Bangor committee debates fate of racial equity advisory panel

[0:02] Michael Beck: all right it is now 543 p.m. here at the government operations committee meeting and I'm chair Michael Beck joining me are members councillor Mellor councillor fish dr. Walker 13, thank you, thank you all to join the table or come to the leonard council chair hawes manuel carson councilman as well as assistant city manager courtney o'donnell. Before we go into our first order, i just wanted to pass a reminder, you know, as we discuss these items that, you know, we are here to discuss ideas and scrutinize ideas and just making sure we're treating our members and guests with respect. Thank you, and moving on to order number one, accepting the 2026 annual report for the advisory committee on racial equity inclusion and human rights. I believe we have the chair [1:06] Carollynn Lear: right share here to present the report. You want to join us at the table? Sorry, over and over again. [1:21] Katie Bryden: Hello, councillors. Thank you so much. My name is Katie Bryden, and I am the current chair of our advisory committee on racial inclusion, racial equity, excuse me, inclusion and human rights. And so your report was delivered in your latest packet. It's something that outlines the work that we accomplished in 2025. And it outlines not only what we did in terms of engaging with the community to promote awareness about different topics, also the policies and practices that we looked through, the ordinance and the programs that we evaluated, but also ways that we worked to elevate community concerns, so that everyone feels like they have a chance to be heard as is outlined in our ordinance. So we began by addressing our leadership structure this year, and that was one of the main things that we did because we had a couple of members who were not able to fulfill their commitment when they were appointed. However, we didn't have a mechanism to replace them. And so we were unable to meet forum for many meetings, which really did hinder our ability to do the work that we cared about. So one of the things we did was looking at that ordinance to outline how we could better evaluate the attendance, and with that came also identifying a secretary as an elected position so that we could better keep records of attendance. In terms of community engagement and public input, we held a table, we hosted a table at Bangor Pride. We had a ton of individuals share feedback with us about what they would like to see from Bangor, gathered that data, presented it to the city's community development officer, who was also at that time looking for feedback about how to make Bangor, we'll just really evaluate what makes Bangor a place of belonging and how we might better support that. That. Additionally, we had a couple of different citizens come to the table to ask us to bring forward some ideas or practices that we could deliver to the City Council. And what that looked like was us evaluating, answering questions, really sort of trying to frame out the best way to advance some work. One of those being individuals came to us after a representative from Bangor brought forward at the state level LD 1971 and then what could Bangor do to help push that forward in terms of identifying what the relationship between local law enforcement and ICE would look like. We also and we presented that ordinance as a recommendation to the council to not engage with 287 agreements and then we also following our participation or just as citizens listening to the December 12th workshop with the council, being able to hear ideas like that safe outdoor space and what a sanctioned encampment might look like, tried to meet with different collaborators and some city leaders to evaluate the best recommendations that we could present, which was also presented to you on January 5th. And that's really our key goals is just hearing from citizens, helping to elevate the things that maybe with the very heavy load that each of you have and the staff have what can we do to help make sure the citizens of Bangor feel heard have a place to share their needs and then evaluate the best way to bring that forward to be considered by council we really looked to our ordinance a lot this year in terms of making sure that what we were doing was in line with the original development of that ordinance just being that education awareness advisory piece on ordinances and excuse me policies so that is sort of the outline of this we didn't have like a monthly review of our accomplishments but that's what we want to highlight in our annual report this year and [5:35] Carollynn Lear: I'm happy to take any questions or comments. Any questions for the chair of the acre committee? [5:48] Carolyn Fish: From your inception in the original goal of task like to look at our charter and our ordinances and HR and our hiring practices to see if there are any, you know, unintended errors left out to bring some compliance. And now I know citizens have come to you with concerns as well, but from the initial conception of looking at the charter and looking at ordinances and bringing them up to, you know, up to speed, sort of say, and you know, since we've had issues with quorums and issues filling the membership seat, you know, what it just seems like, you know. So I know you brought things to council two or three times for resolves, and we discussed them and had advice from attorney even, and we rejected it, but it just seems like instead of working with us collaboratively, I felt that we were bantering, so I think it's great to hear from the citizens, but I think it's also good to see what the direction of the council is that we look for what we need or what we want and then it might just save everybody a little bit of time, you know, if we had that input first, so that's a little bit concerning. And I still know that what two we're still short two members, no, oh, are we, no, yeah [7:25] Katie Bryden: Well I think there's a yes, oh wait, that was just recently, yeah, it's appointed, yeah, so we were able to thankfully with this ordinance change fill those seats so that we could have full quorum. Absolutely, the other thing was that we did with our ordinance is also to establish a better partnership with the city council with the city council liaison position and hearing what was happening at a city level and how we might better address that, and I do want to be clear that everything that we bring to the council and I, really have an every possible means try to demonstrate that we're doing it as a means of recommendations and advice. And I certainly know that everybody here is here out of their own goodwill and big heart and love for Bangor. I don't, none of us want to waste people's time or be here, we don't have to. So I apologize if it felt like bantering. And if there's any recommendations the city might have on ways that we may better craft what is presented and how it's presented, our committee is always open to that feedback [8:32] Susan Deane: Thank you. Yeah, thank you, counselor. I believe the committee started in October of 2020, is that correct? I believe so, yes. Due to some racial inequity, and from there it's grown to be more citizen-wide. Do you still do a lot of work at the school level? And if you do, we always hear about that in addition to what is presented here. [8:59] Katie Bryden: So this school, the city was the first one to take the initiative in terms of creating sort of a mechanism for hearing about racial inequities. At the time, it was very directed at the school level. The city took that on really quickly, which is very impressive in terms of their commitment to hearing all of those voices. Places. Since then the school has developed its own separate Advisory Committee to the school board, and similarly that committee is comprised of different individuals that have been identified in the community as having a specific lens of expertise with certain populations of people that attend school or live in Bangor. And so they have actually, it's a very similar model. And in past years, your advisory committee to the city would meet with the advisory committee to the school on a regular basis, on at least a quarterly basis, to talk about how things were, what was happening, and how that was going. I will say that hasn't been happening recently, and I think that's just a matter of connecting with the new superintendent and finding ways that we might better be collaborative to make sure that there's a mechanism to share feedback both ways, [10:16] Carollynn Lear: since the school is such an integral part of our community. Is there a representative from the [10:22] Susan Deane: school committee yes i noticed there was one younger yeah is that a banger high student [10:27] Katie Bryden: Yes, it is. Great. Yeah, okay, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Sorry I didn't say that. Emmy's great. I should [10:33] Susan Faloon: have said that. We love you, Emmy. Thank you. I just want to say thank you for all of the hard work that you put into what you presented to the council. I didn't feel like it was bantering necessarily, but I think in a way we sort of need that back and forth, and I think you presented some really great well thought out ideas, especially during a time when you know we were dealing with a big issue, and it's a time when a lot of people are being targeted unfairly. And I think the fact that your group can pivot to what's going on and be there and sort of look at things through a different lens that we don't necessarily have the time as the full council to [11:19] Katie Bryden: dig into it's truly appreciated and I do want to say that we talk about that often as a group like we do have great privilege in that we're not we don't have your workload we don't have the amount of things that come to the city council so being able to have the individuals that sit at our advisory table that have such immensely rich backgrounds in different areas of expertise and be able to come together on ways that we might support you that is absolutely our priority [11:51] Carollynn Lear: So thanks for recognizing that. Okay, other questions? So [12:00] Michael Beck: I'll go ahead and put you in the hot seat by putting myself in the hot seat now that you know we've had the council liaison position, that disclosure, it's me. Are there ways that you feel that the council liaison person and position can serve that committee and the council better? It's been a learning experience for me and I know I haven't perfect, but I would be open any feedback you have that, you know, could make that relationship better. [12:26] Katie Bryden: Yeah, thank you so much for asking that. I think that there are a lot of ways. I will say that since its inception of this committee, we've been through many iterations in terms of how we operate and what we present in terms of trying to create subcommittees and then trying to appoint people different areas of specialty. And I think that as it's grown and more citizens have learned that we exist and want to be able to bring forward ideas, it has sort of become this opportunity to catch people's voices and needs. And I recognize that it seems like we are bringing things out of left field as a result because it's not maybe something that's on your report or something that you're looking for, and if anything it would be, we would all really appreciate the opportunity to hear from council more often. Like, this is something that's coming down the pike, can you look at this first? This is something that can you take this off of our plates? Like I said, people have the most amazingly impressive backgrounds on that committee and I think that they are eager to be able to step in and support. So we've really taken again just the nature of 2025, so much of these human rights issues fell into our laps, but if there are other issues that we could address, you know, in the past, you know, looking at the plans for the new city hall to really evaluate the accessibility, right, if you're a wheelchair user being able to go up to the front and be able to actually talk to someone at a level that you can see them, if you're Using a wheelchair, that was something that we've done in the past that was really helpful. Anything that you have that maybe isn't on your immediate agenda so that our committee can be as proactive and supportive as possible is something we're really open to. [14:22] Michael Beck: Okay, any other questions? I'll entertain a motion to accept this report. The motion would be to move this forward, make a motion to rule this to full council. Okay. Okay, I'm working the second. Do I have any doubt? Okay, this will go forward to the whole [14:45] Carollynn Lear: council. Thank you once again, counselors, I appreciate it. Thank you. All right, well, let's [14:50] Michael Beck: move on to the next item, which is an ordinance amending the code of city of Bangor to repeal article six of chapter 23, which established the advisory committee on racial equity, inclusion and human rights. Who's going to be presenting that? I guess who wanted this to be presented? [15:16] Lisa Goodwin: Would you like, I mean, I'm certainly happy to introduce it. [15:21] Michael Beck: I mean, I'm happy to read the action, that's what it is. So the title of this ordinance would be to, okay, title itself, sorry, it's amending the code of the city of Bangor to repeal article 6 of chapter 23, which established the advisory committee of racial equity, inclusion and human rights, and the actual language of the ordinance basically just deletes the chapter, meaning the committee no longer would exist. Starting with that, who would like to speak firstly? I [16:06] Susan Deane: will say that when I first read this, I felt like I was totally blindsided. I feel this should have come up in some sort of a workshop prior to a council action. It makes it look like this is something that we had discussed and brought about, and given the number of emails opposed to this, I would say they should have come about in a different way, and I was not happy with the way it came. Can [16:35] Susan Faloon: we get some context behind this, like why this, sorry, I'm not on this committee, but I guess I would just like a little like background. I don't know who to direct my question to, like as far as like why this is being presented, because I was caught off guard myself, and then when all of the emails and we've, you know, had dozens and dozens are still coming in emails from the public, and I like when they first started coming in, I was like, what was it, what is this all about, because I hadn't even had a moment to look at the council packet yet and in it because I think maybe a little explanation in the agenda might have been warranted too because to look at that it looks like this is something that the entire council is asking for and I will say that I had no conversations regarding this prior to seeing it on that agenda and I am in definitely no way in favor of disbanding that committee so I'm [17:40] Michael Beck: for fish oh I'm sorry council [17:43] Angela Walker: walker yeah go ahead please as a member on this committee I was like has been said before me I'm very shocked and very didn't really know where this came from when it when the email started to come in I was very alarmed very concerned for our community and I read each and every email and I am definitely not in favor of disbanding this so I'm just kind of looking too for some background and where it came from and who started it because it's the first that I heard of it was in an email and I was kind of shocked about it and I think it's unfair [18:21] Carolyn Fish: fair to us and to our community members council fish I guess I'm surprised to see it like this I was kind of like oh wow I think what first happened was I saw emails coming in and I thought what was this about I don't think that I'm shocked we're having the conversation because unfortunately I think there's a great population in van gogh who do feel isolated and have not been and happy with some of the actions. I know there's a grassroots tag team group of people that are very passionate about the subject with diversity and equality and inclusion, but the silent majority who do not dare to say anything because of their business and because of the outlast. And I'll just say myself, people from this committee themselves came and stood behind this podium and called me a white Christian Nazi. And that was totally wrong. And there's a lot of people out there in the public that feel that the committee and they don't understand they think that maybe there's even some counselors that are using the committee or the committee is using some counselors to steer certain political personal agendas and I was disappointed to have this conversation tonight because those people probably haven't seen the agenda they're not they've been away all weekend and they didn't have the chance and we don't have that grassroot oh I see That so I'm gonna to you know get in touch with the realtor community in the business community in the business downtown the chamber of commerce and have them innovate us with emails. So I'm I see the passionate side but I also see that when we have the committee come up here three times when they come up with a resolve and we have discussed it at length to be fair for the 33,000 citizens that are immigrants citizens and natives and when they feel that we are advocating more for you know Immigrants because of ICE they feel that this is anti-Trump in the past nine to 12 months that it's you know anti-ICE and it's anti you know speaking out against anything and politics doesn't belong in here. We are here as a business to look at infrastructure and business and yes the welfare of our community but in the last 12 months to have you know just the other night three counselors said I'm glad I went to the protest I didn't come in and say well I'm glad that you know we celebrated Charlie Kirk's life because wasn't that horrible that he got his neck blown out with the 30-06 not a peak and this isn't the place for it. Our political passions don't belong here and when we get badgered and said well if you're not going to do what we tell you or you advise what good are we there's a lot of cultural and active community involvement there's a list I tried today because I didn't have much time of 30 or 40 cultural advocacy groups experts with immigrants for diversity for a lot of Things and us to come in and spend the hours that we are and then even when we collectively democratically vote that this resolve really feels more divisive than inclusive and community members are feeling that we are specializing in dividing and raising up certain communities above and beyond the others. So I'm not surprised that this has kind of come up for conversation I was a little surprised it came up now and it was unprepared but so I do believe that there's been at least some private Conversations with more than one of us counselors and I'm sure with a manager and there is this frustration in the community they don't dare to come and speak out because some of them have already had business very negative and unpleasant things happen personally. So that's my take I don't have the emails I haven't had time I had to work all weekend when we got this on two o'clock on Friday so I'm not judging anybody I'm just saying that I have heard the other side of this and that sometimes we Forget you know the squeaky wheel against the grease. We forget that the 32,000 residents out there, the silent majority. [22:47] Joseph Leonard: Don't dare to speak back, so I have to disagree with you, Councillor Fish, on one major point. You said something along the lines that this is not the place for politics. [23:02] Michael Beck: I just wanted to remind her that no, we don't use personalities, we just no, I'm. [23:07] Joseph Leonard: Not, I'm not using personalities. In fact, I'm only going to refer to myself, but like it's just all politics is local. That's what politics actually is. And so I don't personally, I'm only speaking for myself, but like I don't think politics or government is here to represent businesses. I think they're here to represent sovereign citizens, people who are, have a 14th Amendment right, that's anyone who can claim to have a birth certificate, or anyone that has a green card, or it's a naturalized citizen in. The United States, and the thing is, the reason why I know that we can allow partisan politics at the local level is because, and I'm only speaking for myself, I was targeted as a person, not at this level, but on the campaign trail. I was told that I wanted more homelessness, that I wanted more crime, and I was told that I wanted more taxes. That is 100% a political ploy that's being done by organized members that don't even belong to this community here in Bangor, that tried to manipulate the council. Into representing their own interests. So it does exist, you are right, but it's not one-sided entity. It exists throughout. But again, I have to reiterate, though, it is incredibly important to recognize the fact that all government is local, and government is not here to make sure that people's businesses go the way that they're supposed to. We're here to take care of people. We're here to protect citizens. That's my goal at the end of the day. And that's the ethos that I bring to this council. [25:01] Carolyn Fish: Yeah, just I think there's a misunderstanding, if I may just correct what I mean by business. I mean that we as a council, we take our own, we say that we are looking at the city of Bangor like a tapestry of a harmonic community, and that our business is related to budgets and infrastructure and land used in codes for the betterment of all, not, we don't have the, we shouldn't be bringing the politics of, you know, pro ICE, anti ICE, pro immigration, anti immigration. I think that's a part of the community fabric that we have, the multicultural committees and all kinds of different advisory committees. And if we get to the point where we need that advice, we should reach out and get it. But the last year, two years or five years that I've tried to research today, I didn't see that there was a lot of, you know, inclusion for a lot of other communities. You know, we've done something with the LPGTQ for Pride Week and gone down, but we have other religions that I really haven't seen a whole lot of representation for. There's a lot of other groups. We have strong Korean and Vietnamese groups. It seems like we've been very targeted to a few, and it seems like we've spent a lot of time about immigration. We have 32,500 residents, and this is where I don't think, as a matter of fact, I think in our charter it says that we are not to direct our interest by having a particular certain individual or groups whether we rally outside to try to influence council votes whether economic or otherwise which may accrue to such individual groups to result in a passage or denial of an order or ordinance and we are doing that when every time we come up and we don't you know three times we've had the immigration we said we're inclusive I was comfortable with the way we finally ended up agreeing that because I felt that was inclusive it was inclusive for our immigrants it was inclusive for our LGBTQ plus community it to me that was bringing our community together and letting everybody know but when we are targeting out and saying you know we're going to riots and we're you know we're standing up against that we're only speaking of a portion of a small portion of the city we are creating divide and we are adding to the cut chaos instead of coming to the table and just taking care of the business which we've been hired to do budget infrastructure the person the personnel the way our system flows here we are here as business leaders not to get in the mix of social agendas that's when I meant business, I don't mean we should just look out for business. I think that us as intelligent leaders are here to do business. We have infrastructure issues. We have homeless issues. We have affordable housing issues. But, you know, here we are debating. And when someone stands up here and continues to come back three times and going to come back again, I'm sure with another immigration or ICE. Just last week we had a bust of child pornography. There's certain things that we need to keep the criminals out of Bangor. And you know when six students got shut up at Fort Kent, I don't think municipalities were all running around saying we don't want Main National Guard or the National Guard. We're going to focus on unity and inclusivity, the without it creating divides. In the past year when we have the attitudes coming up to the podium from this group, it has been a lot of opposition and a lot of people feel we're not paying attention, that 32,000 people left being left behind because our interest and our compassion has been hijacked [28:59] Susan Faloon: Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this committee about more than immigrants? And maybe that has been the topic lately because that has been the topic nationwide. But on July 7th, 1984 in Bangor, Maine, one of the most heinous hate crimes happened right here in Bangor, and that is when Charlie Howard was killed. And we sort of became the poster child for, you know, for this like horrific crime against a member of the LGBTQ plus community. I think that is not something that we want to be known for. I think we want to be known for being welcoming. I will say also as the mother of a special needs child in the Bangor school system, I have had to fight for his rights his entire life, and that is what includes inclusion is all about. And until you have had to fight for somebody like that for every little thing so that you know they can get what they are legally entitled to. And now we're in a time when those very things, DEI, which includes programs for special needs children are under attack. These are all things that impact like much more than the immigrant community, but also we should be welcoming to the immigrant community because people are being ripped apart right here in the state of Maine when they are here legally. So for all of these reasons and all of these groups, we need to keep this group. We may not agree with one particular component of what this group is doing, but there are plenty of other groups and they like I said may not have been the focus like recently, but that doesn't mean that they haven't been or might not be in the future [31:04] Wayne Mallar: Future, I'm inclined to agree with Councillor Fish. This is an advisory committee, so I assume an advisory committee is, going if we have an issue, we give it to them to give us advice. They seem to be running rampant any way they want without asking if that's the way we want to go. So, you know, I don't know what, why you call them an advisory committee when they stand up and chastise the council for not doing what they wanted them to do. Who are they advising on that? Are they advising the general public? I mean, I'm a little confused. When you look for advice from someone, you take it and decide what you want to do. You don't expect them to stand up there and say, you didn't follow my advice. Therefore, you people are not doing the right thing. That's not what giving advice is all about. Sometimes you like their advice. Sometimes you don't. But it's our decision to make. Think it's not theirs. They work for the council, and they seem to have forgotten that. So I'm in favor of eliminating it. [32:11] Michael Beck: If I could just say, in regards to the advice. For example, the ICE ordinance which comes up. They came to us on go ops, we discussed it. They took advice at that time and they went back and they talked to chief and they talked to city solicitor. And you know in my opinion they've been watered down to resolve is a result of that feedback and then they brought back because again they thought we wanted them to come back because we gave them the feedback and so they were acting under our direction and I would say that you know looking at the ordinance that established them you know their mission is to develop ideas and information to educate individuals within the organization framework as well as the community focusing on the topics of But not limited to awareness sensitivity equity inclusion diversity check they're doing that review and advise city staff regarding policies and practices to recruit hire onboard promote and retain a diverse and inclusive workforce that's also part of their mission but also specifically their work is to mitigate the potential for bias in the hiring or retention decisions through consistent evidence-based tools proceeding procedures and trainings but this is the part I think that you know tells Them, they don't have to wait for us. It says their job is to review applicable ordinances, policies, and programs to ensure that they promote the goal of accepting, respecting, and valuing differences, including attributes such as age, race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, I mean the whole list there. And so I don't think it's a matter of they're doing not what we're telling them to do. I mean, that's what an advisory committee does. They come to us, they do give us advice, and you're right, we don't have to listen to it, and we haven't always, but I appreciate hearing it. I don't, yes, I got 75 emails supporting this committee, but I didn't need 75 emails to tell me how much to value their input. I have always valued it, and I'll continue to value it, and I definitely do not support removing this committee, and certainly not now, not these aren't political issues at all. You know, being afraid of ICE isn't because they're a Democrat. Being afraid of ICE isn't because they're independent, you know, it's not an exclusive thing, you know. The fact that they are a protected class, that they are a vulnerable minority, that is why they're afraid, because they are being targeted. That's just facts, not politics. So I'm happy to hear these issues because they are the issues of the people we represent, and I will say this, if 32,000 people feel like they're not included, I believe we do have a committee that deals with inclusion, and I would recommend them to bring up their issues. You all want to make sure that everyone feels included that 's a real thing if we're not just throwing it out there to use it as used to kill it is a real feeling of i don't feel included please speak up you know let's let's let's hear so i just want to put out there that i also am not in favor of removing this committee counselor carson yes to be clear i'm [35:33] Daniel Carson: not on this committee, but I want to make a few comments. I am, I'm supportive of the mission and the goals of the committee as stated in city code. I have a concern with the ordinance that we're discussing, the actual language of the ordinance in front of me, which hasn't come up yet, and the concern is that this suggests that the recent work of the committee in terms of discussions around housing and homelessness will overlap with the jurisdiction of the conversation we're about to have, and so I Would expect that if that, you know, that being true, the remedy really would be to direct, to redirect those conversations if we were to create the housing committee or whatever it's gonna be called. So I just have that sort of issue with the actual order that is in front of me, because that seems to be an easy way to fix that. I am generally, I'm supportive of the mission and the goals of the committee. I think it's important when we have discussions, I would love to hear as we're talking about housing, I would love a committee to remind me that seniors often face discrimination as they go back into the workforce because of our deteriorating economic conditions. And that they also face discrimination in housing. I would love somebody to remind me about those things as we're talking about them. But then I have the question of jurisdiction. And so maybe this is where maybe somebody could help me to understand how this process works, the back and forth. When I read in the mission that it's to review applicable ordinances, policies and programs to ensure, sure. That to me suggests that the things being reviewed must already exist, right? Because an ordinance policy or a program isn't just an idea. Those are things that are put on paper and passed. And so I just maybe want a little bit more understanding. I know the committee long predates existence here in this space. So maybe if somebody who could provide that background to me about how that interplay works, how they take up their work actually [37:50] Michael Beck: Might be able to answer that unless someone else wants to say something, maybe we [37:56] Susan Hawes: Could hear the ordinance. The one thing I would say is this just didn't fall out of the sky. There were people with concerns that came. The way the advisory committee is set up, it can be set up or taken away by the council chair. It does not have to go to a full meeting. That isn't what we wanted. We wanted a discussion and so city manager was willing to draft something for us to bring here for discussion. This may not get decided tonight. This may have to hold to another workshop or something where other views that haven't been brought up is this was put together sort of quickly when the committee was formed. And I don't believe there were a lot of guidelines and who was responsible for what and when were they going to come back and report? What did we want in those reports? How often do we want those reports? I think it's becoming clear that some of our committees are, especially the advisory ones, are out there and kind of doing what they think they're supposed to be doing. But there really isn't a lot of accountability on either side. And that was what I discussed with the city manager, is maybe we look at the ordinance and take it to the council and hear some discussion on it. There might be some revamping, and maybe at the end of the day, it might go away. But if it doesn't, it has to be in a better form than it is right now. That's what I was hearing from people that were coming. That's where it said repeal. Repeal was kind of just to not give anything for a while, let things settle and see what we were going to have for discussions. That's why we're sitting here with this, so with the chairs, if he would let you introduce the ordinance. Yeah, I mean, I'm, it's [40:12] Lisa Goodwin: pretty straightforward it's just a full repeal of the committee i think i did hear a question though which was how does the work come to the committee counselor Carson was that sort of your what's sort of like the actual cadence of how issues get raised and I think that there are probably a couple of people who could answer that question Courtney staffs that committee and creates the agenda so I think she could talk in a very practical sense about how issues come to the agenda. And then I think, of course, the long standing chair of that committee could speak to sort of how they identify issues. So I actually started working for the city of Vancouver a few months, or Yeah, it was a few months after it was put together in October 2020. But by the time the ordinance went through was approved, and it was stopped, it was early 2021, when I actually get up off the ground, and to the committee chair's point earlier, certainly it's been through a lot of changes and whatnot. And so currently what we do for the agenda is if the council were to refer an item through a committee to this, then it would be funneled through. Otherwise, I meet with the chair and the vice chair a week or two before the meeting to set the agenda, and oftentimes Those items kind of roll over from meeting to meeting, and sometimes staff have different things, such as the plan for CDBG, for example, has gone through the committee multiple times in other items internally that staff kind of bring forward under the belief, I guess, of what the ordinance says for their consideration. So for example, when we were updating the website, we brought that before them a few different meetings to discuss. And so yeah, I would just say that in general, the committee has acted with guidance from staff. And so if there is a different expectation from the council as to how you would like this committee to operate, that would be really best directed, I think, at staff, as we're the ones that give that guidance to the committee. And I will say that with a counselor liaison, that has alleviated that burden a little bit because it's a better bridge, I think. But certainly, you know, we are here to provide support and background and information that may be helpful. [42:54] Susan Deane: I'm still confused as to why it came out in an order and not in a discussion at a workshop. It seems like we all have a lot to say about this, in my opinion. If there were issues with the advisory committee, we should be discussing what kind of changes we want, not disbanding an advisory committee that's been with us since 2020. Perhaps they have moved into a direction that people are not comfortable with, and that's worth the discussion, but to disband a very important advisory committee due to a few issues, in my opinion, is unfair. It should have been a workshop. The 287g, I feel badly because I believe I was the one that agreed that they should come back, and then when they came back, everyone was confused why they were back. So I think it was a miscommunication. We kind of were being nice, I think. We all didn't, we weren't really comfortable with that at the time, but we didn't want to say no because we knew we should probably do something, and so we had them come back, and it probably did concern a few people, and we ended up not approving it, which is what we have the right to do, I mean. There are a lot of different opinions, but I really have a problem with people who don't understand that there are people in this community who are persecuted because they are different. And unless you have a child who is transgender or gay or deaf or disabled, I don't think you can fully understand what they go through. So I don't think disbanding this committee is what we need to do. Restructuring perhaps, but this order to me is not in our [44:37] Susan Faloon: best interest. Comfortable, I agree with all of that, but that's not what I want to say. I'd be interested in knowing, like, if we have a ballpark figure of who kind of was not or contacted us and had an issue with this committee, because we've gotten, as you've all seen, probably 75 to 100 emails and counting, because they're still coming in, from people who are against disbanding this group. And just out of curiosity, is it a handful of people who wanted to disband it? Because if we're proposing disbanding it because of a handful of people when we've got maybe a hundred people saying don't do it, I think we need to weigh that as well. [45:28] Michael Beck: Well, we do have a long night and I want to make sure I get to Council Walker as well, but at some point I do want, if we're going to entertain a motion on this one way or another, I mean, I'm just assuming the affirmative would have to be, or we're just, you know, tabling it for now, something. [45:41] Angela Walker: But please come to water. So as most of you know, this does kind of date before I became a council member, and so I'm still learning, and I won't continue to say that until I can put these pieces together for myself. But I know that you have said, chair, that you know you and the manager here had just had a discussion around it, and how did the community members know before the councilman is kind of was one part of the question that I didn't know that. But even if that's, we're supposed to know, I don't know. So I'm asking because I don't know. I also am curious about, you could said, chair, that the chair has the right to end the committee without the council vote. That's new to me, I didn't know, and I wondered if we could talk a little bit more about that or have a different discussion, because I don't know about that and how it came about, this. So I'm just, I don't know, I feel kind of uncomfortable now, but I wanted to kind of put it out there that I don't, I didn't understand the process of that. I Also, in him in agreeance with Council Counselor Dean about what she had said, and I'll back that up 100. I do not agree with this. I think it's unfair, and I'm gonna end it there. Sorry. [47:11] Lisa Goodwin: I just want to talk a little bit about process. So any counselor can ask city staff to draft a order or resolve any materials for council consideration and request that it be placed on the agenda. And so that's sort of any idea that you all have, we would do that for you. We would take your direction, draft it to the best of our ability, and then assist in getting it on the agenda, which is what happened with this one. I appreciate that. I also just before I end [47:45] Angela Walker: real quick is that I kind of felt like going into this and hearing about this and it being brought tonight for a discussion, I didn't feel like at all before this that it was political. I do now feel like that. It's kind of an uncomfortable feeling because I felt like that we are all, we do want the best for the community, and we each all bring our own individual opinions and whatnot to the table. And I don't know, I'm just going to leave it at that. I wanted [48:15] Michael Beck: to get that out there. Sure. Did anyone want to speak to the other question that Council Walker had about you? Because my understanding, this is an ordinance, it would require being repealed through an ordinance as it's written here, and I don't know of any other way it can be just [48:32] Lisa Goodwin: unilaterally disbanded. Yeah, I'm not off the top of my head, I don't have it in front of me, so I wasn't thinking about whether the council chair had authority to do that or not. I'm, I can't [48:44] Michael Beck: answer that. I would have to go look for clarity for all of us. It may be the city solicitor. I know he's not here tonight, but at some future, I mean, we could just make sure, we'll check, we're all on the same page. I is we'd like to move on to the other issues. Does anyone want to make a motion regarding this item? We [49:07] Carolyn Fish: make a motion to table it for, I don't think the community's had an opportunity. I know we got 35 to 70 emails, but I also think that those in favor of this got the heads up or got a community, a network of communication, and I think the other part of the community has not had the opportunity to weigh in on, so I think we need to make a better effort to communicate with the people at large out there. And even if they don't dare to come and speak at the podium, they know how to email us, and I don't Know that they even know this subjects come up and they're probably a lot of them that you guys have heard of from and I've heard from, so I just don't think we're fairly hearing from a lot of people in the community that I think are compassionate and they agree that after what happened to Charlie Howard we've, we've made him, you know, we've tried to really remember that to be inclusive, that's why we had that resolved to welcome everybody and, but I also think there's a lot of people that are feeling left out, you know, I know our Jewish community has a lot of fear right now with the anti-sensitism, we've not seen anything coming out for them, so I think sometimes in our focus and we're so passionate, they think sometimes we forget. And what we think is inclusive, unfortunately, sometimes is ironically making it more divisive. And I also had maybe a misconception that the council's job was to look at our charter, look at our HR, look at our ordinances. And to me, that was a task they've done and reviewed through it and made changes. So, if their job is done, you know, do we just have somebody on like an ethics committee where when we need them we bring them up and we have maybe a better rounded table of other experts that include other aspects of the community that do feel that way. Is [51:15] Michael Beck: your motion to table till the next the next come ops meeting? [51:21] Susan Deane: Yes. Can we not entertain a motion to reject it and cut and have it, well I can't do it in the negative [51:27] Michael Beck: interrupt please someone have to move it in the affirmative and then figure but the motion i have the motion right now is the table until the next gov ops meeting is there a second is okay so we'll do a roll call vote on this motion and then double you have a question about the [51:51] Susan Deane: motion or well it depends on whether this just don't understand what tabling it will do, it's [51:54] Michael Beck: still here, so if you doubt it we have to vote on it, yeah so we have to vote so roll call vote counterfish this is for the table, it's for table in it, yes I'm [52:12] Susan Deane: confused if I table it comes [52:14] Michael Beck: back, yes if I don't table it does not come back, it doesn't come back, we're still in possession of the item and we have to decide, we can vote on the item, well we would have to have a motion to, you know, and then vote, but yes no motion would exist at that point, it's still in possession, what are we going to do, oh I vote not to table it, okay I don't have the walker I'm sorry I don't know and I'm a no, so we won't table it, any other motions on this item, a [52:50] Angela Walker: motion to not disable this mantlet [52:54] Michael Beck: What is that? Well, you can't, you can't motion it negative. The motion is in your vote, but you can motion to say I want motion, we move it to the full council. Okay, and then I would like to motion to move it to the full council. Do you have a second? Okay, so motion in a second. Since we'll have doubt of the roll call vote, Councillor Fish, yes. [53:18] Wayne Mallar: Yes, you're just going to move it to the council. [53:24] Michael Beck: I'm still confused. Well, now the main thing in front of us is whether or not to move the full council. No. Councillor Walker. Yes. Okay. And I will be a no. So we have agreed. [53:36] Carolyn Fish: I think Councillor Walker might be confused. [53:39] Angela Walker: She's got me confused. Sorry. [53:41] Michael Beck: The motion was, are we moving this to the full council for consideration? So again, Councillor Walker. No. No, okay, and I'll be a no, so that's two yes, three no, so this will not move forward to full council. Let's move on to the next item then. Now on this item, there was an email that went out, I have a conflict of interest because that involved the other place peer-run recovery center. Council previously voted that I do have a conflict. There was a, there was a instruction from the city solicitor on how to remove the very care program during this. I don't want them out of the room if somebody wanted to read. That motion or make that motion, put a name in there. Yeah, you'll just make a motion to nominate somebody. [54:34] Susan Deane: I cannot vote on this motion. I make a motion to nominate myself to stand in for council. So if that group has any conflict with this particular item on the agenda. Second. Second. Okay. [54:54] Michael Beck: Any doubt? Are we outside? So [55:06] Susan Deane: I believe we are discussing an order authorizing the city manager to execute a subcontract with Maine Mental Health Connections, together place peer-run recovery center to receive see about $250,000 from the State of Maine's Overdose Response Pilot Grant. And we'll be discussing this. [55:26] Lisa Goodwin: I think that is Jen Gunderman, Public Health Director. [55:32] Carollynn Lear: We'd see you sometime tonight. I missed you all. [55:36] Katie Bryden: Jennifer Gunderman, Director of Bangor Public Health and Community Services. So a few weeks ago, you voted to approve us receiving the funds for the overdose response team. Team. This in front of you now is to go into a subcontract with Together Place to actually employ one of the people that's part of that overdose response team. This is a contract that we've had for many years. This is one way that we work with our community partners who have expertise and staff who have skill to work in this area. So what we're just asking is that you approve, consider approving, that we enter into this contract to continue funding that overdose response team member do. [56:21] Susan Deane: We have any questions on the item of counterfish? [56:30] Carolyn Fish: We've had some discussion, and I know we probably can't resolve this here, but we've acquired a lot of grants and we've passed them out, and then we never really have any attachment to them for accountability, reporting back how it's spent, how it's going. And you know, we, after the woman shelter funds we just dispersed, I have a great concern about general approvals when we don't see any fiscal reporting or accountability or just, you know, that's really being done. And we just pass them and they get the money. And I just would like to see a little more accountability and reporting. So we know what's really being done and what was done. [57:19] Katie Bryden: I respond to that. Our funding in our department comes with very strict reporting requirements because our funding sources is the state, which we go through contract management, are very strict requirements on both fiscal reporting and programmatic reporting. So the funding that we're providing writing here and this grant is with Maine Department of Health and Human Services, and we'll be meeting those reporting requirements. We also require our subcontractors to do that reporting to us. With this grant specifically, this funding also supports an options, well, an overdose response coordinator, just staff person who actually sits in our department to make sure that there's oversight and accountability. So the funding that comes out of our department has very strict reporting requirements to it. Thank you for [58:09] Carolyn Fish: answering that. So this 50,000 or resolves our action orders similar to this, if they're coming through your department, you guys are overseeing an accountability. Absolutely, and because it's linked [58:22] Katie Bryden: to our funding sources that require that. Okay, thank you, Dr. Miller. If that's the case, we should [58:29] Wayne Mallar: be able to see a report that you've had in the past. Absolutely, I can provide. I think we should [58:34] Katie Bryden: for this project specifically. Yes. Any [58:44] Susan Deane: other questions? Yes, council. Will we get more [58:49] Angela Walker: updates from Together Place with in regards to the funding up to fifty thousand dollars for? Is this the options that's going to be in your office that will go to Together Place? [59:01] Katie Bryden: No, this is an actual staff person at Together Place. [59:06] Angela Walker: So the funding is for staff member for Together Place through your... Yeah. [59:11] Katie Bryden: So we get the funding and then we subcontract with Together Place for one of those options teams members. So that $50,000 goes towards some of their staff time, some of the oversight staff time. I'm not quite sure if there's indirect in the subcontract. [59:27] Angela Walker: Is this person full-time or part-time? [59:30] Katie Bryden: This is I believe a full-time person but I can what often happens is we will provide a contract to an organization for x amount of money to pay for so many hours or so much time and sometimes what happens with organizations is they use funding from another source to then make a full-time position so I will check to see if with fifty thousand dollars I don't believe this is funding the full one FTE I believe this is part of a time and then together place finds funding from another source to fill in if they want to make that a full FTE position [1:00:06] Susan Deane: any other questions may I entertain a motion period [1:00:17] Joseph Leonard: last [1:00:24] Carolyn Fish: night but I make a motion to [1:00:27] Carollynn Lear: move the order second [1:00:30] Angela Walker: a second we [1:00:34] Susan Deane: have a motion we have a second will this go to full Council so this will be seen next week full Council on Monday February 9th [1:00:47] Susan Hawes: you want to stay [1:00:52] Carollynn Lear: thank you turn [1:00:59] Susan Deane: this back over to counselor back yes [1:01:02] Michael Beck: thank you so i believe that brings us to the public health update public health director [1:01:13] Katie Bryden: yeah please enjoy it sure so thank you for letting me provide this update for you today and please let me know with these updates if you have any other questions or any other things you want me to bring to you and i'll start off with the hiv hepatitis c outbreak there is an update from when this memo went out as of 1 26 the main cdc is reporting 36 cases so we have had another case since this memo was written that equals about 58 percent of the cases were reported just in 2025. this outbreak timeline cdc is saying starts about October 2023, with one case reported at the end of 2023. We can see that we're still seeing more cases. So the US CDC team, the federal CDC team, was here in Bangor for about two weeks. They did a few different things. First, they did qualitative interviews with people in the impacted population. So it's people who are part of the outbreak, break, people who are not part of the outbreak but are at risk for transmission. They made a lot of observations about how we're doing our work on the ground, and then they also did some education while they were here. So some of their key takeaways include that reducing stigma is a critical part of this work, particularly in the interviews. There was a mention that people are seeking care based upon where they feel the least amount of stigma,. And the good news is that there are places that they can receive care as part of this outbreak response that they don't feel that stigma, but we can be doing more in terms of breaking down that barrier. They also mentioned that there are opportunities for improving system efficiency, such as getting a blood drawn done when there was an HIV test done, and also some efficiency around the prep or the pre-exposure prophylaxis programs. And then also another key takeaway was including hepatitis C strategies. We've talked a lot about HIV, but hepatitis C is getting a little bit lost in that. They did highlight, I just want to say, the benefits of our case management program. They said that it was reaching people, that it was engaging people. People had reported in those interviews that was a positive, as well as many other of our partners activities, so as a result the Bangor public health and department has started to think about what we can do a little bit better. So a couple things that we're doing is that we are revamping our self-testing program. We've given out over 150 self-tests in Bangor. That is one strategy for people who don't want to go and get tested in a clinic or an outreach setting. We have designed educational materials around if we're doing some revamping of that program so that there's a little bit more information and education about self-testing. We are hoping to planning an expansion of our clinical services. One of the things that seemed as a big barrier is the blood draw. So people would go to get tested in a non-clinic setting, and they get what's called a rapid, just like a finger prick. It's an antibody test. Antibodies take three to six months to develop. When someone tests positive, it's really important they get an actual venous blood draw. There's barriers to that in some of our outreach settings. So we've been working with our public health nurses have reached out to pchc to help us be able to do those blood draws to be able to get that confirmation testing done that will be sort of help to break down some of those barriers. And then again in supporting increased testing in education. So i've already reached out to the methadone clinics to the warming centers to a few other partners to see how we can expand testing. We are trying to work smarter, not harder, meaning what we know is that we have very limited resources in this area. We do not get any additional funding at our department to do this work. So we are trying to do the work with the funding that we have. And what we really need to do is do the things that have the best return on investment. So there are some things that we're just not able to do at our department. Department because what we do is we say what does the evidence say that's most effective sort of that high impact low resource kind of career and I can go into that but I do want to also share with you that if anyone's ever interested we have these handy dandy resource cards that list all the resources for prevention treatment and care this is also available on our website [1:05:59] Carollynn Lear: === Referrals === [1:06:02] Katie Bryden: Any questions about outbreak response any questions for the record the one other thing that i would mention is we've been in contact with a number of agencies and entities that have reached out to us that are national organizations to help guide us in our strategies not only uscdc has provided us with input but we've talked we've spoken with just throughout the acronyms him nasdaq nature and we even have someone from the rhode island department of public health who's coming up to look at how We're how operations are happening here to provide a specific next update is around syringe service programs i know there's been some questions about how syringe service programs come to be in bangor an entity that wants to be an ssp puts an application in to the main cdc the main cdc reviews that application they have a review committee that's made up of a number of people and they have about 30 days to approve or not approve an application once they approve an application that's when we're informed we are not informed or have any role in an ssp approval we just get notified at the end the first i just want to clarify that's what happens one of the reasons why the city got involved say with needlepoint sanctuaries application was because once we received notice that they had been approved for the ohio street location that's when we learned that wasn't an area that was zoned because we never knew up front we couldn't address that issue up front so i just want to clarify because there's some confusion like when we actually get involved. There are three brick-and-mortar SSPs, Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness over on Hancock Street. Needlepoint Sanctuary has two now brick-and-mortar sites. There's the Ohio Street location, which is on, I believe it's Thursday, Fridays, Saturdays. And then they've just been approved for the U Church on Mondays and Tuesdays. That's the only main CDC-approved SSPs in the city of Bangor. Last legislative session, a new bill was passed, and the rules are being developed right now that will change what SSP services will look like across the state. One of the first changes that will be made is that when an SSP gets certified the first time around, they will be certified and they will be able to operate within an operational area. So what happens is right now, if an SSP wants to have another location or a mobile site, they have to inform the CDC, get approval, and it goes through a process. Now, once an SSP is approved in a municipality, they can go wherever they want as long as it meets the city's zoning and other ordinances. So that's a significant change that you should be aware of. The other change that's being made is that SSPs will be able to do delivery of syringes. That's a different mode of providing syringes and all the other SSP services. That's different. And then the other part of the ordinance, I believe there's some other dirty details about application. But the other part of the other part of the rules will be that an And SSP can't be within, I believe, it's 1,000 feet of a school. I think that's now. I also just want to let you know that SSP services are more than needle exchange. They're also education, referrals, collecting needles, and HIV, hepatitis C testing. That's the full package of SSP services. [1:09:51] Susan Faloon: That's not the point. The needle collection, is that a requirement they have to turn in like at all of these locations that they have to turn needles [1:10:01] Katie Bryden: In order to get new ones, no, so yes and no. The way that the rules are written, SSPs must receive needles. So if I was an injection drug user and I had a box of needles and I was a consumer at an SSP, I can bring in my box of needles and say I'm bringing these to you. There's a little bit of a policy. So in the state of Maine, it used to be one for one. You bring in a needle, you get a needle. That changed over COVID. And basically, what can happen is a person can receive, I believe it's like up to 100 needles at a time. The evidence-based way of doing needle exchange is what's called needs-based, where you have a conversation with someone and say, how many needles do you use a day? When's the next time you can get back here? Let's do the math, and that's as many needles as I'll give you, and I'll expect you to bring as many of those back to me. That's kind of the evidence-based way of doing SSPs, but it's not a one-for-one. I have a question regarding the distance [1:11:10] Susan Deane: from, you said a thousand yards from a school? No, I a thousand feet a school property, feet from a school property. But there are no restrictions as to how far from a residential property, correct? [1:11:23] Katie Bryden: That would come down to the municipalities or financing and zoning. And so because Bangor had [1:11:32] Susan Deane: the zoning on Ohio Street, which was residential, and Park Street, which is more commercial, that's why it's all out there. Yes. [1:11:44] Michael Beck: Please, no, let's look to the table here. Will the UU be in compliance with the [1:11:52] Katie Bryden: thousand feet from John Banks? I will have to take a look at these new rules have not been put into place yet. The [1:11:59] Michael Beck: question from that, please. Oh, I'm sorry. [1:12:03] Carolyn Fish: Anything else, or, yeah, I understand the need and importance of the SSP program. At the same time, sometimes the municipality or business owners are taken by surprise when they suddenly find there's one near them, or we as a city get surprised. So is there, I don't know who this question should be directed to, but should we be looking at our ordinances to make sure that the amount of SSPs are, you know, somehow controlled so they're just not popping up all over the place and we lose control over, you know, What's going on or the community at large gets blindsided, so who would we, how would we find out? Because right now we don't, like you said, the permits come from CDC and then we just find out later, oh yeah, they are. So what can we do to just make sure, I know we had an issue, I think councilman you're here a couple years ago when they, council hall is my correct, when they just showed up or they were going to show up and a lot of it was going to be downtown and next to businesses during business hours And we were scrambling, the former manager at the time was scrambling to try to make some quick amends, and you know that, just wish there was a better process and we had better input and better communication and more heads up [1:13:40] Katie Bryden: Yes, one of the things that it's no surprise that I've been sort of frustrated with is that we just hear about things at the end, right, and so we can't engage in conversations in the beginning, and one of the things that I have sort of advocated for with Maine CDC is to bring the SSPs in our area together to talk about what does access to needles look like and where are they, like to have a real strategy around it, so we've been in conversations with a national partner who might help us be able to Have that kind of facilitated conversation, I don't how you want to deal with the ordinances and that might be a future conversation and I would want to bring the SSPs in for that conversation, the one thing that I've you know sort of included here that could be a consideration is that Bangor Public Health become an SSP, that could allow us the ability to fill gaps in a way where we have a little bit more control over. And so not a decision to be made today, but I just want to kind of entertain that as these rule changes are happening. It will be interesting to see, for example, the delivery sort of mode. That seems promising to me as a potential strategy for a bunch of different reasons around foot traffic. And you know we want to, we want to kind of coexist together and we want as much as the community be content with a really effective strategy, so I just throw that out there [1:15:20] Michael Beck: Comfort cards and then comfortably, yes, thank you director Gunderman, I wonder of the current [1:15:26] Daniel Carson: SSPs in your assessment, if you can, are the SSPs following an evidence-based model of exchange change? Or are the ones that are active here using the law as their guideline? [1:15:43] Katie Bryden: Yeah. What I can say is that we have actually been in Wabanaki's space to learn about SSPs and how an SSP is done and our case managers there. And so I can say from our personal experience, we've learned a lot and we can say that Wabanaki is doing everything that they need to do. We don't have the same experience with needlepoint sanctuary so i can't speak to that really the oversight of ssps is on behalf of main cdc so i would i think if there's any questions that could be a conversation for main cdc i also know that main cdc is present with the needlepoint sanctuary activity so i would think that if anything came up [1:16:31] Susan Faloon: I have a question and then just like a comment if I may. So if the city were to start one, is it, is it because we need, like we don't have, we're not meeting the need, we just need more flexibility and more locations in more different types of services, you know? I can't [1:16:52] Katie Bryden: Let me put it this way in question, is there a need? That is where I've been advocating for a conversation with SSPs to understand where the gaps are. We don't have a good sense right now where the gaps are. We know that we have an ongoing outbreak. We know that access to clean meals is an important strategy. I can't tell you today where there's a gap. So that this proposal for us to potentially entertain that is for us to have the flexibility and the adaptability that's [1:17:26] Susan Faloon: within sort of our public health oversight. And just a comment or a tidbit of information that you may already be aware of it but I don't, others at this table may not be, but I, in having a conversation with someone connected to the substance use disorder community, different people feel differently about the different centers or you know whatever you call them, yeah, because some of the folks running them, they've built more of a trust with because they are, have more of that lived experience, whereas some of the other centers don't have as much of that sort of lived experience and that sort of determines which one they're going to go to. So it's not necessarily like that there's not enough, but maybe not enough of the type that person is looking for because they don't have that trust at this place, [1:18:28] Katie Bryden: but they do over here. I think there's a lot of factors, and that's one of them. I do know that location,, location, is a big part of this. this. And say, for example, when the train track encampment was there, because it was close to Wabanaki, there was a lot of traffic over to Wabanaki because it was close. And so location can play a significant factor. Co-location of services is another big factor. If someone can go to an SSP and also get these other things, that breaks down a barrier for people needing to go to multiple locations. So there's many factors. That peer-to-peer model is absolutely part of that. And I think, you know, what we also have to remember is that there's not just one type of person who uses drugs, right? There are many different types of people living in many different situations who access in different ways. Another [1:19:23] Michael Beck: Question before we move on. [1:19:26] Katie Bryden: So if we wanted to pursue that, would come back as another conversation and an order, but I just wanted to kind of put that out there, particularly as we're waiting for those rules schools to be promulgated, is the word. I think that's supposed to happen potentially this month. Federal funding, I just want to give you a couple of quick updates. The main Continuum of Care Rental Assistance Program, we were all very nervous about this NOFO. It looked like it was going to cut our permanent supportive housing by 70%. The courts got involved and our second year of funding is actually going to remain the same. So few review for this year, that NOFA will come out in later 2026 for the next 2027. That's where we anticipate some big changes. So not always bad news, right? I got some good news. We're going to get that funding for the second year. I do want to let you know that the SAMHSA situation that happened on 114, some people may have been aware, SAMHSA, the federal government cut funding sort of immediately on January 14th for a number of programs. We would have lost staff in programming if that would have happened. By the end of the day, there was bipartisan support to get those programs back up and running. So we did not receive, we did not have to make those cuts. Update on maternal child health, public health nursing program. I came to at some point, I think it was back in the summer about the contract that was, we had been doing public health nurse home visits for many, years. That funding wasn't going to happen from Maine CDC and we needed to kind of change our work. I just want to give you a quick update that our public health nurses have been focusing on lactation and maternal mental health. They have now launched a lactation clinic. clinic. So anybody from Bangor, regardless of socioeconomic status, can come right now and get free lactation support from our two public health nurses who have the very impressive credentials and licensure to be able to do that. We've also started to explore a billing process for lactation services for those that have insurance. And then we're also continuing to do our maternal mental health all right warming centers the good news is i am requiring them to report so they report to me financial and programmatic reports they did their first one in january for november and december and they'll do it every month after i received financial and program reports from both of those warming centers and so i just want to provide you with a little bit of information here from those reports so mansion we don't fund but i just want to let you know they're averaging about 18 people a night however those numbers just jumped up last week to in the past this weekend on both saturday and sunday they had 29 people the brick church which is one of the ones that we funded according to their report they have served between the middle of November to the end of December, 129 unique individuals were served. There was about 1,728 bed stays, and they averaged about 36 individuals a night. Together Place had 312 unique individuals served from that time period, representing about 1,225 bed stays, averaging about 36 a night. So, when I looked at what they had spent so far, between November and December, there were close to 3,000 bed stays, together, accumulatively, they spent about $31,156, which equals about $11 a bed a night from city dollars. So I think the last time we talked about how do we spend a little bit and get a good return on our investment, I think this might be showing us something. Challenges, they're seeing people with very complex needs, very complex needs. And this goes into the positives. What I've witnessed, which has been really amazing, is the collaboration between, among the three warming centers. So if somebody isn't able to go to one warming center because of behavioral issues, they work to see where they can go to another warming shelter. Shelter. But there's a lot of people with complex needs. Particularly for Together Place that is new and their volunteers are new, having the consistent volunteers is a challenge, particularly during flu and COVID season. And then transportation. The bus route is done at 5 and there's nothing on the weekend. So Bruce Hughes did transportation on that really cold night, and he was very busy. Other positives, that collaboration, and then one of the things that the warming shelters are is what I think Together Place put in their report and phrased it really well was an active engagement site. It is a place where all these collaborative partners can come and reach their clients, engage with new clients, provide ongoing services. The Well, which is the day space that many of you visited. They're averaging about 60 to 70 people a day. And Needlepoint Sanctuary U Church hosted a warming shelter on 124 due to the extreme cold. And then what I provided there was just a quote from the Together Places report that I think really captures some of the work. [1:25:11] Susan Faloon: Do you get any information from MANA? I know they do some warming, and they do a meal. I don't. [1:25:18] Katie Bryden: No, I don't have any. They don't do overnight, and I don't believe they do a day space. They do the food, I think, distribution, and I don't get any. [1:25:26] Susan Faloon: I think they do just a few hours of warming, like around the meal time. [1:25:29] Katie Bryden: But I can check. The Hub7 coordinator helps with the nightly data week. I get data from Jen two to three times a week. I can reach out to her, see if she gets any data from Anna. [1:25:46] Michael Beck: Any other questions? Do you have anything else for us? To our next agenda item which is another ordinance this one would amend the code of the city of Bangor to create a standing legislative committee I was going to set the table is [1:26:10] Lisa Goodwin: Yes so I think this one's pretty straightforward it's just adding to the council's standing committee roster the committee that we discussed in the goal setting session and then again subsequent to the meeting with our legislative delegation it is a legislative committee it would be the sixth council committee and it would meet at the call of the chair to consider all items related to are all items of interest happening at the state level to Bangor liaise with the legislative delegation and Potentially seek sponsorship of [1:26:52] Michael Beck: Legislation that's in the city's interest. Questions on this item? No committee, but [1:27:00] Joseph Leonard: this committee has been a long time coming. This has been immeasurably needed for Bangor. Augusta's never going to come to Bangor, so we have to go to Augusta. I mean, I have nothing else to say, but like [1:27:20] Susan Faloon: I would just make a suggestion that we approve this committee, that maybe it meets on a different night, because some nights already what we have on the agenda has us here for a very long time. [1:27:37] Michael Beck: I'll just add, is the only suggestion I would make as far as changes go, is making sure that the mechanism for how, for gifting to the committee, being that it's just a subset of us, being three to five, I want to make sure that, you know, we're all, at least five of us are in agreement that this is what they should be talking to our legislators about, this is what, you know, we're just to make sure we're not into an accidental situation where they only have a quorum, three, one night, and those three decided that this is what we're going to talk to our legislators about. Yeah, also not [1:28:09] Daniel Carson: on the committee. I'm excited about this idea. I think it would be important that this committee is, that the guidance that this committee would receive would be based on council priorities, that it really should not be stepping outside of the already available. And the second thought I have is that in addition to the legislators, I think it would be great if this committee, city, could maybe invite, maybe it's non-voting members, but folks from the Penobscot county government, the tribal government, others that are around here, because I'm sure there's priorities that, you know, that the council has to also extend to those, especially thinking about budgets. There [1:29:00] Michael Beck: are questions, so for this, are we looking for a motion to move forward or to amend it with the changes or? [1:29:12] Lisa Goodwin: Yeah, we would need one of the two. So specifically what changes would you envision? Specifically mentioning other, sorry, my words are just jumbled, other bodies, elected bodies, and [1:29:40] Michael Beck: the only suggestion I would offer again is just making sure that how it's, where it is, you know, five of the nine of us are, you know, I know the priorities are one thing, but you know, for example, the rental registry, you know, if we just say what a party with housing, that would help as well. There may not be five of the nine who agreed with that vehicle, so I just want to make sure that we're not, you know, giving the city's blessing on legislation if there's not five of the nine of the council who wants To proceed forward with something like that, so I [1:30:11] Lisa Goodwin: would envision it operating very similar to how all of the other standing committees operate, being that the five would be making a recommendation to council. But because this is policy stuff, it wouldn't require a council order. Maybe it would just be a workshop where we would agenda the committee's recommendation for full consideration by all nine. So I can try somehow to incorporate that concept into the draft ordinance to [1:30:40] Joseph Leonard: actually piggyback off of that, you took the words around my mouth. If every committee could be hypothetically a workshop, we have right now a downtown parking committee which is very unique to our committees, where we have a counselor who is a chair of that committee that oversees volunteer members of the committee to make recommendations that we sent to council. I am actually completely okay with the idea of having such a committee that is chaired by a counselor that has a hybrid of committee members that make those workshop oriented recommendations to council. If that helps us get to maybe a better strategy or idea of how we want to set up our relationships with Augusta, maybe that's not the agenda that we want to go forward and that's fine, that's completely okay. But because of the ability for us to be a bit more creative with this committee, we could also be a bit more creative with the way that it's organized as well. Completely side note, we are gonna to start to actually bring forward an ordinance to undo that parking committee requirement for a counselor to be the chair just because it is rather ridiculous, but anyway that's a whole [1:32:07] Michael Beck: other conversation. Well, I would just say that is, you know, I like the idea that it's the council that's gonna be on this, and then I do like the idea that, you know, we can at the council's behalf or the committee's behalf rather invite out, hey, you know, we would like to have the county involved because of neighboring communities, if it makes sense to whatever piece of legislation. [1:32:28] Lisa Goodwin: Yeah, so I'm, there any other comments on this? So to keep this moving, do we want to vote on the concept with those changes and I can bring them to council workshop on Monday so it can at least get on the and have it on the agenda? So if you're okay with the changes you can vote on it, if not you [1:32:51] Michael Beck: can always pull it. Yeah, I'll entertain that motion that we've received with that, so I make a motion [1:32:56] Carolyn Fish: that we approve the ordinance that will be amended on Monday for our Monday council. [1:33:05] Michael Beck: Second. Okay, hang out seeing. None. That's not like a plan. All right, now we're on to the ordinance amending the code of the city of Angora to create a standing committee on homelessness and affordable housing. And just before you, and I just let you know this sheet that passed out everybody, they were just, you know, when it's my turn to speak, I was going to talk about either Cheetah that I recommended that I wanted to get feedback on, so that's where that's at, but I wanted to hear from others first on your ideas what we received in our [1:33:41] Lisa Goodwin: packets. Would it be helpful if I just gave like 30 seconds on history? Because we talked about this, I want to say maybe two months ago now. Yes, because we were having all of those discussions about the railroad and we had a very long meeting where at the very end, after a very long day, we looked at a draft committee on homelessness and then Counselor Beck had also had a draft of a standing committee on housing. And if I might add some color, we had some very vague direction to sort of combine those two concepts. And so what you have before you that I drafted is a 15 member standing committee that attempts to marry those two concepts, which admittedly was a challenge. And so that's sort of the history of why you have an advisory committee on homelessness and affordable housing before you. There was sort of a city staff draft, a Councilor Beck housing committee draft, and they may be in artful attempt to combine them. I'm happy that the membership, sort of the 15 members, is almost entirely, if not entirely what city staff proposed. There weren't changes to that. But the sort of scope of the committee itself was borrowed very heavily from portions of Councilor Beck's [1:35:13] Michael Beck: draft. Would it be helpful if we went through it kind of section by section, you know, rather than trying to talk about the whole big document? We just kind of went through it and talked about, you know, started with 2347 and get feedback that way. How, I'm happy for ideas on how to best get the most out of this. See no objection. I would love a section by section just because yeah, it's Much easier for me personally, sure. Well, I mean, starting with, you know, 2347, you know, the preamble talking about why we have this, you know, any thoughts from anyone else? So the document I passed out with, you know, the red, it's just some thoughts I had, I guess, just starting at the top, you know, I did the line out and talked about changing the name of the housing board. My thinking was just because of the momentous task we're asking of them, you know, that just like we have a planning board, you know, this to be changing to instead of an advisory committee, is it really talking about all housing, not just going to be affordable housing, it's not just in homelessness, you know, because we've got the missing middle to deal with. I mean, we'll take all kinds of housing. My thought was that we were to change changes to a housing board and just all encompassing, and it's very clear to the people of Bangor that this is what it does. It is about housing in all forms, not just for low income, not just for the missing metal not just for you know it's all housing you know we said there's some emphasis there that was my thinking on that and then i changed and this is my thinking too because again i know that we've got some people to thought that some would say we wanted to spend the first 12 months studying the studies and coming up with that just that plan my i changed the pream or that 2347 to talk about you know we know what to do you know we studied the issue we accepted a 75 000 studies last February that gave us ideas, so we're not, I'm worried about us being stuck in another year of studies as opposed to getting this board together to actually start taking some meaningful action and pull together what we've got. So that's what my changes speak to, is kind of changing that a little bit from the first half legal strategic plan to yes, we'll look it over, but we need housing production goals and we need to operationalize our homeless response initiatives, et cetera, et cetera, to get out of talk shop and into active. What mine proposed the lips, but I'm definitely open to feedback and what other people think that what I see is gone [1:38:20] Susan Deane: Well I'm definitely for a discussion about the best manner to bring this forward. However I don't want to spend months and months discussing how we're going to devise this committee or board so that it's there's no action taking. The main goal was to find something to do with foreign house during the winter and they're still unhealthy so but I would certainly entertain some changes if we all think that is best interest. I just I kind of wish we had a little time to mull it over prior to making a decision tonight. [1:39:08] Carolyn Fish: I do I've looked at this and even though it is housing there's a great deal of this that is focused on the unhoused and on the members you know. We have a really strong realtor group that are very they have a lot of expertise with housing and there's a lot of talent right here being more than experience working with people that need a lower income and affordable housing and I really don't specifically see reaching out and working with them to have a great deal of statistical information and have certain designations where they have a superior expertise with working will touch main state housing and a lot of other so I just wish that they could be more involved. We have a great deal of developers here who put in a lot of affordable I'm trying to use affordable apartments we have the zeta bingo the obama green north association so I think that they will be key and providing not just from a report that we've done you know for 75 five thousand but this would be real live bangor palace I think this is I think it's just going [1:40:33] Michael Beck: I mean to that to that point and I would put this out to everybody too is that's a fair point when we just received this on friday and then now I dropped this whole thing on you today with my thoughts I mean because they can with the community and I know we don't want wait forever you know this is in the interest of making sure we're being as thorough as possible. Do we want to table this until another committee to give everyone time to absorb all of this and form their own feedback and opinions and then come back to it comes along do we think as a [1:41:15] Joseph Leonard: council that we can read through all this have our notes together so that by the time we come to monday if we were to have a special workshop to discuss this item could we then just make that decision then to actually put it forward because i 'm actually with counselor dean and that we do need to get the ball rolling on this as soon as possible and regardless if we reject everything that you said or accept all your amendments i do think time is of the essence and i would actually really appreciate if council I get if people do feel hesitant, you do need more time, I get that, but I really do think we need to move this forward as soon [1:42:07] Lisa Goodwin: as possible. If I may, yes, excuse me, because the this would require council action. You could have a special gov ops meeting on the 16th and take action on the 23rd. You could of course also have a conversation on Monday as well, but of course it wouldn't be we wouldn't know the details to have it on that agenda anyway, so you're really looking at this point of January or February 23rd it anyway, so you could both of those dates could potentially be an option depending on how much [1:42:37] Michael Beck: time you wanted to get folks thank you for that clarification i'm sorry counselor [1:42:41] Daniel Carson: yeah again not on the committee but i personally would like more time to read this guys like struggle with lines colors there's a lot going on here i wonder just because these are your thoughts right that you 've put them these are my thoughts so yeah just regarding the last thing we just did i noticed in your thoughts here you put that you know support to do these one of those things in state legislative advocacy do you see that as a compliment to what we just did or do you see that as now potentially a duplication [1:43:14] Michael Beck: of efforts? It's it's going to have to be a compliment because this board's going to talk about what they think it should be, but it should, if it's to require us as a council to get on board, then it certainly could be referred to, because again this is the outside of council action, so they're going to have their own thoughts on what works for housing policy, but they certainly should take advantage of this new committee we decided to create it. [1:43:41] Carolyn Fish: Dr. Fish, and to piggyback on that again, mar main association realtors and the local board has a legislative committee, and that's their watchdogs for anything to do with housing. So, again, maybe we can implement that to work with them, especially when we need to apply some more pressure on them for housing issues. [1:44:14] Michael Beck: So if we can, you know, with the pleasure of the committee, do we want to take advantage of doing a special government operations committee on the 16th, I believe. We've the system major said so we all have time to kind of absorb this and again, you know, this is not any kind of emotion raising your thoughts, but I think so. Don't feel obligated to say oh this or that. I mean, I'm hoping that we can all come together on what, you know, we can pick from both and come up with the best possible answer. Also, I have to correct myself, the 16th [1:44:45] Lisa Goodwin: is President's Day, so it would be Wednesday. Okay, thank you. Yes, thank you. So the timeline [1:44:56] Michael Beck: but so that's, that's an option. I mean, this, how does the kind of the council or the committee rather feel about that, about, you know, taking the time to read through now what we've received on Friday, what I've added, your own thoughts, and let's come back to this on the 18th and work through, do this, the objection that's on the, we'll do this, which does bring them to the last item, an order authorizing an update to the public use of city hall property. [1:45:32] Lisa Goodwin: Oh well, I mean, Courtney was the brilliance behind this, so yeah. So some of you may remember in the past, actually different organizations used to use city council chambers up on the third floor for different purposes, and so the policy that's before he was actually amended, it was approved back in 1997, and so the pieces that changed most frequently is rather than offer up this room given all the AV and everything associated with it, in fact the renovation was done with the Paul Bunyan room down at the end of the hall, actually, with the intent of that being available under this policy for the use by nonprofits, civic organization, and other governmental entities. And there's a list of what that priority looks like. There has been a longstanding charge of $25 for use per hour. We are recommending that it be 50 for after hours uses. We have to have staff to make sure that everything is good and access is available. It would also add language around the approval process and what that looks like in requiring that they basically sign off on an agreement around making sure that the, a lot from liability perspective, if something is damaged or anything like that, there's insurance coverage for that. It also addresses the reasons why they may be denied use of the room. That could include lack of staff, scheduling conflict, and any other reason that is made in good faith in terms of why that room can't be made available. This is really not meant to accommodate reoccurring regular meetings, but rather like one offs for folks that need a space and unable to find it elsewhere for that purpose. And of course, this also the city clerk, Goodwin actually brought to my attention, she wanted to clarify to recommend that also weddings that are being performed by her office be explicitly allowed under this policy as well as that could be considered a gathering. This policy also addresses things like posters and things like that publications by outside entities as you can see we have brand new space we have limited posting areas and so we're just recommending that rather than trying to police that no outside entity be allowed to post inside city hall that be reserved for city business and school business of course as well and so other than that the policy really is only for use here on the first floor just because everything is kind of locked down but they still have access to bathrooms as opposed to the second and third floor which is at this point reserved more for staff than outside use so that's sort of the gist of this and as you can see it's been a long time since it's been updated and so and this was prompted by the renovation and some interest in re-looking at this which we politely declined until this policy could be updated just to make sure that the city needs. [1:48:49] Michael Beck: Questions for the assistant city manager? Councilor Carson and then Councilor Flynn. [1:48:56] Angela Walker: Two questions. [1:48:58] Daniel Carson: The first is just out of pure curiosity, what is the historical frequency that people make these kinds of requests? And the second one is about the fee structure. Are you familiar with other spaces of comparable size in the area, and 25 seems a little light for the available technology and what's offered in this space. And so I'm wondering if there's some thought about or the thinking about that structure. Sure. [1:49:30] Lisa Goodwin: So organizations like the Bengal Water District have used our space for meetings, EMDC, other nonprofit organizations as well. It's not a lot. I think since we've been back in this building, I think I've received two, I believe, requests because folks have known that in the past we have offered that and so they have reached out. As for the fee structure, I mean the $25 is what it was before, and I think the intent was always to kind of offer a space to those specific entities, understanding that they generally provide a benefit to the citizens of Bangor. And by switching that $25 to being during business hours, it's pretty minimal in terms of staff time and resources for that. Really the burden is in the evening because of access to the building and any potential additional cleaning that may need to occur after. So yeah, that was where we started, and certainly if the council would like more information should or for us to address that differently, we're happy to do that. Yeah, I think the idea is just to cover costs. Yeah, so that I'm sure other places are maybe thinking about revenue generation, which [1:50:51] Susan Faloon: isn't our goal. Thank you. When I looked at this, the first thing I thought of when I looked at section 4.0 city hall steps and porch area or protests, which are not specifically addressed in here, but that was a use that immediately popped into my head, and it has happened not too long ago while we were all in here that there was one taking place out front. So my understanding is that for somebody to do that out front, they would actually need a permit from the police Department, correct? [1:51:30] Lisa Goodwin: So the city event permit policy does address gatherings, but I believe that's of 30 people or more. And so you'll note that in here it says that use of the steps in the porch is generally discouraged. That is the language that has been in this policy since 1997. The only thing we added was that it would come to this committee as opposed to some other committee by the council. And I think we have historically discouraged it when they just pop up without us knowing is when it's kind of gray area. Normally when that happens, they come and go fairly quickly or it's after hours. And so nobody is accessing this building anymore. But I personally know that in the past, we have dispersed groups that have gathered on the steps for the reason that either they didn't have a permit it or they're obstructing access to the building for services and things like that. Yeah, [1:52:31] Susan Faloon: and I guess I was just, you know, wondering if maybe that should be addressed in here just to [1:52:37] Michael Beck: make it clear, but just a thought. Thanks. Other questions. I had one question you've talked About the other areas of city hall, which I'm assuming regard this room, how does it apply with, like, the League of Women Voters when they do their forums, you know? Is that decided? They're given access, or they, how does that work? So [1:53:00] Lisa Goodwin: That's actually a fantastic question when I had not thought of, but I have a reason and an explanation. So that is because that event, if you will, has historically been viewed as like a direct benefit to the citizens and has been historically recorded and actually live streamed through city avenues. In the past it was Facebook, now it's YouTube. And so I think that provided that the council wasn't opposed, I think that may be something that was continued to be allowed as it's in a way sponsored, if you will, to a degree in that it has to do specifically with city council candidates and school committee candidates,, which of course, supports what we do. The intent was really to make sure that outside groups trying to use all this AV wouldn't actually, one, create issues for when we have to come back in here and use it, but also to staff it for the AV purposes. When the Paul Bunyan Room, for example, it's like a three minute tutorial and they are able to use that smart board. But there's, I can't think of another organization anyway, on the top of my head that we would actually live stream for anything like that. And of course, that sort of event because a staff should be, you know, bipartisan and everything about who is running, we don't have any sort of role in that. So it's actually a nice thing that a third party runs that specific forum. [1:54:36] Michael Beck: Sure,. And just to be clear, no objection, my I guess I was asking from the angle of at some point, you know, again, I don't think anyone ever has, but at some point some other organization might move forward and say, oh, we want to have a forum for CD2 candidates, or we want to have this or have that, and wanting to know if there's an avenue for them to offer that. [1:54:55] Lisa Goodwin: Yeah, so I might actually recommend that if the committee is looking or interested in moving this forward, that perhaps that be an amendment, that it be listed in the policy explicitly that specific forum by that group specifically is allowed to be [1:55:11] Michael Beck: In an other area, sure, could we also just leave it as is and then, you know, if someone were to come forward, then we'll just talk about it? I mean, you could do that too. Sure, yeah, I mean, I'm okay with that, but I'm open to anyone else having a different idea. Any other comments or [Wayne Mallar: questions? Do] You need a motion on this to move this forward. Yes, I will entertain a motion to accept this work and you did this is the word council let's suggest that it would oh what okay well I'll accept the motion to move this to the full council. [1:55:46] Carolyn Fish: I make a motion to move the update to the policy covering public use of city hall to council. [1:55:52] Michael Beck: For Monday second okay second any objection to moving this to the full council. Okay, so move, and I believe that is the end of our agenda for tonight. So thank you everyone for all the conversation and the hard work.