Hayward Youth Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone.

We're calling the meeting to order at 7.01 p.m. Welcome back. It feels like it's been longer than a couple of months. I hope everyone is well. Thank you for joining us. I'm not sure if there's anyone online, but thank you for joining us as well. I do want to acknowledge we have three new commissioners joining us this year. We want to welcome Commissioner Elvin Sledge. We also want to welcome Commissioner Jay Singh and also Commissioner Barbara Medeiros. Welcome, welcome. Thank you. We will say the Pledge of Allegiance. Is there anyone who'd like to volunteer to start us off?

Sure, I will.

Thank you, Commissioner Medeiros. The flag is behind you.

It's over there.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

Okay, this is me. This is the point in the meeting where we cover our teleconference notifications and considerations. There were no requests for a just cause provision for a remote participation. As a reminder, it's been a little bit. We all are together. Just cause includes something like a caregiving need, any contagious illness, if you've got a disability that's not otherwise accommodated or if you're traveling in a potential business. If that's ever the case with you, please give us as much notice as possible in advance. And just a reminder, anyone who participates remotely does not count towards our quorum. So if we have a quorum, if we have six people between here and there, it still doesn't count as a quorum and we can't meet. which is why we really prioritize seeing your lovely faces in person. There are also no emergency provisions. This is, you don't know about it in advance. And when this happens, everybody has to vote on whether or not that person can participate. Nobody requested an emergency participation. So we are all set.

Thank you so very much. May we please have roll call?

Hello, everybody. Commissioner Wheeler. Commissioner Angulo. And mission or doubt. Mister gun chair. Commissioner come are up here. The mission of the girls here. Mission imagine you're missing. Mission is led here. And commissioner long here. Thank you, everybody. Evelyn, may I clarify?

We have two Commissioner Singhs now. And so we just say the first thing? Yes. Okay. So we can, because one of our Commissioner Singhs is absent today. So Commissioner Jayendra, am I saying it right?

Okay. Singh is here. Commissioner Jagdeep Singh is not.

Thank you. I will read a statement regarding public comments. There will be opportunities for public comment on the items on the agenda as we get to each item. If you have a comment on something that is 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 the comment card and give them to Ms. Oliveira. 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 cities regularly attend commission meetings. Discriminatory statements or conduct that is hostile, intimidating, oppressive, or abusive are per se disruptive to a meeting will not be tolerated. As a reminder to commenters and my fellow commissioners, commissioners are not permitted to respond directly to or engage with public comments under the Brown Act. Okay, we shall move to... We have no public comment. Thank you very much.

There's nobody online or in person.

Now we'll move to the approval of our minutes from our June 18th, 2025 meeting, which feels like so, so long ago. Does anyone have any revisions or edits or adjustments to the meeting minutes? If none, is there anyone who would like to motion to approve the minutes? Thank you, Commissioner Maxon.

Second.

Thank you.

Roll for the minutes. Commissioner Wheeler.

Yes.

Commissioner Angulo. Yes. Commissioner Gunn.

Abstain.

Commissioner Kimura. Yes. Commissioner Medeiros.

Abstain.

Commissioner Maction.

Yes.

Commissioner Jayendra Singh.

Yes.

Oh, this is a...

Thank you.

Commissioner Sledge?

I'm staying.

And Commissioner Wong?

Yes.

Thank you. That's not enough to pass.

Oh, it's because we have three people here.

Yeah. Is there anyone not here right now who was here in June? Was Jagdeep here in June?

I don't believe he was.

I don't believe he was. So it may not be possible to pass these minutes because, oh, Commissioner Dow was here in June. So I think we just have to hold these and vote again next meeting.

And more was here, but she's not on the committee.

Yeah, exactly. There's not going to be. Oh, you're actually looking at the minutes where the attendance is.

That's a rolling part of you. Yeah. She's so good.

Yeah, so Commissioner Dowell-Weiss. So we will try again. Okay. Thank you. So the motion doesn't pass.

Move this to what's the next month? October.

I think that's my first motion I've been at any of the commission meetings that hasn't passed. Well, you all work together.

That's why you're there. Okay.

Alrighty, we are going to have a report on our Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation, also known as the CAPER.

Yes, I have a few oral reports for you all, which are titled up there. These are just quick updates to kind of like let you know where we're moving on different federal obligations as well as our funding process. So the first, just FYI, is that the public comment period for this is the Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report paper. Our public comment period for that opened on September 5th and goes through September 20th. The CAPER is a required report from HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as part of the receipt of our Community Development Block Grant funds, CDBG. On an annual basis, we have to fill out a report template from HUD. If you look at it and you find that the report is not aesthetically pleasing or that the prompts are odd, that is because we have to follow HUD's template. We do our best to clean it up, but it gets exported out of HUD's system. So that is available for public comment. And what will happen next is we'll submit it to HUD, they'll review and accept it. And if they have any concerns, they will let us know and we will resolve them. In the time that I have been with the city, The questions from HUD have always just been kind of clarifying and fixing small typos. The next update is that the notice of funding availability for our next funding cycle publishes on Friday. So this is the 30-day notice that So we are publishing the 30 day notice. So what you're getting right now is a notice of the notice. So the notice will be published and that has to be up 30 days prior to when the funds are, when the applications do. And then the final FYI here is that we are hosting the mandatory bidders conference for the community agency funding process and releasing the RFP, the request for proposals, which has far more information in it than the NOFA does on October 22nd. It will take place at 10 a.m. It's virtual on Zoom. We say mandatory, but we recognize that not everybody can make it to a 10 a.m. on a Wednesday meeting. So for agencies that want to apply for funding who can't make it to that meeting, They're encouraged to reach out to us and we will make sure they get access to the recording. And then once they confirm with us that they've watched it, we mark them as having met that criteria for funding. And the bidders conference is exceptionally important this year because we are making so many changes to the process. So we are really doing a big push with the folks who have applied to us previously, as well as all of our normal pathways to let folks know. But we really want to make sure that the people who are used to getting funding come to that so that they understand the big changes and don't go into the process assuming that it will look the same as last year. Are there any questions on any of these?

I have one. If any commissioner is interested in reviewing the Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Report or even contributing to the public comments, where can they find that to be able to do so?

It is on our website. If you go, you probably, if anybody wants to test this, can Google City of Hayward-Caper and it should hopefully... have good optimization to take you to it. But if not, if you get to the Community Services Division page and you go to the CDBG from there, it should be posted there. And if it's very hard to find, tell me. Let me know and we'll make sure that we make it easier to find.

Any other questions? Wonderful.

We're rolling today.

Okay, so I'm gonna keep us going. This next item, this is an informational item. We're framing it as a work session for you all. It's some updates like reminder to kind of get us all back on the same page where we left off in June regarding changes to the community agency funding process. And then there's a few pieces where we want kind of final input from you all before we finalize everything. for the funding cycle. So I'm going to turn it over to Emquam, who's a management analyst on our team and has been doing so much work related to the community agency funding changes.

And Emily, take it away, please. Hello. It's nice to see old faces. It's nice to see new faces. So good evening, commissioners and newly appointed commissioners. Tonight's presentation will provide a brief yet valuable overview of the updates to the community agency funding process. that will take place in the upcoming cycle. Our goal today is to summarize these changes before this year's funding cycle begins for the CSC members, specifically in November when you guys choose your application review committees. And we hope to also gather additional feedback and consensus from the CSC on items that we previously discussed in earlier meetings. So before we dive into the details, let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture of how we got here. The community agency funding process or for the newly appointed commissioners, we call this CAF. You're gonna hear that a lot. CAF is consistently reviewed for improvement to ensure it meets the goals and priorities of city council and the CSC and reduces any administrative and systemic barriers for our applicants. The most recent major round of updates to the CAF process was implemented in 2021. So we're due for a refresh. Each calf cycle, staff collects feedback from agencies and the CSC through surveys. And earlier this year, staff also conducted benchmarking research of 12 different government entities that have similar funding programs to better understand regional practices and how they as cities support equitable funding decisions and transparency. So in March, Staff synthesized all this research and presented proposed changes to the CAF process to the CSC for questions and initial feedback. Following that meeting, staff held two listening sessions with 26 former applicants to gather additional input on potential impacts that these changes would have on their organizations from their perspective. And this feedback was used to refine the recommendations. In May, staff returned to the CSC with some more specific recommendations shaped by both the CSC's feedback and the insights that we gained from the listening sessions. And in June, the CSC and staff collaborated to make specific changes and edits to the scoring curriculum. So that's sort of like a summary of how we got here, some context. And now we're in September and we have a list of changes developed through this iterative process. And looking ahead, staff will host the annual betters conference on October 22nd to review the details of the funding process. We're also gonna, highlight the main changes that we're making as well for the individuals that consistently apply for this process. And the application will go live on the same day we're going to have the bidders conference. And yes, so you can see on this slide, we have the changes to the upcoming funding cycle. One of the bigger changes is that we're transitioning to a two-year funding term for contracts. We're also conducting interviews on weekday evenings during the time that we typically have the CSC meetings. We will be screening applicants for Services Arc interviews because we get so many applications for the Services Arc. We also plan on publicly sharing aggregate applicant scores and that will be posted on the city's webpage. We plan to weight the rubric categories in the scoring rubric. And lastly, align funding decisions with the CSC's priorities for services. And there are two specific topics among this list that we hope to gather your direct feedback on. One is aligning funding decisions with the CSC's priorities for services and weighted scoring. So due to the high number of applicants and limited funding, last year, the Services Application Review Committee, or ARC, made the tough decision to prioritize housing and homelessness, food security, and legal services, as well as projects that are dedicated to supporting immigrant populations. The CSC as a group approved these funding allocations, and this is how the city funded services projects for fiscal year 25-26. And as we move forward into this upcoming funding cycle, because it's already that time, the CSC agreed that the CAF cycle will continue to be just as competitive and agreed to align services funding recommendations for services projects with the city's and the CSC's priorities. So in previous meetings, we've received feedback from the CSC that there's still a desire to have some more flexibility in the funding decisions. So staff wanted to present a proposed percentages for services allocations that still highlights the priority for homelessness and food security and also have some wiggle room to allocate 15% of the services pot to all other services. And we wanted to present this to you all for feedback. The other thing that we wanted your feedback on as well is the weighted scoring. So we presented this weighted scoring group worksheet, which you can find at the end of your packet. It's with blue tables. Last time we received your feedback on, and we consistently hear the CSC's feedback on specific portions of an application like program sustainability, performance. These are also things that we've heard city council also express as a high priority as well. So we adjusted some of the percent weighted per category in this weighted scoring sheet to reflect the conversations that we had in June and also conversations we've had with city council. So this is also something for us to look at for the new commissioners. You'll see under the weighted scoring, this first table, We have rating factors, so that's one through five, and that's each category that's within the scoring rubric. And then on the third column or fourth column, it says percent of total value. That's the score that, how we'll prioritize each category. So for example, community need and impact being 30% weighted score of the individual's points. And we can go through that a little bit in more detail, there's also an example that's in that sheet as well. So with that, we can go on and do public comment and we can talk about any clarifying questions and then we'd love to gain your feedback. Public comment is open.

There are still no members of the public online or here in person. Okie dokie.

Public comment disclosures. Does the commission have any questions for clarification for Emily and Amy? And this is not our discussion portion. This is just questions to understand what was presented. We will have discussion later. Yes, Commissioner Dunn. And you can also still ask questions later on. This isn't the only chance.

But if there's like basics to get out of the way.

Thank you for clarifying.

Thank you so much. I was curious of what the formula was for the weighted rating factor score, how you turn a 0 to 5 into that. What I thought was the formula doesn't work in the example, so I'm just not sure what the formula is. Did we get it wrong?

You were thinking before that.

What I did was I did 4 divided by 5, multiplied it by 60, and got 0.8, which meant the example you guys gave of 40 would have been 48 with my math.

Okay, then I think it's probably the spreadsheet that I may have.

Okay. And then did you get a total of 150 points?

It makes a lot more sense.

I was thinking 40 per point, and then the percent of that. But I think it's the same result.

Tell me again the calculation that you all did so I can make sure our math is in.

I did 4 points divided by 5 total, which is like 0.8. And then I multiplied that by the weighted score of 60, and I got 48. Got it. Because 30%, 60 is already 30%. So I don't need to multiply 30%. It's not included.

Yes.

And then I did that all the way to the bottom and I got 150. And then I got my three points for a total of 150 for me. I was a little nervous. I know there's like, even do new math. And I was afraid. It's been a long time. Math is different now.

So trust me. One and one still is too.

Okay.

No matter what. Good to know. Commissioner Gunn, thank you.

I was going to have the same question.

I'm sorry that it's not the first time that you've had to correct our math in real time.

I keep saying, you know, you have to be able to make the mistakes. Yeah, if you were a good teacher.

Great. So yes, that is an excellent clarifying question. So we disregard the example and focus on the concept of the, no, on the blue table. What we're looking for is your feedback on the weights. So that percentage. Are you comfortable with basically how the prioritization shakes out that the top two most important or heaviest weighted are the community needed impact and program sustainability? And if you're asking, what do those things mean? The previous page has, I apologize for the tiny font, what those categories are as a reminder.

No, that's good stuff.

Yeah, and we also have updated the application so that when you are looking at this rubric side by side with the application, it is much more lined up. This section corresponds to this rubric category, so you don't have to try and connect more dots than you need to.

I have one more question also is that at the bidder's conference, will they be aware of what the new rubric is going to be and the percent allocation so they know if they're in that 50% category that they're not looking at the whole lot?

Correct.

Okay.

And there will be an updated example table shared with them.

I do have one question. When you said 60-something percent would be used for... housing and homelessness. I guess my question is this, so I'm 65% for housing and homelessness. And we talked about opiate money. Is that included in the housing and homelessness? That's already in there?

Sorry, Commissioner Medeiros got a head start because we had orientation before this. I haven't had the opportunity to turn that with the rest of the body, but we'll do it now. This is a pretty new update, which is that in the past, we have allocated opioid settlement. And so distributors and manufacturers of opioids were sued by different state governments, including California. And as part of the settlement, a lot of money was given back to the state of California. There are multiple settlements with like Purdue Pharma and also the distributors of opioids, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart. The city is receiving several settlements of payment that are allocated over different time frames and for different amounts. So it varies from year to year how much money we're getting. And there is a date when we will stop getting money. But we have determined that a portion of the funds will be distributed through the CAF process. In the past, we've done that, but we've done it on the back end where staff have looked at who's applied and said, these are eligible because there are set eligibility guidelines. It's not like your general fund where we have more flexibility. And we've kind of plugged it in on the back end to make sure that we are, one, making the funds available to as many people for whom are eligible and two to make sure we're not making assumptions about what agencies are doing that are that are wrong and so we're not getting an eligible service in there um we are adding it to this process so in the rfp when we describe the funding sources and when they submit their application they can self-identify and say my agency does one of the things that can be funded by opioid settlement dollars so when you all are doing your deliberations There's going to be a little extra layer of here are the folks that we can fund with opioid settlement money. This distribution is still it's for all available funds. But if we end up in a situation where. We want to adjust it because there aren't enough agencies that are eligible for the opioid money or because we have way more who are eligible. You could probably make some adjustments on the fly. We don't. This is our first time doing this. And so we don't know what it will look like to apply this approach. framework when there is a pot of money that has more use restrictions so we're going to give it a shot and staff will when we get the applications and see how much folks are asking for and eligible for what we will kind of make our best guess of what it would look like and we'll come to you all we'll plan for it basically once we see who comes in through the door for the applications and if it looks like it's going to be we have less than the amount of money available for opioids, then it'd be really easy. Those agencies just get the opioid money. If it's super oversubscribed, we'll talk about what that looks like and delivery.

And will those agencies have to already have proven that they've provided these service before they applied for these funds?

No, they'll have to, in their application, describe their scope of work. And it will have to... There will be a separate question for only those who are looking at opioid money to respond to, which is normal. We do that. If you're CDBG, you have to answer specific questions. Same thing. There's a question for opioid recipients, potential opioid recipients, where they describe what they do and how it's eligible. And we're asking them to say specifically within the attachment from the settlements which one you're eligible for.

Or which several.

Yeah. We're trying to get them to make it as easy as possible for us to say, yep, that's you. Okay. Okay.

Thank you, Commissioner Medeiros. Any other questions? Yes.

Is there a system for, for lack of a better term, checking resumes? Make sure these are legitimate requests as opposed to scam may be too strong a word. But people who are just sort of gaming the system to try and get money. How do you check that?

There are a lot of checks and balances on that through the application process. They have to be a 501c3 in good standing. They have to share outcomes from prior years. So to show this is the number of people we've served with this program before. Our staff reviews their, before we get into contract, we review their fiscal audit to make sure that they don't have any massive findings that are concerning. So they have to have a fiscal audit. And if they don't, they can only apply up to $20,000.

What else? What would you add? The CSC is pretty, like when we go into services, like when we go into interviews, like there are a lot of questions. And in the interview, it's like a face-to-face. I mean, typically it's online, but CSC typically has some really good questions to ask.

And how do we do that with first-time applicants? that you have not serviced before.

Same thing. They still have to provide all of that backup documentation when they apply. I left off, we also, they're required to, a lot of this happens after you make your recommendations, but like they have to, before we get into contract, they have to give us their board minutes. So we review those to make sure they have a board that's actually meeting. There are, the majority of our checks and balances happen before, before we get into contract with them. Anybody on the commission like to answer that question based on your experience?

To Emily's point, this group is pretty involved in the community, pretty sophisticated and savvy in their experience. It's not a very large service community within Hayward, meaning at some point you've come across the partner before, you've heard the name before, you've met someone who's received their services, or you yourself have visited the site or have seen them out in the community. I can give an example of when there was a trusted name that was applying for funds. They didn't have a physical location in Hayward. They didn't serve many people in Hayward. And this commission is very pro-Hayward, very pro-support our residents and immediately lasered in on them and felt like, it feels like you're trying to sneak in a little back door here. I think it's difficult. We generally trust our providers. We generally trust our partners, the nonprofit community. We are looking to have a trust-based relationship and how we partner. I don't, in my experience, this might be my fourth round coming up, that hasn't been a challenge or an issue.

And if there's a new applicant, staff does a little additional due diligence to figure out who they are. both through like often through our technical assistance, because we want to make sure that if someone's new, we want to make sure they're supported and can get through. Cause in the past, this body has expressed prioritization for bringing in more agencies and be able to be able to fund more new folks. So we talk to their EDs, we talk to their development folks and, um, I can think of one example where an agency was not a nonprofit and we're trying to make an argument for funding and staff, we didn't advance their application. Like we didn't have them interview. So we do a lot of that due diligence as well before they get to.

Also, typically when we fund an agency, they also have to meet specific goals and outcomes. So if they aren't meeting specific goals, we'll bring that to the CSC's attention when we go into interviews. So this wouldn't happen in the first year, but say we were to fund them again, there is a review of performance and we also do monitoring as well.

Do us as the CSE ever go out to the agencies? Because back in the day, they used to go out to the agencies that were funded.

Yeah, we haven't done that in some time. But part of the purpose change to do that every two years is to revisit ways for you all to become more engaged with the folks that we fund without creating too much burden on them to play host. But we're looking at different ways. In the past, it was like... It's very different. Like the city used to have its own paratransit vehicle and we'd drive you all around. Like that vehicle doesn't exist anymore. And it was very hard to get on a business day enough of you folks who have nine to fives together to do that. But we are looking at ways to involve you a bit more in not necessarily performance monitoring, but like understanding better what folks are doing. Okay. Yeah.

Any other questions? I'm sorry, I was wondering, but you're saying we don't go out to the agencies even to just observe?

Not formally as a body. We haven't done that, but we are planning around this time next year to have discussions about that.

In some places, due to confidentiality, you'd only be able to go so far. You wouldn't be able to go into where clients are because of confidentiality guidelines.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, that makes sense.

Other questions, thoughts, comments, discussion? Love the engagement.

I think we've got the interactive polling again. Awesome. As a launching point.

Thank you so very much. So in order to support our staff, they have provided us with these lovely QR codes on the table. they're asking for us to provide them with in the moment feedback on the suggestions that they're proposing for us to consider in the process. So for those who are joining us for the first time this year, it's been explained how throughout the last funding process and probably many, a couple before that, we've identified a need to make some changes. There's been lots of feedback from the community, They had our working session last year and they went back and did all this magic and mystery and took our comments and are now presenting to us again to confirm. Does this sound like what we agreed upon? Does it sound like what you thought? They took our comments and added some of their own spin to it, I'm sure. So we'll scan the QR code and when... Amy's ready. She'll let us know. What should happen is we'll get a cute little, is it still Mentimeter? All right, we'll get a cute little Mentimeter. It's like a, I don't know, some swanky survey situation. And we'll just click the response and the answer. And we'll see right away what we're all believing and thinking. And that will prompt some additional conversation. Commissioner Wong.

Yes, one quick question. Are the proposed percentages hard limits or like soft, we aim for the ballpark around that?

percentage I would think that they are I'd like to treat them hard because I I think that I would like to approach them as hard limits like as like caps uh But we don't know what the pool of applicants looks like. So if we are looking at a pool of applicants where this distribution, like if we get so, so many food security applicants and you all make a determination that, you know what, it looks like there's a demonstrable need that doesn't align with this. then I think you could consider it. But I would encourage you to be really fixed on these because we're going to publish them in the RFP. And so if applicants see those percentages and say, you know what, if only this small percentage of money is available for what I'm doing, my organization is going to prioritize seeking other funding sources where we're likely to get more money. And then for the commission to then decide to change up what that allocation is, then that agency missed out on an opportunity because we changed the last minute. The goal of these percentages publishing, it's all getting back to transparency and objectivity while still allowing you all to have some discretion within it. So I would strongly encourage that they stay fixed.

That's helpful. Yeah.

Is anybody having issues getting into the mentee meter?

Nope.

I want to find a way for us to see both of these because we're asking you. There is a staff report. Oh, great. Great. Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah. If you go to the page numbers are a little funky because each report has a new set of page numbers. But it's page three of your second staff report of the packet. Once you get past the minutes. looks like this, except I think finest green and maybe yours.

I just put in your printable.

Okay, so that's what we're looking at the 6520 and 15. Right? No. Yeah.

I'll keep an eye. So what you'll do is from scale of one to five, you'll say how aligned you are. So if you are not aligned with these percentages and how the services are set to allocate their funding recommendations, you would say not aligned one and then one between five. Yes.

You know, Dr. Amiga, you got me really thinking. I mean, we had the working meeting last year sort of based off of what we experienced in the funding cycle, assuming environment, economics, needs would be very similar. I'm wondering if we're going to be duped. And it's kind of like you said.

Yeah.

There's some sort of switch or flip. Anyways, I'm just very curious.

I mean, what I have been thinking about is when we look at this distribution is services to the immigrant population in Hayward. And you all prioritize that and not happen to fall under legal services. But if we suddenly have more applicants who serve immigrants who aren't doing legal work, that would fall under that smaller bucket and so that I've been trying to think like what's a big change going to be that would so fundamentally shape the most recent trends um and that is really the one that I am thinking of um but I would encourage you all to try and think like what's the big what could a big shift be I don't know how many people say barring another pandemic

I think we're probably spot on. Commissioner Wong.

Yes. I doubt it will happen, but let's say we had... Some number of applicants for food security, we award partial bit and then we decided all the other applicants in the food security were not qualified and we don't want to give them money. What's the plan for moving the money around?

Is it something we... That's a good example then. If you all come to that consensus and there is still a balance of funds available, then yeah, I think you could then... say you want to give more money to the housing and homelessness agencies that didn't get their full requests, or you may want to say this health agency didn't get any money, let's put a balance there. I think that's a place where your discussion would be reasonable. Thank you. I was trying to figure out what's an example of that.

Yes, I came up with one more question, was that since it is the two-year cycle, I'm trying to remember what we said last year, but if it was going to be... We're essentially approving them for the same funding twice, this time and then next time. Does that sound right?

You're approving them for the same proportion of available funds.

Gotcha.

Check my math. These are fake numbers, but let's say there's $200,000 available in services and an agency gets 5% of that. If the next year there's $300,000 in services, that agency would get 5% of that. there are ways in which things change. An agency could decide they don't want funds and then that would go back into the pot. There are scenarios in which far less money becomes available for whatever reason, they would still get 5% of that smaller pot. And if more money shows up between now and the next two-year cycle, that can't wait for the next two-year cycle. We'll do a special NOFA and you all will have input in that. We may not do the same full CAF process depending on how much money and all of that, but you all will have input into how those funds are distributed if council directs it to come to this place.

Thank you for that. Commissioner Jason, you have a question? So if the more money comes in, the allocations change?

No. So Commissioner Gunn's question was about the two-year funding cycle. So we will get into a contract that says this is how much money you're getting in year one. We'll do an amendment in year two. The amount of available funds may change. You will receive the same proportion of the available funding. Yeah, because the money, the general fund allocation typically stays the same, but the community development block grant funding may change between $1,000 and $5,000.

Can it be such that the allocations can be reduced?

Yeah. If less money is available, then they are getting the same proportion, but of a smaller pot. And we'll make that very clear in the contract. And we are also going to be saying that year two funds are contingent on funding availability and performance. So if they have a poor performing year or if we have concerns, we reserve the right to end the contract before year two. Commissioner Sledge.

So I see the third category is just all other services, which is obviously quite broad. Is it up to us to pick other categories that would go within that?

Now, Emily, do you want to summarize kind of off the top of your head what our categories are?

It's been youth services. We also have health information and referral services.

So we have predetermined categories that staff will file the agencies into.

Oh, I'm sorry. It's in the first chart before the proposed total services funding, the table that we're looking at now. That's the typical categories that we see. So you'll see legal services, information, referral, health, health and education, homelessness, and food security.

Yeah, I did notice that in the previous case, what health and youth and education, those two, we're not getting the new one.

They fall under the all other.

But they fall under the all other.

And then you all would have discretion based on who applied and asked for how much in those all other and their rubric rankings within that ranking, how to distribute the funds.

It will make sense when we're doing it. I recall, being honest, I recall being in your chair. Yeah. And I recall being in the meeting like, what in the world? They were talking all up here and using all these different terms, the arc and the calf and the caper. I am going to ask you all to trust us, to guide us all through the process and make sure that there is clarity and empowerment when it is happening. It's very difficult at this stage to walk you through what it's like, what it looks like, what it feels like, and not be here for four hours during the evening. But please keep coming with the questions and the inquiry because you're teaching us how to make sure we set the stage well for you all to partner with us when it comes time to review the applications and to do the deliberations. And if I could just take us back a bit, the reason why we're in this Mentimeter now and why we're making proposed changes and why we're looking at creating percentages and why we ourselves are even still a little unsure of what we decided is because some challenges came up throughout the process. Some of the challenges we'd identified was one, there was more money being requested than we had to give. And we felt very uncomfortable making decisions about how to distribute it without additional guidelines. And so this is one response to that to help us have better guidelines to know what to do in those instances, which we expect to keep happening, of more money requested than we have available. The other thing that was coming up, we got feedback from our staff, from us, from our nonprofit partners applying, It is a labor intensive process to each year apply for funding. CDBG is coming from our federal government, heavy paperwork, heavy bureaucracy, heavy rules. And a lot of our entities are small, do the best they can, grassroots. And it's requiring a lot of their time and energy to complete these applications yearly. It's also doing the same on our part as well. And the council and the City of Hayward staff team to each year do this as well. So we said, you know what? Lots of other agencies and philanthropic entities who are providing money do this on a two-year cycle. That could help us with some of the efficiencies. We recognize that when we make a change, we're probably going to create another ripple someplace else, which is what is occurring. And we'd agreed and said, you know what? We'll cross that bridge when we get there to some extent when we have it. The question you asked about site visits, it came up in our discussions. You know, we're going to kind of to some extent have a year off, if you would, where we're not reviewing applications. What are some things this commission can do to support our nonprofit partners with accessing other monies that we're not able to provide them? We get new applications. We realize some of them need technical assistance support with just managing the application process. Is there a space for us to help them with that? So those are some of the things that your questions are addressing, kind of what happens in the gap year, year of identifying some of the other ripple effects already. And I just want to acknowledge all legit and also acknowledge we've committed to a process of knowing we're going to try to put some things in place. Nothing will be perfect or 100%. Hopefully it will be better and address some of the concerns that were raised with prior year applications, such as transparency and how does scoring work. A lot of the reason why we're going what feels like maybe extra with coming up with numbers and coming up with categories is because our nonprofit partners, it wasn't clear to them how we were making decisions. And it feels like the right and appropriate thing to do if you're going to partner with them to explain how are you going to make the decision. And so that's also part of the reason why, you know, we're going through this process. Keep coming with questions, keep asking, and then also explain. I just, I don't know. I feel bad with saying we're probably not going to be able to answer 100% for you because it really is something to the experience and it clicks. You're like, I get it and I got it.

I warned Amy already. I ask a lot of questions.

That's great. We are better together. Do you have other questions?

No, I'm good. All right, Commissioner Gunn. My other question is, so this is essentially for services because that's the highest contested one. Besides going to a two-year cycle, is there any major changes with economic development or some music changes?

The publication of the scores will be for everybody. The use of the rubric to determine the ranking of applicants will be for everybody. The difference in the economic development infrastructure is that you'll have a top to bottom ranking of the applicants, but you won't have this percentage for ED and this percentage for infrastructure. You'll have more discretion within that. But you still have to fund them based on their scores.

Is there anything else that you'd call it? You'll most likely interview if you're in the ED infrastructure, you'll most Like typically those application review committees review all of the applicants. So that probably won't change.

We'll see how many we get. And if we can kind of apply the same principle of the top proportion from services moving on, we'll do the same thing on ED and infrastructure because we're changing the interview schedule a bit. It may be beneficial to advance some who are scoring so high that they don't need to be interviewed.

And that's going to be on a Wednesday night though.

Still virtual, still Zoom. Teens. Oh, sorry. You all left. I'm manifesting. Okay.

Was there another question before we get back to our Mentimeter?

Commissioner Camara?

I have a question, but I think it's going to the Q break thing, the scoring questions.

Okay, thanks so very much. Has everyone submitted their response for you to know how we're thinking?

I think so. Are we experiencing alignment? Is that what that's telling us?

This is a conversation starter, so just for you all to, and if there is more discussion to be had, up to you. Great. Is that the only thing we're looking at?

No, you've got one more on the weighted.

But it is faster than normal. Okay, so the next item we wanted to review is weighted scoring. And you can see in the packet, that's the blue tables. Look at the percent of total values of that fourth column percentages and percentages. if you're aligned with those percentages of importance for each category.

And again, just focus on the top table because we'll adjust the bottom table to be correct math. And if you need a reminder as to what the rating factors mean, just go to the page before and pull out your magnifying glass. Sorry, I formatted it to be on a big piece of paper that I didn't tell you about.

Maybe I have to hit refresh. It hasn't loaded either. You can refresh it.

Yeah, hit refresh on your browser.

Mine closed.

It did refresh, though I didn't get it.

It closed.

Yeah, how about it?

You don't have the next question. Do you refresh it? Mine worked. Yeah, mine worked too. You guys must not have Androids. No. I wish I did.

But it worked.

I have that conversation all the time. My husband and I go back and forth about iPhones and Android.

Is your husband on an iPhone? Yeah. Oh my God. So you're just in a green bubble relationship. Green bubble relationship. Wait.

I said, wait for the, wait to change the version.

A lot of my friends and I have gone to WhatsApp.

Trying to get this question.

I think that wasn't.

When you scan it, it's. You only know. What does it look like for you? Oh, it's the same way. It's the same way.

Maybe.

I get what it looks like in your sort of them, me, me situation. I get it. I get what you're saying. I want everybody the same color.

Yeah, that's still like... Well, you know what? Wiki Thumbs Up's my thing.

I get like a...

I only track people are different color, but not your type of phone. So like if my husband says something to me is color, then I'll be a color.

I thought mine was fine. It's not. It's not? No, it's the same thing. It's showing the allocations. Yeah, mine's showing the allocations, too. Because sometimes you need to... Okay. There we go. Now we got it. It's okay. It's okay.

Do it over again. Start over again.

There we go.

Start back to page two.

Did you give you an option to skip the question? At the bottom.

I thought it was like someone is so aligned that they're like, no skips. I was like, is this playing? I don't know. It is. Oh, right here. I'm sorry.

I don't know. Just me?

Let me see if I can push buttons.

Well, I'm 77 in here and I just bumped it down. We'll see if that works. No wonder we're warm. I don't know. I'm just so engaged. Thank you.

Do we need any further discussion on the weights? It looks like there's high alignment there to me. All right, we're going to give it a go.

Well, I don't have an issue with the weights. I actually, I ranked it the max score, but I do have a common preference point, which I don't know if we should discuss now or after this. Let's discuss the weights after, or now and then preference after.

I don't think you have us voting on preference points, Steve.

Were those the only two questions we were voting on? Those were the two questions that we wanted specific feedback on.

We felt we had what we needed on the preference point from the last one, but if you, that is not, like, go ahead.

Let's hear your comment, Commissioner. Okay.

And well, I guess for those of us here last time, I brought up that I wanted to include organizations with unionized workforces as a preference point. And so I just wanted to make that argument one more time before this is finalized. And ultimately, I want unionized workforces to be included because unions are very much at the front lines of improving our communities through their work. And so not only do they benefit their members, their non-members, but also the communities that their members work within. Sometimes I think to be part of the union, there's a lot of risk that's involved with its members in terms of their livelihoods. And sometimes when you look back at history, that means, I mean, we've seen union leaders being murdered, being brutally tortured, or being imprisoned on false pretenses for having principled stances. And so coming back to our score, I think that If we can't commit to giving something as simple as a preference point to organizations that have unionized workforces, then I'm not quite so sure what we are doing. Because if we're going to give an extra point to women-led organizations or minority-led organizations, I don't really see why we should have such a hard time including a unionized workforce. I mean, unions were critical allies for those in the civil rights movement. Union leaders were central to defending some of our most vulnerable community members, thinking back to For example, farm workers in the Central and Imperial Valleys in the 20s and 30s and into the modern day. And also some of the earliest women suffragists actually built their momentum and power by organizing women in the workforce. And so I just think that it's critical and also related to a lot of the preference points that we're already giving. I think that it should be honestly a question as to adding the United Workforces there. And I know last time we had a discussion saying that currently we don't have any organizations or service providers with unionized workforces that we're funding. That said, I think we should be incentivizing the organization that we are funding to let their workers unionize and I think that if one day there was a service provider that was looking to expand elsewhere into another city and they do have a history of letting their workforces unionize, I want Hayward to be a city that stands out to them and I want them to come to our city. So I just hope that I personally would want to see having a unionized workforce as an added preference point along with the rest.

Thank you, Commissioner Wong. Commissioner Roderos, did you reach out?

Yeah, so I agree with them saying that most of the nonprofits that would be applying for funds don't have a unionized workforce. But under the services, when people apply, say an nonprofit is applying for a new roof, We use unionized workers to do that work. We have to. That's part of the CDBG that they have to meet the prevailing wage requirements and all of those things. So those are unionized scales of payment that we have to have to use. The agencies have to use those organizations to do the work that we're funding them. to do. So there is a unionized workforce involved. It's not necessarily a point structure for the nonprofit for the unionized workers. You understand what I'm saying? Yeah. Okay. So we are, we are, there is a, there is a part that, that benefits unionized workforce. It's just not on the scoring.

And I think that, well, I just think that any organization in through the provision of their services utilizes any workforce that is unionized, I think that we should give that added one point to them in our scoring.

Any other comments or thoughts in regard to union preference point discussion? Seeing none, I would like to ask staff, I understand we did have the work session last year. We did whittle down at some point, I feel like we had like maybe eight or nine different preference options, and a number of them were whittled down to this five here. We also made the commitment to take a stab at this first run of the changes. The city conducts every year surveys of us, of the providers, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for that question to be on the survey for years moving forward to see if they would agree that it would incentivize or would make a substantial difference to them. I don't think this is like it's one and done and etched in stone and this never changes again. It was changed just a few years ago. And I don't know if that would satisfy, but that is a potential option is to move forward with what we'd agreed with this existing funding cycle and then take another look at an evaluation at the next cycle. Is that an option to- Absolutely.

I mean, it's also, I think, if there's consensus among the group to add this one, we can also I don't think there were other ones that were on the board before that had such vocal support.

Well, I remember Grisha Angulo had one. I don't recall what it was, but there was a prep. And I don't know if it was around language. I know there were several others.

We consolidated a lot into addressing multiple community needs, I think, was a lot of the... That's where the catch was. How it all kind of, a lot of them got consolidated, but the union one was not for me.

Is there any commission in just making a decision on the matter at the moment? Is anyone opposed to taking a vote? But we don't have corn. We can't vote.

Oh, yeah. We do?

How? You have 11 members now. Because Commissioner Maxson came in? No, there are only 11 members on the CSC.

Oh, that was for the minutes before it was larger. That's fair enough.

No, it was just like we didn't have a majority of the people here voting yes to pass it.

That's right, because the three commissioners were you who weren't present. Thank you for that clarification. Does anybody oppose to taking a vote now? on whether or not we'd like to add union, and you please give me the language, Commissioner Wong, union-represented organizations or unionized organizations as a preference point?

I don't know the best wording, but I said it as organizations or unionized. I don't know if that would cover the scenario that you put up.

What about utilizing unionized organizations?

using your unionized workforce um through contracting or otherwise or something like that i'm trying to think maybe several you using union labor use you make it because that would cover the agency as well as any of their subcontractors is that what you're thinking i'll be i would think so i mean if i saw that i would think i feel like we need some help with the language i would say it's the prioritization to have because because in that case oh dude

Oh, Emily makes a really good point about the logistics of this, which is that we have passed the deadline where we can edit the application. And the application would have, we have to add the question, do you, whatever, we end up making this language and we can't make any more edits to the application because our vendor gave us a very hard and fast, you can't edit beyond this date.

Does that put the change two years away?

Yes.

Because this current funding cycle is for two years.

Yeah. And so the things that we're getting your input on tonight are things that can be reflected in the RFP, which can still change. But Emily, you're absolutely right. We added questions to the application that are like, yes, no. So that way we can score them on these preference points and we would not be able to add it. I'm sorry. Thank you, Emily, for being so practical.

My question was like, what are the logistics of that? Commissioner Maxson? Yeah.

I think if anything, we can ask them in the interviews if that would help.

Yeah, I think so. I guess one of the questions that I had, are the rubrics, I mean, this isn't published yet, this scoring guide.

No, this isn't. But anything that we would need to get like the information in the application, we can't add.

Because we'll need to vet all the, so like Hayward Bay, we'll need to vet all of that before it gets to you.

We'll know the preference points before we even deliberate.

I see. Yeah. And so like you could ask the question in the interview and when you are. So let's say it's a services arc and you're looking at housing and homelessness folks within the ranking. And there are agencies that are ranked the same in the interview. If one of them does use a unionized workforce and the group had consensus, you could fund them slightly more. Or if you're in a place where. You are trying to decide how much money to give within those rankings and you want to give an agency slightly more because they're unionized. You are going to make that argument, but you would have to have gotten from the interview and it wouldn't be a formal preference claim. Because then, I'm sorry, because there are people who may skip the interview as well. And you wouldn't be able to get that information because they scored so highly.

And I would say part of the reason for making adjustments and changes is because our nonprofit partners asked for more transparency in the scoring. And this is in response to that. And I'm not certain we would be able to continue to provide that if we decided to ask different questions in the interviews that weren't asked of all the ARCs and that wasn't transparent to them that we were doing. Yeah.

I was sort of my question that it sounds like that amounts to a surprise question that they may not be prepared to answer in the interview.

Thank you, Commissioner Sledge. At this point, I think that's accurate. Yeah. Commissioner Kimura.

Yes, yes. I have another question about preference points. If you guys can help me confirm that. How did we define minority-led colonization? Is that based on racially minority or? the gender minority, or this may come up with the... Emily's looking up the exact thing, but we use HUD steps.

The reason, yeah, women-led and minority-led, we have to report to HUD. We call it the meedy-weeby, the minority business enterprise and the women business enterprise. And so this is like... using that exact definition. So we're aligning with how HUD defines a minority business enterprise and how they define a women business enterprise. Emily can tell you right from the hud.

Yeah, so the exact definition is as a business that is at least 51% owned and controlled by one or more minority or socially and economically disadvantaged individuals. Generally, these include but not limited to African Americans, Hispanic American, Native American, Asian Pacific Americans. Some documents also cite socially and economically disadvantaged persons. whose disadvantage may arise from cultural, racial circumstances.

That's the, we'll double check, because it looks like that's the answer. Yeah, we'll, yeah, okay, good, great. And it'll be published in the RFP. So when they are submitting their application, they'll see in the RFP, the glossary, minority-owned business means this. So that way, when they say yes, and they sign off on their application, we are assuming that they used that definition. And we'll be really clear in the bidders conference as well, because this is a new thing.

OK, so for us, that sentence covers a lot of minorities. So that includes the LGBTQ community, that includes the people with disability, and I don't know, because it's socially oppressed. community meaning that covers all those ways. Is that right? Yeah. Okay.

To further clarify, is the lead, was it specific to the board and the executive?

Because I know that we had talked about that in a previous meeting that we wanted to include board as leaders and executive leadership. Thank you.

To, I think, summarize, the last, I don't know, five, six minutes of conversation. We unfortunately have passed the point of no return in regard to making changes to the application. However, it is duly noted and on the record that this concept of a union preference is of interest to the commission and the staff will make it a point to include that in our surveys or evaluations of the CAF process to our partners and others for the future cycle when we can make an adjustment to the application. It's unfortunate that we decided to make it a two-year cycle and there won't be another chance in the next year to make the change to the application. But I want to thank you for your passion and for raising it and making sure that we're being fair and equitable to all of our partners in that regard. And I think that's the way we are sort of boxed into moving forward with regard to that preference point. Okay. Are there any other comments, questions, thoughts as it relates to the changing of rubrics, score, processes connected to the community agency funding process for this upcoming cycle that will begin very shortly? Thank you all for your engagement. We shall move on to our agenda planning calendar if you all are ready to do that. And I understand there need to be some changes to that.

um okay do you mind if i i was just going to make the motion how you said in the email i i just want to call out for context so if you flip in your packet to this the very last page um We did something differently as staff. I will say there are times where between one meeting to the next, we realize that we need to change the agenda. And typically I give the language to the chair and she makes a motion to add the thing that we said we need to add. I was trying to make it clearer by putting our proposed change in the calendar itself. So that highlighted piece is our change. So you could pass this, adopt this calendar with that change. However, there's another change that I remembered even like too late. So we still have to do it the way we've previously done it. So I wanted to highlight what the two changes are. One is the one that's highlighted on the calendar, which is just that we'd like to move up the agency performance reviews so that it happens next month instead of in November. This, we think, is fine with the balance of what you have on your agenda, and it also helps with our staff workload as we are in our busiest season right now because we're getting into contracts from your last cap cycle while starting the new cap cycle. The other change that's not on here that... someone would need to make a motion and staff are recommending that someone included in their motion is to add an informational item for commissioner biographies. We forgot about this, but you at commissioner request a few years ago asked for commissioners to have the option. It's not required to provide a short written biography for yourself. so that you all can get to know each other a little bit better and be a little more informed when you're voting on the elections, which will happen in October. So that way you have a staff report before the meeting where you see everybody's name and if they submitted a biography. What we will commit to doing sooner than later is sending you all last year's And so if you were on the commission last year, you can say, just use the same thing again, or you can send us an updated one. And for those of you who are new, you can see what others have written. And if you want to kind of model or do your own thing. But that gives you an idea that it's not like pages and pages, but like just a couple paragraphs. And that is, again, just so you can get to know each other a little bit better. It is a public document. So it'll be published as a staff report on the city's website and available to folks. So please keep that in mind when you're choosing what to put. And there's no consequence for opting out. You don't have to do one. It's just for the benefit of getting to know each other.

I don't believe you gave in. I don't think the rest of the commission has the second edition.

No, it's only up there because it's too late to make a recommendation. So I think the motion that staff are recommending is that someone moves to adopt the calendar with the revision to add the informational item for commissioner biographies to October. That's the motion that we're recommending.

Commissioner Gunn. So moved. Okay. Did you get that? Second. And second by Commissioner Maxson. Thank you all. Take your vote. Thank you.

And when would those biographies be due?

They'd be in the October meeting.

So let's say we get an email from our staff team saying, please send us your biographies by September 15th.

I'm trying to give you an idea. So the 15th, it would probably be due by October 3rd or early the next week so that we can compile it and get it published. So you'd have a couple of weeks.

Thank you. Any other questions before we get our vote? Commissioner Jason, do you have a question? Do you think about it? Do you have a comment or question?

No.

Oh, okay. I thought I saw your hand. My mistake. Okay. We're ready for you.

All righty. Commissioner Wheeler. Yes. Commissioner Dula. Yes. Commissioner Gett.

Yes.

Commissioner Kamara. Yes. Commissioner Medeiros. Yes. Commissioner Matson. Yes. Commissioner DeAndre Singh.

Yes.

Mr. Swayed?

Yes.

Commissioner Wong?

Yes.

Thank you, everybody.

Okay. Do we have any announcements from the commissioners? Are there any commissioner announcements? Seeing none, are there any announcements from our staff?

Yes. It's a reminder of the timeline for the community agency funding process. NOFA, like Emily said, will be released on Friday. The Bidders Conference is October 22nd. Applications are due October 21st before the Thanksgiving holiday. So that means you all, we won't meet in December. You'll have... And we'll get everything to you by that first week of December. So you can review applications in advance of January and you'll get a hard deadline from us that because of the nature of these changes, we are strongly, strongly going to enforce. So please get your scores done by the date we give you. I don't know what that date is right now, but it will be there. And the other announcement I just want to call out related to the biography item, we have elections in October. The clerk sent you all a packet, like kind of right, everybody received that, not just the new commissioners. Right? Did you guys get an email from the clerk with the welcome packet for commissioners? It had the Brown Act and Roberts rules. So that includes the uniform guidance, guidelines, guidance for boards and commissions that council adopted. That has information about how elections will work. Some key changes. Again, we don't have a parliamentarian anymore. Thank you for your service. And the chair, the chair serves a one year term. And so given the timing and how it's working, we are going to start that term counting with this upcoming election. So hypothetically, if Commissioner Wheeler were to be voted chair again, she'd start that one year term with the option to be elected for a second consecutive year. But no chair may serve more than two years in a row. and you have to have a year of service on the CSC to be appointed chair. So that's just a heads up as you go into next month and are thinking about potentially running. We don't currently have a vice chair, and we'll vote for a vice chair in October as well.

Those are the announcements from me. Any other team announcements?

No? Okay, very good. Council Member Benita, do you have any announcements for us?

Just welcome to the new commissioners to the CSE and welcome back to the returning commissioners. We certainly appreciate your service on this important commission.

Thank you so very much. Any announcements? Very good. Okay. We're going to adjourn at 817. I do have a question about this.