So folks want to pull up the minutes. So yeah, so basically the only thing that we have like on our official agenda is. I'm talking about the public engagement process and like I think you know using potentially using one as the keeps case study but then like helping to say okay here's like what that looks like in reality. And then there's like a whole bunch of stuff like continued upcoming agenda items and I think there's some report backs to be doing about the DA training for city committees and for staff. And then there's other things on that agenda too and so I think, you know, as time permits and as we have report backs that that should be good. Do we have any idea how that's going to how we're going to get that information about the AI for city committees. I have some emails. Yeah, for that Cameron CC me and yep. Cool. Okay. Okay, but then if folks want to pull up the minutes from September 7 when we're in person. When our meeting started at 823. So great. That's a few minutes late because my dog was being very bad and she's being bad again.  Not supposed to play us with those toys. Does anyone want to make a motion. I move we approve minutes. Anyone want a second. Was there a second there. I was Lauren. Okay. Okay, all in favor. Hi. Okay. Any votes. All right, great. Got the motion in the minutes. And then yeah, any. Okay, yeah, let's just dive into the public engagement process. Okay. So I'm just going to say, I don't know if you guys were just reporting back on some of the meetings and stuff, but I don't know, Michael. Jeremy, do you guys want to take it away? What you were. Well, the only thing I have is this memo that I, that I thought I had sent around earlier. But I guess I, I guess I didn't push the send button. Because I could find it. In any rate. I had as I was supposed to, I contacted someone. And then I got to be Josh Jerome, who is. I guess the city. He's a, he's a city employee, right? Yeah. So he's working with that committee. And then he, and he put me in touch with Monica did Giovanni. And it took a while for us to get started on this actually. And then we got to see the. The email from her came after our last meeting. So. It's not clear to me what they want from us, but I think what she's trying to do is to organize a consortium of. Arts organizations in the city. And do training for the training for them with them. And it looks as if to me is if what, what she's planning to do is to go to the city council to get some money to support that training. That's the way I read this. But. So it's not clear what. What role we would play in this except. I didn't have a kind of a short conversation with Kathy Johnson. And she said, yeah, there are a lot of people doing this. And actually they are. Her organization is totally overwhelmed. And, and then that's true for most of the consulting organizations. On this. So, you know, that's the good news and bad news. It means that people are taking it seriously, but then getting the help they want is getting harder because everyone's got more on their plate than they can manage already. So. I, I said to Kathy that, you know, what our committee might consider as being a kind of. What was the word clearinghouse. If we hear of, you know, people who are trying to find, get some of this done, we could have a list of consultants that we could send them. And let them do the negotiation. I wasn't clear what the grant. That we talked about last time. What is it? PPI or something like that. The grant program. See that. I'm not sure. I'm not sure where the money is going to come from for these. And I think that's the big, going to be the big stumbling block.  And I, you know, I told. I responded to Monica that, you know, once we had our meeting, I'd get back in touch with her. So that's where we are with that. This is a very vague request here. I'm not even sure it's a request. It's just. You know, here's our situation. And I'm not sure if it's a request or not. I'm not sure if it's a request or not. The other piece. So I'm just naming that. That's fine. We start there too. And yeah. Cameron reached out to creative discourse. Abundant son. And what was the other one? Sorry. Kathy indicated that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. So that's, they hurt. They have been in communication. And because the city also wants to get like training on the books for all staff. And then Cameron's idea was like, if we're doing this for staff, we can just invite and. Um, city committee member, you know, city committee members want to participate. And so CQ strategy is the only one that I've seen a response to, which is what I was hoping Cameron could join to be able to participate in. I just wanted to, I just wanted to, I can't say. Small like keep the groups small like 25 to 30 people per like facilitator. And based on just like the numbers of. The. Like that there's 115 full time staff. Just looking at that, you know, that would be like four separate sessions. And so like, that would be like, if there were half day sessions, per facilitator and then like time so if it was like you know two days but with two facilitators or something like that um you know it just it adds up fast and so then if we were to like add on you know we could just like say because it sounds like they're like it's best if you keep them under 30 but also we you know you could have up to 40 people per facilitator per session and then you can um you know we could maybe add in city committee members um but then it does sound like the public arts commission I didn't quite read the how you read it right now of like that they want to like pull together all of the different arts organizations and kind of run their own session like as an arts community kind of thing protect is that kind of what your inventory how you're reading what you say uh let's see I just I think you know maybe it could be like four sessions for staff and then one for all the arts organizations and then one for yeah everyone else it's also like half half day that would be like taking time off of work and um unless it was being offered yeah on a weekend or evening time well I mean I yeah the second the power the last paragraph here the third paragraph um that's pretty much what she discussed but I guess the first thing that she's trying to do is to part part she's talking about partnering with other Montpelier arts organizations right and you know and that's that's where I that's where I sort of stop paying attention after that but then um I see it the last sentence that she wants it to be done for all the city commissions or committees too but she she was suggesting that a conversation specifically focused on the arts yeah it's really interesting yeah so that that's really why I thought that she was just she had that group and moment and I do think it you know there's also a difference between what committees and commissions do and what staff you know and what city staff does and I think trying to put those two together would would dilute dilute it so much for each one that nobody would really come away satisfied sorry what are you saying that like that we should well I mean her plan is well you know do go ahead and do these arts do the ones that you have planned and then have include one for commission you know include commissioners in it um and and I think we need to be careful not to confuse what committees and commissions do with what city employees are doing right so not inviting well right and then that also makes sense to like not assume that committee members can like take a half day off of work but like to like offer something for city committee members that's truly separate and as I understood and as I understood our earlier conversations we were focusing on working more with with committees and committees commissioners because that's the that's that that that's the only really organization a group of people that we can kind of corral into doing these these programs whereas the city employees they they're told that you know you have to come they'll do it but and I just I think Cameron was like want you know wanting to do something for city staff but that I think it could be cool it could be cool to have it the same training be offered to like you know have it be equal I don't know what I'm trying to say consistent that's the word I'm looking for I'm still my first cup of coffee yeah well I mean if we're gonna do that we really need and and the CQ strategies is going to be the ones doing it I think we really need to talk with them to find out if they think adding a small contingency of committee or commissioners is consistent with their plan would be consistent with their plan you know I think we can just so put you know impose that on them okay to pivot a little bit here we restart to three different folks we only heard back from CQ strategies do we want to just move continue to move forward with them unless we hear anything different from other folks like they're based among pellet you know do we have any have any concerns with just moving with CQ strategies too for the city or for city committees and or yeah like just start having those conversations um question I have is what to what degree are we involved in those conversations it sounds like this is a city contracting issue I'm not clear what our role is right me too that's one of my thoughts yeah Lauren do you have any anything that you can tell us about this or do you know yet what what's going on with this I know I I don't I mean I I don't think it's unusual for like a committee like ours to be involved if we have thoughts on it um or like I would think they would welcome advice or whatever um you know I like I my only I guess my question about the you know which vendor to use I mean I'm wondering if they're going to have to put out like an RFP or something just for whatever you know city boxes need to be checked to make sure or maybe what maybe the request for proposals they put out whatever Cameron had done to the three groups is enough to satisfy that but um I mean I wonder too less on that point but just if Kathy was saying CQ strategies is really booked up like does she have recommendations of other groups are they sending people to others um you know it's the timeline when we could get in with them if they're overwhelmed right now um which might be you know it might take some time to line up the funding and figure out some of these questions around who's participating and stuff anyway on our end so maybe that's all fine but those could be some questions we could edit do we know yet who's going to be our city staff point person until any assistance I don't yeah is there a budget line item for this like under HR for for the city not that I remember um I mean there might be some kind of general like professional development line or something I wouldn't be surprised if there's something like that um I mean one it's more of a like next year thing but I I do wonder if for like the CJEC budget request if we should be thinking about more of a like annual line item that can cover stipends and or training and or like with some more flexibility like many other committees have something more like that instead of trying to get funding like line by line and then just kind of keep council updated on what the funding's being used for um and because I could see like if the stipend money could be a place where if we're not fully using it that there might be some flexibility to trainings from that right for example but I don't want to like spend it before people have the chance to use it and it's really early in the fiscal year so but we should ask Cameron about I think like is there training slash professional development money that could be used for this um and what like requirements do they have about putting this out for bid or whatever I'm just capturing this in an email that I can just hit send to Cameron when we're done with this conversation but thank you for taking notes Michael I am noticing the obvious which is once Cameron departs we're going to be an information vacuum yeah and I wonder what our plan is right well I think yeah Shayna maybe you need to talk with Bill Frazier about that and soon yeah two weeks ago I think I shouldn't know but well I guess in the meantime we could find out from Cameron what you know she's probably sort of up to her eyebrows trying just to get out of the door do you want to do that Shayna do you want someone one of us to do that yeah I can get that well it looks to me like as if the the one thing that we might be able to do if the if the other the plan for including city commissioners committee members doesn't with with the staff doesn't work out um we could try to collect information about other organizations other organizations that are doing consulting and again to act as a kind of clearinghouse here's here are people we know about and contact them and find out what you want to do I mean I think this request is not very clear about what specifically they want to accomplish but I don't I don't see what else there is available because we don't have that we can't we don't have the money to pass around it's not our money I'll ask all of these thanks I am just being like oh yeah information vacuum without Cameron here we go okay um oh go ahead it might be helpful too I mean I'm wondering we've gotten out this request from Monica at the arts commission um I mean maybe in crafting a budget request for next year I mean you know that means money like starting next July um and but you know maybe we can do stuff in the interim but if we knew there was demand for this it would help help us be able to set money aside I mean they're already like healthcare costs are gonna like it's like it's gonna be a tough budget so making sure that we've got like clear needs um that between like staff training and commission training um committee training um and we're gonna need real clarity that there's like demand for it and a need for it um to make the case and then I do think we had city committee fun but we had a budget that we have not spent because we didn't use do the kind of year two with creative discourse is that correct can we roll that over potentially too if if you know CQ strategies can't do this training for city committee is this year can we like do that in January or you know in next well no it's fiscal year right yeah we're already in the next fiscal year yeah is that rolled over that's frustrated at last year I'd have to look at because I don't I don't know exactly what we spent the last fiscal year to this um I think that's how they had treated it so we are now we we now have money from the fiscal year 22 right and we're talking about getting on the budget for fiscal 23 to continue to to be able to distribute somehow on training is that what you're talking about Shayna Lauren but there's different date now we're in fiscal year 23 right in September okay and so can we use fiscal year 22 what happened to fiscal year 22 funds and can we use them this fiscal year yep okay FY 22 right and there was some so there was the stipend money but then there was also money for ongoing creative discourse for FE or 20 fiscal year 23 if that's not happening I mean maybe there is a small part of money for some trainings if we thought that was like the best use of it for this fiscal year and maybe like you said maybe there's some rollover money too still that wasn't spent that is still available to us but let's check on that clarification on that the stipend money is coming out of our fiscal note was a separate line that was a separate line item oh okay in addition so that was 30 thousand I think is right in addition to maybe like 10 000 for creative discourse or something I think that I remember and I think we spent like 3000 of that in like consulting and reviewing materials but well anything else on this or should we go to talk about process options I think what topic are we on now on the um sorry where is it creating a public engagement process outline and so I think what I was I've been thinking about the past couple of weeks on this and reviewing the materials that you shared Jeremy from the vcrd summit I think like we could go about this with more of like a place specific clear like here's what good public process looks like here in Montpelier kind of across the board kind of recognizing that it's always going to be imperfect it's like you know gonna be shifting and moving and changing based on like you know who lives here what the issue is and everything else or it could be more of this like temp like more like our budget um equity toolkit which is more of like here are some things to consider when developing a public process which I think is like less helpful but is like a like safe I was like real I was like it's a safer option because we're not gonna like leave anything on you know like it as a as a committee um but is ultimately like like less helpful for for people to use I'm like thinking like that the the test study here is like the Elk's Lodge property process and like how they've hired someone to you know run this public process but that they're not like from here or like necessarily thinking about it through like an equity lens and so um wanting to make sure we bring that to this process but in doing so kind of create a template for what it could look like to do um equitable public engagement processes writ large for the city you know um so I'm not sure if that's like a helpful place to start but that's because I keep feeling like I'm feeling so stuck and then being like it doesn't need to be this hard like we could do like uh here are the same things to consider and like just problematize but not be like here is what we think you should do yeah I think that makes sense it would be tough to do a one size fits all process template so the thing that you said makes me think of you know the playbook that you might hear another context of like here are the issues here are the things that you might want to think about and if you're faced with this challenge versus this challenge here are some some tactics or approaches to use um and I think I started pulling some things out of that presentation I shared and I think there are some good what the presenter called tips um that could help us think through what a playbook or a set of recommendations might be um so I'm not familiar with the playbook what is that like yeah I mean it's it's kind of it's a little bit specific to my my industry it's like you might so people are looking for methods and tools to do certain things accomplish certain things in their work a playbook would be in a kind of a collection of methods and tools to accomplish certain goals that you might have as a a team in a business or a business itself um so for example our playbook the goal of our playbook is you need equitable effective public engagement for your thing city person um in our playbook we're going to show you the right questions to ask um some specific strategies or tactics that you might use depending on what your goal is um and so you kind of mix and match take what you need to run your play essentially yeah does that make sense a little bit more but maybe in practice too so you're borrowing from football is that it it's a bit of a sport piece of bliss in this and I'm not a sports person so I can't get into the intricacies of how that maps um so for example I'm looking I've just got some stuff pulled up um can I share my screen I'm gonna just do that it looks like I can yeah so cool okay so here we go so for example in that that talk I saw I thought this is a really helpful kind of way to think about different levels of participation you might need for your project your campaign whatever it is so this would be an important piece of the puzzle of putting together what you're going to do around public engagement by like really getting really clear on what your goal is and then from the goal of your your engagement um you kind of cascade to okay what are the things you need to do to achieve your goal around public engagement for this so this could be one way that we start thinking about it too it's like putting together what the the plays are so it's like the like inform consult like the the columns the plays that like then people because I feel more of their goals so right so it sounds like I feel we need all of them yeah project that feels like it's going to be more of a collaborate goal because they want as I understand it and what I'm gathering from the front porch forum is people want to have really specific input into what the vision for that property is what happens on it so they want to come to the table with ideas they want to influence decisions um I don't think it's in power because that's probably too too far or what the city is trying to do um but it may be that the city really wants to you know bring in community members to solicit ideas to have discussions about the vision for that um so the collaborate would that would be the goal perhaps of that public participation in public engagement process and then everything that you're going to do around public engagement has to reinforce that goal of bringing in the community as a collaborator and I would my assessment of what the original proposal from the consultant is was more of like a consult goal okay like not and then council was like we want a more robust and more towards involve or collaborate and what we felt that was more of a let's just go out and gather a little bit of input and bring it back okay yeah which that's that's an I mean it's a really interesting conversation because you you need to be set the right expectations for what the public is going to be influencing or the degree of their participation um yeah and it doesn't fall apart yeah and I think part of like so when we've talked about it at council there's definitely some hesitation from city staff I would say of like making sure that expectations are clear of kind of particularly like where we are in the process like once we make a decision and are moving ahead like then it takes time to do the the engineering and like work be working through the things and it can't be that like the process is still up for debate or input or change at that point like you could you know you can change some things or if you learn more but like like we need to be clear about when when decisions are being made and how decisions are being made so that it can keep moving forward without an expectation of ongoing kind of input and changes to it like that's what and so like there's there's nervousness I sensed from staff that like people have a sense of like well we can keep influencing it and we can keep changing it like we like we might have better ideas and it's like at some point we have to make decisions and so just not an empower process yeah yeah that's really yeah and it just takes time to do things and so even if you did an empower process at some point if you're going to build housing like you need to decide like here's the housing we're building and and then it still takes time and people might feel like oh are we still in the gathering so anyway just just flagging this I've done so important because what I've seen is that I don't know if it's just a mismatch in terms of perception or if the city is doing this or not but it doesn't seem like those expectations are ever clearly articulated because it's it seems like any any decision is up for debate here like nothing is ever final like at the parking garage what's going on with the Elks Club yeah so it's like there is no final decision ever that seems to allow people to move forward to the next thing yeah I I think that feels true and maybe part of like what we could like offer is I think part of it too is like there's public engagement opportunities offered upfront and then there's an expectation that if people want to keep following it like come to city council meetings but very people do and so as opposed to like and then let's continue that outreach to like share okay here's what we heard here's the input here's how public um engagement shaped what we came up with but here is what we're doing and here's like here's what the next like I think that kind of communication doesn't follow through as much or expect people to find it in ways that people really aren't or not that many people are so maybe that's part of it too is like the being clear on like when and how decisions are being made and how being communicated back out to people and better in more robust ways so more people are actually like understanding where we are in the process and where we are not in the process I'm wondering if anybody once the transit center was finished if anybody actually wrote down and you know and had conclusions about how that process worked it it went on for a long time that's true and there were some mitigating circumstances having to do with properties and clean and environmental cleanup but there were meetings and there were changes that were made along the way has anybody recorded any of that information do you know we're like evaluated too yeah because that would be that's one that we at least got finished knows and we could you know we could encourage whoever does that kind of stuff for the city to write it up and and you know pass it around so people can evaluate what on what how it worked and what would we change from that process to make it more effective as well as more efficient I worry about efficiency because when you start focusing on that that's where you start cutting corners but I so I you know I would kind of insist that be both effective and efficient hire consultants for that process and who was that and can we well there was a committee yeah okay that was involved in setting parameters I guess for an RFP yeah I'm just like I think that's been happening the entire time I've lived in Montpelier and I mean it's been in place for a couple of years now I guess too but I'm just like I don't know yeah it took a long time yeah because of the sale the sale of property partly because there was an environmental what do you call it you know it was it was a it was a hot spot and it had to be cleaned out yeah Lauren your your comments maybe think of a what I've seen a really good example of that kind of ongoing kind of progress report general updates there's a guy I don't know there's a person who posts on front porch forum regularly they seem to be involved with the central Vermont broadband initiative and this person posts these amazingly informative updates about what the commission's doing what progress they've made how they're getting closer to their goals I mean you might miss it because it's in front porch one but it's an example of the kind of thing I think you're talking about that can be really helpful to kind of shed some light on these really complex projects yeah I could see it being helpful for us I mean so like the firm or the consultants that we have I mean it's mostly like engineers and stuff so I think my guess is without some prompting it would be like we'll do a bunch of public process and then it will go dark for like as a bunch of like engineering you know until like it'll be working hard but it will be very feel like a black box to people in the community without some like deliberate attention to like what is that ongoing communication so maybe it is like is there a point person I mean somebody's in charge in that team of the public engagement so maybe it's like you know an expectation of like monthly updates that are written in a format that can be posted to front porch for you know even if it feels to them like we're just doing it like it's the same thing again but we're like a little farther along in the environmental assessment or whatever it is but like I mean maybe we could send an example of the broadband thing as like these kinds of updates like we're the kind of community who wants to know what's going on I'm just I'm giggling at myself because I'm like wait what if we did like a meta thing where we're like we did a process to help figure out what people want from a process I don't just kidding I appreciate that level of investigation I think there's plenty of best practices out here that we can put something together it was really helpful like like just to say it out loud that like people do the work and then it steps away for a year and like keeping people like that it seems so obvious but I've never like like actually heard that and thought that out loud before so yeah would it be so I would it be helpful to just take a look together quickly at some of the things that I took away from that presentation that could maybe get started thinking I'm going to share my screen again all right so I we talked about this which is really just a way to kind of identify your goal so I like it comes from this organization IAP2 I don't know that organization but I like that framework and then the presenter kind of listed a bunch of different tips but at one point she was proposing well there are some big questions around engagement that you need to think about which I think these are the things that we've been actively discussing in our our committee work too it's like also the questions we're asking with the budget equity stuff you know who has been excluded or absent in past public engagement processes who may not feel welcome who's most impacted by a given project who is most likely to not know anything about this who might have really interesting perspectives and how do people really want to engage in the process so those are I can imagine in a playbook having a list of those kinds of questions that a group would want to work through to start to think about who they want to bring into their process and this is another really helpful reminder around what are the barriers to participation what are good incentives for getting people to participate so I think these I think we probably are familiar with these kinds of things but again if you're creating a process for somebody else to use they may not be thinking about transportation they may not be thinking about accessibility issues so then there's a few things here that are more about like tactics right so there's and I think we've struggled with this one but just figuring out in our community like where the nodes what the networks are so she talked about it in terms of connectors and ambassadors so ambassadors people who represent formally or informally certain groups they may be a key person in an organization they may be a key person in a specific kind of community group and then a connector is someone who maybe is on the periphery but just knows lots of people and connects with different groups so within your specific I think we have we've started to put together a list like that but I want it would be interesting to have kind of a master list for our community do we have a list of that I'm sorry I mean we I feel like we tried to do that with the creative discourse okay I don't know if we have a list yeah right but it could be compiled with a little bit of work this is interesting just thinking about the different structures in which participation might happen some are more formal and are about engaging with leadership some are more informal and more community focused I think there's many more probably to consider and then there's just a few things here around you know meeting people where they go and a lot of a lot of that presenters examples from her work her company's work was about you know going to where the people are to do kind of public participation type projects having a range of different methods is not everyone channel or approach is going to work for everyone and then this kind of like just dump this in here this list of different she's calling micro strategies for ensuring equitable participation there's I mean there's quite a range of things here like well don't do stuff on a religious holiday for example okay so I mean it's it's there's not a ton of depth in the presentation but I think it's helpful for getting started thinking about it could you send that around I sent the slide deck around but I could certainly share this kind of summary Michael is that what you're looking for yes yes I've been taking some ragged notes here that's yeah I can I can this would help I export this as a PDF that it was a lot it was like 70 slides or something and yeah and there's a lot of photos too so yeah you're like why am I looking at this great I was like this is fun I can see how presenting this would be really informative I'm not forgetting all this as a PDF okay pretty all good thank you and this is the the organization that this is what what's their name community workshop LLC because we'd have to certainly contact them if we were going to circulate this at all yeah I think this is current state this is just for our discussion I don't think I think borrowing these tip strategies from this and other sources I don't necessarily think we need to um ask permission but I'm sure they'd love to hear that we're incorporating these things this is super helpful Jeremy thank you for pulling this glad to glad it's helpful I mean I could see like something like this summarized with like a um I forget the word you were using to describe it but like a example of like questions to ask and whatever and then and then using the Elks club as like a case study of like okay and this is how we actually did it for this particular project things like you know okay there's there's a bunch of city committees with like expertise in their own network so like each project probably has some kind of city committee or two or three that could bring some um could help answer some of these questions of like who who should we be talking to about um you know who's impacted but often left out or whatever so like the housing committee and whoever for the Elks club um so I could see like that combo of like a broad template and case study as being like helpful to make it real for people like yeah that makes sense this is the sort of thing that if we um if we could get permission from the the owners we could circulate to committee chairs um and because I think it it doesn't take a whole lot of uh narrative to see what's going on here that uh and they don't have it's not as if they would have to be there to guide three people through it but it's like our template um and you know they they would have some proprietary interest in keeping it theirs but maybe maybe they would give permission or there would be a fee for it which would be worth it if we have then the permission their permission and understanding that we would circulate it to committees yeah I think my my sense of that is we're going to create something that meets our needs um and is perhaps gathered from a few different sources plus our own experiences um I don't I don't expect we need to ask permission but I'm happy to inform them that we're borrowing from their work I mean there the the woman who presented is clearly this is from not this is not her own framework this public participation spectrum that's from another organization um so I'm not I'm not overly concerned about the permission piece but I think sharing what we're doing with others who are doing similar things is a really useful thing to do as well and perhaps even get some feedback on what we're thinking I'm sorry I was reading a thing as you were talking full transparency but it is our next step here is it to bring her well I think yeah my sense is and I can I enjoy this stuff and so what if we started some kind of a document that we can pass around with kind of these broad buckets of things to be thinking about for public participation public engagement um and we can start to just input our thoughts things that we've been thinking about um I mean this this is a specific thing to really work on this community nodes and networks in Montpelier like list resource like you know you got to talk to the can you've got to check with all the relevant city committees like whatever like there's a few different things of course but um so I think I think within each of these are specific content that we could start inputting um kind of individually and then come back to discuss what do you think Shayna can we I'm just thinking about logistics can we do that do we have to do that all separately and then bring it together is that the we have like a Google oh no because it's just sharing information so I think Jeremy could send it out to us we could all if we're working on it offline we could individually send input to Jeremy who could comply for the next meeting and or if like if we're working on it at our next meeting for example we can do it all together and like a Google um but yeah we can't be editing a Google doc okay meeting time where we're all like looking at each other's comments and kind of having a conversation offline that's that's um so I will I will put together a an old-fashioned word document with just these kind of pre-populated with some of this stuff and like I'll take a stab at the the categories cool um and if you have time start putting some stuff in and we can take a look at it together and work on it together next time we meet that's oh actually so speaking of the next time we meet the October 5th is Yom Kippur and so I won't be on um do we want do you guys want to you can do the meeting without me or um I don't know if we want to like or skip it to October 19th or yeah um I'll be going on the 19th okay so let's meet on the 5th yeah we'll just okay well make sure there's a quorum all right and the other the other possibility would be um to meet another day that week or the next week which is between the two you know between our meetings and then we could because we you know we have such a slender quorum yeah that um I think losing anyone means we we can't do it to any business at all so I'm just reminded that the first two weeks in October for me work-wise are pretty intense and onsite the full two weeks um so I'm already anticipating a little bit of scheduling trouble so both the 5th and the 12th you're saying yeah um now evenings which are not great for a lot of people I know but um if we reschedule to an evening time that's fine for me um I could do October 12th before 8 p.m I have a call 8 to 9 that's a city council oh right obviously that's a problem with Wednesdays yeah or you could do the 19th in the morning or the evening yeah I won't be able to I mean I have a flight out at 7.15 in the morning so it's not easy to get to Albuquerque from here yeah whole day affair yeah I mean one question I have just in terms of how time sensitive for meeting like I do wonder about um like I feel like we need to maybe another question for Cameron Shayna when you're reaching out like I mean my sense is council gave some input on the public process for the consultants like it's not clear to me like when and how they're going to move forward so how how are we getting feedback and getting it to them in a in like a timely enough way that's actually incorporating it like I don't want us to do all this work and they're like oh we see like any sense for the first public forums and we're like wait what so I just want to make sure that we're provide yeah like we understand what how we're able to interact with them like maybe it's even setting up a meeting with whoever that is on is soon and being like high level this is the direction that we're thinking of going and this is the kind of input we want to provide like what's your timeline what and just make sure that they are um yeah open yeah accepting of our feedback so so maybe it would be even like a random time that we just try to schedule with Doodle or something with a consultant you know I'll have that in my email to Cameron I yeah I'm feeling a little bit stuck on how what our next step should be because Michael then how long are you in Albuquerque for too it's like just I'll get back to following uh that Monday try all the the whole shebang and come back on Monday um okay so we could do like the 1626 or something yes yeah as far as I'm concerned yes okay um maybe I'll say yeah if we could do a Doodle starting October 25th and then do we want to just cancel the next two meetings does that but we could do um either the fifth or 19th as like a working group where we're not making decisions but could look at the at the Jeremy's um just be kind of have a yeah and we can leave it as I'll try for the fifth anyway I'll I'll try and get there um but I'm a little trouble predicting what that week's going to look like Jeremy is the 19th better because you get through those first two weeks or is that still just like in it for you no the 19th um pretty much in the clear so maybe we skip the fifth and I don't have Shayna when you're going to be really busy and then we can meet on the 19th I know Michael will be gone but um maybe Michael if you're able to like send over whatever input to Jeremy then we could bring that into the discussion which yeah I can do that for sure okay I'm sorry I have to run I'm already late next but um the problem of zoom meetings is just like next next next thank you all so much have a good day yeah yeah talk to you all soon


Overwhelmed with midterm season? Well, so is the rest of Berkeley. I'm Krista Subutra with CalTV Entertainment here to see how students are dealing with midterm season. So how would you describe midterm season? It's pretty chaotic. I feel like just the whole campus gets in this like frenzy and they're always like it never ends. So yeah, it's just a little bit of a gloom over the campus. I think for me it's been pretty good so far. They've all been take-homes, so I've been chilling. Oh my god, it's so stressful. I'm just like it's just no it's it's running my life right now. Yeah, I'm just trying to make it through. Oh, what meme do you think accurately describes how you feel during midterm season? I think the really like new one what intonation meme is super descriptive just because sometimes you like really have no idea what's going on and I feel like that meme really fully encapsulates that idea. The U versus the guy, she tells you not to worry about, and then one is like Berkeley like midterms and the other one's like yeah. Other school midterms, yeah. I'd pick the one with the the dog. It's like the little cartoons strip of the dog into fire and everything is fine because that's how I feel. I know it'll be over soon, but until then like I'm the dog. Do you have any weird habits that occur during midterm season? Oh, definitely. I'm really bad about like binging on like TV shows and just watching long movies around midterm season. Like I watched three of the Twilight movies this past weekend, which is probably not a good idea. Lot of Bellens. Yeah, it was it was rough, but you know got through it. So for midterms, I tend to work out a lot more, you know, I got to get the gains and and you know, it's such relieving everything. Well, there you have it. That's what your fellow students think about midterm season. I'm Krista Sabusha, and thanks for watching Cal TV. Today's March 3rd. My name is Timmy Ngoh, and you're watching this week's Cal TV Entertainment Week.


The David Feldman radio program is made possible by listeners like you.  Right-wing cable news and conservative talk radio attract older Americans like graying moths to an angry flame. But why would someone who is either a political or a Democrat in their younger days become addicted to conservative talk shows in their twilight years? Joining us is the director of brainwashing. The brainwashing of my dad, director Jen Sanko. Hello Jen Sanko. Hi. Nice to be here. I love your documentary. Oh, thank you so much. We had a little viewing party here last Saturday and it was disturbing, informative. Tell me about your father. He was a World War II veteran, a Kennedy Democrat. And as he grew older in your documentary, which is really the history of the conservative movement through the prism of your father, Kennedy Democrat became a neo-conservative of a Rush Limbaugh fanatic. Yeah, radicalized. A radicalized. Yeah. Tell me about your dad. Well, when I was younger, I kind of thought of my parents almost as like the first hippies even though that wasn't out yet, just because they were so open and so open-minded. And my dad would talk to somebody on the street in a dark alley and you know, whatever like, come on, we got to go. You know, he was just very open. Well, you described coming to New York City and seeing an African-American homeless person and your dad not only gave him money, he called him sir. Yeah. And that really made an impression on me as the kind of person he was. So it was really shocking when he started saying things that were different to that. There's an epidemic now in this country of families being broken apart, not because of intermarriage, not because of religion or race, but because of politics. We see it, everybody sees it at Thanksgiving. Everybody has a crazy uncle at their Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's gotten to the point where I can't forgive certain people because of their politics. One of my sons has a godfather who I won't talk to because he voted for George W. Bush in 2004. I'm just as guilty of this as anybody else. You cover this. That's what I love about this film is you talk about families that have been split apart by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's really quite disturbing. I didn't know that at first when I started this movie, I didn't know how widespread it was. I knew that it was happening to my dad. And once in a while, somebody would say to me, oh, yeah, that happened to me too. But when I had a Kickstarter campaign and we had 947 backers, people started coming out from all over the place just writing to me. It became like the inlanders of this happened to my mom. This happened to my sister. This happened to my dad. And it wasn't just always older people. That's what I found. At first, in the beginning, it was, but it's so widespread, it's almost like an insidious disease that creeps out through your TV set or radio that takes over. And it's just people can't talk about anything. They can't even talk about the weather without global warming. All that stuff is phony baloney. Every topic, it's very hard to find anything to talk about. Why is it called the brainwashing of my dad? That's a really good question. Years ago, that title came to me and I just never changed it. I just liked the title of it. And I said dad instead of father, because if I said the brainwashing of my father, it would sound like it was going to be a scientific movie about brainwashing and how I was going to try and prove it. So at first it was actually tongue-in-cheek, and because I'm an artist, I wanted to see it be a little bit light-hearted and kind of kitschy like throwback to the Red Scare movies and sci-fi and kind of make it appeal to younger people. So the brainwashing of my dad, and I did get a lot of flack. A lot of people asked me to change the title. They were all actually liberals, like, oh, people aren't going to take it seriously. I don't care. This is what it feels like to so many people. So after even talking to all these people, that's what appealed to them was the title. So I became more convinced than ever. Well, I think that the other title, Manufacturing Consent, was already taken. The Noam Chomsky documentary. Right. And it had nothing to do with my dad. He didn't realize that he was consenting to really the corporate status quo. And I want to talk about that. He's been, I think a lot of these people who watch Fox News and listen to Rush Limbaugh don't realize that they're being trained or brainwashed to be angry and then motivated into keeping things the way they are. They think they're being revolutionary, but they're really servicing the corporate overlords. And I'm not being overly dramatic and calling them our corporate overlords. So your dad served in World War II? Which theater? The German theater or the Japanese theater? I'm not sure what you mean by that.  Oh, they do? Yeah. Oh, I do know that. You know, they put on a show. My dad put on a show for the Japanese. Oh, I guess it was the German one. The German theater. But he was all over Europe. Yeah. Yeah. And did he see horrible things during World War II? Well, what happened is he had a rifle and shortly after that they said, oh, our medics just got shot. So here's the bag. This is how you do it. And he became a medic.  Were the seeds of conservatism, or I'm going to say fascism, because I think if you listen to Rush Limbaugh and you buy the message that Fox News is giving, it's fascism. Were the seeds of fascism already within your dad at the time when he went off to World War II to fight fascism? Did he come from a family of fascists? No, I don't believe so. They were alt-democrats and they were FDR Democrats. Just nearly everybody was a Democrat, you know, unless you were uber-rich or thought you were going to be uber-rich or didn't understand that you should be uber-rich if you're, you know, the way Republicans became. Now, by the way, uber-rich. Yeah.   So after World War II, we had Harry Truman and your father was an FDR, a liberal. He voted for Kennedy. But right after World War II, there was in America the Taft-Hartley law pass that was kind of anti-union. There was a bit of a backlash to the New Deal and McCarthyism. Eisenhower came in. Eisenhower was a Republican. Eisenhower was a Republican. He voted for Eisenhower. He's called me. Right. Okay, so Eisenhower was a Republican who said, we're never going to get rid of the New Deal. It would be insane to get rid of the New Deal. He built our highways. They were taxing us at 90%. What was happening to your father during the 50s? There was a conservative strain emerging during the 50s. William F. Buckley began publishing the national review. There was the John Birch Society came into being during the 50s. What was happening to your dad? Because you parallel this in the movie. The two tracks. The track of the conservative party, the conservative ideology and your dad. So where was your dad? He did vote for Eisenhower. So that is more conservative than Adley Stevenson. By today's standards though, Eisenhower would be a far left Democrat. Yes, but Adley Stevenson by today's standards would be to the left of Bernie Sanders. So. Perhaps. In the 50s, looking back, Eisenhower was a liberal, so was Richard Nixon. But that only just speaks volumes to how conservative the conservative has gotten. But your father was more conservative by the 50s. If he voted for Ike, he was a conservative. Yeah, but then he voted for Kennedy and he was registered a Democrat. And my mom was a Democrat. And that's kind of how they thought. But he went to, he got his degree in engineering, his master's, because of the. In engineering. Yeah. Where? At Newark. Newark School of Engineering because he was a vet. And he thought that was just wonderful that he was able, the government paid for him to go to school. And then he was kind of starting a family with my mom. But I think the culture just started changing a little bit then. I mean, if you think of movies back then. And I think that they both thought, yeah, people deserve a second chance in life. Not everybody that commits a crime is awful or they just were open minded. And so I didn't see seeds of fascism in them unless it was me taking the car. So in the 50s we have the beginnings of the John Birch Society. What was the John Birch Society? What is the John Birch Society? Their Connor has an incredible book about the Birch Society and how she grew up in the birds. I didn't know anything about them. And I'm not sure I can do it justice explaining it, but they were very, very radical right. I think they attached themselves to the Republicans, but I don't think most Republicans with them at the time. Basically, they were so afraid of communism that they felt that communism wasn't just over there in Russia or China that it was here.  And so they were perceived kind of as nutty because Ike was adored by everybody, Democrats and Republicans alike. And they had attached themselves to Goldwater, which is why there was that landslide where Johnson won and beat Goldwater. Right. And so by 64, I believe MF Buckley's National Review, Movement Conservatism had started. Buckley was giving intellectual cover to what I consider stupidity.  Was your dad by 64 and 65 when, by then, I believe Buckley had disassociated himself from the John Birch Society, which was smart, was also racist organization. Where was your dad in 64 and 65 in terms of the Civil Rights Movement? No, he was all for it. Okay. I mean, both my parents believed in the Civil Rights Movement, like there was just no question. Right.  And he was still a bit of a hippie, right? Well, I mean, you know, he wouldn't think of himself that way. He didn't have long hair. It's just that I remember when the hippie movement started, I remember thinking, huh, my parents are already kind of like that in a way.  It just was like this open-mindedness. I don't know how else to explain it, but, you know. So you're not seeing any signs of any signs of conservatism? No. Right. Okay. So 64, Johnson gets reelected. We have half a million troops in Vietnam. By 68, the country's divided. The Democratic Party's divided. It's having a crack up similar to what's going on in the Republican Party. Some people want to, some Democrats want to stay in Vietnam. Others want to get out. Who's your dad in 68? I think kind of oblivious. I mean, they listen to Walter Cronkite every night, so they just kind of follow the news neutrally. I don't think he had any really great opinions at that point.  Just didn't. Well, was your father against the war? I mean, was he? Did he go to protest? I mean, I know my dad took me to peace demonstrations because he wanted me to get beaten up by construction workers. No, my dad, they were really, he wasn't so political as to even think about it. I think he was struggling through trying to be an engineer and raising his family at that time. And this is what your movie's about. This conversation is germane to your movie because it gets down to where he was getting his information from and his not so gradual evolution into right wing fanaticism. What was going on when Nixon got elected in 68? You had these radicals. You had Ralph Nader. You had all these anti-corporate kids and young people who didn't trust capitalism. The Chamber of Commerce felt they were under threat. So what did they do? Tell me about the Powell memo. It's very interesting. In 1971, Lewis Powell was a corporate lawyer. I think he was the head of CEO, don't quote me on that, on the board at least of 11 corporations. He was concerned about the image in a way that business had at that time. And a lot of the business community was concerned at the time too. Specifically about Ralph Nader who's on this radio station. Ralph Nader pissed off a lot of people. Yes, still does. But I remember my parents were really for him. They just loved, everybody loved Ralph Nader. So Lewis Powell wrote this memo advising conservatives to do what? Well it was called the attack of the American free enterprise system. And he sent it to the Chamber of Commerce and different corporate activists. And it was basically a call to arms for corporations to defend its interest against any kind of criticism of capitalism. And to sort of promote capitalism and to sort of promote free market ideology. And to do that through college campuses, the courts, you know, they felt like it was being under attack even from the pulpit. So the idea about think tanks came out of that, I mean they all. The American heritage think tank didn't exist until the Powell memo. In 19, a year later, Powell memo, 71 Heritage Foundation, 72. And then after that it exploded. They would set up chairs at universities, so it was an all out attack to get free market tier thought pro corporate ideology into schools and into the mainstream media. You'd have think tanks that would write op-ed pages, pieces for the op-ed page. They would give out talking points to right wing politicians. It was all well funded, very well funded because the business people were like all for it. So that's why these think tanks just exploded. Right. And how was Powell rewarded for this matter? Well, two months later he was appointed to the Supreme Court by Nixon. Right. And we're leading up to, because this is really important to, our listeners, some of them already know this, but it's good to remind them how we got to this ideological chasm in the 21st century where there are alternative truths. And we've gone from moral relativism to factual relativism where everybody now has their own set of facts, which brings us to Roger Ailes, who helped get Richard Nixon elected president in 1968. He's now the face of Fox News. The heart and the soul. The heart and the soul. Who is Roger Ailes? What influence did he have? Did he write a memo before the Powell memo? Well, Roger Ailes was just really interesting. I mean, he was like a television genius, you know, at the age of 27, he was producing shows. He was producing the Mike Douglas show. And he met Richard Nixon. And he met Richard Nixon, and he saw how crappy he did when he was debating JFK, you know, his sweaty upper lip, you know, shifty-eyed, you know, which is really why they said Kennedy won. I mean, a lot of people who heard it on the radio apparently thought Nixon won, but you know, when you're looking at Kennedy, it was smooth and handsome and well and composed and not nervous. You know, it was like hands down, oh, this guy, you know, so he, you know, kind of took Nixon aside and said, and this is all in Gabriel Sherman's book, by the way, which is great. It's fascinating.   But you know, he taught him how to speak in sound bites, taught him like the proper use of makeup, you know, how to appeal to the little people, you know, how to speak simply. And so he helped Nixon become... Master the medium. Master the media. Yeah. Right. So you have the pal memo, you have Roger Ailes under the Nixon administration, then you have... Well, then there's the memo, when Roger Ailes was more entrenched in the White House, they were seeing, like, how the media was portraying the Vietnam War and portraying Nixon. And they were like, uh-oh. So there's this memo called How to Get the GOP on TV News. So you read through this memo and Roger Ailes' handwriting is all over it, like, 59% of people get their news from television. People are lazy. They want the thinking done for them. You know, we can get pro-GOP news. We have to create our own station. This was, if you read by it, the blueprint for Fox News. I'm sure he didn't think Fox News back then, but they did call it fair and balanced. Right. Right. So the Nixon administration starts throwing dirt in the umpire's eyes. They start saying the New York Times is biased, the Washington Post is biased. And it's really the first time that Americans were asked to question the ideology of mainstream media, that they question the objectivity of trusted sources of news. But that actually started even earlier, like, after Goldwater lost to Johnson, there was accuracy, no, no, no, AIM, accuracy in media. They said, you know what? We have to start chanting the media as biased and media as liberal. We have to strive for balance. So it started before then, you know, hence, what's his face, Buckley. And I can't remember the other guy's name, but anyway, he started to read, yeah, read. But they were crackpots and fringe. Yeah, but nevertheless, they started that. They were the seeds of that. The seeds of it. But it really came to fruition under really Sparrow Agnew, the vice president who went out and attacked. We almost used his quote in the movie. Yeah, the nattering Nabobs of Negativism and the afeat intellectual snobs on the east coast, which is all penned by William Sapphire, who became a columnist for the New York Times. No journalism background. He was a speechwriter, a pure ideologue who then became a columnist. So your dad, 72, McGovern, did he vote for McGovern? He did vote for McGovern. Yeah. Wow. Both my parents. He's immune to the conservative indoctrination still, right? Yeah. That's pretty big that he voted. I'm pretty sure of that, like 99 percent sure. I'll double check with my mom, but I think they were both on the same page. Okay, so now Carter and now Reagan comes into office and they get rid of the fairness doctrine. What is the fairness doctrine? How did that set the stage for Rush Limbaugh? The fairness doctrine, I think, started back in 49. It was set up basically because the notion was that the airwaves should belong to the public and the people. Well, they do belong to the public, not should they do. It should serve the public who it belongs to. And that basically they were thinking local also at that time. So let's say you hear an issue being discussed, but you don't hear another side to that issue and you could call your local radio station and say, hey, why don't you get this guy on because I think he could contribute to the notion of the other. And then also, the thing about local radio then was if you had a fire in your town, the local station could find out about it and talk about it. Anyway, but that's the telecommunications act, sorry. So about the fairness doctrine. So Reagan got rid of the fairness doctrine and so it set the stage for somebody like Rush Limbaugh. A year later. Because he could spew all this right-wing claptrap and the local station wasn't obligated to bring somebody in to counter his ideology. Yeah, basically, yeah. And yeah, it was a year later, 1987, Reagan squashed the fairness doctrine, 1988, Rush Limbaugh goes national. And so what happened with the, because of getting rid of the fairness doctrine, AM radio became a hotbed for conservatism. There are really very few liberal voices on the radio, because why? Well, for one thing, they're not funded, like Rush Limbaugh gets. Yes, that was fascinating in the movie. Go ahead, tell me about that.  And in the movie, they say it's in the budget. It's in the budget, yeah. So he doesn't have to have advertisers, I mean, advertisers are dropping them now like hotcakes because of Stop Rush and Flush Rush. But you know, and these stations are, the program's already done, they're a lot cheaper. Like if you have another person who is a liberal locally, it's just cheaper for them to buy, you know, the prepackaged right wing. But 97% of talk radio is quote unquote conservative. I don't consider it conservative. OK, that's really important and aggravating. 97% of all talk radio is conservative. Now, during our screening party of The Brainwashing of My Dad, there was a young Harvard Law School student who said it's the free market of ideas. If there was a marketplace for liberal talk radio, we would have it. Obviously, people who listen to talk radio only want to hear conservative. But it's not the free market. Why isn't it the free market? Because it's not being propped up by think tanks and by this whole structure behind it.   So it may appear to be the free market, but it's not. But we're being told that there's this insatiable thirst to hear Michael Savage and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and that their ratings are through the roof. Well, there was an insatiable thirst for Stephanie Miller and Randy Rhodes. And yeah, you know, it's it's like whoever you become close to or bond with you want to hear.  He's their buddy. Right. But there's no question that he's great at what he does. Absolutely. Absolutely. Jen Senko is the director of the brainwashing of my dad. I cannot stress the importance of this movie and it might save your family. So go see it nationwide or download it on Amazon and iTunes. The brainwashing of my dad dot com. Plus, we have a Facebook page, Twitter's brainwashing dad. And don't fight. Ask questions. Read and support independent media. Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. The David Feldman radio program is made possible by listeners like you.


We're going to a party today on arts and medicine. A party that continued with the wonderful era of the 1920s and 30s, when Americans were not on the town with their musical entertainment. They flocked to nightclubs, to music halls, to dance halls, for good-being rhythms and close-knit comedies, and singable melodies were the hard miles of this wonderful era. Hello, I'm John Barthes, your host for Arts and Medicine. Everything was more elegant back then, but a performance answer the audience to survive. People did not just go out, they went stepping out. As you were up in two minutes, I'll take you to a pro-tap and finger-snapping performance by the Manhattan Rhythm King. The Rhythm King, with their impeccable vocal powers, and their wonderful humor, swings through hits from the ragtime era and big band tunes that were written for the Glynnore and Duke Valentino music. They bring to life American popular music the way I think it is meant to be heard. Come along now, let's meet the Manhattan Rhythm King. The afterbeat is the next beat after the downbeat. Not the first beat or the onbeat, but the offbeat. Like a backbeat or an echo beat, that's the afterbeat. Not a three beat, a four beat, or a three, four beat. Not a square beat, a nowhere beat, but a laughter beat. And a swinging beat, and a dancing beat is the afterbeat. Not a beat-up beat, a beat-knit beat, but the afterbeat. Yeah, the emphasis always on the last bit, that's the afterbeat. Not an up-a-pa or a cha-cha-cha, but the afterbeat. It's a late beat, a great beat, it's the afterbeat.  Then the one beat, oh, you are after, is the afterbeat. Or the onbeat, the backbeat, like an echo beat, that's the afterbeat, that's the afterbeat. That's the afterbeat, that's the afterbeat. Afterbeat, afterbeat. Before we leave, we have one last song. Remarkably enough, this last tune was written by America's greatest dancer, Mr. Fred Astaire. It's called Tapping the Time. Dance is coming, dance is going, something that some are slow. New generations hit the nation, sway them to and fro. People look for something strange, but there's nothing new. So I guess the only thing to set you going is what I'm showing you. It's not a cheap deal, beating thrill from toe to head. It's a time tapping foot, slapping dance, that knocks them dead. To see that hook for 85, bless me, he's tapping the time. That Charleston dance is none of mine. Tapping the time, we know that rock bottom has winning ways. But give me back those old buck wingin' days. Each movement's got to be in rhyme, then you're tapping the time.