Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode. Today we got another reading vlog, a small one, but some cool books nonetheless. We got some Titan manga for the very first time. I'm gonna go over that along with a couple of surprises that you're looking at here. First book that we're going to talk about is Witch of Thistle Castle. This is my very first Titan manga and I'm very excited about that. I love getting new publishers for the shelf and this stuck out to me because of the amazing front cover. This is one of my favorite looking covers of all the new books I got this year, 2023. So this video is supposed to be a first impression on this book because we only have volume one here and I gotta say I'm intrigued. I really want to keep going with this. I didn't think I was gonna like it as much as I did but every page I wanted to learn more and more and I think that's part with the author John Tarasheen. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly and their ability to expand the mythos by weaving it through the explanations or the expositions spoken by the main character Marie Blackwood. How she is able to open up this world to us the readers by explaining it to the young Theo who is a 13 year old at the Church of Scotland is basically dumping on her for her to take care of. She is super reluctant but will do it. She has a bit of a reputation and people don't like her outside of her peers. She is a witch and that has evil connotations, bad connotations, whatever it may be and she has suffered throughout her life of different forms of discrimination and all that stuff. Whereas the character of Theo is a young, wholesome, timid and shy 13 year old that has basically been bound and gagged and not been able to live his full life because the church sees the potential, the strength and ability in him, his magical abilities if you will, they might be a danger to everybody so they prefer to keep him locked away at the sacrifice of his own humanity. So now that Theo is with Marie you can sort of see that this story will take on this master apprentice type drama where they learn from each other to be better individuals. Now the real highlight I guess for which of this will castle definitely has to go towards the art. It is beautiful. I love the character designs. I love the architecture that you see. I assume this all takes place in Scotland. There are magical creatures that appear and they are fantastically drawn. One of the best aspects of this that I highly recommend for someone looking to read a darker but also slice of life oriented magical series. I think you'll be right at home with The Witch of Thistle Castle. The majority of these first five chapters is developing the relationship between these two characters that are meeting for the first time and sort of laying the groundwork for everything, the world, the magical terms, all that fun explanation and there's very little action which may upset some people but I was perfectly fine with it. I knew what I was getting into when I picked up this book and I think the author does a fantastic job. I'm really excited. I love the character of Marie and Theo is just a sweetheart and I am rooting for that kid to grow into an awesome individual. I love to see that in character stories. Ultimately this first volume tackles a lot of interesting ideas but the major one is having these two flawed individuals meet and befriend each other where you have an older character that has faced this discrimination for being who she is and a young character who is hated on for what he could become and now the two of them together they might form something special as this masters student relationship blossoms. The next book that we're going to talk about is Blade of the Moon Princess volume one by Tatsuya Endo the same creator from the popular spy family series. Now I don't think I'm the only one when I say that our exposure to this mangaka came from the hit that is spy family and we did not know about his previous works like Tista or Blade of the Moon Princess. This story is based on the legend of the tale of the bamboo cutter and Princess Kaguya. It's not a direct adaptation of that but it takes inspiration from there and cues on the character and the settings and the abilities and all that stuff. It's very reminiscent of that famous classic Japanese story. So in Blade of the Moon Princess we follow a defiant young princess Kaguya Takenouchi who is the heir to the Moon Kingdom from her mother. The Moon Kingdom lives separately from Earth. They are an advanced species if you will of people. They have high futuristic technology that sort of reminded me of that mixture of old and new tech like you would see in Naruto for example and you have the character of Kaguya who is the heir to all of this. Her mother the Empress she is beloved by many and hated by a certain political faction that seeks to dethrone her or possibly assassinate her removing her effectively from power and placing themselves on top. They call themselves the Tengu revolution at the start of this series and in the midst of all this political chaos that's brewing Kaguya she is a teenager she is defiant and will not follow tradition and doesn't necessarily want to follow in her mother's footsteps right away. She'd rather see the sights and experience the the kingdom and have fun and all that stuff and not worry about the politics not worry about growing up and I feel that's a universal theme regardless of the fantasy element. The idea of rebelling as a teen and wanting to follow your own path instead of what was laid before you I think that's a very universal theme that will appeal to a lot of readers. Kaguya is very skilled and highly athletic and very caring but that rebelliousness leads her to clash with her mother and the retainers and all the other people in the kingdom. The enemies actually stage a kudaita and seek to eliminate the royal family so the empress has the idea to send Princess Kaguya to the tainted world which is earth where all the regular people live all the common folk if you will and not the magical moon people I don't know if I'm using the correct terms they haven't stated on this first volume but that's what I'm going with. So after that coup we have the character of Kaguya now escaping to the real world reluctantly she understands the gravity of the situation and wants to help fix what was broken and help her mother because she is in mortal danger obviously these people want to kill her so now that she is down on earth Kaguya is going to experience life in a totally radically different way it does have a very similar feel to something like Naruto the way the action is framed and the abilities and just the overall look and composition of these characters really reminded me of early Naruto like part one when they were kids and I really enjoyed that it took me back to simpler times of reading a shonen jump book I love the art here from Tatsuya Endo he definitely has a very unique style with his faces and the character models and all that stuff so yeah if you like spy family you're gonna be right at home with this obviously if you prefer a little bit more action towards the fantastical and folklore then yeah absolutely go ahead and pick up blade of the moon princess volume one the second titan manga is alpi the soul sender now this is very different from which of this old castle this is a magical series written by rona here we have volume one and in this I guess alternate Japan we have magical manifestations of the divine on earth and they look like a giant creatures that influence the world or influence nature and stuff like that and when these creatures are at an end and they pass away they die their bodies are filled with a lot of magic that can curse the land if not taken proper care of unfortunately people can't touch these creatures can't dispose of their bodies and can't do anything about that magical stuff but there are certain individuals that are somewhat tolerant towards it not completely immune these people are called the soul senders alpi is one of these characters now the fun thing here is that she's a young soul sender she is accompanied by her familiar and we just follow an episodic adventure of these two characters going from a town to town or city to city I guess taking care of these creatures and interacting with the people around them with nature and all that stuff so it's a really nice magical wholesome read I was a little bit skeptical at first I didn't know if I was going to grab more volumes based on the premise alone but I am happy to report that I really like it as you get into the different stories presented here you start learning a little bit more about alpi's personality and her likes and dislikes and her journey of becoming a soul sender and you see her in action taking care of these creatures now there are some more dramatic elements that happen towards the end which really picks up the intensity of the story and makes me really want to pick up volume two the art is absolutely beautiful I love it and unfortunately similar to which of this will castle the binding on this book is pretty tight so it the book does tend to close on me if pretty quickly if I'm not too careful but I am excited like I mentioned to keep going and explore this world I think Alpi is a sweet funny exuberant kid and I'm interested to see her journey as a soul sender so yeah pretty basic simple series but that isn't necessarily a bad thing definitely check this out if you're into I guess a different sort of magical girl story but also the dark fantasy elements and magical stuff wholesome slice of life elements with action sprinkled throughout if that's your jam then yeah you'll be right at home with Alpi the soul sender I know I didn't list it on the thumbnail but I finally got on board with the hype train I know I'm behind this book came out what in 2019 or something like that it is a ZOM 100 bucket list of the dead volume one story by Haro aso and art by Kotaro Takata so like many I knew about the manga but unfortunately things had to be sacrificed and I ended up getting other series instead and now fast forward to this year with the start of the ZOM 100 anime I really enjoyed it and thought hey let's go back and let's pick up the manga because I like the anime but I was displeased with the art direction and the delays and stuff like that so I wanted to read the original instead and I went ahead and picked up the first volume here this is a pretty thin slim volume it only has three chapters at 13 bucks I don't know I thought that was pretty wild so for this we follow the main character here 24-year-old Akira Tendo and he is experiencing a very real thing in Japan which is being overworked the countless and hundreds of overtime hours and crunch time and not being able to properly take care of your physical and mental self and as a result unfortunately a lot of people have lost their lives because of this it's a very real dangerous sad depressing thing that happens over there and this manga is a way for the creative team to express the dissatisfaction with work culture and I guess remind people that it's okay to take a breath and realize that life isn't just about the work there's a life out there that is worth living after many years of being overworked at this company our main character suddenly is in the middle of a zombie apocalypse that just started happening and he realizes that for once in his life he doesn't have to go to work the other day he is essentially free and obviously the uh parallels here with the end of the world and the start of his new world is pretty interesting now he's going to make this bucket list of 100 things he wants to do before succumbing to the apocalypse and turning into a zombie I think that's a fantastic fun as hell idea I love the visuals here I think Kotaro Takata is an impressive artist I love the character designs and the zombies look fantastic equally ghoulish terrifying grotesque and very human in a scary way everybody has hilarious expressions obviously because this is a action comedy series so it all just looks really good and now I'm officially hooked on the series again and uh what am I doing I have no room for Zom 100 but I already went ahead and picked up more volume so let's go the final book that we're going to talk about in this video is bochi the rock one of my most anticipated releases of the year and I finally have volume one here from yenpress I'm so excited we follow the character of Hitori Goto she is an amazing individual unfortunately she has a crippling case of social anxiety and that is preventing her from fully expressing herself as an individual she is mortally terrified of all the new things that can happen in her life meeting new friends she wants to have friends but the idea of the conversations and the interactions and the emotions and feelings and the stress of new friendships can be a little bit overwhelming and I don't fault her I suffer from that it not to such extreme lengths but I do suffer from it and I could definitely relate to our lovable bochi here she is very famous online she's a youtuber and she plays solo guitar and she's really popular but people don't know who she is with her fear and social anxiety she's not going to be out there saying oh it's me look at me so it's a little bit difficult it also just happens that I'm making a youtube video so I can relate to that as well fortunately through her skills at the guitar she meets another character nidika hijinxonsu and she ends up really liking what she's hearing from bochi and is asking her to fill in for her band's live performance now this is terrifying but this is the cool part about bochi the rock is the fact that hitori musters every ounce of strength and realizes that you just gotta go for it as much as it kills you and there is the promise of a better tomorrow once you take that leap and the character subconsciously knows that she's mortified of what is happening and the anxiety results in her not taking these leaps right away but the fact that she slowly starts seeing the result of these actions inspires her to keep going and I think that's a wonderful lesson out there for people you just gotta go at it bit by bit and I promise you you will walk far the other bandmates they are friends of hitori goto and want to see her succeed but it's also pretty funny to see their reaction to the extreme meltdowns that happen for bochi so yeah it's a pretty wholesome heartwarming story filled with a ton of comedy a really great humor and great fun relatable characters so there you have it another reading vlog for the channel now stay tuned because I do have formal reviews of manga that I've been reading as well as some other cool stuff coming your way on this very channel so thank you everybody for tuning in thank you for liking commenting subscribing and being a part of manga geekdom I truly do appreciate it thank you so much god bless stay safe out there I will catch all of you on our next video


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Today we are here at the BC Chamber of Commerce Transportation Summit. It is an incredible opportunity for leaders around our province and around the country to come together to actually talk about what opportunities we have, what challenges lie before us when it comes to our transportation network. You know, we are blessed with an abundance of resources and in order to reap the benefit of those resources we have to ensure that we have a seamless transportation network and that flow includes our ports, our rail, our air, our roads, the shipping industry, very important, but together there is no question that there is no greater opportunity on the west coast of North America than what we have right here in British Columbia and we are going to capitalize on that together. You know, many times people look at our transportation network and they focus on what it means to business or industry. A strong transportation network allows all of us. It allows ourselves, our children and our grandchildren to have the opportunity as we move forward into the future to recognize that our resources can get to market, our customers are satisfied with the delivery model that we have. So together it is about all of us as British Columbians and Canadians that will allow us to actually prosper as a result of a strong transportation network here in our province.


Well let's go ahead and get started then. So it is 6.59 and I'll call the meeting to order and I am very pleased to start by welcoming our new board member, Kimberly. Welcome. Pleasure to have you here. Thank you.  Sure, my name is Kimberly Strangat. You can call me Kim. I've been a part of the Longmont community for almost 17 years. I live here with my husband and my two daughters. I have a sophomore at Longmont High and an eighth grader at Westview. So we're definitely part of the community, love living in Longmont, and professionally I'm a public health nurse and so I feel like the work that the advisory board is a part of and promotes really feeds back into the needs that I see for so many families and supports the work that I do. So I wanted to get involved. Terrific. Thank you so much and thank you for your work in public health. We're grateful. Hopefully the rest of this year will be a little smoother than last year for you. Hoping so I got my COVID vaccine today so we're headed in the right direction. Well, give me a call when you, you know, get to that point where you're like, it's time to close the clinic but we got some extras left and we don't want to waste them. I'll keep you in mind. All right, not necessary though. And let's see, Sandra, welcome. Good to see you again. And we have Molly, I know waiting. So Molly, nice to see you as well. Do we have Nicole, is there any public that's waiting? Okay, terrific. Then let's go ahead and the minutes were distributed in advance of the meeting, the minutes from our December meeting, all that's December 10th and December 22nd. So I would ask if there is a motion to approve the December 10th and December 22nd minute meetings. Caitlin, so moves. Is there a second? Diana is the second on that. You'll have to arm wrestle with Graham, but I think Diana was first on that one. And any discussion, any questions, content that you feel needs to be corrected? Okay, then all in favor, please raise your hand if you are on video. And I suppose speak up if you're not, but I think everybody's on video from the board. Okay, terrific. Okay, the minutes are approved. Our next and perhaps most important piece of business for the entire year really is designating the 2021 Housing and Human Services Advisory Board meetings posting location. So, Brian, may I add a comment? Of course. About the important item. Yes. So, and so I think for Kimberly's benefit, this really is a requirement by Colorado Open Meetings Law that we do this every year at our first meeting of the year. And in my understanding, and Nicole, you can add to this is that what is being recommended. So it's a little different, Brian. It's a different strategy is that the online, you know, we have our online portal for all of our advisory boards. And so the recommendation I think from our city attorney is that that we make sure that that is our official posting place. And then we could also have a physical posting place as we have in the past, which has been in the West entrance of the Longmont Civic Center. Did I get that correct, Nicole? Yeah. So basically what we want to do, Brian, is we want to make the formal posting place the web. Okay. With a backup posting place, which I will post in both locations as the, correct me if I'm wrong, because I stink at directions, the West entrance to the Civic Center. So really it's the website is going to be our formal and I see Polly has her hand up. So I think there's probably some good information there. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Christensen. Just to clarify, this was a change in state law, allowing the use of the web as a possibility. So pretty much all of our departments, including city council are making that, but we're also using a backup because a lot of people actually don't have computers or access to the web. So anyway, great. Thank you for that. So the proposed location is the primary location is the website, the city website, and the secondary location is the West entrance to the municipal building. Is there a motion to approve those two locations with the online being the primary? Oh, where's all the enthusiasm that something come on? All right, Caitlin makes the motion and Deanna seconds and any discussion on that? Well, I for my part, I'm glad to see some of the government entities moving forward into the mid 20th century and recognizing online as being a real thing. But also I do recognize the value in having that physical posting, although I typically don't know that I've ever seen it. Okay, so all in favor, please raise your hand, signify I by raising your hand. Got it, Nicole. Great. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, the motion passes. And the meeting postings will happen online and at the West entrance. Okay, now we're getting into the meat of the matter. So we're going to quickly move on to the Human Service Agency funding recommendations. Ellie Bertow and Karen are going to take this and I do have a conflict. So at some point, I will recuse myself. And Karen or Ellie Bertow, I assume you will tell, you know, give the signal when that happens and then Nicole, you'll put me in the waiting room. So I don't mess it up. Okay. Okay, thank you. Okay, I'll give the floor to Karen and Ellie Bertow. Ellie Bertow, it's yours. I was just waiting on taking the lead on this one. So well, thank you, chair. So just to recap, we've had multiple conversations on this piece. And I just wanted to quickly go over two changes. One was directed by the board and one, as Karen wrote in her email, I discovered as I was finalizing the numbers. So as directed by the board, if you all have that PDF in front of you, I had to find a way to redistribute the $68,000 that was left over when the board chose that specific matrix. And so I didn't put all my calculations in there, but I do want to give you just a quick brief how I made the decisions I made to it. So basically, at that time, what we had was that health and well-being had 74% of, it had been allotted or allocated 74% of the area allocation that the board had voted on previously, and safety and justice had 50%. And so I wanted to try and get that more equitable or more on par. And so what I ended up doing with the 21,758 that was left over when the board had asked to fully fund the housing stability agencies, we had $21,758 left to allocate. I broke that up 60% to safety and justice and 40% to health and well-being. That was a decision that could have gone 75, 25, but I chose 60, 40. And what that did was that that brought, it did increase. So what I ended up doing was that safety and justice got 13,055, and health and well-being got 8,703, and it moved health and well-being closer to its area allocation of 80% of it, and it moved safety and justice to 65. So it went up 15 points for safety and justice, and it went up six points for health and well-being. So that was the first added dollars because of what the choice made. And then then was my discovery that an agency had, when you combine both programs, had received more than what the actual limit in the area was. And so I had to figure out a way how to address that. And so I won't go too much because there's a lot in the memo that Karen sent out if you have questions about the memo, but I basically described my process, what I looked at. I looked at scores and I looked at percentage of allocation, which program had, and I then I distributed that way. I made that choice that we're going to distribute it based on the percentage because the scores were left the agency at the 50% mark anyway. So it didn't really make that huge of a difference. There was a difference in the scores, but it didn't make that much of a difference. So then that's how I chose to allocate those dollars. And then that gets us to our 877-455 amount. And it's in the memo, I think. I'm pretty sure that it tells us, I'm looking that up right now, it tells us that now we're even closer to them meeting their, and I didn't put percentages on my apologies, but you can see in that last paragraph, how much closer health and well-being is to it, is how much it's underspent. And we've again moved inch closer to get them to parity with the area allocation that the board had decided on when we first created, when we first did their priorities. So are there any questions about how I got to these numbers? Any questions for Elie Berto? Real quick, sorry, Karen, for Kim's benefit, did you cover this process in the orientation of presumable? We did, we did. It was fast, but you know that Kim read the whole notebook I'm just saying. What? Can you share what's in it with me? Good stuff. Yeah, yeah. So I think, maybe before we continue on further with the discussion, it's probably time for Brian to go to the room and have Caitlin take over the facilitation of the part of the meeting. If I may just make one comment on the general process, not related to any of the specific changes. We did talk, Karen and I briefly, about after the, we, you know, we gave direction on how to pursue the model. And one of the things that came up was we chose as a board to go with the version that had the most funding left over to be redistributed, where there was a pretty large, it was a $65,000 gap versus the version on the other end that had very little to be redistributed, but it would be taking away from a few agencies. And I think for the next time we go through this, because the framework is a living dynamic framework, and it adjusts in time to immediate circumstances, but also will adjust it over time just to improve as we go along. That's just something to think about that maybe the one that had the closest, was closest to the target had the higher fidelity to the intention of the model, the greater fidelity. However, I, you know, I felt that the recognition that housing was such a critical issue this year and required, we really wanted to make sure it got as much support as possible. Going the other way allowed us to do that. So that is just simply an observation that for next year we should keep that dynamic in mind as we have that discussion in terms of which of these is closest to the intended outcome of the model. Caitlin? Yeah, I wanted to add a general comment to, while you're here, Brian, is because I've been thinking, this is kind of enrolling in my head for a little bit. One thing I left our meeting thinking about was that some of the way that we do our scoring, it basically scores an agency that's requesting a couple thousand dollars in the same way that we score an agency that's requesting $150,000. And our determination of yes, no, or what percentage of funding they get is identical for those two things. But I think that the risk to the city's money in those two cases is very different. Giving an agency that is not well established that doesn't have lots of internal controls, $150,000 is much different than giving a new initiative in the city a couple thousand dollars to see if they can make any progress. And so that's one thing that I would like, I don't want to change what we've done, but it's something that I think would be worth us thinking about the next round we do, the thing about whether we want to do something, some scale. I don't know what makes sense right now. We have a while to think about it, but I'd love to see what maybe other places consider with that because I'm just thinking about some of the things where someone came up with a really novel thing that they're brand new and they maybe need a little help from the city to try to get it going and giving, you know, 1500 a couple thousand dollars is not that, you know, it's not as concerning as if they had come in asking for $100,000 and supporting the sort of diversifying our agencies is something that we might want to consider as part of what we're trying to do. I think our individual agency limit is one way we do that, but it's not the only way we have to do that. Yeah, that's a good point and I know other organizations that I've participated with who fund money will occasionally have kind of what would be considered more a high risk set aside so X percentage of the funding will be held for those agents like something that uniquely meets the needs but doesn't have some of the history, doesn't have some of the structure, etc. So I think that's certainly something worth considering for our next round. Any other comments that that provoked before we move on and I drop and sent to the waiting room? Yeah, I think I just want to briefly challenge the notion that fidelity to the model is the highest good here. I think that, you know, the model is an important tool to achieve, you know, a level of objectivity, but I think that, you know, like any tool, it shouldn't sort of roll our decisions. I think that if we find it's not useful, we should be able to put it down and pick up something else. So we can talk about it next year, but that's just two cents. Yeah, I appreciate that. And you're right. I think to me what it typically suggests is if we're not getting outcomes we want with that fidelity is that because the model is not quite structured properly. So, but yeah, excellent point. And in fact, I feel like the outcome this year was an example of what you're talking about. Agreed, yep. Caitlin? Before you leave, sure. One thing I wanted to ask is if it makes sense to talk about the initial reallocation that we had talked about the last time that's not specific to those extra agency funds? Like, does it make sense to bifurcate that conversation so that you can participate in what we had direct like the, I think we had, we had extra funds left over after the model to reallocate to two areas that are. So discussing the decisions that Allie Baratou made with the 21,000 first? Yes. Do you, Karen, do you foresee any conflict in doing that and then having the next part, the discussion where I would leave being specifically about those extra funds? Probably not, but I think the sooner you leave, probably the better. If you know what I mean. I don't mean that, you know.  I just think bugging out as we are continuing these final, you know, unless you have something specifically that you want to do. No, no, it's all of these decisions are a good answer. Yes, I think it's time to go to the room and and then Caitlin, if you would help facilitate his vice chair, that would be great. Not a problem. I see that Brian has now entered the waiting room. He's gone to the room. I really want to get music. I wish I was more techie because I totally get music like done done done. Okay, so. And Brian's going the room Kimberly because he is he has a conflict with kind of interest or he one of his agency he runs is in the running for funding. Yes. And the topic of the memo that Ellie Berta said about an agency hitting the maximum level for the area they were in. So I just want to quickly want to apologize because I didn't see that right away. And so I'm happy I got it, but I wish I would have seen it at first. So my apologies for that board. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments that folks have about the way the additional funds have been allocated between the different impact areas as well as the agencies? One question I had Ellie Berta is is understanding it. What it looks like to me is that you pretty much took those extra funds and divided them fairly evenly, but I'm not. Not not fair. 6040. 6040. So it was 60% housing stability. No, no, no, no, no, housing stability. The board decided to just fully fund it. Oh, okay. That was a decision. The only the only ones that I actually did any type of ratio was the 21 758 that was left over after I fully funded the housing stability section. Got it. And you split it between the two and then within the category split it evenly between agencies that weren't. No, the board had said to take scores into consideration. So the higher scores received. I divided it. I looked at the scores and the ones with the higher scores were made got a little more. And then the rest I divided evenly. Okay. Are there any other any questions or points of clarification around that from anyone? Okay. Any any comments or conversation we need to have about the recommendation for Boulder County, the additional funds that we had initially allocated for Boulder County Farmers Market and the reallocation of those funds. Okay. Okay. Seeing none. Is there a motion to accept the staff recommendation for this reallocation of funds? Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Is there a second? Deanna. Okay. Any discussion about the vote? Seeing none. All in favor of approving staff recommendations for additional funding. Please raise your hand. Okay. All opposed. And Nicole, you'll want to acknowledge one abstention. Okay. Then I think we are done with the. And Caitlin. Yes. What I would suggest is again with Brian still in the room that you you make a motion to you know to adopt the full slated funding recommendations for 2021. Well, he's not here you said. Correct. Okay. Are there any other questions or discussion about the full slate of funding? Seeing none. Do we have a motion to approve the full slate of funding recommendations to council? Okay. Karen has so moved. Do I have a second? Shakita. Okay. All in favor. Please raise your hand. Okay. Looks like we're unanimous without Brian. And Brian has has abstained from from this. So I think that concludes the business that he may not be in the room for. And he can be back in the room, but I'd like to make a statement to the board. Want me to bring Brian back in, Eliburto? I'm fine with that. Okay. Everybody okay? Yeah. Okay. I'm bringing it back. I don't know why I don't know why Eliburto is going to say. I know, right? I'm like, ooh. So I think I'm okay. Exciting. Here he comes, guys. And you're back, chair. Welcome back, Brian. I just told this board I just wanted to make a quick statement to the board before we go on to the next business. And what I want to say, all I want to say is thank you. This has been a challenging process, not only because of the delay due to pandemics and the challenges with hearings. I really have appreciated the very thoughtful conversations around the model. And I look forward to having even more conversations and being and very, and very willing to look at other models and think about what best serves our community members with this funding. So I just want to give my formal thanks to the board for the work that you have done and the guidance and direction you have provided. So that's it. Am I back in the game or am I still supposed to? You're back in the game. That was super short. Okay. Deanna? I guess I don't want to derail the conversation and Bogart Eliburto's lovely statement, but I also just wanted to echo that as my first year on the board that staff has been phenomenal. And I just wanted to really express thanks for guiding me through this process because I really had no idea what I was getting into. And I would not have had such an easy time with this. We're not for staff. So really just thank you very, very much for all of your hard work. It's huge benefit to our community. And I appreciate you very, very much. Thank you, Deanna. And thank you as well, Eliburto. Caitlin? Yeah. I just wanted to echo what Deanna said. I really appreciate staff's dedication to help me make sure that this process goes forward, but also willingness to listen and hear various viewpoints. I know sometimes it can be like, oh my gosh, like board members aren't as close to some of this as we are. And I really appreciate your patience in explaining and helping us better understand it, but also being willing to see how we can improve it for the community. I think that it's a reflection of how incredible the staff is for the city that you all continue to do this year after year and help us improve it each time. Yeah. Thank you, Caitlin. I echo that. You guys are awesome. You know how I feel about you. You're definitely patient with me. That's for sure. I appreciate it. I don't know what Deanna talking about easy. It wasn't easy for me, but I'm here. And we're glad, Shakita. Same with me. Did all that, so thank you. Great. It does feel like it's been a nice, healthy level of board activity and engagement, and I'm glad that we've had so much support from the staff to really make that productive. Karen. So the only thing that I'll add to kind of put a bow on this is that we will make these recommendations to City Council at the January 26th meeting. So we'll be doing some L.A. Bertha's been working on the Council communication. You know, we'll load in this final, the final set of recommendations and we'll do a final review over the weekend and then we'll send that out to you so you'll have that. But the 26th of January will be our presentation of those recommendations, FYI. Wonderful. Thank you. Okay. Terrific. And I just want to make sure I'm looking at the correct agenda here. So there we go. So are we ready to move on to our next agenda item? Thank you. So let's move on to the TRG recommendation for the additional funding for the Cinnamon Park project. Kathy, will you introduce that? Yep. So this project came in outside of the process to a certain extent. The last time we opened up the application cycle back in 2020, October, November, I can't remember exactly when. They didn't have a good handle yet on the changes to their financials. So when they did, they came in and we agreed that they should be considered outside of our normal process. So that's why you're seeing this a little bit differently than normal. So I will ask Molly to just kind of summarize what has happened and TRG met really quickly. Thank you, TRG, for hopping right on this and reviewing and giving a recommendation so that we could give this to you at your regular meeting and then hopefully have a recommendation to take to council again at the January 26th meeting so that they get an answer as quickly as possible if the recommendation is to move forward. So Molly, you want to summarize for us? Sure. So they've requested an additional $250,000 for their Cinnamon Park project, which will have 25 senior apartments. So they did receive an award in 2019, also for $250,000. And part of the reason for the request is the increase in construction costs, especially in lumber due to wildfires and hurricanes, as well as a decrease in the pricing that they've received for their tax credits. So TRG met just on Monday and so you got their recommendation today, so you may not have had a chance to review it, but the TRG does recommend funding them for an additional $250,000 at the same loan terms, which would be 0%, repaid over, excuse me, 40 years. TRG had one follow-up question for senior housing options to wanting just to make sure that they were contributing the maximum that they were able to contribute to the project, and the consultant for the project confirmed that they could contribute a bit more, but then it changed things that made it a little less financially feasible for the project. So anyone have any questions? Thank you, Molly Graham. Yeah, I see 25 total units, 21 of which are mere units. It looks like they're not studios, so I assume they're missing kitchens or showers or something to round them out as fully sustainable units. But do each of those 21 counts one for one toward the affordable housing initiative? We have a certain number we want to hit every year. Is that a one for one count there? Yes, because all of the units are going to be below 60% of the area median income, so they do have a mix of studios and the one bedrooms. Okay, and those are permanently affordable or just for the 40-year term of the loan? They are permanently affordable. Okay, great. And then my final question is, what happens to the project if we say no? What happens to the project if they say, if you guys say no, they have the opportunity to go back to Chaffa, the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, who has awarded them the tax credits to potentially see about getting additional tax credits. The consultant is reluctant to do that, if possible, because it's generally frowned upon by Chaffa if a project needs to come back. But they didn't get their budget correct the first time around. So that's what she would try and do if this funding didn't come through. And it should be noted that they did go back to all of their other funders, except for Chaffa, the state to get additional funding as well as applied and received Boulder County where they cause funds as well. So they've worked at maximizing all sources. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Graham. Anybody else with questions? Molly, I had a question on the, I forget the term for it, the developer, the component that was, have decreased in value, the developer? The deferred developer fee? Thank you. Can you describe that? I'm not sure I really understand it. So as the developer of the project, they will get paid, I think it's about $950,000 that as the developer they will get. And for tax credit properties, a certain percentage of it is not paid off, it's not all paid out all at once at the end of the project. So they can be repaid from the cash flow of the project over 10 to 12 years. So they get a certain percent each year. That's the specific fee that the TRG wanted to make sure the project was putting in the maximum that they could to contribute to the project. So the project, is this the developer's income fundamentally on the project? Yes. Okay. So they're going in exchange for them doing the development, they get this amount of income off of it, which can be over time. And how does the decrease in value result in having to ask for more money? And I should find the, I think I'm not being clear. I'm wondering if... Well, you were talking about the decrease in the tax credit pricing, the tax credit pricing. Maybe that was it. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm less knowledgeable about that. But the investor that they are working with at one point had the pricing was at I think 96 cents per dollar. And now it's down to 89 cents. So the consultant said that that was due to uncertainty in the market. So they are getting less money for the tax credits that they've been awarded by CHAFA. Okay. And you're right. It was that now that I found the memo, it was the tax credits. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. So right now I would just add this isn't uncommon. We through the LHA just went through a rehab and refinance project at Esfamedo's Apartments. And the initial investor actually pulled out. And we had to get a whole new investor in the middle of the project. And the amount of tax credits that we received was slightly less. It wasn't as big of a gap, but slightly less. So right now it's more of a volatile market with some of the uncertainties that are happening around COVID and just generally increasing construction costs across the United States. So it's not an uncommon thing right now. It used to be, man, you could just count on and the prices just kept going up and up. So you had needed less and less of the other funding. That was a long while ago. Good old days, we call them. So this is, I just would say it's not unique to this particular project. Okay. Thank you. And I'm surprised that CHAFA wouldn't recognize that people couldn't anticipate wildfires that would drive up the cost of construction. But as an agency, I'm sure they have all of their own restrictions. And I can understand that wouldn't be necessarily the easiest route to take. Any other questions for Molly or Kathy? No. Okay. Is there a motion to approve this new application as recommended by the TRG? Graham, so moves. Is there a second? Caitlin? Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor of approving the application as recommended by TRG, please raise your hand. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. The motion passes. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Go back to my other computer screen now. All right. So this is the agenda item eight, discussion of potential advisory board work plan items for 2021. So I'll, I'll start this conversation. So usually, you know, what we do is, is, is bring forward a kind of a road map of activities that we schedule out throughout the year for each of our advisory board meetings and, and so, but we, and so we will do that in February, but we thought we would open it up to conversation with the advisory board about what you are, what you are thinking. Some of you have had your first year under your belt. Some of you've had a few years. Kimberly's read the whole book. So, so anyhow, so we certainly will plug in the typical things that will come before you in terms of applications and those kinds of things. You know, we also, we also started to hear some suggestions about the, you know, modifying or revisiting the, the decision making matrix for, for human service agency funding. So you might want to have an opportunity to talk a little bit more about that or other ideas that you think would be important for this advisory board to address and consider in 2021, in addition to your, your typical work with housing and human service agency funding applications. Elevator, did you have a comment or that you raised your have ideas, but I'm going to wait. Okay. All right. All right. Caitlin and then Deanna. I appreciate the opportunity for us to think about this. I think it's great. I had two things that I was thinking of and one, I think when we were doing, when we were doing the deliberations about funding, one of the things that came up was potentially changing how we sort of put out the call for applications to give folks more information about what our key priority areas are. And so one thing I think might be useful is to, to get ahead of that, to think about what came out of that human needs assessment that we got sort of midway through last year, to really be able to encourage additional applicants, for example, or more for things that are like really high priority for the city, rather than it just being sort of like agencies throw what they think they need and whether that program meets or doesn't meet those high, high need areas. So I think it would be good to discuss that. The other thing that I was thinking of that I thought might be really useful is to do something where we hear from folks who have received services from the agencies. So a lot of what we do is we talk to the agencies themselves. So we do site visits, virtual or otherwise with those folks, but we don't necessarily hear from folks who have engaged with the agency and what their experiences are. And I think that that could be really meaningful. One of the reasons I say this is sometimes I hear sort of anecdotal things through social media or through friends of friends about people's experiences with various agencies. And it's hard to it's hard to know like whether that's a real representation. And not to say that it's not real, but because people experience things differently. But I think that it would be meaningful to talk to folks, particularly if we know that we're trying to address certain needs is making sure that we're actually talking to people who have those needs and whether these agencies are meeting the needs that they've expressed. Great idea. Thank you, Caitlin. Diana? I was just going to echo back to what we were talking about at the beginning in terms of the model that I really would like to spend some time developing thinking about the model that we've been using and whether that makes sense. And I think that doing that at the beginning of the year when it's still more fresh in our brains probably makes sense too, because I think I will be more attuned to remembering some of maybe the concerns I had about the model that we used if we talk about it before October. Yeah, yeah, great point. Anybody else thoughts on work plan items? Ellie Berto? So I think my thoughts actually really pair well with both what Caitlin and what Diana said.  So one of the things I think we could do is in that piece, so this year's, this human service needs assessment was a good human service needs assessment, but it was challenging to use it to really delve deeper into their priorities. And so one of the things I'd like to work with at work on this year and I'd love to get support for the board and kind of figure out how that happens. A lot of times, mostly in the past, it feels like staff's done it and that's fine. But if there was a way to get support from the board, I would appreciate it is to really take that human service needs assessment and think about how we engage with our community more to help, you know, for lack of a better word, distill data or ideas that will help us or inform us better around our priority setting. So to Caitlin's point, you know, how do we engage with the folks that are receiving services? You know, having done this human service needs assessment, how can we engage folks saying, hey, here is what the city of Longmont has learned and how it helps us helps us set our priorities for our funding. You know, so just thinking about that, I think would is something that I want to work on this year. And again, I'm not sure exactly how the board is engaged in this, but that's one thing. And then that would lead to once we do that, then to Diana's point, depending on what we learn and where the data leads us and where the input from the community leads us, then I think we use that to reevaluate the model to see where, you know, if the model that we've been using to Brian's earlier point, it does it have fidelity to the needs, right? Does it does it clearly connect to the needs?  But what I would say to that it's a tool that does a couple of things. It helps us organize our thoughts, not that it's the end all be all, it is just a tool, but it helps us organize our thoughts, and it helps us defend our decisions to a certain extent as well, because it's a formulaic process. And so I think those are two key things about this tool. But again, I agree with Graham, it is a tool, and we could have other tools to use. So those are my my two thoughts, and I've written them down for Karen to think as well. But I just wanted to share that with the board. Okay, thank you, Elia Bratton. Councilmember Christensen. In looking over the Boulder County assessment needs assessment on housing, you know, it seems to me that our we need to do something to encourage home ownership, because the number of people who are housing or cost burdened and severely cost burdened is half for people who own a home. And that would be, you know, it would be enormous if we could we lost a lot of home ownership in the meltdown of the 19 2007-2008. We lost a huge amount of home ownership through foreclosures and various other things. And if we could get some of that back, it would be an enormous help, because there's nothing more important to the stability of an individual or a family than home than having a home. And you're far better off if you own a home. Everybody knows that, but not everybody can get there. But what we need to do is try to figure out ways we can help people who might be able to get there, get over the line so that they can get there. They'll be better off their whole life if they have a home. Thank you. Other suggestions, observations? Yes, Kim. How often does research around best practices for interventions come into the ranking system in terms of maintaining home ownership or assisting with rental programs? Where is the money best spent? And I guess that comes through a lot of research and that evidence base results of what's working well. Is that part of the process that's been used in the past? I'm going to let Karen or Ellie bear to answer that. So, yeah, well, I'm going to speak not to the human service agency side, even though we are working to become more evaluative and data driven on that side as well. But so, for example, and I mentioned this during our orientation, I closely work with the R Center to look at evaluating the home study program. We meet on a monthly basis. I get data from them. I actually helped them create a more longitudinal survey that they didn't have at the beginning. We worked together to draft it. And so, I would say that on the more targeted funding, which is our Housing Stabilization Fund and our homelessness, there is a lot of learning always happening. In HSBC, we have monthly meetings that look at how we're implementing the system. We are constantly trying to learn to improve. We do look at best practices, for example, diversion when we brought that in. We looked all over the country. We brought something from, I think, from Chicago to come and train our folks on that. So, I would say that, yes, in that area, in that funding, we do put a lot of effort into evaluation and monitoring performance management. Thank you. So, I want to make sure everybody gets a chance here or is provoked to provide some feedback on this particular topic. So, let's go with Graham, then we'll go to Karen Phillips and then Shakita. I'm provoked, Brian. I like all the ideas. I'm also wondering if maybe we could spend a minute talking about the city budget overall and the percentage that Housing and Human Services takes up, and then maybe just spitball or have an open conversation about what might we be able to think about or do or suggest a council of shifting perception around that or thinking about increasing funding. I think that the needs assessment did support evidence-based that this area of the community needs more funding to support these various needs, new needs that just magnified the issue. So, maybe a conversation around that.  No, this year's work plan. Just on the agenda. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Karen Phillips? No, I don't know if we're allowed to think about the homeless and the you know, do we involve ourselves with that and then the mental health, you know, the mental health and the homelessness that that goes on. And now we have this current, the people can't live in their RVs and what, you know, can we help that out or do we work on that? Or is that just something that another agency takes care of?  And how do we help that out on this problem? Okay. That's what my concern is. Karen, Rony? So, I think a couple things. And when I wanted to just comment on, you know, Kim's question about best practice research, you know, I would say, yes, there are some areas where we do that as staff, but we don't, we don't do that on a broad brush level. What we do is that we ask agencies in the application to tell us about the best practice research that they have conducted or how is the service that they have provided a line with best practice or promising approaches or whatever. So, we do maybe spend some selected time as staff doing best practice research. If you would like us to consider doing more or adding that into the mix, I put that on the list for discussion, but I did want to clarify that there are some areas where we do that. And I would say the majority of the areas, we ask the agencies to demonstrate to us how they are doing that. So, and then I think to Karen Phillips, you know, we could, if that's a desire that we could bring back more regular updates on, you know, on the work that we are doing in terms of homelessness prevention and intervention, you know, because half of the set aside money for human services is invested differently. So, it's not something that the advisory board, you know, you don't consider individual applications and those kinds of things for funding that particular service as far as homeless prevention and homeless intervention. So, we certainly could look at how we make that a more regular topic or update on our agendas so that you are more in the loop and you can provide more guidance and inputs. That certainly seems like something we could absolutely do. Great. Thank you, Karen. Shakita? I think Kathy had her hand up. Kathy, did you want to say something? No? I'm sorry, did I miss somebody? Oh, okay. I thought she had her hand up earlier. Okay. No, everyone, to me, everything that everyone has mentioned is really good. I think I agree with everything. I do want to make sure that we take into account the technical divide next year and all the challenges of these organizations have to move forward due to COVID, you know, new systems in place now, you know, all of these new changes that are totally different, you know, so I'm pretty sure a lot of organizations lost money because they have to put money into their business because of going virtually. Equipment, things like that. Normally, we probably wouldn't look at, but I do want to make sure that we take that into effect when we think about funding for these organizations next goal around. Great. Thank you, Shakita. I'll add just a little bit that's kind of massaging around some of what's already been discussed. I really like the idea of revisiting the needs assessment. And I think what I heard and what you're describing, Eli Berito, is kind of getting a more concise idea of how that actually would best manifest in the City of Longmont or to benefit City of Longmont residents, because to Council member Christianson's point, I mean, it's one thing to say we need more housing, but is it actually more ownership or is it lower rental or, you know, what exactly does that mean? And we've always relied, I think, not unwisely, you know, there's wisdom and relying on the agencies to provide direction. But running an agency, I'm also well aware that it's very easy to get stuck in, this is what we do. And this is how we do it. And we've always done it that way. And that doesn't mean we're necessarily adapting to what we need today. So the city providing some leadership on that would make sense. And I think that also does tie in to Caitlin, what you were suggesting with, you know, part of that process is kind of the gut check of is it actually helping the people what's intended to help? And having some maybe external evaluation process? I also know that we have to be careful to, you know, I understand who we're talking with what the, you know, it's like, there's context to everything that happens. And I think it can be dangerous just to start pulling people and asking questions and taking everything they say at face value, because we don't know what the history is. But there is a process there that makes sense for sure. And I also wonder just finally, because we go to the city, we go to city council to ask money for money based on the general budget as a percentage. And that's how we have figured out how much we're getting now is because we had one negotiation already that said, hey, we should get a little bit more. And we ended up to where we are, which I'm grateful for. But I also, like I was just reading that the Biden administration is proposing an additional $1.9 trillion relief package when there's that transition. And I wonder, to what extent can we is it possible that we as an agency in this particular time with so much need can somehow support applications to some of this external funding that would come in and then be distributed to agencies for the work they do? Because maybe a municipality is in a better position to receive some of that funding. Clearly, a lot of that funding is going to go from federal to the state and down to agencies. So it's just a thought. I don't even know if that's a possibility. Ellie Berto? We have done some of that with the CARES Act dollars. I will say, and Kathy, I mean, Kathy knows this much more than I do. It is very complicated. And I'm still working through this even now and learning so much as I go through this. And so, yes. And I would say even agencies need to be careful about accepting these dollars because, you know, there's a lot of strings attached when it comes to federal funding. Yeah. Thank you, Kathy. Yeah, I would just add, we've been watching all the funding that's been coming down. And for instance, there's additional funding that's in the last bill that was passed to give rent assistance or emergency rent assistance funding to communities over 200,000. So we immediately went on the attack and said, hey, why are you doing that? And how can we, you know, communities are smaller, still have needs, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, long story short, partnered with the Boulder County folks, the Broomfield County folks, and Boulder County is actually going to get a direct allocation, which they will trickle down into the agencies and already have a whole system set up to distribute funding. So that's going to, you know, benefit our community greatly. And then we're going to partner to try and help get Broomfield through the state funding. So I would just let you know that we're keeping an eye on it and it is complicated. And we're trying to maximize what our community being Boulder County and all the communities within it get and to disperse the funds in the easiest, quickest, and most effective way possible. Even if that means we're not getting direct funding, but it's coming down through the county to agencies or whatever. So. Okay, thank you. I freely admit the naivete in that suggestion. And it also makes me think of a number of the agencies that we work with get funding from Boulder in the form of the Health Equity Fund. And as an example, one of the reasons that Boulder seems to often have money, as it's been pointed out in this board before, is because the residents of Boulder are willing to tax certain activities in order to generate that money. And I know that Longmont tends to be a more conservative community. There are different thoughts on that process. But it seems like there's so much need and, you know, it's just a few cents each resident, right, in order to redirect that money to the people who really need it. So maybe it's just I want to keep thinking about it. But I think I put it out there in case there's opportunities. Karen. And I think the only thing or what I'm one of the things that I am cleaning from what you're saying, Brian, is that we have unintentionally pigeonholed, for lack of a better word, your engagement in the specific funding sources that come, you know, to the city from, you know, from CDBG, home, affordable housing and the general fund. And what I'm hearing you suggest is that, you know, hey, maybe we can have a role, the advisory board in advising, making suggestions on how we might invest or the city or in, or the consortium, that we might have a role in providing some input into those other sources of funding that come in to help our community. And that you, Brian, and maybe others would be interested in exploring how to do that. I don't know if that would be fair. That's fair. Yeah, it's just a question of can we do more? Yeah, no. And that seems doable. Great. Thank you. Karen Phillips. Yeah, I just had a question. How often do we do the needs assessment every year? Three, five years. So things change. We aligned. We did one three years ago, and then we hopped on with the time frame, the timing for the consolidated plan for CDBG and home funding. And so now we're on an every five-year cycle.  But did you do the full on assessment? We are now in a five-year cycle. Okay. Thank you. And if we treated the needs assessment something like a strategic plan, you know, where you may have a five-year strategic plan, but every year you revisit the items that fall underneath that to make sure they're still supporting the higher-level goal, that would seem to make sense, because it may change the way it looks today versus next year at the same time. It may just be a slight nuance difference or dramatic difference. So maybe that can just be included in part of our planning and then rolled into the model.  And we can sell that. You're going to be busy this year, sounds like. We are going to be. Yeah. Well, as busy as we possibly can manage while creating benefit. Okay. Any other feedback that any board members like to provide or anything that staff would like specific feedback on outside of what you've received? No, I think this has been a really helpful conversation. And we'll do our best to synthesize it into a document that kind of a roadmap that we will bring back in February. And you can tell us whether we, you know, got it right or whether we need to modify it. So thank you for the input. Great. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. Okay. So we can move on to site visits. We have our center, wild plum and growing gardens with our center being the first one up. So, you know, that that is so I have been in communication with the arsenal quite a bit. So it's hard to remember exactly what our site was. I mean, I can tell you I can tell you that overall, my desk got a part of the R center went really well. In other words, because the R center has been doing this for a year because they've gone through our site visits at one point they were getting a site visit every year. It seems like as I was looking through the history. So they've got their ducks in a row as far as documentation and all that. But my conversations with with with Mark have been really helpful recently. Actually, Madeline and I sit on the board of the Longwood Community Foundation. And this morning Mark gave a 20, 30 minute update on what they're doing. And it has been quite the year for the R center. They've had many challenges they have seen in at one point in July he said that they had seen a 500% increase in the number of folks accessing. And many of them were new had never accessed the R center before. Also they have I talked to and I'm throwing out names that you have no idea who they are. But but I work with them quite a bit at the R center. I talked to Carly and Angela who Carly used to run the homesteading program. They've hired somebody new and they give her a promotion. But but some of the trends that they're seeing is the repeat the repeat clients who have higher level needs for rent than they typically do. They seem folks come in with $15,000 in back rent. So, you know, they Mark talked a little bit about they had really successful fundraising in December end of the year. They've received quite a bit of money from Kathy for example through CBG and through CARES Act as well. They received funding for the utility assistance. And so I guess overall they are still facing challenges as far as capacity one of that's been one of the biggest thing, not having the capacity to see folks just because of, you know, the ability to hire and train. Right now they are Mark said this morning that they are still there. They're basically almost out to February before you get to see someone. And that's been a challenge throughout this whole thing. And again, it's not a lack of desire to help. It's two things. It's one, just the overwhelming need. And two, it's the capacity of the agency. And as even as they're trying to grow and they have hired, but it's still just the need is that big. So I think that's my report on the R center. Thanks, Ellie Berto. Any questions for Ellie Berto? You know, that may be something just that phenomenon that we see through 2021 and possibly into 2022 is just the surge of need that may, you know, may then dissipate, but how agencies are going to deal some of these critical agencies are going to deal with same thing with the health care system right now. I think trying to figure out how to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people as quickly as possible. It's just this incredible spike in need. So Karen, Ronnie.  And, and I'm just wondering how you think they have progressed and maybe a different way of thinking about how they're, they can allocate those funds, what might be an interim way of getting funds out the door. I think it is frustrating for the community that there is and I'm not, I am not trying to judge the R center, but there are hundreds of thousands of dollars that are coming in for assistance for individuals with rent and utilities. And, and, and to have appointments be a month out is really not of, it's hard to, to swallow as a community when we know the resources are there. So did you get a sense for what they are truly thinking about, at least in an interim way of being able to get more money out the door or we're just going to continue same as we're doing now, we'll try to, we're trying, we're hiring on a different, you know, additional people, but we have to onboard them. It just seems like I would hope they are thinking about more innovative ways, it might not be their long term plan for how they're going to continue to provide assistance. But these are really wackadoodle times. And so what might they be thinking about is a different way of distribution to really get money out the door more quickly. That's a great question, Karen. And we, and I didn't, we didn't go into that. I would, I'd be happy to follow up with Mark and the, and the team and talk about, I know that what they are trying to, they're trying to get us back to regular and to serve people as fast as they can. So for example, they're bringing back their volunteers to, to help to try and smooth operations with their feeding programs where, you know, it won't take up so much staff time where staff can then be reassigned to do other things. So I know that that's happening. But they've been trying, again, part, because of COVID, they've been trying to be cautious and not have, you know, I got that, we all got that. And I think, and maybe we can help them because I think we say, Hey, Mark, what are you going to do differently? We're going to get a same answer. So it might be that you bring together a group of folks that can help him just really brainstorm some, some different ideas, just kind of, you know, sit around and do kind of a what if or some out of the box, you know, planning, just in a way that let those, let those ideas go in a free flowing way and see if anything can, anything can stick. So I don't think it's just Mark's problem. I don't think it's just our center's problem. I think it's ours as a community to try to address and problem solve around and to come up with some creative ways. Again, it's not going to be the long term way they're going to do business, but to really help now because there is, and there's more money coming there, you know, so we should be figuring out how to get that money out. Caitlin. Yeah, Karen, I really appreciate those comments because one of the things I was thinking about as you were asking about how they're doing it is that we also have other organizations in our community that don't have as much funding and are having to turn people away because they don't have sufficient funding and they are referring people to the our center. And so like, do those agencies and community organizations have capacity, for example, to do pre screening or things that need that the our center would need to speed up their processing of it and get the money out. You know, because I think that a lot of those like even if they didn't have the money, if they knew that doing that could help someone that they've talked to get help faster instead of having to start all over at the our center, I can't imagine that our community partners would be like, Nope, not going to do it. Like I think that they we probably have some other folks that are, you know, overlapping with some of the things that the our center does that could could assist more with that. Councilmember Christiansen. Yeah, I think Caitlin's right. We have the Boulder County hub here and surely they could be working together a little bit more. I know that's not traditionally what they do. But I mean, that is everybody's supposed to be helping people. So I just think that yeah, I think that's a really good idea, Karen, to see if we can find ways to help out. Thank you. So to Caitlin's point, we have been doing some of that. So for example, when we received some funding for utility billing, Carmen Ramirez from our community neighborhood resources worked with with the our center and did just what you're what you're talking about, Caitlin, the warm handoff with some pre screening work with folks. So that that has happened. I know that, for example, the center worked really closely with a committee and there was some challenges there. But they did make some progress. I'm not sure where it is now and we could revisit that. Because they were some money that a committee received from the community foundation right in the night foundation. And they work with the our share to help distribute those funding for rental assistance. So I think to that point, yes, we proved that it can happen. And the question is, you know, how do we how do we broaden it and work with the city can work with other partners? And that's a great question and something we can explore with the our center. Because the other reality is I don't know if it is already happening with other agencies, because I just know what happened with the city, right? So this may already be happening with other community partners. There's a part of this that's, you know, I have that I see almost like a crisis management plan, but if a hurricane hits your town, it's like all the old rules kind of go out the window. I think if there's some idea of this, you know, we we bring these agencies together to create a holistic solution, a larger solution under these conditions. It may help alleviate many agencies are going to have a natural concern that they're losing influence. That means they're going to lose money in the future, you know, if they start giving their money to somebody else, there's just human nature involved in all of these decisions. And I think if there's kind of a structure where people agree to be part of this consortium to address this urgent need, maybe they'd be more willing to do so. And the other thing that occurs to me is sometimes I feel agencies need permission from funders to be innovative, because it may not have been in their original application and they're concerned it's going to weigh against them come reporting time. If they spent money on this extra stuff, but it wasn't what they applied for. All right. Any other comments? Okay. I just randomly poking around my computer and lost the agenda again. Wild Plum and that would be Deanna. Yes. So I think this will be a less in-depth conversation than our center. So I saw a student site visit in October for Wild Plum, which now seems like it was 10,000 years ago, even though it was only a couple months. So I had to look over my notes because I barely remember it. But essentially Wild Plum works with low-income families for early childhood education. They have an early Head Start program and a Head Start program. They take a pretty comprehensive approach. So it's not just a preschool or educational program. They work with the families that come in to do like health and dental screenings. They work on mental health issues. They work on nutrition referrals. They work on getting them hooked up with rental assistance or whatever they need. They have a really cool thing that they do. Cool. They have a really cool thing that they do called a policy council where they have their board is advised by a council that's comprised entirely of parents that have children in their program. So I think that helps really diversify how they are approaching the work that they do. It did seem like in terms of successes that they have some great successes there and that when the kids come into the programs, 60% of them are ranked as near expectation levels. But by the time they complete the programs, 90% of the kids are meeting expectations and are much better equipped to be starting kindergarten. I don't know if anybody has any questions, but you know, good organization. Great. Thank you, Deanna. Heli Bertha? So on the desk on its side of that, you know, while Plum is a Head Start, is a federally recognized Head Start. So of course their documentation is, I wasn't going to read through all of the federal requirements that they have that would take me, you know, it's about the same size as the binder that Kimberly read through. So I really applaud Kimberly for going through that whole thing. But I do want to point out the policy council. The important piece of the policy council in my mind for this group is how much it values the people who it serves, right? So the policy council is made up of parents who have children in the agency.  The majority of children that serves are Latinos. And so there was conversations about serving others as well. And I think they're, you know, they took that and they're going to, they want to try and diversify who they serve. So yeah, I just want to say the policy council is really important. And then one more thing on the agenda that I forgot to mention, that similar to the policy council, you know, Mark's done a good job of diversifying the board. They now have three people of color on the, the center board. And so that that is include Latinos, African Americans as well. And so I think just to give them credit for that work as well that they have. But yeah, I think the policy council piece is really important for our work around diversity and equity at the leadership level. Great. Thank you. Any questions for Deanna or Ellie Bertow? I'm a wild plum. No. Okay. Thanks, Deanna. Thanks for a good report. And growing gardens, Shakita. Yeah, I don't have my notes either, but it was a pretty short meeting. Of course they have challenging, you know, challenges as being a garden and normally they have a program. Well, let me start if I know is they serve multi-generational. So of course they're volunteers of all ages, but they have programs for teenagers and they also have programs for elementary school kids. And the volunteers, they have the teenager program. They usually have them as volunteers as well. So of course, they are not able to do that during COVID. And they used to go into the schools and they're not able to do that during COVID. So it's been a very challenging year for them. And they did just hire a bilingual employee to help them. She was very excited about that. They used to send home plants with the kids when they would come and volunteer. They would send home plants to the parents for them to take home. When they would go to the school, they provided snacks. And so yeah, there are no like field trips and things like that. All of that is on haul. So yeah, it's very unfortunate because they also have a garden at the YMCA in Longmont. And so that, I remember that that food actually goes to the hour center, speaking of the hour center, I believe. And so that food where families can, it's also free to the families as well for low income families. So it was a very short visit. Elie Bertil, what am I missing? No, I think you got all that right on the desk on its side. So for Kimberly, so Kimberly, just as, so we didn't talk all about an orientation. So the board members on their side of the of the site visit is much more just what you heard from Shakita, when you're from Deanna, learning more about the organization, their work, what they're doing, what they're accomplishing. My side of the site visit is much more formal site visit where I actually look at their bylaws, at their employee and board manuals. And I ask questions if I, you know, if I have concerns or if they're missing things. Most of the time, more of your well-established agencies aren't missing anything because, like I said, they've gone through these before, they know what they need, etc. When it came to growing gardens, though, they were missing a couple of significant things. And I talked to them about it. So one thing they're missing, even though they have invested in their in a consultant to a, they call it Jedi, which is, let me see, justice, equity, diversity and inclusion work. They didn't really have a really strong board nominating process. So, you know, that that's really important to the board, because if you don't have that, it becomes more of a, will you know, like, you just invite people that you know, and that's fine. But if you have a strong board nominating process, that maybe looks at characteristics or skill sets or etc. It can help you get a stronger board. And so they're going to work on that. And then the other big thing they didn't have, as I looked through it, is they really have no grievance process for clients or employees. So I said, you know, that that's an issue you want to have a way for your employees or your clients, that if they have a concern that they feel safe to voice it. And so that was two deficiencies that I found. And so they're, they're, they told me they're going to be working and we'll check in with them next year and say, hey, or whenever our, whenever our scheduled site visit happens again to see if they address those issues, because we save these, I save these desk cards, I can go back and look. I've looked at stuff that Karen has done in the past and followed up. And so that was what I found with growing gardens. They really, they just didn't have these things. I think they're important to have. Oh, one last thing, where we decide why they're important is because we look at the Colorado nonprofits, forget what the name of it is Karen, the best practices. And it's principles and practices of nonprofit management. Right. So we take these from that, that, that is brought together by the Colorado nonprofit association and they, and they put that out every year or not every year, but it feels like every couple of years they get a new addition out there. So. And the board members have that in the manual that you got when you came on board, a copy of that. And it has, it gets updated every few years. Yeah. So that's my report on growing gardens. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Shakita. Any questions for Shakita or Ellie Berto? No. All right. Well, we'll probably finish early today then and we are at the last agenda item outside of other business, which typically doesn't happen, which is the election of the chair and vice chair for 2021. So before we go into that, I just want to, as my last comment, because I think upon the election, the new chair will, will take over the meeting. I have really, really enjoyed being chair of this board and working with you all.  And of course, I'll continue to be here, but I'll just needle the chair down instead of doing it from this point of view. And you're really all awesome. So I'm grateful and humbled. So are there nominations for the chair and vice chair? Okay. So I would like to nominate Caitlin as chair and Graham as vice chair. Are Caitlin and Graham open to accepting those nominations? Caitlin's good. Graham's good. Okay. Is there anybody else who would like to self-nominate? Okay. I'd like to self-nominate. Just, can I run another term? No, I don't think so. Okay. All right. I'm out of the running then. You have to take a year off according to the bylaws. I think it'll be more than that. Okay. Terrific. So we will now have a vote. Brian, I don't think you got a second. I think you made a nomination. We need a second. And it looks like you have a second. I'll second. Okay. Karen, I don't know that I can make a nomination as motion as chair. So I can make a nomination. The mayor does. So I think we're going to go with you. You made the nomination and Deanna's second. Okay. Terrific. All right. If everybody's good with that. Any discussion? Okay. Everybody in favor of having Caitlin as chair and Graham as vice chair, please signify by raising your hand. Okay. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The motion passes and we now have our new chair and vice chair. Congratulations. And I now turn the meeting over to you, Caitlin. Some fairly big shoes to fill here, Brian. Thank you for your chairmanship this year. I feel like I know as a newer board member, it was helpful to see you and your questions and engaged throughout the year in everything that we were doing. So super appreciative of that. And also the trust that you just handed here or so. Well placed, Caitlin. I guess then is there any other business that we need to? Yes, Karen. So I will be quick. So just to clarify that we do have an open position on the advisory board.  It's a, you know, he resigned before his term ended. And so when it came time to make the final appointments, we didn't have the right number of openings that we had. So we did not fill Jake's position. It seemed like we had an adequate, we've been doing pretty well with quorums. And so we're going to hold that open until we do the mid year. There's a mid year recruitment that usually starts in, I don't know, April that it's a June appointment. So that's when we will appoint our open and an expired advisory board term. And the other thing that I would recommend is that, you know, the city clerk's office will advertise in the typical ways that they do in terms of posting on the website, blah, blah, blah. But I would say that this, it's never too early to start thinking about, talking about, and suggesting that people that you know in your networks or that you might meet, that they might consider submitting an application for this advisory board. And then just the second quick announcement, and we'll probably bring back, bring back more, a more detailed update is that the, the Lamont City Council, as of January 5th, is now the board of commissioners for the Lamont Housing Authority. And so we are continuing to formalize some changes that based on work that we have been doing in partnership with the Housing Authority for a good part of 2020. So the, and the housing, the current, the former members of the Lamont Housing Advisory Board have now become a new city advisory board that advises city council. So now we have a Lamont Housing Authority advisory board. In addition to a Housing and Human Services advisory board. So that was also part of a change that was made in on January 5th. And so the current members of the, the, the previous measures, the advisory of the Housing Authority Board are now a five-person advisory board to city council on Lamont Housing Authority matters. So, so we don't know how much, so the, the thought that Kathy and I had and discussed for some time down the road in the future is might there be a possibility of, of, you know, combining, you know, that Housing and Human Services would also could have a role in advising around Lamont Housing Authority matters. That's down the road. So just some, you know, and we might decide that would be the worst thing ever. But, you know, it's just something to, to contemplate, but we'll come back with more specific updates about the Housing Authority changes. This isn't the last of the changes that probably will be happening. And that's all that I have, Caitlin. Okay. Thanks, Karen. Any other business that folks have? If not, we can entertain a motion to adjourn. Diana, do I have a second? Shakita, thank you all. See you next month. Bye. Brian, thanks for being such a great chair. Yeah, you've been great. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. See you all. Have a wonderful month, as Madam Chair said. Bye.


How much opportunity is these salespeople at these other stores?  Dude, they, they don't care. They don't care. They walk outside dark. Oh, you like it? You don't like it? Come get my manager. Dude, listen, they wouldn't have made it.  You don't work here no more. I'm a salesman.   I can't even be a rest. I would have been like, yeah, come on, we're bringing him. He's going with me.


For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to Around the World in 8 Minutes, a show by People's Dispatch where we bring you stories of resistance and solidarity from across the globe. First, we go to India, where in the capital city's Jawaharlal Nehru University, violence where a right wing student's group disrupted the student election process. On the morning of September 5, members of the right wing student's group, Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyatthi Parishad or ABVP, attacked students and activists of the United Left Alliance during the student's union election debate. ABVP carders resorted to punching students while hurling sexist abuses at them. One student affiliated to the Student's Federation of India, Venkatesh, was severely injured in the attack and was taken to the hospital. The attack came during a break mark in the end of the first session of the prestigious presidential debate, which witnessed charged speeches by presidential candidates of various students' groups. Speaking to People's Dispatch, the outgoing president of JNU Students' Union and member of all India Students' Association, Encibiology said that ABVP, which claims to represent students' interests, has exposed itself once again. When the whole country was watching JNU's democratic traditions, the ABVP, which never has answers to students' questions, indulge in violence, assaulting Venkatesh. Imagine what they would do once they were elected to the union. Last year, student union elections in JNU had also witnessed massive violence by the ABVP after the right-wing group lost the union elections to the left alliance. JNU's student body has a history of rejecting right-wing forces and giving the mandate to leftist students' groups. This year, student union elections will be held on September 6th. The four communist students' organizations in the university are fighting the polls together under the banner of the United Left Alliance. Moving on to Zimbabwe, on September 3rd, hundreds of doctors across the country's public hospitals who are members of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association began an indefinite strike to demand that their salaries be restored. Doctors in Zimbabwe, like other civil servants, have suffered from the continuous erosion in the value of their salaries and have complained that due to the rise in prices, they are unable to afford the resources required to report to work. The doctors represented by the ZHDA from different central hospitals will not return to work until the value of their salaries is restored to match the rising prices of commodities. The strike action came after negotiations between the government and the Apex Council, which represents a number of civil servants unions failed to reach an agreement to restore the value of salaries lost by civil servants over the past few months. Payment in US dollars was abandoned after RTGS was introduced as the new currency in October 2018. Since then, the salary of the lowest paid public doctors when measured in US dollar equivalent dropped from 475 US dollars to 40 US dollars. The measurements are given in US dollar terms because prices in RTGS including that of basic commodities such as bread and medicine have been varying in accordance with the value of the RTGS to the US dollar ratio. Initially, when a new currency was introduced, it was pegged to the US dollar at a one-to-one ratio. However, with the continuous slight in its value, it now takes more than 10 RTGS dollars to buy one US dollar. Throughout this period of decline, wage payments to civil servants made in RTGS remained the same. As a consequence, their real incomes have reduced to less than 10% of what they were before. The Apex Council demanded that the salaries be restored to an RTGS equivalent of 475 US dollars and be fixed to the interbank ratio so that any further decline in the value of RTGS vis-a-vis the US dollar would increase their pay proportionally and offset any loss of income. However, the government on August 23 proposed a 60% pay hike for doctors which would raise the salary of the lowest paid doctors to 100 US dollars. For other civil servants including teachers, a hike of 76% was suggested as the salaries of the lowest paid among them dropped to as low as 30 US dollars last month. Both the doctors and teachers unions represented by the Apex Council have rejected this offer as insufficient. Pointing to the skyrocketing prices in the market, fuel rising by 900%, food by 500%, rents hiking, ZHTA acting president Peter Gabriel said that a 60% hike was grossly insufficient. Zimbabwe's health minister has threatened to forbid such indefinite strikes by doctors insisting that the government expects that our workers stick to the fact that they are in an essential service. As an essential service, you cannot just disappear and leave your patient alone. However, Peter Gabriel maintains that we are not downing the tools per se, we are simply incapacitated, we simply do not have the means to report for work. The ZHTA in a previous letter sent on August 14 had already alerted the government authorities about the total incapacitation of its members giving the employer a grace period of three weeks to present practical solutions to our financial crisis. While wages have remained virtually stagnant over the past months, prices of basic goods and services have been rising astronomically, the union pointed out. While highlighting the toll this is taking on doctors, the latest stated members are struggling to meet the cost of basic needs that is food and shelter, let alone clothing and healthcare, forget sending our children to school and paying our bills. While the Apex Council negotiations were ongoing, the union members in good faith continued to shoulder the burden of practicing a profession that is categorized as an essential service by using the little savings they had or by borrowing money to report to work. A ZHTA letter says that now all our resources have been exhausted. Now we go to Britain, where hundreds of people protested in London outside the venue which will host an arms fair organised by the Defence and Security Equipment International. The protesters from the war on want and other organisations demanded an end to the sale of weapons to Israel due to its occupation of Palestine and other grave crimes. The DSEI Fair, scheduled to begin next Tuesday, that is September 10th, is back by the United Kingdom Government. The arms fair, which is organised every two years, has witnessed the presence of military delegations from several countries that have been accused of war crimes. On Monday, the protesters attempted to peacefully block the movement of weapons into the venue at the Excel Centre with banners reading Stop Arming Israel and the police used force to disperse them. They were seen grabbing and pushing the demonstrators to the sides of the road. The executive director of war on want, Assad Rahman, said that the British government is rolling out the red carpet for human rights violating regimes to buy the weapons of death. He further said we no longer need empty words or crocodile tears. The government has to act and the government has to shut down this arms fair and shut down this immoral trade. According to the campaign against the arms trade, the British government approved the sale of weapons and military equipment worth 17.8 million US dollars to Israel in 2018. On May 18 last year, just four days after Israeli forces massacred 68 Palestinians during the Great March of Return protests in Gaza, a deal for the sale of military training equipment worth 125,000 US dollars was approved. In 2017, the British government had issued arms export licenses worth 294 million US dollars to defense contractors exporting military equipment to Israel representing a staggering increase of 256 percent compared to the previous year. The UK has also been complicit in war crimes elsewhere. A recent United Nations report noted that the UK, the United States and France may be complicit in war crimes in Yemen by providing logistical and intelligent support to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition. The report states that it has found potential evidence of the role played by these countries in assisting the coalition's war tactics in Yemen, which include the indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure and starving the people. This is all we have in this episode of Around the World in 8 Minutes. For more such stories and videos, visit our website PeopleSysPage.org, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.