Commission on Persons with Disabilities - Regular Meeting

We're going to go live about 45 seconds. We might be live.

We are live, but we can take a minute. Yeah. Ryan, we'll pause it.

Okay.

Good evening. Welcome to the May 28, 2026 Social Service Human Relations Board meeting. This meeting is being recorded. The chat function has been turned off. If members of the public would like to comment on an item, there are multiple options to do so. If attending via Zoom, digitally raise your hand and Secretary Manna Ayan will announce you when it is your turn. you will have the option to unmute yourself and proceed with your public comment. Email your public comment to Secretary Manayon at gmanayon at alamedaca.gov before or during after the during the meeting with your name, the agenda item number you were referencing and your comments. Comments submitted during the meeting before the conclusion of the public comment section will be read into the record. Her email address is also on the meeting's agenda. If you're calling in by phone, please email Ms. Meneon as we cannot see you raising your hand. You can also dial star nine to raise your hand and we will call on you. To provide a public comment in person, please complete a comment slip with your name and the agenda item number you will be speaking on. You will be called up when it is your turn. Public comments will be limited to three minutes. The public has two opportunities for public comment. First, under agenda item two, public comments, comments from the audience may address matters not on the agenda, but must deal with matters subject to the jurisdiction of the Social Service Human Relations Board. Second, under each agenda item, There will be an opportunity for public comment on that specific item. Each item follows a format similar to council meetings. First, after presentation, we will ask if there are any clarifying questions from shrub members for staff. Then we will ask if there are any public comments on this agenda item. And finally, after public comment, we will open the item up for board discussion and vote if recommended. I'd like to remind everyone that we are conducting business for the city of Alameda this evening. We agree as a community to listen respectfully when other people are speaking. Public speaking can be very stressful for all of us and we do not want anyone to feel intimidated. Shrug meetings will always be a safe space for people to share their views. I also want to remind everyone that disrupting a public meeting is a California Penal Code violation that could result in actions up to and including police intervention. But none of us want that. So also as a reminder, we have exits over here. Now we can call the meeting to order at 7.03 p.m. We will do a roll call. Chantelle Carter.

Present.

Bernie Wolf. Here. Joe Bryant. Here. Michelle Buchholz.

Here.

Samantha Green.

Here.

Scott Means, also here. From Housing and Human Services Division, we have Simone Falls, Division Manager, Gressa Manayon, Program Manager, and Shelby Neal, Administrative Specialist. We now can move to item number two, not agenda, public comments. The City welcomes speakers providing public comment, but please be advised this is a limited public forum. Comments from this audience may concern matters either on or not on the agenda, but must deal with matters subject to the jurisdiction of the Social Service and Human Relations Board. Comments will be limited to three minutes. Comments concerning matters on this evening's agenda will be heard when that item is called. If speakers fail to follow these rules, they will be warned, and if they continue to disregard the rules, their opportunity to speak will end. Do we have any speakers for item two?

We do. We have four, and I'm going to call them in the order received. So the first one is Mr. Kenneth Conn.

Hello, thank you. I just want to thank you guys. It's a pleasure, honor to be speaking for the Human Relations Board. My name is Kenneth Kahn, and I've been a lifelong resident of the city of Alameda here 60 years, and I... Became homeless about two years ago. And just want to talk about the experience really briefly. It's, you know, it's just been very difficult. It affects all people. You know, well, let me just also say that I'm also known as Kenny the Clown in the community. So I'm an entertainer. And I try to really be positive and really contribute to the community. And it's just very difficult when you become homeless. A lot of people think that it's just the not having a house, but it's also the stigmatization. And it's also the things... that we tend to take for granted such as, you know, whether it be electricity for, you know, to stay warm or when it gets hot to be able to cool down or food if you get hungry, parking and, hygiene. So there's a lot of things that go along with it. And I just ask that the Human Relations Board tries to stay focused along with the city of Alameda and kind of moving towards finding solutions for things such as, like you said, parking, hygiene, just the basic necessities of being able to live as a human being. And, and, yeah, so I, that's kind of the main focus of what I wanted to say. And just hopefully, we could kind of find solutions, because it seems like it's kind of becoming more more common than than than than not. And it wasn't years past. So thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ms. Danielle Mueller.

Good evening board members. My name is Danielle Miller. I'm the sustainability and resilience manager for the city of Alameda. And I'm visiting all the boards and commissions this month to update everyone on some work we've been doing, engaging the community regarding the city's infrastructure needs. So during, we had a series of city council workshops last fall where we identified more than $800 million in urgent needs, including for aging roads, bridges, storm drains, public safety facilities, all of which are increasingly vulnerable to severe storms, sea level rise and major earthquakes. So I'm just here to update you tonight on that work and share how we're gathering community input on these critical issues. So many of you are aware of the risks that we face from sea level rise. We saw significant flooding during the King Storm events last year. which is a preview of how sea level rise will impact our shoreline in the coming years if we don't take action. At the same time, we have to ensure that city facilities remain operational after a major earthquake. And we have a number of facilities that, when studied, did not receive passing grades, such as the West End Fire Station, the Alameda Point Fire Station Training Facility and the Animal Shelter. And we also have aging pavement, which can cause impacts to those trying to get around town. Our pavement condition score is 66 out of 100, which is better than some of our cities, but not as good as some of the other cities in the area. And we all know that neglecting these needs increases costs for everyone. It shows up in our rising insurance rates, property value, slower emergency response times, and vehicle wear and tear. And without a dedicated funding source, the city must rely on the general fund for these urgent repairs and they become more expensive the longer they go unaddressed. So one option that's being considered is a $300 million local infrastructure bond that would create a protected dedicated funding source specifically for infrastructure needs. If approved, property owners would pay approximately $49 per $100,000 of assessed value on their home, not market value. And the funding would allow us to prevent flooding in the Posey Webster tubes and on city streets, install earthquake safe backup power for our bridges to remain operational, repair potholes, improve traffic safety, maintain stormwater systems, prevent bay pollution and flooding, ensure first responders can react quickly to fires and medical emergencies. All funding would stay local here in Alameda. No funding could be taken by the state or the federal government. And these dollars would all be accounted for with a citizen's oversight committee and annual audits baked into the measure to ensure every dollar is spent as intended. We recently mailed Alameda voters an information guide. If you haven't done so yet or received it, please visit www.alamedaca.gov slash stronger together. And there's a survey there as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mr. Craig. I apologize. I can't read the last name, but Craig.

On behalf of Gerald, what some of us there are in some ways homeless, but kind of intentionally not living in conventional housing. So it's like I'm in a vehicle. PB John Gerstle, yeah I did send Gerald I was even just disperse into other than there are some things on class K housing, I believe, is called in mendocino county. PB John Gerstle, Also, there are some things on repurposing non residential structures to either live in or at least supplement living in that sort of thing, and I didn't speak at the democratic club, and one of the people that was in the in the city hall. So the thing about, you know, there's concerns about, you know, electrical, of course, part of the electrical can be off grid. So I'm service associated with a maker's firm that has their own solar equivalent to power their situation. I mean, sewage is another matter, but anyway, I just wanted to kind of just kind of reiterate that I don't have any new events from last time speak of, but I just kind of wanted to kind of bring all that forward if I could. I don't know if I have anything more to say. It's just kind of a reiteration of my previous points from those the last month or whenever. And I did send some material out on it that hopefully other people get a chance to look at. So that's basically it. Thank you. Thanks, Craig.

Our next speaker is Ms. Corinne Kirschbaum.

It's my time preparing a big old long speech because you don't care anyway. Let me guess, have any of you read any of the reports? No, I didn't think so. Have you read the contracts? Didn't think so. You have a person here who is a 30 year teacher who went on a vacation. became a victim of a crime and came home to be a whistleblower being retaliated against. You can believe whatever the hell you want to believe, but you're looking like fools. All of this is now in the hands of a higher power. You don't do anything for this committee. It's all talk, talk, talk. I went through and I watched all of your meetings. You, Gerald, you're being sued. How dare you? How dare you? You want to talk about mental health? First of all, you don't know me for nothing. So I don't know how you can sit there while I'm not even in a meeting and speak about me because the only mental ones are the eight people sitting up here doing nothing when there is solid proof. Why don't you go ask some police officers? You want me to haul in some to let you know that you should all be listening to me? $10 million. And you don't give a fuck where that is. Where'd it go? Five years. You guys have all been saying the same thing over and over and over again. You haven't budged. You haven't moved to anywhere. What have you done? How do you even know what the homeless need if you have never read one single thing? And if you did read something, you would find that every single report, and I know Simone, she got put in the middle. I feel sorry for her because she had to lie. Those reports contradict each other, every single one. There's no numbers. So what the hell did they send the state? What did they send the feds? We're talking federal money, we're talking state money, we're talking city money, and we're talking public taxes. And you don't care. Not one bit. I have come to these meetings, and what have you done to me? Villainized me. That's all you knew how to do. You didn't like to hear what I had to say. The honest truth. I have no reason to lie. I have been doing this for four years. And last week, I got my entire life taken away. my entire life. You don't care what they've done to me.

Thank you. That concludes your public comment. Our next speaker is Ms. Cindy Acker. That concludes your public comment.

Corinne, I'd ask you to wait until your next comment so we can have our other speakers speak. Thank you.

Thank you for letting me come here and speak. My name is Dr. Cindy Acker. I'm principal of the Child Unique Montessori School and Montessori Elementary Intermediate School of Alameda. I'm here because I think it's important for this body to know some of the challenges that affect people on the island. For us, our school has been given the pink slip, so to speak. We have a campus that is on 1406th Street, which is the space that is owned by St. Barnabas. And if you've read the news, then you know that there are 13 parishes that have been told that they were gonna be sold and ours is one of them. What's unique about our school is that apart from the fact that we have done incredible things in the city of Alameda, we also have elementary middle school students who haven't been able to make it in public school. And yet our students have won for three years straight the speech contest that has to do with Martin Luther King Jr., They have been unable to make it in public school, but have won awards in geography, in history, in social justice in our school. We were one of eight schools that were allowed to remain open, to have our elementary students remain open during COVID because we met with representatives in Taiwan and China and rewrote a contagious disease policy that we sent to the public health department. and it was approved and our students were able to continue and we never had an outbreak. We have been given a $10,000 grant to our elementary middle school students to green the West end. They have done for seven years now, black history exhibits for the city and they have provided information for the school district about black history. It has also been in the district offices because they were quite impressed by it. They researched and discovered that Alameda happens to be The city with a family that has the very first black employee in the White House. It was the secretary of Robert Kennedy, of President Kennedy. And it was our school that spoke up for the Respite Center when people felt that preschool children shouldn't be near someone who was unhoused. It was our students who spoke up for the center and risked the continuation of the school by saying, we will not only support it, we will be there, we will sing songs, we will be for them. And yet we have four weeks before it is the last day of our school year. And we've been told that we should not start our next school year because the diocese doesn't know what's gonna happen with the property. I know there's spaces in Alameda and I encourage you to look out for people like us to see what it is that we can do. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have no other public comments.

Okay. That moves us to item number three, the minutes review. Approve the minutes from April 23rd, 2026.

I motion to approve. I'll second that.

All right. We don't have to do a roll call vote. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries 6-0. We now move on to Item number four, a vote on the Social Service Community Relations Board Fiscal Year 2026-27 Scope of Work. At the April 23rd SHRUB meeting, Simone Falls, House and Human Services Division Manager, gave a brief overview of a new proposed scope of work. At the meeting, the Board discussed the proposal and asked clarifying questions. They were given further opportunity to discuss and propose changes to the draft scope of work at their monthly subcommittee meetings. These suggestions were reviewed by city staff, SHRUB Vice President, and incorporated as appropriate into the second scope of work, which will be presented by division manager falls and shrub president means. So the one we're looking at is the one that was revised. Okay, great. So we're gonna first look at this revised version. Does everyone have a copy of it?

Do we have any more printouts by chance?

I was gonna put it on the, I was gonna share it. Would you like me to share screen?

Okay, so I have a printout Oh, you don't have a printed version.

I'll share with Bernie if that's okay.

Scott, before we look at it, I have some fundamental issue with the way this was developed. I have a fundamental issue with the procedure that's been used here. We're a shrub board. Whatever changes are made to the work plan, should have originated with shrub. And I find it very uncomfortable to work off a draft that city staff has prepared. And because doing that makes it basically very difficult to come up with an original document. I don't think that's right. And especially since we are public officials and we are subject to the governing laws, We should have been the people that prepared this document and circulated it for comments by others. So I'm not prepared to vote in favor of this document for that reason alone. There are other things about the structure of this that, frankly, I don't like at all. But I wish these could have been discussed at the outset instead of us now discussing something that was not a document that came from us. So I'm sorry about that, but I cannot support this.

OK, I think it would be interesting to hear what specific issues within this are. And I think everyone's going to have some time to do this. I think probably the best way is just to go down the line so everyone has a turn to make comments. And then we can get into more of a conversation after that. I just want to leave things off with one kind of just thought here. in terms of, not in terms of the process or anything, but in where we're landing, after considering this quite a bit over the last week or so, I do think that having more of a, I don't necessarily wanna say control, but more of a voice or more of a complete scope of the CDBG under us, under the different components, us having them all, I think actually has a lot of value to it. Last year, because I had a conflict of interest, I had to go into a different category and read a different category. And it really highlights me that actually having them all us coming together at the end with all of them actually does have a value to it if we all review them. So I just want to put that out there as something that I noticed after originally thinking, well, this is a different direction. It can also be an and. And boards and commissions do hold a lot more power when they control money. And that's just a reality in human life. So anyway, I just want to put that out there. But why don't we start with you? Just go straight down the line here.

As I said, I cannot support a document that did not originally... Procedure question first. Shouldn't we put it on the screen and present it first and then do comments?

I don't think everyone has seen this already, but no? Okay, okay. Yes, go ahead. Okay, that's fine then.

And would it be helpful, Simone, just as we present this, what this document actually means for, especially for the member of publics of what is the scope of work actually impacts our monthly meetings and how our work is done?

Yes. Okay, so can I, am I three inches away from the mic? Is that good?

You're about seven.

A little closer, okay. Okay, so the scope of work, oh yeah, I hear it now. The scope of work for SHRUB is not the same as the work plan. So the scope of work is an outline of how SHRUB supports the city of Alameda and specifically Housing and Human Services. And it will help to inform the work plan that SHRUB creates. So we have not created a work plan for shrub as of yet for the new year. But this document is intended to help inform what that work plan will look like. to provide some context around the role of SHREB because it seems that that clarity has been missing over the years. So that is the intention of this document. It's also not intended to be presented as a final proof for you all to just accept, but as a draft. for you all to provide feedback and edits and input. And so I'm hoping that today we're able to hear your input and make edits as necessary. And then from there, hopefully approve the document. You're not forced to approve it today if you don't feel comfortable. Approving it today simply helps move forward to start constructing the work plan and move the work forward for the next fiscal year. for 2627.

We should think of this as more of like a job description than at what we're going to do day to day.

Yes. Thank you. Scott, I know it said we were co presenting. So I don't know if there was anything you would like to add.

I Well, I mean, it's broken up into tasks. I think one of the, I think one thing just to pay attention to in this, I'm just trying to find, oh, if you look at G. Can you scroll to G, Gracia? Yeah, I mean, the specific tasks themselves, it's sort of helpful to understand what G is and then you can always go back and look at the previous stuff. But under G, it says subcommittee members are expected to join at least one subcommittee in area A and one subcommittee in area B, okay? So I know this is split between two pages, but so it would be one of... So A has... a community needs assessment subcommittee. Program evaluation subcommittee. And community outreach and belonging subcommittee. And then B has three subcommittees, which are the yearly grant cycle one. This is right, right? Or is this?

It's Sam. Those are tasks.

That's another one. Is that the one?

You can't version one.

Oh, this is the original. Yeah, that's not the right one. That was, yeah.

Sam's version.

And Simone, I actually think that the intention of this was also to allow us to advocate more for the city of Alameda and give us more oversight to incorporate feedback from the community from our partners so that we can impact services provided, whether it be funding recommendations or oversight or helping approve policies. Is that correct?

Yes, I agree that the intention is to clarify the board's role and allow you to have more input and more impact in the work of the city of Alameda, specifically around social services and the work of HHS. And yeah, I agree with everything you said.

I don't get that a lot. I like that.

Yeah. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Oh it's Okay, so, so I just I just want to point out that that the nuance of the there's the two. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Areas. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, What would you i'm sorry we refer them as. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, area area be so it's having involvement in in both those two areas. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, You on G again yeah yeah we're selling G six so yeah now that's up yeah there it is right there um. Is it? Actually, if people are wondering where some of the subcommittee work is, it's under C1. The committees, and there's, Samantha and I have talked about this. I think there's actually some wording that needs to be changed in this section for clarification, but it's still, there still is, our subcommittees that are doing work on Alameda's against hate, domestic violence, and other human services needs does still exist in this plan, in this overarching plan.

And for the public to know is that we currently have three working committees that are, one is focused on domestic violence, one is focused on Alameda's against hate, and one is about the road home. And this would kind of allow... us to have each group have greater sort of project and map. Not that we are no longer not focusing on domestic violence, but we're having that as a larger umbrella.

Correct. I also want to just clarify for the public over the last month that staff with HHS have met with the committee members to go over the scope of work and receive feedback on it. And in addition, the president and vice president also took a stab at making edits and our vice president made additional edits. And so this is the version with Sam's edits. Some of the primary changes were to the subcommittee structure from what we had originally proposed in the document.

Yeah, talk to that.

Yeah, so I had the privilege of sitting into a couple of the subcommittee meetings. And so my hope was to try and kind of get the information that staff had provided in those meetings, as well as the participants in the meetings, and kind of integrate them into the document. And I think one of the greatest concerns that I had had was that I didn't just want a small group of individuals to oversee the CDBG grants. that it seemed like that was very much intended to be the full board that participated in that process. Um, and having multiple viewpoints and multiple people actually looking and reviewing those documents seemed like a benefit to the community rather than just having two or three people. So after talking to staff, it made sense that we could, we could all participate in that process. Um, and that because of the different grant cycles that we could really dig into a specific grant cycle, rather than kind of being a lot of people being hands-off, they would have to take on a cycle. So the thought was then to break it into kind of these two groups where we would be responsible for CDBG still, but also be able to participate in the community outreach or the other kind of identified needs that had existed in the previous scope of work. The other thing that I thought I heard from folks was that there was a concern that the previous work was going to be lost. And so The thought was to integrate it into a way where the actual tasks of the community needs assessment and program evaluation could come forefront. But there would be a third subcommittee that was really responsible just for an annual calendar to ensure that the other community events were still happening and on a calendar and whoever was participating in those events could still focus in on them. So that was kind of my trying to piece everyone's interest together while still being able to focus on kind of getting into more of the weeds of the work of HHS. So that's kind of what exists there. And I knew there would be feedback on that. I just was trying to put together what I had heard in the meetings into a document that we could discuss.

And since you're addressing that part, so my one sticking point or one thing to pull pull out here is that. It could be interpreted a certain this one part could be interpreted a certain way. And just my experience in government as those have things taken away that could be interpreted away you don't want it to be interpreted okay. And under this, we know that we can't have more than three people in a committee, right? It's a quorum. So you could interpret this as saying that no more than three people can be involved in any of these activities, which is AUH or community events, that kind of thing. See, that could be interpreted wrongly that way. So to have some pullout language that like actual work, there's something about the work groups independent of this. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, There has to be some mention of work for me to want to be a vote for it, I would have to have something pulled out where it doesn't mention the the work groups and validates those as separate work somehow so it doesn't seem like only three people can be involved in any kind of work group with the Community. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, And that's that's the one interpretation, I just want to fix on there because I don't think that's actually the intent.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, So to me. I know a lot of good thought was put into this. As I say, I don't like the fact, I really fundamentally dislike the fact that this didn't originate from Shrub. Because as a lawyer, I know how important a first draft is. If you're working on somebody else's draft, you don't get to have full input. But my focus, as I think specific focus, as is Scott's focus, is on this issue of subcommittees and I think they I don't think they're just descriptive I think there's they implement a very drastic change in the way that the board has operated when I came on the board there were two work groups one of which I joined because Eric Fonstein asked me to the third one was founded by Gerald and of course does very important things as well but The difficulty with this document with the subgroups is that some of the work that's described is best done ad hoc or ad hoc projects. Some of the work that's described is best done in plenary session, the way that we do that. And some of the work is best done by work groups. And if we're going to restructure the way that the board operates, we need to figure out which tasks belong in which place. This document doesn't do it, nor does it give any convincing reason to me why the present system, which is more workable, should be changed. Perhaps there are reasons, but the document does not explain them. What I see is a multiplication of large numbers of groups and just getting people to meet in these groups and subgroups is going to be a task every single time, as it always is with every group that tries to meet. And when you're talking about each person belonging to two groups or subgroups and trying to figure out how to get together and trying to delineate what they're supposed to be doing, to me, it's not a recipe for efficient management of the tasks that we have been delegated to deal with. So I would rather see that we can take the draft, there are good things here, but start all over again with somebody, with a shrub group that puts together something that is more supportable. And I can say specifically that with respect to domestic violence, which I've been involved with, and I won't speak for Gerald, but I'm sure he agrees with the Alameda United Against Hate It needs to have a prominent place here because these are important things. Putting them all in one group and saying that we can all figure out how best to implement these tasks, I don't think is fair. It's not going to work. And it's really not what we were supposed to be doing. And the mayor asked me to come back on this board because of my experience in domestic violence. I attend and put together task force meetings with the able help of Grecia and Shelby. And I do stuff offline too with the mayor and other people on domestic violence. And oftentimes it works best when I'm just one person. Sometimes it's helpful to have other people, but it's not just something that should be lumped together in one subcommittee along with other service providers with the expectation that somehow we can manage to sort out who should be doing what. So my preference would be to start all over again and do things the way that they should be done, which is to have a shrub, you know, group appointed to come up with a draft for us that then city staff and others can comment on. I think it's also particularly unimpressive to me that city staff reached out for comments to city officials and others before coming to us. That's not right. I'm sorry. So for all these reasons, I cannot support this.

Do you want to?

I'd actually really like to hear Chantel's perspective as a relatively newcomer and having fresh perspective. Sure.

So I think you heard my opinions during the working groups. I mean, first and foremost, I think holistically, I think this strengthens the community accountability. I think it creates transparency. I think this gives us a lot more transparency into making sure that we're bringing in RFPs, also actual organizations that are gonna be impactful. It creates a structured process of assessing community needs. And again, just establishing meaningful oversight. I think this is something that I've seen in other boards. So I have no problems with it. The one concern I do have is that I think maybe I would like to put in my comments, right? I think when it comes to the subcommittees, when I looked at that version two, there was definitely some confusion on my part. So I'm sure there's some confusion as well with other members here. But I think if we can maybe put some wording around that or we could discuss during this meeting what those subcommittees in lay terms are, I think maybe I'd be happy to move forward and voting on it. But I think overall, I think this is I have no problems with what you presented. I think having the discussions in the working group, it makes good sense to me. And I think this would have I think the board will have more involvement.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, there's an objective, thank you for your comment just interject I kind of read see one in its current form as more of like calendaring and organizing rather than doing the.

PB, Lupita D Montoya, Press it can you scroll up a little bit.

Oh, are these just the? OK. You can pull your microphone down.

Oh, yeah, sorry. I think C, yeah, I'm sorry. I interpreted C1 and 2 as more of an information sharing kind of thing rather than the work groups themselves. I'm using the term work groups to talk about the domestic class. That's the kind of thing. And just for consideration, I just, since we're talking about this, you know, we have an A and a B section. There could be a C section, this titled board-initiated work groups. And it could just be a catch-all for different work groups that actually happen because the board initiates it. Because I think one concern probably is, I'm just trying to read the room here, is that it seems the workgroup stuff, which is what people's passion projects are, seem to disappear a little bit here. A lot. It seems to disappear a lot. I know that. Okay. So this actually brings it back up into view, having it be its own section. And it's non-mandatory. If you notice that everyone's expected to be in one in A and B. But C is like your extra credit projects, basically is what I'm saying. Anyway, just putting that out there is something to consider. Yes. Anyway, do you want to just keep moving along? Sure, if you want.

So I have to be honest, I spent some time going back and forth through this as well. By the time I got the second version, I was a lot happier. I had a lot of issues with the first version. The improvements, things like bringing back human relations with actually language that was added back. I think that the human relations is what was missing from the first one. Coordinated roles, again, I think it's a positive improvement when you talk about it in terms of that. Also did for the community needs assessment, it was being banded. I think that that's a reasonable positive improvement. You also had the strengthening of the community outreach section, which again, in my opinion, is the most important part of what we're doing. And then, of course, adding the homeless strategic plan. What's still important that is missing, and I have to say, from what I've read so far, Social Services and Human Relations Board serves as an advisory capacity to HHS, the city manager and the city council, that still didn't change. And for a charter board, I'm just wondering, should HHS be listed before city council at all? Beyond that, the idea that HHS will periodically evaluate the effectiveness of SHRUB, That's a governance concern as far as I can see. So as far as I understood, again, if SHRUB is intended to provide oversight feedback and recommendations regarding HHS programs, then having HHS evaluate SHRUB creates a really unusual relationship. HHS can also change the scope. But that question doesn't specify by whom, through what authority, or whether the council approval is even required.

So, Gerald, can I just add, because I read the city charter ordinance again. The city charter and ordinance provide that shrub is answerable to the city council. There is no mention of HHS anywhere. That's what I saw. I don't know where this came from. I know we have a close relationship with HHS. Understood. But we are the public body, and by law, it is us who is responsible. The city council, HHS, is not.

And again, it may be administratively reasonable, but that doesn't make it something that necessarily is a good thing or the right thing to do.

Gerald, just because I'm taking notes on all the feedback. You said that HHS is supposed to evaluate shrub. You said that's in the charter?

No, it says that in the actual document. Scope of work? In the statement of work. Okay. The scope of work. Okay, cool.

Thanks.

Again, these are just some basic things that I had to go through and do my own research on because I didn't feel comfortable with it. And I didn't want to just sit here and hem and haw at you. I'm very honest about this. So I'll stop for now. I still have more to say, but for now I'll let other people continue on and we can pick it back up because I have things to say. Okay.

If you, you know, we need to also, you know, make space in this for public comment. Would you mind if I just ask for public comment and then we can go back to more conversation?

Can I just say one thing?

Yeah, go ahead.

I do want to address what I think our current workflow doesn't meet is many community members' needs. And I think we have had numerous city members reach out to us about not feeling like their services are meeting their needs. And I would like to take our role as advocates to help support meeting more people's needs. And so I don't think what we're doing is, I'd like to do more. And we all have, we have, you know, as a direct service provider to people experiencing homelessness, as a healthcare provider, I always would like to do more in my backyard. And I always welcome opportunities where we can do more. And I am excited about this procedural, you know me, I don't get stuck in the weeds. I want us to make more impact and do more good in all the ways we can do good. And if we can hold that and hold that intention of that we are here to serve our community and find the best way to do it, I think if we ground that for this, we can come up with a plan that works. But as long as we don't get too in the weeds, but think about how we can do best by our community members, I think that can ground us. They're setting intention. Because I think we can do better.

I agree. I just feel like, well, leave it open for gentlemen to lead the board.

So do we have any comments on this item?

We do. We have one public comment, Ms. Corinne Kirschbaum.

Stop.

stop you guys i appreciate bernard michelle appreciate what you have said because you are jumping to all these things when you don't even know what half those words mean you don't even know what services are gerald is sitting there talking to that by the way the new village of whatever it's called now from what i understand is worse Who's overseeing them? Who's overseeing them? Where's outreach? Where's outreach? Because we have another death, Elijah. He is now gone. Where's outreach? Where is outreach? Where is it? You don't know what any of those mean. You don't know what services mean. Gerald thinks that, oh, I just lost my job and I'm going to be late on rent and this nonprofit's giving me my money so I can pay my rent. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? They would laugh in your face. That man that stood here in the other room and did that presentation on what the, and then, oh, excellent, excellent. Really? I pulled the wool right over your eyes. I've been doing this for four years, every single day. I know way more than you do, way more than you do. First of all, you have never been homeless, right? Not one of you. Have you been homeless? So how the hell would you even know what the homeless need? You haven't read the contracts. You haven't read the reports. You haven't gotten a, what do you think, we're all dumb? That's right, you do. 30 year educator erased off this forehead with the big H word. And now you know what that means in Alameda? That means you are automatically a criminal Right, JP? You are automatically a drug addict. You are automatically a meth head. You are automatically every single thing. It doesn't matter what I contributed to society for over 30 years. It doesn't matter how many students I have taught in my entire career because that's gone. You have taken my career. You have taken my life. You have taken everything. And I'm not stopping until you listen. I come in here every single, once a month I get three minutes. That's it. And not one of you, not one of you have shown any interest in finding out what is really going on. Well, I'm going to tell you what's really going on. $10 million is missing. Why the hell do you think the village of love is no more? They lied to you. They want to make it more competitive. Bullshit. It was competitive. There are over 75 applications for those contracts. There was no oversight.

Not one.

There is not one.

Ma'am, your time is up. I ask you to take your seat. Miss Kirschbaum, your time is up. Thank you for your comment. Scott, should we continue with our Yeah.

So we want to talk about this subject more.

I asked you to leave at this point. Thank you for your comments.

I I know that I know that you had more to say Gerald, but I think there's other people might have comments too.

Are we all going to take a moment? Yeah, let's take a moment.

I think we can all appreciate her passion, same passion that we're hearing on the board today about this topic. So take another breath and then Scott when you're ready. Let me see.

Well, yeah, I think we should take back up this conversation about making the board more accountable and responsive to public interests.

Can I just ask a clarifying question? So if these committees go, like, can you just spell out there would be three committees, like, the three subcommittees. Can you just, what was your vision? And tell me what you were thinking about, because I think that might be the part where that we're all sort of trying to figure out. So not to put you on the spot.

Not to worry. So I think one of the things that had come up previously was that one of the subcommittees was really just going to focus on CDBG, which is that that was going to be its own subcommittee. And Maybe it was me. I thought that that seemed like that was more of a full board activity. And so I tried to remove it as a subcommittee and to make it so that everybody still had a role in all of the CDBG. At the same time, I had heard from a number of board members that they were interested in hearing about all of the CDBG grants, right? But staff felt like that was actually like a really big lift, right? Because there are so many of them, they recur on different cycles. And so there would be times where there was actually a lot to review, especially if we're not just reviewing the actual applications for the grants, but actually like reviewing the... the reports that are coming back in, right, on a more regular basis. And so my thought was that, okay, if that's the case, then maybe we could break up those responsibilities into the different grant cycles. So each person could take on, they're broken up, there are four different categories. One of the grant cycles actually sees two of those, but none of those groups would oversee more than like seven groups. organizations, at least as they stand right now. So if we provided more grants to more organizations, perhaps, but as it stands now, you'd really only be responsible for overseeing seven or fewer.

So that would be like, that's like B. So B is that one group would be into grant cycle one, one group would be into grant cycle two, and one grant would grant cycle three. And we could maybe Judge or like what the subject matter was of that grant cycle to fit people's expertise.

And if you really love reviewing those, you could choose to participate in multiple grant cycles, right? I like reviewing them, so I could be weirdo or if time allowed, right? Then what I tried to do was then to break out the other subcommittees and the tasks to kind of fit those subcommittees. So previously the tasks that were listed in the scope of work were not connected to any single subcommittee. They were just kind of laid out and it wasn't clear. So I think Michelle, you would ask that we attach the task to each of the subcommittees. So I tried to do that. So this was my take on that. As it's written, it still is challenging to find a way for the existing subcommittees to still be there. I think previously, one of the things that we have talked about and why we wanna be more effective is that there, we had the community needs assessment group previously. That was kind of what turned into the Road Home. And that looked at the community needs assessment and it looked at the five-year plan and homelessness. Scott and I previously had attended those meetings for the five-year plan. And then I had helped her write the previous community needs assessment. But we didn't have a program evaluation subcommittee in existence previously. So I added that as a subcommittee so that that task could be given to someone. If we feel like that needs to go to everyone, we could pull it out as a subcommittee. I have no qualms against that. And then the last one was trying to make sense of this community outreach and belonging subcommittee. And for me, it felt like I know that it's really challenging on staff to have disparate schedules of activities and things that happen on top of each other. And so having a calendar and people that were kind of in charge of having that calendar to ensure that the tasks that were happening could all happen without overlapping and making it difficult for HHS staff to oversee or help participate in those. The actual activities, I didn't wanna take away from folks that had specific expertise or interest. And so my thought was to turn those into individual action committees or working groups that could focus on the activities that were laid out in that calendar. And folks could essentially say, Okay, here's our calendar of activities and events that are going to happen. Meetings, right? Domestic violence task force meetings, the CARES task force meetings. If people wanted to get involved with ACYF again, that we could include those all on the calendar and folks could kind of sign up to participate in those tasks rather than not being able to participate at all.

To participate in events rather than only participate and focus on that particular activity. Right.

Or that it could be, you know, if it's a group. I think the challenge that I also saw with this approach is that it's hard... It's hard if there's a strand that needs to be pulled along, right, from activity to activity. So, for example, with the Domestic Violence Task Force, if somebody wants to participate in those meetings, they really have to go through all of those meetings, right? It's not a one-off thing. Same with ACCYF. If you're participating in those meetings and you want to be involved in their activities, you have to kind of see those through. And in a lot of ways for Ada too, right? Is that a lot of those activities are kind of, they're not just one-offs, right? And so it makes it a little bit harder for kind of action plans to participate in this current structure. But that was where I thought we would discuss it and come up with a solution. But that was just my take on where we could land. Yeah.

No, I think that's great. I just wanted to say, I think it makes good sense what you did. And I appreciate you creating that clarification. I think when it comes to also folks wanting to participate in events, we could also focus on... highlighting, you know, months, right? So we have October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, right? So that's something that you can aim for and push for, right? And you could have a couple of meetings before that, but maybe your focus is October. We really want to show awareness. We want to have a big event, right? So something to think about.

I also think of like some of, I think, not that it was my little passion project, so I'm putting my passion, but our community volunteer award, which I would love to continue to do. But I don't like, I think that could be in the community outreach bucket as well. But that is a one-off, like we just do that at one time of the year, so.

Yeah, and I think one of the things that I have a hard time with is the community needs assessment component of it, right? So there's a difference between the community needs assessment being a report and the community needs assessment being regular data collection. Right. And in some ways, maybe that's where those task force or those meetings actually live rather than inside the calendar. Where those are an opportunity for us to actually listen and gather information on what the community needs are. To listen to the services that are currently available to listen to the challenges that the service providers are getting and then to make sure that those make it into the Community needs assessment. And so, maybe it's really that's where those those meetings actually live and so particularly as the as you guys kind of restructure the cares and think about it more as a way of getting that information. So that's also something to think about is that those actually don't, those aren't events, right? They're not a calendared event. They're more of a community needs and evaluation aspect.

I think about our member of the community was talking about how a school doesn't have a space and how could we receive that information and then help advocate from it? And what could we proactively do? Because this is, City Council Chambers, The Community Member that mentioned this it's new to me and I love to see, but we don't have this the regular. City Council Chambers, From a regulatory standpoint, we can address that in this meeting and then i'd love to see how we could support when we do find out needs that feel very important and worthwhile.

yeah.

I mean, for me, I'm really just I'm I'd like to just be able to ask questions and understand what the answers are. I'm not really here to try and dictate to anybody. I already have my opinion, but I want to ask questions. These questions allow me to get a better understanding of what we're actually trying to do. And if you guys don't mind, I'd like to ask some of these questions. So, and I hate to just start off with these types of things, but I have to be honest. If you can identify the specific charter section and municipal code that authorizes Shrub's role as a CDBG advisory board, that'd be a good start.

So I'm not referencing a code or anything in the charter. This is a scope of work to support the city of Alameda and CDBG is one of the primary funding sources that support social services in the city of Alameda.

Okay. If that's the position that it's oversight, as you say, is the primary purpose of shrub or is Is this the primary purpose of Shrub or is it CDBG oversight, one component of the actual board's broader mission?

One component. From my perspective, CDBG funds as one of the primary funding sources that we have control of, it makes sense for this board to have oversight of those funds and to work in collaboration with HHS on how those funds are utilized. In addition, the board, it says in the scope that the board would also utilize the needs assessments to make other recommendations to city council for social service needs gaps.

Okay, so how does this scope of work fulfill the human relations responsibility established when the board was renamed from the social services to the human social services and human relations board?

So I think that's a typo that there was not supposed to be a renaming of the board.

Now, it was originally called the Social Services Board, and then they renamed it.

Right. Yeah. Sorry, I thought you were saying we renamed it now. No, no, no.

I kind of miss a little bit of the interchange there, but I don't know if you've mentioned this, but do you mention A in the board? Because it actually does say foster all worthy philanthropic enterprises. So that would give us that end to be fostering the philanthropic enterprises of CDBG. Okay. Even though it doesn't specifically name it. Okay.

Can I actually speak on the human relations piece?

Yes, please.

So also the community outreach and belonging subcommittee, it's just a name. Like I renamed it from something else. I think it can be renamed what I was trying. I was trying really hard to capture the human aspect in this section because Because this is not the section about policy or reviewing grants or allocating money. This is the section that like has to do with our community events and connecting with people. That is where I interpreted the heart of the human relations piece.

Thank you. Thank you. That's the question that I actually was hoping to get the answer, the right answer for. Does staff believe that the shrubs authority extends beyond homelessness and CDBG funded activities to things like food insecurity, senior services, disability access, even mental health or other unmet services needs?

Is that a question for the city staff or the board?

Well, I would put it to both city staff and the board because basically we're discussing the narrowness of what we're doing down to just being these three buckets that we were doing before and now restructuring it to just doing one overarching bucket for everything.

so i don't see that the restructuring of the subcommittees limits you to doing one focusing on one social service aspect that the community needs i believe it expands your reach to be able to identify what you see as a priority so it could be any of those social service aspects that you just mentioned i to be completely honest, I find it troubling to have subcommittees that are named for just a couple of priorities when there are so many social service priorities. We could have someone join the committee that really wants to have a mental health subcommittee, a homeless services subcommittee, you know, a trafficked victims subcommittee. And so having this overarching group allows you as a board to identify what you want to focus on. It doesn't eliminate your ability to continue working on what you're already working on.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And if I continue, or did you want to, can I still have other questions?

Just a real, just a real quick, quick clarification on the CDBG aspect of it. So it's intersection B, C. We were already doing that, right? Yeah. Okay. So basically it's pulling some people off of that to do the other tasks. Like, for example, I didn't do that one. I did number. Sorry, I was talking here. I did B instead because of that conflict. And actually breaking these up so that – different groups are in different sections, that actually does make sense. It's not like any one of us is going to have more work to do. We're only going to be in one of those sections. So I just want to point that out.

Again, I'm posing these questions because I thought that they would be helpful in understanding and getting clarity on what we're actually here to do. And so if you guys want to go in another direction, I'm happy to stop. I want to get through my questions and I have things. Yeah. Yeah.

context and to follow up on you, Simone, there is so many needs. How do we also control ourselves? How do we edit it down and prioritize? Is there some... it just seems like we could be meeting for hours on end to try to advocate on the disparate needs of our community. So how do we kind of contain ourselves given that we're all passionate about a lot of different things?

I would point to the fact that you all already make your prioritizations during the CDBG needs assessment where you identify the priorities for the year. And then as part of your work plan, you would include realistically what you're able to support for that one 12 month period.

I think we're not limited to only going to city council to express needs once a year, right? So if by some chance funding changes or the needs COVID hits, right? And we're experiencing something that's very, you know, that changes those needs. We're not prevented from expressing that need to city council. No. No.

When I came on this board, it was, you know, I discussed with the mayor, you know, age-friendly cities, but it took, you know, a few years before we even initiated anything because we had all this work when I stepped into the role with Road Home and other things too. So, you know, sometimes even if we have an itch to get something started, it's important that we we actually realize there's other priorities too. We may have to get through some other things before we get to our thing that we're focused on. I just want to point that out. You had other things though, Gerald.

I'm only on this board because of my lived experience. I don't have all the background that you guys have. I really don't. I don't do that. I know what it's like to be on the ground though, despite what other people may think they know about me. And I know the difference. And so when I hear things like these as being OK, I have to ask these questions in order to feel like I understand why I'm here. OK. So my next question, and I think that we probably already know the answer, but I wanna ask it out loud so that it's heard. Is SHRUB considered a charter board that advises city council with staff support from HHS, or are we an advisory body to HHS?

I would see that you function as both. but that's what we're here to discuss now. I would hope that you would be supportive of supporting, advising some of the work we do, reviewing some of the policies that we create, which will impact our constituents, which are also your constituents. So I would say that you are both.

Okay. Can I ask a dumb question?

What does HHS stand for? Housing and Human Services. Okay.

I knew that, but I just wanted to double check. I knew the rest of it.

No worries. We're good.

I would also add on a third tier that I would hope that we would also have a collaborative relationship where you'd be an advocacy group for us as well in the work as we continue to try to support more of our lower income and marginalized community members. Okay.

Thank you, thank you. Can I clarify too? So if you identify something as staff that's gonna go to city council, for example, that's through your department, right? If you're asking for additional funding or additional staffing, or even if it's not within your department, but it's something that you guys are participating in and advocate for, you are allowed to let us know and we could advocate as board members or do we have to advocate as individuals if we go to city council? You can advocate as a board member. We can advocate as a board member, okay. Sorry, that was just a lingering question to make sure I knew the answer.

I promise I only, I only wrote 10 questions out on purpose. Okay. So I just get through them quickly so that I wouldn't have to take up a whole lot of.

Gerald, you have such a great voice. We'll listen to you talk 20.

You are very kind. Thank you. Who specifically has the authority to make the adjustments to the board structure or scope? Would city council's approval be required? Again, the idea that what's the legal authority for HHS to evaluate a charter created board like ours with that in mind?

I can actually read right from here, it says adopt a plan for performance of the above listed functions with advice and consent of city council okay.

answers for mine, thank you, that was one that.

Oh, this is. Not to the city ordinances under 2.9 point four okay.

So that was a municipal code you were just calling out 2.9.4.

Yeah.

Or it's ordinance. So I just want to clarify though, that the scope of work will not go to city council. It's your work plan that will go to city council. So this scope of work is a document that helps provide clarity and structure for the board. It is not a governing document. The work plan is what you all will actually do and decide and vote on confirm on what you will do. And that is what will go to city council.

And that thing is usually it's on a spread. I actually have an old one with me that I printed. It's on a, you know, it's on a spreadsheet typically, right? It looks kind of like, yeah, I did mine in 14 point font.

So you can read it.

There you go. Yeah. So it is different.

Okay.

And you asked about the evaluation. So I'm open to amending that language for I'm open to mending any language. I do think what this is trying to get at is, are ISTREB doing what you all intended to do? And we should look at that and evaluate it periodically. And as the staff supporting the board, that's who was identified as who would help evaluate and discuss, and maybe there needs to be some collaborative language added to this section. but discuss and collaborate on making changes as needed. If it looks like maybe you aren't making the impact that you want to make.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We're coming up to the home stretch. OK, so I tried to save this for the last part because I really wanted to get all these other ones out of the way. But I think this is as relevant as anything else that we've talked about. Has the city attorney reviewed the scope of work and determined that it's fully consistent with the charter and the municipal codes?

No.

OK. I'm going to leave it at that. I'm going to leave it at that. That was really one of the more important questions for me. And I thank you for your patience while I asked through these questions.

I have a question just in terms of process and just in terms of getting the work done kind of thing. So we don't need to vote on at this meeting in order for it to meet timeline, deadline kind of things or?

So the goal is for this document to inform your work plan. So we would want you to vote on it, make amendments to it and vote on it. So then you can move forward with developing your work plan so that can go to council. So the longer this is delayed, the longer it will take to create the work plan and get to council and city council has recess in August. And in order to get on city council's agenda, you need to have your report about six weeks ahead of time. So we're looking at approving this now to try to get to July. Otherwise, we'd be looking at September.

So just to clarify kind of next steps of this work by developing the scope of work. we would then vote and amend it as possible. We would then need to confirm subcommittees work or would to develop then a work plan. And within each subcommittee, we would have to develop a work plan for the year to submit in July, ideally. Or yes, at this point, July or September. September, so that our next steps is finalize the scope of work, finalize the committees, then finalize the participants in the committees. From there, once we're clear on what each committee is doing, we will come up with a work plan.

Correct.

That will be in the spreadsheet that we will submit to city council. Correct.

I have a question. If in doing the scope of work, we realize that there are challenges, I'm sorry, in doing the work plan, we realize there's challenges that are created by this scope of work. Can we go back and amend it?

Yes. The scope of work, it's not a binding contract.

So this is more of a mission statement for us in reality. Okay.

Yes, it's an outline of what SHREP is and does. It's not a binding contract. You're not signing your name onto it. You're voting to agree to move forward with this as your scope of work to then create a binding work plan that city council will approve. And Bernie, I'm not a lawyer, so forgive me for my bad, somewhat legal speech.

I'm confused. I'm looking at the last minutes of the last time that the work on was presented. And it appears that... The work plan was agreed upon in December and it specifically points out three tasks for three subcommittees. The road home, five-year strategic plan to prevent and respond to homelessness in Alameda to support Alameda's most vulnerable populations. and report on the city's progress to prevent and reduce homelessness. That has happened. Human relations, that's elements together against hate. To address human relations concerns and work to create a welcoming and beloved community for all residents, number two. And three domestic violence to recognize the social and mental health needs of personal relationships, and lead a task force to ensure access to community driven resources. That was what was presented to the city council. I still think that's it. That these are appropriate things. And I did not find any mention of anything else there. And I don't find this document to be completely advisory because it sets up subcommittees and mandates that each member has to be a participant in at least two of them. So I don't really understand if this is just a mission statement that's just a kind of an aspirational statement why all this structure was included. And again, I don't wanna repeat myself, but I come back to the point that this should have originated with us. We should have looked at what was presented last year that was approved by city council and decided if we needed to change it to make it better and in what way. So I cannot possibly support this, I'm sorry.

Can we clarify the timing for the work plans? What are they usually, is it fiscal year or calendar year?

I thought it was fiscal, yeah.

So that we're readjusting the work plan because we need to come up with something for the new fiscal year, Bernie. I think that's, I think it's the timeline.

Is there something in the document that SO provides? Is there something in the document that SOH provides?

Is there anything in the document that provides for that?

I'm sorry. So I mean, technically it says we meet once a year to review the plan, which I would say by extension could be to review and change or modify the plan. So it's in the, it's in the charter that we're, you know, we review it every year. Is that what you were asking?

We did it in December. Why are we doing it now?

The statement was made. I think Simone said that we have had to, or Grecia or somebody that we had to, we had to change the timing because of an adjustment in the fiscal year. And all I asked was in the document, is there any reference to that support that statement? I didn't read any. Yeah. I hear you.

So if I'm understanding the question, what we discussed in December was like a check-in. So I did like a mid-year, mid-fiscal year check-in as to how the scope of work is going. Your existing scope of work for that fiscal year, it wasn't to discuss a new one. I was hoping to get you all to start thinking about potentially what you'd want to do for the next one, but it was not to workshop the new one. And is your question, where does it say it has to be annual? Maybe I'm the only one not understanding the question.

I don't want to delegate the great value in this. There's a lot of good here. But there are some things, particularly with respect to these subcommittees, that for me are totally unacceptable. And I hesitate to say that it will also be unworkable. It's very easy to create committees and subcommittees and subcommittees. But every single time you have to have members, you have to have somebody to lead the committee or subcommittee. You have to try to schedule meetings. That means that everybody's schedule has to be switched. And so my experience as a lawyer is that it is very difficult to delegate tasks to a large number of groups and subgroups. I've never really seen it work in practice because it always ends up that people either cannot attend meetings or they lose track of meetings, or they're too busy for meetings, and I don't see the value of it. It would be better to address the important things that Sam has talked about if, as we've done in plenary session, when the need arises, we figure out for that task, what is the most efficient way to handle it? And it may be some of this doesn't have to be or shouldn't be handled in plenary session. It may be that some of it should be delegated to one person to report back to the board. Or it may be that a group of people should be delegated to deal with this. And there also should be ongoing work groups that are in operation now that are doing important work. that it should be recognized. So that's what I think. And so I don't, you know, I don't like the structure of subcommittees. I think there are ways of resolving it, but I'm not prepared now to vote in favor of this.

Do we have, first, are there any more comments about the substance of the documents before a vote? Well, I was going to actually talk about that. I was going to talk about the vote before saying anything about a vote. But I want to make sure there's no more substantive stuff about this. So if someone does come forward with a motion and we do vote, it's extremely likely that there'll be a split vote. And whatever happens, it will not be unanimous, your list. Um, so we have to decide as a board, if that is acceptable or not, or if we want to actually take another month, break off a work group of a couple people to revise it and come back on our next meeting. That's something we will need to decide as a body to have a discussion about that.

Can I propose something?

Okay, I'm just saying, okay, there's a plan C, yeah, whatever.

Like a thought, which is, so if folks have existing scopes of work, right? If we were to go in that direction, right? And to take time to step back or whatever, if folks already have existing scopes of work that they're planning on implementing or bringing to discussion in the coming year, Would it be possible for us to kind of work from those scopes of work right and kind of in some ways work backwards right to ensure that we're creating a structure within our scope of work that facilitates the work that people are hoping to do and bring to city council and. Because I think that there are some groups that still have things that they had tasks that they wanted to accomplish. There are probably some folks that have tasks that are, do not want to be a call or that they would like to get rid of. And there's some folks that would like to add tasks that don't fall into any of those groups. And so I'm wondering if in some ways we should kind of work backwards or at least provide that information to the folks that are trying to create these subcommittees.

So maybe to touch on Bernie of like how we can have our first draft and create it organically, perhaps we can also kind of each submit our wishlist and our, of what we want to work on in the next year and then reverse engineer a way that we can get that done and meet the task. And to build on Sam's, I think if we could do some, How does the Brown Act for Google Doc editing work?

We do that though. So we have to get together and agree on a work plan before we present to council, right? So that's going to happen anyway. We can all come up with 20 different work groups we want to do and come to this meeting. And then as a body, we need to be responsible on what we can actually do. And I just want to, to the end of this whole work group, I would literally vote yes on this as it is. If it had section G C board initiated work groups that literally as a optional third thing in this subcommittee grouping, right? If it literally had that in there. So it was just clear that that was another thing we're considering when we come up with our work plan, I would have no problem with it because it doesn't bury that aspect of the board. okay so i'll be clear with that i still would prefer i would prefer unanimous vote if we can get one if we can get there but i don't know if we can get there without coming back to the next for the next meeting i don't know how important that is people can be free to put forward a motion if they'd like also can i say something before we do this is probably my last comment before the vote so i want to make sure i

get it down and again, I spent time working through it. I do say it, I appreciate the work that's gone through to develop this scope of work. I agree that the second draft definitely addressed several concerns regarding community engagement, human relations and broader community needs. But before I can support this, I need to raise what I believe is a fundamental governance question here. social services and human relations board was not created as a community development block grant advisory committee it was created by the city of alameda charter and further defined by ordinance charter charges this board with assessing social service and human relations needs of our community and facilitating responses to those needs this mission is broad it includes homelessness housing instability domestic violence community belonging, anti-hate, food insecurity, youth services, senior services, disability access, mental health access, workforce development, economic hardship, and other unmet social services needs. When I read this scope of work, I see a document that's heavily centered on the CDBG planning, CDBG funding, HUD compliance, CDBG reporting, and oversight of housing and human services activities. Those are important responsibilities, and I agree, they are. But my concern is that the document appears to make those activities the primary purpose of this board, rather than one of the several tools available to the board to carry out its charter mission. I'm also concerned about the language that describes SHRUB as serving in an advisory capacity to HHS, the city manager and city council. Again, that's just, it's a real point for me. My understanding has always been that the SHRUB board is a charter board that advises city council with the staff supported by HHS. Further concerned by the language, it states that HHS will periodically evaluate shrub and that adjustments to the board's structure or scope may be made as needed. To be clear, I'm not questioning any value to CDBG oversight. I'm not. I'm questioning the importance of our partnership with HHS. I'm not even questioning that. I'm questioning whether this document reflects accurately the full legal mission of Social Services and Human Relations Board. Before adopting it, Before adopting a document that may guide the board's work for the coming year, I'd like the confidence that it's aligned with the charter, the municipal code, and the ordinances that established and defined this board. My goal is not to slow down work. My goal is to ensure that we remain faithful to the purpose for which the people of Alameda created this board. And that's all I have to say on that. If you want to put forth a motion.

What are people thinking?

I actually like Sam's idea of taking this document, taking what's good about it and working backwards to come up with something that we can all support. That may take some time, but that's what we're here for. Right.

I agree. I'm not going to propose yet, but why don't we think about communicating with staff since we have a challenge of 10, I'm not gonna say a number, interests or focus that we would like to achieve in the next year. We could incorporate that in the document and meet within the working group structure to then edit that document?

Wouldn't we all have to be together to do that as a board?

do drafts and maybe we can comment and hold the drafts, edit, and then we could get the three versions together and compare three versions at boards so that each we sort of finalize, I think, to get the work done in a more efficient way, each group. And since we have some people that are in multiple groups that they have an opportunity to build that we could propose coming to the next meeting, incorporating the work plan so that we could perhaps by July have a work plan developed.

So that's a no vote on this plan, but come back next month and then try again and see if it's an okay.

so that we could be ahead of the game to have that work plan discussion so that we're sort of prepping the work plan discussion within our groups while we come up with a scope so that we're preparing for the two aspects of our work. So we could potentially have something approved by July HAB-Masyn Moyer- At the end of the July meeting we finalize the work plan and have that so we I don't know how that works in the city council board dance timing wise, it might be till September, but.

Yeah, September.

I just want to reiterate that the work plan and the scope of work are extremely different documents. And the scope of work should not outline the different groups and activities. And it shouldn't get to that level of detail. It's an overarching instructory document. So I just want to reiterate that because if I'm hearing correctly, it sounds like you all are actually talking about working backwards to create a detailed work plan.

Just to tell you the truth, Simone, seeing these work groups, I have no idea what I'm doing in those work groups. And so maybe just like, none of that makes sense. I don't know what I'd sign up for. I have no idea. Like, they just feel like words. And so maybe in my brain, having a better sense of like, oh, in this group, I would do this potentially. But these to me is just sort of,

I have a question about this scope of work, since are the only concerns like aside from section G social services human relations board subcommittees. Are we okay with the rest of the document.

I'm fine with the whole document.

So I'm wondering, is there a way that we can just make that language very, very limited, turn it into something that everyone can agree on, and move forward with a scope of work where we just identify that we will come up with some subcommittees. And those subcommittees will complete each of the tasks that are defined in the rest of the scope of work.

I mean, that would work with me with the reservation that I have shared with Gerald that there are things in the document that just are not correct. Those need to be corrected. But otherwise, I would be fine with it because my principal objection to this involves the subcommittees. The rest of it, I think I can live with corrections.

And I'm with you, Michelle. I have no idea what all those words meant. I couldn't find myself anywhere in them either. So. Okay.

So you all also can vote with conditions. So you can vote with amendments to specific language you would like to see changed. So if like C, you wanted to make a lot more overarching, someone could propose, I propose moving it forward with this exact change and you all would give me the language you would want to see. That is also another, if really the sticking point is the subcommittees.

So like the evaluation, if you wanna strike that section, you can strike it. If you wanna add collaborative language, you can do that. So that's what this time is for.

So I propose we approve of the scope of work document with the section G to provide at later clarity at next meeting.

I would need something more specific. Yeah. Cause this, I don't, to be completely frank with you all, I don't want to run into the same issue where I propose my interpretation or our interpretation, and then we're just going back and forth. So if you all have like specific language you want to see that would make you more comfortable with that section, it would be incredibly helpful if somebody proposed it.

Could we propose it at a later time?

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, I mean i'm proposed i'm posing it by I can pose as part of your motion, I mean what i'm proposing is that under G there's a section C. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, That says yeah board initiated work groups and we'll all be very sensible rational people and not pile in a bunch of work groups when we do the scope of work. Or when we do the work plan. yeah.

So you want section, so that see that section essentially strike that and then replace it with. Just for.

Under G sorry under G there's a and B see identify identify needs right capital B. CBBG funds. Yeah. Then there's, I would add a section C after that, another capital section C. Okay. Yeah. And it would just, yeah. And it would just indicate that. So I want to use this exact word. I said they're board initiated work groups.

Okay. And so, but you'd also want to keep section AC. Okay.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, We keep every week everything you're adding another capital C, I think, if we did that we should.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Get rid of the outreach to Community groups and individuals right like.

PB, Lupita D Montoya, So strike this section this AC.

Yes, that's fine.

Can we still keep a calendar though? Can we keep somebody in charge of a calendar? You can add that to the work plan. And I would love if you want, like, if you, please, if you want the count, like I will, whatever you need. Do you want my like passwords to the count? Everything is yours. Take the calendar, please. Dear God. That's fine. Strike it out. Go for it.

If that's the case, then we should make sure that the language at the top also matches ADC and maybe strike that language that says that we're expected to join women's subcommittee.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

Sorry. Okay, let's go back. Which section? Under G, there's just the descriptor that's there. We should probably just pull it. strike this first sentence? Yeah, the subcommittee members are expected to join at least one subcommittee in area A and one in area B. Got it. That sound okay? And then, Bernie, was there language in other sections that you wanted to change?

The language that Gerald identified presupposes that We are basically an advisory arm to HHS. Going through this now hastily, if this is the direction that we want to take, and it's the direction I would support, then I think we need to pay attention to the document that we've created and not do this hastily. I'm not prepared to modify the document now at all.

Yes, I still have to modify the document ad hoc currently.

But I do think it's a good idea with these subcommittees to rethink them and see if they're going to be really workable, which I don't think they are the way they are, and to concentrate, as Gerald has said, on the human relations side of this and not make it just an adjunct.

I'm sorry, Bernie, we can't hear you. Can you pull the mic toward you?

And not make it just an adjunct. So my preference would be to come back next meeting with a new draft of this that can keep a lot of the language in its present form with corrections as to statements made about the relationship between HHS and shrub, which are not correct. And then with respect to the subcommittees to essentially pull that out of this document PB John Gerstle, and delegate to us when we do our work plan which we've always done, I would be fully in support of that and these other items that Sam has identified in the draft could well be part of the work plan right and I don't think it would be that complicated.

So I have a clarifying question about the relationship question between the board and HHS. I'm just, I don't understand, like, what is the concern with the language? Because for me, serves as an advisory capacity to the city of Alameda Housing Human Service Division, city manager and the city council. To me, that says that you all have the power to advise us on our work. So it's not like it's saying that you serve us and are responsible, responsive to us. It's saying that you advise us, which empowers you. So I just don't understand why that's a concern. You guys can strike it out if you don't want to include human services or the city manager, since that's not what's written in the charter. But I felt like it was empowering you to do more and to have input in the work that we're doing.

If you want me to just describe it in simplest of terms, it's all about the oversight. If we're supposed to have oversight by the city and city council, that's one thing. But if oversight is with HHS, that's another. That's the main sticking point, at least for me.

That goes back to the evaluation then. So it sounds like you want to make edits to that section.

Yes. And truthfully, I would only be okay with doing this if the city attorney reviewed the scope of work and determined that it was fully consistent with the charter and the municipal code. That would be a sticking point for me. It's a simple thing. And since we're already talking about an extra month, I would expect that there would be an opportunity for them to be able to take a look at it and we can get our answers back then and we can move forward with the rest of it. That's really, that's it. Everything else I can have conversations with about, but city attorney.

Sorry, I'm going to say, I don't think you need a city attorney to look at the scope of work. As we're all volunteers here, I'm volunteering my time and I want to make sure my time is being impactful. So when I signed up and said yes to this board, I signed up with the expectation that we were gonna come here and make agreements. And again, when I looked at this, I have no problems, right? Number one, I'm here to serve our community. Number two, I'm here to make sure that there's oversight, right? And make sure that we're hearing our community. So I have no problems at all. And I don't think we need to have the city clerk come in to review this. I also think that if we postpone this for another month, and we have everybody put in their concerns, and I'm more than happy to review and listen to concerns here, I want to make sure that everybody understands that we're here to serve the people, right? So I appreciate Simone, you drafting this, your team drafting this and the staff reviewing this. This is not my day job. I don't do this every day. I appreciate it. I volunteer on other communities, boards and commissions, focusing primarily on healthcare for the homeless, right? So I just wanna be clear that us going back and forth I honestly don't see the issue with saying advisory. Maybe you want to say partnership. I think right now you're nitpicking at it, and I'm really having a hard time understanding why.

Can I ask a clarifying question? What is the amount of CDBG grant funds? I mean, do you have a ballpark?

It's around $1 million, a little over $1 million. Oh, totally. About $1.1 million.

Yeah. So just in terms of this little semantic thing here, which I just want to mention, it doesn't actually bother me. So it does say, just right at the beginning, it talks about mutual understanding, goodwill, a primary role to provide community-informed guidance, transparent accountability and monitor funds. And actually that to me that is consistent with with With the ordinance that is to foster all worthy philanthropic enterprises because we actually have control of this money. And so our ability to actually work with community groups and back it up with funding actually I think has a lot of power to it. So I like the idea of having more of a comprehensive control and oversight of the grants as a whole. I'm using the term oversight. Input. Okay. Advice, yeah, whatever, on which organizations get the grants. I mean, it does state specifically CDBG, but I see this more about having an actual valid resource that we have under our control.

I have a question. This is real. So because this doesn't go to city council, and because we've never previously had a scope of work, Is it something that we actually need to vote on or is it something that can just help us guide us into the next steps? Like, like, do we actually have to have a vote or is this something where it's like, this could be a document that helps lead us to our next step. And we're just, it's a document. It's not a voted document that's signed and sealed and whatever. And it can just be, this is our scope of work because now we're going to try and outline so that we can actually get some stuff done.

That's an option. My concern with that is if it's not confirmed by the board, then how do you determine that you're going to follow it?

Good faith.

The other way that I think about this, you have your work plan changes every year and the board changes every few years. And sometimes people step off or step on. And this document would be like a guiding document in longer term. So it wouldn't. That's how I thought of it in term. Gosh, I'm sorry. I'm getting sleepy.

But yes, I agree, which is part of why it doesn't. get into the weeds of all of the different things and what groups should be and shouldn't be. And I think Scott's suggestion with adding that C makes sense because it's a global concept. It's not saying in five years when half of you may not be on the board anymore that the new board members have to stick to that if that's not what they're seeing as priorities at that time five years from now.

The other thing is that I know there's a lot of reference to the municipal code and the charter, which are very important, but it's not very specific. I know the municipal code has those five points, but they can be interpreted really widely and has been. I've dug into all of your past work plans going back to 2016, and it changes depending on that board's interpretation. And so this is a way to try to create some more consistency because like projects get picked up and dropped and there isn't consistency. Um, and then the other thing I want to mention is I know you all are talking about like going back and going to the work groups, but this meeting is also a working meeting and it makes things a lot easier if we're able to talk about like specific language and things you want to do when we're all together. Otherwise we have to do it in this like broken up way with the multiple work groups. Um,

I think so. I just want to add to that. I think all the ideas tonight were great. I feel as though I'm happy to move forward with approving this with the idea that it is a live document and we can make changes and make amendments as needed, as necessary. I feel as though I want to make sure this does get in front of the board. I want to make sure that we do have clear expectations around moving forward when it comes to the upcoming year. So with that being said, I think what I'm hearing is that this is a live document, right? We're saying that we can make changes as needed. When folks get off the board, on the board, we're gonna have different scopes of work, right? When I think about this in my corporate world, we make changes periodically on the scope of work, right? um so i want to just make sure i i feel comfortable taking a vote tonight understanding that we with this language that scott has proposed um i think gracie you have documented that um that sounds like a proposal i think we can do you propose i did propose that so i have a second

Sorry, do you want to say that? Yes.

I kind of jumped you into a proposal. Yes.

Sorry, can you just state it again? Someone has to state it, the approval and then with the amendments.

Okay, with all the amendments. Okay, I don't know if I can do all that.

So what I have right now is that there would be a new Section C under D, Section G, I apologize. There's a lot of letters. Under the shrub subcommittee section, there would be an additional section C that is just board initiated work groups. We would strike out section AC that outlines the community outreach and belonging subcommittee section. And then I also heard potentially striking out the evaluation piece at the end.

I think I have that in my notes as well. Yes. And within your proposal that this is a working, this is a working document, and we can make amendments as needed and necessary.

So then we just want to call them unclear about what this document means. Nine binding, yeah, non binding guy is simply an Fs, aspirational statement, guiding principles, I agree with Sam that doesn't need a vote. And it can be, and it should just be, you know, some of the some of the mistakes should be corrected. And PB John Gerstle, And so, you know some of the mandatory statements in the document should be removed, in which case I would support it, but as as it's as it reads now. PB John Gerstle, You can't you know it's one of two things it's either an aspirational statement that can be corrected. PB John Gerstle, But if it has to be voted on if it's going to be voted, it means something more and the fact that it can be amended. doesn't give me any comfort at all because anything we do can get amended. But what's there now is not right. I agree.

And I didn't hear anything about having the city attorney review the scope of work. I'm not nitpicking. I'm being very specific. I too am on a lot of boards and I don't do this as my day job either. So I think that it's important that we are specifically staying within these guidelines to be able to help support our opportunities to be able to support people. Otherwise, I think I'm going to find myself asking, why am I sitting here? What good am I doing if I'm just sitting here? So continue.

Scott, so there's been a motion and a second. So are we having discussion and then a vote?

Yeah, we're having a discussion. I also want red back or clarification on what the actual motion is so people can understand what they're voting on.

Can you read it one more time?

Or say it again?

Yeah. And before I do, if you don't mind, Gerald, is there specific language you want to see? So I hear you loud and clear about your reservations. Is there a language you would want to propose adding?

And that the city attorney review the scope of work and determine that it's fully consistent with charter and municipal code.

So you would want to add a section in the scope of work that states that the document would be reviewed by the city attorney?

That's correct.

Okay, then Chantel made the motion. So then you would accept or reject the suggestion?

I reject it.

So we can move on with discussion.

So the amendments that were proposed were to add a new section under the shrub subcommittees section G and it would just be titled board initiated work groups, we would strike section AC Community outreach and belonging committee. we would strike the first sentence under Section G that says that they're expected to join at least one subcommittee, and we would strike the HHS evaluation piece at the end. And I believe there is also a request to add that the document can be amended as needed. Correct.

Yeah, that's really important. Since we're having this discussion, I don't think, I understand your concern with the attorney. And I think if it was the work plan, I would be more concerned if it was going outside of what we would think is what we should be doing. I'm not as concerned about having the legal interaction just because it is a scope of work that we can't continue to edit.

We've never seen a scope of work before this. So the idea that somehow they can just magically appear and we can say, oh, that's okay now. We don't have any other reference points. We don't. And so that's where I am.

I have been saying that we're supposed to be a working board that's supposed to be able to develop a scope of work and work together collectively over the next year to help the good of the community. And if this feels like we're not collectively feeling good about creating a scope of work, And the work plan as it goes forward, and I think for me that feels very challenging right that's we've always been a working board that does the work and I think. In order for us to actually do work in the Community, whether that's evaluation or Community needs assessments or attending these meetings. we need to work collectively as a group and function well and not be adversarial to one another or towards staff. And so this feels a little wonky in terms of us trying to move the scope forward in this way. I agree. I'm just gonna put that out there. So is there a way that we can either move it forward where everyone feels okay about it, or is there, can we just say, okay, this isn't where we're moving towards and step back? Because it feels weird to have a split vote.

I mean, I think there's a way to move forward, but if we're being pressed to make amendments and strike language at 905, That doesn't feel very collaborative to me. I'm sorry. And I agree with Gerald. I've never seen this kind of document before. We've never created such a document. We've always come up with work plans. They're always subject to being changed with new groups created or not. But this kind of structure and document, which listening to it, I can't tell if it's just an aspirational document or if it's a document that has mandatory conditions, some of which I don't agree with, or what it is. I'm not sure what it really adds to our board except to divide us. And that's not something that I want to do as a volunteer. So I would feel more comfortable either just letting this be as it is or trying to come back and fix some of the things that are not right here, rather than trying at this hour to come up with a document that we can all agree on, because I can't agree to this. I'm sorry.

Well, and we don't have to vote. It's not required to vote. It can be what it can be. And we can look at it again.

We can look at it again and it's useless talk.

This is, let's not throw the baby without the bathwater. Maybe we just take a pause. We've talked about it and we have our focus in the next meeting to work on work plan. Yeah.

And could I propose that folks that have specific concerns with language that they could bring those concerns forward and provide them to staff in advance of that meeting so that we could come up with a changed scope of work that everybody could vote on in our next meeting at the beginning so we could just move forward with the scope of work. Does that make sense?

What are your deadlines that you're proposing?

Okay. So my, I think that we should provide the feedback that on the language, the existing language to city staff by the end of next week. And that the new proposed scope of work would come back to us in advance of our next meeting, which has to come back to us within eight days prior to our next meeting. and that in our next meeting, we would be prepared to make any final adjustments and to do a final vote before we move forward with our work plan.

And that from my understanding is the June meeting is what we will be developing a work plan, correct?

That is my understanding.

I'm confused. Scope of work and the work plan in June.

The idea would just be that we would just be voting on it, that the changes would be made.

But if you all are sending me your language piecemeal, then we're back to the same place we are right now.

Why don't we, we could actually instead have a group that doesn't represent a quorum. It could be up to three people, right? Three people could get together and come up with revised language. And us other three who seem more comfortable okay with the way everything is now, we just have final approval. We wouldn't necessarily be working on these structural changes. That's another way of doing it too. You know what three people I'm talking about, hopefully. Yeah, I mean, if you're...

I'm looking to get us moving forward. That's all we're trying to do. I have things that I know as part of our work plan are going to be important, and I'm going to spend my time doing those things. So if this is a delay that's necessary so that I can get on with doing the things that I know are important, that I feel are important, then so be it.

So you want to move forward with the existing one, as it is, or you want to know Okay, you want to meet again yeah okay. Okay, so we don't need any proposals. Because our vote about what.

yeah.

Well, we can we clarify I don't.

I don't think we would have a split vote.

I don't think we have.

Is there a majority vote or 100%?

They're saying they're not going to vote.

I know, but there's a question about if there's a split vote, what does that mean?

It's just a majority vote. You don't have to have a unanimous vote. Yeah, I didn't think we needed to.

So could we just set up for a vote? Well, you have to vote because a motion in second has been made. Okay.

So we just need to vote.

All right, Scott. You want me to call out the roll call? OK. Bernie Wolf.

No.

Oh, hold on. There's a typo on the names here. Hold on a second. Yeah, hold on. Hold on a second. I need to correct something here. OK. Chantel.

Yes.

No. Michelle?

Yes.

Samantha?

Yes.

Well, I'm going to say no then because I don't want to go forward with a split vote. So we're going to have to convene or something before the next meeting.

What I heard proposed was that this was my interpretation that Bernie, Sam and Gerald will be meeting on their own to draft different language and bring back to you all next month. Is that correct?

If they're willing to do that.

I'm willing to sit and have conversations about this. I think it's important.

And then the proposal is that I would work with staff to finalize it. No, you all work with, that's what I heard very loudly was that it should start with shrub and that shrub should draft their scope of work. Is that correct? So you all would draft language, not meet in a group that is not quorum and then bring it back to discuss as a group for approval or denial.

This has to be that complicated. It's not.

I don't think, right, so you all would meet to write, or what is your proposal, Bertie, if I'm misinterpreting what I heard?

I think that, I don't speak for everybody, but my objections are to the structure, to subsection G, which I think can be dealt with, and also some of the language that needs to be corrected otherwise. with respect to sub subsection g i have no problem with kind of as a scope of work if the board wants to i'm kind of you know listing all of these other tasks that could be parts of subcommittees or sub subcommittees because you know there's no harm done by it but my main concern is that the social services aspect of this board which is very, very, very important for me, is recognized as part of an important function of what we're doing. And I don't think it would require very much change to make this acceptable, as long as this is an aspirational document and not a mandatory one.

And again, I say, I think you are correct. In my opinion, we should be the one that's presenting it to you. And if we sit down and we have this conversation and we hammer out the details based on what we currently have, we would be in a better position to be able to vote yes. That's just me.

So I guess there's still clarity needed on your end, Bernie, because what Grecia was saying was next steps. that you Gerald and Sam would go over the document to make those edits. And we you suggested some general edits, but not specifically what needs to change for you to feel comfortable with it. So you need to be able to articulate that directly. So those changes can be made. Otherwise, we're going to be in the same place next month, right with not having clarity on what exactly you want changed. So we need clarity on what the next steps are. for your feedback and Gerald's feedback to get into the document.

I'm sure the three of us will be able to create specific language that will integrate into your document and will be acceptable to me. But I would come forward with specific language, which I'm prepared to, I think, do in collaboration with Gerald and Sam

Okay.

And I don't think it would be that difficult.

Okay. So it sounds like the next steps are for the three of you to meet.

Agreed.

Okay.

Yeah. I mean, I would expect whatever you bring that we would be able to Vote yes with unquestionably because my main problem at this point is just the fact that we don't have consensus. I feel like this board will be fractured moving forward if two people don't feel like this is actually expressing their voice. But otherwise, I mean, I think this is very, for my needs, it's very close in terms of it being a scope.

We open to public comment.

No, we did that. So we can actually move on from this item at this point. To item for B workgroup reports. This item is for board discussion only. There's no staff presentation. So go right out to public comments. Is there any public comment? Garcia?

We do. We have a public comment from Mr. Craig.

Craig.

Craig, I'm so sorry. It's late. So sorry, Craig.

Up to the mic. Thank you, sir.

I think, sure, another, I've, you know, like, usually I do a lot of doom scrolling, so I find YouTube. But one was of Jane Elliott doing, you know, she was the eye color, did the things on racial segregation. Race goes back in the 60s. She had done something with some adult women. One was an older white lady. I guess the others were, like, either black or Hispanic or whatever. The white lady from the high states said, for all I've done for you. And it was like, and, like, you know, Jane was like, oh, shit. And the other... people kind of, you know, let her have, but the main point they gave her is we don't want you to do for us, we want you to stand with us. You know, so that, you know, that as kind of a concept of, of how to, you know, again, provide services, how do you kind of do more of a stand with people and situations rather than just, this is a paternalistic, you know, one size fits all type of thing. Another thing is one of the videos, another video I showed with... But Gerald was, this was, obviously this was illegal, but a guy that was a service, is in the military aboard a ship, but his job was maintaining all the life support stuff on board the ship from your deep at sea. You got fresh water and the ship was, you know, the climate control was not the right thing and so on. He ended up being abandoned in Dayton, Ohio, and he ended up this is obviously illegal, going into a hardware, to an abandoned apartment store and used his skills at maintaining the ship to make living quarters for himself in this abandoned apartment. So similarly with this lady, she claims to have been a school teacher and what might be a better use of salvaging those school teachings. I think she's suffered more of a loss of status than she was respected as a school teacher and then whatever happened, happened. You know, I don't know. I've always been sort of a startup. when it comes to dealing with society, in spite of even having education and having even some pointy-toity relatives myself. But anyway, that's just kind of my point.

Thank you for your comments. Thank you, Craig. Thank you. I assume there's no other speakers?

No, we have no other public comments.

All right, we can now go to our work group reports. Given the lateness of the hour, I'm just going to mention that the Age-Friendly Survey is live. Um, I, I still need to, I need to contact the post. I haven't done that yet. So, um, because I want to get an article out there and op-ed for that. And thank you staff for getting information out, um, to the groups and messaging it to different groups, uh, both Christian Shelby. I really appreciate your support.

Anything you say? No, uh, Bernie.

Yes.

We had our task force meeting. The notes of the meeting are attached. Thank you, Shelby. Thank you, Grecia, for arranging this. And everything I have to say is in the minutes, in the notes.

Thank you. Gerald?

The Alamedians United Against Hate have already started on their work plan, and we already have some things we'd like to propose, and we're looking forward to getting the opportunity to do so. I also would like to bring some of the information that I got from the group of United Against Hate on, online hate and how they can be used to change people's minds and how we can work to try and change people's minds on it. I'd like to bring some of that to our meeting at some point so that we can discuss it. I think it's a valuable resource and that people should be able to see it. So I'd like to put that out as something we're going to be trying to do as well. That's all I've got for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Let's, anyone else have anything else?

Okay, great. We go to five, staff communications, status report on Alameda's housing and human services.

So Shelby, our lovely administrative specialist, will be doing those updates today.

Okay.

Okay, we're on the homestretch.

Okay, so HHS released a request for proposals for a residential rehabilitation program administrator that closed on May 14th. You'll remember that this program is to provide for the rehabilitation of affordable rental units. Staff are currently reviewing the proposals and will seek City Council approval of a final selection on July 7th. On May 7th, HHS, in partnership with the Shrub Road Home Committee, held an overdose response training for all city staff. The training was facilitated by Mike Snow, who is the program manager of the HIV Education and Prevention Project of Alameda County, also known as HEPAC, and it was a great success. We will be holding two more sessions for city staff, as well as external partners this time, on June 11th and July 29th. Program Manager Camille Rodriguez held an info session about the Youth Advisory Committee, a subcommittee of the Alameda Collaborative for Children, Youth, and Their Families on May 20th. She'll be holding interviews for board positions for the Youth Advisory Committee for the 2026-27 school year, and the first meeting will be on June 3rd with the new group. On May 26, we released the Age-Friendly City Survey. Oh, Scott, you already went over that. I just wanted to point out that that survey is available on the City of Alameda's Housing and Human Services website, and we invite all members of the community age 55 and older to fill that out. The annual CDBG action plan will be submitted to HUD in conjunction with Alameda County Housing and Community Development on Tuesday, June 2nd. The city completes an action plan on an annual basis and the document outlines specific projects and funding resources that will meet the greater consolidated plan goals. SHRED members will remember that on January 22nd, Program Manager Camille Rodriguez led the point in time count, a federally mandated count of individuals experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness. Data analysis from that event revealed that the number of individuals experiencing homelessness in the city of Alameda decreased by 46.8%. compared to the 2024 pit count results. This progress was made possible by a strong network of programs, partnerships, and direct outreach efforts to connect individuals experiencing homelessness with employment opportunities, healthcare, and pathways to permanent housing. And that concludes the staff, HHS staff updates. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, we're almost at the end here. Item six. Board communications, not agenda item. I do want to mention that I went to a really excellent training hosted by Alameda County Public Health. It was about Medi-Cal changes. Specifically, there's a bunch of different words people use for this population, but we're talking about people who are non-citizens, regardless of what their status is. They're pretty devastating. Starting July 1st, they lose all dental care, for example. And where they're angling for is eventually by October of 2028, is anyone who's under 65, who's not pregnant and who makes more than $16,000 a year, We'll actually either have to copay or lose their benefits. So this is going to be a process of the next few years. It's going to be really devastating for our communities. As I mentioned to Simone earlier, if you take these benefits away up to 64, we're going to have all these people with deferred health maintenance. reaching 65 and they'll be much sicker than they would be if they didn't have preventative care before. So I just think it's worthwhile to pay attention to this and what's going on. We're going to definitely, the community and the public are definitely going to need our support around those issues.

If they currently have, if you could maintain your Medicaid that, well, county, it's county by county difference, but you can, there are people that are grand, fathered into the program. And as long as they keep up their status, they can continue to be a part of that program. What I know from the San Francisco County.

OK, so like San Francisco County, if someone's not a citizen, they're still going to be able to cover them.

to January 1, 2026, as long as they maintain enrollment, they can continue. So it is county. There are other sort of workarounds that each of the public health departments are really working to maintain.

Thank you. Anything else?

I just wanted to say one last time, Cindy Acker, the lady who came in here with the Child Unique Montessori School is a huge part of our community. And she's worked with us here with the shrub board in the past. She's done talks and she's been an amazing person in our environment. And I would hope that at some point we would be able to find some solutions for her. She's

really somebody we should be thinking carefully about we wouldn't want to lose her at this point in our time that's all i have to say thank you joel thank you um any other no other comments um that means we can go to item number seven adjournment and we will adjourn this meeting at 9 23 p.m