Bangor Homelessness Committee holds inaugural meeting, votes to hire facilitator

[1:29] Carolyn Fish: All right, so we are live. All right, so this is the inaugural meeting of the Advisory Committee on Homelessness, July 14th, 2026, in Council Chambers. My name is Carolyn Lear, I'm the City Manager in Bangor, and because you all have not had the opportunity to elect a chair yet, and I suspect you might like to think about that decision a little bit, if it's okay with you, I had planned to lead you through the agenda for this evening, and then first thing during our first or our second meeting, which will likely be our first sort of substantive meeting, we can nominate an elected chair that works for everyone. All right, so the bulk of our time today will likely be with a legal and ethics training from our City Solicitor, Dave Sefchak, but before we roll into that, I thought it might be nice if folks were interested in going around the table as well as the dais behind us and doing introductions, a couple lines about your background, and if you wish, why you're excited to be participating in this committee or why you are motivated to apply. I'd like to start. You unfortunately sat directly next to me. [2:48] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Good afternoon or evening, everybody. My name is Alton Buzzle. I am the Director of Marketing for Hollywood Casino. [2:54] Ben Treat: I also serve as the Vice President of the Board of Directors for Downtown Bangor Partnership. [3:01] Alton Buzzell Jr.: I wanted to apply and be a part of this committee because obviously this is an issue that impacts all of us, and it impacts our business community. And so I felt very strongly that our business community needed to have a voice to be here [3:13] David Szewczyk: to share how the impact of the things that we proposed may impact them. [3:19] Alton Buzzell Jr.: So I'm excited to be here. Hi. Hello, everyone. My name is Teal Vasquez. My pronouns are they, them. I am a Bangor area activist and organizer. I work in the recovery community and the unhoused community. Over the past year, I have worked really hard to forge as many relationships as I can on the ground with the unhoused community. And it really has been a blessing for my life and has improved my skills of advocacy greatly. So I'm grateful for that experience, and I feel that it's the least that I can do to give back to that community that has taught me so much about empathy and how to be a better human in Bangor, and to try and represent their voices here in the advisory. [4:08] Jason Goodrich: Hi, my name is Jason Goodridge. My friends call me Jay. I moved up here to Bangor, the Bangor region, in 1997, fresh out of college, with a fresh new wife and a new baby, to become a crisis worker. During that time I worked predominantly with people who were unhoused, continued my education, became a forensic intensive case manager with the Department of Health and Human Services, and worked at the intersection of public safety, mental health, behavioral health, recovery, doing jail in-reach and homeless outreach for about 18 years here in Bangor. I'm also somewhat in long-term recovery. I have a brain injury and those experiences bring a lot to what I hope to bring here to this committee are my experiences. Today I serve as a board on a board of a state institutional government to governmental institutionality which is an advocacy organization for people in behavioral health services. I've done that work for about 10 years. And what I hope to bring to this table is an understanding both of the systems and of the personal and professional experiences that have caused homelessness. I don't believe that homelessness is one problem. I believe it's a collection of problems that manifests itself in the way that it does. We have folks that are experiencing different levels of behavioral health needs, different levels of recovery needs, different levels of housing needs. Some folks are in the midst of domestic violence situations, and none of those situations are any one individual thing. I think we have to realize that what we're looking at here is a collection of issues that we all are going to have to talk about to great depth. So I thank you for your time and I look forward to more conversations with you. Hi. [6:04] David Bushey: Good evening, my name is Anthony, everyone called me Tony. I'm a psychiatrist and doctoring, I work both at Katie and East Maine. I've been up in Bangor area for about 16 years, it's pretty quick. I've been working on homeless communities and homeless mental health issues and health issues for about 30, 20 years, 30 years in different settings in New York City, DC, and other places. And I've done stuff anywhere from shelter system clinics to being out on the street working with the folks. Because I see so many of those patients coming through emergency room, which is why I feel if I could be part of that solution, not just on the clinical side, but at a higher level. What's challenging about figuring out a solution for working with this population is the fact that the solution changes constantly. So we could come up with a nice set of recommendations and within six months something outside change the dynamics and then we gotta come up again. So it's my hope that the committee's not only have the solution but develop a mechanism to deal with ongoing challenges that you know that's gonna happen now five years from now so. [7:24] Brittney Dunham: My name is Brittany Dunham. I'm one of the senior directors of social work for Preble Street. I was born and raised in Bangor and then moved away promptly when I was 17 years old and didn't expect to be back in Bangor. But about two years ago I had the opportunity to come back to Bangor as Preble Street was stepping in to take over operations of the Hope House shelter from PCHC. And I have had the extreme gift to be here since in some capacity and so I have spent most of my career doing homeless services in some version or another in lots of different places but have seen certainly how those services are impacting communities in different spots whether it's big cities or small towns or you know the biggest small towns in different states and it's fascinating to me like what is different and what is similar sort of across the board and so similar to Tony I think I. Have seen a lot of times that we come up with a plan and the plans change and so I think when I was interested in this it was also about sustainability ability and making sure that the voices of people that we're serving really are front and center to that, but also that we're sort of following best practice and what, you know, what is going to be best for both the community that we're serving and the community at large, which I think weighing. [8:56] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Both of those things can be super challenging and important that we're doing that thoughtfully. [9:04] Melissa Ann Rhodes: Hi, I'm Melissa Rhodes. I am currently the Director of Property Management for Bangor Housing. Housing so I oversee public multifamily affordable 55 and older tax credit properties many I've been there 14 years I've seen you know I've housed the hardest and unfortunately you know my goal here too is to keep the house housed and how is the unhoused appropriately and with supports and see if we can get the community rally together to get make it work you know it's sad it's it's very sad when you see them and you want it to work but then the services don't work for them and then you know if. I'm if I'm letting somebody go we are at our end where we have to and I don't want to see that anymore. Before this I worked I oversaw many intellectual and mental health group homes. And so I've worked in that capacity and personal support programs. So been there, you know, I think I can add a lot to what we are, our goal is here. And I'm excited. I'm excited to work together. [10:17] Carolyn Fish: Other. I'm Amy West. I'm a nurse practitioner with PCHC and I have worked in homeless health for about 18 years. I was a nurse and a nurse practitioner with Boston Healthcare for the Homeless program before I moved to Maine. And since coming to Maine, I've specialized in homeless medicine for primary care for individuals that are experiencing homelessness and addiction medicine. So I provide street medicine. I've provided street medicine in Bangor for about five years now and have walked this path with countless individuals and see how incredibly difficult it can be the systems that we have set up that really don't always serve the folks that are trying to access that system and that also applies to folks that are vulnerably housed or newly housed and I just feel strongly that having a diverse committee we can kind of tackle it from multiple angles and multiple viewpoints and try to come up with That long-term sustainable rapidly evolving and ever-changing plan that will help the community as a whole and not just people that are currently experiencing homeless but people as they become newly housed or were housed and become unhoused. [11:27] Ben Treat: i'm ben treat i'm the director of the bangor public library and we 've been a place where there have been lots of unhoused folks so for the for the past, well, you know, 40, 50 years, but like especially the past five years. And we are not alone in that. Libraries across the country are experiencing this, usually in urban centers or in service centers. You can decide which one we are in Bangor. I mean, it depends on your view of what urban means, but we're not alone in that. And we try to learn lessons from our library colleagues, but we also learn a lot of lessons from folks who are on the table here. We've benefited so much from the services that are provided by all the different agencies that you see and organizations that you see as well as others. So the reason I'm very enthusiastic about being here is that I want to think about ways that we can all have a template for working together, and also ways that we can communicate all the work that's being done, because I think people don't necessarily see that. They see the end result, which is continued inflow, which is part of the national condition that we're in of people who are unhoused, and they don't see all of the work, all the successes that are happening. So I think being able to communicate those successes, as well as the challenges and find solutions to the challenges what excites me about this [13:11] Peter Patrick Kealy: My name is Pat Kelly. I'm certified day recovery coach with the Penobsco County over the open response team. I'm also certified I'm also pissed for over the other place I have been Bangladesh in 2020. I have been working in the recovery field. I'm a person in long-term recovery, what I consider to be long-term recovery, I'm a person an explorer incarcerated I'm a formerly unhoused individual myself I've been there I felt it and you know Bangla's been really good to me and this I think is probably a very good way I think about the community yeah all [14:15] Carolyn Fish: Right and then in the back because we don't have room at the table we have the non-voting city school department staff people if you'd like to just introduce yourselves and what your role is. Good afternoon everyone. I'm sorry, I'm going to interrupt you. If you could unmute your microphone by touching the button. [14:38] David Bushey: Good evening, everyone. My name is Dave Bush. I'm the deputy chief of the police department. I've worked in public safety for the city of Angkor for the past 23 and a half years. So over the last five to six years, I think one of the most dramatic increases that I've seen or changes that I've seen in the city is the number of unhoused in Bangor on the streets, and obviously it's concerning for all of us, which is why we're all here. I think I can bring a bit of a unique perspective in the sense that I've seen a lot of changes and then I've talked to a lot of people that work and live and frequent the downtown area and the impact that this has had, so I'm glad to offer that perspective. [15:25] Brittney Dunham: I don't know if you can help. [15:27] Robyn Stanicki: My name is Robin Stanicki. I'm the Community Development Officer for the City of Bangor. I also do a lot of housing programs, and I run the Community Development Block Grant program. I'm also a sociologist. I have a background in organizational management, quality improvement, working a lot with clinical microsystems and substance use services. But it very much has always intersected with working with the unhoused population. I'm also a social worker, just another degree that I don't currently use. But I bring a lot of that experience into my work, especially with doing the types of plans that we are hoping to create here. I've done a lot of strategies in this type. So I'm hoping that I can be helpful with bringing you research and the latest best practices and the latest exemplars and white papers that really give you the information that you need to put something together. [16:40] Bruce Hews: My name is Bruce Hughes. I'm the almost response coordinator for the City of Angora. I've been doing that for the last two years, and before that I worked at the Hope House through PCHC for 16 years, and before that I worked at Acadia Hospital with children on the children's unit over there, and saw a lot of those children that I worked with go at the shelter when I ran that. So it's, you know, something that's always been true to my activity is to help support people that are on house, and I'm glad to be a part of this, and I work with most everyone on this table, so I'm really excited to be a part of it. Thank you. [17:24] Stephen Urli: Hi everyone, I'm Stephen Early. I work for the Bangor School Department as an administrator. Another role I have there is the McKinney Vento liaison, which my primary focus there is working with students who are experiencing homelessness and providing resources to get them education that they need. On this committee, I am the technical advisor for the Baylor School Department. Thank [17:48] Carolyn Fish: you. All right, so next on the agenda after introductions will be a thrilling legal and ethics presentation from our city solicitor. [18:03] David Bushey: No pressure. It's going to be riveted. [18:09] David Szewczyk: So I'm Dave Subcheck, the city solicitor. I don't usually share a lot of information, but I have been an attorney for 35 years and a Bangor resident for 30 years. My wife grew up in Bangor. We raised our children here. They went through the Bangor public schools and have a lot of we've lived here for 30 years, so I'm here tonight to give some training on the Freedom of Access Act and the code of ethics, and to spend a little bit of time during that code of ethics on conflicts of interest, and you can ask me questions at the end or you can ask me questions in the middle, whatever you prefer. So the Freedom of Access Act is a state law, state statute passed by the Maine legislature. And it has two purposes. One is that the actions of public bodies should be taken openly. And the second one is that records of a public body's action should be open to public inspection. The idea of the Freedom of Access Act,, which we sometimes call FOA, is that public proceedings exist to aid in the conduct of the people's business. And this advisory committee is a public body that falls under the purview of the Freedom of Access Act. So there are two parts to that act. There's records and there's public proceedings. And it is the intent of the state Freedom of Access Act law that actions and deliberations of the city and its committees be taken openly and that records of actions be open to public inspection. So any record that is in the possession of the city of Bangor or any public official involving the business of the city is considered public unless there's an exception that applies to it from a statute or another rule, and there are a lot of exceptions, so we will not be going over those tonight. But to be prudent, you should assume that any documents or communications created or received by a committee member involving the business of the committee is a public record until you find out that it's otherwise. So written communications, including texts, emails, social media posts, and messaging systems, or any other electronic communication regarding the committee's business should be considered by you to be a public document. You should consider all communications regarding the business or activities of this committee to be a public record, even if they're on your personal device. It is recommended that you create a new email address for your position on the committee and use that for any and all committee communications. It is recommended that you do not delete any communications documents or notes taken during committee meetings because they may be the subject of a Freedom of Access Act request at any time by a citizen. Finally, you should be aware that the city may request to view your electronic communications involving any business of the committee in response to a FOA request made by a citizen. Then there's the public proceedings part of the Freedom of Access Act. Committee meetings are public proceedings. As such, they must be advertised and open to the public. Members of the committee should avoid discussing committee matters outside of the public hearing in order to foster public understanding of the decisions of the committee. It is possible that back-and-forth communications including emails and texts among a quorum of committee members and in this case that would be five or more members could be argued to be a meeting of the committee. So members should be careful not to send reply all's to emails regarding committee business. For example, if the chair of the committee sends out an email inquiring with the committee members regarding the availability for an upcoming meeting. That's all fine. It is recommended that the reply to the chair is it's not a problem to reply to that. But it's recommended to just do a direct reply and not a reply all so that we don't start running chains of communications back and forth that someone might argue is, you know, an unnoticed meeting, an unnoticed public meeting not taking place in the public. So, members of the committee should avoid discussion of substantive matters verbally outside of the committee meeting by email or by email, text, or social. So any questions about the Freedom of Access Act? [23:13] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Yeah, so like the personal notes that I'm taking now, many of which are written in my own shorthand, that would make sense to anyone but me, would they fall into this public record definition? Yes. Okay. So I should be retaining any notes that I take? Yes. If they're physical notes, do they have to be stored a certain way or? [23:34] David Szewczyk: more as long as the substance of the note is retained and that is the important thing I mean the original substance not a summary you know I also [23:49] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Had a question regarding the nature of us not conducting committee business outside of officially like committee sanctioned activity. Obviously I do a lot of outreach. That's something that's very important to me. And when I sort of nominated myself for this position, I did it at the behest of my unhoused community members that I'm friends with. And so, you know, like one of the things that I passively and always do and believe in is that their voice should be solicited, especially when it comes to committee matters. I mean, I view that as sort of something that I can give them as a connection and insight into the committee. But it does seem like that may be colored by this sort of. [24:54] David Szewczyk: Well, the communications part that I talked about is to avoid having a meeting that would be considered a public meeting. And a public meeting of this committee would be a meeting of five or more but communications that you have about committee business could be considered public records so it wouldn't be an illegal meeting that you'd be having but a record that's created involving the business of the committee, even if it's just sent with two people, if it's a part of the business, it could be considered a public record. So it would be okay to have that communication, but the record could be considered a public meeting. And we're going to talk more about social media type communications later in this talk, and about whether you're speaking as a private citizen or whether you're speaking as a member of the committee here [26:03] David Bushey: so we'll get into that a little bit more question so let's just say me and Amy just happened if we want to chat about some ideas about health care I'm not just all at home is that do we need to we could do it in person but is do we need to take down drop out a few lines [26:21] David Szewczyk: what we talked about even though no that would not be a public meeting okay because it's you're not a quorum okay but if you were talking about the business of this committee your communications if they were written down could be considered a public document but not required to write them down no yeah there'd be no reason to write them down but if they are written down if they are texts or emails and you're texting about the business of this committee in theory those could be requested by some member of the public they sometimes request all communications regarding the business of the committee within this date to that date or something that's a very [27:05] David Bushey: loose stretch by itself for example let's say the committee said let's find some health up now health innovative health ways to deal with population and amy and i decided to charge on that means that has [27:19] David Szewczyk: become the work of the committee. Well, it doesn't become the work of the committee if it's not the work of the committee just because you're sitting on the committee. But if what you're communicating about is the work of the committee, okay, then that would be something that would be public, a community document, if that makes any sense. [27:46] Ben Treat: If somebody sends me an email and I don't respond to it, I didn't really for this committee, that's still a record. Somebody [27:56] David Szewczyk: sent you an email as a member of the committee? [27:59] Ben Treat: Relevant to the, yeah, yes, my committee, and you know, and then whether I respond to that or not, that's a, that's a record, right? Yes, if it's in [28:13] David Szewczyk: your possession. Okay, you can feel free to ask more questions about that. I'm just thinking about what I don't want to do is like [28:30] Alton Buzzell Jr.: I think it's on the shower, okay, so I'm going to talk to you about [28:34] David Szewczyk: some of the things in our code of ethics, and one of the things I'm going to spend a little time on are conflicts of interest. No committee member should participate in the deliberation or vote on any item before the committee, in which they are a member of their immediate family have a financial or special interest other than an interest held by the public generally. That's what our code says. We'll get into a little about that. A financial interest is defined in our code of ethics as a direct or indirect interest having monetary or pecuniary value, including but not limited to the ownership of shares of stock. So basically we're talking about something of monetary value to you or an immediate family member. A special interest is defined in our code as a direct or indirect interest having value peculiar to a certain individual or group, whether economic or otherwise, which value may accrue to an in this individual or group as a result of the approval or disapproval of a recommendation to the city council, and I'm going to just use an example to try to make it a little bit more concrete and understandable. The advisory committee, for example, is about to deliberate and vote regarding a possible recommendation to the city council on whether a non-profit company that committee member A's spouse works for. And they're gonna be voting on whether it should be recommended for approval for a grant, this nonprofit. One of the other committee members raises the issue as to whether committee member A has a conflict due to this employment of committee member A's spouse. This issue should be raised to the rest of the committee before any substantive review on the item is done, if possible, and the committee should find out through questions to this committee member A the specific factual details about the potential conflict. The members should describe the potential conflict and honestly respond to any questions the other committee members have. The committee would then need to vote on whether this member has a conflict of interest. Committee member A should not participate in the vote, but should supply the factual information to the committee so that they can understand the details of the potential conflict. So don't be shy about asking questions so that the committee can have a detailed understanding of the facts of the situation. So if you, these issues should be raised before, ideally before a substance, any substantive review on that item occurs, but if one of the members realizes a potential conflict and there's already been some discussion, we encourage you to raise that issue right then so that, you know, there's no more discussion of the substantive issue until the potential conflict issue is resolved. So immediate family is defined in the ethics code to include your spouse, child, parent, sibling, including step, half step, and half siblings, and in-law relations, and domestic partner. So committee members should disclose anything that may fall into either of these categories, that would be financial interest or special interest, to the rest of the committee before an item agenda is discussed. And if it is determined by the committee, but if it is determined by the committee that the committee member had the conflict, that committee member should leave the room for the duration of discussion of that item on the agenda, on which they have conflict, and then return to the meeting after discussion on that item is finished. Any questions on that? Okay. I wanna talk to you a little bit about confidential information. Committee members are not allowed to disclose confidential information without proper legal authorization concerning the property, government or affairs of the city, or use information to advance their own financial, special or personal interest, or the financial, special or personal interest of others. Our ethics code, confidential information under our ethics code means information, oral or written, that is available to the committee members only because of their positions with the city and is not a matter of public record. Ethics also has a social media section, and it says that you should just either disclose on your social media page or in the post that you are making. that you are speaking either in your personal private capacity and not as a representative of the city if that's the case. The ethics code has a specific provision on the use of social media, it's section 33-7.1 if you're interested. Its intent is to respect protected speech and first amendment rights, and its purpose is to offer a means to distinguish between personal opinions or comments and opinions or comments in one's official capacity as a committee member. Discretion and caution are called for when expressing views or opinions on social media, as use of social media by a committee member might be perceived by a member of the public at representing the city or the city government. This section 33 dash 7.1 D provides the language that you would need to use when using social media so that the public knows that you're expressing personal views and not any official view or view of the committee. The provision that it says that you should use on your personal social media accounts includes a qualifying statement that substantially adheres to this form: the views i express on this site are my own and do not reflect any official view or position of the city of bangor or the committee, this committee. So when expressing any views or opinions on social media, you should either disclose on your social media page or in your post themselves that you are speaking in your personal private capacity and not as a representative of this committee or the city. That section also says that inappropriate uses of social media includes disclosure of confidential or proprietary information about or relating to the city, its customers or its employees, private citizens or private businesses. Any statements or posted materials that could reasonably be considered to represent the views or position of the city or one of its departments, unless an official position has been taken. And posting or messaging in a manner that could reasonably give rise to an expectation that someone contacting you would receive an official response. Does anybody have any questions about that? [36:27] David Bushey: fast with social media you could not be on it needs to be tagged as i consider like you actually have to be like you know that's like if they post something and then the homeless committee posts like you know tech you and my honor does that mean that they're expecting quote-unquote response and then we make quote-unquote be part of that even though [36:48] David Szewczyk: we have nothing to do with it you're saying that somebody else posts you on social media [36:54] David Bushey: yeah they could say well you know hey y'all you're not posting it i'm not posting it so someone posted hey these i mean tag us on it and sometimes we tag sometimes people you know it's like your name is tied to it even though you have nothing to do with it [37:08] David Szewczyk: so but you're not expressing this i'm not posting it yeah the use of social media is for a member [37:15] Alton Buzzell Jr.: expressing the members but if someone on social media and pertinent to the knowledge that any one of us is sitting on this advisory reaches out to us via social media say tagging or dming and tries to conduct committee business i mean say they're a stakeholder and they're like i would like you to inform the advisory that i have too many lemons in my house that's a big issue does that become public record that we need to be [37:47] David Szewczyk: if you are if you post on your social media page that the opinions and views that you express are your own personal opinions and not the views of the committee then that should make clear and unambiguous that you're not speaking as a representative of the advisory and you're free to express your own views like any other person you know you have a first amendment right to do that i do enjoy those yeah that sort of brings us right along into the next part which is use of titles and disclaimers Which there's a separate section in our code of ethics that has it specifically applies to that. It's section 33-13.1 on what it says is in making written or oral statements committee member may use their official title as members of this committee only one, when doing so does not violate any provision of the code of ethics, and two, the committee either has specifically authorized the member to speak on behalf of the committee or the information conveyed is consistent with the official position. The position of the committee and the statement references the appropriate position or decision of the committee, or when it is made clear and unambiguous that the official is speaking in their individual capacity and not on behalf of the entire committee. Disclaimers are required when there could be ambiguity regarding the capacity in which a committee member is communicating. King. Committee members should state, although I am a member of the advisory committee on homelessness, I am speaking tonight as a private individual. My remarks should not be interpreted as representing the city of Bangor or the advisory committee. This prevents any ambiguity about whether you are speaking on behalf of the committee or not. Any questions about that section? So how far is [39:56] Alton Buzzell Jr.: the reach of that so I mean if I were to go to a protest tomorrow about something that does not squarely fall under the homelessness crisis and I mean let's not even say it's in Bangalore let's say it's in London or let's say it's in Massachusetts I mean am I still saying although you're [40:25] David Szewczyk: Free to attend these things, and you are free to speak at them, you have a first man right to do so. But if you do make public statements at those things, it should be you should make clear that ambiguous that you're doing it as a private citizen, and that as a member of this committee. Okay, I'll move on to give some favors. No committee member should accept any gift favor or thing of value whether in the form of service loan thing or promise from any person or business which to your knowledge is interested directly or indirectly in any manner whatsoever in the in the business dealings of this committee or the city nor should any committee member accept any gift favor or thing of value that tends to influence you in the discharge of your duties on this committee nor should you grant in the discharge of your official duties on this committee any favor service or thing of value to someone else. Nothing in the ethics code prohibits your acceptance of gifts or favors from members of your immediate families, so i just want to make you aware of that one. And i am available to answer any questions, and if you can't think of them now you can always pick up the phone and call or communicate with staff. You don't have to worry about quorums or anything if you're talking to staff, meaning the city solicitor or someone in the legal department, the city solicitor's office, or you know the city manager or other staff, other employees. Any other questions? Okay, thanks. Thank you. All right, so next [42:26] Carolyn Fish: on my agenda was to just talk through the mission of the committee. In the materials that were posted online there was a copy of the ordinance, which is what appears on the city's official ordinance. The thing i would note is that after the creation of this committee, very quickly council amended the mission of this committee, and that does not yet appear online because it takes some time for the online version of the ordinances to be updated. And so as initially contemplated, the mission of the committee was to first and foremost create a strategic plan for the city's response to homelessness that is data-driven, evidence-informed, and that considers regional and structural coordination. Council considered critical components of that plan to include prevention, encampment response, and other necessary city policies to address homelessness, and it was council's hope that you would submit that strategic plan for council consideration within 12 months of this first meeting, so within 12 months of today. The changes to the ordinance that council subsequently made were to modify that mission to ask this committee to first consider a stabilization plan. The ordinance, as enacted by Council, did not really define what they meant by stabilization plan. But having sat through all of those conversations, I think it can add some context. I think what Council was really hoping for is to provide this committee the opportunity to make any number of immediate recommendations that you arrive at as necessary to address any critical prevailing issues that you discover through your committee work. Additionally, council modified the ordinance to provide that they might also refer specific questions to you for immediate consideration if something comes across their desk that they want your input on. I think one example of that is council has asked, or did ask city staff, and we have posted an RFP process for potential day space, and I would anticipate that council will refer those RFP responses to this committee to consider and provide feedback on once this committee completes that initial 12-month task of creating a strategic plan. The ordinance then goes on to list five sort of ongoing tasks that I don't know that it makes sense to talk about in detail now because if we get through those first 12 months, we can turn our attention to those. So with that, I'm so curious about what they are though. Oh well, we can certainly. So the focus is really on sustainable funding models, else, state and federal advocacy that we might want to recommend to more systemically address some of these issues, and sort of ongoing stakeholder engagement on the topic. Just [46:44] David Bushey: an curiosity, does Portland, Houston, or Augusta have a similar community? [46:49] Carolyn Fish: Not that I'm aware of. [46:54] David Bushey: Are we the only one that does this? [46:58] Robyn Stanicki: The committee that the city of Portland has is mostly made up of staff, but there are some community members. I can get more information. We did a trip down to Portland, and I created a memo that we can bring to this committee with that information. [47:25] Alton Buzzell Jr.: I think that is something that I would love to see some research on too, is not just how are other cities in Maine seeking insight on how to do this, but are cities that are reputed to have addressed their homelessness crisis well, what sort of committee structures are they creating, what sort of solutions are they employing in terms of the organization? So [47:59] Carolyn Fish: I guess at this point, I would before we sort of move to logistics and next steps, which of which there are many things to discuss. What questions do you have? Do you want to converse with one another about sort of direction and goals or [48:20] David Bushey: things that you might need? [48:22] Carolyn Fish: I'll open it up. [48:24] Jason Goodrich: When I got the call to this committee, I sat down immediately and started a list of things that I thought were important or could become important. The list screwed about 46 things. That's 30 years of experience with 46 items. I decided then that it was overwhelming, and I also thought to myself, geez, you know, maybe we need to learn, we have to decide how to decide before we decide on what to decide. So I sat down with that for a little while, and I really think that might be something we want to talk About is like, how are we going to decide what to decide? You know, what are, what are the, what are the points that we will take into account consistently across every issue? Because I think there are some things that we can do consistently across every issue. You can, you can, you can identify what the pressure points are in the process. You can identify what the problems are, and you can also identify what the metrics will be. How are we going to count that this is better? So I think that there's some standard things that we can come up with that we can decide how to decide. I think that would be a good thing to do also. [49:35] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Curious about everyone here's values and what sort of personal ethics she'll be bringing into this mission and sort of what are the visionary ideas about homelessness and community and meaning of Bangor. [49:55] Peter Patrick Kealy: I'm full of negative thoughts, there's zero rationale in my day to day life. Oh, sure. [49:59] Carolyn Fish: Out in the lobby and then to your left. [50:08] Alton Buzzell Jr.: And to circle back to the side, how to decide, I think the most important thing, at least from my perspective is the data, right, how many estimated right individuals do we have in the community right now who are experiencing the varying degrees of being in a house, what percentage as best as we can tell, understand this, these aren't folks that are that are you know answering the door for the census bureau and we understand that, but you know what percentage are we looking at our in a mental health crisis versus our just transition on how transitionally unhoused. I think understanding the makeup of the community will help us be able to identify how we move forward, how we prioritize, how we can do the best work in the shortest amount of time. I mean, we've been tasked with using data driven decisions. decisions, we need the data to do data, driven decisions. So I think that might be a good starting point for the decide [51:14] Jason Goodrich: how to decide. And from a from a data point of view, I'd be interested in knowing how many HMIS connected agencies are there working with the city. As everyone's familiar with the HMIS, the homeless information system, they have a computer system that tracks quite a bit of this data. You know, how much of that will we have access to when we ask our questions and how many organizations are working with bank or that are connected to the hmis data how can we get our hands on that [51:45] David Bushey: So I think probably it's not identifying who we're getting from, just what data we want first, and then we can figure out the guidance from staff. Okay, well, go to this place to get this data, and then we can help. I think the other thing about data is more, I think a lot of places tend to create policies as like a hammer to hit everything, and it's reality, we can't do that. In fact, when you do that, you end up making one group worse than the other group. So I mean, just kind of hypothetically, we could be talking about a small segment, certain things that they're frequent users of service that we can intervene that could dramatically drop a lot of things too. And then there's also people, I want, homelessness is not just people who are constantly out in front of the library. There are people who are homeless, maybe only two, three months out a year, and then they have a home the rest of the time. There are people who are homeless because they're couch serving, and they're accessing the same services, the homeless services. And then there are, of course, kids and families and veterans and that bunch of things in there. So I think you just gotta come up with, okay, what are the data? And actually, you may already have this. It's just, I don't know what it is. This. And then once we get that, and hopefully that could be a quick order item that we can now piece together what else do you want? Also, because the reality 12 months is we don't have all the time. And we're not going to put, you will make a dent, but now hopefully, we can't make a huge dent just because it's too much stuff. And then the policies may change within six months that we know all this work will just go. I [53:26] Carolyn Fish: also find a structured approach to individual problems, like identifying that there's 46 problems that just come to your mind. I'm sure we all have a list of 45 in our pockets as well. But I found that using the SBAR model can be really helpful at even like triaging our own priorities. I did one recently that I thought this was like a huge issue around like hep C management. And then I did my SBAR and I was like, no, this is actually not a problem at all. I've wasted a lot of energy in my brain that was useless. So I think utilizing like a structured approach as we kind of identify where we're thinking we want to spend the majority of our time and energy to determine, yes, like you said, is this the thing that we really want to focus on right now, can always be really helpful. And data is in a population, an unhoused population, is wildly difficult to rely on and [54:19] Alton Buzzell Jr.: come by. And sure, you're well aware of that. But one thing I would highlight on that, despite the [54:26] David Bushey: data, is that, and it happens, I've seen it in big, small, big, you know, places, is if something on the news hits, something that becomes a priority, yeah, and that's going to be where everyone's attention is, that becomes the biggest problem on the planet compared to when its reality is. And I think as a committee we have to be prepared for that, to work with the city, just, okay, what was, I stole things down a little bit because I don't want to be reacting to the loudest and not the neediest [54:54] Jason Goodrich: that comes with communication. How do you communicate to the public? So that the most immediate and loudest is not necessarily the thing that we're working on. You're right, that's kind of, I think that boils down to communication. [55:09] Alton Buzzell Jr.: I mean, one of the issues that I spoke on when I was first interviewed for the advisory, and one of the issues that I feel most passionately about, is that there's a major ideological logical divide in Bangor between house populations. And because of the acuity of division, a lot of the political solutions that we could arrive at to address the house crisis are really disempowered and destructed. And so I think, you know, I mean, that's one of those things that it's hard to quantify. I mean, and how do we look at that data-driven ideological divides between the, I mean, it's cultural and it's subtle, but I do think that it should be a focus of this committee because it's gonna be hard to do any work data-driven or otherwise without trying to heal the trust [David Bushey: us seems] to be lacking in the Greater Brink or Bangor area. [56:20] Carolyn Fish: I think what you're speaking to as well is trust building and the need to connect with directly with the members of the affected population that we're trying to serve. We're thinking about people experiencing homelessness and the community at large, and there is a fair amount of research and data around don't make decisions without me, right, and long-term efficacy of any interventions created really should be inclusive of the members that we're trying to serve. So even though it might not have a number to it, you know what you're describing, like there is research and evidence behind it. So you're there, yeah. [57:08] Alton Buzzell Jr.: I think that when we're creating our research priorities, like we can find out what the stakeholders think. It's just going to make it easier for us, and it's going to decrease the timeline that we're going to need for the whole project, because I mean stakeholders on how to stand house have a lot of natural insight into the issue, and you know they have lived experience. And I do think it is a concern that, you know, as you raised, that particularly the unhoused population is resistant to research. Bodies and certain federal bodies and working with [57:47] Jason Goodrich: Those institutions because of the lack of trust. [57:50] Alton Buzzell Jr.: So you know, I think that would be something of interest that could help guide the research [57:55] Jason Goodrich: Phase of our project is what [58:02] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Do the people right outside this building think, you know? [58:06] David Bushey: I do want to caveat with that though, the homelessness situation is more than just what the folks else, I think. So our charge is really to incorporate the whole community, business, homeless folks, regular pedestrians, or whatever you call that. And I think what happened is we just go with what's the popular, white popular way of doing it because that's what everybody wants, but that may not be the right way because it, you miss the bigger things. People tend to look at again the shiniest things in front Of them right now, which is whatever it may be, it could be totally, it's totally legit, I'm not saying, I'm not minimizing that, but in the context of things it may not be the thing that we want to make best, most interventions. Now having said that, I strongly agree with you that you shouldn't disregard their opinion. They should need to have it's saying it and link up and this, that's why the pic does hopefully put all this together to figure out what needs to be done. So like [59:06] Alton Buzzell Jr.: I said before, house unhoused be unhoused here no matter what interventions to take are not going to feel safe and they're not going to feel part of Bangor if the issue is not infused with trust and love and compassion from all of the greater Bangor area. So you know in order to do that we need to capture the full diversity. So I'm with you on that truly. There's also the reality that we are never going to make everybody happy. No, so yeah that is just a reality that all of us on this committee are going to have to be accepting of and that you know we're going to have to look at issues and tackle the right ones even if the shiny one isn't the right one and that's gonna come with some feedback [59:59] Carolyn Fish: and that brings us back to kind of like what Jay started with which is how do we decide because there are certainly going to be points where we're going to have to agree to disagree but we still have to come up with a united decision and solution or recommendation so [1:00:14] Alton Buzzell Jr.: I think that brings us back to it so I chucked I chucked out the 46 well I didn't [1:00:20] Jason Goodrich: actually still have them in my book here I put them aside and I focused on a working framework for coordinated action. I'd like to pass it out what I have this is a my swing those are all copies yeah that's enough for everybody this is there's two pieces to this let's see if there's two pieces to this the first one is a framework for decisions the second one is a possible a possible philosophy statement that we want to give back to the community, to the City Council to let them know that our philosophy is, and those are my two pieces that I think. Did you read the underlines? I did a really good job. Did you read the underline for now? out so basically the goal is simple build shared understanding quickly identify no I can deal with one later we've been to coordinated act as quickly the steps are five percent you define the goal understand the current system identified by field health set priorities to find success and communicate clearly you know six things every time you know what's the problem where are the pressure points what are the fixes and how do you always fix the outcome and how do we how do we communicate to the comments so that they understand what our I think that would work. Thanks for listening. [1:02:19] Carolyn Fish: Sounds so simple. Document [1:02:32] Jason Goodrich: is basically my philosophy. What that is, I would incorporate. My philosophy is recovery. I believe that Bangor can recover. and trauma we can recover from financially we can recover as a community i don't think that there's anything that recovery can't improve in my donations today ideas how to decide and what our first communication with the city council is that we believe in recovery that's the basis for that philosophy thanks [1:03:22] Carolyn Fish: I think you passing out this decision framework brings up a natural transition to one of the questions that I have for you all which is certainly the traditional model would be for you all to elect a chair and we wanted to do that regardless and the chair would sort of take the lead in agenda setting and helping direct the committee and certainly we could use that framework but i was really hoping to gauge your interest in or feelings on whether you needed any other professional assistance sort of navigating the decision-making process like a facilitator and if you were interested in considering that how you would like to go about selecting someone to assist with the [1:04:24] Alton Buzzell Jr.: work of the committee so do we have time to think on that so like we were to like continue with our current agenda as improvised as it is and we're like well you know what this works and we're we're but then if the inverse were to be true and we're like oh my goodness what's going on we might consult you and say can we get the what's going on expert in here so [1:04:52] Carolyn Fish: we could yeah that's certainly an approach that we could take i think my only caution personally would just be making sure that if you feel like you need it we sort of identify that quickly so we don't sort of burn the committee's time for too long and then wind [1:05:08] Alton Buzzell Jr.: end up feeling rushed towards the end and i would say just having been on other committees and things like having a facilitator is incredibly helpful it's incredibly helpful to have that person that can help steer conversations help connect with the resources that maybe aren't necessarily sitting here with us so i would highly recommend we consider having that person who's who's here just as an unbiased facility and i think it may be helpful for even if you pick a [1:05:41] David Bushey: Chair today have facilities just to make people needing to help transition that person to get up to speed, and then after you can take the mg go with it at that point, because it's even whoever's even if we chair today, it's going to be a lot of work with that charity, all the stuff out in the next month or two, sit down and stuff like that, so I think he or she's going to need help with that. [1:06:06] Carolyn Fish: And if we do sort of proceed down the road of selecting someone as a professional facilitator, would the members of this committee like to participate in that selection process, either as a whole or maybe as a subcommittee? [1:06:23] Alton Buzzell Jr.: I think that it would be interesting just to make sure that we're capturing maybe someone with lived experience, or you know, someone who is at least genuinely passionate about the issue, you know, that sort of thing matters to me, and it also like ties into some of the feelings that I have about the appointment of a chair, one, I mean, I just believe that for appointing a chair, it would be ideal to select someone with lived experience with homelessness. And two, it would be ideal to appoint a chair who wants to do the work, someone who, you know, regardless of time, yes, who has the time, the capacity and everything else to do it. So, you know, those would be my considerations. [1:07:13] David Bushey: Are you going to coach? Are you going to coach? Is it a bylaws requirement? [1:07:17] Carolyn Fish: our advisory committees are pretty music is a good term yes [1:07:29] David Bushey: recognize them literally yeah no because i think it's having that it's just easier when you know we can split the group into two and also we give some redundancy if let's say someone's out the person can take over. [1:07:44] Alton Buzzell Jr.: We do have a vice chair. Correct. [1:07:49] Robyn Stanicki: Ordinance says both I believe. Oh, [1:07:56] David Bushey: almost everyone will be an officer. [1:08:00] Carolyn Fish: The secretary is the video right now. [1:08:07] Ben Treat: Yeah, one thing I really tell you, in a facilitator is that they actually don't have any subject knowledge. [1:08:13] David Bushey: Yeah, right. And it's a process. No one is dominating the conversation. [1:08:18] Ben Treat: So if people are trying to say stuff and they're not getting it, that's why you have a facilitator. If they have a lot of subject knowledge, people start getting mad at them because they're like, you know, it might be somebody who does have subject knowledge, but you don't agree with them, you know? And so then you end up with conflict with the facilitator who's supposed to be there, not guiding the discussion but making sure that the discussions happen among people can i ask [1:08:42] Alton Buzzell Jr.: A question, sure. So when I hear that, my thought is, wouldn't the facilitator find subject knowledge to give them insight into which voices are being suggested more than others? I mean, especially along the lines of inclusivity and diversity, that's not been my experience, certainly my experience [1:09:00] Ben Treat: has been facilitators end up driving the ire of certain members of the group when they show subject expertise because they're making it seem as if this person's right and this person's wrong. And so that's been my experience with facilitators. It's strange because it seems counterintuitive, right? Like, wouldn't the person who's right be the right person to have? But we don't all know who the right person is, you know? And so that's actually what I value in a facilitator. I wouldn't really be interested in a facilitator who already has kind of picked a direction. I'd be more interested in the facilitator is like, no, I have things that I care about, my training is actually in focusing on ensuring you all actually have a good conversation. It's a very difficult job, so yeah [1:09:57] Brittney Dunham: I think like bias has to come in a lot when people have like subject matter expertise. I was actually just say the same thing that I like really like when someone doesn't, you know, you have a subject matter expertise that I don't have, but if that was what the conversation was about, then it's like sort of naturally drawn to you. And so I yeah, I tend to agree, but and then we're making sure the conversation's moving along, and then the chair and the vice chair really are the people who sometimes are like coming into play to help lead, you know, if there's something that feels like we need to spend more time on, they certainly have the ability to redirect the conversation back to something. But then when there's conflict, it's super helpful when a person like- Neutral. Is neutral. [1:10:44] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Yeah. Well heard. And it does seem like a lot of people hear from the vibe that I'm getting are leaning towards this facilitation model. So is that something that we would vote on or would we- So decide. [1:10:59] Carolyn Fish: So I think that would be a great thing to vote on if someone wanted to move that. You asked me to pursue some sort of facilitator. I think what I would need additional guidance on is, I've anticipating this conversation, I've been having conversations with people, getting ideas, but I expect you all might have ideas from your own professional experience as well. And then another route we could go is to actually just put something on the city's website saying we're looking for proposals from potential facilitators. And so I would be interested in your thoughts on how you think it would be best to sort of expeditiously go about that in a thoughtful but speedy way, because we again wouldn't want your wheels to spin waiting for that to happen. And then I would suggest a subcommittee of members if we want to actually meet with people might be the most efficient way. I think all nine of you [1:11:56] Alton Buzzell Jr.: you might be overwhelming. Do the other committees use facilitation? They do not, but we have not [1:12:01] Carolyn Fish: tasked any other committee with putting together a strategic plan. And so I think that's where my mind went was like, we're asking for real tangible work from this committee, and so I really want to make sure that you all have the resources to produce that tangible work. And I will say, I've I've I've participated in two committees, one with a facilitator owning without, and the amount of actual strategic plan we were able to create with a facilitator present was refreshing in comparison to not having one present, and it actually felt like a very productive experience versus that where you leave and you're like, oh my God, the same conversation again. So I mean, I would move to and [1:12:45] David Bushey: And the thing is, I also appreciate the fact that the cells can make it more expeditiously. I think, yes, we have to charge for a whole year and then six, whatever the interim plan. But reality-wise, both the city and the people in Bangor and the city would like to see something within a couple of months. I mean, that's the honeymoon period we'll have. And if you don't have anything at that time, people will start losing interest in this and people start losing their faith in it. And I think that's the biggest hurdle we're going to deal with. I think if facility can help us get something low-hanging just initially, get some momentum, then apply us more energy and hopefully we'll create more groups. So subcommittee look at certain things, I don't know, so do [1:13:36] Alton Buzzell Jr.: We have time today to do some, like, substantive work. I mean, to create at least, like, a sort of model for what kind of facilitator that we would select if we were to vote right now and say yes, facilitator, you know? I mean, it feels kind of like it would be a bit redundant if we were to vote right now and say yes, you want a facilitator, but then we would need concurrent sessions to prove the model, and can we brainstorm that for a bit? I'll start. I kind of like the idea of doing this kind of, like, a bit merit-based, with, like, sort of an open call for the facilitator, and, you know, we could, the subcommittee or whoever's on that could have some sort of guidelines to, like, expedite the most interesting applications and then present them to the major committee. And then any votes on those, they could have sort of, like, a finite number of, like, top level applications to bring to us. And, you know, just depending on what we think we're capable of reviewing and go from there, what people think. [1:14:53] Carolyn Fish: Like that, I guess. Yeah, it makes sense. So it's just to clarify, by, sounds like everyone's hoping to secure a facilitator, us creating a subcommittee to review applicants, who creates, like, job description and takes care of posting that, is that something that's something the city staff can do? I think what would be helpful is part of this conversation, which I think is what you were hoping to do as well, is maybe have, like, three to five sort of consensus driven characteristics or priorities that you would like me to include to make sure that what I then bring back to you actually meets what you're hoping to receive. I think that's maybe [1:15:36] David Bushey: was thinking too, like, we would create, like, the group would come up, okay, these are three elements, one, a facilitator, and then currently would go find that person. I think I really worry that having a subcommittee is gonna have time that we're not, we honestly don't have much time. Yeah, that's right. And I think actually if anything, we probably should give, again, I know there's a lot of stuff, you know, detailed, but I think we should have at least the end of the today, which we actually got about seven o'clock time was a good time, so 30 minutes [1:16:08] Carolyn Fish: So we don't usually, our committee meetings don't really have hard stop times, so I mean, if you're in a discussion and want to go for longer, but I think just from a productivity standpoint, anything [1:16:22] David Bushey: Thing after two hours, no. So I think if we could give you, give the, so you can't, you know, just stab some basic tasks to do other than just to facilitate, I think that would get us at least moving in some direction. Sure, that's my thought anyway. But I just like to say, I worry if we had the time and we won't totally agree with it all, that's the vetting. But I think we have some faith that you can find the right person for us if we give you the parameters and then go for that. Yeah. [1:16:56] Carolyn Fish: And then we can take that approach and then whomever I bring to you, I mean you are certainly [1:17:00] Alton Buzzell Jr.: welcome to say no, that does not meet what we want. I mean you can send the CV out and to us, hey I'm [1:17:06] David Bushey: interviewing so-and-so and then it's one of us is strongly objected to it, we say right there, hey I don't think what this means. Okay, so how do people feel about that? I think there were a lot of good [1:17:17] Peter Patrick Kealy: people that applied and stuff like that and I think that might be a good chance for maybe somebody else who didn't get on this maybe get in and help them. But then would they have the [1:17:27] Alton Buzzell Jr.: subjects matter familiarity? Well I think the importance again is like neutrality. It sounds [1:17:32] Carolyn Fish: one of the most, so it sounds like neutrality is experience. Yeah, I would, I would say probably number one. And then experience, yeah. This is something people do for like legit a living. [1:17:54] Alton Buzzell Jr.: So neutrality, experience. I think our productivity focus, like I mean [1:18:01] Ben Treat: I think that's already built into if they're a professional in this field, but like somebody [1:18:05] Alton Buzzell Jr.: just going to help us move long just 12 months is not much time. Yeah, no, and I think like you know [1:18:13] Brittney Dunham: I think we have to weigh what the asks of the large, the larger community are too and like I can only imagine people listening to this meeting right now thinking about us spending a whole other meeting thinking about the fact that we're going to choose a facilitator is like the first meeting of maybe only 12 or something like that and so that's really important. I think looking [1:18:38] Alton Buzzell Jr.: at experience specifically having somebody who's experienced with facilitating discussions of topics that are sensitive and that are you know publicly relevant, right? I mean whoever is going to facilitate needs to be able to understand that there are dynamics, yeah, sensitivity, but there are external factors that play on this committee and the person needs to have that understanding as well. I think having experience having facilitated similar situations would be extremely beneficial. So I mean I Think we can phrase that as having on a proven record. And that'll just form of work. [Carolyn Fish: References upon request.] So would a more fair model be, I mean, just for the timeframe that we're given and the expectations that we have be to, I guess not to like to just rephrase so that I can understand what you're saying, have the city staff put out a call for applicants using the tenants that we create and then maybe give us some top level using that rubric, give us some top level candidates and we veto them at the top of the next? Does everyone struggle with that? I [1:20:06] Carolyn Fish: mean the way I understood was ideally if we're thinking, well, part of what might color the decision is the frequency of which we're meeting. If we're meeting once a month, one would argue we probably need the facilitator like ready to go, yeah, yesterday. If the frequency is more often, there may be more time to be able to review a candidate list depending on when we're coming [1:20:28] Alton Buzzell Jr.: back and how regularly we can attend that meeting. Yeah, I'm in favor of just trusting the city staff [1:20:33] Ben Treat: to hire a facilitator, sorry, because I feel like you've probably as city staff had to hire a facilitator before, you have a short list of skilled facilitators to draw on, and if they're in that profession, they're already somebody who we can trust because they're already fundamentally baked into them have that neutrality, and we're just looking for the ones that have [1:21:01] David Bushey: of experience with difficult conversations. Let's say you have a bench like that, I'm sorry [1:21:07] Carolyn Fish: the city have a bench like that, so I mean yes, but I mean when the city spends money, we're obligated to do a public sort of search process, so we will do some sort of, you know, based on the amount of money dictates the level of formality, but we will do some sort of, we're going to be hiring, we're considering proposals, if you'd like to submit, whether it's a formal RFP or just something informal like reaching out to people and requesting quotes and proposals. I'd have to think through how much money we are likely to spend before I see where we are on that spectrum of formality, so even if we do have a bench, which we certainly do, we'd still likely need to do some sort of public process just for fairness. And not to like put you on the spot just because I'm fully naive to that, like what does the turnaround time on something like that look like? We really dictate it. I would, I would think we could probably have candidates for you or a candidate for you if in my mind I envisioned us meeting every other week. So I'll start there. If we were on that cadence, I think if not the next meeting, the meeting after, we could have someone to present to you as a option for [1:22:34] Alton Buzzell Jr.: And is there anyone on city staff that could kind of serve in the interim while we wait for that one person that might be able to, and I'm not volunteering. [1:22:46] Carolyn Fish: To be honest, I don't have the skill set. Frankly, that's not my skill set. I mean, I think the challenge is that they're not gonna, the folks in my mind are not going to be neutral because this issue impacts almost every aspect of city operations, and so I think it would be actually challenging to find someone on staff who you could truly say is neutral. [1:23:10] Alton Buzzell Jr.: So I guess my question to you is your propositions seem to be based on the idea that if we delegated it all to the city that we could get, we could adjust the timeframe to have the facilitator appointed by next session. But it sounds like what I'm hearing from the city is that's not gonna be possible at all. It's going to take at least one to two sessions. Is that sort of? [1:23:31] Carolyn Fish: I think it would be challenging to turn it around in two weeks just because of the requirement that we have sort of a public process. But it sounds like maybe reasonable to have some candidates in two weeks. We could possibly. I think it depends on how quickly we can get [1:23:46] Alton Buzzell Jr.: any sort of public communication out. My other concern is I don't necessarily want to spend a [1:23:51] Ben Treat: lot of committee time on hiring right now. I guess I would like to already be done with this because I feel like so much else is important that I like, but that's how I work, like I'm like what is the quickest way to remove the obstacle, which is like we need to hire somebody to get to the substance. That's not always the best way for a group process though, so I'm just saying that's that's my preference is that we remove as many of the obstacles as possible conducting a nine-person hiring process when we don't have our task in front of us yet doesn't sound productive to me, but that doesn't mean that I'm right. It's just my knee-jerk reaction is that's [1:24:33] Alton Buzzell Jr.: not going to keep our time together, but I think right now at least [1:24:39] David Bushey: Jumping out a little bit because we, as you said, we already kind of all decided that we're gonna get the cells there, and people help us figure out how to do that, and we can't, you know, the process is the process, and I'll take my own time. So I think right now that built a sale, so we let's move on to something that, okay, in the remaining time, is there something that we can come up as a group? Sorry to say, hey, can we ask you to give us this now in preparation for the next meeting to get it worked on? Sorry, do we, do we need to vote right there's no real way for me to raise [1:25:13] Robyn Stanicki: my hand, but I've been trying to get your attention. I was going to just suggest that in the background while facilitators, you know, whatever the process would be for that, perhaps you could give staff direction on the domains of educational materials that you would like to have, because that sort of thing, learning is something that we all kind of know how to do without a facilitator too, right? So maybe that's something that you'd like to do. Sure. [1:25:49] Carolyn Fish: So I'm just gonna recite my understanding of what I'm going to take away and do to make sure that I'm leaving with the message you're intending, and if you could just take an informal yes vote on that, would be very helpful over there. So we're interested in a call for sort of a merit-based selection process for a facilitator I'm going to lead that. I've heard that we want them to be neutral, experienced, productivity focused, and particularly experienced with working on sensitive and highly public issues. Yes, okay, that is what I will start working [1:26:37] Alton Buzzell Jr.: on. So there is one contention that I have, and it's about just leaving it up to the city's discretion, one of, and I do recognize that it is, it is difficult for everyone to capture more time on this issue. But I think that one of the things that is impeding community trust is the perception that the homelessness crisis is being obfuscated by governmental workings, and that the money is not being spent well. And so it feels like to me that it would not build trust if we just unscrupulously handed it off to the city. I would be in favor, in favor of reviewing top level candidates, not, you know, for hours on end, but just again ones that meet strictly our tenants that we've outlined and approving those at the top of the order of the [1:27:33] Brittney Dunham: Next meeting I was going to ask a process question and I noticed Mr subject left but or is just not available at this moment, but I guess how, I mean, it feels like we need to be able to do like a substantial amount of work outside of this. What I was wondering in his presentation is like, that's allowed, right? Oh yes. Like we can be all in communication and like I know it's like obviously those things are open to a request but like we can do all of those things as long as we're like remaining professional and thoughtful about what we're communicating about right and I think the [1:28:17] Carolyn Fish: important thing is actually the reply sure and so I think I'll use myself as an example or the council as an example you will have a counselor who will discover a really interesting report court that they want all the other counselors to have. And they will email that out to all the other counselors and say, I thought this was really interesting. That's fine. That's public. It's FOA-able, but it is the reply back where someone says, I think we need to proceed with pursuing this exact model. Then it becomes conducting city business because now two decision makers are engaging on making a decision not in public I think that's when and it's nuanced and it's different than you know in your private life but that's sort of the it's really the reply and that's why I think a city solicitor was trying to convey like the reply all [1:29:18] David Bushey: is what's really bad and that's the other piece of time to what you were saying because when you start reviewing candidates you're doing the work of the committee and therefore we start having and all this become public information, all kinds of stuff. And the reality is this, I mean, we're a committee of only, what, nine people. We have to count a city to help us with certain things. And to me, this is an administrative issue. It has nothing to do with content. Content is when the facilities tell me, tell us, hey, your strategic plan should include housing this way. That's interfering with me. But this person is administrative. No different, and I don't mean, no different what you're helping us with right now because you're outlining. And I think, to me, I have to count on the city for those things because if I keep, I will just spin my wheels all day long trying to figure out what they can do. When we come up with education, when we come up with data things, hey, Robin, I need to help with this, I have to count on Robin to do the work and Robin's going to get the data for me. I think that's where we have to rely on because of the fact that we don't have the people power at the time to do it. [1:30:18] Alton Buzzell Jr.: So then why don't we take, we could take a majority, one for leaving it with the city's discretion from beginning to end or to reviewing top level candidates in the next meeting maybe like yeah that's really I think it's a good idea so should I say like I introduce a [1:30:39] Carolyn Fish: motion I move that we and then what your mo and then you need a second and then we would is that [1:30:47] Alton Buzzell Jr.: person who seconds someone who votes in favor of the motion or are they just there's a second the motion to move ahead yeah all right I introduce a motion to create a structure where the city reviews potential facilitator candidates based on the tenants we've provided and picks 10 top level candidates for us to review at the top of the order in the next meeting second [1:31:14] David Bushey: does anyone else vote in favor of it so there's a rule for discussion now first yeah [1:31:21] Carolyn Fish: or if there's further discussion you can have it now but we must provide the opportunity and just [1:31:26] David Bushey: for clarification are we creating a structure or we're just asking them to do it I guess we're [1:31:30] Alton Buzzell Jr.: asking them to do that yeah okay sorry so okay so the motion was for us to review 10 candidates at the top of our next meeting selected using the tenants that we've created some promise for this committee to select for the month keeping in mind that no matter what we do according to the city's timeline we are one to two meetings deep into this process no matter what yeah well and I have a couple of concerns like if we put a specific number on how many resumes or cvs we see I mean in the reality of the hiring world today that could take eight months to get 10 and so I would I would refrain from at best say up to up to 10 percent just to because the reality is we're not we're most likely not going to get 10 qualified we realistically are probably going to get two or three maybe and at that point it is my opinion that two or three I think if we leave it at the discretion of the city to make that call I think it's just us spinning our wheels if we slow that process down like two or three Resumes, I mean, the reality is the amount of people that are qualified to do this is pretty slim, and at that point have to give trust to our partners from staff to be able to make those decisions on our behalf, and as Carolyn said earlier, somebody comes in here and we don't like them, we can always say, you know what, this person isn't working for us, that's a mechanism for us to leverage if that doesn't happen, but I'm just really afraid as I think and Tony you guys said that we would be spinning our wheels if we spent another whole meeting discussing, I mean, I had some faith that [1:33:31] David Bushey: we have a big candidate for this, so yeah, I mean, especially now you've seen how well, no, so you've now seen how we roll a little bit, so you kind of say, okay, I need this candidate, this kind of set well, and then we can focus on putting all the things that just leave us to do so [1:33:46] Carolyn Fish: So the motion on the table that has been seconded is a motion to have the city do sort of the open invitation to receive proposals and bring to the committee [1:34:01] David Bushey: candidates to review, I want to make amendments in fact that I won't be lost to see those CVs, because I always say I have to trust you to do that, I don't want to be picking, so then why don't you, so I think we have to vote on them and then we can propose, okay, yeah [1:34:23] Carolyn Fish: So barring them, so I'll call the role, I'll go around the table, I'm going to apologize if I make long eye contact with you, it's because I haven't memorized everyone's name, Alton against, okay, Teal or Jason, yes, I guess Tony, yeah, against [Alton Buzzell Jr.: And against, Melissa] Okay, so that was one four two four if don't you do it Jason, okay, two four seven against, and so since we did formally vote on that, I think we should have a motion on [1:35:17] Alton Buzzell Jr.: the alternative, so I will put forth a motion that the city will use the qualifications vacations that we've laid forward look to identify and select a facilitator for our committee [David Bushey: I'll second, discussion] If necessary, again I just I feel the same thing that I have iterated before, that one of the deficits of trust is, and I've already seen the commentary and where I had people make the commentary to me that they feel that this is going to be kind of a rubber stamp committee or at least a way to silo this issue, and I feel like the very first thing that we do is just say, well, the city can handle it, you know, it's it's not going to build trust in my personal view, and that would be the only one that I would [1:36:17] Carolyn Fish: I think that's a fully fair point of view, and I think that's why we value having you here with us is communicating that perspective. And I think that is the beauty to the process, right? And I definitely think that, you know, like we said, if for any reason a facilitator comes in that we think for any moment is not neutral or sensitive or facilitating in a way that we deem professional, I think we all or I hope we all would be willing to say this isn't a good fit, and we can, you know, bring that forward as a group and say thank you for trying to bring us humans this [1:36:56] Alton Buzzell Jr.: isn't a good fit for us, and we'll navigate it from there. I think it's because of that and the trust that I have and all of you and your like relative expertise that like I 'm excited to see the outcome either way, and you know, yeah, so i [1:37:19] Carolyn Fish: will call the roll, and i will get more names than i thought. So the question on the table, or the motion on the table, is that the city will use the qualifications that this committee has already listed and select the facilitator, i guess [Stephen Urli: jason yes] britney in favor, melissa in favor, in favor, and okay, wonderful. So that was a eight yes, one no vote, so that's probably the next one [1:38:26] Ben Treat: I feel like there's a lot of numerical data and qualitative like, you know, wordy data that [1:38:41] David Bushey: that we could be asking for. So can we ask what data we want? But first, maybe have Robin, somebody tell us what data they have. Because they may have this stuff, and then I don't need to even ask. So, go ahead, Robin. [1:39:02] Robyn Stanicki: So the City Council just approved the submission of the consolidated plan a couple of weeks ago, which has a chapter on homelessness that I could provide this committee. It has all of the data points I think you've mentioned so far, except for maybe some of the school ones that we could put together. We also have a myriad of HUD resources and technical assistance to provide us with any other data that you know might be able to fill in the gaps there. And I do believe I have an impact analysis on some of our public safety and public services, but we could probably continue to like build that up a little bit. it. And I think also we could put together a good memo about what, like, what we have done so far with our domains, essentially, like what actions have been taken. And then I can also bring that report that I created about Portland's Homeless Services Center and response if that would be helpful. [1:40:24] David Bushey: Are there also data that the state has that we can pull and use for us too, like main [1:40:30] Robyn Stanicki: care data? We could do that. We can get the community health assessment, if you'd like to do that, Penobscot County's community health needs assessment. We can also pull out data from specifically the main homeless planning site, although I think most of the useful data for us, I've got in the consolidated plan, but we can try to see if we can skim and see if there's anything else related from the healthcare standpoint. [1:41:03] David Bushey: Again, that includes folks with substance use and mental health and physical health and everything, and the family services and veteran data, again, we may be inundated data. I'd rather have more data than we can as a group decide we don't need this, we need this and things like that. Then we just keep fishing for it. [1:41:24] Carolyn Fish: And I know there was a little talk at the beginning of the session around like models and what other communities have used as a basis for their strategic plan. Having done street medicine in a very urban setting and street medicine in Bangor, this is not an urban setting. Setting, despite our wild thriving urban metropolis. So I think it's important to really determine, is it truly an urban setting? Is it a suburban setting or is it a rural setting? Because I will tell you, there is very little research out there on best practice street medicine in a rural setting. Everything applies to an urban setting. And I have done many years in both settings and they are drastically different. [1:42:14] David Bushey: So not sure you have, sorry, not sure you have data that's after this, but I am curious how many homeless populations from elsewhere. Because almost every place I've been at, it's always at some sort of I-95 stop. And that's where people come, New York City, Washington, DC, whatever, because it's where the bus stop is. So it gives us a good sense because I mean I'm I don't want to say I mean it could be just a very small number within Bangor that's actually homeless but everyone else is outside that's a [1:42:47] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Different intervention than you know whatever else I would also argue that folks that are [1:42:54] Carolyn Fish: Unhoused especially folks that are chronically in house by nature travel around and many folks that maybe don't identify as being from Bangor in the past 12 months might have grown up here or so I think it'd be it'd be really important to figure out how we kind of wrap our arms around [1:43:13] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Like folks from Bangor like what does it mean to be from Bangor each MIS has a birth zip code [1:43:20] Jason Goodrich: What is the zip code of your birthplace? I don't know if I can. Did I mean, yeah, I mean, I was born in [1:43:27] Carolyn Fish: Connecticut, but I don't identify somebody that's from Connecticut necessarily, like no shades of to Connecticut, but I just think it can get really tricky. Like that, where the data can get so skewed. [1:43:41] David Bushey: And it may be something that we say when it came to Bangor within the past 12 months, is just because it's just to get it, gives you that idea of fluidity with it. And then also, and one of the things that it may even give us a timeframe, temporal frame, because if you say most of this transition happens in the winter, because really with July, we got to think about what's gonna happen in December now, so we have an idea this is things we should be doing, because we know with tradition we see in December but not January we see more influx of people, you know, homeless [1:44:11] Alton Buzzell Jr.: coming because of services again. I would just caution that, because if someone's just come to [1:44:16] Carolyn Fish: Bangor in the 12th past 12 months, it doesn't mean that they weren't in Bangor 14 months ago and left for two months and then have come back, so I just think it can get really tricky to nail that [1:44:28] Brittney Dunham: Yeah, and I would argue that, you know, whether or not people were born in Bangor, they grew up in Bangor, they left and came back to Bangor, if there's like, you know, I think what we're addressing is like the behavioral issue that comes along with being unhoused, right? Like if there were people that if this felt like there were some like people hiding in the woods and this were an issue that weren't impacting the greater community, it might not be getting the same response. And so the issue at hand is that there are people who are here that are experiencing this crisis, right? And so, yeah, if the data shows that someone has been here for the last 12 months, but they were born, it might not show that they got here when they were two, and they left when they were six, and they were... [1:45:12] David Bushey: But also that one thing, something like that would help us identify, we look at housing, some people may only be here four months of the year because they're four months somewhere else, and their housing may be not the thing they're looking for, but they may be looking for. I mean, I don't know. I just don't have any of that to even phantom sense. [1:45:29] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Just to, oh, sorry. No, please go ahead. I was going to say just to, for the co-titles of Amy, my experience from outreach, is that there's a very large, nomadic society in the unhoused situation, in the Bangor area. So these are people who travel for cultural reasons and also for service reasons to different areas of the state, maybe to get access to street family in other cities and other states, and maybe they come back during specific seasons for seasonal work or whatever. So, you know, I think where that community is present, I mean, one, it is good to try and study and capture really how many of these people are nomads, and I think that could inform us. But I do think that I'm sorry, what Brittany said is like, you know, if we can create a way to tap into the underlying issue, and I think it also ties into, I think, something you said earlier, like we need to focus on where the droughts are in services, right, like if we can find a unifying thread between those people. [1:46:36] Carolyn Fish: So if I might pose an idea, I guess, what I hear is that there's an interest in understanding what data we have, and maybe also from the city's standpoint what we're currently doing, sort of what the current state of affairs is. We have four experts behind us who are going to travel this journey with us. We could put together maybe from each of them, sort of from their sort of departments and silos, what they have for data and what they're doing currently. And that could serve as the basis of an educational meeting for your next meeting, understanding that then you all will have additional requests for a data that you'll want us to gather and pursue as a result of that. How does that sound? [1:47:32] Alton Buzzell Jr.: That sounds great. That's what I heard that a menu is coming. [1:47:36] David Bushey: Chris, are there programs doing work that you are not fully aware of what they're doing in terms of student services, homeless, community-based services that are not like working independently without any connections? [1:47:52] Alton Buzzell Jr.: There are a lot of mutual aid. I imagine there is that, you know, agencies in Bangor that have no formal incorporation that meet regularly and do work that [1:48:01] David Bushey: we like and we like [1:48:03] Alton Buzzell Jr.: and I know how to capture that so that's a lot of [1:48:09] David Bushey: data that we're requesting [1:48:12] Stephen Urli: what is a realistic timeline [1:48:15] Robyn Stanicki: mine's all ready for you guys I've been waiting I knew I knew you guys were coming [1:48:20] Brittney Dunham: we could have [1:48:23] Carolyn Fish: a really robust conversation two weeks from now [1:48:27] Alton Buzzell Jr.: at a next committee so do you think we would be able to have the information even just a couple [1:48:33] Robyn Stanicki: Days, yeah, you'll have it in your packet if they'll get packets like everybody else. [1:48:38] Carolyn Fish: Right, yeah, just like everyone else, so we'll send it out the Friday before, just for clarification. [1:48:43] David Bushey: Would you like the last 12 months? This is a round number over the past year. Is it wild that I'm like, [1:48:50] Carolyn Fish: 12 months feels like even a different world from five years ago. Not at all, one month physical, I know, and that's why I mean I don't even know what question I'm asking, but I'm gonna start to try to ask it. 12 months ago, I think absolutely yes, I'd be curious, 12 months, but I'd even be curious to compare that to like 24 months ago and see, so we can kind of start to map out like [1:49:14] Alton Buzzell Jr.: how this is drastically trending. I totally agree, yeah, I think we need to see that, this city's tradition with homelessness, and see, you know, what can we learn, what changed. I think that would be very telling. So again, I mean, it sounded kind of funny, but that is my question. Are we going to get a mini menu? Are we going to get this hot data? Are we going to get the city chapter on homelessness? Are we going to get the impact study? Are we going to get the data from [1:49:40] Carolyn Fish: Harland before the next meeting? So I think what we'll do is we'll first, we're going to start with what we have currently, sort of the package of information that internally we're relying on to make decisions on a day-to-day basis as it relates to this response, and present it to you, and then I think the question would be what else do you want. I think we may also have to prioritize a little bit by presenting to you the things that we perceive to be most important, understanding that value judgment may be different for all of you, and then you might follow up and say, [1:50:15] Alton Buzzell Jr.: know, I'd much rather have this other thing. Are there other people collecting data that [1:50:22] David Bushey: may support all country the city's data? So I can't say that absolutely there is. Right, yeah. [1:50:29] Brittney Dunham: I mean, just back to the conversation about facilitator, if someone has a bias in whatever [1:50:34] Carolyn Fish: way they're looking at the way they presented, or even, I mean, within the city, I think probably, you know, Dave and his team are engaging in a different way with the community than Bruce's, right? [1:50:46] Robyn Stanicki: And so as a result, everyone has different metrics, things that they're measuring. And so we can compile all of those things, look at them as facets of the problem, but you might see that they could contradict each other because they're not measuring things in the same way. Yeah. Just a limitation. [1:51:07] Alton Buzzell Jr.: I hear that there was no way to get the HIMSS data earlier. I thought I heard you said something. [1:51:13] Carolyn Fish: The HIMSS data? No. Oh, good. [1:51:15] Robyn Stanicki: I mean, we can get real-time data from the Homeland Defending Dashboard, but we could also go back to the source and get HIMSS data. Oh, good. Okay. We want to. Yay. [1:51:29] Carolyn Fish: So I think that serves the basis of a pretty healthy agenda for next time you'll I'm hoping that you'll come with thoughts on a chair vice chair and secretary and then we can sort of do start the educational process I have a follow-up for you which is maybe this is a takeaway to think through how you want to receive public input as a committee i think there are different models that we could use for the opioid advisory committee they sort of had some scheduled sessions where they received public input the acre committee the advising advisory committee on racial equity and human rights. I feel like I'm missing a word. They do it for 20 minutes at the start of each of their meetings. I would expect that this committee, at least to start, there will be a large number of individuals who are interested in giving public comment. So I don't know that the 20 minutes at the start of the meeting will be the most effective, but maybe think through how you might like [1:52:45] Alton Buzzell Jr.: like to go about receiving public input so I'm just because this is also an option for public [1:52:53] David Bushey: depends not as much but for them to just vent about whatever stuff they have I wonder next meeting whenever we decide that is to have split half the education and have public because it's just throwing out there just because I figure you're not going to use two hours right unless [1:53:17] Carolyn Fish: we could also probably we could divide it up we could do an hour of education and an hour of [1:53:25] David Bushey: public input yeah i mean i really i agree i mean we want to hear from folks out there their ideas and also what their you know concerns are that's something i think that anna said is the model that [1:53:39] Alton Buzzell Jr.: that you guys all demonstrated for me earlier that I would love to trust the city on, at least to an extent. What can we do to actually viably capture a community's opinion that is resistant to working with us through directly public channels? What can we do? How can we get the word out there and use our current outreach teams? Can we use our current outreach teams to go out and tell them you know like hey there's going to be a there's going to be forum and you [1:54:14] Carolyn Fish: Matter, I think we can, we certainly can do outreach to encourage people to come in. I think that there are also natural barriers for folks who are living in homelessness. They're coming into a city building at particular hours to give feedback. So maybe something you want to think about is an entirely different model that than what we normally do to receive public comment, particularly if your goal is to hear from people with lived experience who may not naturally come [1:54:49] Alton Buzzell Jr.: in to see us here is there i have a suggestion for that i think okay experience that can work [1:54:55] Jason Goodrich: with our homeless folks to maybe meet a couple times a month to talk about what's going on here [1:55:03] Carolyn Fish: at the committee level. Back, very good. Is this something where a facilitator could be helpful to be present during, you know, public response so that way they can also very neutrally help make sure that folks are able to articulate themselves and possibly, yeah. So maybe that should be an agenda item for discussion, but do we want to maybe reserve 20 minutes at the start of the meeting to accept public comment if folks show up and are interested in our next meeting? So traditionally we accept public comment both in person and via zoom [1:55:51] Alton Buzzell Jr.: and people could send it ahead of time as well too. Certainly if folks want to send it ahead of time they can, yeah. [1:55:58] Ben Treat: I mean just imagine, yeah, sometimes people treat it like [1:56:06] Alton Buzzell Jr.: sure, yeah, here's some interesting slam poetry, right, if the stakes were lower. So my understanding is that our next agenda items for next week are appointee mature and vice chair, sort of reviewing the menu of research available and making requests and creating a structure for how we're going to proceed with actual commentary, and actually getting providing opportunity 20 minutes of public commentary is [1:56:44] Carolyn Fish: 20 minutes. We'll start 20 minutes, have been on committees in the past and are realistic. You all think 20 minutes [1:56:51] Alton Buzzell Jr.: actually, yeah, I don't. I don't think that's a realistic timeframe. I think you're going to have a whole lot of even and angrier people where they can't get to the bike. I know when we had a public comment for, I can't talk parking committee, for parking committee, right, I mean we set aside a whole separate meeting, had like we posted it out on the signs out on the intersection so that people knew to come in and I think we were there for an hour and a half, two hours. And so I think having a dedicated, I know it makes me shiver too, having a dedicated time. What's that? [1:57:31] Ben Treat: Do people get parking tickets while they're? [1:57:36] Alton Buzzell Jr.: No. But no, I think having a dedicated separate time is definitely the way to go to ensure that the most people can be heard. And what would your proposal for that be? Well I think just we as a committee need to decide on a separate, yeah, I think it's a separate meeting you set it up. And also give enough time to make it truly public, right, give the time, enough time for city to put it on their Facebook, to put it on the website, to make every effort so that people understand that it's happening. Because the other thing that can happen is you do this and [1:58:14] David Bushey: and then everyone goes, I didn't know about it. [1:58:16] Alton Buzzell Jr.: You're just trying to sideswipe us all. It was a farce. So does that include tabling the 20 minutes for next? I think so. [1:58:24] Carolyn Fish: I kind of feel the same way. I think 20 minutes, and then you're gonna try and put it off. People are gonna be very frustrated. They're gonna be very upset. And then you try to have a productive meeting either before or after that. It could really go sideways. So I would say next visit or next meeting rather should be focusing on the education component, going in, the chair and vice chair, and then deciding how we're gonna be able to hear public opinion. [1:58:50] Ben Treat: Is there a way that people can share views with us as a whole committee? Like is there an email address that they can send stuff to or something? [1:58:59] Carolyn Fish: Create something specific to that would be excellent. And [1:59:02] Alton Buzzell Jr.: then you can send it to us. And I think, you know, just to put something out there so that people don't feel that they have that there is no lifeline, you know, rather than this 20 minutes which I do feel right risk of being tokenistic. We could have that email out there circulated and we could look at those like you said during our ongoing work outside of committee hours while we work while we still [1:59:32] David Bushey: work. Yeah because I actually would as you said give them feedback in here. They heard a meeting, they didn't like the, they can send it right back to you rather than wait to the next [1:59:40] Alton Buzzell Jr.: commentary. So I think they'll do an idea. Okay so would somebody like to introduce a motion about the 20 minutes? Are we just free to do, we need a motion for that? No I think we don't even need a [1:59:51] Carolyn Fish: motion, there's adequate consensus. Yeah so but I will add an agenda item that at the next meeting maybe we can select a date and format for a lengthier robust public comment period for the committee to hear from people in person. I will right away move on the creation of the ballot [2:00:10] Alton Buzzell Jr.: The city's having a listening session, correct? So our public health department is doing [2:00:18] Carolyn Fish: educational slash listening session coming up, and you all will receive invitations to participate in that. [2:00:29] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Soon. Do you have dates? We did. Okay. It was the 23rd at 6 p.m. Okay. [2:00:43] Carolyn Fish: But that's a good point. That will be another opportunity if this committee wishes to participate in those sessions to hear from absolutely great. So the last item that I would like to nail down before we adjourn, although I'm not forcing us to adjourn, is just the next meeting date and just the meeting schedule in general. So advisory committees traditionally meet after what are deemed traditional working hours, however that's not a requirement. So if it was the will of this committee to meet during the day, city staff could definitely [2:01:27] Alton Buzzell Jr.: support that, but I know everyone has jobs and so that's probably not feasible, but [2:01:34] Carolyn Fish: I wanted to let you know that we could do that if you wanted to. Anticipating that we will have public participation at least for the first few meetings, I've anticipated scheduling these meetings in council chambers, which means that generally speaking, Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be the best days because Mondays and Wednesdays are usually either council or school board. Tuesdays generally work. I know I cannot do Mondays and Wednesdays. That's all perfect. Us neither. And so for the next meeting would Tuesday, July 28th [2:02:14] Brittney Dunham: at 5 15. [2:02:19] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Yes, July 28th. I'm [2:02:28] David Bushey: just trying to think about like sometimes we are not, because it's every two weeks right now, sometimes we none of someone who's gonna miss a meeting, sure, because of it. So yeah, apparently it's a good idea for the participant. It's almost if you can't come [2:02:46] Carolyn Fish: just can't come. I mean, we do have the ability of, so we have a policy on this for, so we do, our policy does permit board members to participate via zoom if they would. I think it's that kind of [2:03:03] David Bushey: thing. It's easier when everybody's on zoom, but when one person's on zoom but they're just, then it's going to be a spectacular one. It's going to be a problem for me. There will be transportation [2:03:13] Jason Goodrich: transportation issues over the next few months where we'll have to zoom in. Sorry, we'll go back. [2:03:18] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Absolutely, I would almost say that it's a major accessibility issue for me, disabled, so you know, the option for me to walk here, it's not always fully available, and it would probably increase my capacity to attend meetings if I at least have the option to. Well, good facility will. [2:03:32] Carolyn Fish: Help navigate and the and we do always have to have a physical location for the meeting because [2:03:42] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Because of how, so at least I would have to be physically in this. Winter time, it may be a lot [2:03:46] David Bushey: Easier to something else, which is basically like between the number of me, yeah. And I think due to [2:03:55] Carolyn Fish: The amount of work that this committee has to accomplish, certainly we are just going to have to plow ahead even if folks, yeah. Because I think the reality of like, I know having like a full-time job and a full-time family and all of the things, yeah, the transcripts will be available. That won't pay well, and the video will be, you'll be able to watch the full meeting as soon as I close this. [2:04:21] Alton Buzzell Jr.: It'll appear on YouTube. How long do you stop on the key postings and archive? Oh gosh, I don't know [2:04:27] Carolyn Fish: That we've deleted that ever. Okay, I'm sure that there's a point where YouTube says you can't take anymore. I'm not sure it's, it's, it's huge. So is there anything else that anyone would like to chat about this evening? I just want to say this [2:04:47] David Bushey: Is for first, there's a lot of work to get done, and I think like it's, you know, it's just a lot of its organization. I think once we get to read it, but it's actually more productive and more fun. Right now it's a city just getting the paperwork started out [2:05:04] Alton Buzzell Jr.: Being trained on, being trained on ethics and legal liabilities. Oh sadly, I mean that's what [2:05:09] David Bushey: We got to do, and the thing is multiple, I mean, I think, yeah, the thing is like it's, I've seen, I've been in some of these committees and both developers and the amount of stuff they give for it, because you are sitting in public committee, it's like kind of kidding me. But yeah, I'm glad to be supportive in that. Honestly, it's easier some questions like I know that he has suggested that we get specialized personal emails for this. I mean, you can't do a Bangalore now because it becomes you kind of do Trainings and all [2:05:45] Carolyn Fish: That and stuff, yeah. And so we don't typically, and particularly because in this role it's sort of a temporary leading. And I think it is a good best practice to do, you know, Gmail. I will also say from my experience, most advisory committee members don't because of the administrative work of having an extra email address. [2:06:13] Alton Buzzell Jr.: We certainly defer to you on that judgment is Gmail is an extra address anywhere. And you're going to create that [2:06:20] David Bushey: Public kind of email that [2:06:25] Carolyn Fish: Should take away the necessity for folks to email you. So I do need a motion to adjourn if you're ready to adjourn. We should do it. There second. Any objection? If not, we are now