Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Cultural Communities Board - 01/23/2018KENT CULTURAL COMMUNITIES BOARD MEETING Minutes January 23, 2018, 6:30 pm Kent Senior Center 600 East Smith St Kent, WA Attending: Yusuf Bashir, Marvin Eckfeldt, Mizanur Rahman, Ted Schwarz, Cesar Rangel, Vaivao Semisi-Tupou, Marwa Almusawi, Sara Franklin-Phillips, Herbert Carey, Ta Kwe Say and Norma Maldonado Absent: Sonia Morales, Samiha Bhuiyan, Guystave Sebatware, Rand Al Hammadi, Sharn Kaur, Herbert Carey and Davies Chirwa Elected Officials, Staff & Guests: Mayor Dana Ralph, Councilmember Toni Troutner, Councilmember Satwinder Kaur and Uriel Varela Chair Rangel called the meeting to order at 6:30 pm. Roll call – attendees listed above. Changes to the Agenda No changes to the agenda. Approval Minutes Mizanur moved to approve minutes, Vaivao seconded. November 2017 meeting minutes were approved. Welcome Mayor Ralph - welcomed the group and said a few words about her support for the work that the Cultural Communities Board was doing for the city and its diverse cultural groups. Mayor Ralph stated that she is there to support all residents as well as the group. She wanted to know what the group’s goals and deliverables would be for the year and wanted to know how she could be of support. Marvin – Stated that he hopes that the board will be affirming when it’s important to support new initiatives from the city. He stated that he would like for the city to seek advice from the board when issues arise that may affect their communities. He also hopes that any advocacy work done by the board can be positive. Mayor Ralph – mentioned that there is a public safety initiative in a special election in April. She would like to have someone come and give the group a presentation on the initiative so that the group can then reach out to their specific communities to disseminate the information. Marvin – asked the Mayor if the board could endorse the measure? Uriel – Said that he would check with legal and report back. Marwa – stated that as the board figures out their identity, it is important for the city to rely on the board for advice on issues that may affect their communities. Mayor Ralph – said that she is new to the position, but that if the board needed to have a conversation with her, or needed something, she was more than willing to have those conversations. The board just needed to ask. Mizanur – asked the Mayor about the initiative for a new Police station. Mayor Ralph – Explained that the voters did not want a new Kent Police station and that the new public safety initiative was only for hiring new police officers and not for a new police station. She said that the City spent over 1.8 million dollars last year in overtime and that humans are not meant to be put under so much stress. She pointed out that if passed, the new utility tax would raise 4 million dollars to fund 31 new police officer positions. The initiative only needs 50% plus one to pass. Toni Troutner – Introduced herself and said that she is on the public safety committee and would like to have the group receive a presentation on the initiative. Mizanur – asked how much time the city had to promote the initiative. Marwa – asked if the levy would pay for training, or just for hiring. Mayor Ralph – Stated that the levy was only for hiring, but that the Kent Police Department had some of the best law enforcement training in the state, and that some of the training that was asked about (i.e. crisis intervention), was already in place. Ted – asked if the training was done as a one-time thing, or if it was continuing? Mayor Ralph – explained that the training was continuing and that all city employees had an extensive training schedule. She said that she wanted the best trained city employees. Sara – in reference to a previous comment about initiative 940 said that the hope was that the legislature acts on their own and implements the measure. Neighborhood groups presentation Toni Azzola – Made her presentation  Neighborhood groups are throughout the nation and even internationally  They all function as independent non-profit groups  Most of the groups have to learn about city structure  Neighborhoods can also have action plans  There are currently 36 recognized neighborhood councils  Neighborhood matching grants funds for community improvement projects Ted – asked why the neighborhood groups only accepted home owners. Toni – explained that home ownership was not a requirement, only a suggestion and that it was up to the councils to change their bylaws. Sara – asked about the outreach process for new neighborhood groups. She mentioned that no one had reached out to her in 2 years. Toni – explained that most of the outreach done is organic. Meeting people at meetings, having conversations with people outside their homes are just a couple of ways she does outreach. Mizanur – asked how people can start their own neighborhood groups. Toni – said that all someone needed to do is to get in contact with her. She then mentioned that she was having her annual workshop this weekend and was hoping that some of the board members could attend. Announcements Ted – made the announcement that the city’s human resources board was having a meeting on February 12th to decide where human resource funding was going. He said that most of the money went to home improvement programs that didn’t benefit renters. Discussion on board structure Cesar – started the conversation by talking about the conversation that he and Uriel had about the structure of the meetings. He mentioned that the conversation led to a couple of ideas. - First idea was to change the meetings to every other month instead of every month - Second idea was to have subcommittees that could focus on 3 or 4 different issues. These subcommittees would meet during the months when we didn’t have a general meeting. Sara – said that she liked the idea of meeting every other month and being more active during the months in between general meetings. She also wanted to have more community representation at the meetings. She wanted the public there. She also mentioned that the city website should highlight the work that was being done by the Cultural Communities Board. Marwa – said that the group had to have a conversation about being intentional, honing in on 2 or 3 topics of interest and tackle those issues. She also agreed that the website could be used better. Mizanur – mentioned that each board member could be a member of more than one subcommittee. Ted – said that he would like for the group to pick 3 topics and is more interested in advocacy work than just presentations. Marvin – said that he would like for Uriel to add the cultural groups represented at the meetings to the city page. Yusuf – said that while each member may not be able to reach every person in their community, they do reach a few and those few people can then reach a few more people. Yusuf also mentioned that he would like to see the group give an update during a City Council meeting. Meeting adjourned at 8:03 pm. Minutes drafted by Uriel Varela, Community Engagement Coordinator for the City of Kent.