GRVNC Outreach Committee minutes 3/15/4

Attendance: Alice Stek, Dennis Hathaway, Paul Ryan, Jim Smith, Tom O’Meara, David Moring, Mary Jack, Gina Record (arrived late, left before end of meeting). All decisions were made by consensus.

General topics of discussion: how to increase stakeholder registration and participation, media relations, workload, outreach to Venice youth.

The Feb 26 Town Hall was reviewed. Overall, the Committee members felt this was a successful event. There was a good turnout, including a diverse representation of the Venice community. The food and service by St. Joseph’s Culinary Training Program was excellent. Everyone who wished to speak on the 3 topics for discussion was able to do so. Cindy Miscikowski and Sandy Kievman attended and listened attentively to the presentations. New stakeholders were registered.

Some Committee members were disappointed we did not adhere to our original plan to have 2 designated speakers present the pro and con positions on each issue, followed by public comment.

We were disappointed at the lack of interest in this event by the mainstream press, especially the Argonaut, which printed misleading and erroneous information several weeks before the event.

Total cost $ 3791, of which $350 for church rent, $1000 for catering, $833 for printing, $1045 for “Walking Man” door-to-door flyer distribution, $210 for photocopies, $300 for newspaper ads. The 12 cent/letter post office mailing was not available after all.

Areas we can improve on for the next Town Hall meeting:

Sign-in at the door.

Better explanation of IRV voting system.

Encourage better participation in casting ballots.

Allocate more time for planning the meeting.

Next Town Hall meeting is scheduled for May. Suzanne Thompson agreed to chair the preparation committee. We will try to focus on involving Venice youth in GRVNC. There are no ideal venues in Venice for a meeting of this size.

The previously submitted proposal for a pilot outreach effort in District 4 was postponed until after the elections. There is support for the concept, and we plan to conduct this pilot program after June. At that time, we will determine the district with the lowest percentage of stakeholders and carry out the pilot there. Note that the original plan included a 12 cent per letter mailing to the list of stakeholders. This is not possible, so the mailing will need to be first class, increasing the cost slightly.

Communications Officer Tom O’Meara currently spends too much time posting reports and agendas to the website. He presented a proposal to switch to a “auto-post” type of website that allows committee chairs with passwords to post themselves. It will cost money to modify the website. Jim Smith will investigate less costly alternatives.

The Committee plans to design and distribute a newsletter to be sent by mail to all the residences in Venice, and in person to those without permanent homes. This will include brief notices from all the committees describing their work, announcements for the May Town Hall meeting and the June elections, as well as introductory information and a map. The newsletter will include a page in Spanish and a registration card. This is probably something we can send for 12 cents via the post office. Tom O’Meara, Suzanne Thompson, Paul Ryan and Alice Stek will work on the newsletter.

Jim Smith is investigating bulletin boards for GRVNC announcements to place at several locations in the community.

Tom O’Meara reports that we have approx. 1980 stakeholders in the database, and several hundred not yet entered. He has contacted PDQ temp agency for entering the remaining names into the database.

Action items:

Request funding for newsletter printing and mailing.

Set date May Town Hall meeting.

Appoint Suzanne Thompson to chair preparations for the May Town Hall meeting.

Request Editorial Board meeting with the Argonaut.

The topic of a media Relations Officer was deferred to the next meeting.

The next meeting will be Saturday April 3 in the daytime. A suitable location has not yet been found.