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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-YB-2015-10-13 October 13, 2015 Meeting Minutes Attendance: George McGonigal, Jason Hecht, Mark Vesci, Zoran Smiljanic, Caitlin Moss and Talyse LaDora Hampton Excused: Dave Warden, Jody Hallett-Harri, William Murphy and Eric Nichols Staff: Liz Vance and Eloise Barrett --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meeting called to order at 6:04 p.m. by Talyse Hampton Introduction of guest, Eloise Barrett who gave a presentation to the board of PSMP. Liz shuffled the agenda because the Common Council Meeting and will be tonight so she will be leaving early to attend this. They can ask questions regarding the budget that was submitted and the focus will be on the capital project that was submitted that was not approved. This is the Phase 2, year 1 of the rink renovation. A couple of years ago the city approved replacement of the of refrigeration system in the Cass park rink floor and they also approved the following year approval of the rink design and we have been on this steady path of rink improvement. The next phase, Phase 2, Year 1 includes the fixing low ease ceiling (the ceiling that is supposed to be an energy efficient) as the current one has tears in it and is infested with rodents and birds living in it and it is the only thing that keeps water from getting on the actual ice as the roof is leaking and the repairs at this stage are crucial to us to keep things going. As it is right now, staff spends a lot of time cleaning up bird droppings and rodents, keeping things together. This will be the focus of the presentation tonight and in terms of the operating budget the mayors proposed budget includes everything we asked for and so we are very pleased with that and thankful that it’s all in there. There were some questions regarding the Cass Rink renovations, replacement of the low ease ceiling, the lighting and the roof repairing of the leaks, these all combined is causing the rink to fail and causing us to not be efficient with our resources and our staff time and not a very clean environment, this is a constant clean-up of bird poop and unsanitary. One argument that he will make at council George stated that they will ask Town of Ithaca and others to help pay for these services and these facilities. Liz state that people are not going to want to invest, currently the Town of Ithaca does make a contribution towards water front parks and recreation facilities and there is a proposal currently into the county to do the same. We are requesting a contribution from them to help support the water front parks, meaning Stewart Park and Cass Park, rink and pool. This Thursday evening Suki and Liz are going to the county legislature budget meeting to talk about that request. George stated that this is a big ticket item of about 1.2 million dollars. This project is a very big item, which we wouldn’t ask if we didn’t feel like it was important. Cass Park and staff does take care of their structures and their equipment, and allowing it to function well past its recommended lifetime, like the Zamboni and the refrigeration unit and we don’t ask until they cannot wait any longer. Update at the IYB: We have had some staffing changes, Beverly Stokes was a program leader in the YES Program is now the YES Program Coordinator and Mike Smith was with YES program for a little more than 10 years will be transferring into the PSMP program. Both Mike and Eloise are excited about this switch. This opens up two youth program leader positions within the YES Program and will need to be filled. BBBS held the Roll for Kids Sake fundraiser; they had approximately 50-60 attendees and raised about $500. The Winter Brochure just came out and these were passed around for board members. It was asked about the position descriptions, Liz explained that the YES youth program leader positions is a civil service position and there is currently an active list of people who have already taken the test and they will receive a letter from HR to see if there is interest in these positions and there are about three people that are interested, we start from that list first and if that doesn’t work, they will then advertise for these two positions. If you know someone that would be a good fit, please send them to HR Department at City website for more information. We are working from the list currently, but that could change. There was another question presented: Was there a justification of why the capitol project wasn’t approved, the city has a lot of infrastructure that they are currently focused on, for several years now the roads and bridges are taking a hit, the Mayor has been focusing on roads, pot holes and they are also trying to pay down the capitol project debt. Although, Steve Thayer says that interest rate is low right now and they try to keep under a certain percentage of the total budget, they need to stay in a certain tax cap, we don’t want to go over that this year. The governor has put out a pretty big carrot to stay under the tax cap this year. Question was asked if there would be a decision tonight and Liz passed around the email and some information regarding the capital project. We have tried for grants and we had our campers to draw pictures of the camp, it’s a high ticket project and there is a lot of other competing projects. Council members and the mayor are trying to make the best decisions. Eloise Barrett is the Program Coordinator for the Paul Schruers Memorial Program. She handed out some information regarding an overview of what the program is doing and their success rate. Between 2002-2013, the past 11 years, they did a look back at the successes and the number students that graduated and during that time frame, the school district was not successful of closing the achievement gap and being able to get the population of African Americans males and females to graduate and the program is always focusing on closing those achievements gaps and really helping those underrepresent youths being able to achieve success. They do in a variety of ways which will be shown in the slideshow. The handout was a recap of what PSMP does and what you will see in the slideshow. There is also a success story of one of the students in the handout. Eloise then did a slideshow for the board members. Talyse asked Eloise for the history of the program, why it started and how it started. Eloise explained that the program started because Paul Schruers had been a volunteer in the BBBS Program and he was also student at Cornell for pre-med. Paul was inspired by a story he saw on 60 Minutes from Eugene Lange a self -made millionaire who grew up poor in Harlem and was invited back to speak at his former elementary school to a 6th grade class and when he went to give the speech he realized that everything he had there in the speech wasn’t going to make difference to these kids, because of the problems, the obstacles and hindrances they would face in the life and decided he would stop them and he decided to scrap the speech and offer any of them that were able graduate an opportunity to go to college, that he would pay and he made that statement that he quickly discovered that they would need a lot of support. As they progressed and learned as they went along, as they went along he hired social workers, tutors and mentors and having kids for dinner and really created relationships with the kids and the parents and Paul heard this story and this school district had less than 50% graduation rate by the time the students were able to graduate it had went up to 80% because of that offer and his support and Paul talked with BBBS and he wanted to be able to help his little brother to go to college and give his support. Unfortunately, he never got a chance he died in a tragic accident and his family knowing that he that what he wanted to do something, the family called that very same day and set up a scholarship fund to help young people go to college. Initially, it started as donations from the family and others and money was given toward for he fund, that was in 1987 and Eloise started in 1988, so when she got there she started going out seeing the case workers, talking with families, social workers, they didn’t know who was selected. and there was a whole selection process and they was a lot of questions and she started to make a program, and brining families together, we started having dinners, and other activities with the kids and bringing the mentors and volunteers to talk about what issues they were seeing. So from over the years from 1988-now they have developed and progressed into a real program and has grown that offers lots of serves to the young people. The unique thing about this program, besides the fact that we give funds to assistant young people, it that we stick with them, they start with them in 6th grade and stick with them as graduate and beyond, they are eligible for up to 4 years of college, it’s a very small amount of tuition assistance that was given and they quickly learned that so many kids were needing assistance that they couldn’t give out as much as scholarships cause that effected their financial aid and then it developed into each individual basis. This past semester, there were $5,000 was given in assistance and awards to 10 students for 4 graduated in May from 4 year colleges, 3 from IC and 1 graduated from Cornell this year. Their students go all over, a lot are at TC3, some started there and moved on and some IC graduates started there at TC3 and move on. Some go away and then come back, but they try to supply the support they need, they do not receive any additional funding without proof that they are doing their work and they have to maintain at least a 2.3 GPA, the students have to show they are working hard and going to class in order to continue with any financial assistance. This allows everyone to stay in touch and provide the support that is needed. Mike Smith will be joining their program, JD he was second program assistant and was helping and he left in August, to Ohio. Mike will be joining as a Program Assistant in November; right now it is just Amanda and Eloise running the program. Students are referred to the program, through teachers, guidance counselors, DSS, community members, parents, etc., do not recruit or nominate - not always academic struggling, sometimes its behavioral, social, financial or family issues and there is a process, intake process and the student has to show interest in continuing their education. Tutoring provided at afterschool homework club, on Tuesdays and Thursdays they have a homework help after school, the volunteers’ don’t have to look for them, they are in one place right after school. They work on different things such as organizational skills, study skills, they have a Topic Tuesdays, they bring in speakers that talk with the kids and help address issues, mentoring mostly happens in large groups and but there are some small individual community based mentoring that happens. They have program IthacaKids at Cornell, students worth directly with their kids, they meet twice a month at Cornell they provide activity and snacks. Summer program, this year’s trip was to Washington, Congressman Tom Reed had them at his office, gave them a certificate, tour of the capitol, wax museum, Smithsonian, Holocaust Museum and College visits and tours, last year was Harvard, MIT, this year Ithaca College and also have gone to Cornell, Howard and Georgetown. They share the opportunities that are available to them. Some kids are first generation kids and they do not have examples of who has gone on to college, so giving them the opportunity to visit colleges and other places makes it seem more real to them. The vans are a key part of their program as they provide transportation. They have family dinners at the Quaker Meeting House and took care of the food, so less of an expense. They also do community service projects, this year feed the starving children and ringing bells for the Salvation Army during Christmas time. Goal is to get the students to graduation. The fundraising is for trips to raise money to do these trips and they also have applied for grants. Their current graduation rate is 93%, the decade before was 80%, so it is progress. Shadowing for PSMP will be Caitlin Moss – report date TBD. The Minutes from July, 2015 and September, 2015were voted on, Caitlin made the motion all were in favor. Updates: George stated there is a new committee that the Mayor put together to discuss more and new uses for the waterfront in the city, this will affect the IYB indirectly, they will be doing new boat racks in new locations, at least one in Stewart Park and Cass Park and other side of Fall Creek by the golf course. George is on the committee. Dave Warden - Board of Public Works. Excused from meeting; no report Talyse: Friends of the IYB - They finished their fall campaign silent online auction and she wasn’t sure of the results but they should get them at next meeting. Friends are currently working on a liaison between the Board and the Friends group. They are gearing up for their winter donation process where they send out letters to community members for support for programs at the IYB. Jason Hecht did the shadowing for CDP and still needed to do Ithaca Bike Rental. Shadowing reports, the plan was to listen to presentation and then next month report back on the shadowing Jason went to the Dewitt Middle School and talked with Johara Malcom observing homework club which was great and it was suggested that the reports be done when all members are present. Jason will give his report in the near future. Next month the following reports for Monitoring/Shadowing: CDP: Jason Hecht BBBS: Zoran Smiljanic - Monitoring RSS: Bill Murphy Youth Council: Eric Nichols – Monitoring Ithaca Bike Rental: Jason Hecht PSMP Caitlin Moss Jason hopes to do monitoring with the Bike Rental before next meeting. Talyse would like to catch up with Eric and see where things are – maybe have one meeting for just shadow reporting and monitoring. Meeting Adjourned: Next meeting: November 10, 2015 – 6:00 p.m. – Green Room