Commission Meeting Minutes November 14, 2024

Commissioners Present:
First District: Joanne M. Brown (OAL), Nancy Padian,
Second District: Katie Gordon, Rebecca Kaykas-Wolff
Third District: Ofra Isler, Melanie Jones-Carter (Vice-Chair) *, Katarina Giudice-White
Fourth District: Izzy Arreguin

Commissioners Absent:
First District: Haunani Pakaki
Fourth District: Gina Fortino Dickson (Chair), Letitia Hanke
Fifth District: Zobida McCorquodale (Leave of absence), Elizabeth Beaty

*Vice Chair Jones-Carter attended hybrid via Zoom per Gov’t. Code Section 54953(b) atlocation: 2304 Columbia Dr., Flower Mound, TX 75022

Meeting held through publicly available link via Zoom Meeting, and in-person.

1.CALL TO ORDER, ROLL CALL
Meeting called to order at approximately 6:09 p.m. Roll call taken by Staff.

2.LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Commissioner Gordon read the Land Acknowledgement.

3.PUBLIC COMMENT ON NON-AGENDIZED ITEMS
No Public Comment.

4.CONSENT CALENDAR
Approval of the October 10, 2024 Meeting Minutes
Motion to approve October 10, 2024 Meeting Minutes.

No Public Comment.

Motion: Commissioner Padian
Second: Commissioner Kaykas-Wolff 

Ayes: 5 Noes: 0 Absent: 6 Abstained: 3

Commissioners Pakaki, Fortino Dickson, Hanke, and Beaty were absent. Commissioner McCorquodale is on leave of absence. Commissioners Isler and Giudice-White abstained. Officer-At-Large Brown abstained per running the meeting. Motion passed.

5. OFFICER REPORTS AND ADMINISTRATIVE UPDATES
a. December meeting is cancelled, but the Commission will have a holiday gathering instead of a meeting.

6. COMMISSIONER ANNOUNCEMENTS
a. Commissioners didn’t have any announcements.

7. OPENINGS AND APPOINTMENTS
a. The Commission welcomed Katarina Giudice-White to represent the 3rd District. Staff completed her Oath of Office.
b. Officer-At-Large Brown announced openings in the 2nd district and in the 5th District.

8. AD HOC AND PROJECT UPDATES
a. Junior Commission Educational Project reported on their volunteer day with Girls on the Run. They had 30 volunteers. Very successful event. On December 14th, the Jr. Commission on Status of Women and the Youth Commission on Human Rights will co- host an Unhoused Resource Learning Day. They are asking for speakers and organizations who can table at the event. Commissioner Isler is seeking another Commissioner to take over the Junior Commission Educational Project cohort for next cohort. Commissioner Padian will still support but will not run the Educational Project by herself. Commissioner Arreguin expressed interest in managing the project. Commissioner Gordon is working on doing a program evaluation of the Junior Commission to show how successful the program is. She will contact past Junior Commissioners, create a short survey for them to complete, and then create a report on the findings.
b. Reproductive Equity is finishing up projects from last year. They are writing a report of the pharmacy study. They are working on expanding their focus groups throughout the County to get a better representation, and they are changing their matrix from using a qualitative metrics rather than a qualitative metrics starting in January. They have a volunteer from Marin College who will draft a survey for students to complete. They will be piloting the survey in a high school. UCSF Midwifery Programs will be reduced, and they are the only school in the State with these programs. They will be doing more research on this situation and will bring forward a letter to the whole Commission weighing on the issue.
c. Biz Entrepreneurship will be doing a workshop with behavioral style classes and Redwood Credit Union has agreed to provide space for the workshops sometime
at the end of January on a weekday at 9am. Date will be finalized soon, but the capacity is 30-35 people. d. Legislative Advisory Group is figuring out the new administration and will report in January.
e. Communications Teams is seeing how to manage strategic communications. Potentially they will hire some systems like CRM systems to help. In January they will bring some examples and a more tangible strategy on the first part of their plan.
f. Community Engagement Working Group didn’t have anything to report.
g. Bylaws didn’t have anything to report.

9. BUSINESS ITEMS
a. Community Engagement
Vice Chair Jones-Carter led the discussion on the events the Commission will be participating in for 2024-2025 Fiscal year. The following events were mentioned: Juneteenth, Pride, YWCA, Cinco de Mayo, Hispanic Heritage Month, Women in Conversation. Women’s History Month Resolution, Junior Commission Career Panel, Women’s Equality Day Resolution, Black History Month, 2025 Spirit Award. The Commission will finalize the event list next meeting. No action was taken.
b. Holiday Party
The Commission agreed to have a festive gathering on December 12, 2024, at 6pm instead of their meeting. Details will be emailed out by Staff.

10. ADJOURNMENT
This meeting was adjourned at 7:09 p.m.