Minutes for OMVNA Steering Committee Meeting: Monday, July 27, 2026
Location: Zoom
The meeting was called to order at 7:30 PM by Robert Cox, Chair.
OMVNA Steering Committee Members Present: Robert Cox, David Lewis, Carola Thompson, Susan Bickford, Jamil Shaikh, Sherril Brennan, Maureen Blando. Leadership Present: Carol Lewis, Jim Whitfield. Others, Including: Shivika Nayyar, Max Hauser; Julia Petersen, Mark Flider, Ray Osburn.
Agenda
Call for additional agenda items, Chair, Robert Cox
-None
Approval of minutes from last meeting, Chair, Robert Cox
-No additions
-Motion to approve minutes – Maureen; Seconded by Jamil; unanimous approval with the exception of Sherrill Brennan who abstained as she was absent.
-Minutes were subsequently posted to OMVNA.org on 8/25/2026.
Confirm the time and place of the next OMVNA Steering Committee meeting(s), Chair, Robert Cox, and Newsletter Editor, Susan Bickford
-Next meeting will be Monday, September 28, 7:30 PM via Zoom
-Note: per later email discussion the start time was proposed to be 7 PM. We need to confirm prior to the next meeting.
-Attendees Julia Petersen and Ray Osburn were welcomed to the meeting.
-Special OMVNA meeting with Economic Vitality Director Amanda Rotella and Director of Community Development, Christian Murdock, is slated for Sept. 14th. Purpose is to discuss the economic vitality of the downtown business district. Attendance of the Steering Committee is recommended but not required. Meeting time is set for 7:30. Should we reconsider that it start at 7 PM if we change regular meeting start times to 7 PM, as per the above?
Formation of Nominating Committee for 2027, Chair, Robert Cox
-Jerry Steach is willing to chair this again this year. The Nominating Committee will l be: Julia Ha, Paul Ananski(sp), and Jerry Steach.
-In the September 28th meeting Jerry will discuss the full slate of candidates.
Campaigning Rules for Ice Cream Social, Chair, Robert Cox
-Saturday, August 22, 1 to 3 PM
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-Most neighborhood associations adopt one of three policies: no campaigning, casual campaigning (no signs or literature but candidates can wear buttons and introduce themselves), full campaigning (candidates have tables with literature). We should adopt one of these or some custom rules.
-As of today there are 8 candidates for City Council, therefore it will be very difficult to support the full campaign mode with a table per candidate.
-Carola mentioned that the CNC funding which we get from the City of Mountain View is not to be used for political purposes.
-Kristin said that there is not room for 8 additional tables as there will be many community tables. She proposed one table at which each candidate can provide their campaign literature.
-Motion to have a single table for all candidates to provide a single flyer with casual campaigning, from Kristin; seconded by Max. Unanimous approval.
-Jamil will notify the City Council candidates of this posture.
-Robert will provide Jamil with a list of the email addresses of each of the candidates.
Council Candidate Forum, Chair, Robert Cox
-Robert Cox cannot lead it this year because he is a candidate. Jerry Steach has offered to organize it.
-Jerry: Looking at dates in October and venues.
Web and Technology Update, Jim Whitfield
-Jim presented slides.
-Emails from Gmail addresses to omvna.org group addresses were bouncing. Had to change forwarding from cPanel to “Email Filter Rules” engine. Jim will file a ticket with FastWebHost to see if they will fix standard forwarding.
-Website editing: Kristin could no longer edit the website. Our theme is twenty-ten, that is, 16 years in obsolesce. Our WordPress version updates automatically for minor releases but did not upgrade to version 7. Jim upgraded to version 7.0.2 both for backward compatibility and to address two major security vulnerabilities.
-Ideally, we would upgrade to a current WordPress theme. But this is not urgent.
-Storage for meeting videos: A Zoom meeting is about 600 MB. Zoom provides 10 GB of storage now. Currently, we have used 4 GB out of the 10 GB. We typically only access 1 or 2 prior meetings. Therefore, we currently have sufficient storage capacity for Zoom. We decided that we would not have a motion to approve storing Zoom videos to Zoom. We will develop a total storage plan and then propose a motion to adopt it.
-Susan needs a policy of what goes where, access, and sharing. Jim thinks a Google Drive for the newsletter storage where OMVNA pays $20 to $100 / year to get the amount of storage that we need.
-Carola: We need specific storage for key documents, financial documents, and for corporate documents. It won’t take up a lot of space. As we can see in a later point, documents have been lost. We need to have a storage policy. We need to identify the
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approved storage location and have an access policy. Jim: We have finance@OMNVA.org which Kristin has been using which we can use for this purpose.
-Susan: We could have 5 or 6 of us who have access to Zoom.
-Jim: I have an action to propose video, newsletter, financial storage and unified logins.
Steering Committee Member/Subcommittee Chair Reports
Chair, Robert Cox
-Running for City Council.
Vice Chair, David Lewis
-Back surgery in two weeks. Should be available on Zoom.
Secretary, Maureen Blando
-Leadership team directory – request for people who have not responded to send Maureen your contact information. Maureen to update the directory and distribute.
-Historically, meeting minutes have been sent to the Steering Committee approximately one week prior to the next meeting. Maureen proposes that she send out the minutes earlier than one week before the next meeting so that people can be reminded of the actions and then again one week before the next meeting. This is agreed upon.
Treasurer, Carola Thompson
-Carola presents confidential financial slides. If you have a need to know, contact Carola.
-CNC grant was approved.
-DOJ filing: We are listed incorrectly with the State. We are currently registered with the state aa a “public benefit corporation” vs a “mutual benefit corporation.” Carola contacted the IRS. They have no record of OMVNA being tax exempt. To fix: Start with the State. The series of steps includes: Board/Member Approval; Amend Articles of Incorporation; and Notify the Attorney General. Then we must file for tax exempt status with the IRS. More detail in Carola’s slides.
-Key documents: The Articles of Incorporation cannot be located. This highlights the need for proper shares storage of key documents.
-Carola will consult with Touria Mobin on next steps and will follow-up with Bruce Karney about whether he has found any documents. Max will contact Manny Ramirez to see if he has any original documents. Jamil: Possibly Ken Rosenberg? Jamil to send Ken’s email address to Carola.
-Carola may end up requesting a copy of our Articles of Incorporation from the State.
Eventors, Kristin Bailey
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-Next major event is the Ice Cream Social on 8/22/26. There will be many community tables. Kristin asks for volunteers for the ICS from the leadership team. No bubble entertainer this year. The Slips will be the band. Will have face painting.
-Jamil is going to invite downtown business owners, etc., to the ICS and offer free ice cream.
Downtown Committee, Jamil Shaikh
-Downtown Committee was on vacation for the summer. Next meeting is Sept. 1.
-World Cup Soccer was a boon to downtown businesses. For the final July 19th game there were over 1,000 people.
-VLUX company on Castro St. on Aug. 11th will show their products. Must register at vlux.usa.com.
-Music on Castro – attendance is growing.
-Jamil met Hacky Sack Champion for 2024 Brian Sherrill, who lives in Mountain View. Possible candidate for a profile in the newsletter.
-Concert on the Plaza, people bring their own chairs. Jamil has seen 300 people in attendance.
-Technology Showcase, July 30th, 11 AM to 3 PM
-Featured panel, AI for Small Business, 4 to 6 PM
Newsletter, Susan Bickford
-Susan previews content for upcoming newsletter. Will include a spot on inviting people to join the Steering Committee.
-Color version of the newsletter is popular.
-Susan and Maureen to discuss InDesign and Canva offline.
-The October Election issue will use the USPS EDDM delivery again. This method costs more but reaches more people, important for this Election issue.
-Susan and Jim will discuss Zoom account access along with their storage discussion.
OMVNA CERT, Sherril Brennan
-Have applied for a grant from the City of Mountain View.
-Working on Shakeout, Emergency Preparedness Fair, Sept. 26, 10 AM to Noon at Fairmont Park.
-Continue to run ICSLand activity. Useful for finding holes in the system.
-Four new people have applied to be CERTs. Two were graduates of the April Academy. The other two people learned about CERT from Ray’s article in the newsletter. They will take the September CERT Academy.
-The next and final Academy of 2026 starts September 10th and goes for 5 nights. There is a culminating activity on Saturday, Sept. 26th. CERT Academy is free. Register on EventBrite.
At Large, Melanie Kaye, Shivika Nayyar
-Melanie was not present. Shivika Nayyar was present but had to drop off.
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Historic Preservation, Jerry Steach
-In the Ames building in the 100 block of Castro Street a new business, Kitchen Story, is moving in. Jerry considers this a good sign as it would indicate that the building is going to remain as-is for the foreseeable future.
-The Wellheimer House, the old Chez TJ building: The owner, George, wants to sell it. It is possible that he would sell it for development, therefore, even though it has historic designation eligibility in the state that is no guarantee that it cannot be torn down or moved. One member of Livable Mountain View has proposed that it be moved to the new park at Church and Calderon. But this has not been proposed by the City. Something to watch going forward. Note: Now, after SB79 was approved, there is more flexibility as to what can be done with the Chez TJ property.
Jerry requests that all Subcommittee members and officers email him with their intention to run and or not for the coming year.
Parking, Jamil Shaikh and Carol Lewis
-David Lewis reports that the problem which their neighborhood used to have of people parking on the street and parked illegally, seems to have abated. The reason is not known.
9:30 Meeting is Adjourned, Chair, Robert Cox
Note for reference: The prior meeting was adjourned at 8:52 PM. We need to work to reduce the meeting to 90 minutes.
Minutes submitted by Secretary, Maureen Blando, 8/27/2026
