate about they researched about it and they attempted to make a change in our community once again showing our five season how students are being driven to making a change in our community because of a Regis D schools and at Western during International week Western students participated in chalk art they sold different cultural foods and basically celebrated the diversity that is at Western High School so that is what ahc schools have been up to recently thank you sounds like a very busy time throughout the district so always appreciate your reports and we get a report every board meeting from you and it's always very accurate and exciting to hear because we appreciate what everybody's doing throughout the district so thank you again um so we do we have any student speakers in the audience that wishing wishing to speak tonight okay seeing none I like to recognize some people in the audience tonight first of all we have Mr James Grant from Asta thank you for being here we have Dr Kelly Kennedy from assistant superintendent from ROP and sitting next to her is Kathy Kent Administration from ROP and we have Sergio Contreras from United Way where where is she well you're behind behind James I didn't see a gale thank you Gail Harris from uh ROP also so thank you I still can't see you there you go thank you James sit like that thank you very much all right very good uh so now we will have reports Mr James Durand care to report tonight all right hello everybody uh good evening to the auhsd trustees District cabinet staff and guests with us tonight as spring approaches we are often celebrating so much that has been accomplished by our members with our students and Community this year is no different the time and effort and heart that all of our employees have put into supporting our students in the classroom our families on campus and our communities in the surrounding neighborhoods has been remarkable the way our students are being prepared for their Futures and the way our families are being empowered is strengthening our community as a whole this work began before the pandemic but our resolve and commitment to each other and our students has truly shined as we have come through the aftermath the last two years have brought us more resources than we have ever seen in public education and our collaboration and shared leadership with our education Partners resulted in using those resources as well as any District in the country more teachers through class size reduction more social workers more psychologists more counselors and other support staff have all been brought in to address the needs from the pandemic and other under addressed societal issues from housing and food insecurity to physical and mental health care we all know the differences that we have been able to make because of the relationships that we have been able to build with more students and families because of the new people we have brought in we also know that the financial future can be uncertain and our enrollment and attendance Trends must be addressed we call on the district to continue with the shared leadership model to collaborate and find a way to keep teachers and support staff in place any position that is lost is also a relationship with students and families that will no longer be there for support we have seen the power of these relationships grow in scope and in number over the last two years let's make the commitment to finding the resources and moving forward with all them thank you thank you James do we have anybody from PTA this evening okay scene done we'll move on to recognition we have Orange County United Way was the first one up since 1924 Orange County United Way has been at the Forefront of Health and Human care services in Orange County Orange County United Way collaborates with non-profit agencies corporate partners and generous donors to meet the greatest needs of the community Orange County United Way has provided funding to the Anaheim Union High School District which has supported numerous District programs such as the Anaheim collaborative which assists in developing a systemic approach to providing all students with College and Career Readiness opportunities Orange County United Way has also been in donated funding to support the district's paid summer student internship opportunity through the aim Innovative Anaheim Innovative mentoring experience called aim as well as the Independent Learning Centers and Dr freed yeah so this is a two-part it's a recognition and it's also a presentation so I don't know if you would like to do the recognition photo op first sure one can transition to the presentation I'll introduce our speakers so all right please two pictures okay where is it departure board you're you're our wife very good thank you off the look hang on there Sergio for one second he has officially moved to 8.1 we can move to 8.1 yes I'm sorry yes 8.1 all right what is my distinct honor and pleasure to introduce a true friend to auhsd Sergio Contreras he is the executive director for United Way and I am just honored to have you here tonight to share the great work that you're doing in partnership with our district so Sergio I'm gonna go ahead over to you thank you so much for the opportunity um I really do appreciate it um Sergio again contrars with the Orange County United Way um really an honor to be here and to be able to celebrate with you and share some of the great work that we're doing here in Orange County again for those of you who may not know who who are what the Orange County is but we're nearly 100 year old non-profit serving Orange County helping uplift families out of poverty through housing Financial develop or financial stability and of course the work that we do here with you which is education we've been a proud partner Lisa's I've been at the United Way for the past 10 years and really proud to be able to partner with some of your great Visionaries which back then was a teacher on special assignment I believe who is now superintendent of Anaheim Union High School District we met years ago almost 10 years ago and we talked about how do we move students forward how do we prepare students for jobs of today and years to come and we collaborated and we birthed together some great initiatives I believe we provide seed funding for the p21 initiative you remember way back when and we supported the anion collaborative as well as I think it was sustainability conference and a servathon and aim there's so many great initiatives that were just birthed out of just people who came together and saw a need to prepare our students for the future so again I'm very proud to be here I just want to really quickly share I know my time is limited so I want to share a little bit about what we do in partnership with Anaheim Union High School District a lot of it you may have seen and a lot of me and I know of because you are a very large district and we do our best to serve as many students as possible and I just want to uh really quickly before I get started um recognizing and introduce to you the power behind some of the work that we do you priorities who is our associate director raise your hand there who drives a lot of the work here in Anaheim particularly in work-based learning so we're just going to get started here we have a slideshow we are a small But Mighty team um majority I believe it or not almost half of our team are interns which is amazing I mean these are all students who've come through the work that we do in their college interns they're very much committed to the work that we do again the United Way the work that we do here we I lead the United for Student Success initiative which again Works to help students stay on track graduate high school on time College and Career ready and of course life ready um we also believe that not only should students graduate on on time but we want them to graduate financially literate physically mentally fit and of course be prepared for life be resilient and um we don't do this alone we do it only in partnership with school districts like Anaheim Union and our corporate partners that serve the community we have about over 700 people that are invested in the work that we do here in Orange County 700 people in our organizations some of the work that we do again is here with Anaheim Union specifically our um our youth Career Connections work which focuses on Career Readiness and and connecting students with careers of the future in healthcare engineering arts and media and business so a lot of it again you've already you're already doable again we're doing a partnership we're being classroom speakers to school sites where we have entrepreneurship boot camp we have college and live prep academies in the summer we just recently launched a First Responders Academy which a good chunk of your students were from um Anaheim Union that participated in the initiative we also have College Prep Readiness helping students prepare for everything from identify the college they're going to go to finance financial aid we also make sure that they prepare their statements I mean really looking for ways to create leadership in Orange County not only by preparing students for college and talking about college but also giving the opportunity to dig in and and really experience what it's like to be a leader we have a student Alumni network a student advisory Council really much comprised of a lot of Anaheim Union High School students that actually go back into the community and help provide workshops for for our families students and families on college readiness we also have a e-mentorship initiative again a big chunk of these programs are really driven by a lot of our students from Anaheim Union High School District some of the workshops that we provide are families are domestifying college myths parent Workshop where we teach parents about college and what some of the what their students are going through a lot of times our parents especially our first generation college students have no clue what their students are going into or preparing for much less wanting to leave their home because you know they have to live at home until like 25 years old but we want to make sure that they're that they're getting the support they need to go on College and Beyond and live life so we do a lot of work with parents we do have again a college prep Summer Academy where we look to make sure we give students all these tools they need we do also serve our undocumented undocumented student population making sure they have all the information they need to stay on track we do it in Partnerships again with also with like UCI and again provide these college prep workshops for students and their families um just a little bit some stats on the number of students that participate in our programming as you can see almost half of the students at programs that we run are students from Anaheim Union High School District whether it be our workshops whether it be our leadership academies whether it be our e-mentorship initiative again a lot of those students are from Anaheim Union um youth Career Connections I talked a bit about that again making sure that students have not only we talk about college but we give them the exposure by bringing in classroom speakers the higher I know works a lot with a lot of your schools but like Savannah bringing Healthcare speakers to school sites to teach students about some of these careers are available to them we do take some of your students out on field trips to different companies here in Orange County I mentioned the First Responders Academy this is I think our second year we've done this and I believe a great big chunk maybe 60 percent were from Anaheim Union High School District we offer again we also have a startup boot camp and Entrepreneurship bootcamp we kicked off last year we're on our second year where we're teaching students everything from dreaming the idea to actually executing a business starting it and launching it we have a lot of great Partners in the community to come together to help us through these exciting exciting create these exciting opportunities um again corporate speakers we talked a little bit about that we provide an industry side visits again those field trips we talked about um I just want to touch a little bit on the summer career Life Academy this is for students that aren't although I know aim I know Anaheim Union works really hard to provide students with summer internships to give them that real world career experience but some unfortunately Orange County is not and a lot of our companies are not ready to have so many high school students participate but we want to give these students that opportunity and we actually do everything but the internship everything from helping them build a resume learn how to interview for a job how to do we give them some mock interviews everything from researching the career they'd like and we provide them with their scholarship so as much as we want to provide them with this stuff with actual internship this is the next best thing so again a big chunk of these students are from Anaheim Union High School District um we talked about our boot camp personal Academy again here's some more number percentages of how many students participate in some of these opportunities that are from Anaheim Union we do have our Disney speaker series this is a great partnership with Disney and Anaheim Union High School District we are currently running a program for about 200 students at four different School sites simultaneously running workshops on Career Readiness for students so that's a very exciting project where we actually have one session where the Disney speakers shows up at and then we broadcast it to three different sites and we do our best to have that interaction and almost as if that person is right in front of them and so we do that um I think this is our fifth year or I mean our fifth year we've done this at the end we take them to Disneyland they provide they're part of a leadership Workshop that Disney provides for them but again this is a great opportunity a great partnership with Anaheim Union and the Disney Walt Disney Company um e-mentorship I just want to touch a little bit about that this is our I believe our fourth year or third year for e-mentorship this is actually launched during the pandemic we found a lot of families were struggling a lot of students were struggling with mental health issues and challenges one from losing a family member or a parent losing a job we wanted to keep these high school seniors on track and provide them the support they needed to cross that finish line so we're very proud to launch this initiative we had we hosted about 300 students one year and we've paired it down a little bit now that things have kind of calmed down but we've partnered them with a career professional providing some mentoring role model to really look at and support that student with some workshops and of course some support some whatever that might be for that student maybe an ear or maybe a direction or a reference point to help them continue moving forward we're very proud that that work and again the first year we had about 86 students from Anaheim Union second year we had 75 and this year we have 73 students that we're serving these are 73 High School seniors they're getting that extra support they need to stay on track for graduation ending and in this in closing um that's the stuff that we do in kind that's not directly paid for by Anaheim Union High School District we're doing this for the United Way and the support that we get from our funders um we're very proud over the last five years we've been able to provide Anaheim Union with nearly a million dollars in support uh 826 thousand dollars to support initiatives like aim the Anaheim collaborative destination graduation which provides tutoring and support for the AVID program and of course ilc um High School Dropout prevention initiative but again 826 000 over the last five years were provided directly to Anaheim Union thanks to our corporate partners and funders so with that said I just want to say thank you so much I'm over my time thank you for the opportunity to come by and say hello we're very very honored to be able part of the Anaheim Union High School District family the fact that you've opened their doors and allows to partner with you and your Venture as you continue visioning and going out on skinny uh on real I call it thin ice because the work that you do really is Cutting Edge for our schools here in Orange County this is probably the only School District that we work with that is already living in the future thinking about ways of connecting students to Great careers and Ai and again amazing work you're doing great big thank you to you the leadership the board and of course your partners your staff your administrators and your superintendent who always picks up the phone and looks for different ways for us to leverage resources from our from our corporate Partners to ensure that students all receive access and equity and a quality public education with that thank you very much president may I have a point of Personal Privilege I just wanted to just also point out that not only is Sergio uh advocate for us in our district and a fantastic partner but in his personal life he has been of service in the community in his City and if you haven't been in Westminster lately it was his brainchild to really highlight a case that was occurred in in Orange County that led to a bigger case for you know all of the United States so Mendez versus Westminster if you haven't heard of that look it up but Sergio found that in his City there wasn't a lot of of History being taught about it and and really I think things were kind of been tucked up tucked away in a in a drawer somewhere some you know newspaper clippings and things and so uh he actually uh uh found some land and you well why don't you get up and and just really briefly just really because I think it's really important because it's important for everyone to know what you um did with a lot of help of course um and and but you were the the Visionary of this project thank you so much and and I'm glad I get to make that quick plug because um it's actually called the Mendez Monument Park as you may or may not know Mendez was a precursor to Brown versus the Board of Education so school did segregation happened here first in Orange County and it started as uh part of the Westminster versus Mendez versus Westminster case and it happened in my hometown of Westminster and up until uh this year there had been no landmarks no markers no recognition of this Landmark civil rights case and so thanks to the support of the Department of Ed the state of California we're able to identify a chunk of land and I was able to Champion or Orange County's first Mendes versus Westchester Monument Park which is not only just a park with a statue of the Mendez family but students across Orange County are invited to visit the park it's actually uh there's there's virtual reality students can break out their phone and hear from Sylvia Mendez herself about the Mendez case they could visit different kiosks and and scan the little code there and get a story and then in-depth history or overview of them in this case and why it's so important to us today as we continue like you do here at the Anaheim Union High School District fight for equity and inclusion for all students to make sure they all receive a quality public education so I want to encourage Anaheim Union High School District to visit Westminster Mendez Monument Park tour it is amazing I was actually had the honor to cut the ribbon this this year so really is a beautiful place and a great story for Orange County because you know it's it actually really is a blessing it's a great story and it was always the best kept secret and it's unfortunate but today we could celebrate that story and talk about what great things we can do together as we move forward I'll stop there thank you thank you does anybody else have anything to say well thank you so much Sergio for all that you do through United Way and off obviously personally too we appreciate that and uh your overtime no problem we uh we appreciate you being here come back anytime we're always interested in having you here thank you so much next we have um therapy dogs in educational settings and Dr frieden uh actually or I'm sorry Dr Anin um so we have Tony here um from the OC animal allies and pet partners and Tony also works for us [Laughter] so transition to warm and fuzzy okay hi I want to thank the board for giving me this opportunity to share with you my passion for teaching kindness and community service my name is Tony Stroud and I'm a member of OC animal allies and pet partners International and I have raised two children and in our house our motto was in this house we do service and so I after I became an empty nester I decided I needed to find some way that I could take my volunteerism and combine it with my love of animals and join those together and I could be able to do that through pet therapy so um my journey started about 10 years ago when um the tragedy of Sandy Hook happened and a group of parents from Sandy Hook got together and created a group called Charlotte's litter and on that they went out to schools and they were their goal was to increase empathy and compassion improve self-esteem reduce anxiety and increase confidence so now that I had my mission and my goal I needed to find my teammate so this is my pack and as you can see I have a fetish for um Siberian huskies and my black and white is lava and she is my seven-year-old I have a red and white Dakota who is six years old and I have a all-white Nepali who's one-year-old lava shows me all her her personality and her traits that she wanted to go out into the public and do good and follow directions with me and just give back a lot of love Dakota is definitely not ever going to be a therapy dog he he beats walks to his own beat and Nepali is on my therapy dog in training I get past the puppy stage and we hope to be able to have him join us on our therapy Adventure so um after I had now that I have determined that lava I wanted to share with you that lava is my dog that I've determined it will be a great therapy dog I needed to make sure she was well trained so I went and went through uh beginning intermediate and Advanced Training and after that then we took a therapy dog class that exposed us to wheelchairs Walkers long white coats slippery floors elevators so that she would do wonderful when we were out in the community working on this and then we took our Canine Good Citizen test so which he passed with flying colors now I needed to find my groups that I want I could go out and be part of a therapy team with so that's where I found OC animal allies and um my uh make sure I'm on the right thing okay so I did OC animal allies and it is a group that is a non-profit here in locally in Orange County and they go out in groups of two two up to 15 if we're at Special Olympics we need up to 15 teams going out and we go out in groups the pet partners International is an individual team that I can go out individually go on their website and find events that I need to part take in and I can also go out one-on-one with my team to a school site or to um where and I will be covered under their policies and procedures so the rules and regulations with these groups they have written policies that I had to pass they had Hands-On tests that I needed to pass before and then I needed to present my Veterinary had my vet clear that we have a healthy dog that is up to date on all her vaccines and then I was went through security clearance had to be fingerprinted and background check with both groups so these are both non-profit organizations and I joined both and have had a wonderful opportunity to work with both of these groups now after I found out what all this was I wanted to show you this is a list of just some of the visits we've done and lava and I are part of airpods international airpods and we go to the John Wayne Airport and we relax people regarding for the crew with the passengers and yes we were there doing Southwest shut down okay to help out we do library reading programs so we go to Stanton Library and La Palma library and the children come get a book reach the dog who is non-judgmental and it helps tremendously with this I also do Orangewood Children's Home monthly visits we've gone out to companies and we've gone to schools we're really great at high schools because during our um our regular when we're in finals the stress level is high and so we come in to relax the kids and it's been a wonderful experience and we've gotten so much at what we've given to them but we've also gotten so much out of this so when I was doing all this I found out that I wanted to make it easier for the schools to get their big groups onto their campus it's kind of a tough thing to do they're short in Supply because they need to be retired or they need to have be look working in the right area and it's a little difficult so about four years ago I did a presentation to cata which is California activities Directors Association and they had a conference down in San Diego and I prepared a presentation so they could see all the different therapy teams that were up and down the state of California and they could find out and I also wanted to support them with documentation so that they could see different things they could give to their Administration about that the benefits of therapy dogs so we came up with article I had articles I came up with them I found a wonderful teacher up north that teaches service through her students by working with guide dogs for the Blind and puppy raisers and she's raised over 56 puppies through her system having dogs on campus so a wonderful service organization came up with a research paper that uses dogs in California public schools and I have guidelines insurance policy information news articles and reference letters that are totally available to you guys so I wanted to share with you that for the last six years leware high school has had love week the first week of December and during that we bring out the dogs to come to this so these are you know a grouping of pictures from Over the six years and the kids and what a wonderful time we've had and I want to share with you quickly two little quick stories I noticed that lava has an affinity to special needs students and I see that she's drawn to them and there to her and it makes me just so proud and warm and fuzzy but this last year when in December we had um eight teams of dogs on our campus it was great and we had some students that are official their gang members on our campus and they're tough guys and they came out to our dog therapy event and intermingled with us and we had the best conversations regarding their dogs our dogs their love of dogs and it just opened up so many avenues for discussing with these kids and then after we had this event the kids went back and were showing all the pictures with their teachers of what was your favorite dog how you had a great time so I wanted to make sure that after this event happened my principal received a phone call saying that the district office said there was no dogs allowed on campus so um that hurt me because six years ago we got permission six years ago I went to my principal we went to the school board or school district and rounded a little bit and then we were given verbal permission to come and be on school campuses I kind of done some research I have not found a board policy I've not found a pers you know a policy regarding dogs on campus I understand that there have been a couple incidents where staff members have brought their dogs their animals on campus and there's been bites there's um and I don't know what I guess what I want to share with you is that these groups that I'm part of they've done the work for you they've vetted the individuals we have the security checks and we have the insurance policies to cover for this so my goal is to always have pet therapy and unlimited benefits welcome on all of our school campuses I'd like to have our school it's set up a policy to cover animals on campus so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel every couple of years I feel this presentation is step one our goal should be to have school board policy that is clear and helpful to all other groups to come in the future I don't know how much work it takes to do board policy but I have found through research and an excellent example of numerous schools in California that have dressed both personal pets and therapy animals there are limit unlimited possibilities for having dogs on campus from therapy dogs to guide dogs for the blind puppy raisers but we need to set the proper procedures so that every school can benefit I hope this presentation was helpful I thank you for your time and I look forward to step number two and I wanted to say thank you to my helper is Paola Gonzalez which some of you might recognize she was the school board student representative to our district in 2011 and she is now a teacher at lower high school and she loves puppies and she isn't actually a puppy raiser for the guy go for the blind so she has helped me with this and I wanted to thank you for your time and I hope we can move forward with this and if you have any questions thank you Mr Stroud any board have any questions okay well thank you for your presentation appreciate it thank you okay moving on to public comments we have one um one person Mr Matthew Griffin don't recognize him in the audience where could he be familiar good evening good evening thank you so much I'm gonna add a little color to our Podium here if you don't mind my name is Matthew Griffin I am a very proud assistant principal at Western High School and we wanted to come and share some information about the various areas that the assistant principals cover at Western High School the area that I'm talking about today is Athletics and I was supposed to have a lot of athletes with me tonight but let me point out that our boys soccer program this year 37 percent of our varsity team was ninth graders 38 percent were 10th graders and then made up with the 11th and 12th I'd like to point out that 10 50 percent of the entire team has higher than a 3.0 GPA so they're home doing homework foreign that was their first semester GPA during competition by the way so the Western High School family wants to thank our district leadership and our Board of Trustees for this opportunity to speak we also wanted to extend a huge sense of gratitude to our board and cabinet for your continued support and for the exciting work ahead in equipping Western High School with a Competitive Edge that we demonstrate each year on the field of play Western High School has persevered and brought continued pride and excitement to our school our community and our district our football team this year is the 2022 orange League champions this makes five years consecutive League championships and went to the third round CIF semifinals this year our boys water polo are this year's orange League champions girls volleyball placed second in the orange league and went to the second round CIF Champion competition tennis plays third in the orange League girls golf became the orange League champions and boys basketball were the orange League champions in wrestling representing tonight the boys and girls teams are both orange League champions and we were super excited to have Coach freed attend our CIF finals it was an incredibly close match we almost won but we couldn't convince Dr freed to suit up we actually we only lost by two points but I want to point out to you that Western High School represents the ahsd by moving into the Master's level of wrestling which is in Palm Springs and that is the top 32 schools out of 381 schools in the CIF Southern section impressive emotional year this year our girls basketball came in second in the orange League and for the first time in almost 20 years they went to CIF competition they fought so hard their first round was in Malibu California which they love the drive and they loved seeing Malibu but not and they didn't win but they lost that first round of Malibu but not without building such an incredible tremendous sense of Pride and community at Western High School it was truly truly beautiful our girls water polo became the orange League champions also this year with a full set of Athletics this spring we are confident that we will continue to bring the recognition and accomplishments expected from the awhsd as students across the district compete be sure to follow like Arpaio and hashtag watch Western because if you want to be unlimited you if you want to truly feel the sense of kindness and pride and if you truly want to be College and Career ready in the 21st century you need to watch Western thank you for this time and most especially for your support and vision to see the Western facilities match The Passion of the western family thank you so much anybody have any comments that's outstanding that we have Western is doing really well they have really done well you know I I just think they're a little selfish because they're taking too many of the top top scores there and just not spread the wealth well take it back to your school that we're proud of you thank you so much thank you for repres enting your school your school and your students so well tonight um it really showed your emotion and and we just we it's it's refreshing that you're so close and you're so dedicated thank you I heard your joy of your job through that presentation thank you I'm a and I'm high school grad so we're always in competition with Western but very proud of Western and all that they do so thank you okay moving on to items of business 10.1 School sponsor student organizations have a motion so move second okay motion second any questions all in favor say aye aye aye at six zero thank you next is uh resolution number a 2022-23-f-05 adopt resolution determining that the Anaheim Union High School track and field project is exempt from the California Environmental Quality act deciding to carry out the project and directing the filing of a final of a notice of exemption so moved second and this is a roll call vote Miss squirrel aye Miss Piercy aye Mrs Smith aye and Miss uh Ronald Trejo aye and I vote I 5-0 thank you you are outnumbered ah you tell me that I'm cars here okay 10.3 resolution number of 2022-23-5-06 adopt resolution determining that the Western High School practice field and he just left just left oh no oh no field project is exempt from the California Environmental Quality act deciding to carry out the project and directing the filing of a notice of exemption second and Miss Guerrero aye Ms Piercy aye Ms Smith aye Ms Reynold Trejo hi and I vote I that's five zero can I interfere interfere right now anyway um there was a little note made about why we are doing this exemption and how we didn't have to do it with Anaheim High School back in the 1930s because things were different so and but we are not changing anything we are just renewing it so but I but I found it very interesting that how things have changed we didn't have to go through all this sequel in 1930 they just built it you know and that was it but nowadays we have a lot more Hoops we have to jump through that's for sure it's a different world yes it is okay 10.4 resolution number 2022-23 Dash f-07 adoption of notice of exemption for the Magnolia High School HVAC and ventilation improvements project second we have a motion in a second is roll call vote Miss Guerrero aye Ms Piercy aye Ms Smith aye Ms Randall Trejo aye I vote i-5-0 next is uh resolution number 2022-23-e-11 Career and Technical education so moved in the month of February has been designated as Career and Technical Education Month by the Association for Career and Technical education provides Americans with a school to Career Connection and it is the backbone of a strong well-educated Workforce which Fosters productivity and business and industry as well as contributes to America's leadership in the international marketplace and as I introduced earlier this evening we have three representatives from our our relationship with the ROP so thank you for being here and this is a real car roll call vote and Miss Guerrero aye Ms Percy aye Ms Smith aye Ms Randall frejo aye and I vote I am Miss uh Reynold Trio and I myself sit on the ROP board so we're very proud to be able to do that and uh work with our relationship together there are five school districts that make up the ROP um jpa thank you so much for being here so glad that we as a district have so many ROP courses that we are offering to our students and they can take advantage of I just I love it yes absolutely 10.6 resolution number 2022-23-e-12 National parent teacher Association Founders Day second so this is a roll call vote Miss Guerrero aye Ms uh Piercy aye Miss Smith Smith I don't know why Mrs Smith and Miss Reynold Trejo aye and I vote right that's five zero okay Mr O'Brien I know 10.7 resolution number 2022 23-e-13 Black History Month second second so we have a motion in a second and this is a roll call vote Miss uh Guerrero aye Ms Percy aye Mr Smith aye Ms Randall Trail aye and I vote I that's five zero 10.8 resolution number 2022-23-e-14 read Across America 2023.

so um would anyone like to motion to adjourn um seconded by Jamie thank you all those in favor of adjourning for a long meeting say yay yeah yeah all those opposed cine okay so unanimously we vote to return good night everybody very much for the long meeting

those are usually your guys even sometimes that's divided in half but really it's just divided up to who's got the biggest heart who's willing to put the work in you can't make somebody do it [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign a year uh this is my Force here coaching at West Chicago I think 12th or third teeth overall well I think we have a lot of Club swimmers kids who take the sport seriously who trained year-rounds uh we pull from uh charts obviously which is the West Chicago football team um but then they're they're uh the Academy bullets is another club team that we've pulled from and then FMC fatic so we do have a lot of pretty serious swimmers who train year round so I think that's that's a big part of it um when they come to us in November uh they're in pretty good shape and they're ready to go so um we can kind of hit the ground running and uh train them pretty hard from that yeah so it's a pretty even amount from all three schools this year we have 25 boys on the team um then years past after last year we had 30 uh but it's it's a nice blend of all three schools not one school dominates the co-op um I think we'll do pretty well last year we took seventh had to save me uh we graduated two seniors who were pretty important to the team bucks uh Brady Johnson is a really good swimmer um he will probably take top six two individual events uh Ryan Four's is another really good swimmer from Batavia um I'm hoping that he scores a point or two at the state need and then we have two relays that right now are ranked top six in a state so um I'm hoping that we can finish top six and multiple different events and hopefully we'd be the top 10 at the state meeting on again this year

um Mr Reeves thought that that only three teams had ever done that in the last 20 years uh 20 20 victories so I think that was quite an accomplishment by them um the boys basketball team defeated Roxanna um last week and then for their big senior night and they also defeated Freeburg uh this Tuesday um and uh their last famous of this regular season this tonight and they will be in the in the playoffs uh the um uh on that senior night our fabulous pep band and our cheer seniors were also recognized and honored in that bottom picture there you can see um the next slide uh that left hand picture is students from Regional High Schools demonstrated their talents in a variety of academic subjects uh for the academic challenge that was held at Southwest Illinois College the students took tests in math English chemistry physics biology engineering graphics and computer science and we took first place our team took first place they did a great job on the right uh in the middle there you've got two of our choir students who did a great job representing Colombia at the IL mea All-State honors choir and then in uh on the end there we've got our four uh January students of the month and our uh our word for uh January was caring so these students were all nominated by a teacher to represent uh caring at uh Columbia High School and then our final slide another big um great performance by one of our teams uh congratulations to the CHS cheer squad on an excellent trip to state championships they finished as the state runner-ups this year so second highest score they did great work that's all I have awesome thank you very much that's a lot I go on to our assistant superintendent reports so I'm actually going to start on this slide for some of my shout outs so obviously our Italian was great but I want to give a shout out to Scott Horner because he's not is he and I were staying down on the floor I'm waiting for awards that day he said I didn't say anything to anybody because I didn't want to jinx it but I've already contacted the police department the fire department I have the parade set up that like he had it all lined up um but with the sports side of him didn't want to jinx anything and tell anybody what was going on um but he just does that for you know for everything for our Athletics because of his organization his dedication to you know making Colombia the best it can be um you know I just wanted to give him a shout out for that um we had two of our employees selected for the 2023 those who Excel um through the state of Illinois so every year they select teachers and support staff in different categories so Monica Mize one of our kindergarten teachers was selected as one of the those who Excel Award winners for what she does in the classroom and Abby Miller who is our new Transportation secretary she has done an amazing job and an application was submitted on her behalf and she also was selected so they will both be awarded or honored in Springfield at an award in April there will be a dinner and they'll both get some awards while they're there but we are thrilled to have two of our own recognized at the state level for that um my next shout out you know typically I give individual shout outs but I just want to shout out our staff as a whole um so I went to the music trivia and we had several teachers that were at music trivia night I went to the PTA trivia and we clearly this is a picture from that night of all the four of the different schools um a lot of teachers represented and it just is so awesome to see how involved our teachers are in supporting not only the programs in our buildings but going out into the community and making sure that they're visible and that it's well known that they support our students outside of the classroom as well so I just can't say enough about how how great of a staff that we really do have here in Colombian and we're lucky to have all of them and so just kind of kind of thing earlier it's only going to continue to get busier as spring approaches but we are Eagleview is working on kindergarten registration so we're going to do kindergarten screening on May 19th and the 22nd so we're just trying to get the word out to anyone that will have kindergartners next year they just need to call the Eagle View office and get their little one's name on the list and then um Mrs Vinnie in the Eagle View staff will communicate with them about those screening dates um the graph up at the top so I had shared with you before that one of our PD days last month we did an ed Camp so I had asked for staff and teachers to present on something that they do well in their classrooms we had 21 staff members that stepped up and presented that day this is the result so after all of our PD um our staff has to take an evaluation of it so we can look at what's been going on and kind of gauge where we need to go next and so this graph the blue bars are those that strongly agree and this was questions like this will impact my instruction of students this was presented by people that were knowledgeable this had meaning to The District in my personal vision and so of those types of questions out of 120 responses 89 or more teachers answer that they strongly agreed with that and I think that just again says a lot about the quality of what our staff has here to offer but just really taking advantage of utilizing the staff that we have and share so that we don't just have pockets of Excellence we can be a district of excellence and so I in some of the comments I had a lot of people ask can we do this again you know I'll volunteer this time and so I think it was great and I'm grateful to those 21 people that took a chance stepped up made themselves vulnerable but have now got the ball rolling for some other people to do that as well and at the bottom I've been sharing with you um throughout this year some of our data and I haven't shared any of you data from Eagleview yet so this is the top set of uh four charts is the Eagle View the early numeracy battery that we give so it looks at several different math components the two darker versions so the first one and the third one are our our student scores the lighter one so the second and the fourth are the National Norms so that you can kind of see where our students compared so you can see in math the first chart was last year's the second one is this year's at this time so we have seen um a great amount of growth in our students performing well above that national average of students right now which is huge because these students that we have at Eagleview are you know a lot of our older students were affected by covid because they had to learn from home these are the kids that were brought home as babies or didn't even have a chance to start school because of covid and they're just now jumping in so that says a lot about what our teachers have done over there and then same with that bottom chart that's on that early literacy um so they're looking at letters sounds blends of words and all of that so not quite the same amount of growth compared to the National Norm but we are seeing that growth from last year compared to this year so in speaking with Mrs Vinnie and the teachers over there they are all on board about what can we do how can we keep pushing it this isn't good enough we want to be better and so I have several teachers from those buildings actually we offered up a PD for this summer it's a week-long PD and we offered it to K through five teachers and we have 22 teachers that are going to be attending that training but of those 22 17 of them are coming from our K through two grade levels and we have everybody from teachers that this is their second year of teaching to we have a teacher that only has two years left after this year that wants to be a part of it too so again it's just that constant giving and wanting to do the best so I could not be more proud of our district than where we stand right now and that's it for me unless you have any questions oh to our superintendent reports all right um I want to Echo some things that uh Mrs Smith just said you know the PTA had a wonderful turnout they raised a ton of money for the district and did the the um the ladies that that are in charge of that an organization of that putting on an event like that is just it's a lot of work and they do it without pay so that we can benefit from that and I I just want to say thank you to that I also want to say thank you to miss Smith because the PD and the the you know that's a focus that we've had here and the organization for that Ed Camp um there were some days where she was going nobody has jumped in yet and she didn't have to hit the bushes too hard but we had the 21 and it was that first time and I think people see that first time it's scary whenever you do something new and now it's going to get that ball rolling and it's gonna you're gonna see some wonderful things but the organization that goes behind that that Focus thank you for that because um that's good stuff this week weekend Joseph and the electric colored Dreamcoat I believe is going to be Miss uh Babcock swan song as she leaves the district after so many years you know people come here and they do so much for the kids and the kids benefit from it and it's just it's it's um Bittersweet you know there's good memories but there's you know change and evolutions of what's going this time of year you get reflective on that we are closing out this year getting ready for graduation and things of that nature as you'll see on the action items but we're also planning for next year the calendar and things of that nature um so things change things evolve things move on at the district office we've been updating our financial software it's been really good to clean up our account codes and organize some of the processes and procedures that we're going to go through uh personal time off will be paperless we're going to do a lot more of the purchase ordering streamlining those processes it's a lot of behind the scenes organization but our ladies have been doing a wonderful job with it and um it's gonna pay off in the end you know it's it's those things you organize it so that things can happen and and you can move forward so um I'm excited about this time of year we're talking about a lot of things from this year to next year and I too could not be prouder of where we're at so thank you all right well I'll move right on to our items for Action the first one is the approval of our 2023 to 2024 school calendar yes our school calendar we review this it's really I mean doing a school calendar it's kind of like Groundhog Day you've got the same number of days in the year you want to have half of them in the first semester half of them in the second semester a lot of discussions about little tweaks and whatnot um we have the association look at it we have the administration look at it after all of these eyes um the recommendation is to accept that or approve it as presented um I'll be honest any specific questions can go to Miss Smith but uh do we have any questions comments about the calendar questions [Music] okay would it be like to make a motion to approve the school calendar as presented okay Lisa do I have a second all in favor aye aye any opposed and abstentions all right motion carries next time for business and approval of our date and time for graduation yeah um we've been going over as I said last month uh trying to find the right date and time this year we are going to be hosting the sectionals and the super sectionals at our field and so that does affect our ability to set up the field for graduation with that being said we recommend that we graduate the class on Saturday May 13th at 6 PM rain date for this one would actually be inside it's at 6 p.m because the morning is a baseball tournament which we try to stay off of um and we're we would like the rain date to be inside instead of Sunday as we've done in the past because that's Mother's Day that is the second Saturday of this month and what we would like is in the future to go to the third uh the third week the third Saturday um I mean the third Sunday we want to do the third Sunday on a on a more regular basis go back to two o'clock with the rain date being inside Waterloo does theirs on the third Sunday at three o'clock so we won't be conflicting with that um but that's for next year this year we're focused on May 13th at 6 PM as our recommendation questions concerns comments really would like to make a motion to approve the graduation Take Time locations I'll make a motion and she beat you out I'll second Tammy the motion Adam seconded all in favor aye aye any opposed any extensions all right our last time for business the approval of our tax abatement resolution so this is one of those yearly things that we have to decide if we want to do or not it would be five hundred thousand dollars going toward bonded interest payments with upcoming construction I question whether or not we would want to do that at this time and instead save that for parking lot or other projects that could be done may I interpret yes okay so in say it more clearly for people are as smart as Mr Grote like me um basically we take this 500 000 and we pay off towards our bonds we did this board did a great job in reducing our bonds we're only paying one percent on our bonds so and of course everything is front loaded so at the end we're paying mostly principal our interest is almost non-existent we're going to be doing a high school project we're going to be doing a parking lot we hope so we're going to be re-obtaining or reissuing our bonds there's no way we're going to get bonds again at one percent like we have right now so basically what we're doing is we're paying off a one percent Bond and the next year we're going to get a bond probably three times as expensive so I think it's pretty foolish to to do it when we know this is coming down the bike so I my recommendation would be we we don't I'm all about abating taxes and you know our tax rate has gone down considerably we I think the board does a great job you know the the bonds for one uh re reducing those and and reissuing those at the one percent I think was a great move you know we we struck right when the at the bottom of the market and saved the district a lot of money and uh but I think this is another one of those financial things just doesn't make sense to do so anyone else have any comments or so the money that we would be paying off these bonds are paying down this debt we would have keeping reserves and we'd be using for construction correct because we have the construction projects we've pretty much approved the high school deal we're going to move forward with that so it is going to be money that we're just going to have to take out again so and the money does come from the county facility sales tax so it is limited to construction you can't do salaries or anything else with that it's restricted funds so correct so pretty much as I understand it if no one wants to make a motion to Abate this it just dies and we risk retain the money that is correct so would it be like to make a motion all right item dies fair enough okay that concludes our items for Action uh next we have our discussion items which is we kind of led into it with the facility study we are like almost done with the negotiations with Cobalt you guys have uh approved that last month we are just at the final stages of that um and then we'll be working with FGM Architects to start the planning process um and so we are moving forward on this it just is to get lawyers involved it starts to move a little slower we're in a slow spot right now Although our lawyer has been very responsive and uh has has done a great job looking after the interest of the board I will say yes I should not have put a jab against lawyers well their Lord's not Corey I'm sorry that's right prison company yes that's all I have for the facilities that you have anything I do not individual board member comments you guys have all been so Lively tonight I'm expecting all kinds of stuff here so anything I have one comment that part thank you to a lot of the administrative team the high school center of a few of us here we're at the Freshman preview night or whatever they call that last night um it was it was great it was really nice to kind of settle some nerves of our eighth graders that are going to be making that that next step into the big high school but also through all the groups and clubs and you know athletic groups that showed up to just kind of talk about whether what they offer um you know as the extracurriculars and the other things outside the classroom um you know and then having the three counselors come and give their information so it doesn't face to the to the name and some hyperlinks and I understand more info is coming out to the parents so just wanted to say thanks for that um it was a really well put together orientation night if you will so just appreciative of again people just doing things after hours and that that one extra step that makes the parents and kiddos feel a little bit more at ease anyone else where president's prerogative I attended the I had the pleasure of attending the PTA trivia night and uh I think it was impressive it was very very well run organized you can tell they spent a lot of time the administrators were up there and entertaining everybody and I just really ran smooth and we weren't near as smart as we thought we were so yeah no kind of it was a lot of fun and great cause so thank you held our own yeah exactly it was the other people at the table that drug us down I think we were not even you know middle of the pack but anyway but yeah thank you for all that put that together that was really nice event oh there's a ton of time all right executive session we have an executive session tonight no executive sessions we're just going to bypass that and then that'll also negate the actions out of the executive session so that pretty much concludes the meeting if anybody like to make a motion to adjourn and made a motion to Journey with a second one second let's go second hand all in favor aye any opposed perfect that concludes our meeting

so we've been um with you guys for a while the health center just continues to grow and utilization just continues to improve so that makes us super happy and I think Chandra had mentioned that one of the main goals for the health center initially was to provide a lot of services within the area and to have somebody really in the area where we were having to drive 20 to 30 minutes to week C so we are thankful that we're able to provide that for you guys thanks and up next looking at some numbers so I wanted to just highlight um very very brief overview of our 2022 annual review we had 56 overall engagement um within your population which is wonderful typical numbers that you'll see from some of our other vendors um in the same Industries anywhere from a 30 to 40 so we are above that which is wonderful um proactive spreads to even be a little bit extra when it comes to it so our goal is to get you guys at 60 percent um so we um categorize engagement as a patient that has seen the provider so they've had a visit with the provider within the last 12 months so not somebody coming in for a flu shot for just that they actually have to see the provider to be counted as engaged thank you for asking that that's a great question and then moving on to chronic condition engagement so we were at 74 overall and we look at three different categories on that we look at diabetes hyperlipidemia and hypertension so diabetes cholesterol high blood pressure um again we want to keep as many people in the health center as we can when we're talking about chronic conditions because that's where most of your thing for your buck is going to happen so um looking at those referrals out that I mentioned already um typical pcps you're going to see anywhere from 15 to 20 referral rate because we have a little bit more flexibility in the spoken care that we can provide um it's a it's good that ours is low so we were at a 2.92 which is again means we're keeping a lot of stuff Math Center so referral rate means to specialist yes yep correct um next point that I did want to make so we actually get your guys a claims information which we can utilize in a couple different ways but one of the one that things that we like to see is that the high cost claimants are engaged with us that doesn't mean that they're seeing us for whatever is going on whatever their diagnosis may be but they're seeing us for other things so they have a PCP home they're probably getting their Labs drawn they're probably getting their maintenance medications through ice so we want to see as many of those high-cost planets as we can and we actually have four of the six that we have reported which is wonderful too and we describe a high class feminism by over 50 so Switching gears just a little bit um has anybody ever heard of an NPS sport maybe maybe not okay so it's a sport that's utilized across several different Industries um it's basically How likely are you to refer us to a friend or colleague um and we are really hitting the hitting it hard with um patient satisfaction and overall customer service this year so this is something that we're going to continue to strive to improve um we were at an 89 last year and this is let me backtrack a little bit this is coming from the surveys that people are getting within the health center after their visits so um we write an 89 usually anything a four view or above is acceptable so the team is doing a wonderful job providing good care that people would refer us to others which is always a good thing because we know word of mouth is um probably the best way to get people to come see us Switching gears back to the more chronic condition details we had 11 members reduce their A1C last year 18 members reduced their cholesterol and 82 members reduce their blood pressure so those are very good numbers um and then our lives one other thing that I did want to hit on a little bit so we were at it with high five so not quite at that break even Point um but we had a drastic improvement from last year we were uh we were at 0.76 last year so with the increase in engagement um and just improvements and services that we're offering we are getting very very close to that very famously it typically does take okay return on investment so basically are we saving you guys Maddie or not that's kind of the easiest way to look at that and one thing that that does um what I do want to explain on that a little bit as well is we're pretty conservative with our reporting so we are taking overall services that were provided we times that um by 1.55 of the Medicare cost so a conservative number we take your chronic condition savings um we only dip into one bucket so if somebody has multiple chronic conditions we're only going to report out on one um we add all of those in together and then subtract your basis costs for the years how do we calculate that so um again ultimately we'd like to be at that great demon point and I can see it happening hopefully within this year um we're getting very very close um but one thing we don't calculate is cost a burden so who wouldn't be seeing you know any type of health care provider at all of the work for us um is one huge thing that we can't necessarily on how many conditions have we kept from turning into catastrophic conditions because we've been able to manage them and catch them early um so again we'd like to be making you guys hundreds of thousands of dollars a year but it does take time we have to have that engagement and patience to buy into our services before we can really get there are there some efforts that you're doing to try to get more information in general um just marketing so we've been working with Emily on some marketing materials we also now have some contacts within the schools that are getting those marketing pieces as well we send things out monthly quarterly as needed you know for example the after hours care if it's something that isn't very well known um we'll make sure that we do have something that can promote that another thing too that we would love to do is if you guys have any teacher orientation days or you know any opportunities for us to just simply sit at the table and talk to people we have found that that works wonderful as well a lot of times people don't realize how great of a service is until they have just a five-minute conversation with what's available to them thank you and I'm sorry for asking if I just jumped out just the board had access to them can I ask how many have used it I did okay so any other questions on that slide before I move along I know that was a lot of information um but I'm happy to talk more on it if needed questions you'll have no okay yeah okay go ahead give everyone a chance um you talked earlier I just wanted to make sure I understood the numbers about the number of employees so you said we have 340 employees and then what about their family members are they then and then you say you have 700 total patients you may have missed up on that should I put employees 340 lives that I said employees and tell me what that means so anybody on your medical College so that's employees clusters correct yes that was my question yeah um and so then the difference then between the 340 and the 700 fives is I know we have Brown County government who also contacts are there other businesses we have some smaller businesses that feed in as well as well as Independence too that are able to buy in so like very small businesses and then I also remember when you started that there was like it was like a person could buy like a subscription monthly you have a lot of people engage with them or is it mostly from a business that's offering it as their Healthcare well some of them are from a business but we do still have we do still have some that are um so it's nice for those that may be self-employed for example that might have maybe some type of health insurance plan that we know is probably not the greatest um so to be able to have that you know typical regular care and then it was thinking about the larger Healthcare systems that surround us I'm Angela Johnson Memorial um how then if I have insurance here again I'm not on the plan so I'm really asking this is knows if it doesn't participate in it um how do you then make referrals and interact with those because again I know there's how do you like to find a network so we know what's in network and what's not um we are able to see all of that information so the referrals go out just like any other PCP would we're going to make sure that you're in network or if you have a choice you know if you want to be seen it does that answer that yeah I'm I'm West I'm so is teammate by the way so from a referral pattern which I was absolutely right focus is to refer to in network providers we also have a system in the apartment with like last year but we use multiple resources prior too but it's called Garner Health not that's going to resonate with any of you but it's data quality cost and quality data on steroids so the idea is although we are primarily referring in network we want to ensure that we are referring to the highest quality provider within that Network who also happens to be the lowest cost provider too so that's on the technical side then on the the human element side of it is we believe it or not we also look at um websites such as Yelp and Google or provider reviews to understand bedside manner so they've said that it's available so trying to cross the whole gamut thereof quality cost and then just the human interaction Behavior so families and students have access to this or how they go about that as far as access through this Corporation is that what you're asking they would have to be on the school corporations um benefits they can go in but they'd have to pay monthly yes um so there's some grandfather rights as it is now it's either 70 or 75 a month for individual sip yeah if you see them then it scales for dependence yeah and their lab and medwest is a little bit more limited than what you guys have um but it's still for those individuals coming in but it still covers I don't know what do you say 70 to 80 of what you would typically need so so you go into the student the kid pay 75 a month you pay that for the 12 months just for that month it's built on a monthly basis it I mean I understood as like a subscription yeah yeah yeah yeah Spotify yeah so you're paying a monthly fee just like you would but we have chosen this as your provider and you may have some out-of-pocket costs but yes something that's available yes yes most certainly yeah any other questions okay so um we just send out our should say we Emily sent out as survey I don't know maybe three ish weeks ago so we're on there towards the beginning of the year and we actually found pretty good feedback normally I don't always give us feedback because you better get emails all day long and they often get overlooked so I was pretty happy with what what came back we had 71 participants which is excellent um six had not utilized the health center most of their responses on that were either a they didn't know how um which is an easy fix right like that's just a matter of marketing and communication and a lot of the marketing that we do and you guys I'm sure would understand it's a lot of repetition right like they have to say the same thing over and over again before it Clips um so a couple of that a couple of them were newer so they maybe just haven't had a chance to make that appointment yet or feel the need to and then we had the few well I'm not I'm never sick so what we always get those responses um but overall I felt like the survey gave us great wonderful feedback which I wasn't expecting any difference right um 95.7 of those people would return for another visit which also said a lot about the care team and the care that they're providing um overall happy with our services and Care patients would like to see online scheduling options which I'm really excited to say is coming so we do have a portal now um I'll admit it's a little clumpy you can message your provider back and forth we can do everything we need to do on it but it doesn't have that easy access button for schedule so we are in the works right now um rolling out a basically an app for your phone or you can use online as well that's an entirely new portal system that's going to allow you to schedule online too so we're super excited about that um our goal I think is to have it ready to go by seven possibly sooner so that was an easy check out for me I'm like okay that was you know one of the requests and we're already fulfilling that so great um request for more variety of medications I wanted to talk on this a little bit so we have a lot of meds in-house right but we're not going to be able to please everybody um but I wanted to elaborate a little bit more on sometimes it doesn't make sense to put them in the health center so our goal is to keep costs low we you know we're always open to having suggestions we're willing to check into it but sometimes it just doesn't make sense cost from a cost perspective um there may be a few people that need a medication and they really really want to be in the health center but if it's going to sit on the shelf and expire that's not a goal right um so one thing that we do internally is we will work for Chandra and her team to figure out if it is going to be appropriate and cost effective so just wanted to point that out we're always open to suggestions what we do is evaluate it before we add did and then the formularies do get looked at on a regular basis as well by the provider here so she works with her collaborators because she knows her population best so she's going to know what needs to be one question I almost left off this survey which I'm glad I didn't because I felt like it was a good um point to reference but people were interested in Wellness benefits so I don't know if that's something that's ever been explored in the past um that anything from a health risk assessment within the Health Center or implementing some Wellness challenges um we can get creative but I I felt like that was a good thing that you know to see that that was really interesting um and a lot of people know that money is usually tied to those so that might be why too well it's similar to a physical um most of the time you're going to have a lab draw get those basic labs done um checking your cholesterol your blood sugar um and then checking your blood pressure your weight and kind of evaluating that the provider with the follow-up visit is the typical process of how we do that but basically just um more so making sure you're getting that good many participants were unaware of the on-site medications um I want to say there was about 15 people that said that they did not know that we had it out of 71.

um though um I'm not sure if we got clarification if that was going to be a full year course or not that's okay it's nothing yet but the uh the um uh African-American and uh studies and Puerto Rican Latino studies has been combined into one full year course currently right correct okay um so yeah so we just added um language um and we moved that those uh those two policies be moved for a uh a first reading uh for uh public review but again this is mostly all uh statutory uh changes or legislative changes [Music] um uh we moved on uh to uh two policies uh that we uh will be moving to a third reading which is uh strategic goal is for performance standards um and that was uh our social emotional learning uh I guess uh uh guide posts that be a right terminology uh sure we use complex thinking in social emotional learning we we use the street signs the crossroads yes pretty synonymously with the two that you know interchangeably Mr masciano loves that so and uh we we discussed that that uh those uh uh goals and performance standards had a full community review of both the from the board and from uh select members of the community um and so uh uh we were we had no questions and we had reviewed uh that policy previously uh finally uh was our nepotism policy that we had to um uh update after some uh I guess legal findings uh and um public hearings I suppose we could say that the changed our our policies and so we were able to um tighten up the language again uh to I guess um uh uh what's the word I'm looking for I guess uh reinstate the uh the intent of the policy I guess or reinforce the intent of the policy um with that said um I have a motion to read um move that the uh Cheshire Board of Education give a third and final reading to policies zero zero two five strategic goals performance standards and 4112.84212.8 nepotism employment of relatives and direct the superintendent to put said policies into immediate effect Mr White seconds discussion all right our comments are public record I guess already um here scenes there are no comments on the board the motion is that the chapter education give a third and final ring in the policies zero zero two five strategic goals performance standards and number 4112.8 and 42 12.8 nepotism employment of relatives and direct the superintendent to put said policies into a media effect all those in favor please raise your hands it's unanimous thank you team thank you Mr Ripple any updates from policy includes my report awesome thank you could I ask a question absolutely um about it didn't have to do with the motion but I'm just wondering why the first review the first reading of those two policies is there a reason why one is considered curriculum and the other basic instruction or is that just just how they're titled in the Cape policy manual but they don't come in different places under policy and they both follow the instruction piece oh they do yeah okay and the wording is very similar yeah make no sense to me at all they're like identical two policies are almost identical I was just wondering yeah thanks it's one of those things where we just like I don't question it it's just the same I don't know restating I guess as we established the last time that they were looked at was well one one we had looked at and revised in 2020 and the other one hadn't been revised since 1997.