Bangor committee splits homelessness and housing oversight into separate bodies

[0:24] Michael Beck: All right, it is Wednesday, February 18th, through 2026, and it is 5:34 p.m. This is a special meeting of the Government Operations Committee. I mean Committee Chair Michael Beck, and join us at the table our committee members, Councillor Meller, Councillor Deane, Councillor Walker, and I believe Councillor Fish will be joining us on Zoom. Also at the table, our Council Chair Haas, Councillor Carson, Councillor Leonard, Councillor Faloon, and City Manager Carollynn Lear. First up we [0:57] Carollynn Lear: have a letter of support request. I can introduce it, and then if there are questions. So this was sort of a last-minute ad, but it's time sensitive, so this is not the reason we have a special meeting. But Penobscot Community Health Center is requesting a letter of support from us for their grant application for their 2026 cancer screening program. Very important. Obviously, I don't need to explain that. It's $40,000 for two years. Obviously great for their patients and for the city, but we wanted to get your consent before sending that letter of support. Any [1:49] Wayne Mallar: objections? Well, questions. The only question I ask, this doesn't require any expenditure of funds for the city, and no, not no city staff is going to be working on it. The only city time will be to [2:03] Carollynn Lear: draft and sign a letter that won't be fixed. Yeah, I don't have any problems. That's your time, don't [2:09] Susan Deane: here you go, you have plenty of time, happy to do it. [2:18] Michael Beck: Okay, any other questions? The emotionalness probably, yes. Okay, I'll entertain a motion on this letter of support. A second? Any objections? Okay, [2:40] Susan Deane: Carolyn's now on. Okay, so do we need to do a roll call? If you roll call, yeah. [2:45] Michael Beck: Okay, so the motion was made to accept this request for a letter of support and allow this to go through, so we'll take a roll call vote. Councillor Meller? Yes. Councillor Walker? Yes. Counselor Fish? She's muted. Yes as well. So I'll move on and then bring this to the next item here, the proposed ordinance, the Advisory Committee on Homelessness and the Housing follow-up discussion. I [3:25] Carollynn Lear: can introduce it, and then counselor and I have worked very hard to try to make this as easy as possible. So you may recall that we first talked about this draft committee in the past, I don't know, two or three weeks ago, and counselor Beck had circulated a red line with some suggested edits, and we sort of deferred the conversation so that folks can have time to review those suggested edits. Council Rebecca and I got together and tried to sort of narrow the items that we thought council needed to Provide feedback on, sort of recognizing that going over line by line a several page red line document was probably gonna be unwieldy and take a lot of time for council. And so what was included in the packet is a memo that sort of explains the three areas where we think that council discussion is, you know, very, important: board and committee membership, the lived experience component of that committee, as well as the mission, and the draft order that accompanies that memo has much more limited red line edits that highlight those areas that need feedback. So I'm hopeful that sort of back-end work will make the conversation a little bit more focused. Anything to add? [5:01] Michael Beck: Sure. I mean, I figured we'll take each of this one section at a time. You know, first question before us is about the board and committee makeup. And in the red line document and I put four before, I had reduced the number of positions from 15 down to 11. My thinking was trying to make this more of a working group as opposed to like a focus group, because there was a couple of random positions and they're like, you know, a parent with kids in school, that kind of thing, and not saying that their input isn't important, I just in my mind that's more of a email public comment type input than a full-time sitting on a board, so this list you see in front of us now on this draft that came in our packet was taking all of those ideas and kind of blending them together to see if this list sits well with all of you, or if you have other positions you think are missing, you know, looking for input at this point. [5:58] Susan Deane: I come for Dean, I had a question reducing it to 11, but on the next page it says the initial appointment count will show 0.5 represent representatives for five-year term, five for two-year term, and five for a three-year term, so that's 15. That's under 23-49 terms of [6:19] Carollynn Lear: office, so that section will need to change if you adopt counselor Vets, so it is, it is [6:25] Michael Beck: 11 that we're discussing right now, yeah, or 15 if this body decides 15 doesn't work better, then so be it, and then nothing will be changed. If we adopt the 11, is the order itself [6:36] Susan Deane: also says the 15 number, but I also had a question on the number. Sure, so reducing it possibly would allow more people to show up, picture plus people that actually have to show up to the meeting, but with a number of 11, how many are required to vote, how would you go about it, you know, for the [6:56] Carollynn Lear: attendance even later occasions, it says a simple majority, so as long as you had six people in [7:06] Susan Deane: Attendance, they would still be able to vote on something. Yeah, before it and [7:18] Carollynn Lear: I'm making a note to add simple majority in case it's not in there, but I, my recollection is that I remember seeing [7:24] Wayne Mallar: some majority, but then still would you have to have a quorum before you could have a meeting even though you're saying a simple majority? So if you had a quorum of six to open it, you could still have four to two, and it would be majority. Final section. Dr. Fish. [7:50] Carolyn Fish: Can you hear me okay? Yeah. Okay. I know that this is our mission and our goal, but just being involved with housing and working with Main State Housing,, rural housing, and anything to do with housing, and the, you know, the multifaceted complications that have to do with financing and, you know, fair housing. I just think when coupling this, you know, our strategy to try to address and come up with something, an action plan to deal with homelessness, I think we have two very complex emissions involving housing with our homeless, you know, goals. You know, I think we have to separate them because there's just so many things. I just think we have a broad brush where we kind of have two complicated avenues that we're trying to blend. And I just see finance regulation, Fair Housing and how do Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA, Maine State Housing. And there's just so many things that are going to complicate the housing aspect, piggybacking it on to our homeless. I think they should be separated in two different things. I know housing is important for our unhoused community, but I think housing is important for the majority of our population. And I just, you know, I think that housing to be focused on the 1 or 200, you know, individuals we have, when in fact we've got hundreds more on the cusp of being homeless, and we need to come up with a preventative plan, I think, for them, not to mention all of the people that can't find housing for our young people with families the elderly you know just you know when I read this is a good start you know that we've got a mission but the housing to me is just you know and bringing investors I don't Penquist Cap has a lot of experience with housing you know and I think that housing related to this population would be smart but, you know, Penquist Cap, The Homeless, even Fresh Dot, Teresa's Place, those types of organizations that have worked with the unhoused to try to get them into shelters and housing, I think should be, you know, a component of it. But the investors, I think we need to kind of get our ducks in a row and have a strategy and something a little more concrete. So I know this is the first steps, but I'm just having a really hard time blending housing with this and seeing our overall population in the community feeling when housing is such a huge problem for everyone that we're segmenting, focusing on housing for this group of people. And so that's just, you know, I didn't have time. I did have notes and stuff, but I'm having a really hard time blending my software here on this wi-fi system we have so my thoughts [11:25] Susan Faloon: I wonder if it would make sense to maybe have a subcommittee or something but we might want to wait until we form the committee and then based on some recommendations once they start digging in they may see a need to have you know like a you know this overarching committee and then a couple of subcommittees one to focus more on the unhoused population and then one to focus more on housing in and of itself but then kind of come together under this overarching committee so that you know it's Because they are related but I do understand what Council Fish is saying as well and there may be once the committee starts digging in there may be recommendations nations, they may realize there are people that were missing. And the other thing I wanted to say is that there was we did get an email that you've probably all seen about having a representative from the Bangor School Department to represent kind of the unhoused population within the school system too. And I think that's a great idea to add to the committee. Thank So [12:38] Michael Beck: That's kind of a interesting thought is that's not the first time I've heard that feedback as well as you know, these are connected, but also two separate problems, homelessness, and then the housing issue itself and it does beg the question, do we form this committee in then do let's allow them to create a subcommittee for homelessness. Are we happy with this direction or do we consider having two separate committees for that 's something to consider as well any [13:13] Joseph Leonard: Other thoughts Councilman just on that point I think because of how interwoven these economic issues are I don't really see an issue combining them together the committee wants to create a subcommittee that's fine by me but I don't think there's any need to have a very similar form of committee to be made in conjunction with [13:35] Michael Beck: This one, so just plop them all together in my opinion. So I have a question about that. So do we need to change this at all to empower this committee to have the ability to make us a [13:47] Carollynn Lear: committee, or can they just do that as is? I can consider that further. My instinct would be to at least note somewhere in here that the committee is empowered to create subcommittees to tackle various portions of their mission, but I can get with a deep step check and confirm that he thinks that's the right to go, and then if he thinks we should add it, we can draft it up. [14:09] Susan Faloon: Thank you. Wouldn't they be able to like reach out to us and say hey, we think we need to make some changes here anyway, and kind of bring it back to the council? I mean, if they wanted to change the makeup on the team, for example, once they get started, couldn't they just come back to us and say you know, we would like to talk to you about potentially changing the makeup of the committee or changing some aspect of it, and just kind of running through the committee? It would work the [14:40] Wayne Mallar: same way on seven committees with approval of the council. Okay. [14:47] Michael Beck: Well, I thought comfort cards [14:48] Daniel Carson: in the comforting. Yeah, thank you. I'm not on this committee, but as I'm thinking more about this and Councilor Fish's remarks. I think a housing board is important. I think it's gonna be, it's a permanent question. It's always gonna be ongoing and it affects everybody. At the same time, I think that combining these things when the first mission is to actually think about a homeless response plan, like housing is part of that, but has a very specific mission in its onset. I wonder if having a housing board then with the subcommittee is what's sensible, but then back to the housing board piece I would sort of favor a 15 member board than 11 because I think we're missing people. I think if it's going to be a housing board we need a banker. I think we need a representative from a union that represents building and construction trades. I think that we need right, it's somebody who works with it does FHA things like that. I think we're missing some components of what we've made from vibrant housing if that's going to be it's it's overarching mission from this stage from [16:02] Michael Beck: a friend that don't always guess like somebody from [16:05] Daniel Carson: building and construction trades who wrote good enough for firms who does finance banking [16:11] Susan Deane: Developers underneath. Well, my response was similar, just noting the mission. Our first mission is to charge the committee to create a strategic plan, the city's response to homelessness, which is stated right here, which is very important. And that in itself could take months to a year before we even are able to move on to something else. So perhaps having some sort of subcommittee that could do something while this other committee was working on the homeless situation might be a good idea, because I think we are going to be extremely consumed with our initial mission. And I'm not sure we're going to have time to dedicate to housing, even though it's an offshoot of it. I mean, obviously housing is part of homelessness, because that's what we're looking to do, but I think it's a bit broad to think that we can do all of this in one committee. Go [17:09] Carolyn Fish: to fish. Thank you. And I think that we're missing some, you know, other experts for at least the housing segment. I mean, you have a lot of great realtors that, you know, do hundreds of sales a year. And they're the grassroots people working with low income, medium income. You know, they also are developers, they've worked with our own code enforcement, and our planning boards. And, you know, they're obviously missing here. There. We have methadone clinics that work with the unhoused, especially for those with substance use addiction issues. And CHCS has been very involved with the unsheltered and trying to get them housed. And I think that they would provide someone from there, they some great talent there. Northern Light, we do have the hospitals, but I think those with lived experience being unhoused are important, but I think also if those people that we brought to the table were unhoused and they have recovered and are living productive lives, I think those stories would be very educational for us to see what it was that helped them recover. So yeah, I think, I think we're on the right path, but I think we need to be a little more detailed. It just seems a little broad, and I think we just need to have more strategic. I don't know, I guess I have kind of a business, you know, blueprint in my head of how I process things, and I just don't see this laid out where I just feel we can move forward with it and why. Those are my thoughts. [19:11] Joseph Leonard: I just had a small, just, you know, with the counselor Carson, with the increasing it to 15 members. I do think that we do have to remember that these are both committees, and sometimes we're not going to be able to get consistent amount of people to come to these committee meetings. By adding more, we do run the risk of potentially not meeting quorum as well, because we will need a simple majority if we're gonna go with that language to vote. So, I mean, 11 is already a lot for me personally to have a committee. I mean, I, Florida, I'll support whatever, the council wants to go forward with. I mean, we need a committee. I would hesitate going any larger than 11, just cause we do need, people to actually show up to these meetings as well. And that, I know that seems very minimal, but that is something that we've struggled with in the past. [20:14] Susan Faloon: I think that we could maybe have the core committee group, but then invite in experts as we need them and as various topics come up, so we don't necessarily, we don't need them at every meeting, we don't need them as a voting member, but we can tap into their expertise. [20:36] Daniel Carson: Dr. Carson, yeah, I just want to respond. I'm actually not married to that number 15 that I threw out. The reason I sort of went that direction was because I struggling to wonder who we would bump to bring other people in, and the other concern that I have, and more people wouldn't solve this, but I would, it would be disheartening to me if at the end of this process what happened was that those interests didn't work well together and a housing board ended up becoming a housing board where homelessness was. An afterthought, or a housing committee where homelessness was the predominant thought and everybody else's housing was the afterthought. And so I think, you know, I don't know what that balance looks like, so I'm not married to 15, but well, I'm starting to get sold. [21:21] Michael Beck: On the idea of whether it's a subcommittee or if it is two committees of just, you know, homelessness, you know, whether that's the task force we originally, you know, that was an idea floating around with a task force for that piece, and then have that housing board doing their work, you know, I'm, you know, on their side, I'm, I'm in favor of where that's going, you know, and so I guess right now we're talking about the makeup of this board, but I guess the conversation kind of shifted. I mean, how does this. Committee feel about, you know, do you see this as a subcommittee? Do you see us two separate committees? I mean, what direction do we want to look at the [22:05] Susan Deane: country? I'm still afraid they were losing focus from the original intent, which was to figure out how to deal with our ever-growing homeless population, and the more we talk about it and develop other committees, we're wasting time on this purpose. So I think we really need to address our original goal. [22:32] Wayne Mallar: Well, actually, doesn't the mission does address the original goal? Because it says after you've resolved that, then you go on to work with the with the housing issue. So I think you've already [22:44] Carollynn Lear: taken care of that in the mission statement. Yeah, so I think the first draft of this was just a task force for homelessness to address homelessness. The mission was a strategic plan to address homelessness, and I believe the membership was exactly what was presented here without the red lines. And then I think that's when we started to talk about, well, it's not really homelessness in isolation, it's also affordable housing. And then once we added the housing goals, that necessitated changes to the list of memberships, because naturally you needed bankers and developers who you might not have needed for the original task. I think either from a staff perspective, we can we can draft something to make that happen. I think it's just sort of strategically what Council would like to proceed with. Yeah, not professional. [23:52] Carolyn Fish: I believe that, you know, housing is a segment of the homelessness and the unhoused, but it's completely different, really. I mean, housing, you know, and affordable housing, you know, it involves everybody. I think affordable housing today is 80 to 90% of our population, young people, you know, anybody today trying to find a house today in Bangor under 350,000, it's very difficult. To attach housing with homelessness, I just don't want our population to think that, again, as so many do, that we spend a lot of time and we're really so focused on the homelessness and housing for the homeless is a small segment of it, but housing and affordable housing is just completely, you know, it's it's just such a broad and completely encompassing issue, and I think it does distract from our mission of a strategic plan for our homelessness and prevention of it and, you know, trying to deal With the mental health issues, just, you know, I think it can be, we've got so much going on that I think, like Counselor Dean said, we may lose focus is of, you know, the goal post for the homelessness well. [25:26] Michael Beck: Bringing it back to the membership, you know, I've heard some additional positions here, so we got the union housing builder, a real estate agent, commercial banker, someone with experience in medically assisted treatment, that would put it back to 15 if we take those four suggestions, I. [25:48] Wayne Mallar: Agree, I agree it would, but if you go with two separate committees, you can have, you know, nine on each committee or seven on each committee, whatever you want, I think that's the way to go for. [26:01] Joseph Leonard: That over a large one, I'm sorry. [26:03] Daniel Carson: As this conversation is evolving, I mean, I was sort of supportive of the idea of two committees a while ago, but I'm now coming back to being more supportive of that idea because one of those is like the strategic task force or committee or whatever on the homeless questions that is going to address that question using resources and our material conditions as they are right now, whereas housing is a that's an ongoing question and that is like, you know, using some imagination thinking about what we. Can build and as we move along, so I actually see those as two sort of different timing questions because we would not also want to suggest to our homeless population that they're going to wait around, you know, forever while we try to build affordable housing. [26:57] Susan Deane: I could see where these two committees could work in tandem at times as well, so, you know, there might be some overlap, so maybe they are sort of like a subset of the other committee. [27:18] Carolyn Fish: I agree, I think with two committees maybe having a liaison from one committee to the other because there is a segment related to each of them, yet even though they're sort of different, that there is an overlap as Council Dean mentioned, so maybe there's a some kind of a liaison on the housing committee to the unhoused and vice versa. [27:50] Carollynn Lear: I mean, the other item I would raise is that there's gonna be some level of continuity between the staff, both of those committees, right? You're gonna have probably public health and economic development, both being pretty in tune with what's happening. And if they aren't, they'll at least be talking to each other. So I think there's a opportunity for staff to help facilitate those touch points between the committees that might be necessary if it is council's desire to shift towards two separate committees well. [28:32] Michael Beck: What's, what's our pleasure? Because I guess that kind of changes the discussion if we're going to go with two, you know. But there's a discussion on lived experience that's more maybe about the homelessness piece, and then also, you know, the mission itself. If we got two committees, you know, we got two different missions. So how does this committee feel about, you know, would it be helpful if we were to see a draft for each, this, you know, with them separated out, and then be able to discuss because we have another gov ops is it next week or two weeks from today? The second, the second, March 2nd. So two weeks from today. Would it, would it be helpful if that's where the committee wants to go? Do you want to see a draft of each separate it out, and then we can kind of have a better idea of what we're talking about here and make a decision that [29:21] Joseph Leonard: way? What comes to Leonard? I would be totally fine hearing a draft on each. I just wanted to point out for people that it is going to be very difficult to separate both these issues just because there is a very silent but very large portion of Bangor's population that are currently renting or have housing, but they are on the brink of homelessness as well. It's going to be very difficult to pigeonhole those people who are very much realizing the threat of being homeless to also struggling with the housing-related needs and efforts in their lives, and I don't think those people are going to really feel at home in either of those isolated committees. So that would be my only consideration when going forward with both committees. There are pros to having two committees for each one, I want, I want to make that very clear, but just definitely be cognizant of that population as well. Come [30:27] Michael Beck: for Carson. Yes. [30:30] Daniel Carson: Because I think we really don't want to be in the same situation when snow hits the ground this year that we were in this past year. If we're gonna go, I'm not on this committee, I guess I just keep raising my hand to break stuff. It would be great if we're gonna separate these to see the draft on the homelessness task force first and to only talk about that one first so that we can move forward. [31:01] Carolyn Fish: And I do believe that there is a large segment that are, matter of fact, delinquencies right now with mortgages are as high as they were in 2008 just before they crashed, so there are a lot of people right now on the cusp of potentially losing their homes. However, the banks do have, since then they learned a lot, and they have professionals within the banking industry that work with those that are delinquent, and they have partnered with realtors that get special designations to help find solutions for those people that are delinquent before the fault to cure comes mature when they're, you know, when they're pre foreclosure. So I do think that those on that cusp would find a place within the housing committee specifically designed for that group of people question. [32:04] Michael Beck: The comments yes I was just going to. [32:08] Angela Walker: Agree with Counselor Carson sorry about making that one a priority I think that's really important so that we aren't faced with it's all these committees are meeting we're doing this we're doing that and then they come quickly like spring summer fall and then we have that I think that's important I'm in support of the two committees but I think the final draft should be that one that addresses what we're faced with so if I could throw this option out see if this. [32:40] Michael Beck: Is great everybody if we were to focus on the homelessness either it's committee if that's what we're going with on March 2nd and that will give us more time to chew over the housing piece and then the following month when we have our next cub opposite to that we can talk about the housing community again makes. [Angela Walker: Sense okay I.] Mean any more particulars that you need from us on where to go. [33:10] Carollynn Lear: With the homelessness committee I think we should talk about lived experience and how we want to address that as well as the suggestion about the individual from the school whether we want because that was not in our original draft but could certainly are we thinking like the Kenti Bento person I might suggest that we do the superintendent or designee to sort of acknowledge the fact that on any given day that person that specific position might actually not be the right position it could be. Vacant the superintendent may want to participate so that's what I would suggest but we can also put that individual position title as well. [34:05] Carolyn Fish: I think our manager Carolyn Lear kind of addressed it I was just thinking of someone because it's going to be confidential it's going to be you know someone that would have some rooted experience within the school to know what the unhoused people were but maybe the superintendent or someone that you know is a substitute that could take their place so that they could participate but as I think manager addressed what my point was thank you so. [34:44] Susan Deane: Numbers are the biggie, and we've got two committees, more people, but perhaps because it's a little more specialized, people be more interested in one over the other, so we may not [34:55] Carollynn Lear: be really losing out on that. Yeah, I would just roughly, I think probably we could easily get down to 11 on the homelessness committee because some of the folks on this list were specifically added to address the housing piece. I think so, even with adding the superintendent, with the caveat that we need to discuss how to address lived experience on that committee. Yeah, which depending on how you do it would potentially add more seats. [35:35] Michael Beck: So in the original draft we had actually carved out at large seats that just said you just have, and that's it, and then my draft and my thinking was more about having it piggyback off as a qualification for one of the positions. From what I'm hearing, you know, you want at least 30% of whatever number we come up with to have some kind of lived experience with this. 11, they gave us the number three, but it was also raised that will there be difficulty in getting people who may not want to self-disclose. You know, a lot of advocates I bump into and no problem telling their story, but you know, that's not going to be the same for every position, you know, and you know, then does that put us in the position of as we're interviewing people, we got some great folks who want to do it, but wait, we're short of the number of positions, whereas do we add some at-large seats that people who are applying for that know that they have to have that experience grants to get it, but whatever we land on, you know my feeling though is 30 seems to be the right number, and especially for the homelessness committee, for having the separate one now, and like any feedback on that piece. Dr. Leonard, what do we have to disclose to [36:54] Joseph Leonard: any committee members on any committee once we appoint them? I feel like if the week, if the personnel committee can just be informed by the candidate that they do have lived experience, do we have to then address that publicly to, the world in that sense? If that's the case, then okay, then I definitely see your point, we have to go with maybe like an at large representation, but if that's not the case, then we could just resolve this within the personnel committee when we're looking at candidates. I'm [37:33] Carollynn Lear: sorry i'm going to ask you on the spot question what for the personnel committee what portion of those application packets of public no that's correct yes and i guess the question would be is the public going to be satisfied with us saying trust us we got a third or will the [38:03] Carolyn Fish: public want to know for sure? Counterfish, I think we're really looking for expert guidance. You know, where we as a city obviously aren't the experts. We've proven that because we still have a big problem. I would like to see more experts as part of it, and obviously those with lived experience are very important, but 20 or 25, I think it's, it's, it's important to get the experts to the table that can help guide us through, you know, the experience and skills they bring to the table. So, you know, 20 or 25 We definitely need to hear from them, but I'd like to have as many experts to the table as we can. [38:59] Carollynn Lear: An idea just popped into my head, we could take a blended approach, we could have a certain number of dedicated seats and then add a line where we talk about the process for getting members to say that the council may also give preference to other applicants who meet a different seat criteria but also have lived experience. I [39:29] Daniel Carson: just wonder as I'm looking at the list of potential members, it would seem like at least a couple of those could be multiple, you know, people with multiple types of experience, but they are a person who has lived experience and also a person who has expertise in providing recovery, as is typical, we see that a lot. Yeah, and so that to me seems to be an easy thing to do. I [40:01] Susan Faloon: think it's also important to have a mix of people in that lived experience category who are currently unhoused, because it's like, what are the challenges right now? But also people who were once unhoused but sort of found their way out of it, because I think that perspective also is like, okay, we've got a success story here, what worked, and that's some really good experience, and that it may also be that expert, but so we're going to have sort of that mix, you know, like current challenges and then you know what was helpful along my journey and what wasn't and how can we, you know, put that into practice. [40:45] Michael Beck: Again, I think that there's worry about not being able to hit that target is what if we took another approach like other committees do. I think Acre is one who said, we prefer that you're from Bangor, however, you're given preference. My goal is I wanted to see people with experience on this board, but at the same time too, I don't want to see it not conform because we couldn't find it. The option is, hey, they couldn't find people, we couldn't find people to fill it, they didn't apply you know they can always do a subcommittee if they feel the need or you know a listening session or what have you to get that input to the table you know so i do we think we're going to handcuff ourselves if we put it in here that you absolutely have to get three you want to set that as a goal to work towards that but not codify it if you see where i'm going like but we I really want to see at least three if more the better especially if they want like you said the piggybacks off like they have lived experience and they have you know experience with tree recovery or you have what have you I'm just throwing options out here to make sure we're [41:56] Joseph Leonard: not handcuffing ourselves Council owner and actually to that point that you made I believe it's tree board that had this issue regarding not being able to fill certain positions because they were required to have an arbor or it says something else and so like I get that there are certain duties and perspectives on the committee that we do want to have but we still have to have the tree board actually meet and actually have their guidance given to the city overall so I 'm at the end of the day I just want the committee formed and to meet regularly and that 's the most important thing at the end of the day i 'm definitely with whatever the council feels is the best option to go forward but i don't like us having a system where we have handcuffed ourselves to your point and actually to another point and just a heads up council will be seeing this at some point the parking committee is also another one where it's handcuffed where if the council chair does not even show up to the meeting There is no vice chair to take it over that the meeting just literally can't go on anymore. And so we have to have a mechanism for these committees forming but also being able to be useful in their formation. So I, it's a tight rope. I definitely hear you, Counselor Beck. I think I would, right on the side of caution, just making sure that these committees can be formed at the minimum and giving preference to those with living experience. And maybe that's just something that we have to as a council in the personnel committee abide ourselves to not, that of course doesn't really mean much because it's not in the actual ordinance regarding the committee. But this is a really important issue that we do have to get on the ball and to try to come up with any sort of solutions possible. But we also want to make sure that we do have that perspective as well because that is incredibly important. We're not going to be able to solve an issue without that perspective. [44:17] Angela Walker: Yeah, I guess that's where I sit. So I'm in favor of doing the setting a goal of three because I think with this committee it will fluctuate. I think you're gonna have people that are in a spot where they're like, yes, I was unhoused, yes, I can speak up and in hopes of making some changes. And then I'll have, you'll have some people that are too, they can't speak up or they don't want to. So you may have three off the bat, but if you set it at three and we don't get free, but let's, we'll have to go back to doing this and are we, it's already been said, we've already voted on it. Like I think it's an, I am in favor of it being a goal of three. We would like to have three here, but if we don't, we don't. And we may have a strong three from the beginning, but just to give that extra, you know, so that we aren't tied down to we have to fill these three with lived experience and it has to be this. I think we've [45:21] Susan Deane: proven that nine of us who care deeply about this cannot solve the issue. So we do need to have people that are much more invested. I think maybe go down to nine. I'm just worried about not getting the numbers and not being able to meet. That's a big commitment, well. [45:50] Michael Beck: Yeah, that's all, and then I'll go to comfort now. In a second, I was gonna say, so get back to the live experience piece. Setting is a goal, not a hard coded you have to, and this is where we lean into all the advocates on this, everyone in this community who cares so deeply about this. Help us get people to, you know, to apply, you know. Let's communicate, let's bring them in, you know, let's, you know, let's reach out, because hey, in a perfect world, they all have lived experience and on top of, you know, the expertise they bring elsewhere. So that'll just be a big thing of just pushing out and reaching out to advocates and saying, hey, let people know we want applications, get people, you know, involved in this. Councilor Malik, well, the committee that [46:32] Wayne Mallar: you established, it's not going to be set in stone that you have to have 11 or nine. It's not going to be set in stone the type of people you have. I think you go forward with a number and go that way. And if you need to change it, we'll change it. But until you have an operating committee, you don't really know what you need. [46:52] Michael Beck: So if I'm hearing the right, so in other words, just we say, hey, we want this to be a committee of nine. And then whatever applications we get, we get, and then we look at all the applications. Oh, well, this person's got, you know, it has, you know, recovery experience, this one here, you know, has a shelter experience, and et cetera, et cetera. And then we pick and we, the personnel committee would then be setting and deciding what the roles would be based on who applied. [47:15] Carollynn Lear: So eliminate all of the sort of laundry list of categories and just give sort of the Personnel Committee and Council the autonomy to get the right mix. [47:24] Michael Beck: How do people feel about that? Comfort Fish? [47:32] Carolyn Fish: You're muted. Sorry, there was a little bit of background noise. When we're looking for the candidates to make up the committee, is there any reason why we couldn't reach out to specific people that we think are experts in the field and kind of greatly encourage them to participate? Rather than just put it out there, who wants to, you know, who wants to? Can we kind of have a list of people that we think would make good board members and reach out to them? [48:04] Wayne Mallar: We've always done that. Yeah, that's what we've always done. Yeah, the only thing I would suggest is that we not zoom the people. We need to meet them in person. [48:26] Michael Beck: And just make sure I understand right, so we're talking kind of a hybrid where we reach out to people that we would think would do well, we encourage them to apply, and then you know then they would just go through the process like everyone else. But yeah, I mean, as individual members, yeah, we know all kinds of people, and absolutely we should be reaching out. [48:42] Angela Walker: Real quick. [48:46] Susan Deane: I do think we should have a list though. [48:50] Carollynn Lear: Suggested, you know, the types of roles that I like, because we could get totally off. [48:56] Susan Deane: You know, someone presents well, but if they have no experience, sure, they're as useless as I am, yeah. [49:03] Michael Beck: It's a great point. So what if we did or this way where we came up with a list of hey, there might be 20 rules, you know, and we said they have to be one of these, so we don't have to have a the set nine of the set 11, just here's the examples that we're looking for, how are we comfortable coming around this committee, but I will [49:28] Susan Hawes: suggest to you that whatever you're going to do, you need to be moving expeditiously, because you can see how long it's taken just for this small portion of what the makeup of the committee is going to look like, and you don't want to lose all of your time to well, what's it going to be. Do the best you can, form it with the experts you have, and then if you need to add, if somebody that he drops out, you can add another one, but if you don't, time is going to go by very quickly, and we're still not going to have the homeless response that we were looking for. Questions, [50:12] Michael Beck: concerns, comments. So it sounds like the consensus is that we want to focus on the homeless piece first, we want to see you know not set the number of or set the number of spots, are we say nine, we say 10, 11. We can change that at the final meeting on that next month, but we're going to get a list of suggested roles, and then we're going to find of that makeup, whether 9, 10, 11, whatever we come up with, that fit within there, or set a goal of trying to have lived experience on top of it as far as their mission, then that is the give us our strategy, how do we, how do we solve this, what do we need to do, and [51:00] Carollynn Lear: it's really my intention, sorry, no, go ahead, my intention would be to use what is item a under the mission section, so if there are changes that you already see that you would like in that section, we can talk about those now or at the next meeting as well. The [51:29] Wayne Mallar: only issue I see with that, the mission is, we have to be very careful about regionalizing things. Our main concern is the city, not an Oscar County and not Easton main, so. [51:49] Carollynn Lear: I think that particular reference is more about really regional participation in paying for solving the page you go from the [52:02] Michael Beck: regional I like that more politically correct way to say that yeah okay do you think you have enough direction for my son what's your go homeless piece everyone likes a okay perfect and I think so just to recap then so we'll visit this again on march 2nd for the next go ops we'll have a draft to look at for the homeless piece and then we can then focus on the housing part are on April 6th. So I'll give more time to stew that over and think about that. Everyone okay with that and the objection? Okay, well, I think that closes out. I think it's a lot of thinking in.