Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-03-28 Housing MIN ASHLAND HOUSING COMMISSION MINUTES MARCH 28, 2001 CALL TO ORDER – The meeting was called to order by Chair Larry Medinger at 4:15 p.m. Other Commissioners present were Richard Seidman (new member), Joan Legg, Jan Vaughn, and Madeline Hill. Joe McKeever and Diana Goodwin Shavey (new member) arrived at 4:35 p.m. Nancy Richardson and Cate Hartzell were absent. Staff present were Bill Molnar and Sue Yates. APPROVAL OF MINUTES – Legg moved to approve the minutes of the February 28, 2001 meeting. Vaughn seconded the motion and the minutes were approved. STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS Keri Green said today the Commissioners will finish the Strategic Plan they began in January. Each Commissioner was mailed a second draft of the plan dated March 28, 2001. She took the previous draft, incorporated priorities submitted by members and streamlined the goals. The Commissioners are to look at the priorities they may have offered and decide if those are the items they wish to put their efforts toward. Green made the assumption that the items sent to her are the things the Commission members are passionate about doing and she has assumed they are willing to see to it that the work is carried out. Seidman believes the plan has a lot of good goals but wondered how the Commissioners would get from here to there. Rather than doing everything in monthly meetings, he suggested creating a subgroup that would meet at other times and to come up with more practical ways of actually accomplishing things. Otherwise, his fear is the Strategic Plan just becomes a nice document but we don’t know how to implement it. Green asked the Commissioners to think specifically about the Housing Goal. They have an interest in providing affordable housing to a variety of income levels and they have some very specific objectives. She believes Seidman is suggesting a task force to get together to address how they would convince the City of Ashland to commit 15 percent of its housing stock at an affordable level. If that is really what they want to do, what is involved in that and how they are going to do it? Medinger responded that he would rather see the Commissioners used as a resource. He cannot possibly take this work where it needs to go and he thinks that is probably true for everyone who sits on the Commission. He does not see how we can move unless we have someone who actually does the work, does the thinking and does the writing, then calls the Commission into session and reports his/her findings. He sees the Commission as a committee of experts. The other Commissioners seemed to generally agree with Medinger. Green moved to Page 3, Program Administration Goal. The Commissioners are very interested in creating a position that will help them move their interests forward. Two Commissioners submitted actions to Green. There are two options related to a strategy for creating a staff person to support affordable housing efforts. She asked if this seemed to be a viable process for moving forward. Medinger likes Option 2 because it would get us somewhere faster. We could probably sit down and in 15 minutes with Staff come up with a job description and everyone could talk to a couple of Council people and the Mayor about it. We have money in our trust fund that has been sitting there for about ten years and he believes it would be excellent to commit $30,000 or so to pay someone to do work for the next four to six months. McKeever and Shavey arrived. Vaughn thought it would be a good idea to look at the last item under Option 1—Explore staff possibilities through internships, etc. Legg sees this as an expansion step or a second step after they get a paid staff position. Medinger agreed. They would want to get the paid staff position first. Green said they could add (D) under Option 2. Seidman thought since the Council handles the disbursement of the housing trust funds, the Commissioners would need to do a little more preliminary work to outline a strong case for a paid staff person. Perhaps it could be correlated to the housing goals with other goals that the City is already committed to in the Comprehensive Plan for the CDBG. We want to be coming from a position of strength. It seems from what he has heard, he is not certain how committed the Council is to putting money behind affordable housing. Green said there are 18 commissions in the City. What if the Transportation Safety Commission decides they have big goals and they go to the City Council and recommend a staff position be created? The Housing Commission had better have so much rationale and reasoning behind their request and have some ability to tie in what they are doing with the City’s overall strategic goals, or the Council is not going to have a lot of time to look at a proposal. Seidman also believes it would be beneficial to show how this would benefit the city financially. Molnar posed the question: What if the City Council and Mayor say “no”, they won’t provide a paid staff person? In getting back to Medinger’s comments that the Commissioners are all volunteers with not enough time, when the strategic planning process came up and Cate Hartzell got funds to do this, it was somewhat assumed we would create an action plan that would have specific items using working committees within this Commission that would actually tackle some of the issues. If the first thing coming out of the Strategic Plan is a request to hire someone, that job description should be very specific, based on the fact that the staff person would work on getting grant monies. Medinger said he would like to get away from the whole idea of “staff person” but rather hiring a “consultant” to support affordable housing efforts. Actions become: A) Convene group to develop consultant role and deliverables. Also under A) Convene to develop a justification for this and a strategy to gain support for the idea. Seidman can see in the short run how it would be easier to get things up and running with a consultant, however, in the long run, will it create a sustainable position? If there is a staff position, there is some sense the City is committed to it. Would they be more likely to listen to the recommendations of a staff person rather than a Housing Commissioner? Green asked what if the Council asks how different this is than the affordable housing report done by Katie Thorsheim in 1990? Legg said the Strategic Plan is a fulfillment of that plan. There are several things that fell through. This has to be run with a certain amount of process and continuity. Medinger said we need a combination needs assessment showing what our objectives should be and the kind of program it would take to get us there in a 20 year period, and then finding out how many dollars it would cost every year and what kind of income stream they could find. Kristi Tanner, Chair of the Medford Housing Commission spoke from the audience. At their last meeting, ACCESS stated they were going to be doing another needs assessment which could help Ashland. It is being done countywide. The last one was done in 1993. Goodwin Shavey felt that unless there was a clear definition in advance of what the consultant is going to do and what outcome is expected and it is understood by everyone, that consultants are often overpaid and they under-perform. She would be very cautious about getting a consultant. She will not vote in this case because she just walked in on this plan but she would express caution unless there are narrowly and tightly defined expectations. She believes good housing consultants are hard to find. Seidman agrees with Goodwin Shavey about consultants being overpaid. He has a potential conflict of interest because he could be interested in applying for such a position. However, it does sound like a good strategy if they lay the groundwork first. Green wondered if the next step would be to convene a small subcommittee of this group to start working on this proposal. Medinger thought that was a good idea and as many of the Commissioners as possible could attend such a meeting. Medinger believes there needs to be someone to staff it who will write it up. Green wondered why one of the Commissioners wouldn’t take on writing it up. Seidman would be willing to write it up. Goodwin Shavey thought it would be inappropriate if Seidman is planning on applying for the position. She thought he should recuse himself. Seidman explained that Cate Hartzell encouraged him to apply for the Housing Commission position. Seidman told her if a position opened up down the road, he would be interested so maybe he shouldn’t apply to the Housing Commission. Hartzell told him to go ahead and apply and if it comes to that, he can resign from the Housing Commission. Hill said he cannot use this position to benefit him financially. Legg said she would be willing to write up the information from the subcommittee. Molnar offered to work on the Land Use Practices. Hill believes these are urgent items and can be done with existing staff and as part of the Housing Commission’s monthly meetings. Molnar provided the actions and task (Action 6) and is willing to work on it in the next couple of months. Green offered that when they put this on their agenda next month, that someone comes prepared with a proposal whether it is Molnar or another Commission member. The proposal will start off the agenda items shortening up the Commission’s floundering time. This item will be put on the agenda. Green asked if the Commission wanted to take on Funding Goal or if that would be something for the consultant. Medinger felt that would be a staff person’s job. He said Hartzell would have a lot of input on this. He would hope that a consultant’s goal would be to come up with a funding stream proposal that would have a pre-disposition toward approval from the Council already worked out. Green wondered if any of the items A-G at the top of Page 5 have merit. Medinger feels item A looks like a big item. The rest look like process political items. Green moved to Page 6, Priority Actions, pertaining to education. Are these things that the Commission feels are relevant to their work right now? Is this something that makes sense for the Commission to take on right now as a task? Medinger wondered if Green meant the Commission would actually write it. Green noted that on the Transportation Commission they are writing some educational pieces right now that are going to help the City establish some new ordinances. She hesitates to load in onto a consultant because the Housing Commission does not even have a consultant yet. Seidman asked who would be willing to spend some time on this. Medinger is willing to be interviewed as a group of experts by someone who is going to write it up. Would anyone have time to write it? Kristi Tanner said the potential of creating a countywide organization that educates the public concerning affordable housing is more advantageous than individual cities doing it. She would hope that a representative from this group and other housing agencies can formulate brochures, etc. that get out to social service agencies and landlords that will educate them. Medinger hoped that Tanner might give a presentation to the Commission on the work she is doing. He believes this community if feeling a little desperate because so many younger wage earners are being imported out of town. Goodwin Shavey said education is very broad. One is the short-term goal such as public relations outreach to various sectors of the community. The other is the long-term goal that gets to the technical details of the plan itself and how you go about implementing it. She would be happy to get involved right away in the general issues and then come back with the technical later. Green believes there has been enough discussion to put this item on the agenda for next month and start following through with what they want to accomplish with education/public relations. McKeever said the Ashland Community Land Trust is working on education right now and they have some educational programs in place already. Legg is very committed to item 6 on Page 6, Get feedback on the affordable housing Strategic Plan. She suggested and is willing to take on developing a process for getting information from the plan into a public meeting. She believes there needs to be some kind of public meeting before this plan is finalized. Legg will work with some organizers and propose a process for community meetings for strategic planning that will be followed through later on. Green moved to VI – Partnerships. How does the Commission wish to handle this item? Medinger said no one but the staff/consultant is going to have the time to go the Federal, state and local agencies and foundations. However, the Commissioners can keep their feelers out for those connections they can establish (smaller partnerships) to continue moving the Plan forward. Green said there are two agenda items for next month: 1) Land Use Practices and 2) Educational Goal – discuss in more detail. Green will revise the plan to include the items discussed today, particularly how they are going to move forward with development of an RFP for hiring a consultant. Medinger set a subcommittee meeting for next Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Jury Room, if it is available. Yates will contact the members. Hill asked Molnar to get an opinion from the City Attorney about whether Seidman can apply for a position and still be a part of the Commission. ADJOURNMENT – The meeting was adjourned at 5:40 p.m.