Item 1 - February 20, 2024 Draft Minutes — original pdf

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ASIAN AMERICAN QUALITY-OF-LIFE ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES 02.20.2024 ASIAN AMERICAN QUALITY-OF-LIFE ADVISORY COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MINUTES FEBRUARY 20th, 2024 The ASIAN AMERICAN QUALITY-OF-LIFE ADVISORY COMMISSION convened a SPECIAL meeting on TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20th, 2024, in the Boards and Commissions Room #1101 in City Hall (301 W. 2nd Street, Austin, Texas 78701). Chair HANNA HUANG called the ASIAN AMERICAN QUALITY-OF-LIFE ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING to order at 6:11 pm CST. Commissioners in Attendance: Hanna Huang (Chair) Kuo Yang Padmini Jambulapati Commissioners in Attendance Remotely: Sarah Chen (Vice-Chair) Seonhye “Sonny” Sin Pierre Nguyen Sabrina Sha Nayer Sikder Mohsin Lari Commissioners Absent: Lily Trieu Anna Lan Satyajeet Dodia Zahra Shakur Jamal-Hassan Staff in Attendance: Alejandra Mireles – Community Services Program Coordinator, Equity Office Eric Anderson – Program Coordinator, Office of City Clerk CALL TO ORDER PUBLIC COMMUNICATION: GENERAL 1 ASIAN AMERICAN QUALITY-OF-LIFE ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES 02.20.2024 The first ten speakers signed up prior to the meeting being called to order will each be allowed a three-minute allotment to address their concerns regarding items not posted on the agenda. a. Sergio Torres, Food and Resilience Coordinator, Office of Sustainability: follow up from 2021 food plan; start the process of compiling all the content from over the past two years which has included 21 workshops and 2,000 people. The office is creating a draft plan which should be ready for review and feedback from March 18-april 18. Love to hear from the Commission during a presentation or workgroup for feedback to the draft food plan in a future meeting. There will also be an online survey and an online review meeting on April 3 via zoom. APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1. Discussion and possible action to approve the minutes of the COMMISSION’s SPECIAL MEETING on JANUARY 30th, 2024. The JANUARY 30th, 2024, the minutes were approved on COMMISSIONER SARAH CHEN’s motion, COMMISSIONER SONNY SIN’s second on a 9-0 vote. (Absent: Commissioner Lily Trieu, Anna Lan, Satyajeet Dodia, and Zahra Shakur Jamal-Hassan.) STAFF BRIEFINGS 2. Brie Franco, Intergovernmental Affairs Officer, 2023 Legislative Update. COMMISSIONER SARAH CHEN asks what the efforts were to deflect AE bills. Answer, to mitigate taking away from those investors into the AE (the city) to get the return (go back to the budget). COMMISSIONER HANNA HUANG asks between now and the next sessions, what can the Commission do to help the work in the city. Answer, given some of the Commission’s priorities, find advocates outside of Austin and from outside the state (example of SB17) to support commission efforts. Don’t take for granted that we don’t hear from the delegates and connect with organizations to share the information and advocacy. COMMISSIONER KUA YANG asks about SB147 (purchasing restricting bills) which did not pass, COMMISSIONER HANG answers with an overview, explaining that the bill made it out of the house and not through the senate. Staff briefing regarding updating the 2012 Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan. Presented by April Geruso, Planning Department. Planning department which is overseeing comprehensive planning team presents. COMMISSIONER HANNA HUANG asks how the historic preservation plan will be integrated with the imagine Austin plan; answer is working with team who conducted the historic preservation plan to ensure that the outcomes from the engagement and the goals will be incorporated into the Updated Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan. COMMISSIONER HUANG asks what the timeline for commitment is; answer 3-5 hours a quarter and through the adoption of the update, 2026 (which may be a couple of different people depending on the role). 2 3. ASIAN AMERICAN QUALITY-OF-LIFE ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES 02.20.2024 COMMISSIONER HUANG asks for a nomination for participation. COMMISSIONER SONNY SIN shares she would like to volunteer and inquires as to a possible conflict of interest; answer there would not be a conflict of interest in providing feedback in the public engagement process. COMMISSIONER HUANG suggests the consideration as a Joint Inclusion Committee Commissioner and a quorum and COMMISSIONER SIN agrees. COMMISSIONER HUANG suggests that COMMISSIONER ANNA LAN, who is not present at the meeting may be interested. COMMISSIONER HUANG asks if there are any other Commissioners interested and then moves on to the next item. DISCUSSION ITEMS 4. Asian Desi Pacific Islander American Collective, presentation on financial needs for graduation ceremony, due to losing funding after Senate Bill 17. Rachel Joseph and Aneesha Kandiokonda from ADPAC present to the commission to the impact of SB17 has on the organization and UT student community. Although the organization continues to have advisors, they do not have funding for their annual graduation ceremony after SB17 went into place. 11,000 students are connected with the consolidated network of AAPI. The students are joining efforts from other agencies and using resources like GofundMe and the TexasExs Organization. The students share that they are presenting to the Commission to ask for funding for their graduation event that will occur at the end of April. COMMISSIONER HANNA HUANG shares that she has great memories from participating in community in college and asks if the $8,000 is just for the graduation; answer, the majority of that is for graduation (using budgets from previous years) and the remainer of it is a good chunk for the internships. Follow up question, do you have a place booked? Answer, as of right now, we have a less ideal location and temporary one reserved. The previous event was a reception, with 3 performances from campuses; two main speakers with a student speaker; and then family pictures. Follow up question, are families invited? Answer, family is a pillar of the community and family is included in the celebrations. Follow up, there could be a city wide graduation day, under a proclamation, for the city of Austin for the beginning of May so that it could align with schools. COMMISSIONER HUANG asks if there are any commissioners who would like to support during this process and COMMISSIONER PIERRE NGUYEN volunteers to be the main contact. Follow up question from COMMISSIONER SONNY SIN, asks if the students have reached out to any Asian American owned businesses; Rachel was able to get 350 business to get sponsorship emails; although they were not able to donate money (they were able to give food, gift certificates). In closing, COMMISISONER HUANG suggests that the group reach out to the state for a similar proclamation. Discussion of City Manager’s Office leadership vacancies and hiring of those positions. COMMISSIONERS HANNA HUANG, SONNY SIN, and PADMINI JAMBULAPATI share that they have been working on a recommendation, there was a communication from the mayor’s office to city council about the city manager position; applications closed on February 12th, and they are finishing up the 3 5. ASIAN AMERICAN QUALITY-OF-LIFE ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES 02.20.2024 reviewing process. COMMISSIONER PIERRE NGUYEN asks how many executive leadership positions are vacant in the City; answer, hesitant to say – however five went from interim to permanent. COMMISSIONER HUANG shares that the concern is that there is one interim person above three offices (equity, civil rights, and small business). DISCUSSION AND ACTION ITEMS 6. Select an Asian American Quality of Life Advisory Commission member to represent the Commission to support the development and implementation of the Imagine Austin comprehensive engagement process. No action at this time. Approve a recommendation for Transparent Hiring in Executive Leadership. Recommendation PASSES on COMMISSIONER HANNA HUANG’s Motion and COMMISSIONER PIERRE NGUYEN’s Second on a 9-0 vote (Absent: Commissioners Lily Trieu, Anna Lan, Satyajeet Dodia, and Zahra Shakur Jamal- Hassan). Discussion of working group assignments and approve updates to the membership of the Budget working group and Asian American Resource Center (AARC) working group. COMMISSIONER PADMINI JAMBULAPATI is added to the Budget Workgroup. WORKING GROUP/COMMITTEE UPDATES 9. 10. Budget Workgroup (Commissioners Sarah Chen, Hanna Huang, Sabrina Sha, Mohsin Lari, Pierre Nguyen, and Sonny Sin) – Updates on the FY25 Budget Recommendation Process. COMMISSIONER HANNA HUANG shares the meeting notes and Commissioner SARAH CHEN Doodle Poll for March 2nd-10th. Asian American Resource Center (AARC) Workgroup (Commissioners Hanna Huang, Kuo Yang, Lily Trieu, Anna Lan, Satyajeet Dodia, Kirk Yoshida and Vincent Cobalis) – Updates and discussion on Phase II, staffing and budget, friends of AARC group development. The workgroup met twice; staffing and action plans for the pavilion; with budget recommendation discussion; specifically for stability for the front desk support AARC, not necessarily just through a FTE; part time, or temp). Other issues include language access and temp for senior programs; Interest in exploring for parks to be in more available; set funding for the signature AARC programs. PARD hears from Laura, who shares that concrete actions are now in place to “tighten the budget’s belt.” COMMISSIONER HANNA HUANG asks if this is PARD wide, yes; we could plan for a smaller budget next year; the cuts come from programming dollars and not from staff; Laura, came in today to express their retirement after 17 years of service and shares that if the 4 7. 8. ASIAN AMERICAN QUALITY-OF-LIFE ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES 02.20.2024 11. Commission digs a little deeper, any cuts to the PARD department, will disproportionately impact the AAPI community. No other questions. Joint Inclusion Committee (Commissioner Sonny Sin as primary representative and Commissioner Nayer Sikder as alternate representative) - Updates from January JIC meeting on initiatives such as the Housing workshop and Commission Budget Recommendations to bring forth to JIC. COMMISSIONER HANNA HUANG shares that she attended the last JIC meeting and a lot of the same topic on vacancies; update on possible creating an indigenous group and working with the Equity Office. Significant discussion on recommendations to support. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS Workgroup Commissioner for graduation workgroup for a short month? Add Commissioner Jambulapati to budget workgroup? Food sustainability/security workgroup? Watershed staff briefing later this year ADJOURNMENT: 8:04 The minutes were approved at the MARCH 19TH, 2024 meeting on COMMISSIONER __________ motion, COMMISSIONER _______ second on a ____ vote. 5