Location: Zoom
The meeting was called to order at 7:30 PM.
OMVNA Steering Committee Members Present: Robert Cox, David Lewis, Carola Thompson, Susan Bickford, Jamil Shaikh, Maureen Blando. Leadership Present: Carol Lewis, Jim Whitfield. Others Including: Shivika Nayyar, Max Hauser; Julia Petersen
Call for additional agenda items, Chair, Robert Cox
-None
Approval of minutes from last meeting, Chair, Robert Cox
-Moved: Maureen Blando; Seconded: Carola Thompson; Approved unanimously.
-The minutes have been posted to OMVNA.org.
Confirming the time and place of the next OMVNA Steering Committee meeting(s), Chair, Robert Cox and Newsletter Editor, Susan Bickford
-Next: July 27, 2026, 7:30 PM via Zoom
– Newsletter content due: 7/22/2026; Published Date: 8/5/2026
-Following SC Meeting: September 28, 2026
-Newsletter content due: 9/23/2026; Published Date: 10/7/26
-Beyond these meetings, not scheduled
Steering Committee Member/Subcommittee Chair Reports
Council and OMVNA News 2026 Q2, Chair, Robert Cox
-First 2026 City Council Candidates Announced: Eric Poicon, Silja Paymer, Robert Cox, and Paul Donahue. Three slots will be open. No incumbents are eligible.
-Tomorrow at the City Council meeting there will be a Biodiversity and Urban Forest Plan Study Session. Key goals: to increase the tree canopy to 20.7% for the city by,2030. Adding more trees to parks and around schools, sidewalks, and bike paths is a key goal, and reintroducing key elements of historical habitats within parks and open spaces.
-Tomorrow night Castro Commons is coming to the City Council for a public hearing.
It’s a state density bonus project. 20% affordable housing, 8 stories total, 4 bonus stories, and they will pay a $2 million park in-lieu fee. The city will sell Fairmount Street between Castro and Hope Street to the developer for $4.2 million. Initially planned as rentals for 10 years. They may convert them to condos after 10 years. As this is a state density bonus project, the City has to approve the project if the application is in order.
-Robert attended the Library Board of Trustees Meeting on 4/20/2026. Findings: The Bookmobile will deliver books to residents who cannot physically get to the library; the library has a high school diploma equivalency program; and the library has booths at most City events with arts and crafts activities.
-Robert will ask Melanie Kaye if she still wants to be a part of the Steering Committee as she has missed at least two meetings.
-Arbor Day Celebration, Cuesta Park, 4/25/26. Robert attended. They planted new trees in Cuesta Park and offered a pollinator tour.
Vice Chair, David Lewis
-No report.
Secretary, Maureen Blando-
-Leadership contacts – Maureen will send an email asking leadership who have not provided contact information to do so. An individual may opt out.
-Kristin’s Org Chart is posted in Groups.io Leadership Files.
-Maureen wants to access Zoom participant list. Susan: Selected people should have access to Zoom admin. Susan will ask Jim to help with strategy to add admins to Zoom.
Treasurer, Carola Thompson
-Confidential information is not included in this report. See Carola’s PowerPoint slides for full information.
-CNC reimbursement came through. CNC application for next year is filed.
-For CNC, they will not pay for any political content. Therefore, we have to segregate the printing costs for the newsletters which cover elections, e.g., this fall’s issue.
-Robert’s neighbor, Touria Mobin, had expressed concerns that OMVNA was not filing with the California DOJ. Carola thought that she had resolved this in that OMVNA is a Mutual Benefit corporation and did not have to file. However, OMVNA is registered as a Public Benefit corporation, in which case we to have to fill out a number of forms. Then Touria said, let’s see how OMVNA is registered with the IRS. Carola was not able to locate documents on the IRS filing. At this juncture Max Hauser brought up that Carter Coleman set up OMVNA’s non-profit status with the IRS (approx. 2011). Carola will contact Max to get Carter’s contact information and follow-up with Carter.
-Carola filed the statement of information with the State of California, which must be done every couple of years. Cost: $20.
-Later this week Carola will file the remaining CNC grant expenses.
-Carola to attend CNC dinner later this week and will find out if we got our CNC grant for this upcoming year.
-In the summer the CD will be rolled over.
-Archiving files. Discussion about archiving Carola’s presentations and associated Excel file to groups.io. Is it secure? Also, the IRS docs should be stored in a common share. Jim Whitfield (Web and Technology) should be involved. Carola thinks that Kristin has some thoughts on this and would want to be in the conversation. Max brought up his concerns about security storage of the financial data. Carola, Jim, and Kristin to discuss secure options for file storage. As will be seen below, Susan also has a stake in this storage strategy.
-Zoom, discussion on Zoom security settings, such as AI transcript agents logging in. Jim and Susan to review Zoom security settings.
-Maureen to scan for new/unfamiliar people who join our SC meetings on Zoom and ask them to introduce themselves.
Eventors, Susan Bickford (for Kristin Bailey)
-NAR mixer, great success. Over 120 adults and 14 children. Will be an article in the newsletter.
-Egg crawl was amazing. Tara helped.
-Coming up: Get a Clue, May 17th; Wheels Party, May 30th; Scribble Saturdays, approximately once per month through the summer.
-Ice Cream Social, Saturday, August 22, 1 PM to 3 PM
-Kristin is working on Clubs Corner, where people can have clubs and coordinate them through Eventors.
Will be giving t-shirts and key chains to volunteers.
-Carola: current gear is not selling therefore Kristin will give it away to people who are helping. Then, Kristin will look at other gear or plans along those lines.
-Jamil: Idea re t-shirts, we could have the Steering Committee sign a a t-shirt and date it and then do that for every new Steering Committee, for historical purposes.
-Robert had a meeting recently with the Chamber of Commerce President Peter Katz. Peter asked Robert if he were going to the Celebration of Leaders and the Athena Awards. Robert said, no, nobody invited me. Peter said, you mean, that stuff is not getting posted to OMVNATalk. Robert asks if someone is getting the CoC notices and if so, it would be useful to post it to OMVNATalk. Both Max and Carola said that they are on the email list but per Max, most of the content is “wildly irrelevant to Old Mountain View.” He does forward email which he can determine is pertinent, but for example, never thought that the Athena Awards were. Carola also forwards what she thinks is relevant. She forwarded that Celebration of Leaders email on March 4th. Discussion of to where such emails should be forwarded. Agreed that interesting email should be emailed to the Leadership alias and if Robert Cox thinks it is appropriate he can post to OMVNATalk.
Downtown Committee, Jamil Shaikh
-Castro Street Update: Five artists are painting the big bollards. Also, an artist is painting murals on the old train depot at the Transit Center. Ribbon cutting May 7th.
-Earth Day and World Cup planning.
-Program for façade improvement – City has funds for this, facades and awnings, etc. Ava’s awning – the logo has peeled off. Jamil had tried to talk to Juan but had not caught him in the store.
-SB 969, “EZ”, Entertainment Zone. City is implementing an EZ in a gradual rollout – during certain times alcohol could be sold an consumed within the zone. This is an 18-month pilot, beginning in May 2026.
-Jamil also discussed that at the Transit Center the benches are frequently occupied by un-housed people. He stopped and asked a Sheriff what they planned to do about this. The was no answer.
-The Downtown committee and other committees and advisory bodies are losing a lot of members. Ten committees have openings. They are looking for people, especially business people, to fill these roles.
Newsletter, Susan Bickford
-Susan also has an interest in secure storage. She said, “I’m running out of space on Dropbox. I can probably very affordably upgrade to having 2TB as opposed to 250 gig or something that it is today.” She said that this should also be in the discussion including Jim on secure storage.
-Zoom account: Right now, the owner of the Zoom account is susan.bickford@comcast.net. Susan mentions that we might want to have an alias for people to login to Zoom and to start meetings. Zoom Login is another point to add to the Zoom security discussion, including Jim.
-Susan previewed upcoming articles.
-Susan mentioned that Shivika may want to cycle out of newsletter sales as she has been doing it for 2 to 3 years.
-Also, she, Susan, will likely be in Mountain View for 2 to 3 more years. She would like to have a one-year transition to a new editor. In short, a succession plan should be started. (Note: The newsletter is created in Adobe InDesign, which is professional software. These days people are used to working in much simpler software like Canva.)
OMVNA CERT, Jim Whilfield (for Sherril Brennan)
-CERT leadership is running a tabletop activity called ICSLand. ICS stands for Incident Command System. They have run it 5-6 times, have done fine-tuning, and are getting a good feeling for how they would run the ICS in an emergency.
-The City just finished one of their CERT Academies. There were 13 participants, 6 from Old Mountain View. OMNVA CERT will have a Meet & Greet for those new folks and invite them to join OMVNA CERT.
-Old domain. Jim has been working with Kirstin on the omnacert.org domain, which Jim had stopped paying for because it wasn’t being used. It turns out that this old domain was still in some documentation, so they have been scrubbing that. The email address, cert@omvna.org, goes to Jim.
-There are 30-40 OMVNA CERT members on the roster. On a good month, 12 check-in by radio. Jim says that in the case of emergency it is likely that more than 12 people will step-up.
At Large, Melanie Kaye – not present
At Large, Shivika Nayyar – present, no report
Historic Preservation, Jerry Steach – not present, no report
Parking, Jamil Shaikh and Carol Lewis
-City is cleaning the parking decks.
-No replacement for Lot 12 where affordable housing is being developed.
Web and Technology, Jim Whitfield
-Jim is up and running. Email him at tech@omvna.org.
-Jim has started working with Susan on storage.
-A major goal is to establish secure storage for all users, including newsletter, finance, marketing, etc.
Recap of Key Actions
- Send email asking for contact information – Maureen
- Zoom strategy – admins, security settings – Susan & Jim
- Contact Carter re non-profit IRS filing – Carola
- Secure storage strategy – Jim, Susan, Kristin, Carola
8:52 PM Meeting adjourned, Robert Cox
Minutes submitted by Secretary, Maureen Blando, 7/27/2026
