HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-05-21Dryden Youth Commission
May 21, 2002
Minutes
Present: Penny Green - Brown, Kristen Blackman, Walt Matyjas, Jean Simmons, Colleen Emerick- Daniluk,
Kris Bennett, Nita Baldwin
The meeting was called to order at 7:05 pm. Minutes from April were approved with one typo, correction.
New Member Recruitment Update; Penny has not yet received an official "resignation" letter from Mary;
Kris had called her and will follow up again. Kristen, Jean and Kris had all followed up with several leads
without success. Walt suggested trying to recruit a youth member; our bylaws allow for anyone 16+ to serve,
Kris will contact Mark Varvayanis to make sure the Town would be willing to appoint a youth rep, Penny will
contact Dryden H.S. We can also ask Dave and Carissa for suggestions. Finally, we can ask Leadership
Tompkins graduates (at an upcoming meeting) if there are any Dryden residents who are interested. Kris will
re- submit the press release to local newspapers. Walt's term is up in June but he is willing to serve another.
Town[Village Board Meetings Update: Walt made a brief presentation at the May 8 Town Board meeting.
All Board members already had copies of our 2001 annual report. Walt reminded them of our 2 Town
commission openings and that we expect to have less funding available for 2003. Penny attended the
Village of Dryden board meeting and did a similar update.
Budget Update: Kris reported that there may be a small amount of additional money (likely under $500) for
the current year because of a slight increase from NYS, just recently adopted. No word yet on how big a cut
we should expect for 2003 since the County is just now starting to review County Dept.'s budget reduction
scenarios. We may have to start our process without knowing how much money will be available and will
develop a procedure for deciding who to fund and at what level. We should also plan to keep the Town and
Village Boards informed and ask the Town if they would consider not reducing their share even if the County
share is lower so we would not have to reduce funds to programs quite so much.
Update on CCE & Youth Conservation Corps Summer Plans /Recruitment: Kris had updates from Allen
Green — Still waiting to hear back from the Cayuga Trails Club; V. Dryden wants cemetery work done and
he's pursuing this with the DPW contact; V. Dryden also mentioned the new park and some playground
maintenance. Mark Varvayanis did not return Allen's call; V. Freeville has no projects due to budget
limitations. Hasn't yet connected with the Nature Conservancy but will keep trying. Carissa update — she
has 10 youth applications and will setup joint interviews with IYB soon. Kris also passed out copies of Dave
and Carissa's program reports and an updated CCE budget.
Program Monitoring: Kris attended Dave's Primitive Pursuits open house on 5111 and there was a great
variety of activities (fire starting, spear making and throwing, shelter building, pottery, basket making, hide
stripping. Kids were really enjoying themselves. Approx. 125 people attended. She completed a monitoring
form. No other programs have yet been monitored; we reviewed the sign up list and agreed that this will be
helpful in deciding on funding decisions (and potential cuts) in the fall. Kris will contact After School Skating
coordinator to ask to come to our June meeting for a program presentation. We have heard from all the
other programs since Jan. Kris showed an article in today's Ithaca Journal announcing Lt. Margaret Ryan's
promotion to police administrator and also including good comments about the Police and Community
Program (though no mention of DYC funding!)
Review Goals and Priorities and Update Plan for Soliciting 2003 Program Proposals: We reviewed
forms and press releases used last year. We decided we need to add a sentence stating that we expect less
money to be available and that not all programs may be able to receive funding. We discussed ways we
might prioritize programs to be funded, Strategies included looking at whether alternate funding might be
available, whether the program would be able to operate with less funding (even if it meant serving fewer
kids or charged higher fees), the focus of the program, the results of the monitoring visits. We don't want the
decision to be based solely on numbers of kids. All felt it might be useful to ask programs applying for 2003
funding to submit" what if' scenarios explaining how a funding cut would impact the program. This will likely
be harder for those programs that don't have professional staff working on their budgets but perhaps they
can still give us an idea. Since Colleen will be taking a class that meets Mon. & Tues. we discussed
changing the Sept. meeting to another day so she can attend and participate. (Four members are required
for a quorum.) Kris will poll members in Aug. for their availability and set something up for Sept.
Plan for June Meeting: Kristen will see if we could use the V. Freeville Hall for our June meeting. We'll
continue discussion of programs and priorities after hearing from After School Skating.
Dryden Youth Commission Minutes Page Two May 21, 2002