Minutes of OMVNA Steering Committee meeting, Monday, April 20, 2020, 7:30PM, held electronically (via Zoom).
(To my knowledge, this was the first instance of a “virtual” or electronic gathering of an OMVNA Steering Committee.)
(Thanks to Susan Bickford for both organizing the Zoom details, and managing them during the meeting.)
Present: Regular SC and subcommittee personnel, Aaron Grossman for CERT chair Sherril Brennan; Jerry Steach (attending audio-only, accidentally remained muted through the meeting); several community members: Sam Blewis, Patricia Deem, Noah Goldberg, Judi Harrison, Erik Kaulberg, Phil Ly, the Moraleses, Margaret Urban.
Attendees registered in advance via Zoom, using a link that the Zoom host (Susan Bickford) provided with the advance meeting publicity.
(1) Call to order: Chair David Lewis. Following special preliminaries by S. Bickford to explain format and introduce participants, formal meeting came to order 7:45PM.
(2) Call for additional agenda items: Chair David Lewis. A late addition appears below as (7a).
(3) Approval of minutes from last meeting: Chair David Lewis and Secretary Max Hauser. Moved (Bickford), 2nd (Cox), passed.
(4) Confirming time and place of next OMVNA meeting(s): Chair David Lewis. No changes made to the planned future dates recorded at our previous meeting: July 27 and (more tentatively) Sept 28. Note that this is an election year, with the five-issue Newsletter schedule.
(5) CERT update: CERT vice-chair Aaron Grossman. CERT’s own Steering Committee is meeting monthly (via Google Hangouts). Bob Bakeland (for City of MV) had forwarded to our CERT a statewide query about the prospect of remote “welfare checks” on residents who could benefit from them. This concept is still in development (interested parties were asked to contact Aaron directly).
(6) Changes due to COVID-19:
(6a) Newsletter: What are our criteria for going back to paper? What should our policy be for advertisers? Susan Bickford reprised the two current obstacles to paper publication: Printer firm closed, and manual distribution corps in self-quarantine. Confirmed her proposals sent by email through April 10: Next Newsletter release shifted from end of April to end of May; content duedate May 12, for delivery after May 27. If paper version not viable yet, go digital-only; revisit the paper option for late July / early August per original 2020 schedule. For advertisers (most of whom paid in advance for a full year of printed ads), her proposal is a 50% credit to the extent that their ads appear in electronic editions only. Will draft a letter to advertisers, for our (SC) aproval of such policy.
(6b) Ice Cream Social: Will/Can we have it? Should we do something else? Lorraine Wormald remained doubtful of planning: uncertainty in school schedules that normally drive the scheduling. Therefore, ICS is on hold for now. Play it by ear — perhaps some “virtual event?” A heads-up note about this should go into the Newsletter.
(7) Moving old OMVNAtalk e-mails from the Yahoo Group to groups.io: Chair David Lewis and Secretary Max Hauser. 300+ requests accepted to date on the new list. Old content is archived.
(7a) Report on new OMVNA website under development: Kristin Bailey. Via Zoom, Kristin previewed attractive new homepage layout and explained the “beta” version she has prepared. Need a phase where individuals “owning” content update it through Kristin. Someone will be needed to take on regular updates in future.
(8) Development and ordinance update: Vice Chair Robert Cox. Items in news include planned repurposing of a low-income housing program to rental relief.
(9) Steering Committee/Subcommittee Chair member reports
(a) Chair David Lewis
(b) Vice Chair Robert Cox
(c) Secretary: Max Hauser
(d) Treasurer Larry Rush. Treasury balance $24,129.70
(e) Downtown Committee Jamil Shaikh.
(f) Newsletter Susan Bickford
(g) At Large: Larry Rosenberg and Lorraine Wormald
(h) Historic Preservation: Jerry Steach
(i) Parking: Robert Cox & Jamil Shaikh
Adjournment: Chair David Lewis. Meeting adjourned 8:43PM.
— Max Hauser, OMVNA Secretary.
