EPIC Board Meeting Minutes
July 6th, 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, Laura
Dale, Mary Gonsior, Cassandra Holmes, Carol Pass, Steve Sandberg, Shontal
Board Members Not Present: Abah Mohamed (U)
Members:
Brad Pass
Guests: Shirley Heyer
10:00 Quorum Achieved
Agenda Approval – added a few items MG, LD, approved.
Approve minutes from June. MG, LD, Approved.
10:05 Logistics
·
Insurance
o
Our general liability
insurance ended July 8th
o
We must have insurance
o
Carol is working with
another broker to get general liability coverage
o
Have one policy on the
directors and officers
o
Do not have general
liability
MOTION: Move that Carol is
authorized to contract for general liability insurance on account of EPIC as
soon as possible. StS, MG, Approved.
MOTION: Authorize Carol to
seek to find a new contract for Directors and Officers insurance as well. MG,
RC, Approved.
·
Bank account signers
o
MOTION: EPIC authorizes an
additional signer other than Carol to sign for our bank account. This person
will be Mary Gonsior. RC, SL, Approved.
·
Legal team (free)
o
Jess Birken offers
free legal advice, she is paid by the city
§
So city has vested
interest in what she is sharing with us
o
Jess offers free board
training
o
Need to make it clear
that we won’t just toe a line because of the legal team
o
Cassie would
appreciate board training, Mary agrees
o
Goal would be to
establish relationship with them and see what services they can offer and board
may decide which to utilize
§
Concern that they may
say we must do it a certain way
§
Our bylaws are legal
o
Cassie will get into
contact with Jess Birken – the legal free legal person
·
Board Communication
(Steve S)
o
Steve would like an
email address that the whole board could see – he has felt uninformed about
certain issues, including the insurance coverage issue
§
Mary pointed out that
some conversations were being discussed within the executive committee; defined
for everyone: See Article VIII – Committees, Section 2: “The Executive
Committee shall consist of the President, Vice President, Secretary and
Treasurer.”
§
Cassie suggests either
texts or private Facebook page where all board members are administrators but
others cannot be added
·
Board agrees that a Facebook
private group is best – Cassie will create the private page and texts will go
out to inform about new important postings
o
Steve would like
minutes to be available to the board before the meeting
o
Review what our bylaws
say about our minutes
§
Linda Leonard texted
about a concern about not knowing about board meeting today
·
Are we required to
post the agenda in advance?
o
Bylaws say we must
announce the meeting but nothing about agenda
o
Does the city require
this?
·
Board and Membership
meetings are printed in the Alley newspaper, as well as posted on the EPIC
website
·
Sarah will put next
board meeting (open to the public) and community meeting date and time in
agenda every month as well as record in draft and final minutes posted on the
website
§
Talk to Gabe to learn
how to post minutes online
·
Sarah will write up
the instructions in case others need to do it as well
§
Executive Committee will
come up with a policy for posting minutes and agendas including a time frame
for sending to the board and posting online. We are not changing the bylaws.
MOTION: the executive committee
will form a policy for publishing agendas and minutes and will bring the policy
for board approval in August. MG, LD, Approved.
o
Carol
will train Mary and Sarah on e-news and the blogger
·
Mailbox
o
Any new communication
going forward will be directed to the office
o
Eventually as Carol
wraps things up and shifts things over to Mary, the mail will go to the office
o
Office (2433
Bloomington Ave) will become new address for EPIC
MOTION: the official address
for EPIC will become 2433 Bloomington Ave Minneapolis, MN 55404. MG, LD,
Approved.
§
Take
this up again in September – by the end of the year EPIC will change its address officially
to 2433 Bloomington Ave for taxes and other official purposes
·
Printer/scanner
o
MOTION: EPIC will purchase a
printer/scanner for the office. MG, StS, Approved.
Violence
Prevention Grant
·
Insurance
certificate needed for acceptance of City grant – we already discussed the
insurance issue
·
Who will be selected
to oversee the project? Will we issue an RFP? Are there other candidates that
we already know?
o
Candidate must know
East Phillips well
o
Grant is very
similar to SCOUT
o
Do we need to post a
job description?
o
Devika could choose
an additional person
o
Rosie, Cassie and
Viviana can work with Devika to find someone to bring in a person from the
Latinx community
o
Mary proposes that
we create a committee that meets with Devika regularly and oversees to process
– can be made up of community members and board members
§
First step is
establishing timeline
·
Board will need to
write an objective
o
Will need an
independent contract with Devika
o
We will ask Devika to
propose a contract for board approval at August meeting
§
Carol has a template
for this contract
·
Devika will create a
job description and will work with the committee to define more detailed goals
o
Give Devika a
timeline
§
Cassie and Steve are
willing to serve on the committee. Carol wants to sit in. Rosie can be on
committee depending on time of the meetings.
§
Cassie can ask SCOUT
members to be a part of this and get paid
§
Announce the
committee to the general membership
MOTION: EPIC will form
a temporary committee to oversee and coordinate the Violence Prevention Grant.
The steering committee members are Steve, Cassie and Rosie. The purpose of the
committee is to provide board oversight, guidance and support to the project
coordinator and the impact of the grant. MG, LD, approved.
MOTION: EPIC will contract
with Devika Ghai as the program coordinator for the Violence Prevention Grant
for compensation up to the amount outlined in the approved grant proposal. MG,
LD, approved.
·
Seek funding to
supplement the city grant?
o
Incentives for
completing the survey
o
Other costs to fill
out the budget?
MOTION: Pending
approval of the contract with the program coordinator and receipt of the
Violence Prevention Grant EPIC will provide up to $2,000 of additional funding
for program costs if needed. MG, LD, Approved.
Seek funding up
to $2,000 for Little Earth survey, phase 2
·
Little Earth to submit a written proposal using EPIC’s
form (see binder) by Wed. July 10th. (Day before the GMM)
·
Proposal to grant
permission to EPIC to share the project report with EPIC
community (not necessarily the raw data),
or a report on the survey from Little Earth, who retains rights to the data and
survey report.
·
This is a midway
survey
·
Little Earth is like
no other community in the U.S. so this is very important data
·
We were out of order
at June membership meeting – spending requests need to be brought to EPIC board
first
o
MOTION: Whereas the June
membership meeting had a quorum of board members and the motion was approved by
the board and EPIC members, EPIC approves funding of $2,000 for the safe
Community of United Tribes (SCOUT) program for their midpoint survey. EPIC does
not need the raw data but would like the report on the project and survey that
can be shared with the community and EPIC will be acknowledged as a partner in
the program. CP, SS, 2 abstained because of conflict of interest, Approved.
Motion from
June Community Meeting 2019:
·
MOTION: EPIC will fund up to $2,000 toward
SCOUT Little Earth Survey provided appropriate funding is available and EPIC
will be listed as a funder of these surveys and will be provided a report
summarizing the data and the research team will be invited to give a presentation
to the EPIC community, SS, GK, 2 abstained because of conflict of interest,
Approved
12:00 Carol Pass
moved to extend meeting time, CP, CH, Approved.
National Night Out Funding.
MOTION:
EPIC approves
spending of up to $1,000 for permitted national night out block parties. Block
parties can submit receipts for reimbursement up to $100 per block party. Funds
will be distributed to block party on a Pro-rat basis. Funds cannot be used for
food or entertainment. Only National Night Out Block Parties with a permit will
be reimbursed. CP, LD, Approved.
NRP Funding Allocations – tabled to
August
o
At June board meeting we said in
July we would further discuss moving whatever funds we have left in numerous
categories into one category to make it easier to negotiate
Public comment open for proposed modification
of approval process for NRP
From an e-mail from
David Rubedor (Director of Neighborhood and Community Relations):
o June 10th officially began a 45-day comment period, ending July
25, on a proposed change to the plan modification approval process.The redlined NRP policy document found here
shows the proposed change. NRP processes
require actions to be taken in order to modify funding strategies, reallocate
funds within approved strategies or the creation of a new
strategy. Currently, the NCR Department Director has sole discretion to
approve or deny these requests. The proposed policy change does the
following:
· Plan modifications over $100,000 will require the approval of
the NRP Policy Board
· Plan modifications $100,000 and under will be administratively
approved by the NCR Department Director
· Authorizes programmatic documents to reflect these changes
o This policy change requires a 45-day public comment period,
which opens on June 10 and closes on July 25, 2019. After the public comment
period, the NCR Department will forward this change, and any comments, to the
City Council.
o To submit comments on these proposed changes please email ncr@minneapolismn.gov or call Steven Gallagher at 612-673-2905
·
We do not wish to
comment
“Under 18 change” – tabled to August
o
At June board meeting we said we
would look at bylaws and consider changing in order to include youth
o
Little Earth has youth board member
voted on by peers
Lake Street Open Street - July 21st
11am – 5pm
·
Does
EPIC want to have a table?
·
EPNI
and EPIC can table together – can contact midtown Phillips and they will have a
table for us. Will bring petition. Tent would be great.
·
Sarah
and Cassie volunteer to table and Steve volunteers to set up and take down
·
Brad
contacted and EPIC/EPNI can have a table, Open Streets will provide one table,
we can bring an additional table and canopy
The new Southside Green Zone –
Council approved new advisory board
·
2nd
meeting is in July
·
the
two parties are McKnight Foundation and the Minneapolis Foundation
o
They
will be at the July Southside Green Zone Advisory Council meeting to answer
questions
·
Concern
is that EPIC should know the two foundations and who is applying for the
Southside Green zone and what are their concerns.
·
We
want to know who got the money
12:30 Adjourned SL, LD, Approved
