Executive Board meeting minutes
December 14, 2016—Attending: Yuki Igarashi, Yousef Shulman, Jeff Floor, John Barber, Tracy Bier, Diane Snell.
Guests: Kshama Sawant and aide Clay Showalter
This meeting location was changed the day of the meeting, as Iora had no one to staff their facility that evening. The Central Area Senior Center graciously provided their technology room for our meeting.
The LCC Board had invited City Council Member Sawant and her aide, Clay Showalter, to our meeting to discuss homelessness. Concern had been expressed at a previous meeting about hosting homeless persons in the parks without resources. We began the meeting with what we felt were more reasonable choices for housing the homeless; there are spaces within community facilities that could be used for temporary shelter to put folks inside in inclement weather where resource information could be more easily shared. And many large churches in this area have considerable parking lot space where tiny houses could be built. A logical choice, but not one favored by the Mayor, is the designated emergency shelter in each city district; in our area, that is Garfield Community Center.
John Barber, as a Park Steward in Leschi Park, spoke to situations that had occurred there where homeless men are living but not visibly. John had found a prescription bottle of needed medications and a dental plate at different times and luckily, had been able to find the owners in both cases, but this is an example of why resources are needed for these folks. CM Sawant seemed to agree with the need for resources. She said 3-4 new encampments are planned around the city. Her office plans a push for a tax on the rich and a real estate excise tax to increase needed funds. She offered resources from her staff in our endeavors to implement community resources for the homelessness.
Other business: Jeff said there will be a meeting on the design plans for the Midtown Center on 12/22 at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at 6:30pm.
Yousef: He had hoped that the website would be up by now but there is more training needed. He did not feel we should pay for it until that was accomplished. Diane suggested that we pay half the final payment and pay the second half when the training is complete. Yousef and Yuki expressed agreement with that plan.
Diane:
The January issue newsletter deadline is Dec. 19; need to include brief recaps of the LURC activities and Parks.
All advertisers have been contacted re: rate increases for ads in January. No negative feedback received.
No letter has been sent to Restricted Fund Chairs yet as no Treasury report has been generated.
No info on website ads has been sent to advertisers yet as we have not been trained on entering the ads yet.
More money was spent on food for the Holiday party this year and more was eaten; report being sent by email.
Park Postal can do newsletter layout on InDesign and they are OK with 2-day turnaround; need to discuss cost.
~Respectfully submitted by Diane Snell