EPIC Board Meeting Minutes
July 2nd, 2020, 7pm– 9pm
EPIC web address: eastphillips-epic.com
Email: epic.ssantiago@gmail.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: Laura Dale, Carol Pass, Mary Gonsior, Steve Sandberg, Sarah Santiago
Board Members Not Present: Cassandra Holmes (E), Shontal Lajeunesse (E), Rosie Cruz (U), Abah Mohamend (U)
Members: Brad Pass
Guests: Shirley Heyer
7:10 Agenda Approval, Approved
Minutes Approval, LD, StS, Approved
7:05 Announcements
· Next Community Meeting will be: Thursday, July 9th at 6:30 at East Phillips Park or via Zoom TBD
· Next Board Meeting will be: Thursday, August 6th at 7pm at the EPIC office (2433 Bloomington Avenue) or via Zoom TBD
o Board Meetings are open to the public
· Next Executive Committee meeting will be: July 16th at 7pm at the EPIC office (2433 Bloomington Avenue) or via Zoom TBD
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
· EPIC has a housing program! 0% interest! Fix up your home or buy a new home in East Phillips – Check your email for the brochure or go to: mncee.org/eastphillips
· If you smell a foul odor around Smith foundry or Bituminous Roadways call 311 to report
o Write down your incident number
· Every Saturday until August 1 from 4-6pm at 2618 16th Ave S a group of neighbors will be holding community discussions on different topics that may include processing the changes around safety and policing in our city; learning about models for keeping each other safe that other communities are using etc. Check out www.thebonnydoon.org for more information/updates
7:15 Community garden – discussion about a boulevard community garden available for anyone who walks by outside the EPIC Community Garden was tabled to board meeting from community meeting
· EPIC community garden will not be involved
· Sarah has volunteered to host it on her boulevard, she is in contact with Michelle Shaw about this – they are waiting on the arsenic test (already heard back on lead, salt etc tests)
7:18 How should we do outreach to get community feedback about police attending EPIC’s community meetings in the future?
o Conduct door knocking with training times/dates
§ Include questions:
· What do you think about police attending EPIC community meetings?
· Would you like to be on the EPIC email list?
o A volunteer has come forward to coordinate outreach in East Phillips – idea to make a spreadsheet where people can sign up for door knocking
o Notify volunteer of privacy policy
o EPIC agrees that door knocking to distribute flyers on trainings and ask question about police attending EPIC community meetings is important, Mary and Sarah will meet to further discuss this
7:23 Neighborhood Outreach
· How many emails are on the EPIC membership list? - Around 300
o Is there a way to test the emails using a free service (trial for example?)
§ Here are two options from TechSoup:
(free trial)
free emails (up to 10,000 per month)
§ Go with the second link
· Tell Amy to add button to website for people to sign up for email list
o If our list isn’t that accurate anymore, what can we do to fix it?
§ Facebook (81 followers)
§ Website
§ Door knocking/flyer
§ Other?
7:40 Zoom account
· Do we have a new Zoom account just for EPIC?
· Mary and Brad did not connect about this
· Mary will pay for the Zoom account and submit the invoice
7:43 Community trainings
· Any organizations you have heard of doing trainings that EPIC should contact?
· Sarah is in contact with several people for de-escalation trainings – possibly make it a series? As well as someone who does empowerment self-defense
o Carol and Sarah have been talking about how to compensate the trainers since not all of them are a business.
o Bring bucket of pens for waivers, so people can sign waiver and put pen in ‘used’ pile
o De-escalation/self defense trainings:
§ Question of whether they have insurance and doing a criminal background check to protect EPIC. What do they do about liability?
· Bios retracted for privacy reasons
· Narcan training – Cassie is currently unavailable – Southside Harm Reduction is hosting a drop in training every other week that started Monday, June 29th – watch their social media for more info. Should Sarah re-connect with Southside Harm Reduction to set up a Narcan training until Cassie can do one? Sarah could see if Southside could do a sharps training as well to learn how to properly dispose of sharps
o Sarah will contact Southside about this and plan to move forward with Cassie when she is ready
· If trainings are in August, be sure to put it in Alley by July 15th!
8:08 Check in on job description and employee handbook
· Mary sent edits of job description to Carol
· Carol is waiting to hear from legal person, Jess
8:09 What do we want put in EPICs Alley post?
· Trainings
· Zoom meetings
· Housing program
8:00 Additions to community meeting draft agenda – nothing on agenda currently
· Hi-Lake development plans – invite Wellington to meeting
· Partner with pwd and Lake Street Council
· Speed bumps – we were told moratorium on speed bumps – but Powderhorn is getting new speed bumps, and the city is paying for them
o This might be the time for this
· Neighbors take over of 18th Ave between Lake and 29th Ave
o MPD video surveillance that is not being monitored
