Community Enhancement Board - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress

Hey, Andy.

Hi, Lily.

I can't hear you.

How about now? No?

Your mic is working.

No, still can't hear you.

It's your mic.

My mic's not working? How about now?

Nothing.

Nothing?

Commissioner Donner, I can't hear you, okay?

You can hear me or no?

Anyways, do you want to... Well, you can't talk back to me. I was going to say, do you want to give everyone until like 6.35?

Yes.

Perfect. Hey, Jacob.

Hello, hello. Happy holidays, everybody.

Hello, hello.

I know Bree said she is connecting from Australia, so it might take a minute.

Oh, wow. Okay. Well, we'll need one more.

Yeah. Are you staying local for the holidays or traveling?

Traveling. I'm leaving tomorrow morning. So how about you?

I am also leaving tomorrow morning for Vermont, heading home.

It's going to be very cold.

Okay, so you'll be cold too.

We'll be headed the same direction, yeah. Nice.

How long are you guys going out for?

Hey, Chris. Until New Year. Nice.

Hey, Chris.

Hello, hello, hello. Hey. Hi.

How is everybody?

Good.

How are you? Good to see you. Commissioner Darrow.

How are you doing?

Good to see you around. All good. We got some new Zoom features. Auto-framing. Stay centered with auto-framing. Turn on.

I don't think I've seen that one before.

No, yeah, I'm looking at it. There's all these new features. Okay, what's going on? Hello, Lily Torres. How are you?

How are you?

All good.

I will be your new staff liaison. I'm not supposed to tell you yet, but...

Exactly, exactly. Isabel did not answer my text, so that would make sense.

Well, I replaced Julie.

Julie, yeah. Julie, I'm sorry. Is Isabel still there?

Yes, Isabel is still there. She's been sick, so she's been out sick for a while. Sorry, Andy, I realized it was a me problem, and I didn't turn my speaker up.

No problem. Great party last night.

Thank you.

Anybody there? I didn't see anyone. Jacob? I was traveling yesterday. Winter holiday party. Vogel Park.

Yeah, I would have liked to go. I was in California early this week through yesterday evening for work and now home for a day to pack and then off again.

Nice.

It was cold there, so I was kind of getting prepared.

Are we, do you, have you heard from Bree?

Do we know if... Yeah, she texted me, so she said she's logging on.

Yeah.

She said she'd be a few minutes late, so...

No, all good. We could stand by. I legit walked in at like 6.26 and then walked right to a computer and logged in.

Late day. Nice.

And let me make sure to take good notes. I had to look at that video over again to make these minutes that were the bane of my existence.

So it was easier during the conversation, but it was hard to remember.

Yeah, because you're like, oh, well, there is the recording of the video, but you got to like watch and listen. It's never as good.

And the AI generation is never as good either.

Yes, exactly.

Hello, Bree. Hello.

Hello. Can you guys hear me?

Yes. Yes.

Oh, great. Great.

On the other side of the world, I heard. Yeah.

Yes, I am from calling in from the east coast of Australia. What time is it over there? It's Friday morning, 10.37 a.m. Cool.

Thanks for calling in.

Anytime. I'm sorry, I'm a few minutes late. I'm not going to put my video on because I have tenuous connection as is already.

No worries.

Fantastic. Do we have quorum?

I believe so.

Okay.

All right.

So I'll go ahead and call this meeting to order at, I suppose, at 6.38 p.m. Thursday, 18 December. May I have a roll call?

Christopher Cotton, secretary, present. Jake Petrini, vice chair, present.

Refugia chair, present.

Snacks, Thailand. Oh, that's what they're going to say. All right.

That's it?

I think so.

All right.

Okay, hang on.

I'm just going to close this door. All right. So looking at the agenda, first, okay, so point two on the agenda looks like it's the approval of the October 29th meeting minutes. I've had a chance to go through those. Those look good to me. Okay. Anyone have any issues on the minutes?

Nope. All good. All right. Excellent.

Yeah. Seconded.

All right. All in favor? Aye. Excellent. All right. Minutes approved. Just a sec guys, just a moment. No, take your time, take your time.

Sorry, I just had to tell my noisy relatives to keep quiet.

I'm Billy.

Yeah, it's only the American you can hear. The Australians are quiet. The Australians are quiet.

The Aboriginal can be pretty loud.

Um, so if we, if we're going to the first point of the agenda, if I'm looking at it now, which was, um, discussion on creating a board action tracking document, I, I suggested, I suggested this and I suggested the second point as well. Not so much as like substantive, like fun kind of like community enhancement things, but more of like process driven suggestions just to make our lives, to make our lives more to make work in the committee more efficient, to make it clear what we're doing, because I wasn't... I didn't think that we were being as efficient as we possibly could in terms of things that were being raised in the meeting. And then... you know, or they'll be raised in one-off conversations and then they kind of disappear. So I wanted to, especially with staff changes in the village, I wanted to make sure that things don't get lost. And I thought that a board action tracker would give us continuity on this point. I'm happy to take the lead on drafting this because, And my idea is that it would be a kind of living document that lists every action, recommendation or project that we aboard have agreed to, who owns it and the progress status and where it stands. You know, for the, you know, in an abundance of caution and, you requirements of transparency. It's not supposed to be deliberation outside meetings. It's not a private document. So I envisage it to be a kind of public-facing administrative record, which should be updated in meetings.

Do you think there's a possibility, Bree, and I don't know how extensive you're thinking about this, but one thing I can imagine is it being part of the minutes that are being stored there and updated during our monthly meetings and then shared there.

Yeah, yeah, it could definitely, yeah, I agree. I think it could be shared as perhaps a separate document or within the minutes. But, you know, at the end of each agenda item on, whenever we go through agendas, at the end of each agenda item, for the purposes of the tracker, we identify the action, who's responsible and what's the next step. And then that is encapsulated within the the table or the tracking document. Um, and then either Alba, like the village clerk can update it, or I'm happy to update it. Um, I'm happy, I'm, I'm, I'm happy to be guided by the village, by, um, uh, those with, uh, much, those, those who, uh, uh, um, have more expertise in the, in the kind of, um, procedural requirements here about who should be updating. Um, but, uh, To my mind, it could be a shared kind of Google Drive or Microsoft SharePoint folder managed by perhaps the clerk or the village office. And we have view access, but we can't necessarily edit. So it's controlled and compliant and transparent.

Andy, is there any precedent for anything like this or any thoughts and capabilities?

Yeah. Yeah, I think you guys are on the right track. I don't think we don't use anything currently. Bree mentioned sunshine. I know we're not supposed to discuss viewing voting items outside of forum, but I don't know if I think just what you're saying is just kind of posting a live update board. I think that's kosher. I think that's good. Yeah.

Okay, excellent. So, I mean, yeah, I'd like us to formally adopt this as part of every meeting so we stop relying on memories and emails, which are very, very helpful, but this gives us more of a formal process to base our meetings around and also to kind of track and compare our progress.

Can I ask a follow-up question maybe to Andy? Where have we kept the information from the previous mural projects on bids and stuff like that? Is there a public website that has this type of documentation? Because I could see that type of information being housed within this type of... action list too. We've taken on this action to do the murals.

The only place that our house is, I mean, you can go see any of our past monthly agendas. So I mean, you can be or and same thing for the commission and for the community enhancement, any of the meetings that we have, I mean, you can go back and grab an agenda. And then there also is a minute. So I guess there is like a recap of what was discussed on those. I think now this is even recorded. So I think that even live recordings, I think we, I think we store live recordings of, well, I know we do have the commission, I think for this as well. So I guess we do have like some form of it, but is it bullet pointed to a point of easy checklist? No, I think it can be streamlined to your effect, yeah.

We can also chime in. Sorry not to jump around on the agenda, but just to introduce myself really quick. Hi, I'm Lily. I'm sure I've met some of you, maybe not all of you. I worked with Julie. I was the marketing and special events assistant director. And now that Julie has left us, unfortunately, I will be transitioning into community engagement director. And I am now taking over your board, hopefully permanently, so you guys don't have any more staff switches. Okay. But I'll have you guys and I'll also have resident services, which was my original board. And you guys have not the same purview, but very similar ones. And you guys work on a lot of the same projects, which I will oversee. So I'm happy to help with that. Any questions you guys might have? Any projects you guys want to take on? A little insight on the document that Brie is talking about. I think that's a great idea. However, I don't think necessarily that it's something that the clerk should manage, but rather each individual board. Because keep in mind, we do have maybe like seven or eight. Well, actually, I think we have like five or six different advisory boards that on top of the normal commission meetings and then every other meeting that has to be sunshine, the clerk has a ton of work on her hands already. So I do think that this living document to keep track of everything is a great idea, but maybe to do internally. I'm very happy.

I'm very happy to do that. Thanks Lily. Yeah, absolutely.

Of course. And then other than that, the only other thing I wanted to mention was that we have a board a portal in the website, similar to how we keep track of the minutes and everyone has access to all of those documents. There's a portal embedded in there where you can look up who gets awarded bids or any contract that the village has. It's all just in the portal.

Cool. Lily, thank you. I think the board, you're lucky to have you. You're a good fit for the enhancement. So welcome. Thank you. Lily does all our, puts on all of the events that we do. So as we collaborate, and I know that's something we've talked about in the past, we have a pro planner on our team now. So maybe our next event, she can help us be a little more successful with what we want to do.

For sure.

Perfect.

Looking at the website now, there's like a little iframe that has the community enhancement board meeting live right now.

Yeah. So you can access any video from any board meeting anytime you want. And then if you go to... Let me find it. If you go to Government Village Clerk, North Bay Village Public Portal, that is where you can find... really any document that the village goes into contract with or, or any document really.

Right. So we could keep this document there. I mean, if we had it, if we had it as a, I'm just trying, I'm just trying to figure out a way that we can like update it within the portal or whether we'd have to like submit new updated versions into the portal.

I think the best way to do it is maybe in the minutes when you submit the minutes and then it can all just be uploaded together. Okay. All right. That way nothing gets lost and it's all kosher in the same document.

Okay, great. All right.

Alternatively, or maybe combined with that, does the village use Gmail or do they use Microsoft? And which could someone house in SharePoint or in a share drive that is owned by the village create like an Excel or Google Sheets link? And then we can use that link within the minutes so that we're using something that's owned by the village versus like a personal account.

I would have to ask our chief information officer to see if that would be a security breach.

We can start with the personal one, but just so it's a live document owned by everybody else.

I will double check. But I will get back to you because he's kooky about his firewalls.

That's important.

It is important.

Yeah.

Cool.

All right. Well, for an abundance of caution, I'd like to put forward a motion to adopt a rolling agenda list managed by me so we can stay organized and compliant to be included in the minutes.

Second thought.

Yeah, I like a good idea. Second, just as long as like we were saying, if we're allowed to, I didn't know if we're allowed to. Yeah, because we'll publish it in a minute.

So it'll be discussed here. It'll be published there. So it's fully visible. All good.

Cool. Great. Great idea, Bree.

Excellent. Thanks, guys. So moving to point four B, which was, again, my suggestion, which was a rolling agenda list document, very much in the same vein as a board action tracking. It would be, again, gives us a safe kind of sunshine compliant way to capture ideas. At the moment, anyone can email the clerk with a proposed topic. But, again, I'm not sure, like, we come up with really, really great ideas, not all of which are put into an action or kind of put into action. So I just wanted to have a little repository of where we keep all ideas. So, you know... If and when there comes a time when we're looking for things to do, we can like refer back to those.

Do you think this could be like a subset or not a subset, but I guess an accompanying tab on this document that we're going to maintain?

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. Perfect.

Yeah, that way everything is live right there. You could actually get a pathway to what we're talking about instead of it just existing in last meeting minutes talk.

Exactly. Yeah.

Perfect.

All right. So moving to item 4C, which is discussion on minutes drafts preparation and circulation process. Chris, was this something that you wanted to discuss or was this coming in from perhaps the clerk or Andy?

I think that was the last meeting that you were absent where just getting the full idea of how we're going to take care of the minutes here and what's expected of me and what template to use and... It looks like I got it down here, but I'm just trying, I'm kind of reinventing the wheel. Creating these minutes here was kind of grueling where I was like going through the whole recording. So I'm trying to take notes here. So I'm figuring between the recording, the notes that I take and the AI synopsis between those three, I should be able to come up with some decent minutes and keep it tracked through that.

Oh, brilliant. Brilliant. I'm hoping it's not too arduous a task.

Like I said, I'm trying to get it to where the first one was a catastrophe. This one's really good, but it like took forever. And now I'm trying to do it where I could have a nice, simple, clean minutes without it being sitting down and doing a whole session for an hour and a half listening to the whole video verbatim.

Yeah. We can also, after the meeting ends, we can send you an AI synopsis.

yes yes uh normally yes i got i had to request it from alba the last one normally i think we all like kind of got it in the mail if i'm not mistaken i'm mistaken um but yeah that's exactly what i need is an ai synopsis i kind of go through that now i'm actually taking physical notes to and then and then also my goal is to get this done fairly uh quickly after the meeting instead of what was it the last meeting it was like oh our meeting was in when it's fresh yeah our meeting was in october and then here i am like in december trying to like make the minutes like oh so all good great that's up yep that's the meetings there and then uh so move on to the next one yeah yeah

item 4d discussion on the island walk jacob i believe you wanted to discuss this one yeah so we had brought it up last time and i'm not sure if andy you're prepared to speak to it a bit more um but we talked about kind of walking through where it's been where it's going where it's kind of it's currently at so we could kind of strategize about how we might be able to start working towards expanding it and working towards it in the 2026

Yeah, we actually made some progress, thankfully, on this one this week where the commission had a consensus or at least a four to one consensus to send out attorney letters to all the associations whose island walks are supposed to be open in January and give them a 60 day notice to cure, meaning to open up their island walks and have it be public space. Now, in those 60 days, if condos don't comply, then it is a TBD situation. But the initial is to see who's willing to comply with how it's supposed to be with the easement. So it's a good step in the right direction that the commission gave attorney notice to put everybody on notice and inform them, of course, that their island walks are supposed to be open. Some of the growing things that we could work on. uh in general is just kind of like uh a rules and regulation for the island walk maybe signage for the island walk um concern common concerns that are talked about are cleanliness uh dog issue and um security i mean i don't think security has been an issue at moda or where island walk is but just common thoughts about how to improve on those things cleanliness and security and kind of outreach, communication, signage. So we are trying to push it forward. So that is positive.

Great. That's really great news. Yeah.

Yeah, it was a good meeting. Yeah, we made some progress on it because two previous times I had asked to make a similar motion, it was denied. So I think with the continued help of this board and, you know, pushing the information, especially on our vote that, hey, do you guys want to see the island walk? Yes, overwhelmingly we do. I think that was enough to kind of get everybody on board on board with at least informing the condos that, hey, open up and we'll see who's going to open up and who's not. And we can revisit that as a team or commission, of course. But in the meantime, let's maybe put some things on, you know, for new business or even for discussion now about how Island Walk should work, rules and regulations, et cetera. So that is definitely something that can be worked on.

Great, great. I'll put it on my rolling agenda list.

Does that include this building here, Grandview Palace and like the wake over there?

So why we would love Grandview Palace to be part of it. And they do have a great island walk, especially with retail. Grandview Palace is what is considered like a grandfathered building, 1980s. So they didn't have in, like we don't have a site plan with the Island Walk labeled as public easement as we do with any of the buildings built in the say 2000s and newer. Those ones do have a site plan that shows it is meant to be public access. Unfortunately, like Grandview Palace, I think was built in the 1980s, does not have, they do not have to open their island walk.

Grandfather rules.

Yeah, it's not in a way that that's meant to be a public access, although maybe they would still like to join by choice. And why they do have it open from the center, what's not open at the Grandview Palace is the gates that are on the north and the south of the property.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy to work with them a little bit on that. I think if we can come up with the rules and regulations, like the cleaning kind of standards, stuff like that, I think that might help.

And also, maybe it'll help if they just see this happening in other places, too, you know, more of a collective process, not a not a, hey, we're asking you guys to do this. No, this is like, we're all trying to do this here.

Because it is silly. You're not keeping anybody out. Both of those gates are there, but you could just walk right down. That's kind of the irony.

That is the irony with it. It is open anyways, but not on, like, we built a side. We do have an easement, I guess, on the side of Grand View. Yeah, a mural. Put a beautiful path and an art mural, and then they proceeded by putting a gate at the end of it and locking it up.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So with that, I mean, there's I saw online or I just Googled, I guess there's sidewalk pressure cleaning for the for the island walk. Is that something we do yearly or regularly?

I'm not aware that we did do that, but.

Says November, right, may have been a past year, though, I'm not sure.

Maybe a yearly pressure wash. Maybe we do do it. Yeah.

I have to because that might be something that helps with the cleaning pieces.

I agree.

And definitely maybe for us, meaning guys research different kinds of signs or ordinances that are in other locations that might be helpful to post in places. I'm curious, Andy, like and I have to look at some of the different locations again on that map. But are any of them do you think worthy of like putting a mural like the one that is next to. Grandview, because that might also be an enticing way to help some of these communities open up a bit more if there's an art installation that can also come with one of the walls that they have up or something.

Great. That's excellent. Should we put that on the agenda for our next meeting just to start talking about what what the Community Enhancement Board think, thoughts that, you know, the members of the CEP have in terms of kind of like signage, owning that sort of, owning how the space kind of looks, feels and functions for residents.

Yep. I think that's a great idea. Andy, do you think we... So the signs that I've seen previously, are those available somewhere in the commission's office, I guess? Or who does the signage for the existing work that's there?

The existing Island Walk signage. We don't really have a particular person that does it. We don't have a graphic designer. So I guess we would have to... We don't want to mimic it or something, right?

Oh, it was you, Lily? Yeah.

Maybe, Lily, you can work on something like this if we were to provide some direction. Yeah, awesome. So, yeah, Lily's our graphic designer. Perfect. All right.

I just wanted to make – because I know I've seen some of the signs around, so I wanted to make sure that whatever we end up doing is going to obviously fall in line with that design principles or working towards trying to make it look holistic.

If there are – signs for the island walk that are all the same. Um, public works usually takes it over. They have a template, um, and they just put the different signs. But if you see like work for construction or different projects going on, I make those.

Got it. You get them from Sign-O-Rama, right?

What was that?

Sign-O-Rama?

Uh, no, we use fast signs. I designed them and then we, we have fast and fast signs do them.

Roger.

Great. Well, I will, I'll make sure that this goes into the tracker document and we can explore in more detail at the next session. at the next meeting once people have given a bit of thought as to what our initiatives and proposals might look like.

Love it.

Cool. Okay. Fifth and final point. Andy, would you like to give us a report on the bus shelter or Lily, a report on the bus shelter project?

I can. Uh, and it's just, uh, good news that the bus shelter as of Tuesday was awarded to a vendor. So, um, yeah. Now when that vendor will, uh, We'll have the bus shops ready to put in. I'm not sure of the exact date. We can talk about that. I can probably have that for next month. But that is the update that it is passed. We have a vendor that is acceptable. We have the money funded. It's been budgeted. So we're going to see those new bus shelters that we worked on with this group three years ago. Love it. Yeah. Hey, better sooner than never. I mean, if you guys remember any of the designs, they are very modern. So it's a piece of art, you know, more like coming to the streets as well, something new. So that's good. So really between the bus shelters and the island walk, that is my, those are my updates for the group. So as far as any commission liaison updates coming up, that's, that's what I have guys. So thank you and happy holidays.

Fantastic. Happy holidays, everyone. So unless there's anything else to discuss, put forward a motion to adjourn.

Oh,

i had already bumped into a couple people and like ended up discussing about being on the community enhancement board i was imploring them to like log in like basically like i don't know try to get the word out more about our community enhancement board and the meeting and how easy it is just to log in i was over at the pizza place the pizza delight and i was talking to like a resident there and then we were talking about something about that uh what is it they're gonna build one of those um for that building that's going to go up next to the pizza place. They're going to build the sales center there, I guess. And just mentioned it to them. And I'm like, well, yeah, on the website, you can go right there and we have a community enhancement board meeting, but we don't have many people from the public. And just... I don't know. I figured just try to get more people that just, as you talk to people or bump into people, Hey, um, Oh, you're a resident. Well, we'd like to see you if you go log in and you could be part of the program. I don't know. Just to get more people. Cause you know, we got, we have public comments on here and it's like, man, I'd like to see some people from the public log in, whether they're just listening, whether they're there to go complain or whether it's just, they have good ideas as well. Um, Just kind of like something simple, like at our Grandview Palace on the little tack board. Community enhancement board meeting, you never know. Some people don't have much to do. They might log in or on our website or any Facebook, Instagram that we have. Just people may log in and it's really easy just if they know about it. And the two people that I ended up talking to are not logged in. It was like an older gentleman that lives in that building there by the pizza place. Um, and then some other people that, you know, I've met just walking around here in the elevator at grand view. And I'm like, well, man, it would be easy to at least just throw it up on our cork board at grand view. I don't know, get some members of the public in our meeting.

Yeah, I mean, I think this is a really interesting comment because I think it goes into like the broad question of like the village kind of comms and newsletters and something like that. So like, you know, like, Lily, we have like a village newsletter that goes out. every every week yeah i mean like i think i think we should like i love to put like a little section in there about like what about like our board and like what we discussed and what's coming up in agenda items and like you know people like reach out to any one of us if people have like ideas or some people they'll just log in just to do it i know just like our board meetings in our own building at grandview palace i don't like go out of my way to go to them but then sometimes i'm like oh look i can just like

log in here on my couch and just like hear what's going on in my own building. Like, all right, let me go ahead.

We need to work towards getting more folks to get the email of anything else. Cause the email is very comprehensive. It has all the things happening in the village. It's definitely the most like notable source of information. Yeah. And it's just there. Yeah.

Word of mouth from us. I don't know. I don't know.

I think it's hard right now because the city lacks multiple locations where people can come together. Um, Like when you have that in a town, it makes it much easier for people to cross paths and speak more and share information. But that's obviously being built over the next five years. But we're pretty limited in terms of those types of locations right now, I'd say. Not to say that's an excuse, but I think it makes it harder.

No, just all online. Hey, you guys, here's the link. Log in. Listen. Hear us discuss. Comments. All the comments online.

Circling back to what you were saying, Brie, there is a section in the bottom of the newsletter where I have the dates and times of every board meeting and commission meeting going on that month. If you or Chris or Jacob or anyone wanted to send me like a snippet of projects you guys are working on or anything at any time, I'm more than happy to put that in there and I can pass that along to the other boards as well. Um, cause it's just a quick copy and paste for me. I do the newsletter too. So, um, yeah, great. Anything you guys want to put in, I'm, I'm more than happy to, you just, you just got to send it to me. Also, I apologize in advance. Um, this is my dog, Toby, um, He is very vocal and he likes to pop in. He's like a parrot.

Very cute.

How often does the newsletter go out?

Once a week. Every Friday morning at 10 a.m. So I'm usually done with it on Thursday nights.

Okay, maybe once a month, one of us, and we can kind of allocate this responsibility maybe around the group on a rotating basis, but maybe once a month after every meeting, someone can send you like a little paragraph of like updating as to like, you know, just like a little small update of like, here is what the CB has been doing. Like CB initiatives.

I think that's a good way to do it. Also, since we're kind of determining the agenda the month before, we can get a bit more stricter about it and use that to be posted out the week before or something like that or post it in it so it gives people a taste of what might be coming up in the next meeting. And if they're interested, they can join that way too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's like, yeah, I think this can work quite well as like a unified process starting next year. Sounds great.

I'll pick up on your last motion. So motion to adjourn and wish everyone a happy holidays.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Second. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks, everyone.

Bye. Have a good night.

Happy holidays. Talk to you. Happy holidays. See you, everybody.

Bye.

Thank you.