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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES Family Advisory Board 2020-02-13Town of Estes Park, Larimer County, Colorado, February 13, 2020 Minutes of a regular meeting of the Family Advisory Board of the Town of Estes Park, Larimer County, Colorado. Meeting held in the Room 202 of the Estes Park Town Hall, on the 13th day of February, 2020. Present: Christy DeLorme Rachel Balduzzi Laurie Dale Marshall John Bryant Karen Randinitis Sue Strom Nancy Almond Jodi Roman Michael Moon Also Present: Ron Norris, Town Board Liaison Travis Machalek, Town Administrator Jason Damweber, Assistant Town Administrator Suzanna Simpson, Recording Secretary Absent: Guests: Claire Bouchard, United Way of Larimer County Barbara MacAlpine, Town Trustee Candidate Chair Dale Marshall called the meeting to order at 3:31 p.m. PUBLIC COMMENTS: Member Randinitis shared a reminder that the Library will begin the Powerful Tools for Caregivers program in March. The program focuses on self-care, tools and support for caregivers. Begins March 12 for 6 weeks. Also, working with Communities that Care on hosting the QPR (question, persuade, respond) Suicide Prevention program April 29. Both of these programs are free to the public. Barbara MacAlpine introduced herself as a candidate for Town Board Trustee. She applauds work of the Family Advisory Board and is interested in what they are accomplishing. Family Advisory Board – February 13, 2020 – Page 2 TRUSTEE LIAISON REPORT Trustee Norris shared that previous Town Administrator Frank Lancaster was given a lifetime achievement award at the recent Colorado City/County Management Association conference. He also wanted to be sure the board knew about the work on US 36, including the partial closures beginning Monday with a full closure following for one month beginning March 9. He closed with a reminder about the upcoming election. There are two candidates for mayor and five for trustee. He encourages the Family Advisory Board to watch campaigns closely for issues affecting families. INTRODUCTION OF ASSISTANT TOWN ADMINISTRATOR DAMWEBER Trustee Norris introduced Assistant Town Administrator Damweber to the board and asked him to provide a brief overview of his experience. Assistant Town Administrator Damweber will be spearheading the Town’s efforts to make childcare more accessible and available. He offered to meet with any interested board members. Town Administrator Machalek expressed appreciation to the board for their work. APPROVAL OF JANUARY MINUTES: It was moved and seconded (Moon/DeLorme) to approve the January meeting minutes and the motion passed unanimously. 2020 FOCUS AREA/CREATION OF BARRIERS LIST: Chair Dale Marshall introduced this agenda item and provided a recap of the assignment. Claire Bouchard is serving as a neutral facilitator. The goal is to condense the answers from the assignment into themes. Trustee Norris suggests that when bringing the results to the Town Board, identifying which segments of the population are most impacted, and roughly how many families/individuals/types of families are impacted. Themes occurring: Affordable and accessible housing, children, living wage, advocacy, engagement, access to products and services. There was discussion around how far to break down these issues, along with extensive discussion on community awareness. A primary concern as it relates to community awareness is the engagement of the Hispanic community. Member Moon added that when he was collecting data for ECE, he found that a large amount of Hispanic families are here permanently, some many generations deep, and there is a significant portion of the community that seems to ignore that fact. Member Bryant added that a lack of representation is a significant problem overall. Several board members added that engagement in respective businesses has increased when adding bilingual staff. Member Moon added that his data shows that Hispanic families represent 30 to 35% of the community and Member Bryant agreed that those figures match the school demographic, which is larger than the percentage of families with children. Vice- Chair Balduzzi inquired about the possibility of a diversity board. Assistant Town Administrator Damweber noted that in his experience when government organizations Family Advisory Board – February 13, 2020 – Page 3 take the lead on trying to engage populations that are traditionally harder to reach, they are often not successful. Ideally a community leader who has already built trust would be a better fit. Discussion continued around assumption of the issues facing the Hispanic community, a lack of bilingual staff at critical organizations such as the Estes Park Housing Authority and the elementary school, and concerns about communicating important information, including the 2020 Census in a way that reaches this part of the community. Assistant Town Administrator Damweber added that he had success with a translation device called Travis. Trustee Norris suggests that the Library, School, and Town staff collaborate to launch a pilot program and see if it would be a good fit. Regarding the emerging theme of children from the homework assignment, it was determined that the greatest need is infant/toddler childcare. The board discussed the role of the Family Advisory Board and what level of Town involvement might exist, as well as how to influence the budget. Further discussion took place around the impact of home providers and whether stabilizing that segment of childcare could help. Member DeLorme added that the challenges are not unique to Estes Park, as this is a national issue at the moment. The number of licensed home providers are dwindling and the licensing process is a contributing factor. There is a lack of motivation to go through the process when unlicensed providers can have four children in their home facility, but licensing only permits adding two more. Colorado has some of the most stringent licensing requirements in the nation. On the topic of advocacy, Trustee Norris added that a few times a year, state representatives will visit Estes Park. He recommends trying to put together a forum through the Town Board, or at a minimum attending any events that they have and getting to know their staff members. Member Balduzzi expressed concern over statements that the Town is aware of the issues around housing and childcare, but has not acted. Member DeLorme echoed these concerns specifically over the recommendations made by the Childcare and Housing Task Force. Trustee Norris explained that those recommendations came after the 2020 budget had been approved and pointed out the ways in which the Town has begun to take action through the strategic plan, but stressed that the Family Advisory Board is the mechanism for making those recommendations to the Town Board. Chair Dale Marshall expressed concern over the lack of voting representation with such a small boundary for Town limits. She asked if the topic of annexation could be explored. Discussion took place on tax implications. Executive Assistant Simpson will send information to the board on the tax implications that exist for annexing residents outside of Town limits. Due to time constraints, the exercise was paused until next month’s meeting. Family Advisory Board – February 13, 2020 – Page 4 Trustee Norris encouraged the board to tie the results to the strategic plan. Member Bryant added that he was struggling with defining family in terms of this exercise, as the issues brought up impact the entire community – what is the Family Advisory Board concern versus overall community concern? Claire will type up the results gleaned so far and bring them back to the next meeting. Chair Dale Marshall encourages the board to be thinking about solutions for the next meeting. OTHER BUSINESS: Seeing no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:34 p.m. NEXT MEETING The next meeting of the Family Advisory Board will take place Thursday, March 5 at 3:30 p.m. in room 203 at Town Hall. Suzanna Simpson, Recording Secretary