EPIC Board Meeting Minutes
December 7th, 2019, 10am
– 12pm
EPIC web
address: eastphillips-epic.com
Office: 2433 Bloomington Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55404
Phone: (612) -280-8418
Board Roster: Rosie Cruz, Laura Dale, Mary Gonsior, Cassandra Holmes,
Shontal Lajeunesse, Abah Mohamed, Carol Pass, Steve Sandberg, Sarah
Santiago.
Board Members Present: Rosie
Cruz, Mary Gonsior, Carol Pass, Steve Sandberg, Sarah Santiago, Abah Mohamed
Board Members Not Present: Cassandra Holmes (E), Laura Dale
(E), Shontal Lajeunesse
Members:
Brad
Pass, Alfonso Cruz
Guests: Shirley
Heyer
10:00 Agenda Approval – amended, approved
Minutes Approval – CP, RC, approved
10:05 Announcements
·
Next
Community Meeting will be: Thursday,
December 12th at 6:30 at East Phillips Park
·
Next
Board Meeting will be: Saturday, January 4th at 10am at the EPIC
office (2433 Bloomington Avenue)
·
Next
Executive Committee meeting will be: Thursday, December 19th at the
EPIC office (2433 Bloomington Avenue)
o
Executive
Committee meetings are open to the public
o
Board
members please send agenda items (for both community meetings and board
meetings) to Sarah before executive meetings each month (December 19th)
·
Next
Southside Green Zone meeting is Monday, December 16th from 5:30-8pm
10:07 Logistics
·
2020
Calendar changes
o
July
4th, 2020, is on our board Saturday.
o
Cassie
proposes July 11th , approved
o
Community
meeting will be July 16th
o
Sept
5th, 2020, is the board Saturday of Labor Day (9/7/20) weekend.
o
Cassie
proposes September 12th , approved
o
Community
meeting will be September 17th
·
Mailbox
o
needs
name on the mailbox and cover to avoid rainwater/snow getting in – Brad will do
o
Can
we give the city EPIC’s office address as our official address now
§
Complicated
because EPNI’s bills are currently intertwined with EPIC due to contracts
§
Mary
suggests planning a meeting with EPICs accountant, Carol and Mary – plan for
January
§
Send
out notice that bills begin coming to EPICs office effective January 1st
·
Who
can attend probationary meeting with Karen, Ethrophic and Steve Gallagher?
o
Rosie
can do Tuesdays at 6:30pm
o
Steve,
Sarah, Mary, Rosie (ask Cassie, if not ask if she wants Shontal to attend)
o
Sarah
will respond to Karen’s email about this Tues Dec 17th at EPIC office
·
Garden
committee needs board meeting present at their meetings running Spring, Summer
and fall
o
Need
new chair of garden committee
o
Ask
garden committee members if anyone wants to be the chair/garden coordinator
§
Brad
will send an email out and see if they are willing to serve on the EPIC board
§
If
we have the funds offer a stipend to the garden coordinator
·
Set
date and reserve space
o
Annual
meeting – April 18th
§
April
18th – Brad will reserve
o
Summerfest
– June 14th – Brad will reserve
o
Create
Annual meeting committee and Summerfest committee and possibly Garden Committee
– Put on board agenda January (and make list of responsibilities) – think about
whether you are willing to chair any of these committees
o
PUT
IN EPIC E-NEWS – we are seeking a gardener interested in working with EPIC to
facilitate the garden committee – garden coordinator.
o
Reach
out to U of Mn Agriculture Department – ask about 2 or 3 interns (the U pays
their own interns) – Brad will reach out (get contact from Shirley)
o
Reach
out to Chad Hebert – Brad will reach out
·
Financial
update (15 minutes)
o
Do
we have the advance payment?
o
Discussed
East Phillips open contracts (as of 12/3/19)
§
Can
use funds how they are allocated or can move them
§
We
have copies for Laura, Cassie, Steve and Shontal
10:20 Discussion about Phillips West November 7th
event for additional police officers in the 2020 city budget
·
How
to address this type of request in the future
·
What
news items to forward through EPIC
·
Create
gmail account for EPIC – Sarah will do
11:53 Alley Post (Steve)
·
Have
we received requests for bids for this?
o
Steve
would like to take his name off of this
·
The
next Alley post is due in January – correct?
·
We
have paid $2,700 to the Alley
·
Paying
someone to do the ad for the Alley can come out of funds for communication
o
We
do not need a motion for this
11:59 Agenda request form approval - Approved
10:30 Community Driven Projects Next Steps
·
Set
up time with Ethrophic, Steve and Bob Cooper at a community meeting to figure out how organizations that
weren’t funded can get alternative funding especially with recreational
programming
o
Also orgs that don’t have the capacity to get
the application in or get the work done in the timeline – those that need help
writing proposals
o
Revisit elements of the Violence
Preventions grant proposal with two of
the groups applying for funds; Native Wellbriety, and African Immigrant
Community Services, to see if we can work together on a proposal
o
Bike On Program
o
Create new RFP including all of the “don’ts”
o
Steve will help us draft a letter to those that
did not get selected
o
David Rubedor is reviewing the proposals selected
by EPIC and will give his authorization, then the city will negotiate contracts
with the organizations
§
Discuss these when we meet with Steve, Ethrophic
and Karen
·
Letter
from Banyan is in your pile of papers – read it over
o
Additional
support notes sent to EPIC about Banyan funding
o
Sent
an invitation for an April 24th leadership breakfast – this is the
start of Ramadan
12:05 Resurfacing of streets – Larry attending
December membership meeting
§
See
handout
·
Might
want to give Larry heads up of issues
· Jana’s
notes: Your side will be hard on residents & note
for Larry where school bus routes are.
“Our side had the hospital, ER, hospital parking ramps,
Allina/Global Market parking ramps, the school, all the teacher park in the
street because Allina had to cancel parking ramp agreement with them/no room
there with their employees, the Mosque, the Islamic Center. Many of them
have only one access to parking or if 2 then the N/S streets both can’t happen
at the same time. Larry will have to figure that out with everyone. Midtown
also has had N/S streets closed for utility company work now for over 2
years. It’s exhausting and very frustrating for residents”
11:05 Website proposals
·
Executive
committee proposes that we set up meetings with Tim and Amy separately
o
Who
will attend (need quorum)?
o
When?
·
Need
to decide if we will pay a monthly fee to Amy until we decide on a person to do
the website – motion to pay Amy for 3 months with agreement that Amy meets
monthly with EPIC to get updates from EPIC (i.e. what to put on website evets
etc.)
·
Mary
will talk with Amy about the next 3 months and coordinate a meeting between
Amy, Carol and Mary
11:15 Housing Program
·
Rewrite
with Stacy’s edits
·
Changes from the first draft of housing guidelines:
o
Move dollars from 1.1.1 Emergency Home Repair Loans to 1.4.1 Home Buyer Assistance
($27,665 + $34, 454 or $62,119)
o
Increase loan amount: Up to $10,000
o
Change Income limit: At or below 115% Area Median Income
o
Combine Deferred Rehab Loans and Emergency Deferred
Loans: for $56,253.00
o
Change to Deferred Rehab and Emergency Loans
o
Add: Funds may be used to remedy conditions that makes a house
uninhabitable, extremely dangerous to the occupants, or is capable of causing
severe health problems.
o
Change Income limit: At or below 115% Area Median Income
·
Stacy Sorenson’s
feedback on changes:
o
The “original”
Deferred Rehab program was open to owner-occupants and absentee owners, but the
Emergency Deferred was open to just owner-occupants. In
folding in the Emergency Deferred, the Guidelines have the combined program
open to both – but you might want to consider having it just available
to owner-occupants, especially since this is a deferred loan program and
you’re making less money available.
o
Combining the two
(above) might result in having no funds available for emergency deferred loans since the Deferred Loan program is less restrictive
o
Stacy ran the
changes by Jim Hasnik at CEE. He thought that the amount you’re making
available for the Homebuyer Assistance Program might be high. One option might
be expand to the language of all three strategies so that changes to the
amounts available within the contract can be made without additional plan
modifications or contract amendments. With $10,000 per homebuyer the funds
might go pretty quickly – could lower this ‘per buyer’ amount’ (We will work
with Ethrophic on this).
o
Accept changes Stacy
offered, cross out absentee owned for deferred rehab
· MOTION: Accept
the draft with the following change, cross out absentee owned under the deferred
rehab loan, CP, RC, Carol expressed willingness to withdraw motion if
missing board members disagree with motion, approved
o
Discussion: board
members are uncomfortable voting when board members are not present
11:40 Northside update (Cassie) TABLED
11:55 Additions to December Community meeting
agenda?
·
Updates
for community meetings (3 minutes each?):
o
Invite
Mike Goze to a community meeting? – give to Cassie and have her and Mike fill
out agenda request form – Sarah will do
o
Roof
Depot and delisting – Steve or Brad
o
Development
at Lake Street - Steve
o
Violence
Prevention Grant- Steve
o
Public
Works Jobs – has anyone received notice of these jobs?
§
EPIC
is in discussion about adding where to look for jobs and training to our
website
§
Invite
community members to contact council members, head of public works and the
mayor about the failure to inform East Phillips about jobs at Public Works
