Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuman Rights and Diversity - 05/11/1999 APPROVED MINUTES EDEN PRAIRIE HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIVERSITY COMMISSION TUESDAY, MAY 11, 1999 7:00 PM, CITY CENTER Prairie Rooms A & B 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS: Brad Behrends,Harry Moran, Vicki Pellar-Price, Darryl Stanton, Gloria Winans, and Munna Yasiri YOUTH REPRESENTATIVES: Jennifer Johnson and Sopanha Te CITY COUNCIL STAFF: Michael Barone, Supv. Personnel/Payroll, and Jan Nelson, Recording Secretary I. ROLL CALL Winans called the meeting to order at 7:05 PM. Behrends, Yasiri and Te were absent. Stanton arrived late. Due to the lack of a quorum, Winans said the first item would be the discussion with Tria Mann (item V. B.) V. NEW BUSINESS B. Discussion/update with Tria Mann,Arts & Special Events Coordinator, on the `DiversCity on the Prairie' event planned for August 15, 1999 Mann said the event will be held Sunday, August 15 from 4:00 to 8:00 PM and will wrap up the summer concert series. She reviewed the entertainment planned for the event including the Tahitia Collins and Crew group and the American Artform Dance group. She is looking for a group to provide religious entertainment and possibly a Russian group. She said Paul deMoke, a deaf juggler comedian, will perform between acts and provide roving entertainment up top. They are also trying to provide more activities up-top such as a Sri Lankan hand painter, story teller, an art activity tent, face painter and balloon artist. Stanton arrived at 7:15 PM. Mann said they are trying to get the Outback Steakhouse as a food vendor and have a goal of five or six restaurants for the event. There will be a flat fee for those food vendors participating so there will not be a need to sell tickets. Winans HUMAN RIGHTS &DIVERSITY COMMISSION MINUTES May 11, 1999 Page 2 said she would definitely like to have Famous Dave's as one of the vendors, and she agreed to pursue the contact for that vendor. Stanton asked what the budget is for the event. Mann said it is funded through the Staring Lake concert series, and they have set aside about$2,000 for the DiversCity event. Winans noted the Commission members' role would be in the information tent and to provide visibility. She asked if the Mayor is doing the opening. Mann said she would ask her the first part of June. Barone noted the Youth Representatives had suggested a local rock band as one of the entertainment options. Johnson will get a phone number for the band. Mann said they are working with SouthWest Metro to provide transportation for certain concerts and have prioritized this as their Number 1 event for that service. They may also be able to park in the Flying Cloud lot for this event. Pellar-Price noted the parking has not been as much of a problem for this event, but it could be a problem if the attendance is high. Mann said they work with the Police Department and will have a direct link to them this year. Winans thanked Mann for her time. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Winans added item IV.F. Report on School District Annual Partnership Breakfast and item V. D. Request from Baha'i Community of Eden Prairie. MOTION: Pellar-Price moved, seconded by Stanton, to approve the Agenda as published and amended. Motion carried 4-0. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES FOR APRIL 28, 1999 MEETING MOTION: Pellar-Price moved, seconded by Moran, to approve as published the Minutes of the April 28, 1999 meeting. Motion carried 4-0. IV. OLD BUSINESS A. Report on South Hennepin Immigration Forum held April 28, 1999 No report. B. Report on April 20 City Council presentations and April 22 luncheon for Human Rights Awards and Youth Scholarship award and process debrief HUMAN RIGHTS &DIVERSITY COMMISSION MINUTES May 11, 1999 Page 3 Commissioners viewed a portion of the videotape made of the City Council presentation. Winans said we would provide a copy of the tape to the participants. Barone noted there was newspaper coverage the week of the event and again the following week. Pellar-Price thought we need to work the preparation more in order to get more participants. Barone said he has talked to some people about this, and they have suggested we try to identify people in the community and then send out Commission members to visit them and encourage their participation. Pellar-Price asked what we could do on the school level to get more participation in the Youth Scholarship Award since we had only two candidates this year. Barone thought we could go the same way on that issue and pursue such groups as youth clubs in the churches,personal contacts in churches and other groups. Moran noted the Rotary Club gave out four scholarships to seniors that wanted to work with the club. Ten started the program and only six finished, and the only criteria was to attend their monthly meetings. He wasn't sure what we could do to motivate kids to participate. Winans thought we need to clear some of our work so that we can spend extra time promoting the Awards. She thought we could cut down on meeting time and increase the work on things like this. We should look at such promotional work as service as well as attendance at meetings. Stanton thought we could make contacts with those that would appreciate the money and target individuals who might need it. Pellar-Price thought the luncheon was much nicer than last year and it seemed more involved and intimate. Moran thought the luncheon was very nice, and it gave us a chance to talk to people and introduce ourselves. Everyone had the same agenda. Winans agreed that having one focus helped. She thought expanding it to four categories makes it work. She thought we should have the award recipients identify people to be invited to the luncheon. She said she was at the table with the Superintendent of Schools and the Youth Scholarship winner, and they felt the school principal should have been there. Barone said this year we were prevented from having it on site at the City Center, and it was more costly to have it at Olympic Hills. Next year we will be able to have it downstairs at the City Center, so we will have more capacity. HUMAN RIGHTS &DIVERSITY COMMISSION MINUTES May 11, 1999 Page 4 Winans noted they allowed one recipient to make comments because he asked. She also would have liked Moran to be able to sit at the NITS table, as he is part of that organization and could sit with his colleagues. Barone said they placed Commission members around all the available tables. C. Report on Senior Awareness Week event sponsored by HRDC on May 8 Pellar-Price said we sponsored an event at the Eden Prairie Library on Saturday, May 8, in conjunction with the Senior Outreach workers. There were five participants, three panel experts, Winans and herself. She thought the session was very informative, and we had a table with excellent informational brochures. She noted that Sandy Werts is talking about consolidating some of the events because the Senior Expo duplicated a lot of the information at our event. Winans said both events were targeting baby boomers. She thought many in that age group are helping friends in their roles of supporting parents if not actually helping with their own parents. She thought the event became almost a support group discussion, and we got good visibility from the event. D. Amendment of Commission By-Laws for Quorum through September 1999 Winans said we will have to put this on June's agenda because we need one more member present to vote. Stanton asked if we could get a proxy vote for this amendment. Barone will check on that. E. Reminder of Youth Scholarship presentation at EPHS Awards ceremony on May 27 Winans, Pellar-Price and Johnson will attend the event. F. Report on School District Annual Partnership Breakfast Winans and Pellar-Price attended the event that was held in the Community Education area of City Hall. Winans said the topic was the changing demographics of Eden Prairie. The School Superintendent and the City Manager each had ten minutes to rush through their presentations. She thought that did not give either of them much of a chance to explain the topic. She thought Bette Anderson's presentation about seniors was very good. Barone said he heard similar comments on his end. He said they weren't able to get into anything because there were too many people that had to speak. V. NEW BUSINESS HUMAN RIGHTS &DIVERSITY COMMISSION MINUTES May 11, 1999 Page 5 A. Review of Human Rights Award and Youth Scholarship Award for 1999- 2000 Barone asked Commissioners for their thoughts on any ways to change the process and planning. Moran asked if we could do more with the school newspaper to promote the event. Johnson thought there is not a lot we can do except to make ourselves more available to the student population. She believes students assume they don't do anything for Human Rights. Winans noted that it would be great if the Student Diversity Fair were held in November in order to encourage applicants for the scholarship. Stanton thought we might try to educate youth on what Human Rights is and we could provide the Student Representatives with materials to disseminate. Moran thought there are clubs that we could present to. Winans noted we revised the materials last year so those will be in place for next year. Barone said we could just change the dates on it. Johnson thought we should go into the Global Insights classes because they have to do service as part of that class. We could hand out applications in that class. Barone thought we could set dates for this award at the June or July meeting and start publicizing the award from the beginning of the school year. C. Discussion of the `Information Packet' from HRDC Pellar-Price reviewed some of the materials she received from various groups. Winans thought we might have to add different components if the materials are not available. We still have work to do on some of the pieces. She asked what the next step is in gathering this information. Barone thought we could form a subcommittee or work as a whole at one of the optional meetings. Moran noted there is a web site that has diversity information on schools. Stanton agreed to retrieve the information and bring it to the next meeting. Winans suggested we set aside the July 13th meeting to work on the packet and have no other items scheduled on the agenda for that night. HUMAN RIGHTS &DIVERSITY COMMISSION MINUTES May 11, 1999 Page 6 D. Request from Baha'i Community of Eden Prairie Winans said the agenda for this group is racial unity. They have an event scheduled for June 8 that we have been asked to support. It is planned to be an event of family gathering to celebrate various cultures. She noted that is the date of our June Commission meeting. Moran asked how they want us to participate. Winans said they just want manpower to help with the promotion and the actual event. She was concerned that if the Commission sponsors the event, we would be setting a precedent for involvement with religious groups; however, we could have individual participation. She plans to attend the June 8th event, so there would need to be an alternate chosen to Chair the Commission meeting. Barone suggested using the June 22nd optional date as the regular meeting date. The consensus was to have participation in the Baha'i event on an individual basis, rather than the Commission sponsoring the event. The regular Commission meeting will be held on June 22 with the optional workshop moved to June 8. E. Other Items None. VI. REPORTS OF COMMISSION MEMBERS A. Housing, Transportation & Human Services: Brad Behrends No report. B. League of Human Rights Commissions: Gloria Winans Winans said they had their event in Golden Valley recently. The next meeting will be May 22nd. She again noted the commission needs to find someone to replace her as the Commission Representative to this group. C. Report of Youth Representatives: Jennifer Johnson & Sopanha Te Johnson noted that the article that appeared in the Star Tribune regarding the stereotype of Eden Prairie upset many of the students. She said three of their responses were printed in the paper a couple of days after the original article appeared. She did not think it is an accurate stereotype of suburbia. Barone noted Police Chief Clark brought it to his attention. He heard that the School Superintendent was not happy about it. HUMAN RIGHTS &DIVERSITY COMMISSION MINUTES May 11, 1999 Page 7 Winans asked if we should respond to the students as the Human Rights Commission. Johnson thought perhaps a letter to the school newspaper or some kind of letter to the High School might be appropriate. Stanton asked if we would address the issues of the stereotypes involved. Barone said he would like to present something to the Mayor and the City Manager before we present it because of being representatives of the city. Winans said her thought was that we try to support our students here in Eden Prairie by letting them know the Commission views them as good students. Stanton thought our award speaks to that and, while he disagreed with the writer's stereotypes,he did agree with the last sentence of the article. The consensus was to not respond. Johnson agreed to bring a copy of the students' responses that were published in the Star Tribune to the next meeting. D. Quarterly Report - Pride Institute: Munna Yasiri No report. VII. REPORTS OF STAFF A. Activity Status No report. VIII. FUTURE AGENDAS/EVENTS Winans said there would not be an optional workshop meeting this month. She asked Johnson to resubmit her application to be a Student Representative on the Commission for next year. Johnson noted there was a Senior Class Manifesto addressing the cliques at Eden Prairie High. She thought that might be something the Commission would want to look at. Winans asked her to call Barone to put it on the agenda. Winans asked if the nameplates had been ordered for the Award Plaques. Barone said he is working on that. May 27, 1999 7:00 PM EPHS Awards ceremony-presentation of YSA to Diane Nguyen June 8, 1999 7:00 - 9:00 PM Optional HRDC Workshop June 22, 1999 7:00 - 9:00 PM HRDC Regular Meeting HUMAN RIGHTS &DIVERSITY COMMISSION MINUTES May 11, 1999 Page 8 July 13, 1999 7:00 - 9:00 PM HRDC Regular Meeting July 27, 1999 7:00 - 9:00 PM Optional HRDC Workshop