Bangor equity committee votes to support lived experience on homelessness panel

[0:03] Katie Brydon: All right, everyone. Hello and welcome to February's meeting of the Advisory Committee on Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Human Rights. We will go ahead and start this evening. We have one new member with us, but we'll start with a roll call. Remind me if we do not have someone want on zoom i don't need to like we do oh lady all right we'll wait for her to come in i'm here sorry no you're fine hi robert i think she's getting the link to work so sorry courtney ignore my email oh no worries just one perfect i sure will all right [2:08] Suzette Holly Furrow: A little one get a book. Yes. [2:10] Katie Brydon: Robert is a voting member. Cute. Two points for cuteness. All right, well, we will go ahead and get started. I will call roll and obviously please say yay if you're here. Yes, if you're here. And then I'd love to give a moment for our new member afterwards to introduce himself, but we'll start with the roll. So Katie Robinson. Here. Thank you. Adam Baker. Here. Suzette Furrow. Here. Sharon Weber. Here. Shane Boyes. Present. All right. Way to mix it up. Mark Roth. Here. Amazing. I'm Katie Bryden. I am here. Teresa Fallon and Raelynn Burke have both been excused from this evening's meeting, But we also have with us our City Council liaison, Councillor Michael Beck, and our Assistant City Manager, Courtney O'Donnell. Thank you for being here this evening. And yes, we have a new member that I'm excited has joined us. So Adam, if you would like to take a minute just to introduce yourself, any information you think would be relevant, we would love to welcome you. [3:26] Adam Douglas Baker: Yeah. Hi, my name is Adam Baker. Baker. I'm excited to join this committee and be on a committee for the first time. My preferred pronouns are they them. I have a deep advocacy for just the city of Bangor that I love so much that I've lived and I've been born in here for 27 years. And I mean, things are just human rights as a baseline empathy. I have LGBTQ plus community that i'm part of myself is very close to me and just i'm happy to be here and to make it better for [4:04] Carollynn Lear: bangor so thank you for having me thanks for being here welcome all right [4:11] Katie Brydon: So now is the time that we have set aside for public comment. I don't see anyone in Zoom or in the room, so I'll save the spiel. There was an email that came to us that actually came through the city manager, and it was asked to be forwarded along to us, and the city manager recommended that we bring it up during our public comment discussion. But that's okay. I actually, yes, we'll share it, we'll talk about it now quickly because I think it's just a matter of identifying how we move forward with this individual's request of us, and then we can determine how to move forward, and then take our vote of the minutes, and then get into committee business. Does that sound good to everyone? All right, so we received an email, rather the city manager did, and they manager Lear forwarded it to myself and Shane, and essentially it is from a gentleman in Bangor named Jason Goodrich. He is a community member who is heavily engaged in the unhoused population, helping serve and provide resources, and he wrote asking whether our committee would consider making a recommendation to the city council regarding the structure of their proposed standing committee on homelessness and affordable housing. Specifically, he asked that we encourage the city to guarantee voting seats along with some structural supports for people with lived experience of homelessness so that their participation is meaningful and really embedded in the governance structure of that committee from the start. So the city manager said, you know, while we can't officially add this to the agenda because the agenda has been set, this can be something that's brought up in public comment, which we responded and said that was how we would move forward with this. I, for me personally, I would love if possible to get an update from our council liaison on the standing committee on homelessness and affordable housing, and then maybe we could all determine if this is something that we would want to formally take up, if we would want to wait for a council referral, if there's a way that we could, a mechanism for offering informal feedback. He suggested in the email that we request or recommend three positions for people with lived experience of being homeless, or that maybe are either currently on house or have been a house in the past. I don't know how many individuals have been identified for the standing committee, so maybe we could start with an overall update on how that's going and what your thoughts are. Maybe the council has already discussed this [7:09] Carollynn Lear: And then I'd love to hear everyone's feedback. Sure, so on the March second governor gov. [7:16] Michael Beck: Opera for the last gov ops meeting we just had, we talked about the committee and the fact that there's a little overlap between, you know, the positions and the fact that we've got the mission of homelessness and the mission of housing. And so the consensus was reached that we're better off having two committees, one's just for homelessness, one's just for housing. And so we're actually going to discuss the homelessness committee at the March 2nd gov ops, and then we'll discuss the housing committee. At the April 6th gov ops. So this way here they're able to both do their missions because there's a lot of, because the way we see it, there'll be a lot of thumb twiddling when we're talking about, you know, development, everything else, and then we actually talk about a homelessness plan. That's a lot of fun, totally the other way. This way here you both committees can move forward with their mission, and of course the mission that we're council currently is set to task the homelessness community with is. What's our strategy, what's our strategic plan? So that's hopefully what will come out of the March 2nd meeting when that's what we're slated to have that discussion. As far as lived experience goes, that was also brought up, and the consensus is that at first, you know, we had talked about, you know, making a part of the code that we're going to have this many positions for the experience, but there is some concerns here that how do you, what happens if you don't find the folks that are filled those. Roles and then you kind of hold up all of the work. So what if we set it as a goal that part of you when we're doing the interviews using personnel committee, we're looking for at least three or four or whatever number council lands on, that's our goal to do, rather than saying hard in the ordinance it has to be this or not. So that's, that's where we stand right now. Thank. [9:11] Katie Brydon: You very much for that update. So the affordable housing committee will be discussed on the six, so the homelessness piece will. [9:23] Michael Beck: Be the March 2nd, and then the housing piece will be April 6th, April 6th, and what, I'm so sorry. [9:30] Katie Brydon: Can you just confirm, like, during those meetings, is it more like developing the strategic plan for. [9:34] Michael Beck: Identifying individuals, so it's going to be looking at the actual ordinances of the structure. You know, this is what we're, you know, this is what we're going to vote into. Just like this committee had to have an ordinance put in, same thing, these will need ordinances as well. And you know, for example, one of the other things we'll talk about, what the homelessness committee, for example, is, you know, there may be 20 different, you know, job titles that would fit this committee, but we aren't going to build a committee of 20 people. So rather than, you know, the original idea of having it, hey, you have to have these exact number of people with these exact titles, we're going to have a pool. Let's say 20 acceptable titles that we can pull from, and so when people apply or get nominated, you know, as long as they fit somewhere within that pool, then they can end up going into the body of 9, 10, 11, whatever the number we land on is. Okay, thank you. Thanks for that clarification. [10:29] Katie Brydon: I really appreciate it. So now, you know, per this email and request, I, yeah, I would love to, knowing what you've heard from counselor back about what's being decided, what would your, what are your thoughts in terms of responding to Mr. Goodrich? Is this something that, like I said, we would like to formally take up? Is this something that we would like to informally request? Or again, what other mechanisms could there be for us to support or just say, you know, the council's got [11:03] Teresa Fallon: this and move on? I'd love to hear people's thoughts. I feel like it's something I personally might want to talk to you about her job committee. I'm just kidding. Well, no, well, he's not necessarily, but actually maybe talking to you about if and when that committee gets going. I do have personal, yeah, like, I mean, I'm not ashamed of it, I mean, it was life circumstances, but I've been homeless for years with a daughter in tow. I've been, and I know everybody assumes that because you're homeless or an addict I didn't relapse during that time, and I was so proud of myself that I continued on in my recovery Journey, and you know, I mean, it's so easy for people to of backslide, and you know, so I, and now I serve the homeless, so it's, it's just like a huge necessarily. I do, I know they do go hand in hand a lot, but yeah, so that's an important, that would be another committee that I feel like could be good. Yeah, understand. I just don't understand, I mean, it's not always the choice that could happen, anybody trust me at any [12:30] Carollynn Lear: time. Yeah, thank [12:37] Katie Brydon: You for sharing that. Yeah, quick, yeah, I mean, there's definitely a statistic out there, right, but like something absurd like 60 percent of, you know, adults are two paychecks away [12:56] Teresa Fallon: from not being able to, and nobody would help, and I mean, yeah, I like to think back about that, but I [13:04] Katie Brydon: mean, you know, yeah, it definitely is something that is much closer to all of us, and I think that we care to acknowledge the majority of the time. Do you have thoughts, Sharon, about, I mean, obviously, besides your own lived experience and wanting to participate, what the lived experience could offer or might offer in terms of how we would respond to Mr. Goodrich about his email? Do you think that we should, besides your own experiences, Like, what are your thoughts? Does [13:43] Teresa Fallon: he want you to guarantee? [13:45] Katie Brydon: He doesn't want us to guarantee anything. What he asked is that the city is creating this task or this standing committee for homelessness. And he said, I would like this, your committee, the Advisory Committee for Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Human Rights, to recommend to the council, when you select your members, reserve three spots for people with lived experiences. [14:09] Teresa Fallon: And I think it would be hard, yeah, I don't, I mean, not that I mean, I just know where I work specifically, probably half our staff, I would say, because a lot of us are in long-term active recovery, probably at least half the staff, I would say, have been homeless at one point in their life, right, I just don't think it would be as difficult as people think to find people that are what I would consider pillars of the Bangor community that at some point in their adult life have faced either perihomelessness or homelessness are they did I did read through those documents were they also looking for I know it might have been are they also looking for people that were in long-term substance use was that also a thought or is that not something i don't think that came [15:12] Katie Brydon: up, I don't think it was that, I think it was just particular to the experience of having, you know, difficult, yeah, thank you, Mark, and then Adam [15:29] Suzette Holly Furrow: would it help in the formation of the committees, the homeless committee and the affordability of the committee, would it help to, for us to make a strong endorsement of the existence of those committees, number one, and number two, to reserve three slots on the homeless committee for people who have been homeless, would it help for us to do that, to not necessarily guarantee that it's going to happen, but to make it clear that we think that's important, and that [16:13] Teresa Fallon: Should not be overlooked if it's possible, if at all possible, right? I mean, it's, you can't guarantee that these people would come forward and want to join either. I mean, right? Yeah, but the opportunity [16:28] Carollynn Lear: Could be there for them. Yeah, right. Counselor, how many members are supposed to be on that [16:33] Michael Beck: Committee, do you recall? We haven't set the number yet. I mean, they were from 9 to 15 dependent on for alliance. Okay, so maybe less though because then we're splitting into two, right? The [16:47] Suzette Holly Furrow: Formation of this committee be similar to the formation of our committee and others where people are have a five minute interview and indicate their desire to be a member [17:01] Michael Beck: It would be, yes, the council could certainly lengthen those interviews given the desire to find folks that are well balanced to round out that committee, but yes, the format and everything and how that goes through, it would be the same [17:26] Katie Brydon: thank you because i think that 's the question right like what can we make a formal [17:32] Carollynn Lear: Recommendation? I think you have to decide, Adam. Yeah, from what I've gathered because I [17:42] Adam Douglas Baker: personally i attend like the council meetings and whatnot that my own perspective is that the council doesn't want to feel that they're handcuffed in like picking these exact spots and like in the scenario of like what if they don't find anybody but i think it's also very important that lived experienced people be on this committee because i feel like in the past bang whereas the city hasn't had that voice and advocacy as we see in like the past sweeps that have happened here and whatnot and i Think at baseline at least giving high priority to people with lived experience for those spots I feel like for me is at least a bare minimum if that all happens, but I also see the side that also like making like these exact slots can be like [18:37] Carollynn Lear: Could be difficult in a scenario like that, so that's just my thought. I meant it too, those [18:47] Michael Beck: Interviews as you know are confidential and of course you can't tell immediately when you look at someone whether or not they've experienced homelessness and so it's also important to keep in mind I think that wherever the council lands in terms of what the makeup of that committee is nobody's gonna be walking around the label that you know I filled this slot sort of a thing or any or anything like that it's like a chart on the website that says like [19:14] Carollynn Lear: Yeah, that is true. I, oh go ahead. One area I could see that the council could benefit from [19:24] Michael Beck: Your advice is, how do we do outreach to people, let them know when this opportunity exists, you know, as far as you know, making sure that we want lived experience, making sure the word gets out to everyone, but hey, if you want, apply for this committee so we have as rich of a pool as possible to pick from. Quick [19:44] Suzette Holly Furrow: thought, I love the idea. I'm a very firm believer in nothing about us without us, and so I do think like if the goal is to address the homelessness issue, we should have people with lived experience guaranteed participation in that group. But I also am thinking about barriers, and this is written a little bit in the email that we received, but even like the initial barrier of applying to be on the committee, what if I don't have a computer? What if I don't have access to Wi-Fi and I want to participate? How would... But what if I don't have transportation and I can't get here for meetings, but I have important information to share? So I just, I think... I do think we should send somebody I know. [20:35] Teresa Fallon: Well, I know somebody I can hook them up with that can get them a free cell phone. I have the resources. Yeah. I can help people. Yeah. [20:43] Suzette Holly Furrow: Yeah, and I would love to make some kind of recommendation to council to say, yes, we support, I believe this is at least three, at least three dedicated voting seats, 25% plus of an 11 to 15 member body, explicitly reserved for people with lived experience. I would love to be able to put that forward to council with also the information that we as a group are happy to help facilitate overcoming any barriers people might experience. We've got a room full of experts right here who can help connect to resources or, you know, even chip in and help provide transportation or, you know, whatever, like we're here because we like to help people. So yes, because I can see where council might say, well, we, if we're gonna commit to that, then we need to be sure that people are gonna get to the meeting and blah, so we could say that we could help support that effort and then those people, yeah. [21:48] Carollynn Lear: Thank you. [21:52] Katie Brydon: Shane, I agree with that. I think that, you know, obviously, lived experience group, it has so much to offer, right? And being able to provide that feedback and, you know, really think about it through that lens, that is going to be a very different lens than most individuals will have. Even if you do have levels of expertise serving a specific population, unless you come or have experienced that personally, the lens might be a little bit different. My thought is like in terms of, I definitely want to piggyback on what everyone said in terms of how we're able to support the promotion of this group, how to, you know, help individuals sign up, how to make sure that we are, you know, having these conversations so that people are aware of this opportunity. I think that's kind of the one thing that our committee has historically been able to do, which is just like show up in these spaces and pull all of our different resources together to make them to positively, you know, connect these different usually siloed communities. My question is, well, one, another piece that Chain brought up, and the biggest piece of this, not the biggest piece, one additional element of his of Mr. Goodrich's email, is providing those supports so that there are structures in place if individuals are not able to attend a meeting, like stipends for participation, transportation, other elements that we could help support. Has the council discussed that at all in terms of what that ordinance might include for individuals participating? No, we haven't. Would you, what's [23:52] Carollynn Lear: the, do you think that'd be something that would come up? My, again, speaking for myself, but my vibe [23:58] Michael Beck: mind would be, do for one, do for all, right? You know, no one gets any, okay, right? So I mean, so it's kind of a hands-off for the council kind of way, whereas if other outside organizations can come together, so I don't like Penascon County Care is another big organization that's spoken. I'm saying we can [24:16] Teresa Fallon: do phone transportation. That's who? Yeah, that's weird, yep. So but if we could get them a phone, [24:20] Michael Beck: then they could do Zoom, yeah, right? And that might be the better vehicle, because then you get into the area of like, well, you know, even though I'm not on house, I have my own needs, and you know, it becomes a mess. And whereas if it's just outside organizations helping folks be able to meet their duty, then probably better. Again, just my opinion. Yeah, okay, so the question [24:45] Katie Brydon: Is in terms of, you know, a response, I guess. This is also another, probably a question for you in terms of if we were to make a recommendation that we see value in identifying seats, or if we want to further support what the council has already identified as, you know, reserving space for individuals with lived experiences. How would we best go about that in a way that is thoughtful and can be well received without sort of saying, you know, you didn't ask us, but here we are yet, and we're telling you what to do, in a way that we can be mindful that this work is already happening. Obviously there's a lot of, you know, brilliant, thoughtful people on the council. We don't want to be an additional voice in an echo chamber, but what can we do to help maybe you usher in these thoughts if you're going to be a part of those conversations? What is most helpful? [25:45] Michael Beck: Well, going back to the conversations we've had, the consensus I've gathered is live experience should be included. And landed on not putting it into the code, but just making it a goal as part of the interviews. But we haven't landed on a number. I mean, from one to four, we haven't landed on a number. And I hear percentages thrown around, 25%, 30% is the, when I keep hearing them, you know, and I get it because, you know, the people who are closest to the problem are gonna, you know, they've lived through the policy failures to this point, you know, so we're not repeating the same mistakes, but it would be helpful to hear, you know, especially if there's like established studies that show if you're going to do a body like this, it should be x number of members or x percentage, something with evidence-based as a recommendation that would be helpful, so that's, that's as far as the live experience, that would probably be the best advice of here's the number you should shoot for and here's why. So just something for a council to consider. They may not accept it, but you know, at least something evidence-based to think about as we set whatever that goal ends up being. [27:05] Katie Brydon: Does anyone have any thoughts off the top of their head as to what would be a recommendation? I just think it's difficult because, like you said, [27:16] Michael Beck: we don't know how many people. Yeah, that's what that makes it hard. That's what it makes it tough. I think it'd be great, like she said, someone that has, I think it's a great idea, excellent, but it's hard to say right now what we should, not knowing the number, like is it going to be six? [27:35] Carollynn Lear: Right, hold on, Mark, go ahead. I think that we should, we should be talking about [27:44] Suzette Holly Furrow: out a percentage of the committee, maybe 25 to 30 percent, because if the committee is going to be 15 and we only have three years representatives, then that's a much smaller number, and if we would do 30, so I think when we make the recommendation, we should do it in the [28:05] Carollynn Lear: percentage. I'm [28:08] Michael Beck: going to throw this thought out, and you know, we're so, we're going to have this conversation next week, right? Second, no, two weeks, but when's the second? Yeah, one week, one week, yeah. Would it be better to wait until council has the conversation and then I can propose during that time? Are there questions that we want to bounce off this committee? Yeah, and then, you know, because before this could even, yeah, it would be ordinance, it would be two readings anyway, so there'd be a chance to amend it and anything, sure, and all that, I mean, it has to get to a first reading anyway, so rather than trying to kind of beat our heads about now, I can just propose it to council and see if they want to ask the questions and then send it back to this committee. Yeah, that might be a very good idea. Can I ask, does that mean you don't anticipate that it would go through first and second reading in March, because if so, that would occur before this committee meets? Yeah, because the second would be when the GovOps says move it forward, and then the following Monday would be first reading, and then two weeks later would be second reading. And this committee meets the day after that second meeting. I will say this, though, that perhaps another option would be you guys could certainly vote to make a recommendation with sort of an invitation, if you will, to do more research or to dig into anything that the council may wish that you do, you know, whether that's evidence-based or whatever the council feels it needs for consideration. There could be a special meeting if the council wants more information, both from this committee and other sources, that vote may get actually pushed out anyway, so I think that there's opportunity there and as it relates to a vote of this committee to make a recommendation there's obviously lots of ways to do that in the past you guys have shown up done that public comment we've also just alerted counselors through email that there was a vote of recommendation and here's what it is and giving a link to the video so they can watch it if they're interested so there's lots of different avenues that can be super formal less formal and obviously opportunities Counselor Beck says for the council to ask specifically this committee to look at something specific. [30:26] Katie Brydon: if they want to do yeah I agree that 's the best mechanism because then it can be a very targeted ask and then the way that we are able to support them the timing of it is rough obviously again [30:48] Michael Beck: The consensus was, though, the council was very receptive to having lived experience. So really this comes down to, you know, are you going to do a number or a percentage, right? But you know, but the talk was there of we want to set a goal, not put it in code, you know, because we don't want to handcuff ourselves, but we do, we're in the interviews. So really in my opinion, the best way you're going to get, you know, the most lived experience is just getting the word out to get people to apply and make sure. That, you know, their barriers are, will be removed if they have them, you know, the richer pool we have to pick from when we do the interviews, the more likely we're going to get folks with lived experience, and I think that's, you know, going to be a great way to ensure that is there, as opposed to trying to force it through. Yeah, if it just happened organically, I think that ends up being better, because they were the ones that made it through the interview process to begin with, and I mean, is there has. There been. [31:50] Katie Brydon: Any talk in the committee, or rather the council work, about there being something in the ordinance it says like preferred, or that's what I'm looking for, like there'll be a preferred selection of those with lived experience, or something to that reference, given to something that could say like this sort of, if you have lived experience, that it's going to count more in. [32:16] Teresa Fallon: Terms of it. You get a golden ticket. Yeah,. [32:24] Michael Beck: Earlier in the process, when we had competing proposals for that, was something I'd actually put into my proposal is saying for now, and I use the metric of 30%. I don't know what the final draft is gonna look like. When we see it on the second, other than, you know, council just generally have said we're happy to set a goal. It's part of the interview process, but you know, if we don't want to hang car again, don't want to handcuff ourselves, we don't get enough. They were willing to come forward and self-identify, you know. That's why one of the concerns they are raised as well as, you know, some folks may not, you know, self-identify that they have lived experience for one reason or another. I mean, my personal experience, you and doing advocates and stuff, I mean, everyone's willing to wear it on their sleeve, they're doing this work, but you know, that may not always be the case. I [33:17] Suzette Holly Furrow: think in terms of when we make a recommendation, I think that we ought to do it to go to the gov ops committee on March 2nd. I think it would be good for us to get in on the ground floor of this whole discussion, letting folks know what we think and why we think it's important, so that would be my point, as opposed to waiting. Yes, yeah, to make [33:50] Katie Brydon: the recommendation to the council. So what do we, if we are going to make a recommendation, I think that we have a couple of things that we have to figure out. What are we recommending? Are we choosing a number? I can't help but think in terms of, this is just my own stepping out of the decision-making piece, I just want to say, if the number makes people uncomfortable, is there a way that we could say, like, whatever that language is, but if you do have lived experience, like, that will, I don't want to say it's not going to guarantee you a spot, but like, that will reference will be given, yeah, you know what I mean, like, something that, like, that way no one with lived experience is being looked over. I [34:41] Adam Douglas Baker: mean, just really quickly, I mean, I know when you apply for like bank or like committees here, it says like a preference to like banquet residents as well. I mean, I feel like that's a simple thing in like the text that we already do here. That's [34:53] Suzette Holly Furrow: city, that's true, it's true. So could our recommendation be, whatever the makeup of the committee is, however many members, we would recommend that you include language on the application that says preference given to those with lived experience, and then that leaves the number up to council to decide, but we're still saying we would like you to give preference to this group. [35:26] Katie Brydon: And could we then, like, I'm just trying to think of, like, the best way in terms of, like, honestly, like, our time and resources. Like, do we say, hey, right out the gate, we think that you should absolutely have language, have preferences given to individuals with lived experience. Once the ordinance is established, we would love to be able to provide support, resources, help in identifying if a number is needed or, you know, in whatever capacity we could provide, because I understand the many elements that are going into determining how you're going to identify those individuals. I just feel like if you're not going to give a number, you have to give preference, and I feel like it's got, it's got to be one or the other. And but I also don't want to say that, you know, you guys have been sitting on this and thinking about this [36:25] Carollynn Lear: and we're coming in and, you know what I mean, like, how do we, well, giving preference I think also puts [36:33] Michael Beck: us back a problem. Council doesn't want to be handcuffed with it, like, they want to set the goal, you know, but if I made the, actually the ordinance for this committee says the council shall work to include members with a wide variety of perspectives and interests on the committee, such as but not limited to perspectives and interests of the following, and then there's a list. So and the idea being that it's guidelines, that they're not looking to check these boxes, but it's sort of like these are important, like, perspectives that we would like to have on the committee. So maybe that's something that council could consider as part of their [37:15] Carollynn Lear: conversation. I [37:19] Suzette Holly Furrow: I think we should stay away from the idea of giving preference, because I think two things would happen with that potentially. One is that folks would feel like we're telling them what to do, that's number one. Number two, if there isn't even a thought on the part of the council that people with homelessness experience would be considered, then we're, I think we're presenting something that the idea probably simply doesn't even exist, that nobody is thinking about giving preference, but perhaps a better way of saying that would be we strongly suggest that you include 25 to 30 percent on your committee, blah. [38:12] Teresa Fallon: Oh, instead of putting it on the, yeah, instead [38:18] Katie Brydon: of putting it on the app, like, on the application. [Teresa Fallon: Yeah, so] we've got a couple of different things now, and I, so somebody may go even further and [38:33] Teresa Fallon: feel like we're discriminating against them because they've never been homeless [38:37] Suzette Holly Furrow: on an applicant. I know this does feel very we just don't know, and even with like the wording of giving preference to if there are 30 applicants and you know a certain number of them are professionals who are like working in support positions, would they be less likely to be picked over someone who just has unhoused experience? It's it's tough. I like the way that Mark worded it. I think that's probably going to be the cleanest and clearest way to give it to council without it feeling like we're saying you need to do this and I think it just would keep it clean, yeah. [39:20] Carollynn Lear: Katie post something in the chat. Okay, thank you. Thanks Katie. Nobody [39:26] Michael Beck: at home could read that just [39:27] Katie Brydon: you know okay so he's wondering how do you create crisis to only keep it 30 yeah I agree I feel like I don't want like I think that this is important work and I want to be able to support in any way possible our commitment to helping usher in a committee that's going to have a really important task and making sure that council like we are supporting council in every way possible to identify folks who are going to bring as much at the table as possible. I do think that council is thinking about that if there's anything that we can do to sort of just add a stamp of approval or additional help that's what I think that we need to identify like what this what is council waffling on and can we help push the needle one way or another to help ensure that individuals with lived experience who choose to participate anticipate can be seen as a value asset. Sorry, Katie, I feel like your question spoke to my head and I started talking. Did you want to add on to that comment that you had? No, I was agreeing with [40:40] Suzette Holly Furrow: what he said that, no, you just summarized what I was thinking, so. [40:47] Katie Brydon: Nice. Thank you for [40:50] Suzette Holly Furrow: pointing that in my brain. Sorry to interrupt. Maybe what we would consider sending to council would be exactly what Mark said you know we this is what we would like to see but also an offer to be of assistance in any way and just as a reminder to counsel that like we are key like our job is literally to advise them just as a reminder to say you know if there's something you get stuck on or if you have a question like please feel free like we're happy to connect you with additional resources or experts or you know we can even help do some recruitment of people with lived experience whatever it is that you need we are here just as a reminder that's right we're an advisory committee yeah how [41:34] Katie Brydon: Do folks feel about that and would this be like a recommendation that we make like that? [41:39] Carollynn Lear: You would bring forward to the committee to the council work I mean I can I mean having [41:47] Michael Beck: an email maybe from the chair would help think about that rather than me just you know paraphrasing [41:54] Katie Brydon: in all of this okay so just that does anybody else have anything to add are we in agreement with what the recommendation will be which is essentially that we see value in identifying individuals with lived experience on the council or on the standing committee for homelessness and we will absolutely promote this opportunity to join to folks that we know with lived experience and help you know with resources and supports if there is additional data research recommendations needed in terms of numbers we would like to be included [42:36] Michael Beck: in that conversation is [42:41] Katie Brydon: that some good is that what we think yes okay do you [42:47] Carollynn Lear: that would be helpful yeah whatever you advise [42:56] Michael Beck: Let me just write a note in here I think if the committee is interested in that there should [43:01] Katie Brydon: be a vote okay and making a formal recommendation okay so would anyone like to make a motion for this vote so moved would anyone like to second okay so hold on I'm trying to keep notes too all right so let's do a roll vote to make a recommendation to council that we will promote the opportunity and connect with our networks of individuals with lived experience participating in the council we see great value in identifying folks with lived experience to serve on the council and we want to be we want to offer our support in terms of if there's data research support needed to identify that number moved seconded let's take a roll vote Katie yes thank you Adam yes Suzette yes Sharon yes Mark yes and Katie yes okay unanimous passing right so we will I will write this up formally I'll watch the video right down with you if I have like six versions here I'm just gonna highlight this in my notes and then we will go back and send that recommendation to Council thank you everybody all right the next piece on our agenda is to approve the minutes of January 27, 2026. Adam, you can have seen from this vote since you were not here for those minutes. And I get a motion to approve the minutes. So I get a second. Oh, [45:06] Suzette Holly Furrow: let's give it to you. [45:14] Katie Brydon: All right. Any comments, questions, thoughts, feedback? Okay. Let's take a roll vote. Katie? [Michael Beck: Yeah. Yes.] Approval. Adam? Approval. Yes. Suzette? Yes. Sharon? Yes. Mark? Shane? Yes. Katie, okay, sorry, I'm just writing down my notes. All right, so approved unanimously. All right, so the next piece of business that we have is, oh, the current status of our committee. So as you know, there was conversation about the, this council, or rather the advisory committees standing, what we're able to offer the council, how we operate, whether or not, you know, the council should be, or rather the advisory committee should be disbanded, reorganized. That conversation did not make it out of gov ops, but I think that they were still a interest in revisiting what this committee can do in terms of advising city council, how we can best work with city council, and there was a, and forgive me if I'm mistaken, but was there originally a workshop scheduled for last night to discuss council [46:55] Michael Beck: Yeah, I was supposed to go to the workshop. I don't remember if I made it to this agenda for tomorrow or not. Okay. For Monday, but it's going to be scheduled tomorrow. I don't think that the Hager conversation got to that agenda. [47:08] Katie Brydon: Okay. So it's not currently on a council workshop agenda. Not to my knowledge. Okay. I mean, I would love to hear people's thoughts. I feel like it's kind of an elephant in the room to say that there's specific, you know, council members that would like to see maybe a reorganization of what this committee looks like, how it operates. Does that mean, so I don't know if you have a better sense from a council perspective. I can give my understanding, which is that because we are an advisory committee, whether what we have not been able to figure out, and this has been five years down this road since the establishment of this committee, is are we offering advice that we think is important to bring forward based on our own experiences and networks and work that we do, or should we be waiting for council to identify, hey, we would like your advice on this, we would like your advice on that. And I do from my experience on this committee think that we've done pretty much every iteration of that, where we are at right now is promoting either different citizen initiatives that come forward or ideas that we hear about in the community and we think are important because of our own networks and our own interest. And so I think that the council was feeling like there was a lot of time that we were spending coming to them, bringing forward different ordinance recommendations or legislative directives that weren't really in line with their priorities and what they wanted. It and so the question came up what how should this committee operate because we have been consistently operating with the directive well with our ordinance and then you know with our conversations with city staff and what's a priority there hasn't been a lot of conversation between council and our committee. We do now have a council liaison. We had sort of an informal council liaison for one year, a couple of years ago. But beyond that, there hasn't been any formal mechanism of how should you operate. And so the thought was, and this is my own understanding, that council was like, hey, let's take a pause on this committee and identify how they're operating, what they're doing, what they're bringing forward, what we want from them, what we need from them. And that was presented to the gov ops committee and the gov ops committee said no I think it's fine as is. That said we could just say like okay well I guess we're good to go then and keep on keeping on but that I don't think is really in the spirit of the work that we do in terms of wanting to be an asset to the city council wanting to be a strong partner to the city council, what directives should we be getting? How should we be working with them? And I saw that there was going to be a conversation and workshop at some point about this committee and what this committee, how it's operating, how it should operate. I have not had a conversation with anyone at the city about it and so I'm wondering I want to be transparent that this is happening with our committee. I don't want to pretend like okay let's just keep on making ordinances that are not gonna go well because people you know the City Council level you know that's not really what they see from us or what they need from us. I want us to be productive and effective in a way that's going to be received and actually help advance some inclusive you know humane thoughtful and diverse practices so i wanted to get people's thoughts you know is this a conversation and then maybe a two you know the assistant city manager or counselor beck can say like is this something that we what are our options too like do we invite the council chair here do we have a joint do we ask for a joint meeting do we just i we can't make this decision in a vacuum but like also i can't just say like okay let's just pretend that never happened and keep going because it's Just not going to get us anywhere. Like, I do think we need to be at a point where we can look at this proposal and I'll be perfectly honest, yeah, of course I want to be like, yes, we should do this and we should tell council that we think 25. And that's going to be great and they're going to be like, thanks, we were stuck and you helped us. But I don't think that we right now have that relationship because I think that there is... I do see that having consistently giving unsolicited advice might come up as very unhelpful. So what can we do to be more helpful and how do we figure this out? That's what this piece of the agenda is about. [52:38] Suzette Holly Furrow: Out does it have to be an either or proposition? Couldn't it be structured just in our thinking that we're an advisory committee and we will offer advice to the council on various issues that come up and we would also be very open to receiving a request from the council to discuss a particular subject among amongst ourselves and then make a recommendation back to the council? You know, I think I don't think that we want to we certainly don't want to alienate the council, no, yeah, you know, we don't Want to come across as we're the folks who, you know, and we're gonna tell you, but I think if it's kind of a reciprocal relationship that might be the most advantageous way to approach this, yeah. [53:44] Carollynn Lear: Yeah. [53:46] Katie Brydon: Thank you very much. I agree with that. [53:48] Adam Douglas Baker: I'm Adam. I think a big I've seen what happened through this whole thing what and whatnot. I think a very lack of communication is a very apparent thing between both things. I know particularly for me, I work with the council. I mean, I believe everybody here wants to and I feel like I can see how they can also see how we're like kind of stepping on toes sometimes or like in quoting, we're not quoting, but just maybe just not my own words being annoying sometimes or like why not. But I just yeah, I just think communication has just been lacking and I would like to see it more and I want to work with the council, so yeah, and also just any clarification, like while we're talking, like what do you want marvel [54:51] Michael Beck: Cool to be for you and so yeah, thank you. I think one of the things that was brought up too was that there's, because there's going to be the housing and the homeless committee coming up, that I don't know how many committees, Courtney you might know how many committees are there. 's there's kind of a lot and I think that was part of the reason too because like counselors, you know, knowing what's going on with all the committees, yeah, that since those two committees are being created that then maybe that was an issue and I think the committee had that trouble finding that one sometimes. I think that was in the paperwork too. Well that's why it was kind of brought up, thank you. I believe, okay, I don't know how many committees there are but there's, there's a lot, you know, if you guys watch them it's a lot, you know. Ah yeah, thank [55:42] Carollynn Lear: you [55:45] Suzette Holly Furrow: I just am looking at the ordinance, our ordinance, and subsection 23-44 is our mission and the very first item in our mission is to develop ideas and information to educate individuals within the organization, which I believe refers to the entire city government structure, staff, council, elected officials, whatever, as well as in the community, focusing on topics of, but not limited to, awareness, sensitivity, equity, inclusion, and diversity. So I hate that we have to feel like we are annoying people when we do that, right? Like when we share ideas or information or advocate, and then we're told we're wasting time. That's not great. And I did have a clarification because this is what I got in here to look for in the first place. During that meeting, chair Hawes said that she as council chair has the authority to disband us. I don't see that anywhere in ordinance. Do we know if that is actually accurate? I echo that as well. I can tell you [56:57] Michael Beck: I'm not an attorney but my basic understanding is that it would take a council vote to actually repeal an ordinance and actually two readings to do that. Yeah, I'm just gonna second that the city solicitor ended up confirming that's the case if you put it one insanity somewhere, thank you [57:19] Katie Brydon: that's it, yeah, I forgot about that, okay so [57:29] Suzette Holly Furrow: Sorry, I just realized I didn't finish my thought. My thought was if that's the case and, you know, we want to be useful and we want to be helpful, I do think it's important that we ask either for a joint meeting with council or for them to, you know, workshop and give us some formal guidance before they take action, like give us the opportunity to do what you want us to do before you just throw the baby out with the bath water, I guess. That would be my request, that either we all come to the table together and talk about it as a group, or you guys think about what you want us to do and share that with us and give us the opportunity to make those changes. [58:10] Katie Brydon: Yeah, I fully agree with that. [58:12] Michael Beck: Oh, just gonna say, so far as I know, at some point, there would be a workshop conversation about this. You know, so as far as what the status of the committee is, I'd wait to see what comes out of that workshop. The other thing I was gonna say to about where things are at, I mean, only thing that council will decide at this point is they voted not to move forward with dissolving the committee, so really what that leave you with is, you know, continuing to lean into the ordinance like you looked at as, you know, your mission is keep following your mission. When you do give advice, I mean, maybe making sure you mentioned with that advice, per our ordinance our mission is to, and therefore, you know, just as a reminder, you know, because you know there was some concern about, you know, veering off from the mission, well, this way and make sure that with every recommendation, here's the part of the mission we're speaking to, but also continuing data-driven advocacy, you know, kind of like what I had done with all the surveying that was done during Bangor Pride and, you know, the different work that came out of that, where you had, you know, real quantifiable numbers that went with the feedback that you'd receive. You know that's that's helpful when you know whenever it's data driven like that but you know also but going forward too is a liaison i'm in a strange position because you know it's i don't get emails about hey i feel i'm curious about this or i'm curious about that or you know so the conversation that happened the second was kind of caught me off guard too because some real important things were brought up that i wanted to bring with attention for example you know it was brought up that you know The Jewish community has, you know, growing concerns over anti-semitism. You know, that's something to look further into, that, you know, local Korean and Vietnamese populations are feeling left out, the seniors facing workforce or housing discrimination, and also family of children with special needs or disabilities. So that was something positive that came out of that grub ops meeting, that, you know, real things from counselors that they're concerned about. So something to keep in the back of this committee's mind of other things to look at, yeah. [Carollynn Lear: Yes.] I do think to kind of from that line is that we like looking at the calendar here that there's not like a whole lot of diversity, like including those groups, but also like the Irish Catholics. I mean, they were called the know-nothings when they built the st. John's Catholic Church and there's like Maine's supposed to recognize Irish heritage day which is March 17th and then you know other diseases like multiple sclerosis month is in March and you know dyslexia awareness month in October, neurofibromatosis month in May, things like that. Like there's a lot of things that I just think aren't being recognized that don't seem like a whole lot of diversity. It seems like, I mean, there's a whole month for pride, but there's not a whole month for many other things. And there's a lot of things here that mostly have to do with sexual orientation more so than maybe a religion or a disease or something. I mean, I'm not saying that they should be excluded. I'm just saying that maybe it should be a little more balanced sometimes, you know? Cause I mean, you got the information, not the pride, [1:01:48] Katie Brydon: but there's yeah a big there's a lot more people than me asking. I absolutely agree with that, yeah. And that is 100 meant to be a working calendar, so I agree that would be a great recommendation to continue to like look, because like again, because I do feel like we've gone through every iteration possible in terms of what this could look like and how we could operate if there was a time that we were like, okay, well this is our February meeting, what's coming up March and April that we can really focus on and so yeah opportunities to maybe revisit that as well when we're developing the agenda and being able to make sure that whatever we're looking forward to is really inclusive and robust and not just siloed to specific, you know, different groups, right, and that we're being more thoughtful about that. 's a great piece of advice, thank you. [Teresa Fallon: Okay so] I think that to your point, if we, I guess my thought is, and based on what I've heard, the council has not yet had a workshop to discuss the future of this meeting and they may or may or future of this advisory committee and the ways that we operate and it they may or may not have a meeting about it because I do feel like it was on the [1:03:21] Carollynn Lear: agenda but now it's not on the agenda. I didn't think it was. Is the conversation done tomorrow's [1:03:29] Michael Beck: it's it's not on tomorrow's pre-council workshop agenda. I do think that there is a desire to have a conversation with council about what that looks like, but certainly I think it would be helpful to know if there was a preference by the committee as to, you know, what [1:03:50] Katie Brydon: that might may need to look like. Yeah, I just basically want to make sure that if a meeting is organized that we are either invited to participate or have an opportunity to share our thoughts either beforehand and I don't know again the best way to go about that is that a means of like an open invitation to participate in our like we have already a workshop Vibe workshop set up happening is that an opportunity to have a conversation here would that be amenable to individuals on the council or if there is an upcoming workshop could we be given ample notice so that we could also participate in a meaningful way. Yes, certainly if a day if or when a date [1:04:35] Michael Beck: is nailed down where we know that the council will be discussing this, I'm happy to make sure that the committee is made aware of that as far as advanced as possible. As far as like inviting counselors to like your next meeting for example, I don't think that there's anything stopping this committee from extending that invitation. They have a lot of meetings that couldn't guarantee, you know, they may or may not participate, but certainly nothing's stopping the committee from [1:05:05] Suzette Holly Furrow: accepting that invite. Would there be anything weird if good with like the quorum for council if more than three of them or whatever gets together, would it have to be advertised as a joint [1:05:16] Michael Beck: meeting if we know that they're going to be here, if we know that there could be a quorum, we would just notice it that way, but I think we're safe either way simply because this meeting is open to the public and publicly noticed and even and typically the agenda would have something on it that would allude to the fact that counselors were invited for a discussion so that would meet the four requirements if you will for public noticing. Great, thank you I [1:05:47] Katie Brydon: I do just want to ask, you know, in the last GovOps meeting, when the decision was, you know, how should the council work with this committee and, you know, how should this committee move forward, there wasn't an invitation extended to anyone from our group to participate in that. And I just want to make sure if there is a workshop that's planned where this discussion session is, even if we are given ample time to attend and sit, like, could we also participate in the conversation? And if that's not something that they're able to prepare for, then I do think it just leaves us with opening our meeting, correct? Yeah, because really we staff would [1:06:35] Michael Beck: need to know that the committee was being invited to participate in a meeting ahead of time. Otherwise we would make you aware, like we did last time. It's just that it's up to the council to determine and decide who speaks during those meetings or not, right? So yeah, I mean, from a staff perspective, I think, you know, we would need direction from council if we were to actually post and extend the invitation to this committee to actually participate in one of the council workshops. Otherwise you're right, I think it would be on the committee to extend that invitation to counselors to come to participate in one of these meetings. We [1:07:27] Adam Douglas Baker: can get snacks. Yes, Adam, I would just be very much open to again just having like a joint meeting for the council, so I don't want to get be like blindsided, or how I felt like being blindsided like last time, so and I wasn't even part of [1:07:48] Katie Brydon: the committee then at that point, but yeah, I do think that would be, I just to ensure that there is an opportunity for conversation, whatever the best mechanism for that is. Do you, Councilor Beck, recommend that we wait to see how the council wants to proceed, or do you think that offering an invitation? [1:08:16] Michael Beck: In my personal opinion, I'd wait to proceed. I'd let the council decide. side, because ultimately you're an advisory council to the count, your advisory committee to the council, and that's a conversation council needs to have about what advice that they're looking for and what mechanisms they want to go for, you know, same as they created the ordinance themselves. Yeah, you know, they need to decide together, is this committee serving what they need and what changes, if any, or need to be made? I would start with letting them have the conversation, but let us have the conversation. I Would just say, sort of in line with that other recommendation the committee made earlier, if you wanted the council to consider, even if it was something like just making the committee aware, or asking from the table, or participating here, you know, there's nothing stopping you guys from making a recommendation or an ask that be considered and could be passed along the same way as you intend to pass along the other recommendation. Otherwise, it would be, you know, hopefully at the next meeting, Councilor. Becker, I would have an update, hopefully with some sort of direction coming from the council as to what they would like. Okay. [1:09:39] Katie Brydon: Okay, so you're saying with these two ideas, could we send an email essentially and say we would like to be, you know, should the council decide to have a workshop about how our advisory committee can best work in partnership with the council, we would like to be included? [1:10:02] Teresa Fallon: Okay, what are people's thoughts on that? And you think we should just wait and see what happens? [1:10:11] Michael Beck: This is my opinion, I could just, because again, the conversation has a potential to get kind of awkward, because this is a committee that's trying to exist and do this work, and committee and council has a different opinion about how that work should be done. And you know, I think that we kind of have to get our own internal messaging straightened out first before we're investing your time and do it as well, because I think you saw at the gov ops meeting that there was a wide variety of opinions on it. And you know, again, my consensus is the majority of, because all the council was there, the majority aren't supportive of this committee. But as far as the direction, as far as how do we want the advice, how do we want to be able to individually reach out for advice, or do we have to have a certain mechanism for that, all of those questions are what we really need to answer for ourselves. Yeah, shouldn't jump the gun just yet. I mean, maybe again, I don't want to tell this community what to do or not to do. But I guess my opinion, I would wait to let council have that conversation, you know, because then based on what comes out of that conversation, then it could be a conversation with the committee that says, okay, well, based on what you're looking for, this is how we're able to best serve that mission, or here are some changes we would recommend amend to help facilitate that, as opposed to, you know, in all fairness, council doesn't even know what it really wants right now. [1:11:46] Suzette Holly Furrow: I agree with you, Michael. I think that if we were to make a request for a joint meeting, we'd have to have a very good reason for doing that, and we'd have to let the council know why we were requesting this. I think waiting till the council has had some deliberation about this is the better idea, because we'll, we'll be taking direction on the manner this committee will operate from the council, and then it becomes an open discussion, yeah. [1:12:31] Katie Brydon: It's like that fine balance of like, how do we demonstrate our commitment to partnership and patience? It's probably not by jumping the gun, and but I do think that, you know, voices at the table, so it's so important, and in larger your decision making. I guess the question is, does anyone feel the need to make a vote to recommend a meeting with council, or make a recommendation for an invitation? Okay, any other thoughts, questions? Okay, all right, last piece, as always on our agenda, is the language access plan. This guy never leaves us, and I, this has been included in the packet, and I do think that this could be a pretty quick conversation, truly. Huh, what would you say, language line? Yeah, exactly. So I think that what we need to decide, right, is that this has come up, this is a conversation that we've had started multiple times, which is that at least the individuals that were serving in the last term found a lot of value in helping Bangor be more accessible to folks who do not speak English, and what could that look like in terms of how we support the staff and how we are able to use our own resources and networks to make it so that Bangor is honestly more accessible, easier to get around. You can come to City Hall and be able to read the signs and what you're looking for. I think what we need to determine is, and there are examples of language access plans in your packet, there are examples of like how other cities manage it. I think for us is just determining is this something, I guess like what do we do in terms of, you know, are we gonna make a recommendation, and I guess this is my big question, right, like could we make a recommendation to the staff to start keeping data on how many languages that they encounter, how many barriers they encounter with folks, or can we You know, invite individuals to our conversations that might have more of a pulse on the different language and the needs. Like, in a perfect world, I would say, well, we can't really identify what language needs there are until we talk to staff. But I, it's definitely not in our purview to tell staff to, like, start keeping notes for us. You would need that data to [1:15:43] Teresa Fallon: even make a recommendation, in my opinion, because you say you would or would not. You would. Okay. [1:15:50] Katie Brydon: OK, I thought you did not. I was like, oh, go on. [1:15:53] Teresa Fallon: You would need to know that. How often are they incurring these difficult challenges? And what is the diversity? Is it three different languages? Is it five? Is it 100? Because the hospitals both are using something called LanguageLine. It's a program and an app that you only pay when you use it. Yeah, there are other programs that you pay a lump sum annually, but it's probably like ten thousand dollars versus like three dollars a minute, or you might pay less if you use it more often, that kind of thing. But it, I mean, there's always a Google Translator, but this is like guaranteed actual translators in the program. It's basically you select English to Spanish or English to Russian or whatever the language is, and you know, they, you have them select the language from pictures, and then if they know the language, they can press it on the thing. But and then they talk, it translates. You talk, you know, and so you can just sit there and have a whole conversation, you know. But that's just one of many that, yes, yeah. But if they're not to that point, you literally might use a Google Translator. I don't know, I mean, yeah. But the hospitals found that they did have, of course, people could be getting sick from our little blue place, right? People fly and get sick, you know. So I know both of the hospitals are both using language line because they only pay for it when they use it so as far as I know that's what they've been using but again without having the data yeah I don't know that you in my opinion I don't think you could make a suggestion other than yeah collect some data and right or ask questions [1:18:03] Suzette Holly Furrow: Courtney, do you know if right now we do any kind of tracking like that or record keeping? No. [1:18:10] Michael Beck: I mean, anecdotally, I've asked from front level staff and things like that, which actually collecting that sort of data here at City Hall is pretty easy to do. As soon as you get into the outside departments, like public safety and stuff, that's a little harder to capture that. that. So I think, I mean, I'm happy to kind of kick off the conversation on my side. In fact, we're having a department head staff meeting next week. So I'm happy to kind of get a sense anyway of what the department's heads are hearing and,, you know, they're they've heard from their folks, you know, there's a particular area or language or anything like that just as maybe a starting point. And I can also chat with the department heads that oversee the offices here at City Hall as well, because I do think that would be a lot easier for our staff to track that sort of information here, which could be ongoing for a little while to see. but anecdotally what I've heard is that we do get folks that English is their second language but in their experience most of the time if they're patient enough they can communicate well enough to get their needs met and the folks that can't often bring a translator with them you know whether that's because they know we don't have a translator or don't want to risk it i couldn't tell you so yeah we can certainly at least get some a starting point information for a starting point example i just i read through it but i just think that i don't know when this was written but there's so much technology now that you can even just pick up into something and it translates a document for you so and i did speak to someone that's in the school system and they said there's just so many things on the phone they just use the apps so i just thought you know with everything being kind of tight money that i thought probably not needed because i don't know unless somebody hears something else but i just yeah there's so much every day [1:20:18] Katie Brydon: now with technology yeah that is true i 'm thinking about folks that like don't call public safety or don't come to City Hall because they don't have you know that they're not able to speak the language and they don't have you know access to a device you know in terms of accessibility I think I think it's just really important that we're thinking about the folks that we're not seeing and they're not here because they don't have those opportunities and I do know that i've had lots of Conversations with like one of the program managers at the main multicultural center, and that's like a big thing is that families don't go out, they don't, you know, come to city hall or call for public safety or, you know, go to their students, you know, staff meet or IUP meetings or whatever it is, because of the language barrier. And if there's, if determining that need is obviously always the hardest thing, that's why we have no data on so many individuals that are like in a protected class, because being able to self-identify is such a hard thing to grasp. And I don't want to definitely spend our resources and time barking up a tree that isn't going to serve multiple individuals. But I do think it's important to keep in mind, like, what are the little things we could do? And that's why this first came up, right, it's like when we started this conversation we were talking about how when you're in the doctors there's that little sign that says basically in every single language, like, do you need, you know, a translator, you know, and it says it in literally every language, and like we were thinking in terms of the accessibility for our agendas, right, like if you want to participate in a public meeting and you need a translation, you need translation services, like how would you even know that, it doesn't say it on anything, why, you know, and again how would you even know that if you wanted to go speak and it's not, you know, in a language that you're comfortable with, so identifying what those needs possibly could be and how we could help support it, not so much like create a whole new department or like create all these new training resources, but what little elements are there in terms of identifying what the, what the issues are, and I think that starting with the staff meeting would be super helpful, because I also think that there's probably a sense of a lot of those departments of folks that they're not seeing, you know, it's just like it makes me feel like, I don't know, I think about our schools and how many students are in our schools where their families don't speak, you know, are not, you know, maybe as proficient in English, and so they miss the sign for parks and recs basketball, you know what I mean, or like what opportunities are folks in the city missing because we're not thinking about ways that we could just make it easier for even their kids to participate, right, just a school of information about the [1:23:26] Michael Beck: Children in the system and what languages they speak, yes, because presumably their families at home would be speaking other languages, right? Yeah. [1:23:35] Katie Brydon: Yeah, we have a list of what languages everything needs to be translated into, yeah, so that's obviously also a really good place to start in terms of collecting information, if that, if those fan, like the children are in the school, then their parents live in Bangor, right, like, yeah, that would also be a really powerful place to start in [1:23:52] Suzette Holly Furrow: terms of data collection and in school at IEP meetings, if a family needs to have a translator they can request it of the school and then the school will provide somebody to come and sit in on the meeting and translate for them, so it seems to me that, and the issue is not so much having the different languages, lost my train of thought here. [1:24:26] Katie Brydon: I think I know exactly where you're going. [1:24:28] Suzette Holly Furrow: Not having the languages available, but the issue really more is how do you get to the people who are not connected to an institution like a hospital or a school to know that some services [1:24:44] Katie Brydon: could be available to them, yeah, that is, I think you're exactly right, I think that is the issue, and so I think in terms of like our work and the ways that we're able to support this, obviously, you know, I'm happy to talk to folks at a school level in terms of language, I think bringing it up with the department heads, but I do like, would people be interested if we were able to, I know that we had reached out to some individuals at the Maine Multicultural Center, like a couple months ago before, I don't know, it seems like every month gets swamped with new things but there was definitely an interest from the main multicultural center in terms of like coming to speak with us about ways that maybe we can again just help connect like what resources are available if someone from that you know organization were to come and say yeah we have all these resources we don't work families are like oh maybe you work with you know some families that could benefit from this or you know you Have a network of folks that could benefit from this, like, what are ways that we could help just extend this? And maybe I would be really interested personally to hear from them if they were like, oh yeah, they were hard to navigate for these reasons, then how could we maybe help bridge that gap, or identify ways that we could more easily support awareness? Because you're probably right, Suzanne, it's probably not like, let's create a whole new department and a bunch of resources and spend money, it's more what are the actual needs and how can we go about that? And again, I think a language access plan is great and honestly really easy, but I don't, it's not in our purview to tell the city to create one, so like maybe having some data and ways that we can better support that might be a good place to start. So would folks be comfortable if I, 'd be not happy to reach out to the Maine Multicultural Center and see if there's some information that they would be able to either bring to our meeting or wanna share with us? Is this something that we, or maybe we don't wanna, maybe we just wanna dump this thing and not pursue it anymore. [1:27:07] Suzette Holly Furrow: What do folks feel? [1:27:11] Adam Douglas Baker: I personally would like more information before I truly like make a full decision [1:27:17] Michael Beck: It's the goal of the, you know, maybe not citizens to become citizens, because then they would have to learn English, like because the requirement of citizenship is English civics to pass tests on basic English reading, writing and speaking. So I mean, I think that's probably all their goals, right? So they want to be working towards that. That so I want to encourage them, I mean I'm not saying don't, like I think there's so much on the AI and apps and all that, but that their goal, their end goal isn't probably to become a citizen, so you know what I mean, so long [1:28:01] Katie Brydon: term cool, right, but if like if folks [1:28:05] Michael Beck: you know but I'm not thinking like but I just think there's so much because I see people with their phones and like they're saying stuff but it's telling them what language is [1:28:14] Adam Douglas Baker: bad right now, so yeah, you know, yeah, I mean just one point, I mean not everybody has a phone or technology as well, words even not maybe not necessarily has a phone or technology but isn't literate in technology, a lot, especially with I, when I think about like, yeah, like some of our older population as well, not to put it like that, but like sometimes just a variety of people, sometimes technology is just not for them sometimes, and I feel like that's a barrier as well [1:28:52] Katie Brydon: Yeah, I think just figuring out, yeah, are there barriers that we could better identify and help break down, you know, if that's something, I think it would be helpful before we [1:29:07] Suzette Holly Furrow: Like commit to diving into this full scale, just to hear, especially like from Courtney's group of managers, like is this even a thing that, yeah, we're experiencing right now, yeah, like is it worth our time to develop all of this, and you know, this thing wouldn't have to go through council, so because it's just a staff thing, but like that isn't needed right now, yeah, and if not this level, is there anything small scale that we could do to make changes, like even just getting, you know, those little signs That say if you need an interpreter in like all the different languages, yeah, are [1:29:53] Katie Brydon: You, so are you comfortable just trying to test the waters, [1:29:59] Michael Beck: Get the feel, yeah, I'll certainly, I don't know what degree I'll have in time for the next meeting, but I'll certainly have something to share, if nothing else from the department heads, and then I am curious, you know, whether that's public safety or like even parks and rec, you know, what they're, what they're experiencing in their day to day, so I certainly gather some of that information in time for the next meeting, yeah, I definitely look forward to [1:30:26] Katie Brydon: Hearing some of that, yeah, and I can also just in terms of the school department see if there's anything that they're noticing too, in terms of like what people might not have access to, because you're, you're right, like I see the phones and schools all the time with parent meetings, just makes me think about like what parents aren't here, you know, so and maybe they're, maybe the [1:30:52] Teresa Fallon: School doesn't use something, they use, they do, yeah, they would have to, yeah, because to be honest, even using like a google translator, they're not really, they're not what people think they are, if you've ever tried to use one, because obviously we're a very small facility, we don't, so I mean it's not very often that we get somebody who doesn't, english isn't their first slang, well no, but they don't speak english, yeah, that way, even as a second language, but it has happened, and it is frustrating trying To communicate with them, so even the translate, they're not, it's hard, it's not like what's hot, it's not that easy, yeah, so you're sitting there, hold on, i have to press another button, you know what, hold, you're like, you know, yeah, no, it would, yeah, you know, it is, it's tricky, yeah, so and it works, but not, yeah, not that easy, already [1:32:00] Katie Brydon: It's the job done right. Okay, well I think we have some good discussion points for our next meeting. There anything pressing in [1:32:12] Carollynn Lear: terms of a liaison update? We'll celebrate the Black History Month. [1:32:21] Michael Beck: Nice movement to do and I guess relevant to this committee, the council has unanimously accepted your report so there are no problems there. We also passed a order that established our city prior council priorities for the year and the top three were homelessness, housing, and regional cost sharing. Oh nice. I mean there's obviously other areas we'll work on as well but those are the top three and we already touched on, you know, we did a lot of work on the housing homelessness committee and, you know, we've, you know, who knows the staff and we've been putting staff on the hamster wheel with, you know, hey we have this affordable housing, you know, committee, you know, here's the second draft and, you know, can you marry these two together like oh hey why don't we split them in half. So appreciate how the work staff put into, you know, doing that because we've definitely been putting them through the ringer and then I guess the only thing is I know this council or this committee did work in asking for or advising on the resolve last council session for 287g agreements. Yeah we did a workshop. There was actually two ordinances that were put through regarding, you know, immigration enforcement, everything. One ordinance had to do with face masking and, you know, banning folks for wearing face masks and then the and then hiring practices, that was voted down. And then there was another one that put through that has to do with basically could comply with 1971 early but also put into code that we don't do 27g agreements and we need a judicial warrant for cooperation except for in cases of serious crimes. That one did pass out a workshop five four. That gets a first reading tomorrow. [1:34:11] Katie Brydon: Great, that's great news. Congratulations. Awesome. Yeah, great work. Thanks for that update. Any questions? [1:34:23] Suzette Holly Furrow: I have a question. Sorry. Do you know if there'll be a proclamation in March for Women's History Month? I don't know that Bangor has done one before but with for Women's History Month. Yeah I don't know there will be but I mean you never [1:34:45] Michael Beck: know. Yeah I mean I think that's a great, I guess I guess I would say to this committee recommend that, I don't know if someone makes a motion on that right before I asked for it, I don't know that some of this committee's interested in seeing him. [1:35:07] Suzette Holly Furrow: Did I just open a can of worms? [1:35:12] Michael Beck: Closest Awareness Month and Irish Heritage Day, I feel a bunch of other things too. [1:35:20] Carollynn Lear: March with stuff happening, March, all the things are happening. [1:35:25] Michael Beck: Thing, oh well, yeah, that's all I got, right? [1:35:32] Adam Douglas Baker: Just a quick comment, just thank you counselor, back in all the counselors who have supported this committee as well, so I just wanted to echo that. [1:35:42] Katie Brydon: for myself to you so thank you yeah great good sentiment number baker thank you very much counselor for your work and support and answering all of our hard questions all the time appreciate show you all right without any further questions or comments can i get a motion to adjourn second are you let's vote yes