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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuman Rights and Diversity - 04/12/2007 APPROVED MINUTES EDEN PRAIRIE HUMAN RIGHTS & DIVERSITY COMMISSION THURSDAY,APRIL 12, 2007 7:00 PM, 125 EDEN PRAIRIE CENTER Office of Housing and Human Services COMMISSION MEMBERS: Cari Maguire (chair), Melissa Barra (Vice Chair), Larry Piumbroeck, Jeff Strate, Gerry Beckmann, Daniel Abraira, and Pam Spera STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES: Sandra Moran, Steven Shouts and Thea Terp COMMISSION STAFF: Molly Koivumaki, Staff Liaison Mary Zilka, Recording Secretary I. ROLL CALL Commission members introduced themselves and welcomed new member Daniel Abraira. Chair Maguire called meeting to order at 7:10 pm. Student Representative Thea Terp was absent. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA The agenda was approved by the commission. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM MAY & MARCH MEETINGS Larry Piumbroeck moved to approved meeting minutes from May, Melissa Barra seconded. Minutes are approved. Change the minutes to reflect that Pam Spera also attended the Myron Orfield presentation. Beckmann moved to approve the March 2007 meeting as amended. Strate seconded, minutes approved. IV. NEW BUSINESS V. REPORTS OF STAFF A. HUMAN SERVICES REVIEW COMMITTEE (HSRC) Report from Koivumaki: The Human Services Review Committee did not meet in April. B. BIAS CRIME ACTIVITY STATUS None reported or any updates on the previous crimes told about. Human Rights & Diversity Commission April 12, 2007 Page 2 C. OTHER REPORTS FROM STAFF Molly Koivumaki gave the following report: Commission Presentation to the City Council: City Manager has prepared a schedule for Commissions to make a presentation to the City Council, in keeping with the new protocol he and the Mayor developed several months ago. The Human Rights and Diversity Commission is scheduled to make a report at the June 5, and October 18 Council meetings. The Manager provided the following guidelines: The purpose of the presentation is to update the Council on the matters before the Commission. It should be a broad summary of current issues. It should be kept to five minutes for presentation and five minutes for Q&A. The presentation should be provided jointly by the staff liaison and the commission chair, or another member of the Commission. The presentations cannot exceed ten minutes total with these presentations. Also, they will be on camera on live TV. PROP Director will leave her position on May 15. Nancy Holden, the Director of PROP, informed us that she will be leaving PROP effective May 15, 2007. Nancy has accepted a position with another non-profit. The PROP Board will take action to select a new Director. Affordable Housing Presentation at the City Council Workshop The Mayor has requested a presentation on affordable housing for the April 1711' City Council workshop. Koivumaki and the staff of Housing and Community Services will prepare the presentation. VI. OLD BUSINESS A. HUMAN RIGHTS AWARDS QUALIFICATIONS/CRITERIA Koivumaki reported that she has received four applications for the Human Rights Award. The breakdown is two non-profits, one business, and one individual nomination Maguire asked the commission to please encourage others to nominate people for this award, or nominate someone yourself. Maguire has contacted a few churches and Girl Scout troops and hopefully can get some youth nominations. The commission discussed the qualifications and criteria of choosing a recipient of the award. The commission would appreciate the nominations mailed to them one or two weeks before the decision making meeting. Spera remembered some questions the commissioners had from last years applications. For instance how were the applicants unique? Was their purpose to advance Human Rights and Diversity? Was that the result of something they did? Time commitment? What is their reward for it? Is this your job? Are you volunteering? Did the other volunteers to the same thing? What was the motivation or purpose? Human Rights & Diversity Commission April 12, 2007 Page 3 Koivumaki said she has been questioned by a few people if this is the person's job and they do get paid, but they are doing an exceptional job, can they be recognized? Koivumaki asked people to address that in their application, even though this is there job, this person is exceptional because... Beckmann recommended putting all of the criteria in the information packet for next year. It's not enough to just say look at the Eden Prairie Manifesto. The person needs to know the criteria up front. Spera would like to make sure we don't rule anything out. Maguire said focus on some things, purpose, and impact. The interview process may help with that. Strate said the commission has always awarded deserving people. Melissa Bara said the commission should have a few issues we would like to focus on, to help us narrow our conversation. 1. Purpose 2. Stand out from others 3. Time commitment 4. Other rewards that might have motivated the actions 5. How large of an impact These five actions may help guide our pick. The commission should talk again after this process and discuss how it went this year. VII. REPORTS FROM COMMISSION MEMBERS A. SOUTH HENNEPIN IMMIGRANT SERVICES GROUP (SHISG) Beckmann reported that Allie Turner from the Eden Prairie Hennepin Library gave a report on the Solution Finders DVD. Ms. Turner received a grant from the Hennepin Library Foundation and friends of the Hennepin County Library to make a DVD on Somali Teen programming. Ms. Turner received help from two Somali students of the Phillips Youth TV Stations. Students from Eden Prairie met from November to February each week with these two students from the Phillips program. Khadra Duale helped to get a parent group involved and the final DVD will be around 20 minutes in length and should be available in two months or so. Mohamed and Khadra Duale talked about the Somali Parent Group. They have anywhere from 12 to 25 parents who attend. All these people live in Eden Prairie and have children in the Eden Prairie Schools. This group work on many different issues;how to integrate new students in the schools,parent involvement and awareness of the many programs available to students, educate parents about special education programs, the various needs of special education students, help parents understand more about the Eden Prairie Police and Fire Department, and present community programs and resources in the community. Human Rights & Diversity Commission April 12, 2007 Page 4 Jeanne Zetah, Community Education Director for the Eden Prairie Schools, announced that Myron Orfield presentation will be available to view on April 14, 2007, 9:30 PM on Cable Channel 15. Walid Safwat from the Hennepin Technical Institute said a group in the college is looking into awarding a Human Rights and Diversity Award from the college. I reminded the group there was still time to place nominations for the City Awards. B. ANY COMMISSION MEMBER MAY REPORT Strate spoke to the "Poverty in Suburbs" series the Sun Current has been running in their newspaper. He wrote a letter to the editor asking for these articles to be put together in one document and suggested Koivumaki share these articles with the City Council at the Affordable Housing Update Workshop on April 17, 2007. Strate has two columns ready to go and is planning on writing one more column so they can start being published in the paper. Strate suggested a topic for an article could be about the Don Imus issue. Daniel Abraira is analyzing this and he is not sure if Imus remarks were a mistake. Is he trying to get into satellite radio? Strate reported that Mike Miller and Ahmat Thwat are writing columns. Strate told the commission about a free event on Thursday, April 19"'. The director of the movie Sweet Land is Ali Selim. This is an Oscar level type movie about Norwegian immigrants in MN. Strate was very impressed with Ali Selim who is Egyptian. Strate will send out an email to the commission about this event. Maguire reported that Pam Spera and herself attended the International Festival meeting and she thinks it will be even better than last year. The International School will be taking a bigger part in this festival this year. They had many wonderful ideas. Maguire received a complaint that the bulletin board she put up at the Eden Prairie High School Library was all liberal women, which surprised her as she purposefully tried to avoid including politically polarizing figures in the display. May is Asian American Pacific Islander month which Linda Chung was going to do,but Maguire is willing to take this on. If someone has ideas for May, please let her know. Abraira used to work for the Asian American Pacific Islander Organization and will contact the director and see if he can get some artifacts and history for the display. Do we want to do this again next year at the library? Barra said she likes to repeat the topics,but if something new comes up and someone feels strongly about a particular topic, we could do a window for that. Koivumaki suggested doing a display of the Human Rights Award Winner(s) Wednesday, May 9 is the Annual Board and Commission Banquet. Roy Twilliger is the speaker. Human Rights & Diversity Commission April 12, 2007 Page 5 VII. FUTURE MEETINGS/EVENTS May 10"'will be the next meeting. IX. ADJOURNMENT Meeting is adjourned at 8:30 pm.