Hayward Youth Commission - Regular Meeting

We're

gonna call our meeting to order. Good evening, everyone. It's 07:01PM.

Welcome back. Thank you.

Is there anyone who'd like to say the pledge? Thank you. Commissioner No?

Ready. Begin. I pledge allegiance to The United States.

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.

And I see doctor Amy is on the line with e v twenty four forty nine teleconference notification.

Yes. Sorry. I was just making sure that the webinar had started and that we were recording. Alright. I so this is the point in the meeting. Sorry, all, that I'm not with you in person tonight. This is where we talk about the Just Cause provisions. There were no requests received for Just Cause participation or remote participation with a Just Cause, and we also didn't receive any, emergency requests. So Evelyn can go ahead with the roll call.

Absolutely. Commissioner Wheeler? Present. Commissioner Moore?

Present.

Commissioner Almiche? Commissioner Ngulu? Present. Commissioner Brewer? Commissioner Dow?

Present.

Commissioner De Leon? Present. Commissioner Gun? Present. Commissioner Kasuk? Present. Commissioner Komura? Present. Commissioner Singh?

Present.

Commissioner Treviso? Commissioner Wong?

Present.

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone. I have a message to read about public comments. So there will be an opportunity for public comment on items on the agenda as we get to each item. If

you

have a comment on something that's not on the agenda, now is the time to make those comments. Please note that virtual public comment has been reinstated. For those attending in person, please complete a comment card and give them to miss Oder. You will have three minutes to make your comment. Speakers shall not use threatening, profane, or abusive language which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of a commission meeting.

The city is committed to maintaining a workplace free of unlawful harassment and is mindful that city staff regularly attend commission meetings. Discriminatory statements or conduct that is hostile, intimidating, oppressive, or abusive are per se disruptive to a meeting and will not be felt. As a reminder to commenters and my fellow commissioners, commissioners are not responded excuse me, are not permitted to respond directly to or engage with public commenters under the Brown Act. I see no one in the room regarding public comments, and I don't know, miss Oliver, if there's anyone online.

Uh-huh. There are attendees, but no one has their hand raised. And just a reminder, it's for comment not on the agenda.

Thank you.

Okay. We have summary notes from our March 19 meeting. Does anyone have revisions to the March 19 meeting minutes? None. Is there anyone who you'd like push

and go? I'd like to motion to approve the minutes.

I'll second. Thank you. Who is the second? Janet. Thank you.

We'll then take the vote. Commissioner Wheeler? Yes. Commissioner Moore? Yes. Commissioner Angullo? Yes. Mister Dow? Yes. Mister De Leon? Yes. Mister Gun?

Yes.

Mister Kasuk? Yes. Mister Kumbura? Yes. Mister Singh?

Yes.

And commissioner Wong?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. We are now going to have a presentation on our thought process.

Great. Thank you for coming tonight. Good evening, commissioners. At this point, I hope you know who I am, but if you don't, it's on my name tag here. My name is Emily Wong, analyst with the community services division and also the person who comes to you with all staff related.

So tonight, we'll be recapping what the CSC discussed in the last meeting in March about the process improvements that staff presented for your initial feedback. Then we will discuss the various levels of stakeholder engagement and data that we received from our agencies, and we will review the goals for improvement for this funding process, and staff will recommend process improvements for your questions and feedback. You'll see that there is a slide decks for you just for your the ease of your viewing. But at some point, we'll be doing, like, an interactive polling style, so we wanted you to have easy access to the options in front of you. And as part of this process, we will be doing this interactive polling to just start the conversation, which we will touch on later in this presentation.

So before anything else, we'll be doing some context setting. In February, the CSC discussed the preliminary funding decisions and recommendations. And then in March, you all finalized those recommendations as you know. And staff introduced process improvements to the CSC for your initial feedback. In April, the council held a work session with CSC present present there to be able to speak on the group's behalf.

And then on April 22, the council approved these funding recommendations and then also deferred to the CSC on any process changes and decisions. On May 13, we did receive the announcement of our HUD award. So we got a million point $1,500,000, which is actually an increase of $18,000 over last year's allocation. So any additional funds will follow this this is general guidance established that you all established during the deliberations process. I'm also just gonna pass it off to Amy to provide some more context about where we're at now.

Yeah. Thank you, Emily. So I just wanna, from, like, a process standpoint, reiterate for folks that tonight, this is a work session. So you're not actually taking any formal action. You're not voting on anything.

Emily and our team have done a lot of research and thinking, and we're at a place right now where we really need your input on the next steps. We want you tonight to just kind of poke holes, identify red flags, share your concerns with these, proposals. We'd like to get some consensus on some of the key decisions, but none of it, again, is gonna require an actual vote of the CSC. We'll do some real time polling, like Emily said, we can see where everyone stands and then kinda talk through to get to some consensus. So that's kinda the goal for this evening.

Thank you, Amy. So to provide further context and just summarize what the CSC discussed during March's CSC meeting. So we all heard you. It was, well, you know, we touched on two year funding. There was concern that multiyear awards would limit agencies' opportunities with the city, And there were also changes about or questions about the changes in the CSU's responsibility.

If there were two year contracts, what would happen in the off year? There were discussions about interviews and deliberations. There was concern about eliminating the interviews. And also, you all expressed a desire to keep the deliberations or consensus building. And we just wanna say we've heard you loud and clear about our initial proposal in March, and we will not be removing the interviews.

You all did mention that it wouldn't achieve objectivity, so we've incorporated that into our feedback. And then also, we had discussions about utilizing the scoring rubric, and there was also concern about the exclusivity about using the rubric to make final funding decisions in lieu of, like, deliberations. And, also, there was general support to review and update a rubric that hasn't been updated since, I believe, 2021. Yeah. So just to give you some sense of what we did in response to what the CSC has had mentioned in the last meeting, we engage both you and agencies in general every year to collect feedback, and we as staff are in constant communication with their with the agencies about their experience applying for this funding.

So, one of the commissioners did mention in the last meeting, you know, why are we bringing these changes now? And these changes were something that staff have been considering for years, but didn't really have the capacity to implement. So now we feel like we're in a really good place to be able to do that and engage you on the agencies in that process. We conduct we conducted a survey of applicants with 24 responses, and we also held two listening sessions with 26 attendees in total. Among survey respondents, the majority did receive funding.

So it was 80% of individuals who responded had a positive result. So take that with how you will. So in both of these engagements, in response to some of the things that we recommended, like, to your funding, there was overwhelming support towards longer term contracts, and this kind of aligned already with the benchmark and research we had done where 10 agencies out of 12 had some sort of multiyear process. 17 respondents said that it would provide stability for their organization. 16 individuals said that it would reduce administrative burden and encourage long term decision making.

14 individuals said that it would increase staff capacity for their programs. So, you know, in general, there was a positive response. And also in the lesson listening session, there also was a positive response. There was, like, a few uncertainties around, like, arts and music agencies, like, how would that work? And that was a mixed response among the arts and music agencies.

Yeah. And then, like, you know, of course, there are also, like, portions of individuals that had some caution about change. So there was a small portion of individuals who said moving to two years would make it less flexible to ask for more funding during non award years, which makes sense. And then one individual would not provide opportunities for more in these organizations, which is true. Like, during the off year, that wouldn't be an opportunity for them.

So, yeah, the process wouldn't reach more individuals in total. So we know that the CAF process places substantial time burden on staff and city resources, commissioners, and applicant agencies. So to better understand how much time the agencies put into this process, We asked individuals how long it takes for them, and 46 of the agencies reported spending over sixteen hours on our application. And, you know, we don't know, like, what is that compared to other places. Like, is that a good amount of hours to spend in general?

So we gathered information that 30% of them stated that our process was more time intensive. So, you know, not a huge subset of individuals, but still, I think it kind of speaks to some opportunities for improvement in that realm. So benchmarking research against we see that benchmarking research among the 12 government agencies that we had done, show that out of the twelve, four require interviews. And I think this just highlights the findings that we do need to streamline procedures and reduce any unnecessary administrative burden for all involved. Another notable that we thought was good to bring up was that 29% of survey in the agencies also responded that they didn't necessarily view the the current decision making process as transparent.

I think some people, like, just have questions about maybe not getting funding or not getting the full amount of funding. And so there could be an opportunity to provide some more transparency to share with agents as to why they might not be getting as much as they're asking for. So there was a strong preference for interviews to take place during the weekdays, either during the day or in evening. And, of course, there was more preference for them to have during the day, and then the second highest preference was weekday evening. And then additional feedback to note is that several agencies who did not receive funding during the services arc because, you know, this year was so hard, they just had expressed it would have been nice to know upfront, understandably, before investing their staff resources into this process.

One example is the agency has, like, aspects of food in their project, but it wasn't, like, a food project as a whole. So if they had known the priorities, they probably would have, like, adjust their application and responded accordingly. So there was also a suggestion to maybe provide a summary of strengths, anonymous summary of strengths and concerns so agencies can learn how to improve for future years. So with that, we had mentioned in the last meeting just a general goals for improvement based off of what we know. And so the two main goals looking at you know, we put a lot of investment and time into this process.

So you see time, staff time, agency staff time, and our goal is to center any changes around the applicants and the agencies reduce any burden and also increase transparency and objectivity in the decision making process. And with that, I'm gonna pass it to Amy to recommend some suggestions for your feedback, and I look forward to hearing from you all.

Yes. Thank you, Emily. And I do wanna commend Emily for how much research she's done and how committed she was to really hearing from our applicants and checking, like, our assumptions as staff. So I really appreciate the extra work she did to to do that. So, again, this is a work session tonight, but we're looking for you to help us really, poke holes in any of these ideas.

But there are some that we feel pretty strongly about, and so we'll be really clear with you when we think that this is, like, a a strong option. There are other places where we're really looking for your input, to help us make some key decisions. These are some of the ones that we think are really high level process improvements that will make a big impact. The two year funding piece, we talked about this in March. There was an overwhelmingly positive response from the agencies we talked to.

It also aligns with our benchmarking research that shows that a lot of entities, 12 out or 10 out the 12 we talked to do multi year funding cycles. There was concern from you all about, like, what do we do in the off year? And that is a great question and we think that it's a really good opportunity to take some of the recent feedback from counsel about the CAF process, their desire to provide more technical assistance to agencies, to help diversify funding sources, to be just, I think, more creative in how we're supporting agencies, and also an opportunity for us to leverage the CSC to really kind of spend more time looking at agency performance. So, not necessarily being part of our monitoring process, but letting us come to you and report out how agencies are doing in a little bit more specific way. Because when we typically do that for you, we do really high level with a couple examples and we could explore ways to engage the CSC more in that performance monitoring, which is a council priority based on their feedback from the last public hearing.

And just to for some of the kind of, like, in the weeds administrative pieces, contracts would have contingency language in it about the dependency of funds available in the second year. And from a logistics perspective, they would get whatever percentage of funding because we know the available pot changes from year to year. So if they got an award that was 5% of available funding in the first year, in the second year, they would get 5% of available funding even though that number may go up or down. And if there were ever additional funds available off cycle, we would come to you all, we would do a special NOFA and we would administer, we would competitively allocate those funds as well. Emily spoke a bit about the feedback regarding interview timing.

We are trying to be mindful of what we're asking from agencies in this process, and they really gave us the feedback that weekends are rough and that that's their time to reset and it's hard to spend time, on, on work on the weekend. We also saw with the benchmarking research that no other jurisdictions do this on the weekend. So we recommend conducting the interviews during January like normal. We would we would have our January CSC meeting, which we typically cancel because of the interview. So we would hold that meeting, and we would schedule likely another special meeting of the CSC, and we'd likely start them a little bit earlier at six.

We also recommend, as Emily highlighted from some of the feedback, updating the rubric. This is to get at some of the concerns around transparency and objectivity. Also, rubric we haven't looked at it very closely in a while and priorities change and we learn new things, so it's a great opportunity right now to kinda hit reset on that review of it, make sure that it really reflects the priorities of what we're looking for. We know that we hear you loud and clear that rubrics alone have bias and so we've proposed some ways to let the rubric be kind of the first pass and then still give you the opportunity to have some discretion in the deliberations. So we're welcoming your feedback tonight on the rubric and we propose meeting again in June to dig a little bit more into the rubric itself because we don't have the time tonight to really do all these things at once.

And then finally, we are recommending establishing a separate process for arts and music both for the way the funding is administered and the reporting standard and the requirements of those recipients. Year after year, the administrative burden on these agencies gets harder and harder as costs go up and as constraints increase. So rather than asking our arts and music agencies to meet HUD level reporting requirements, we propose a separate process. And I'll be fully transparent with you right now, we don't know what that process is, what we're proposing, so we're saying for this upcoming fiscal year, keep things just as they are and then give us a little bit of time to work with you all to establish separate process. But we are recommending and trying to kind of seed the idea with you all now that we think there should be something different for arts and music that makes, reduces the burden and still achieves our goals for that funding.

So now if you wanna follow along, this is I think page five of your staff report. So this is the place where we're asking for really your input on some key decision points. This first, we're talking specifically about the services arc. This is where this pain point is. We're really kind of trying to hone in on ways to address the highly competitive nature of the services arc and the constraints on funding.

So what we're looking at here is identifying a way to formalize how we're prioritizing service types within the services arc. So when I say types or categories in this context, I'm talking about like the housing and homelessness category, food services, legal assistance, education, youth, health, I think those are our big buckets. That's what I'm referring to here, just so you know when I say service types. And so we have really two different ways that we're thinking about how we can prioritize service types within the services arc. This is in order to help streamline the decision making on your end, to be transparent upfront with our applicants so they know going into the proposal process what the level of priority of the work that they're applying for and if they wanna tailor their applications to meet a priority.

So the first is to assign the priority through the rubric itself and we would add points to their total score just based on what category they're applying for. So it's not really a reflection of the quality of their application, it is just you are applying for our highest priority category, so you get x number of points. You're applying for what we've ranked as our second most important category, so it's a smaller amount of points, knowing that total score is what is going to rank the applicants. We gave a rough example and we would iron this out when we do a deeper dive into the rubric, but for example, if homelessness and housing is our top priority, they would get five out of five points. If it's food security is our second, they would get three out of five points, something like that.

With this perspective, non priority projects that score high will still be highly ranked and non priority projects may get funded over priority projects or over higher priority projects. The second option is to prioritize the categories upfront by looking we know we won't know how much money we have available, but we could do things by proportion. So what you did this year when you actually kind of look at the numbers of how money was allocated in the services arc, 65% of the funds were awarded to housing and homelessness projects, 25% were awarded to food security projects, and 10% were awarded to everybody else within the services arc. So we're not talking about ED and infrastructure or arts and music. So what we're proposing for this upcoming cycle would be to take that same proportion, that same kind of pie chart of 65, 25, and 10 and say upfront of whatever money is available to the services arc, 65% of it will be allocated to housing and homelessness projects.

And then that means that the services arc would look at ranked rubric scores of housing and homelessness projects and look at their 65%, whatever that total number is, and allocate that money to those projects. And then they would go to food security and they'd look at how the food security applicants are ranked based on rubric score, and then you look at that 25% of the pot and allocate that 25% to those food security agencies based on how they're ranked. And you would still have discretion of how that money gets spread out among those agencies, But there are some parameters around it to give you all some structure and some predictability and to make it clear to agencies upfront a more like rough idea of how funding will be allocated based on the priorities. And you have the opportunity before each funding cycle every two years to reevaluate those priorities. If another pandemic hits and we realize that we need to increase our protections for renters or fully invest in our health agencies, you would have the opportunity to make those adjustments.

Emily, did I miss anything here?

I'm not sure if you mentioned this already, but in in formal aspects, deliberations will still be involved. It's just we'll be utilizing either the rubric to define service priorities through the points or in option one b, the rubric would still be utilized. You know, we won't have points in that aspect, but you'll be able to categorize your priorities upfront. So Yes. Either way, deliberation is still involved. The money will just be divided based off of ranking, but you essentially will decide how much money to give the agencies. That that will be your end decision in in your in your control.

Great, yes, thank you for reiterating. Okay, so that's the first big decision. The second big decision is streamlining the interview process, again, specifically for the services ARC. It's a lot of applicants and it's a lot of time spent preparing for interviews and what we're thinking about are what are ways that we can have fewer interviews, basically, so that fewer agencies have to go through that prep process if they meet certain criteria. So there's really two ways that we're looking at this.

The first is a top portion of scored applicants don't have to interview. So, the way this would work is there would be an interview category on the rubric, let's say it's worth 10 points, agencies in the top portion, and we in the staff report go into some specifics about what we think top portion could be, the agencies in the top portion will get to advance just to the funding deliberations and they get a full 10 out of 10 on their interview scores. And then everybody else would interview and get scored out of 10 points on their interview, and that would be added to their total in the rubric. That's option two a, the first of these two options. The second option is that exact same thing.

So the top portion, advance, get full score on their interview score, but we are also adding a bottom portion and it would be a much smaller proportion of applicants compared to that top portion. But based on rubric score, which reflects the services priority that we discussed in the prior slide, as well as the quality of the application, a smaller portion of those on the bottom would not be advanced to the interview round and would not receive funding. So those agencies that would likely not receive funding anyway based on being so low on the ranking wouldn't have to go through the work of the interview process. And I'm not gonna go into the specifics, but in the staff report we kind of game out what this would look at would look like with some proposed what the top proportion and what the bottom proportion is using, the numbers from this most recent funding cycle, the number of applicants we had in the Services Arc. Oh, just kidding.

I forgot Emily made the slide for us. Thank you, Emily. This is what it looks like in practice. So in option in the first option there, we propose either the top third or the top 16, whichever number is higher. So, in this most recent funding cycle, 16 agencies would advance to the deliberations and 20 would be interviewed and then everybody would be ranked for funding. And then for the other option, the same thing would happen with the top portion, but then we are proposing the bottom 5% or the bottom four applicants, whichever is lower, would not be interviewed and would not advance for funding. And this is more specific on page six of your staff report.

Can I add, Amy? Yes, So just like context, you know, for those of you who have been on the services arc, like this year there were 36 applicants that were interviewed, and that was a total of eleven hours. So that's a lot of hours. Right? So it's staff time, CSC time, and we really I mean, just the amount of hours that you invest in that, that's amazing.

And I really you know, we appreciate it if, you know, you do it because you care. But we believe that, you know, with the newly communicated priorities, there might be less applicants in the pool. We don't know. But we do wanna streamline the process because there may be applications that are strong enough to move forward, and there might be applications that just don't meet what the CSC is looking for. So I know, you know, there is a desire to give everyone a chance, and I think that's amazing and a great intention.

But, you know, even looking at these options, 18 agencies is still a lot of people to interview. So comparatively to the other arcs, we just wanna make it less of a burden for you all in a way that makes sense. So we definitely wanna hear your feedback in that. So I'll pass it back to Kate.

Thank you. Yeah. And, also, the this is our attempt to try and also value the time and the effort of the agencies that are applying for this process. Okay. So from here, we're gonna that that wraps up our presentation. Thanks for hanging in there. I know it's a lot of information, and it's kind of dense to go through these scenarios. So for the next steps, we're gonna open it up to public comment. And then, we would like to first hear your questions. So if you have any kind of clarifying sort of questions, we'd like to start there.

And then we'd like to just do a quick poll, to see which of those two options for those two decisions, you all are landing on, and then we can go into discussion from there. So I'm gonna look and see of our participants.

No one

No hands raised.

There's no hands raised. Is there anybody in the room?

No.

Okay. Great. So that that's public comment. I'm gonna hand things back over to chair Wheeler to facilitate, the question and answer process, and I'll jump in on answers, and Emily and I will answer as well.

Thank you, Emily and Amy, for the presentation, for reminding us of everything, for all the hard work you put into outlining everything for us as well as for the the presentation. I'm interested in whether or not anyone has questions to get clarification. Is there anything you wanna understand? Just gonna go from left to right, and I see your hand, commissioner Gunn. Yep. For sure.

So my question was on the amount of time it's to do interviews because I'm trying to remember. Services was two Saturdays. If I remember right, the first Saturday was about seven to eight hours, and then the second Saturday, it went to about hours, but that included deliberation. Yep. So I'm thinking about eleven hours seems a little bit even low. I'm wondering how long it would take to interview 18 to 20

applicants. Applicants. Yeah. Yeah. I I I think, you know, given that if we do move to a weekday evening, we still need to address and look at how we're doing the interview. Yeah. So, you know, I think we can give the agencies enough time to provide a presentation and give the CSC enough questions and not do twenty minutes total. Mhmm. So, you know, we would need to address that. So, definitely, I think it's something we we will need to address and see how many applicants we have in a year for services. And then also, you know, include deliberations with that too.

Thank you.

Any follow-up, commissioner Gunn? You got what you needed?

I believe that was it.

Okay. Thank you. Did I see you in commissioner?

Thank you. In our last meeting,

I posed a question about potential allocation of funding to the city's youth commission. Just wanna share, like, youth services were funded.

And I was wondering

if there was an update going. Yeah. Thank I'm sorry. Yeah.

We don't have an update on that. I'm sorry. Was somebody else gonna talk? I

Mm-mm. All you. Thank you

for reminding us of that commissioner in Google, and we will take a note of it and take it back. I don't know enough about the youth commission and how it operates. I will need to talk to our colleagues in the library.

Thank you.

Okay. Commissioner Singh?

Yeah. I guess, it seems like there's a strong preference to move to a two year funding cycle. I guess my question is, is there a concern that if we do move to a two year funding cycle that it might not be applicable to all the agencies? So, for example, like, if an agency misses the funding period of the application during one year, then they have to wait two years before they can apply again. And that could be a big set setback for them.

You know, we see the funding from the city. So that's one of my questions is, are we really being equitable when we're doing that? The other question I have is regarding the I know with the option of two a and two b of kind of using the scoring to either move applicants forward or, now giving any, funding to applicants who receive a very low, scores. I think, is there a concern that if we just use the rubric some sort of scoring method to either move applicants forward or just deny them funding completely that we might be missing valuable information, or that the CSC might miss valuable information if they're not given the chance to interview? Is that a concern based on my experience?

In the past, I've given agencies a certain score just based on review of their applications. But then when I have interviewed them, my scores change because I obtained valuable information that I did not initially obtain. So is that a concern on the staff? I Those are my two.

I would answer the first question to say, like, that's a valid concern. And we would always be able to, if there were additional money in the off cycle year, put that funding out. I think we have greatly improved in our outreach and ability to notify agencies about this funding process, as evidenced by like, we keep having more applicants. And so I think I

would it's it's

a trade off. There is some risk that there are agencies that would miss it and not get to be able to apply for another year, but I think that the reliability and the stability, the predictability that we're giving to applicants for funding outweighs that risk, frankly. And then I would say for your other question, if you don't mind, I think that that really gets more into some of the discussion pieces and I'd like to hear kind of what your colleagues think about that before we weigh in. So if you if you don't mind if we could put a pin in that second question for the discussion. I apologize. I need to step away just for a family emergency just for a moment, but you're in good hands with Emily. I'll be right back.

K. Thank you.

I'm gonna come back around again. I think I saw commissioner Moore. Yeah. I am

well, let me say my first thought is that I'm not in favor. Okay? Truly American, so I'm going

to go with the majority. But I'm not

in favor of moving to his set two year. I would prefer a staggered year. So I If you don't mind, we're gonna do discussion after questions. Thank you.

This is for clarifying. Maybe if there's something you don't understand Or that I'm sorry.

I started at the wrong place. Okay. Rewind. So on the page four, streamlining the services ARC interviews, does it look to you like there's a preference for successful returning agencies? That's my question. Because if you've been doing this process for a while, would you not be more experienced in how to submit a a successful application?

That sounded horrible. Do you want me to answer that question?

Not if you don't have an answer, but that that's what is not clear in my brain.

You're right. There are individuals that have done this many, many years, and they're very successful at it. And that's why as staff, we try to give as much technical assistance as possible. We've done technical assistance for interviews or in response to CSC. We do the bidders conference.

We have question and answers prior to. So we definitely try our best to make sure newer agencies are successful. And I know that the CSC had a goal to be able to support newer agencies in general, hitting 20 new agencies every year. And in the past two years that I've been here, you've been successful in that. So the reason why we're doing inner top agencies moving forward without interviews because there was an ex deal did express in the last meeting that you wanted to make sure you would give individuals in the bottom a chance to be able to, you know, provide that additional context, which

is

why we're not suggesting to interview the top individuals. So that that additional, like, interview score, you'll be able to some more context in there. But if we look at just grants in general, there are grants that have that provide way more money out there without any interview. Not to say that this isn't, you know, but I know that that based off your feedback and agencies, they like the interviews. They do. So being able to have that connection, we see the value in that, but we also wanna be really realistic here. Okay. So I I really appreciate your feedback. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other clarifying questions, question Ward? I'm okay. Okay. Very good. Commissioner Dunn, additional clarifying questions?

I had two more. The first one was the, the other jurisdictions that you researched that do the two year process. Do they allocate as a percent if they because they don't know what they're gonna get the following year anyway.

Yeah. Okay. Proportion

Okay.

Yeah. To what they get. And I will say we get a lot of agencies. We have, like, 50 to 60 applicants a year. That is a lot.

And I think other agencies are very discerning. And I think we have an amazing CSC here where you wanna give everyone a chance. But in other agencies, they're discerning. They end up funding less people. And I think this year, it's it's shown that that process, it while it's inclusive, it also is hard, right, to make those decisions at the end of the day and deciding, do we wanna give less awards with potentially more impact to be able to allocate more funds and see that through or more awards at smaller more awards at a smaller amount.

So, you know, we have like I said, I do commend you all because I can tell there is a desire to be able to make sure everyone gets a chance. But in comparison to other agencies, we don't have as much money and we have more Africans. So we need to be discerning and make sure that process is equitable. We can stand behind that. I know you said you had another question.

Yep. I have one more. Is would it be an issue as far as transparency if we chosen if we did not interview a top applicant, but then also didn't assign them any money, for example.

Yes.

Okay. That would

be a huge issue because we're recommending that we publish the rubric scores.

Okay.

And I I strongly recommend that because we, as a city, need to have a transparent process for how we allocate taxpayer money. Yep. So it would support the CSC and staff to be able to give applicants and publish this and say, this is where you stand in comparison to others. Okay. It's not that your projects isn't priority. It just was lower in priority, and we had to make tough decisions.

So connected with that, like, that rubric score would help if we didn't interview the bottom, for example. Because then we say, oh, well, this was your score.

Yeah. And if you look at the these options, you know, even the one where, like, say, didn't interview the bottom, it would be two two applicants. So, you know, do with it how you will. I think as staff, we can be a little more discerning to see what applicants you end up reading in the first place. Like, do we believe this agency will be able to utilize funds in a in a responsible way? I know that's always, like, the top. And so we want you to to read that, but also if we don't believe that fully and there's our track record of that, we don't think it's worth your time.

Yeah. So Thank you. Yeah. Commissioner? Hi. I have

a few questions, and I agree with mister Singh and miss Moore, yours as well on a variety. But I have a question regarding the two year grant. Because about five or six years ago, we wanted to make sure that people didn't feel complacent saying, oh, I get it every year here. That they we teach them how to fish, not give them the fish. And that's a question I have if we're doing that for two years.

How are you going just like you, you get an annual evaluation maybe most corporations do. How are we going to evaluate company a that comes in and gets two years and they're just complacent maybe now? And somebody else could have had it. Or the return on our investment as taxpayers is not what we think it should be. Okay? As an example, four homeless people at 18800 were downtown streets. That's outrageous. They could have been in a motel for for the year with that. So you have to look and evaluate like a corporation. We all have great hearts, or we wouldn't be here.

But the pie has to be separated, and we need to have transparency with interviews. Also, I know for all of us here, if you're going to compete for anything, if you had to go in on a Saturday or Sunday Oh, ma'am. I'm so sorry. Is that an important question? Mhmm. Okay. Thank you. So if you have to go in on a Saturday, let's say, like we usually do, and we're doing it and we're not on the payroll, and they're there for their nonprofit or entity, why is that a pain for them when they're going to get something for free?

Emily, I can jump in on this. Hi, Janet. I'm back. I apologize. I I'm gonna go backwards to that first question.

I think, candidly, just because we can ask them to come in on the weekends doesn't mean we should if we can avoid it based on the feedback from them, like, that is these folks these folks work frankly, like, some of them have, like, secondary trauma from just their jobs. And so if they need their weekend to rest and recover, I think we can respect that if we can find another option that works for them, which is why we're proposing not doing it on the weekends. And I would say I I don't necessarily agree with you that they are getting it for free, they work quite hard and and are providing a service to members of the community. And then I'm sorry. Can you repeat the first question again?

I I did not write it down. I apologize.

On at two years,

what are you

doing to look at

Yes. How they're spending

the funding? Where's their

performance? Still be evaluating. They like, they would still have to do so the timing is different depending on the funding source, I'm gonna talk about CDBG, they do monthly reimbursement requests and so we, our team, reviews those closely to make sure that every line item has a backup receipt or payroll report so that they are actually reimbursed getting reimbursed for actual costs. We would still be doing that and looking at that closely. They would still be submitting quarterly reports, on their progress, how many folks they served, their progress towards meeting their contracted objectives.

And if they were not meeting those objectives, we would flag that. And we have language in the contracts that give us the opportunity to terminate a contract for cause if there are issues with their performance. And we would not hesitate to to do that. We would give them the notice to cure and and the opportunity to fix it, but that is an option that we would be paying really close attention to with two year terms.

And can I add, Amy, to if we do two years, there's that option to involve the CSC to be a little more discerning about looking into performance and, you know, to having a feedback loop? So if you notice when we're presenting a performance report that there's something that needs to be changed, then that's something we can communicate and, you know, going into the next funding cycle, that's something you would know months in advance rather than just looking at the applications over one month. So you'd have multiple different touch points to be able to connect with an agency and see how how impactful they're still doing in meeting the standards of their contract.

Oh, I respectfully disagree on saying that you said that the individuals are traumatized for, coming in and doing that.

They Oh, that's that's not what I said. Sorry, Janet. Let me clarify. Please let me clarify. That's not what I intended to say.

They're not traumatized by coming in on the weekend. I mean, by the nature of their work, folks, for example, who are serving people who are unhoused, who are spending their day working with a family who are unsheltered with a ten month old baby, that that work can be traumatizing just by the nature of the work. And what we heard from the applicants is that their weekends are an actual like, important time for them to recover from what they spend their week doing and so what staff are proposing is if we have the opportunity to not ask them to also work on the weekend, then we shouldn't. And we are the only jurisdiction that does this And I think that we've proposed some options for you all tonight that will allow us to change that practice.

How will that work for this commission for people getting here at 06:00?

We would still do them virtually. That's a really good question. We are still proposing to do virtual interviews, so you wouldn't have to come in. We are proposing that we would start the meeting a little bit early at 06:00 instead of at seven, but it would still be it would be via Teams the same way that our Saturdays are.

Okay. Thank you. Yes. I just wanted to reiterate that the intent of this discussion is to ask any questions that would prevent you from being able to I believe what Amy and Emily are desiring is just the feel of, like, how are you feeling? You feeling more towards one a or one b?

Are you feeling more towards two a or two b? And then if there's a question that's preventing you from being able to give that initial poll, that's what this clarifying portion is for. And then once they sort of have that general sense, we would then have this larger discussion of what sounds like a little bit more of into the meeting. So I just wanted to kind of reiterate again, if there's something that's preventing you from being able to identify which way you're leaning, that's what the questions and clarification are for now. Okay.

Thank you.

I have two clarifying questions. First, for option one b, I know you said, like, the first time, we'll just base it off of, like, this year's allocations to establish the next allocations. But I was wondering, the future then, who is going to be deciding the allocation? Will be the ARC, like, services ARC, or or will it be, like, the CSC as a whole?

That's a a good question. Our vision right now is that the CSC would do that work in September, if we maintain our current calendar. I'm like it might correct me if I'm wrong. We would do that in September. So that'd be kind of part of the upfront work is establishing those priorities, which staff would then capture and include in the notice of funding availability in the RFP. And you would have that opportunity each, September in advance of the funding cycles to to change it.

Okay. Thank you for clarification. My other clarifying question was so I know that you mentioned going on a two year cycle, there will be opportunity being once turning in, like, looking into the work of an organization. I was and I know previously it was discussed that there might be site visits or things like that. I was just wondering, does the city staff have any interaction with organizations that don't get funded?

And, like, for example, if, like, an organization doesn't get funded for, like, a two year cycle, is there any interaction we'll have with them? Like, will there be an opportunity to do a site visit with an organization that's not funded? Because I'm I'm guessing I'm headed toward a slight discussion point where there's a concern that we'll be favoring we'll we'll be favoring the organizations that are funded because we'll have interactions with them, whereas the organizations that aren't funded, we won't have any interactions. I'm concerned about that, and therefore, process will be favored toward those that are already funded.

Mhmm. That's a really great question, and that's something that we could incorporate in those off cycle years. Staff does interact with applicants that aren't funded. We provide technical assistance on an ongoing basis. Emily holds office hours where current applicants can come, and that is another place where we can kind of maintain those communications. And we could certainly, as we approach the off year with you all and and we kind of decide how we want to engage applicants, that is absolutely a thing we could do.

K. Thank you. Sounds good.

Thank you. Commissioner for more?

Yes. Thank you. Question's about the application and rework system. So seems like we're going moving forward to rely on this rubric heavier than the last years, and I just wanna make sure that it says, like, the update rubric system. So the questions in the application and the rubric, how it looks like, it's gonna stay the same.

The reason I'm asking you is that we get those, applications during the holiday season, and we need to read, like, a 50 or 60, applications. And we really have to put our heart in to score the rubrics done before if the some people don't get the interview. So are you guys thinking about to make it more, simpler or shorter, applications or any updates what you were thinking of? Sure.

I mean, we're open to your feedback about the application. We did cut it down this year, and we tried to reflect it to the rubric and reflect what was happening in rubric in the application and make sure there is, like, sort of a feedback between the two. In regards to that rubric itself, the plan and if you have any suggestions, so let's solicit feedback from you all. But we did include the rubric in the agenda packet for any feedback. And then in June, we're gonna come back for a session specific to the rubric itself based off of what you've discussed today, how we're gonna incorporate that feedback into future recommendations regarding that rubric.

During

the interview process, once the priorities have been established, this is once the the two year cycle has been started. So two years later, we have, let's say, 20 agencies that are funded. And then maybe we have 20 new applicants. How is the percentage weighed? So who gets interviewed and who doesn't?

That's a good scenario question. If we have 20 funded and 20 new applicants in services, correct me if I'm wrong, Emily, but that's only four more than we had this year. Yeah. Assuming I'm understanding the hypothetical 40 applicants.

Right.

We have 24 funded this year for services.

Yeah. So but the total applicants in your scenario

makes sense.

Commissioner more are is just four more than what we've currently had. So we would do a similar distribution with it depends on which option you land on for, like, the interview, but it would still be whatever the prioritization that this body decides on, that approach wouldn't change based on the number of applicants.

The rubric question. Go ahead.

Almost. The rubric would be the same for currently funded and those applying for new funding.

Yes. The rubric won't change. That's the goal is there's there's some sort of structure. Of course, we we heard you that we don't wanna use the rubric to make decisions, but we do wanna utilize it as a tool. You all use it as a tool during services. So we wanna sort of systematize across all services so that when you come to discuss together, there is some sort of, like, unifying aspect of how applicants were reviewed. And then with the deliberations, you all will have the decisions to see, oh, how much should we fund

each agency?

And I would also add that if I don't know if it's the point that you're getting to, but if, for example, you all previously have expressed a desire to prioritize new and innovative programs, so you could decide, for example, with the rubric to give a bonus point or a bonus two points to new applicants, or you could operationalize what you mean by innovative. And if an agency is innovative, if they check that box, they get an extra point or two. So that's some of the changes that you can make to the rubric. Similarly, if you want to, wait in the favor of an applicant that's, Hayward based or a minority or women owned. I'm just kind of thinking of things I've heard this group mention before.

You could do that in the rubric as well so new applicants would have an opportunity to, score higher for that purpose.

Yeah. And I do wanna add, you know, in the current rubric, we have on page I believe it's 28. We have this additional consideration. So it's like, is it Hayward Faces? Is it new and innovative?

In the past, you all have also discussed, like, minority owned, women owned. If that were a priority to this VC, I highly recommend that we actually incorporate it in a way that when you're reviewing as an individual commissioner, that's something that's given points of some sort so that there's not, like, that so that every commissioner is looking at it in a similar view and that we're not saying, oh, yes. We're thinking about new and innovative. It's on the group, right, but it's not something we're all sort of scoring on. That makes sense because we've been able to fund new and new and innovative programs to the percentage that you all have, like, set as a goal in these past two years.

And I think being able to systematize that, we'll be able to meet that goal and make sure we meet that goal every year.

You know, other hands, I've got a question around the off cycle. In the event funding becomes available, is that funding available to everyone or just the existing grantees?

Oh, everyone. Okay. I think everyone on the category

of funding. It depends on what the funding is. So, for example, counsel is still we're still working with counsel to establish, like, long term direction for how to use opioid funding, for example, and that is money that has very specific eligibility restrictions. So that could be something in an off year that for eligible applicants we could make a NOFA available based on the restrictions of that funding source. Also, I would say if more funding becomes available from not CDBG, it would likely be within a context where council has a specific direction, and we would the NOFA would reflect that, if that makes sense.

It might not.

I think what you're saying is in the event additional funding becomes available, we'll have to adhere to whatever the guidelines are of that funding, but we would broadcast the net Yes. To agencies that are outside of existing grantees who can meet that funding eligibility. Okay.

Absolutely. Sorry. I missed that important part of your question. Yes.

Cool. Excuse me. The other question that I had is it's, not clear to me, and it may not be part of the options, where we, as the commission, provide technical assistance support with individuals who either have received funding, but maybe not full funding on how they can access other sources Mhmm. Or for those who were falling into the you didn't make the minimum qualifications that we had set to be funded. Is this part of what you're asking us to, weigh in on now, or will this be part of our June work session meeting where we're talking a little more in-depth about the other items we need to address such as the rubric, the arts and music?

I'm just not sure where that fits in, and I'm just asking where that fits.

It's we're trying to kind of narrow the scope bit by bit so we're not throwing a ton of information and and putting a lot on you all at once. Next month, my proposal is that we really focus in on the rubric and getting that cleaned up so that Emily and the team can hit the ground running when September rolls around. In terms of what this body would do in the off cycle year, we actually have some time, I think, before we have to decide that. And so my proposal is to spend a little bit more time on that next year. But we can certainly if if you're interested in in accelerating that conversation, we can make it part of June. It is not to talk about tonight is our goal.

Fair enough. The I've asked that question. It would make a difference to me. I've I've already forgotten which option is which. Whichever option says we don't interview the bottom two people. Mhmm. I think that's to be.

Yeah.

I would be less inclined to prefer that option

I see.

If there if I wasn't aware of how this whole how we're supporting technical assistance thing was worth. So that's where my question came from. But I absolutely hear you. There's only twenty four hours in a day. We can only handle so much

at the time, but

I just wanted to shift.

I can give you, like, a sneak peek into what we have been kind of pro like, kind of tinkering Apple, which is that leveraging the expertise of you all, I would like to do a work session where we kind of take a step back. We know what counsel's concerns are, like, kind of broadly, but I think that you all are a little bit closer to it based on what you've seen in the applications. So it would be a work session for you all to kind of brainstorm what are the pain points of the funding process for applicants to get them to the place where we need them to be to get funding, not just from us, but from other areas, and also to talk through kind of what are the things that we think we can do at a CSC level to help them. So it would be a collaborative brainstorm with you all, which may be like helping them find other funding sources. I think Janet mentioned it a couple cycles ago and we've never been able to pursue it, working with CSU East Bay and Chabot to help with, like, business model development and and that kind of level of technical work.

So it'd be really looking at you all to kind of come together with, like, what are all the different what's the entire universe of things we could do? And then you all could break out into small working groups that wouldn't need to be staffed. It wouldn't be a formal ad hoc, but you could connect a few times off cycle and then come back to the group another work session to sort of present what you think the what we could do to support the agencies. And that is as fully formed as I've got it at this point and that's why we're not prepared to talk about it too much tonight, but there is something there that we would like to leverage your expertise on to help with that two b option.

Thank you. Fair enough. So I'm hearing you say make a decision without that information right now because there's only so much we can handle and tackle.

And and if it really, really does impact your ability to make the decision, we can come back to you with more information in June.

Fair enough.

Oh, yes. Commissioner Wong, one more clarifying question?

Just one small clarifying question. How are interview times of applicants decided, like, in the system currently, and then how will we need how how will they be decided, moving forward?

So you mean, like, that twenty minute?

Yeah. I mean, I'm I guess part of my thinking is, like, if we do do it on a weekday, to whenever, like, sometimes people have families to take care of. Like, they have to go back home. So I'm just wondering, like, how are times the interview times determined and, like, who gets what's the slot?

Yeah. I think we'll definitely oh, I see what you mean. So based off of, like, priority and, like, all that. So we will Amy, you went off mute. Did you wanna Yeah.

I mean, the the simplest answer, Commissioner Wong, is that right now I think Evelyn does it alphabetically, and that's how slots are assigned. And then she's really good at the kind of moving folks around when multiple when an individual agency has multiple applications, that will often, I think, drive some of the scheduling so that they're not doubled up at the same time across arcs. We we've never we've always just assigned times. We've we've never really done a sign up for the time slot that works best for you. We've assigned times with and then had some flexibility to move stuff around, but not a lot.

So I think we would likely just assign times like before. And we also sorry to say one more thing. From the from the jump, from, like, the very from the bidders conference on, we are emphatic that these are the dates that interviews will be and these are the timeframes, so please now, months in advance, make sure that your staff, who are gonna be the ones most informed about your programs, are holding these times. So in the past, it was hold these Saturdays. You don't know what time, you don't know which date, but hold them. We would do that exact same thing, they'd have plenty of notice about when the interviews would be.

And to your point about, like, child care and all of that, I've presented this as an option to agencies and even individuals that do have children are like, yeah, I still would prefer an evening as long as I can do it virtually.

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone. How shall we poll? Yeah. Let's do this. So, for the two questions, so prioritizing service type and streamlining, if you have a phone available, I hope you do. If not, I can offer I have one phone. But we have this QR code, and then also if you don't wanna utilize the QR code, you can just join menti.com and then use the code that's printed out. And this will just be a way for us to start the conversation and just see where the CSC lands, and then we'll go into discussion.

Everybody has a QR code in front of you.

You gave me one question to ask answer.

Oh, yeah. We're just gonna do one. Oh, oh, I see. Understood. Yeah. That would be

Oh, we're starting with the what

With the two a and two b.

Oh, yeah. It didn't start with number one. Oh, did you want

Oh, yeah. One second. Sorry. Oh. I'm gonna send a request, and then, Amy, I'm gonna share my screen. Can you allow for me?

You're you're you can present.

Okay. Thank you.

Oh, just leave. Hold on. Go for it.

There you go. You

got 10 activity? Yes. Okay.

And so you said you you see two

a right now? This. Yes. This is what she'll Three a. Yeah.

It's two a here, Jay. Questions or.

You guys got it? I mean, we

can start there while you Yeah. Figure it out. Oh, now it's on. It refreshed.

Oh, that's what I was saying. Refresh. Oh, refresh.

There you go. Good.

I did. Okay. Thank you. Great.

That is It looks like Tufari kinda have have it figured out. So this will just you know, anonymously, you have the option to be able to show where you stand, between the two options, and then that'll just be a kick kicking point to discussion.

But what if you don't want either one of those options?

And then we'll have a discussion.

Yeah. You abstaining.

Oh, no. Before that due to.

Oh, Mariana is also here. Emily, could you Okay. Potentially, like, text me the QR code, and I can send it to Mariana so she can participate? Even I think if you send me a, like, a screenshot, I can email it.

I can do that. You don't want to do it? And you've done it. But yeah.

There's a Menti code too to join. If you could show it on the screen. I'm already on Menti.

So we did it this way so that just the public wouldn't be able to provide. I see. Okay. But but Amy's gonna text you. So so you can

I'll email you right now, Mariana.

And, also, if you don't like either of them, I think that's a discussion point too to be able to provide.

Well, I don't accept the terms of use, it says down here. How do I know what kind of cookies they're gonna use or anything? Really? I just heard about the Google I mean, the Microsoft thing today.

And then I think we could probably move on once Mariana gets her vote in.

Suppose vote before discussion? Just vote with a one.

It's just vote.

Oh, okay.

Oh, yeah. Just choose whichever one. Or if you'd like to abstain, you can do that too.

Also, is this not an official vote. This is

One, the second one, we'll see too. Sorry. Go ahead,

Amy. Sorry. This is not an official vote. It's just an informal. We wanna see where folks stand. So you said abstain, Emily, and I got nervous about how serious that word is. You don't have to. I just wanna be really clear that everybody knows that this is just an informal thank you. This does not carry any yeah.

Thank you.

This board language is so ingrained in us.

Alright. Did everyone

vote? Reduce.

Looks like 11 out of 11 now. So everybody who's in has voted.

Great. Thank you.

Discuss.

Alrighty, folks. So it looks is that accurate? The dots, it looks like more people are for one b versus one a. That's what we're seeing. Is that most of mine? Okay. I'm interested. Does anyone want to talk about it? Anyone commissioner again?

Yeah. I picked one b because to me, it gives the the applicants a lot more time to kind of plan. It feels more transparent. I think that the rubrics are still a bit ambiguous to me, and they're probably ambiguous to a lot of the applicants as well. No matter how good we make them, there there's always gonna be a bit of mystery about versus if we just say, hey. Here's our category, and 65% of our funding is gonna go to this type of service. I think everybody can understand what that means.

Thank you. Other comments? Other thoughts? Minister Singh?

Yes. My comment on one b is that, you know, if we use a allocation based on, like, prior year. Right? Like, let's say, for example, we use this year's allocation bit for next year, and let's say the demand changes. So for example, instead of being, like, 60% demand in in housing, It's actually there's more greater demand. There's more applicants in food, but we've allocated 60% towards housing. Right? So there's kind of a just for based on what's required by the applicants versus our allocation. There there's a mismatch. So that's my concern.

May

I

provide a smaller

Oh, sorry.

Did you wanna go ahead?

I just wanted to jump in with, like, a potential clarification there for commissioner Singh. So you would have the we are only proposing using the prior year distribution just to start this process so that the next two year cycle would start with this sixty five, twenty five, ten. You all are welcome to change that now based on like, your understanding of the community needs and priorities. We're just choosing that because it reflects the most recent decision folks have made. And then in advance of each future cycle, you would have the opportunity to revise those that distribution.

And what we are really relying on here is this commission's understanding of the demand and and to the community need to set that up front so that applicants can know really where the priorities are of the commission. I think one of the things that I meant to say up front, in prior years, this body has kind of felt some challenge with trying to get counsel to more explicitly express the priorities, and counsel has often deferred back to you all. Counsel has a strategic road map that has, if you imagine, like, a pie chart equal wedges for kind of all of their key priorities for the city. And when you map on the applicants to CAF to that road map, every single wedge has at least one of the things that we fund. So it's tough to use that as the driving prioritization force, which is why we are and why council has encouraged us to lean to you all to set that up front.

And again, you have the flexibility in advance of each funding cycle to readjust those prioritizations, and you have the flexibility to advise us on how you wanna set it in advance of the next cycle. You don't have to use the sixty five twenty five ten that we're proposing.

I have a follow-up, mister Singh?

Yes. I I suppose I should have asked this in my questions. In terms of, like, one a and one b, now does that only apply to the services offer, or is that just across the board? We would apply that to additional ARCs as well. You know, make the

It's just services is where we're proposing doing that because this is where the significant, competition is. If in the future and I think, honestly, we're also kind of just trying this for the first time, which is why we're really honing in on services. In the future, if we wanna look at economic development and infrastructure and and set a prioritization there, we certainly can. You have to remember it gets a little funky because that is kind of where all the CDBG money is that can't be spent on services. So we usually don't have the same level of intense competition because there's just more money.

But as things change, we may find, like you're saying, that that the demand shifts, and this group can absolutely implement a similar prioritization on the economic development infrastructure side. But for right now, we are focusing just on services for this proposal.

And my other comment goes back to what I had mentioned earlier about, now this goes to, two a and two b about I think it relates more to maybe two b.

It's or are we just Wanna hold off till we do that vote one on

that vote? Yeah. We'll do that next.

Okay. Yeah. And that's all for me. Cool.

I did wanna respond to, I think, your initial comment around flexibility, which it feels like maybe one b doesn't offer as much as one a. Just sharing feedback on why I selected the one a. I work at the intersection of philanthropy and nonprofits, and I will say that I love this conversation around us being more participatory and more partnering with our community based nonprofits on how this works, what's comfortable for them, what works for them. I think that's on trend and appropriate and how to be true partners with those who are serving our neighbors. I just personally believe that the request for funding are gonna continue to remain or go up regardless of what we decide in the rubric, regardless of how we say we're prioritizing.

It's just a real pinch right now for everyone, which is why I'm really looking forward to whatever conversation we have around how to support our nonprofits in other ways because we just can't do it all. I leaned more towards the one a option because it felt to me like it gives us flexibility each funding cycle each year based off of our work, based off of what we're seeing when we're talking to our neighbors to help city council really understand and make those decisions around the priorities. And it felt to me a little bit if we predetermined how much money is available within a specific service category. I don't know. It just felt a little I don't know.

I don't like that feeling feeling boxed in. It just felt like that to me. And I've been in deliberations and conversations within an ARC and even within the services ARC. And we've even come back and said, hey. Can we borrow from here where it didn't get used or just left you know?

And I'd like for us to be able to have that opportunity to have a conversation, which is why I lean more towards the one a. But I have no idea, Emily, Amy, if we have been helpful to you or not been helpful to you as you were putting together all the work you did on this presentation, seeing how there's different perspectives. I honestly just really truly believe we're gonna need to just decide something and pick something and just be good with it and see what happens for this first year, whatever it is that we try. We're not going to be able to satisfy all of us nor are we going to be able to satisfy all of our community partners. But I do believe that together, we can come up with a better option than what we're doing now.

Yes. So I also lean toward one a, but I guess I was more so, like, in the middle by just tapping and lean toward it. My concern with one b in my mind was I have a concern about, like, how categories are created and also how, like, funding is decided. I I guess I'm concerned about, like, organizations gamifying the way that they go about it because I this is my suspicion. If we want a category, the largest the largest categories are gonna be for housing and homelessness, health, food security, and maybe legal services.

And so that's, like, four categories. We're gonna split that across four categories. And then if we wanted to prioritize others, then I don't know. Like, maybe the other categories, like, youth and education. They're gonna get, like, a pittance, like, tiny amount. And so some organizations might be like, is it really worth the time to, like, go for this tiny allocation? Or maybe some organizations will be like, there's gonna be a lot of competition. Like, sure. This, housing and homelessness. Sure.

We would fall into that, but I think this category might actually have less competition. And so I'm gonna scrap my application in a way that suits this particular category better, and I feel like that just overcomplicate things in my mind. Maybe that maybe that won't happen. Maybe I'm just overcomplicating it, but I do have that sort of concern. And so when I was thinking about one a, I thought in terms of just, like, more flexibility.

Of course, my concern with one a is that I wouldn't and I guess this is solved with the rubric not being, like, definitive, like, used to make decisions, but I'm concerned about, like, consolidation of awards within a few high scores. And I feel I'm concerned that in, like, the long term, it just keeps rolling on. My question earlier about, like, organizations that get funded, they'll be the ones who get the most, like, interaction with staff. They'll get technical assistance. I'm just concerned that snowballed, and it's just gonna end up being consolidation of awards in the hands of a few organizations. And so that's why I kind of think more in terms, like, I like having more flexibility. One AI leaned toward more. That's just where I'm thinking.

Commissioner Cook? Yes. I'm still having a hard time which one is fair to applicants, and I just picked the one b because it's a lot more simpler. And and we can discuss the the priority portions beforehand. And versus plan a is, like, the certain applicants get boost in the beginning of the application. So I don't know if that makes it fair to, you know, the agencies try to get a funding for less prioritized services. So, yeah, I'm still in the middle, but I'm just trying to think which one's fair to all the applicants.

Yes. You're done.

I have a question on the last cycle or or if there's just a trend of it of which types of, services which types of applications tend to score higher if they're commonly grouped in housing, for example, already? We may just be boosting, a particular type of application twice.

What, sorry. Can you clarify? You mean

So I guess I'm wondering if there's a trend on which types of, among these buckets that we we say housing, food, other, if there's a trend towards applications that are for housing, they tend to perform higher anyway in their rubric scores. Mhmm. Or applications for food tend to perform higher. And the reason I asked that is that this for example, and I know we're gonna get into it in June, is that the impact rubric score is really hard to gauge when you have an applicant that's, you know, feeds 50,000 people a year, versus an applicant that houses 12. And so I think it's gonna be really hard to manage that, and I'm worried about oversaturating one particular group if we're amplifying it with our priorities here, using one a.

Okay. I see.

I Emily, have we I don't think we've analyzed the data in that way, commissioner Gan, where we've looked at the rubrics because I don't think that we've used the rubric scores in that way in deliberations. Mhmm. So I I don't actually think we have an answer. Emily, do you you've looked at the data maybe more than I have. Do you have a sense?

Yeah. I I wouldn't I would feel uncomfortable answering that because we haven't utilized it across all arcs

Mhmm.

And consistently each year. But, I mean, essentially, if we you would be prioritizing projects.

Yes.

This is the point of this is that you would need to prioritize either option Mhmm. One or two a one a or one b. So and that's typically in the past with the c s or with the services are you have naturally prioritized certain project like housing, homelessness, food security. And I think that's reflective of what you know in the community. So, you know, speaking to, like, being able to bring your perspective in, it's whether or not you wanna bring that perspective in later or before.

So The reason I think this could become an issue is if the top applicants automatically get funding without an interview. And if those top applicants are being boosted be simply because they're housing, for example, we could have a situation where we just never interview people asking for funding for housing. We just automatically get it, and then everybody else has to kinda fight for the rest. And I'm I'm worried about skewing the numbers a bit without the community weighing in on it.

Yeah. So, really, we'd have to see how that works in in practice with the points. Mhmm. If you're speaking to utilizing the points. So we have to see that work in practice because the services are they would utilize the points in that way, and we have to see essentially how that turns out. And, yeah, it and that would just be how you define how many points in a certain product should get based off of your priorities.

We're gonna move us along to the next question. We're a bit over time. Oh, do you have a comment? Okay. And I just also wanted to remind you, Krishna, again, there are multiple elements in the rubric.

Mhmm.

So the applicants still need to show their impact. They still need to show their, financial diversification. So them having a priority for particular service area may not boost them over others because they still have to show how they're doing good work and they're spending the money wisely. I'm sorry. Missed your hand. Please go.

Go ahead. No worries. Just wanted to echo the same notion that you mentioned about, you know, iterating the process. Because, again, you're starting a new process. Even the existing process, there are, you know, things that are it's not perfect.

Right? But we we iterate, we learn, and then we we try to, you know, integrate whatever will make it better for the next time. I personally voted for the one b because I felt like, you know, it kinda from the very beginning of the process, it's clear what the priorities are, and it's like a balanced approach, making sure that each of the priorities are being addressed and and that we are are looking at, you know, a a you know, again, more balance from my perspective.

Emily and Amy, is this where you all share with us your thoughts, or you still wanna hold out until there's additional discussion? I feel like this is like a cliffhanger.

I mean, I I would say on a staff level, we do have an opinion. And I think that the discussion you all just had is actually really representative of, like, Emily, me, and Carol in a room gaming this all through, so this is actually really validating for me. I think that's Thank you. I I will say that on a staff level, we lean towards one b. We think that it provides more clarity, and we think that in our benchmarking in particular, what what we saw from other jurisdictions that was, like, honestly, like, most appealing to us of the way to do it are the ones where they were able to say to applicants up front, here are the things we prioritize with this funding and make it really clear so that folks know going into it that though my active my project is not a top priority, there is still funding available to me, and my executive team at my agency thinks it's worth the effort to try for that.

And I think that it gives us the flex we still maintain some of the flexibility on a regular basis to come back through and adjust those priorities. We also I think I I think maybe it was commissioner Wong talked a little bit about, like, maybe the ambiguity around what the categories are. Sorry, Emily. We haven't talked about this, and I'm throwing it out here. Here's a little grenade.

We could change the categories. Housing and homelessness, like, those things, the youth, health, those don't have to necessarily be the categories. It's how we've always done it. But there's no reason to to always do things that we've we've always done them just because it's always how we've always done them. So if that was something that we'd be interested in is looking at other ways to categorize the services and then prioritize them off of that, that's another thing we could look at.

I would recommend not doing that on the first go, but testing with what we currently have and then maybe reevaluating if these categories didn't quite feel right. If we wanna think about things in a different way when we approach the funding, we have that flexibility.

So Do we do we feel complete?

I was gonna say, how do

we vote for two now? Yes. For two

to one. So I'll move on to the next slide, and then we can just get started whenever you're ready.

If we already voted last time, it's not gonna double count us. Right?

I don't think so.

Okay. Just making sure.

Seven people voted so far.

Does that count not voting at? I don't know if that factors into that number.

Sorry. I missed the question.

If you didn't like either option and it stayed, does that go into it? Mhmm. Oh. Okay. Then that might okay. Just

Are you still waiting on more votes? Are we done? Are we good?

Let's start it. Yeah. Yeah. Got a lot

of blue dots under two a. Anyone willing to share why they feel two or even why they feel neither?

Wanna share one?

Okay. I guess it seems clear that I'm saying stuff. I I just don't like the idea of not interviewing an applicant that gets awarded funding. And it I mean, it has to do with, like, doing your due diligence and, like, just making sure that the the organization getting funding like, you you do your due diligence. Like, you're asking the questions.

They go through, like, this vetting process to ensure that, like, they are good like, good uses of, like, this funding. I also think just from, like, a risk management point of view, it says that, like, the city council already put take on some sort of risk by delegating the responsibility of, like, doing the interviews and taking recommendations from the CSC to allocate funding. And so for us to also not do interviews and basically not have any interaction other than reading an application, I feel like that just doubles that risk in a way. And so I just feel like that doesn't make sense to me to not interview applicants. And I guess maybe that would mean, like, having to do a few more interview days, but maybe that's just a new expectation if we are going to be moving to, like, a weekday system for interviewing.

And then just in terms of the interviews themselves, I think that what would be very valuable to applicants is maybe and this would have to be something staff with to plan out. But I think some applicants might want to have a bit more time than just ten minutes to talk. I also think that some applicants might it would be beneficial for some applicants to get their interviews in different ways. I've mentioned presentations before. I think some work with, like, presentations, maybe some work, like, just speaking.

So I think allowing them to have those options would be good. And then in terms of, in, like, applicant scores on a rubric, I'm concerned about what if and maybe this is not likely. But what if every single applicant scores really highly and the difference between, like, the top applicants and those that we might not consider interviewing if we went with option two b is, like, the difference of one or two points. I feel like that marginal difference really would do a disservice to those organizations. And so I would have bit of an issue not funding them if there was, like, a very marginal difference.

Like, I get it. I've seen some applications that were terrible. I really don't think that we should interview them. But if there's, like, a very marginal difference that puts them in the bottom, I would feel against that. Yeah. That's basically all they have.

Thank you. Commissioner Singh?

Yeah. I sort of agree with commissioner Wong. I actually find the interview process very valuable. As I mentioned before, you know, by reviewing the application, I mean, you can give an agency a certain score. But then based on my experience, I've gained valuable information during the interview process where I've kind of reevaluated my score and said, okay.

I I'm gonna change my score based on that. So if I was to, like, for example, just allocate funding to the top applicants or not allocate funding based to an applicant that received a very low score. I feel like I would be missing out. I mean, I wouldn't I guess if I wasn't to interview them, I would disservice to them. So I didn't gain the entire information or get good amount of information that I could've based on it.

That's all for me.

Yes, Commissioner Kumar. Yes. I think, two b, but it's based on my this is kinda rely on the staff to kind of give applicants to give them clear expectation for the pre not the pre bid, but pre application meeting. So that way, they know what's the expectation. And, also, I was thinking about if I'm a HR person and trying to get somebody to fill out.

It is different, but, you know, try to fill out the position in my company. And I was not gonna call for interviews where people cannot understand what they're, you know, being you know, asking for and the time you know, my time, you know, as well. So that's how I looked at it. So yeah. Because, you know, we have to trust them for the taxpayers' money, so we really have to ask applicants to be professional and try to be willing to understand and ask questions if they don't know what to put in an application beforehand to actually submit the email.

I just expect that from that point of view.

Yeah.

I guess I'm I'm curious about the timelines, just because I don't know I know that a lot of agencies do the interviews during the week or a lot of cities do the interviews during the week, but they also don't have necessarily as many applicants as we do. So, I think that if we're if we're pushing to have a lot of applications, I don't know that we can do all of the interviews during the week and still make it, which is why I was leaning more towards either two a or two b. I'm I'm actually flexible on both of those. My only concern with two b is that,

for example, I think there

was an applicant in services who interviewed, but then we didn't have any questions because their interview was, like, really solid. But we just didn't have the funding for their particular, group based on our prioritizing. And it felt really awful afterwards because, like, we didn't even ask them any questions, and then we didn't give them any money. And it was only the one applicant that had that happen to them. And so I'm thinking if somebody applies and we score them low and then we never give them a chance to explain what their application might be missing, they might feel disenfranchised by the entire process. So that's my only re lean reason to leaning against two b, and going for two a. But, otherwise, I'm fairly flexible.

Other thoughts or comments for discussion?

I think interviews are important. Like everyone said, we might think some things don't take this wrong We don't want it. But when they talk, they just are not professional grant writers, and theirs might be great. But I think they need a chance to have their day in court with us just to say a few words maybe or for us to ask questions.

Emily and Amy, is the point of two a and two b I imagine there's several. One, to better partner with our community agencies with this weekend bit. I think for this is, like, we're looking to move to a time that feels respectful and convenient and a a good partnership with them. And I think we're also looking to reduce the amount of time the interviews take. And if that's the I I think that's what I'm hearing. The reason why I'm getting at sort of the point is like, okay. What is it we're trying to solve? Mhmm. Is removing interviews the way we're solving it? Like, I'm not certain.

Right? So I feel like I'm hearing around the the the table. It's difficult being a funder because you're required to say no. But I'm not hearing a lot of openness to saying no without what feels like the courtesy of meeting you, looking you in the eye. Like, that's that's what I feel like is feeling unsettling to us as a as a commission is because we are wanting to be respectful of our partners.

It feels somehow like we're not if we haven't at least met you and we're making these decisions. And so I I I I'm not certain I'm coming to a question here, but it sounds like what we're saying is we I'm not hearing overwhelming support for eliminating interviews. Like, I feel like we're saying we're willing to spend all the time. But I think that if we say that, that means you all are the ones where it has been shifted. Right?

Like, we've we've supported our partners, and they're meeting with us during the time of the week, and they're willing to do it at home, and they can maybe handle dinner and childcare. And we're all saying, we'll put in the time because we're remote, but I just wanna say out loud and recognize and acknowledge. That means the shift gets right over here to whatever this address is where we are on B Street. Mhmm. And I just wanna be say that out loud and and acknowledge that.

And so I'm not quite sure what the resolution is. And so I feel like if we, as the commission, are also partnering well with our city partners, I feel a responsibility to take on some of the discomfort. Right? And that may mean we need to say no. I think as uncomfortable as it is, and is the way that we say no, can we do it in our June meeting or some other meeting where we talk more about how do we support and how do we address the process? Is that in a debrief to where we still have that opportunity to look you in the eye? No. We didn't interview you. Yes. We had to not fund the bottom.

I'm just throwing it out there as an example. But the way that we feel that we're still being good partners and there's still dignity in that and we're respecting all of our partners, which is the city team, which is city council, which is our partners and ourselves, is do we then have some other way in which what I think we're saying is the pain point can be addressed. So I'm just putting that out there to the commission and to staff. I just wanted to say that I feel like I'm hearing we're kind of wanting to give you more work,

which

feels uncomfortable to me. And then also, I just wanna say what I think I'm hearing the commission dance around but not say directly is that we're really uncomfortable with saying no. And I'm wondering, that the problem we can solve? And is there a way that we can say that that makes us feel more comfortable?

Yeah. I would I appreciate that on a lot of levels. I would say, to be clear, in option two a, you all will still have to say no. That that's it's just it's gonna happen. And I I don't have as strong a feeling on this one as I did on the prior one with my and, like, my emphasis on two b on two a. Excuse me. My gosh. One b? I think that no matter what on this, you'll have to say no. I think we're trying to be realistic with how we ask the agencies to spend their time.

So that is why we have an option with 2A, where if they perform well on the application, they advance. I hear concerns about even doing that much and giving up any interviews, and I would encourage you all to trust staff a bit on that. I think the top applicants, whether they're new applicants or folks that we've funded historically for many years, we interact with them on a very frequent basis. We review their financials. We review their reports.

We ask them to disclose issues. And in cases where they don't, we still find out in a lot of cases because we have grievance policies and we hear from their clients when there's a problem. So I think that if you've got somebody coming through in that top application and you don't have the opportunity to interview them, it does not mean there is no oversight on those applicants. It doesn't mean they're getting a blank check to do whatever they want. We are still very closely watching how the funds are spent.

You have heard recent public comment from agencies that have not been advanced for funding because staff is paying attention closely and we're making tough decisions about how to spend this money. And it so this is all just to say, one, yes, you'll have to say no no matter what because there's not enough money. And two, we have your back in terms of making sure that there's oversight on applicants, whether they're interviewed or not.

I also wanted to add that we propose these options because in the last CSE meeting, we heard, and I feel like we were hearing similar sentiment is that for individuals that don't have as much grant writing experience, the application might not be as strong to be able to have that additional context for someone who might score low. However, it's usually the individuals that score low end up and have to interview that end up being really, like, upset. And we usually get you know? And at the end of the day, it is you do have to say no. So it's like, do you wanna say no now?

Do you wanna say no later? And thinking about, like, the agency as an individual and the amount of time that they have put into the process based off of all of these different things we've been talking about today. And it looks like Mariana is on line.

Commissioner Treviso, you wanna go ahead?

Oh, please.

Thank you. I appreciate the discussion and the support of staff to try and streamline, or listen to what the commission had asked for in providing these different options, first of all. So thank you. And I I do recognize that we are gonna have to say no. We don't have enough money, and the demand is going to become is going to increase, especially in this political climate.

I just wanna state that also the reason why I voted for two b was because I do feel that if an applicant is scoring really high, I don't believe that an interview is going to sway my decision one way or the other. And if an applicant is scoring really low, again, an interview is not going to do that for me. And I'm trusting staff that if they do not have the skill to fill out the applications, that staff is assisting them along the way. And if they get to the point that they still, with all that assistance, submit a week application, then I will have to I would rather have that weeded out and then be told that ahead of time. And then hopefully, work with them to educate them on how to resubmit at another time.

So for me, to be was a way to streamline the process, and I think staff alluded to this, by saying no in advance or going ahead and pushing those top folks forward and not having to interview them and really spend time with those people maybe that are in the middle that we still have questions about or need clarification. So that is why I voted for tubing.

Thank you. Thanks, commissioner. I'm gonna take a comment from commissioner Gunn and

then

commissioner Wong, and we'll see what comes.

Yeah. Mine's more of a question of, I know some of the applicants apply for more than they're allowed to apply for, and that kind of skews the numbers a little bit. And but if they also happen to score high but ask for an unreasonable amount, for example, they're not gonna get that unreasonable amount. Right? They're gonna get we'll still be able to deliberate about exactly how much they get.

Caps the caps will stay. Yeah. We're not touching those.

But it's not like they automatically get what they ask for or even just get the caps.

No. That's

We still have a discussion.

That is we wanna be really clear. We are not eliminating your ability to deliberate. We are just giving a little more structure so that you're not starting from scratch. So you'll be scoring with a rubric and able to rank, and then if we're moving with the prioritizing based on the percentages, you look at how those agencies scored in that category and you decide of the money you have how to deliver how to spend it. So if you want to give it just to the top three agencies, then you can, but if you want to spread it out more within that category, you can. And those caps would certainly still be there. So no agency in housing and homelessness is getting more than a 100 k. No agency in the other categories are getting over 50 k in the services specifically.

Thank you. And the rubric still accounts for their funding, or not it's reasonable, whether or not there's sustainability. You can

still score on

that as well.

Mhmm. Absolutely. Applicants know the maximum and minimum they can put?

They do, and they still sometimes ask for above. They they we've and Emily and I can say a thousand times, there is no competitive advantage to asking for more than the cap, and in fact, it looks like you didn't read the RFP, and they will still some folks still do it. And we'll try our best every round to get people not to do it, but they might still.

Yeah. And I think we've discussed too, like, presetting in the application. If you apply for this category, it just doesn't allow you to apply for more. But sometimes people apply for a category and it ends up being something different. And so we when we review the applications, we look at it's really important to know what category an application goes into because it kinda decides all these other things.

So we don't want to decide that for them in advance just in case they can apply for more. But, of course, we're always available for questions. And I'll say that not all agencies do reach out to us, but constant communication, bidders conference, we introduce ourselves. Our entire team is there, etcetera. So it just depends on they reach out.

Thank you. Commissioner Wong and then commissioner Gulen?

Yes. It's kind of, I think, maybe more of a clarifying question. If, say, we went with option one b, how would that interrupt the options in two? Because, like, are we going to be creating allocations for or, I guess, would we be determining who gets an interview based on, like, the categories of the applications or as a whole?

Yeah. That's a fantastic question. So it's we get the sense I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm getting the sense of consensus around one b. So if that were to be the case and we have priorities, then priority excuse me. Priority categories. So then if depending on two a versus two b, you'll define what the top applicants are for each category.

Okay. Then I guess that goes back to maybe my earlier concern. I'm concerned about people organizations gamifying things. Because, like, let's say, like, the the lowest allocation category is just youth and education. If they think, like, oh, no one else is gonna apply to there. I'm gonna be the number one applicant there. Or maybe I'll just write a really stellar application so I can guarantee myself that part of funding. And then, I don't know, maybe if I hire, like, grant writers or whatnot to make your application really great. So I'm just that's my concern. I would Just thinking about blending those together.

I would I I understand that concern, and I think that unless part of this prioritization is to not fund those other lower prioritized categories, my sense is that you all still want to put funding out to those agencies. And if an agency is deciding to apply for the less competitive category, we still want agencies providing those services. And I would assume that if an agency is applying to that category just because they're more likely to get money, we would be able to look at their application. We'd be able to kind of evaluate if they are going to actually perform those services well. You would be able to review their application responses and ask them questions.

I think if so going back to your other question about how these align, I I wanna kinda clarify and make sure even Emily and I are on the same page. They would still get ranked top to bottom regardless of their category. So in one b, we wouldn't rank them based on housing and homelessness and then the next one and then the next one for deciding who gets an interview. You would rank them within their category for allocating the funding, but it would still be every single services applicant ranked from top to bottom to apply option two a, for example, regardless of what category they're in.

Sorry. Then what said wasn't I'm sorry. So what Amy said stands.

Okay.

Alright. So that way that way, an applicant for a less prioritized category, if they didn't score well, they wouldn't rank super highly. You would still look at them among their peers within that category and compare them to others, and their score would be informative there. But it would they would compete against everybody else in the total rankings for interview decisions.

Okay. Then just as a follow-up, in a hypothetical, let's say, like, we had a ton of applications, and then the bottom two, say, if we had gone with option two b, they don't get interviews, and those are the only two applicant applications for, like, youth and education category. So that category, does it just get reallocated to another category, or what happens with that?

I'm sorry. Will you say that one more time? I didn't catch the last part of it.

Yes. So let's say, like, the bottom two candidates are the only applicants for a category. Let's just say youth and education for this example. If those two organizations don't get interviews, what happens to the money in that category?

That's a really good hypothetical that we did not consider, but I would assume that we would reallocate that money. And we would know going into deliberations if that were the case so we'd be able to work with the services arc to decide how to reallocate that money. That's how I would propose that. And I would also like to offer an amendment to two b just based on the feedback I've heard from you all. Right now what we're saying for two b is that a bottom portion and what we propose in the staff report is either the bottom 5% of applicants or the bottom four, whichever is lower.

And I heard a comment earlier about, what if everybody scores really, really high, and so that bottom 5% is still really well performing, we could amend 2b to say this only applies to agencies that received, like, 15% of total points. So if the rubric's out of 100, they only scored 15 out of 100 or 30 out of 100, and so of the applicants that scored 30 out of 100, then we would apply this, either the bottom 5% of those or the bottom four. So that way, if there is a case where everybody is really just scoring quite high, we wouldn't eliminate anybody, but we would still have the option to remove the lower ones if they're low enough.

Thank you. I I personally like that option just like I mentioned earlier. If there were, like, the difference were marginal, I feel really bad. So I would like that. Just my opinion. Thank you.

I like that. That makes me, like, to be more too.

I get the sense that just to do your due diligence, it feels wrong not to provide people interviews in general. A suggestion that we could do is that the CSC submit questions to all agencies no matter whether or not they get interviews and individuals can respond provide responses. In other jurisdictions, they do, like, a question period. So they'll have, like, oh, we'll send you these questions. You have two two weeks to respond to them, and then they deliver it off of those responses. So that could be an option that we add so that there's some sort of level of due diligence that between, like, not interviewing at all and providing an interview.

I don't know if anybody asked this, but what would happen in the remarkable chance that everyone scores high on the rubric, like, the same score? They all got I don't know whatever the top score is.

I haven't seen that.

But That's a great hypothetical. Yeah. Just I just I I like that you are thinking in, like, kind of worst case scenario, and I really don't think that would happen having seen how you all have scored folks, and the variability. And, but entertaining that hypothetical. We'd have to come up with a solution, and I don't have one off the top of my head right now because it's nine o whatever and I'm not my sharpest, but Emily and I can put our heads together and come up with an answer to your hypothetical.

Yeah. Just have a process just in case it does happen.

It'd be

so strange. But my second question was, like, how do we feel as a commission about, like, a really well written application, but it's, like, AI written? And, like, they're all super, super good. Like, what would make one stand out versus the other? And, like, we're not meeting the person behind the proposal. So it's, like, kind of scary. I don't know in a way if we're not giving interviews.

Don't they still have to tell us I know. Their impact? Don't they still have to show Yeah. Programming? I mean, I feel like writing writing and grammar and sentence structure to me is not the same as concept. It's not the same as impact. It's not the same as you having a balanced budget.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

So not sure if that's what you're getting at or if you're saying AI is even balancing the budget, which you can't you know, it can it can do all of the things. But I feel like the the the agencies still have to do the work. And I'll just say, as someone who works in nonprofits and is a fundraiser, I'm having a bit of a visceral reaction in what feels like a mistrust of agencies. And it's a little uncomfortable for me with the hypothetical scenarios around chasing the money, which is in generally not something like, nonprofits know that's not a good way to do business. Like, that's not how you're able to do programs.

It's just not how you you serve your community. Like, it's literally nonprofit fundraising one on one. They tell you don't chase the dollar. Like, set your program, have your mission, and then find the funding that matches it. And I'm just standing up. It feels a little uncomfortable. Like, it's finding ways to I don't know. It just feels like there's some mistrust, and I just wanna encourage us to trust our agencies, our partners, to trust our staff. And this is gonna be a process where we're trying something new, and it's always a little uncomfortable at the outset. Again, I don't think we're gonna get a 100% at the at the beginning, and we are gonna have to be comfortable with with maybe some changes again on the fly.

It's been four years, which is not a small amount of time since I think this significant discussion is taking place around this process. Commissioner Singh?

Yes. I just wanted to make one general comment is that, you know, I don't I understand we're trying to be more efficient, especially in the services since that takes up most time. Right? But just generally speaking, I'd rather spend that extra time and have those interviews, you know, with the top five applicants or the bottoms so I can, you know, have, like I mentioned before, enough information to make a sound decision rather than just kind of excluding the top or excluding the bottom, whichever option, whether it's two way or two b. So I'd rather go ahead and spend that extra time because majority of, like, both of our work just happens during January.

You know, we do all of this preparation beforehand, etcetera. We get information from staff, etcetera. But our work is January when we have those interviews. So I think that's a very important part. And I think if we're trying to eliminate important process such as interviews to be more like, to save time, I think that's I'd rather go ahead and spend that extra time because I normally can do it maybe once or twice during the fiscal year. That makes sense. Or or once or twice during a two year period now if we we end up changing to a two year period. So that's all. Just general comment.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Emily and Amy, do you all have what you need, or did we just muddy the waters in order for you?

No. No. You gave us great information. So for next steps, what I would like you all to do we'll give you a a staff report in advance of the next meeting. But just so you can kinda know, we're gonna ask you to do some homework on reviewing the rubric and thinking about what we've talked about this evening and kind of what going back to the goals of these changes, the goals of increasing the sorry.

I'm gonna misspeak. So it's the the goals of, like, reducing the administrative burden on our applicants, staff, and our commissioners, and then also increasing transparency and objectivity in the decision making. So we're gonna really focus in on both of those through the rubric changes. So we'll give you that in advance, and we ask you to look at the rubric and really start kind of thinking about what changes you would make so you're not in the meeting just thinking about it for the first time. And then we will integrate the feedback, and we're gonna implement some of these changes.

I I wanna be respectful of this group, but also make it really clear that the changes to the funding process aren't actually a thing that you or counsel need to to vote on. We want your input. Counsel very explicitly said that they want your input over their own on this process. And so what we're gonna do is is take your feedback, get more from you in June, and then we're gonna revise the notice of funding and the RFP to implement a lot of these changes starting for next funding cycle. And then we will keep working with you on the arts and music piece, so that's not really gonna change.

They're gonna continue to have a one year funding cycle and and go as they are, but we're gonna go back to you all to revisit that process, and we're gonna go back to you all to help us really think through what are the ways that this group can support agencies, both our currently funded agencies and applicants who haven't received funding from a technical assistance perspective and, diversifying their funding sources. Because as you all have mentioned basically tonight, we know that the funding is limited here, and everyone is feeling that pinch. So that's kind of our next steps, and we certainly got what we needed from you all tonight. Thank you so much.

I have

a question regarding, how we review the rubric. That's for next month. Right? Okay. On '28, it says Hayward base operates in Hayward. Does that mean there is a Hayward office that they are using? Or because everybody's supposed to be servicing Hayward residents. Right?

So that was that's how I've seen the CSC interpret it in the past. Okay.

Yeah. That I I think what we have heard anecdotally from you all is in deliberations, it's great that this agency is rooted in Hayward. The folks who are doing the work are from Hayward, or they're connected to the community in a really deep way. Whereas from other agencies that may be like national orgs, you've had more concerns about, well, do they actually know our community? And this gives you an opportunity to actually weight that.

That's what I thought, but I wanted to be clear while I'm at

home this month going through this.

While you're doing your homework? Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna go ahead and bring our slides back up. Chair Wheeler, I have minimized my agenda. And I is this us, or is this me, or is this you? It can be me, if that is helpful.

Does anyone have any revisions or changes you'd like to make to our June 18 to the agenda planning calendar?

Yes. Actually, staff has a recommended revision, if that's alright. I think what staff is proposing is that we meet in June to continue the conversation on community agency funding program improvements. And so we would be recommending that someone make a motion to add community agency funding program improvements to the June agenda.

Mhmm.

And, Amy, would that, encompass all of the items we talked about addressing the rubric, the arts and music, as well as additional technical assistance? Do they all fall under that umbrella?

Not arts and music. We're not trying to solve that problem right now. We're letting them go another year as currently established so we have some time before we make changes there. It's Okay. Wasn't realistic to try and do it all in one go. But we would talk about the rubric, and we'd talk about, the CSC's role in the off years.

Is there anyone who'd like to make do folks get that? Is anyone able to make the motion?

I'll make the motion, to add the CAF, improvements to the June 18 agenda, and otherwise, approve it.

Second. Thank you.

For the vote, for the agenda planning calendar, Motion by to add the CAF program improvements with the second by commissioner Ward. Commissioner. Yes. Commissioner Ward? Yes. Commissioner Willo? Yes. Commissioner Dow? Yes. Commissioner De Leon? Yes. Commissioner Gunn? Yes. Commissioner Kasuf? Yes. Commissioner Kimura? Yes. Commissioner Singh?

Yes.

Commissioner Treviso? Yes. And commissioner Wong?

Yes.

Thank you.

Alright. Does anyone have any commissioner announcements?

Commissioner Wong?

I wanted to flag for everyone's attention that on June 24, the city council will be meeting to discuss a rent registry, and I think it does have relevance to the work of the CSC. And just very basically, a rent registry is a database where you can collect any type of rent information that city staff developed it to want to collect. But in terms of its relation to the CSC, I think that when the services are recommends funding to housing and homelessness organizations and those organizations do important work to get people housed, it's really important that we also support policies and initiatives that help keep people housed. And in that way, it can kind of take away some of the burden in the CSC in the long term if we keep people housed, and that might actually help free up funding in the longer term. So I just wanted to flag that.

And if anyone is interested more in discussion about a rent registry, feel free to email email me, and I'm happy to talk about it.

Thank you, commissioner Moore. Other announcements? K. Are there any staff liaison announcements?

Yes. And I have a slide.

We are recruiting for new commissioners. So we still don't know for sure if we will have vacancies on this commission for next year, but we are recruiting nonetheless because our numbers will be very close to the new 11 members that council has recently revised for this body. So please tell folks, reach out to your colleagues, your friends, your neighbors, anyone who you think would be able to serve alongside you, we would really appreciate your help making that recruitment. I am not the point person for the recruitment. Please refer them to the city clerk.

I do not know and don't try to know the recruitment process. It is the clerk's monster to to handle. So please send them to the clerk's office if they're interested. Her web their website has all the info there. Additionally, if you received an e a message from the city clerk and I think a handwritten message from Evelyn tonight about reappointment and you haven't gotten back to the clerk, please do so because that's really gonna help her inform recruitment.

Additionally, we I think the date is still up in the air, but I wanted to make sure everybody knew that city council's next budget work session is coming up in June. Your funding recommendations have been voted on, but they're just a small piece of a bigger puzzle, and I wanted to make sure everybody knew that there's an opportunity to listen in to the rest of the the bigger budget picture conversations. And then I don't I apologize. It's on the slide, but I'm actually gonna ask Regina, if you don't mind, to share some recent staffing and leadership changes at the city just so folks are in the loop.

Yes. I will start in reverse order. Our HR director, Brittany Fry, accepted a wonderful new opportunity to work for the city of Newark. Her last day was April wait a second. Yeah. April 30. April 30. Well, that was her last day in the office. She's actually still with us until two days from now, when she will be taking on her new role thereafter, with the city of Newark. Our assistant city manager, Justin Closen, has also submitted his letter of resignation.

He'll be moving on to an opportunity with the city of San Leandro. I do believe that is it this week will be his last or is next Friday his last day?

I think the thirtieth is his last day.

The thirtieth is his last day. Yeah. Thank you. And in closed session last night by unanimous vote of the city council, a city manager, doctor Ana Alvarez, was placed on administrative leave. And in the interim, our city attorney, Michael Lawson, will serve as the acting city manager.

And

Thank you all. Did you have anything else?

No. I think that's it for our staff announcements, and I apologize that council member Bavinia couldn't be with us tonight. So that is it from us.

Alrighty. Well, that's, the end of our agenda. We are adjourned at 09:18.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

Thanks, everyone. Good night. Thank

you for calling.