Homeless Issues Committee - Regular Meeting

All right, let's call the meeting to order. Hopefully everybody had a chance to read the minutes. Do I have any motions? So Dave moves to approve the minutes. Do we have a second? Addie? Seconds? Any additions or corrections? Discussion? All right. Oh, I guess I can see you back. You don't have to turn the sheet, guys, do I? All in favor say aye. Or raise your hand or thumbs up. Aye. All opposed? Abstentions? Okay. Carl abstains. Any public? Jess?

Oh. Do any other tech things? I didn't check that. I will check that. going to take a minute. Sorry. I got thrown off with all the video stuff not working.

Another minute of my life gone by, Jess.

You're not in it? Are you in the Zoom? Is that what you're looking for?

I'm in the Zoom, but to get the... Is there a way to get the public comment? I thought I had to get it from through here.

It's fine if I think about it beforehand, but... Okay, no public comment.

No public? All right. Do you want to introduce the presentation, Jess?

Can I just introduce Shelley first? Oh, yeah. Yeah, sorry. That's all right. You said that a minute ago. That's fine. This is my new boss, Shelley Shaw. So I think folks know that Carrie Edgar retired at the end of last year, but she is joining our meeting tonight. So she met the folks in the room, but maybe folks on Zoom, if you can just say your name for her. That would be great.

Hi, Shirley. Shelly, welcome, welcome. My name's Addie Ferber. I'm a resident of Monona. I'm a grant writer in the community and formerly of REAP Food Group, now of Community Action Coalition. I'm also a gardener and a musician.

Nice to meet you.

Shirley.

Shelly, long time. How you doing? Good to see you. Yeah, welcome to this position. Thank you.

Sebastian? Hey, I'm Sebastian. I'm a grower and a devil of a little bit of food system stuff. Welcome.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

All right.

Okay.

um so for the presentation quick question jess i'm so sorry i don't recognize who's at the end of the table sitting next to shelly i gotta been on the same meeting together yeah so hi i'm dave betcher i'm on the county board i represent wanna key hi dave i think we met virtually at the last meeting and names and faces were not connecting thank you so much

All right, so we're having a presentation about the Dane County Food System Action Plan in advance of the action item. And the way that we're doing the presentation is that it's NOAA presented to the Madison Food Policy Council in July. And so I have a recording of that. And this time I've tested out sharing the recording. So... I think it's gonna work, but if you're not hearing sound on your side of it or something, let me know. But I'm just gonna try to share that up for us. But we're gonna just listen to the presentation part and then we'll stop it before they have their discussion. We'll have our own discussion. All right, sure.

So I'm gonna make that big for us.

Did you see, I think he just, maybe the screen hasn't showed up yet.

Actually, I need to send a request.

Your request has been approved, Noah. Thank you, Nick. Okay, you can see my screen, I'm assuming. It's black. There we go. Now it's colors. Okay. Oh, well, thank you. Everybody. We have an exciting update on the Dane County food systems action plan. And today I just want to walk you through kind of give an orientation to the food plan, which should all be in your emails from Nick earlier today or earlier this week. So. what we'll be doing today. And I see that this is a little fuzzy, but hopefully you can all read this. Okay. I want to orient you to the document. I think the one thing we talked about really not having presented to this group so far is diving a little more into the story of our food system, which is the second part of our food system action plan, which talks about some of the core tensions that we uncovered through the first two phases of the project. And then we can do a brief tour of the goals and strategies, which we've already talked about in this space. And then I'm hoping to end on sort of next steps and a discussion of the council's role with the food plan moving forward. So at that point, I think we can sort of open it up and allow for questions and conversation. so uh for part one uh looking through the plan uh the plan is well first of all can i ask quickly are you guys seeing the like um everyone else's video on my screen or you can see the slides just unencumbered We're just seeing the slides now. Okay, perfect. Okay, so the structure of the food plan itself, it starts with an introduction, which walks through an introduction to the project, what is the food system, and then the timeline for this project. Then it gets into sort of the two main parts of the plan itself. The first being the story of the food system, which walks through some of the themes from our community engagement process. It gives more of an in-depth story around the categories we described as production, consumption and infrastructure. And then we talk about the tensions that uh through this writing process and then part two which a lot of you have already seen is planning for action the goals and strategies that are uh proposed in the plan itself and then you can see at the bottom we also have a section uh for acknowledgements uh an appendix for the review process and community engagement process and a glossary of terms So how was the plan built? I think at this point you all should be pretty aware of the process. But just to go over it one more time, the project itself elapsed over three phases, starting with a literature review and sort of project development itself that started in late fall of 2023. Then we opened up a community engagement process. You can see some of the stats involved with that community engagement. We reached over 3,000 people across 15 municipalities in Dane County, held presentations and gatherings, and distributed surveys throughout the community as well, which was sort of, in a lot of ways, the meat of the public-facing portion of this project. And then once that wrapped up, we entered this data analysis and plan development phase, which we are currently ending and resulting in the Dane County Food System Action Plan. So, what did we hear from the community that helped inform this plan? These were the 5 different themes that, and you can see this again in the story of the food system section of the food plan itself. Probably most obviously is a discussion around affordability. You know, over the last few decades, we've seen the price of food rise drastically, and that's really hitting people at home. And that seems to be a major topic of discussion when we talk to the community about what it is about food systems that is pressing for them. Sort of building off of that across all different sectors of the food supply chain, disparity is a real topic of issue. That comes about both in that sort of affordability and access piece, but also in things like who has access to the land, who has access to business ownership, and even the policy that shapes our food system itself. Another major theme is consolidation across all different sectors of the supply chain. We're seeing fewer and fewer people and entities have ownership in our food system from farms to retailers to the infrastructure that makes up the food system. The fourth theme is emergency preparedness. I think we all recognize how COVID-19 disrupted the food supply chain, but increasingly other issues like climate change and other environmental and geopolitical factors are affecting supply chains as well. And so how are we orienting our supply chain to be prepared for those emergencies? And lastly, a discussion around excessive waste. I think the widely cited number is 40% of food that is produced in the US goes to waste. that creates both strain on our waste system, but also reflects poorly on some of the earlier issues we talked about with affordability and disparity in food access. And so those themes also are reflected in the food plan. in our story of the food system section sort of distilled into what we're calling the three core tensions. So, you know, as we had people review the plan, we were seeing a need to sort of distill this information, not just into a presentation of facts and observations, but to create a narrative around what is going on and what is happening when all of these themes are at play with each other. And maybe to even take a step back, just to acknowledge how deeply connected our food system is and interconnected all of these different sectors of the supply chain are with each other. And so the three core tensions we identified are agricultural abundance versus rising food insecurity, disconnecting or disconnected local food supply and demand and community control first consolidation. So that first piece is really about, you know, acknowledging that Dane County is one of the highest producing agricultural counties in the country. We have rich soil for agricultural production. We have all of these institutions like, you know, the Dane County Farmers Market, the Willis Street Co-ops. all these markets and attention towards the food that we're producing in the county. At the same time, we have great disparities in who has access to that food. And that relates to some of the future tensions. The second tension that we talk about is this disconnected local food supply and demand. And what we're talking about there is, you know, 95% of the food that's grown in Dane County is going to commodity markets. It's not feeding human beings in our own backyard. And on the purchasing side of things, we hear from institutional buyers and consumers this great demand for local food. When we're out in the field, individual consumers across different income levels are all identifying a desire to increase the amount of local and nutritious food in their diet. When we talk to major suppliers like UW Health, Epic, school systems, things like that, there is documented desire to purchase locally. But the reality is what is being grown in our soil is not reflecting that demand, and we're unable to meet the total demand of our community with our local food supply. The third tension we talk about is community control versus consolidation, and that really relates to that earlier theme of consolidation. where we are seeing across the supply chain, whether it's more and more farmland being purchased by fewer and fewer entities, retail outlets, food businesses themselves, we're seeing less and less local ownership of those different entities of our food supply chain. And what that means is the decisions that impact our relation to the food system, are being decided on further and further away from our community. So this has to do with what is being grown in our soil, what food is available on the shelves in our grocery stores, what the price of that food is and who has access to it. All of these things are being decided by entities further and further outside of our community. So we took all the information that we gleaned from the community engagement and literature review to distill it into this story. And then we took all of that information and had that inform the goals and strategies of this food system action plan. And then as you all know, we brought those goals and strategies back to the community and had these different iterative processes where we got feedback on what those goals and strategies are. And yeah, continue to distill that down. So what that looks like in the plan itself is seven goals. And we can all just take a second to read through them. The first goal being collaboration, and it was sort of an intentional decision to put this goal first because we really see this as the umbrella goal that increased collaboration, you know, across sectors of the supply chain, across the different types of entities that are a part of our food system, we see collaboration as a way to achieve more efficiently the rest of the goals in this food action plan. So collaboration is centered around building the social infrastructure to connect food system partners to accomplish the goals of our food action plan. Goal two is centered around production and can be distilled into growing more food for people here in Dane County and not just commodity markets. Goal three is access. Make healthy, affordable, culturally relevant food accessible to our community. Goal four is infrastructure. fill the missing middle of storage processing and distribution that makes local food production available to where we access it possible goal five is efficiency revert reduce and divert waste across the supply chain goal six is resilience prepare for the next climate economic I would add geopolitical or health crisis. And then goal seven, ensure that the benefits from a local food system flow back to the farmers, workers, and entrepreneurs who make it possible. I just wanted to provide, like, one example of what, when you look at the food plan and the goals and strategy section, like, how to use it. So each goal sort of has a header, and then it breaks down into different strategies. And so, yeah, for example, if... Goal 4 being centered around infrastructure. There are multiple strategies housed under that goal. Each strategy has a number associated with it. So 4.2 would be expand local storage capacity and then we sort of leave the actions up to us to fill in collectively and sort of create from to make that Goal and strategy achievable. So, you know, a great example, and I was thinking about, you know, a project like the future partnership when creating the slide where, as a community, we've for a long time identified the need for increased infrastructure for local food system. Um. And we knew that we needed to increase, you know, cold, frozen, dry storage as well as processing space. And so, you know, multiple organizations have come together to support the FoodShed Partnership project, advocated for investment from local policymakers, government entities, DACAP, those sort of sources. And now the accumulation of those resources has led to a project where we're actually increasing infrastructure. So that is how to use the plan. And I think for next steps, What I wanted to share is what we're asking from you all as a part of this food council and what it means to be in partnership with bringing the goals and strategies of this food action plan to fruition. So things you can do to help us move forward are review the draft, read the plan yourself, and send feedback. back to us. Share the PDF and website. Once it's finalized, which is in the next couple weeks here, we'll send out the full PDF and the website link to you all. Pass it along to your networks. We also want help disseminating this plan so if if you are aware of places for us to share this presentation to share our findings from the food plan and Sorry If you're aware of opportunities for us to share this information back with the community that would be helpful and in bringing this plan to the community. And then continue to iterate. This is an iterative process. We've left the goals and strategies open in such a way where we didn't want this to be an all-encompassing document in the sense that these are the only goals and strategies that are allowable to use right so if there are ways that your organizations are making these impacts in the community share that with with us and help us like track these goals uh in the future through the work that you're already doing How we envision the food action plan being incorporated into the food council is using the plan as a shared framework. So as we're having presentations and discussion, setting agendas, using the words and the goals in the food plan as the framework. directing the resources that come through the council towards achieving the goals, uplifting aligned community projects. I think also sort of what I was just talking about is tracking the progress and reporting out how this food plan is being used and how we're achieving the goals laid out. And then also using it as a way to advocate for policy at the city and county level, especially. And then also using your position here on the food council as a bridge to the community or the government or whatever your networks are to align the goals of this food plan with the entities that you're involved with outside of this council. So I think I'll leave it there for any questions people have or thoughts. the next steps, especially as it relates to how the county, or sorry, how the council adopts this plan and integrates it into its work.

Okay. I guess just opening up for discussion. Does anybody have thoughts, questions, discussion points?

So for myself, I've had a chance a couple times now to read through the drafts of the food action plan as they've set the goals and summarize the literature, etc. And actually, it was kind of that last slide that Noah brought up of how we're going to integrate this plan into the work that we're doing in DCFC, I thought was was kind of a new thing that, you know, I don't know if we've, thank you so much for the slides. And so, you know, that kind of is one of the areas of conversation I think I'd like to eventually lean into. I know today, if I remember correctly, we're voting on whether to adopt or not, if I remember correctly. But yeah, that also that question of how is this going to guide us going forward, I think is really important.

Anybody else? Well, I'd like to chime in. I think we've, at least from my last year or so on this council or more, we've talked a little bit about one of the strategies in production. I think we've talked very detailed about access to land. And it has kind of, through other studies and other conversations we've had with users or other producers, we've kind of taken that as kind of a pilot approach issue to undertake, I think we still should probably maintain that conversation and really kind of move that forward based on what the action plan looked like. I think it's a very important strategy, and I think it's a very, very important gold in this action plan. And I think that's something that should really reiterate our commitment to making that happen. to our policy committee or whatever action team we have that goes forward with this. So I think it is in line with what we need to discuss and kind of follow up on. And I'm kind of, concerned about following up on everything because it's there's a lot a lot of strategies here and there's a lot a lot of goals here that i think this this council and the many uh and the two terms that i've been on this on this council have tried to address but seem to be overwhelmed and with the people that we have and you know the change in membership but uh i think we're online to do continue to do uh this work as it as dane county food council And I'd like to see this kind of continue that discussion, especially in the production area. And I would recommend that we adopt the plan, too. I think it's very complete. And it's a good roadmap for us over the next five or six years or 10 years.

Well, and I guess I would say just building on that comment and that point is I look at this also not as much, I mean, yes. How might it impact influence this council, but how would it impact the County board? How would it impact Dane County land water conservation? Who has the control over, you know, over the parcels. And I saw one of the things in there is, you know, for city, for city properties, encouraging use of, um, yeah, more innovative use or, or food, you know, of, uh, of some of the city land, but yeah, who, who has the control and over any of these different action items. And so that was kind of where I'm thinking too, is all right, if we play this out of how could this help making, making that case, I think there's a lot of good things in here just on that production side. Maybe a little bit more. I'm I'm right now I'm at Anderson County park. I'd love for, the committee here to make it out to Anderson at some point and just to see it. There's no really minimal storage, anything here.

Some areas have water, but it's not just the land access.

It's the rest of the pieces that go along with effectively producing. And the plan does talk on various aspects of that. But yeah, I think from my review, I think there's a lot of good pieces in it.

Thank you, Dan. Yeah, I think it's a pretty good holistic plan. I'm going to piggyback on what Addy said earlier. I was a little concerned about the implementation piece and how they were going to do the tracking and stuff. So it was good to actually see that spelled out a little bit in the presentation. And I'm hoping that just this body, we don't get too overwhelmed. and that we just kind of figure out, you know, one or two things to make a priority. I know that Carl was talking a little bit about the, you know, public lands and land access and things and I'm hoping we'll be able to kind of squeeze in some of that like additional input and involvement on the council or with the council from members of the public that don't necessarily usually show up to these kind of things just so we can have like a more robust conversation and be a part of the process of sort of connecting more people and having some synergy on this very important topic. Last thing I'll say is that I really like how the plan talks about leaving food system work into more of the fabric of general planning, both for Madison and Dane County, rather than leaving it as an isolated sort of standalone issue.

I've got a question. Yeah. At the end, he talked about having more community meetings, or at least in promoting more community meetings. Is this a plan that looks like it's going to be more fluid? I mean, we adopt this plan the way it's written right now. Is there going to be updates to it? Or if we have a community meeting, say, in Mazomanie and find out there's a need for something that's not really addressed in the plan or something that we can enhance in the plan, Is that going to be something that's going to be added to the plan or is it going to be more of a fluid type of strategy or plan, I guess, action plan?

Yeah, I think the answer to that is yes. I mean, as far as I don't have specifics on, you know, the exact process for that, but I think what you're saying, like when Noah was kind of talking about the first goal being collaboration and, you know, maybe a couple of years ago, some of these things were things that we envisioned happening, like that we would have been part of this process, but I think they're going to be, I mean, they are going to be more part of implementation, but as far as like connecting more with organizations or community members and kind of pulling more things in. I don't mean more things like endless strategies and actions, but just like really trying to connect the players and the stakeholders and the people who are involved in all this to make sure it's representing what they need.

Is the objective of those meetings then going to be trying to have the community engage the plan and really add to their input kind of make an implementation or in actually setting new goals?

Well, I think that's a good question. I don't know if we really talked about that in that way as a team. I think what I'm thinking and what I wanted to respond to or just mention as people are wondering about implementation is that, um, we are, it's not fully finished yet, but basically we have like an implementation matrix spreadsheet with all the different goals and all the different strategies and actions. And then we're going to be working with community entities to kind of get more specific about which organizations and people are doing which parts of it and kind of more timeline. So in my mind, one of the early parts of implementation is just mapping out more of the specifics. And like people have mentioned, there's a ton in here. It's obviously not like you can't prioritize it all because you can't, like it's too much to do. And so part of that planning out the implementation is figuring out the phasing of which things will happen first and which things are for later. But the plan kind of contains obviously like many, many years of work. So figuring out how to stage and phase that work is what I have on my mind. But I'm going to note your comment about also just having a capacity to connect with community members and find out, like, additional suggestions or modifications.

I guess, yeah, in my mind, at one point we have to have a roadmap.

Yeah.

And that roadmap, you know, the road can't be closed up here and then move over here to another one. Right, right. We have to have a goal. Yeah. And it's going to have to start somewhere.

I think, yeah, so I guess to respond to that, it's like, I think the idea is to start with what we have right now. and as we're building out the implementation, you know, there's just constantly going to be additional ideas and things coming up. So I agree. I think I'm on the same page as you is like, it's not that like all of a sudden when there's a new idea, it's like, okay, we're going to change this right away. We're going to change this right away. I think we'll just kind of like store those things up. And then, you know, in a year or so, or whenever we're updating this, then we'll be able to take those extra nuances in and things like that. But I agree with you where it's like, we got to, just pick a roadmap and kind of start playing that out and then revise and update as needed.

Jess, could you clarify who we is?

I was going to ask the same question.

Whose plan is this? If it's like my mom, whenever she said we, I used to call my stepdad we. Because when she said we need to do this, it wasn't her, it was my stepdad. So, sorry. Was that the only question you were going to say?

No, I'll have more questions. But I guess for a rookie here, someone who's seen this for the first time, Whose plan is this and who has authority over the plan?

Yeah. So as far as, so there's a few different answers to that, but right now the people who are, like we had a team funded to work on this through a grant. And then that grant has ended.

There's still... What was that grant?

Oh, yeah. It was from the USDA primarily and then also additional funding from Dane County Board, Dane County itself. And so I'm still working on it. It's built to shepherding this and working with this plan is built into my... plan of work in my position. That's the same case for Nick Heckman at Public Health and then also Noah who gave the presentation at REAP Food Group is sticking with it. And then we have, we're just strategizing on other ways to continue or how we're gonna roll out implementation. We have another grant in application into USDA for implementation. And so that would build out a lot of support. If that grant were not to get funded, we have different way to proceed with it as well. But there's kind of, I would say like we had a core project team for, for putting this together. And we're going to continue to have a core project, core implementation team that's made up of a few different, you know, city government, county government, nonprofits. And we'll be able to open that up to, I think like some of the food systems organizations, addition, in addition to reap might want to have some folks on there as well. So we haven't really like finalized who the, full implementation core team is, but we just know that there's some carryover from the developing the plan.

So why are we voting now?

We're voting on it because, well the plan itself, so the USDA grant, The deliverables to USDA did not involve actually making a food plan. The deliverables to USDA were all around the community engagement and gathering information. The kind of USDA grant it was was called a planning grant. And so really, that was kind of like the pre-work to make a plan. And then when we were... needing some match funding from the county in order to be able to apply for that USDA grant, the county was willing to provide the match funding if we could also create a food action plan for Dane County. And so this plan is actually deliverable to Dane County.

So this committee voting on the plan is just literally giving Dane County a final product. Yes. For their funding.

Right.

But it's up to the county still what or if they're going to implement any part of it.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, ideally, anybody in the food system can look at it and say, oh, I'm going to go for a grant for this or I think I can do some of this. You know, there's a couple of things.

So it does give them a nice document to be able to submit with their grant request, which quite often helps substantiate the request. Right. But it doesn't in any way really tie the county, the city, public health into any actual action.

No, but I would say, you know, the county is helping us, helped us get the match for the implementation grant. Right. So no, nobody has to do anything. We're hoping a lot of people will do something. Yeah, you said, you know, also, I mean, I think when the spreadsheet comes out with all the different, I think there'll be a lot of minor actions that can be started with and then snowball into something bigger. But I know, Addie, do you still have your hand up?

We actually addressed my question. It was about, you know, when we put this plan together and we approve it and deliver it to the council, is it binding? And it sounds like, no, it is not. There's no more. This is us basically saying, here's our recommendation for a plan to make our community food better and doesn't have any kind of weight behind. It has influence on policy, but not any authority over policy, as I understand it.

So it's more of a request or, shall we say, an idea for the county, the city, whoever, the various food pantries to look at and see if they want to take action on it. Right.

And if there's ever a day where we hope we can get budget money from the county, we would probably ask in relation to this plan. I said if there ever is a day and it's coming soon. And we, I mean, we're not going to ask for money this fall, but I'd like to talk to the staffer at the county and say, well, you know, think about stuff, you know, lay the seed now that like in next year or so, there's a little room, you know, what does the exec want to see? You know, theoretically- Who's that staffer you're talking to? Aaron Collins. I met with him once and i talked to him at the ribbon cutting um and so and um so he got stuff yeah um how much did the company get from this 130 135

What was that, two years ago?

It was 65 the first year, and then actually when we got in here late, we went for more money, and we'd actually got like another – we hadn't received whether we got the grant or not, so we had two levels of funding. We were going to even get more if the grant didn't go through, but then since we got the grant, they cut it back to another $65, something like $62,500 or something like that.

It was the last two years or not?

Well, it was last year, probably. Twenty three is when we started the grant, I guess.

Twenty three, I think, was when there still was COVID money. It might have been for twenty twenty four.

Has the county exec's office seen this plan draft yet? Do you know?

We just gave her a copy of the executive summary at an event last week for the food shed. And so I just talked to her real briefly about it.

But if we do things like if we meet out at Badger or Anderson Park, we can start seeing what's needed out there. It may make it easier for Rooted to do some more fundraising.

Is Anderson Park where they have the community gardens going right now? Market gardens.

I sent it to Executive Agard after the Food Shed event and then also Aaron Collins. The whole thing.

She has it.

And then she's also working on an economic development strategy, and I shared it with that team, thinking there's a lot of great thoughts in here for that.

Sure.

Shirley?

Yeah, I guess I'm just wondering if this is a fair comment or statement that... I guess I didn't think of this as being overwhelming because it's not like the council is going to be taking all of these on. And a lot of these things have already been going on throughout the county. But what I like about this is It's now a formalized document that shows research and has the community involvement rather than a subset of people saying, oh, this is what we need. But although if you read it, we were right on a lot of things, right? And so that's really affirming, but also it makes a lot more sense to involve the people that are actually impacted by this. And the community piece of this to me is very valuable. And so I don't think of this as, overwhelming because it's a nice document resource that we've been looking for for years. Shelly, maybe you remember when, I can't remember what the gal's name was that tried to do the, do you remember the book?

Is it Shelby?

Yes, Shelby. We've been looking for this for years and years and years, right? And so I feel like now we have this document and it's a great way to plug people in. So would you agree that that's a fair statement, Jess, that, you know, it's things that already exist, but now we know how to push it forward because we have them categorized, if you will.

And we have, like you said, we have a lot of input from community, right?

Right, but you took that input and made it, like Noah was saying, distilled it in a way that's, I mean, you don't have to read all of the pages in order to understand the goals and the strategies, I don't think, because there's a lot of people already doing work in the food system. But it gives them a place to plug in that's similar to maybe five other organizations, and that's where we can pull them together for that collaborative piece. But Jess, go ahead. You were going to say something, I think.

echoing what you're saying, where it's kind of like, there's already a lot of good work happening in food systems. And so anyway, like Noah was saying with the collaboration piece, just it's not just this, but one, I think, strong thing will be to bring organizations together and find synergies and just sort of like be able to amplify the work even more, the work that's actually already happening. And then I do think another piece of there's kind of a whole idea about how to get city and county governments connected and working on this. And anyway, so something like this is where the idea is to kind of use this as a tool and a lever and to kind of work with the comprehensive plan departments and bring together people. We had a really cool government staff input meeting. So you know how we did the goals and strategies feedback session with the councils, Nick and I also did one of those with city of Madison and Dane County government staff, um, from a lot of different departments. We just kind of thought of all the different departments and people that we knew or that we could think of, um, that had some connection to food systems. And, and that was a really interdepartmental group and a lot of really good input and was pretty, um, I don't know, felt it was really inspiring to think that kind of conversation, to keep being able to have more, not just conversations, but just make a space where we can create like an interdepartmental addressing of this. Because right now it's just, it's kind of in some pieces of it are happening in a lot of different departments, but then it's, they're all existing sort of siloed.

yeah so you're trying to break the silos down so then is the spreadsheet a way to collect data to help understand what other organizations are doing so you can see similar work being done or i'm not exactly sure what that how that works well my guess and jess would know other than my guess but i i must i

I haven't really looked at it much, but I think it's, you know, there's the goals, the strategies, and the spreadsheet is the actions that can take place.

Right, but are we recording those from various entities that are doing the work or?

kind of like filling out the rest of the column sort of thing of like who's you know because right now the document you know someone could look at and say like these are great ideas but like unless you spell out who's doing who's going to do what and how this is you know sort of like the more specifics like it all it is is just like a lot of really, you know, a lot of ideas.

Yeah. I guess maybe I should say, who's going to fill that out? Do the entities doing the work? Because it seems sensible to me that there would be a really central, it would be really nice to have a central document where people could enter what they're doing, right? And so others could see that, like a living document. I don't know how that could be done, but, you know. I don't know if the text possible, but, you know, it would be kind of interesting if other people could see that, because especially smaller organizations, we know that there's a lot of them who want to participate, but they don't really know how to get funding or how to plug in. But if they had and they don't have a lot of time. Right. So if there was some kind of document that they could access and say, oh, so and so is doing this. I know somebody over there. I could reach out to them. I mean, because we don't really. have a you know a person to call 9-1-1 here we are you know f-o-o-d here we are so you know it'd be kind of that would be kind of an interesting um a way for people to engage i think and then my last final thing would be um unless you have a comment about that um is there I guess I'm always protective and somewhat concerned about doing more harm than good. And I understand there's a lot of effort that went into these, right? But then what am I trying to say here? How, if any way, are we going to know that some of this work didn't do more harm? especially, I guess, in the food access area for specific groups who already have disparities, barriers that are pretty profound at times, especially during financial crises and so forth. There's not really an overseeing body. So therefore, you know, does that problem get worse? Does that make sense?

Yeah, that's the evaluation plan, right? Yeah.

Yeah, I didn't know if we were doing measurables, but I guess that's kind of what that is.

Okay. In the implementation grant that's been applied for, while it's only a small area of the whole plan, but there is, you know, I think at the end, what would you just say? The evaluation plan? is booked in at the end of it if we get the grant. And that's going to be like a food recovery and trying to keep more food out of waste and some of the processing of food that would go to waste. And one thing already, we had REAP, FairShare, and Rooted all in the same room a few times. And so and they're all fighting for the same money usually. So to get them all in the same room and working together on a grant was kind of cool.

But that's a really good example, Bill, because, you know, in the emergency food system, you got to take a lot of deli foods, bakery, really not healthy foods in order to get some of those other foods that you really do want. So, you know, that to me is more harmful than good to have this food that you know, nonprofits can't really always, they don't always have the money to throw that out. And it is waste in a lot of cases, or you get right at this time of the year, you know, 18 tons of corn and you can't distribute it all. So, you know, they're, we had great, if we had processing of some kind, but that's another day we'll talk about. But I guess I'm just saying, you know, I can't think of another example off the top of my head, except that it's just, it causes a lot of health harms, right?

Yeah, well, I figure my next project is to figure out how to get old stale bread into a heating mechanism for like a wood burner.

It might smell good, you know, a little toast.

Sounds like there's a lot of old bread out there.

I did have a question based on what Shirley just said. So as it relates to harm, right? So are there any safeguards that are going to be put in place, I guess, to make sure that monopolies don't emerge from this process? And for the example that you just gave, like having the big three in a room competing for those dollars, right? How, I guess, if it has been thought about at all, how is the equity piece to make sure that these already large, relatively better funded organizations are not receiving the lion's share of the resources that may or may not come in As a result of being able to look at this document and say, hey, this is what the community needs. Therefore, you know, we're here and, you know, we have this robust infrastructure. And now we're all collaborating, you know, because that could potentially, A, cut smaller nonprofits out of being able to access funds. And what's to stop a large producer or a conglomerate of large producers from pivoting from a corn for animal feed and switching over to something that pushes smaller producers out of a certain market for food for human consumption? So I guess, is there anything that's been talked about to look at the ethical piece of making sure that there is still some equity for the resources that may come out of this as we track people. No, but it's a good idea.

Yeah, the same. Thank you for...

I think we've all written it down. Yeah. This is similar to what we've seen in the homeless encampments and everything where we ended up pretty much with only two providers. And there's good and bad for that. I mean, when you look at... More in the mental health area at DHS, you see a lot of different providers from Journey to the Rape Crisis Center to others providing it. The problem with some of that is they all start the same overhead over again, which means, yeah, you're dividing it up and you're having smaller providers and everything. But that also means you're losing some economy of scale that causes you to have to pay for basic stuff that If everybody was using the same basic, like simple thing, the same software system, we pay for it once. Okay. If we do it with five different things and they're all using different ones, we're going to affect paying for it five times. So you're in a case like this where you're talking food distribution, wouldn't it be better to have one distribution network or is it better to have five different distribution networks? Yeah. You can see where you're losing money on part of that. But also, yeah, you don't want to have one provider starting to set the rules that causes a problem with the system. But also, if you divide it up too small, that creates a different problem. I think it's something like this. It's really going to be case by case based on what is the implementation factor. Like, for example, if we're looking at, I like the idea of community gardens. They work, but they only work if they're in the neighborhood. They don't work with one giant community garden sitting at one park that half the county can't get to. You know, what good does that do? You're spending more on gas than the food was worth. But if you're looking at more regional distribution, having a Waunakee food pantry and having river and having the other ones, it makes sense to divide up a bit into those communities. So I think it's, I don't think there's going to be a one fits all policy on this. It's going to be based on what are you trying to implement in that part of the plan? Does it make more sense to be countywide or community based? Dan?

Thanks, Dave.

Yeah, I mean, these are good discussions and I think good things to keep discussion going on. But one of the areas I've talked briefly with the food shed that I think that I kind of get raised on some of this is how do we connect? Well, what does regional even mean is one question to begin with. And I don't, my understanding right now that the food shed and Addie, maybe you can clarify on this, but I don't think the food shed is connected into the super transport cooperative that Wisconsin Food Hub is running. And I think that's a huge piece here of both to be connecting for kind of the local aggregation. How do you connect into more of a regional aggregation? both for food going out and coming in, that I think that's something that maybe does need to be looked at a little bit closer. And I would even say within this plan of how might that connect. But I had one other thing on this plan that when I was reading at the healthcare piece and encouraging, I don't have it right in front of me, but basically encouraging investments or putting resources in, And my thinking is really, how do you use this to encourage the hospitals, the healthcare companies that have the resources, have the money? Healthcare is big business. One of my friends who's, sorry, there's some parachute thing going overhead with the motor on it. So if it's loud, I apologize. But I got a friend who works in a tribal liaison for one of the healthcare companies. And he told me, healthcare is big business. Clearly, it's one of the biggest businesses we have. And to me, just that little bit of language within this food plan, I would hope to be trying to encourage leveraging the money, the resources that are there within the healthcare systems. How do you get them to put it in? We're not necessarily looking for the county to be putting more money in or if so, just really as a catalyst to getting more of those broader resources that are there. And so that's a small point, but I think it's really, It's really important that there's huge resources there that aren't necessarily going to local foods now. But that was just one small thing that I had noticed within the language of the plan itself, that maybe just thinking about that framing.

When you name the community stakeholders and you don't list anchor institutions, which I think is what you're thinking about, maybe. Like, how is UW-Madison using this? How is UW-Health?

Yeah. Yeah, how are they using it? And I mean, I mentioned also, I'm in the morning, 5.30, getting to the airport to go down to Arizona. The National Indian Health Board's been meeting there. But we were invited by tribal leaders to go down and to talk about, to look at how Arizona is using Medicaid waivers to be promoting traditional practices and food as medicine. So, you know, that's kind of that example of... you know, how to capture more of those resources and dollars to put towards supporting local foods. So again, just some of just the framing was something I noticed when reviewing the plan of how the language was.

Yeah, and I just want to circle back for the sake of clarity. I wasn't necessarily looking for a... An answer, I was more so pointing out that I just think there needs to be some sort of something that's sort of in place to kind of watch out for that. And I was thinking just broadly, but also more specifically from a food sovereignty sort of standpoint, when you get down in the weeds of like, you know, different culturally relevant foods and things like that that are mentioned. I know that they talked about like teaching gardening skills and things like that. But just kind of from a not having such a having a big brother sort of mentality. And then also just trying to make sure that smaller entities don't feel pressured into sort of going up for their cup of a ration of food to some larger entity that might not, for whatever reason, be a good fit or that might create some sort of like a power dynamic in the process. So I wasn't, you know, asking for one size fits all or anything, but just this My antennas kind of went up a little bit based on what I read in the conversation.

Yeah, I really appreciate you bringing that up. That's really important. Thank you.

Anybody else? Well, now that we've done all this discussing, do we have a motion to move to approve and send on to the county?

Second.

Is that the way you want to word it, Jess?

Let's see. Yeah, that's the way you want to word it.

But I'll move over. All right. So I was just communicating with the county board. Yeah, so moving to approve it. And then what they were suggesting is either there could be included a recommendation for ENER to review it and or I think that's maybe unnecessary. Well, you know, sort of the parent, the next level up for this committee, but I think the other, the piece that's maybe more relevant is if DCFC wanted to include in the motion that a county board resolution will be drafted, then that could set into motion a process to put together a resolution and communicate certain things to the board.

I'll move that. DFC or DCF approved the action plan, the draft action plan we've seen tonight and recommend a resolution be put together for action taken by the county board and whatever action that is.

I'm a little uncomfortable with that only in the sense that there doesn't seem to be a structure for who owns this plan once it's done. And this would, in effect, turn it into a Dane County structure. But we do have to present something. I would say we just do it and submit it to ENER as part of the grant process to complete that. But as far as saying that it becomes a Dane County plan seems to go far beyond what the grant was. and kind of takes everybody else out of it. I'm not sure.

What about just a presentation to the Dane County Board?

or turn it over to ENA and let them decide what to do. I mean, I'd love to read what the original grant was and what the first resolution was.

Well, apparently the Dane County supported the grant or supported half the grant, so they paid for half of it. So it's a Dane County document, in my opinion. And I would say at least we had to present it to them.

I mean, as far as, like, I think what is actually required, like... the money that the county allotted for this plan to be put together has already been paid out. And like that, the contract, the Dane County contracting process, like the deliverable was submitted. And so there aren't any more like hard and fast requirements. I mean, like this is satisfied.

Dane County just gave you the money and said. No, we had to give them a food action plan.

Yeah.

Yeah. We have to give them a food action plan.

Yeah. Well, I mean, it was given. So like extension, the contract, the actual County contract was administered by extension to read food group. Okay. And so that like has been the deliverable, like the, this plan has been delivered to extension to like satisfy that contract. So I think, and I think to Dave's point, like it's not that it's, I don't think the idea is like you're saying that this is taken on and like taken over or something by Dane County. But I think that this there's an interest in getting this to the eyes of the Dane County board and perhaps something like a resolution would include something like. a recommendation for directing the county board to look at it and maybe specific recommendations or what the ask is for the county board of how to use it or how to engage with it type of thing.

That's kind of complicated. I would say at the very least it's a presentation. A special at the beginning of typically when I was on the board it was a presentation UW did a and some of the other departments. Just send it to the county clerk's office and ask them if we can get on the, you know, you maybe give a presentation or you give the presentation to the county board that this is what it is, a slideshow, just like we saw. But other than that, I don't know why we have to take any action on it. We don't recommend somebody. Why is there any action being needed by the Dane County Food Council?

Well, I guess just like a few years ago when we did the Dane County Pandemic Food System Study, I guess we're just following a similar process to that where it received funding from the county in order to happen. And so in a way it was commissioned by the county to happen. And then when that was done, the entity that carried out that study presented back to DCFC and DCFC took an action to approve the the study and the report.

And it was sitting in the Dane County Food Council's shelf. It just became part of the UW Extension files or the files of this committee. Or did it actually go to the county board and become part of the county board record?

I don't know that that one became part of the county board record.

I think it did because I read it. I wasn't on the county board at the time and I I think it did. Yeah. To me, I think if there's any taxpayer monies given for any project, it should at least be presented to the county board and the representatives of the community.

Yeah.

And at least present it. And they can take action on whether they want to keep it, throw it out, or they don't even need to take action on it. They just look at it.

Yeah.

And that happens many, many times. Okay. And that should be the basis of whatever approval. to the county boards and ISO move.

Oh, you should move to the committee that's above us.

I think it should be right to the county board and they want to refer it to the committee for action and they can do it. So presented as a presentation and sent to the county clerk's office, nothing else that goes into file. And I recommend or move that we do that. Is there a second? Everybody understand that?

So, yeah, let me get the wording. To approve the, or motion to approve.

The draft food plan. Yeah. And send it on to the county clerk's office for further action. And then somebody contact the county clerk's office to see if you can give a presentation. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, I've been in touch with the county board office. Yeah, the county board office.

Well, if you're going to do the presentation before, you have to talk to Miles, the chair. Yeah, right. Not the clerk.

Yeah, or whatever. But whoever you've got to do to get on the agenda to give a presentation.

Okay.

And Shirley seconded. Okay. Okay.

Thank you. I'm sorry to make it clear, but you are right. We don't necessarily need the county board to take action on it.

you know partly i i just want to make it feel that everybody who's not coming forward whether it's the city or i mean when i looked at the people who actually drafted it there was no county board there there's no county there or dane county so you're just thinking who counsels there so that's and that's but i'd rather keep it i'd rather keep it balanced like that and not let one ending drive the box because i usually get you less by it okay

All right. I assume there's no more discussion. All in favor, say aye. Raise your hand. Those opposed.

Unanimous to me.

All right. Thank you, guys. Dan, did we know what you did? Thank you, guys, for working on that committee.

That was a good job. Very, very good. Very thorough. Oh, and I just don't.

You get cut out of here. Okay. Actually, so reports. Addie, Food Shed Partnership or Food Shed Partnership Project.

Yeah, we had last week, August 11, we had the ribbon cutting for the food shed partnership, a innovative forward thinking farmer from our community was there to actually cut that said ribbon. This is Bill, I've kind of ribbing him slightly. But we had widespread participation from over 200 people come to the food shed on a rainy, rainy day, squeeze all in together, to celebrate, take tours, taste test the first product coming out of the food shed, which is called Midwest Marinara. And it is a large volume tomato sauce product that we got to do some taste testing on the early recipes. There, we had County Executive Agard spoke, as well as this Oh, I'm not going to get the titles right, but a representative from DATCP talking about the resilient food infrastructure program that funded the project and the success that those infrastructure investments have been making across the whole state. It was a great event. It was a big kickoff. And I think there was a lot of real good wind in our sails going forward. Food Shed's open, y'all.

Any questions or comments for Addie? All right. Dan, anything from Wisconsin Food Systems, I think? No. Okay. Then basically we're going on to there's not really none of the reports then. That's all of them. So we'll go to the Dane County Food Council focus and future direction. How do we want to start that?

Well, I mean, I think we left that on there. I don't know if we have the- Time today. We're with all to get into that, but to be continued, I don't know, maybe, but I think especially in light of, we were already kind of talking about it some with the discussion around the food system action plan, but- Sure.

Do you want to discuss more on that tonight or put it on next month's agenda?

I'm happy we moved to table it to next month's agenda. All right.

All those in favor of tabling it to next month, raise your hand. All right, I suppose we should ask for a second on the motion first, but Shirley, is that you seconding the motion? Thank you. Should we rewind the tape and start over?

Well, actually, there's only actually six members on the committee here, right? One, two, three, four, five, seven. Seven?

We have three in here and four up there.

When you have seven or less on the committee a day coming, you don't require a second.

Oh, well, we have nine total, but we have seven showing here.

Right, if you have seven at the meeting. Oh, okay.

Cool. Don't rewind. All right. So then next thing is in-person meetings, gatherings. Would that fall into future focus or is that something we want to talk about to see if we can still, I know Dan suggested Anderson Park. Do we Try to have a meeting out there in September, October.

September would be better. It's too soon.

so i think one one piece that's come up um like with bill and shirley and i always have we talked about is or a key question i guess is are folks wanting to have an off-site meeting or an off-site gathering or some combination and um we are allowed to have in-person only meetings um in in other words we don't have to have a hybrid component um and i think like if we met at anderson farm i don't think it would be very I don't know, maybe it'd be doable. It might be hard to have a hybrid component, but so that's just kind of the question is whether it's, that helps us with planning to figure out whether folks are wanting to do, needing to try to do a meeting and try to have quorum for a meeting. And if that's, or if it's more of a gathering or how.

Who would have rooted host a meeting out there? Rooted?

Rooted? You're saying like.

I just have a gathering. Yeah.

Yeah.

of the gathering out there similar to what they had, you know, any other public gathering. And maybe invite some people, not necessarily within our organization, but outside of our organizations a little bit that the county board, other county board members, other than what's on the county date. You mean, what if we had a meeting out there? Well, we could, but I mean, it's when, again, we would always have a part meeting when I was on unit. And But it was always just the members of the committee. And I'd like to probably invite more people out there, especially Dane County people, if we're going to have a meeting, if we're going to have a gathering out there and have a presentation by Ruta about what's going on out there. And maybe raise questions, give everybody an opportunity to raise questions about, like Dan mentioned, about processing and other things that we might want to address over the next 12 months. So let's start looking at some of the facilities we have and see how they fit into the food action plan and then move forward. It gives us a little focus too.

Would it be valuable also to have a few people that are impacted? I mean, Dan, you're on the council, but other people that are impacted by not having, I think you said there wasn't always water or there's not a shed to store. If we're having other entities come in like Rooted, it would be kind of valuable to have maybe a few of the actual producers to share some of their stories.

I think that'd be great. Yeah.

Yeah. And to follow up with what Sebastian was saying, it would be valuable in my head to have, you know, minority producers, you know, there's an extra layer on there showing some kind of equity there with.

Well, I think it's important that we have a listening session out there from the producers and find out what are some.

I guess I'm just saying, let's not have the, I mean, always talking about the same entities and it happens with the pie grants too it's always the same people i guess i'm looking for some others that are impacted that aren't always represented by reap and you know rooted and all of the major players that's all i meant but i think having a formal meeting kind of stunts that community input out there or any i'm not talking about a meeting you said gathering

Yeah, right. That's what I'm talking about too. I thought you were talking about, well, either way, I think it's important that we have listened to some of the producers out there and get, get that information. I agree with you, Shirley. I'm not trying to.

No, no. I was confused what you meant. I think a gathering would be better also because sometimes we don't have quorum and let's say, you know, five people go out there and then we don't have quorum. It'd be kind of irritating. Then you can't have the meeting.

But I, I,

When are you looking at doing this roughly?

Well, possibly for us. I brought it up in September meeting because I really, you know, we always say nobody knows who we are. I mean, really the only reason not to have a meeting is some people just won't be able to sit at home and come on Zoom and come to the meeting. I think I would prefer to have a meeting out there. I'd prefer in the next year to have three meetings out in the world. And is there any reason other than inconvenience that in three years from now, we can't have six of our meetings out and about and get talking with the community, be engaged with the community. And I think this would be a good first step.

I mean, September is going to be rough. There's county board meetings every single week because of the budget. And almost every committee is having a budget presentation. The only two nights that are open are the 7th and the 21st. Otherwise, there's a major committee meeting every single night. And each one of them is a budget presentation. So none of those county board supervisors are going to miss it. The majority of them are going to go to public works. I mean, to personnel and finance and health and human services. But I mean, the county board has one, two, three, four, five full meetings in September. The entire board. Tuesday nights? No, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Just depends which week.

Well, let's go out there as a council and listen to the people that are working out there and see what their issues are.

If you're trying to drive the board supervisors.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, if we're doing, I mean, like the growers out there. Yeah, right.

Well, Bill, what you're saying has a lot of value, but I wonder if as we're launching this plan, right, and the community starts to become engaged with it, maybe we grow into what you're talking about. I don't know that a committee meeting, I mean, a council meeting is very enticing at the beginning here if you don't really know a lot. But once, you know, the food plan's out there a little more and people are kind of encouraged about what it is, then they might want to sit through a meeting. Otherwise, some of this can be a little bit dull. I just mean for somebody who's not engaged with it, right? But if you have a gathering and get people kind of involved with what the food system is and what we're talking about and giving them a chance to communicate. I know you already did that with the food plan, but we're saying getting used to and learning what the council is before we actually host the meeting elsewhere. That's just my opinion.

I guess my thought would be the meeting start with a listening and talking session. And then after that's done, we'd go on to the regular agenda and people can stay or not. So you start with, say, a potluck or whatever because you're at a food event, and then you have the listening session first. So only whoever is interested in the meeting would stay. So then we do that first in the meeting, and then we go on to minutes and everything else. And that would be how I would design all the meetings out in the community because you want the community to stay. Yeah, you don't want them to have to sit through minutes and all the other stuff and all the reports, unless they choose to.

Yeah, you know, I really like the idea that, you know, as we're moving forward to try to make that happen, whether it's possible yet this fall or not, I guess, I mean, with all the county board meetings, maybe it's going to be a little bit tough I don't know if folks there in the room can see, I did put in the chat, I am likely gonna be trying to work with Rooted to host a field day there. Probably October, I'm trying to do it with harvesting some of my corn and kind of showing some of that. But that might just, throwing that out there is another possible opportunity. And part of where I had suggested Anderson is I just, I think it, There's a lot of mung growers there, a lot of diversity. It looks beautiful right now. All the flowers, all the, just the food that comes off of those fields is great. But then also some of that, you know, the challenges of equipment, infrastructure. But seeing how people are able to kind of adapt, adjust, work with one another a little bit. And there's a pantry garden there too. So those were some of the reasons why I had suggested Anderson. But if timing is going to be tight this fall, maybe it's something we also look ahead for.

those budget meetings go through all of October? Yeah, I'm thinking more than, you know, I originally, I thought, well, maybe we get a lot of council members, but it is the busiest time of the year for supervisors. I think we ought to just go out there as the food council and not saying your time's not invaluable either, but be part of the food council and be a listening group, you know, and, and, and, and talk with the growers out there. And Dan, you seem to be optimistic that we can get a lot of people out there who are using that space come to talk to us about some of the challenges. Let's listen to those challenges and let's use that as kind of a model to go forward with. And let's do it next month in September. You know, while the weather's still good in October, it's going to be pretty much dead gardens or, you know,

end of the season i'd like to get it there before the season ends if it looks that night i've been out there too dan and it looks looks beautiful yeah you want to do it while still yeah and and have the people come out and give us an earful and maybe we want to go out there in october again you know what you might want to do is contact the county exec's office and see if she'd come out that would drive interest and drive a little bit of press and drive maybe more people showing up i was That would be a good way to try to get.

But, you know, let's just do a listening session and be listeners and kind of tell people and, you know, introduce the food system plan, kind of a summary of it, and talk to people about getting feedback. This is part of the food systems plan that I heard, that we were going to have community meetings, and let's drive a community meeting up there.

That's what I was thinking, Carl. And, you know, it's kind of an organic way to spread information and plant some seeds. Yes, I said it.

I like your comment about the boring session.

I'm just saying until we got ourselves really organized, I don't think people, you know, this isn't like, oh, let's go to a council meeting.

Yeah, exactly. It's not going to hurt to go out there, even if it's only four or five of us, you know, and we can bring that back to a regular meeting maybe the next month and start talking about a strategy to, you know, implement some of the issues that you're dealing with.

We talk so often about having people come here at a council meeting to talk to us. Why not take it on the road? Why make them drive to us and come up with what to say?

I really like your idea about six meetings out of this room because I've been on this committee now the second time around. And I can count on one hand, well, I can't, no, I can count on two fingers how many times we've met outside of this on two different, you know, in maybe five or six years of being on this committee. And it just doesn't, you know, it looks better if we are addressing the needs of the community. We can't do that unless we listen to what the needs are.

So, Dan, question for you. Is there a day, like, I don't know if daytime hours are possible for any of us or if it would have to be in an evening, but is there a specific day of the weekend or, you know, time that people would already be there? Dan?

Did he have to drop off or?

Oh, if you're talking, your mic. Oh, I've got a hard stop at 730. Okay.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

So that's my recommendation that we meet out there.

Okay. Well, how about you and Shirley and I can talk, try to work on it next week or.

Yeah. Yeah. You got to get somebody. You'll still have to notice that we're all going to be out there, right?

Yeah. Just notice it.

Yeah. Okay. Or do we make it as a gathering?

We just noticed as an event, a setting where there might be a potential DCFC quorum, but okay.

Well, we'll split up and go into different fields. Make sure there's not quorum.

You might want to look at Logistar just to try to make sure we don't hit one of the full coming board meetings. OK. Because I'm sure who's the representative for Anderson Fundamentals?

I need to go. Oh, I do. Jerry Bolling. Jerry Bolling.

Yeah, so he'd want to show up. And obviously, even two on this community would want to try and make it. Okay. But I'd really suggest, yeah, reaching out to Melissa just to try and drive more people. Okay. Okay. Because nobody wants to see California Board of Supervisors. They don't know who they are.

Well, it's budget time.

Well, she'll be quiet in September. She'll have submitted by then. And she'll be sitting back waiting for those. All right.

Well, then coming up, we got to pick a September date for our meeting.

Well, yeah, I would just, so I mean, to Dave's point that normally we're scheduled for September 16th. That's a Dane County budget hearing that night. So our two supervisors have a conflict with that.

23rd? What's the budget? What's the calendar look like? 23rd?

Yeah, it's not, there isn't a full county board meeting that night or hearing, but I don't know. I'm sure there's something.

Committee? On the 23rd? September 23rd.

By the way, I'm so sorry. My phone or cell service, something's having issues today. I keep having to restart my phone. Shirley, right when you were asking, it froze up.

The 23rd is... That's okay.

I figured.

So that's probably... The park commission's at 530. But other than that, that's probably not too bad. I will be in San Diego that week. Okay.

I'm also, we're hosting a big intertribal harvest gathering on September 23rd to 26th up in Ho-Chunk. So I won't be available on the 23rd either.

I have a class that evening from 6 to 8. What was that, Sebastian?

It's a class that evening.

Well, so we just have the gathering in September and a meeting in October?

Yeah, that sounds good. Find a date for the gathering.

All right.

So, so Dan, I guess, I don't know if you heard the question or if you have any thoughts, is there a date in September where that might be better than others?

How about the, the, um, week before the 23rd, the week of the, um, uh, if someone's got a calendar, um,

We can't do Wednesday the 16th, but we don't necessarily have to do a Wednesday, do we?

The 17th is health and human needs, which is personnel and finances on the 14th, which is that Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday is full company boards. So you'd have to do it on Monday or Thursday or Friday. I don't think you want to do a Friday.

No, no Friday. Monday, there might be people going to fight for budget.

I'd probably avoid Monday. If you're going to overlap, HHN is probably the least effect. Thursday, the 17th.

Does that sound good?

Normal sound? What's that?

It's scheduled for the 16th.

It's not scheduled on Wednesday. It's just us saying it's only September Wednesday.

our normal date would be on the 16th.

Oh, okay. That would be the 17th.

Does that sound good to people for now?

Yeah, it sounds good to me. And then we'll have it at the same time, like this 6 to 8?

In the dark earlier. Probably be earlier. We'll have Dan and Jess and

somebody else figure all that out okay yeah so bill maybe maybe um you just myself could talk and then figure out what's rooted maybe of who to connect with and then i'm thinking brian art from the dane county pantry gardens who also is involved with um helping to lead some of the foodist medicine work he's a local physician um with uw um but we could talk more of

exact plans and who to work with okay five o'clock instead of six well um most everybody i mean nobody has a regular job do they on the council Sebastian's in school in farming. Dan is farmer. I'm farmer. You're retired. You're retired. Shirley, you have flexible time, right?

Yeah.

Erica, and I don't know what Paula does. She's retired. So.

Regular job. What you meant was people could be flexible because they work in the food systems, right, Bill?

So, I mean, we could even go 4 o'clock, I suppose. Okay, you guys set that up. I mean, is anybody opposed to that?

No. That'd be better with the traffic.

It's just a little back road for me the whole way. I know, that's right.

County 8, there's no traffic. Same way as me.

So that's 4 o'clock on the 17th?

I'll send out a calendar hold and then...

Directions on how to get down there too, please.

Yeah, yeah. Well, first I'm just going to send out a calendar hold so that... And then we'll get it refined. Okay.

All right. So then we need... What's our October meeting date then?

I don't have it off the top of my head, but I'll put it in there.

All right. All right, so the next month, or the next meeting, we're going to elect chair and vice chair. So think about wanting to do it. Okay, my plan, we're on for it. And any announcements?

I would just want Sebastian and Dan to consider the vice chair position.

I will respectfully decline. I do have a non-farm job too, and I'm very, very stretched thin right now.

I'm happy to throw my hat in the ring.

Any other announcements? And any other business as allowed by law? Do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Kyle moved. Second?

30 seconds.

All in favor say aye.

I'm going for that.