5 7 26 Anchorage Womens Commission Meeting

So now we are calling the meeting to order at 4:30. Uh, we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

All right, Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice.

Wow. Hey, um, are you all seeing the agenda? Just have your copies of the agenda.

Yes. Before I open the floor for a motion We'll be open the floor for motions about the agenda, and I have one. Um, motion to approve the agenda. A motion to— well, we have to motion to approve it, and then we'll take the— okay, so I make a motion to approve the agenda. All right, do we have a second?

I'll second. Celeste seconds. Thanks, Celeste. Uh, all in favor? Oh, we don't have to vote.

We motion and then you make the amendment. Well, then I can make—. Now you make your amendment. So now I need to make a motion to amend the agenda, and it's just to add a new business item, um, about inviting the mayor to officially attend one of our commission meetings, uh, just by way of background. I was at an event on Saturday evening and the mayor was there.

We had a brief discussion and she mentioned that she should probably try to get it on her calendar to come and just have discussion with us. So we've—. I wanted to bring it up with the group because I don't want to do something— I don't want to officially invite a speaker or someone like that without discussing it with the rest of the commissioners. Um, even though I will second your motion for the same—. Okay, uh, we can discuss the item, but I have comments, comments.

So yeah, I'll second it. Okay. Um, now, are there any comments? So any comments on the amendment?

So then I believe we can vote on the amendment and then on the agenda. Yeah, you can just do it by a sense that you can just say something like, uh, we'll do it by a sense. Is there anybody who, um, dissents for it? And if they raise their hand to dissent, then we would take some sort of like hand vote. All right, so do we have any dissents on that motion to amend the agenda?

All right, so seeing none, amendment, amendment approved by— yep. And now I'll say— so we already have motion and a second on the agenda, on the amendment to the agenda. Yeah, so now that the amended agenda has passed, now we vote on the agenda. Yeah, that's what I was trying to get to. Yeah, so all in favor of approving the agenda Raise your hand or thumbs up emoji.

Just got to make sure we have something for everybody. Okay. So seeing none opposed, agenda is approved. So now we have to go back to our March minutes. I'll open the floor for a motion on the March Minutes.

Motion to approve the March and April minutes.

I'll second.

All right, all in favor, hands up or emoji.

All right, any opposed?

Seeing none, minutes are passed. Fine. We'll move into old business, and we have committee reports. Infrastructure, uh, committee report. We have not been able to meet.

I would love if anybody was interested on being in the infrastructure committee, uh, shoot me an email. Um, I'm not— uh, Leslie, if you want to I'll give you my number if you want to shoot me a text with some dates that you need. That would be great.

That's all I got. I do have one item. I thought I had a list of— and somewhere I do— a list of who's all on each of the committees because Cindy had asked for a list so that she can Sure, she's on something. Can you forward that to her? Yeah, I'll go see if I can find it.

If not, I will create it. The thing I have— somebody told you a while ago was the phone numbers, is I thought that that meant from staff, and staff told me that they from you. I mean, that is an internal only document because we're not sharing our phone numbers with the public, just the kids. Yeah. So it would be helpful if you— even if you just have— I don't even have it up to date.

I can get that. Yeah, updated, but I don't have the—. Got it. Thank you. Anything else from infrastructure?

Anything you need? No, I'm doing that whole committee things, and we're going to—. Okay, perfect. Um, Sharon, We have outreach and communications up next.

Hello. Well, we have some more work to do. I tried to reach out to Jessica Willoughby, who is in our legal department, and she is out of the office indefinitely. And so I need to get in touch with Quincy, who is in the legal department, and set up a meeting with her to go over the social media. Requirement.

And we do have a few lists. We do have a list started for women businesses, but we need to— there's more work that needs to be done. We need the contact information, that sort of thing. So we're—. We are continuing working on gathering that.

Okay, so our relaunch of a Facebook page or whatever else is kind of blocked right now until we get—. Yes, and until I can get a— until I can get a meeting with Quincy. Okay, can I ask a question? Hey, uh, Shannon, are we able to, um, still work on like putting out a call for people to be on the Women's Commission through other already existing social media, like Beauty Works. Like, ask your question again, I'm sorry.

Yeah, we had talked about— I think I brought it up a couple of times— making some sort of graphic that we could put out a call for commissioners, um, and then put that up on, like, ask the mayor's office to put it out, like Kim Waller, or Kim runs the Beauty Works AK, and we could put it on their socials. And so I assume that those comply with any of the legal requirements already because they're already municipal-run social medias. Yeah, I would, I would want to ask Quincy if that's a, if that's possible. So, well, we do it for other commissions, like the Public Naming Commission just put out a bunch of requests added, as did the one for the assessors, right, when the property, um, with all the property assessments, they were missing like 6 people. The assembly put out like a bunch of notices on social media and via email.

So I feel like as long as we're using existing municipal lifelines, there's no reason. But that's the assembly, it's not, um, the mayor's Facebook page, and the assemblies are two different Facebook pages. So I just want to make sure that we're, um, following the requirements, that we're not going to get in trouble if something's posted where it shouldn't be posted. And I should just mention, we have one vacant slot, right? So, but it also can be like a put out the call, and I totally understand the weight on figuring out our own social media and doing more things about that.

But I think if we're putting out a call for other departments to share information about the Women's Commission then they are responsible for that outline and making sure that it complies.

I just don't know if it's a legal requirement, like, needs to be weighed in on. Is that—.

I don't know. And I thought that— I thought we had— I thought we had a full panel. Of commissioners? No, we just have one vacancy. Um, I thought I saw something in, um, I'll take a look because I thought I saw somebody that was already appointed to the Women's Commission here recently, um, when I was doing the agenda for the assembly.

So let me look and see if I can find that person in, um, I'll put it in the chat if I can find it.

Okay. Yeah, the website's still showing that we have 2 vacancies, but Kayla's not on it yet. Okay, so there's—. We're like, so let me look because I thought Um, I thought there was an appointment. Did we get an appointment recently and they— the mayor's office didn't tell us?

Uh, that's what I'm going to look at.

We knew was last reappointment in March. Yeah, but I haven't been notified of anything else since then. But if you're thinking of recent, in the last couple of months, what you saw was best reappointment go through in March, at the end of March.

That might be what I'm thinking of.

So I'll, I'll look and see what I can find. Okay.

That's all I have. Sorry. I'm still content that we don't need to talk to the legal team to put out like a like a notice that goes out on other municipal social media. That is just my pushback on the committee. Like, our social media, I totally get, but I think if we're asking, say, the mayor's team to talk about, like, the newly formed Women's Commission wanting public comment, we don't need to wait for legal to get back to us on that, like, request.

We can put out press releases without legal. I can also see if our PIO, our public information officer here, because Muni Health Department itself has its own, um, like Facebook and social media. And I can see if she has any information on if she has the right to be able to post since the emergency information is housed by the department. Sure, I can send her email later and see if she knows anything, or if It's— no, director, pretty much. Great.

Thank you, Sage. Thanks for that, actually. That would actually be helpful, and then Sharon can continue pursuing to make sure that we're legally compliant. Um, and then we have an alternate method because whatever happens, our Women's Commission Facebook won't have a lot of traffic for events, right? So this is actually good to know outside of that anyway.

And I'll say, like, in my work, when the Public Naming Commission needed somebody, I just got an email from a person, from the chair, because we send out a social media, we send out an email every week with civic opportunities. And we got an email from just somebody on the Public Naming Commission who said, like, hey, can you, like, send out that we're looking for people? And I was like, absolutely, send me, like, a little graphic and the language that you want. So you're saying that for women's commissions, sending you in your professional capacity. That's another avenue that we use.

Okay, so Sharon, I don't know if you caught that. I know a couple of other things that we could do that, like put up— do something. But, um, Ashley, when you find out from your PIO, would you communicate that to Sharon since that's a communications thing? So she's on top of all this. Perfect.

Thank you. And then she can bring that back to the commission. Is that okay with you, Chairman? Yes, that's fine. Thank you.

Just, just to clarify, I'm emailing her on advertising, and for Twin Bend Commission, for public comment and recruitment is on— you all develop the graphics and all you have to do is push forward. Yeah, just if we want to do messaging in general, which could be on the brand.

Hey, the women's commission exists. Come say hi. Okay. And so then anything else on outreach communications?

Nothing.

Any other questions for outreach communications?

All right. And we'll move along to strategic planning. And we have not met. And I need an email to Beth and Celeste, and I swear this will be the last time I try to make this arrangement, and there will be no more root canals, so that we can do this to get the survey. It sounds like we're about in line with where everyone else is.

I do want to say this. It is okay. This has been, it's been a bit. We finally have people, we have people who are mostly showing up as much as they can, which we appreciate, and we will get things moving. And I appreciate everyone's dedication.

To continuing to engage while we get things up and running. And it'll be good. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions for strategic planning?

Probably not. Looking around. No. Yeah. Okay.

New business. We had discussed previously about setting an in-person meeting date. So that we can all be in the same space at the same time.

I will open the floor for discussion on that. Is there a preference?

I think I'd be curious to hear from the people online about what would be something— as a chronically ill person joining online, also in the room, but like I can make myself available if there's like something that makes everything easier for everybody else.

And again, this is not a business meeting that we were talking about. It was just an opportunity to get together where we would not officially discuss business, but just gather, build relationships with one another. Um, what works for folks?

Um, selfishly, like, after work would work best for me. So like anything after 5 PM, but I could also make myself available for like a lunch thing too. I want to be mindful of everybody's schedules. Basically happy to do it and also happy to do it whenever. But if my two cents were utilized, it would be probably an after work kind of social thing.

Could definitely see going somewhere and getting chips and guac. So that's my preference. Okay, thank you, Celeste. I second that, Celeste. Good, good, good.

Any other voices? I can be pretty flexible, except I am going to be out of state the end of May through the middle of June. So the June meeting I will be online. Other than that, yeah, pretty flexible. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Okay.

Well, I was gonna ask, wondering if we couldn't arrange something here yet in May before everyone breaks down for Let's, let's have that discussion. Is there a preference to do it in May or wait until September after everyone's summer is done? I think Beth is also raising her hand intermittently. Beth, you have the best expressions, like, and body language. I can always tell what you're thinking.

You should make it known. Thank you.

All right, um, does anybody not want to meet before summer? Let's do it that way. Wait, Leslie, did you have something? Because your hand was up. Okay, yeah, okay.

I thought she was raising her hand in agreement. I'm sorry, Leslie.

Just so you know, in the meeting room here, there are 3 different screens that we can see you on, and they're all just far enough away that I'd have to do this. So it really helps, Kayla, when you do things like, hey, wait, don't miss this on the screen. Yeah, I'm used to COVID teams where it's like, wait.

Yeah, so after 5 in May, pulling up calendar here.

I mean, do we want to do like the 21st, just 2 weeks from tonight? Meet up at like 5:30, so that gives people time to get out of work. I don't think so. The day I leave, so I would not be available on the 21st.

Sorry. Also selfishly, I'm catching a plane at 8 PM that night too, Cindy. Maybe we're on the same flight. I don't know. I will also not be there on the 21st, but could do the 20th.

So. Okay, what about the 20th? Wednesday the 20th at 5:30.

No for you? What about Tuesday the 19th? No. All right, what about Monday the 18th? Unless you want— anybody wants to come to my free Robert's Rules training I'll be hosting, you're welcome to that.

That's right. That's where I will be on Monday. I might. How about Friday the 15th?

If Friday the 15th works for you, do a thumbs up. 5:00 Or 6:00 PM. Okay. I think you were saying 5:30, but if you need to show up at 6:00. Oh my gosh, we got agreement.

Except for Sharon, are you available on Friday the 15th at 5:30? Yes, I can make it. Yay. Okay. That was harder than it probably should have been.

So Friday the 15th, 5:30. Where?

Central located? Does somewhere in like Midtown work for everybody? That kind of like meat, everybody in the middle? Bear Paw or something? Is that what you're thinking?

Oh, like any of the restaurants? Bear Paw? How many are we? We're like 8. 8.

Okay. Okay, that's not too bad.

Yeah, I'm good with wherever. Sorry, I was just thinking of all the places I've been to.

Thinking down my travel corridor, that's why I said, oh, Bear Paw, but it could be elsewhere.

I guess they don't have that. I don't know how committed are we to the chips and dip there, Celeste.

Literally no commitment. I, I was just like, woo, let's throw it at the wall.

Yeah, let's do the Bear Paw. Okay, let's just do that. You said it. Yeah, no one else has thrown anything else out, and I can't think of a single other restaurant now that I threw one out, but, um, all right, so 5:30. I barely go to Midtown, so Friday, May 15th, 5:30 PM.

I am looking forward to seeing everybody in person.

All right, next official— yes, unofficially for socializing only. Um, and then the next item is inviting the mayor over. Um, like I said, it was just It was a brief conversation, um, and it sounded like a good opportunity for us to hear more from the mayor's office, um, and what we could share with her, um, so just more of a discussion, um, in terms of when that would be, would be at one of our regular meetings, uh, and what we could do is ask staff to reach out to the mayor's office and see which one of our future meetings she would be available to come to. I highly doubt it's going to be the June meeting, uh, just because that seems rather quick to get on the mayor's calendar. So we do not meet in July, um, we would meet next in August, September, so it may be out that far.

Um, Make a suggestion for maybe like September, that way if we're not paying for them or something, I feel like the summer months are not— yeah, maybe when we show up our best. And I would like to try and come in person if she's gonna be here in person. So should be— see if she's available, if we can get her on the agenda for September or after, depending on what she's got going. Yeah. I'm supportive.

Yeah, and I agree with Ari that like an in-person, like making an effort, like I'll make an effort to be in person. I just think that that's so much, it's just a nice touch. And yeah.

Can I make a— I was—. Go ahead. Yeah, I was saying I was trying to be agreeable because again, I think I'm the longest probably person that's been here and I was trying to be convenient, but I'm still at work. I do not get to 4:30, and I have a middle schooler. So, um, and like, I'm still at work, want to go, um, and I think the idea with the mayor is good because it is so depressing around this town, uh, right now.

So anyway, but I don't get off to 4:30. I, I try to be flexible with everybody, but I need to start being flexible with my own self. I'm still at work.

We appreciate you being here.

And if it's a situation where you do want to be in person when we get confirmation, maybe we look at bumping the time or just come when you are available. Yeah.

Before I get back to Arianna, anyone else? Any thoughts or comments?

Okay, Ari, what did you have? I just wanted to say I would like to empower you to invite people, as you said, as our chair, to come to our meetings without it being a vote. Just if you think somebody is relevant, we don't have extraordinarily packed meetings, and until which time we're like full up, I absolutely I, as like a member, and I will let other members speak, want you to feel absolutely empowered to invite any new person to come to a submission meeting, you know, and like just come afterwards and say like, hey, that's how they're going to come in like 2 meetings or whatever. I don't think that you can do wrong in that way. And I think our chair should just be empowered.

I appreciate that. I'll tell you, it is not my style. I'm consent-driven, and I'd rather open it up for conversation because maybe there was a specific date that didn't work for some people who really wanted to be there for a particular speaker or something of that nature. I want to make sure everybody has a voice on it. But I— you were in my head from saying that from before.

And I was like, no, not doing that that way. Sorry, I'd way rather ask and then move forward. So I, I, I really do appreciate the help. We have a comment from Sharon. Okay, go ahead, Sharon.

Says I can ask the mayor's office if we can get her on the calendar for our September meeting. That would be great. That saves staff some time. Thank you, Sharon. Yeah, take that off your task list.

Oh, she's sending the email now. This is how easy this is. Uh, she's already in at the mansion. That's right, that's right. Okay, um, so that— I don't think we needed to have any discussion.

Um, do we have any public comments?

A suggestion is that those of you who are like in committees, now would be a good time to like chat about said committees without having to set up a separate meeting. Just saying, having an extra like hour of folks' time. So what I'm actually going to say is let's go off We'll go, we'll officially close the meeting, and then we can hang out and do that piece. Although it's going to be a little difficult with you and I here and everybody else online. Uh, not if we close the meeting, we just can't take any action.

Yeah, we wouldn't need to. Okay, all right, any other last thoughts, comments? Bread recipes, anything. And I do recognize that that was recorded and somebody may watch that.

Okay, so I will, um, just make sure that we know next meeting is June 4th, uh, 4:30, and that we're dark again in July, and then open the floor for a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Do we have a second?

I second. Second. Second. Second. Okay, all in favor?

Any opposed? Meeting adjourned. All right, for those of us who want a quick organized.