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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSeptember 281 Town of Los Altos Hills Community Relations Committee Meeting Minutes Tuesday, September 28, 2021 Council Chambers 1. Roll Call; Committee Membership The regular meeting was called to order at 7:06 PM, by chairman Roy Woolsey. Present: Members, April Anair, Rajiv Bhateja, Maddie Cheng, Lana Einschlag, Karen Emerzian, Lew Jamison, Roy Woolsey. Associate member, Ron Knapp. Council Liaison, Lisa Schmidt. 2. Introduction of Members of the Public; Public Comment. Annie Ju, a prospective Committee member. 3. Committee Members and Officers Roy Woolsey announced that since our last Committee meeting, the Council approved our recommendation to increase the size of the Committee from five to seven full members, and then the Council appointed April Anair and Lew Jamison to the Committee. Committee members welcomed April and Lew to the Committee. Lew Jamison volunteered to be Committee chair and Rajiv Bhateja to be vice chair for the 2021-2022 year. Karen Emerzian moved, Lana Einschlag seconded and the Committee unanimously agreed to appoint Lew Jamison as chairman and Rajiv Bhateja as vice chairman. The Committee will continue to solicit a secretary. 4. Review and Approval of Prior Committee Meeting Minutes A motion was made by Rajiv Bhateja, seconded by April Anair, and passed unanimously to approve the minutes of the last meeting, as distributed in draft form. 5. Review of Prior City Council Meetings and Fire Task Force Council Liaison Lisa Schmidt briefed the Committee on key issues from the last two Council meetings. Lisa discussed the LAH Community Fiber that was the subject of a working meeting/study session in August. In the last Council meeting, there was discussion about trees on public right of ways and on private land. The Council spent considerable effort on selection of a city manager, with an announcement forthcoming shortly. There had been some thought of organizing a community event this year around the fire goats. The consensus of the Committee was that it would be good to arrange some event around the fire goats next year. Roy Woolsey will advise Chris Knopf that the Committee would be interested in such an event. 6. Committee Support for LAHCFD Fire Fair, October 23 Council Liaison Lisa Schmidt discussed the LAHCFD Fire Fair, which will be held at Town Hall from 10 AM to 3 PM on Saturday, October 23, 2021. Victoria Bebee, who runs the CERT program, is in charge. The event will have speakers, information on fire preparedness, and a costume contest for the kids. Organization for the event is complete, but some “happy faces” are needed to help out at the event. Lisa would like greeters, people to organize costume contest. April Anair, Lana Einschlag, Maddie Cheng volunteered to help. Rajiv Bhateja can help for part of the time and Ron Knapp will advise if he is available to help. 7. Report on Recent Town Activities. The Hoe Down was the most significant recent Town event. 8. Welcoming of New Town Residents 2 Roy Woolsey reported that since our meeting two months ago files for new resident welcoming letter mailing labels were sent to Town Hall for mailing the welcoming letter from Council to the 20 new residents in Town for July and the 18 new residents for August, and for mailing the follow-up letter from the Committee to the 18 new residents for May and 19 new residents for June. 9. TEDx Program Status and Discussion Medha Rishi reported on the status of the TEDx event. Her TEDx event application is under consideration for approval. She held a volunteer recruitment call a couple months ago, and found modest resident interest in helping organize the TEDx event. She needs to recruit more volunteers, and might have meeting of interested volunteers next month. The consensus of the Committee was that Medha should write article for the December Town newsletter, and submit it to Alex Atkins, who volunteered to help with TEDx, by October 4, 2021. 10. Los Altos Hills Classic Car Show While the Committee agreed that the Classic Car show was a nice event, there was extensive discussion of the issue of policing attendance at the event, because many non-residents had to be turned away, which was very uncomfortable for those handling registration; our Committee members should not have to police attendance. The problem arose because the event received so much publicity, and many car show exhibitors invited non-resident friends. The consensus of the Committee was that if this kind of event is held in the future, the policy should probably be to let everyone in, but have wrist bands for residents to get free beverages. Roy Woolsey circulated a draft event report that he had prepared from contributions by several Committee members. Lew Jamison offered to edit the report to emphasize handling of attendance and policing issues at any future event; then the draft report will be further considered in the next Committee meeting. 11. Committee Report to Council Roy Woolsey announced that the City Clerk has our Committee on the calendar to give its annual report to Council, a six to eight minute report with appropriate slides, at the Council meeting at 6 PM on October 21, 2021. Roy circulated a draft of the slides for the report. Lisa recommends give examples of things the Committee does, rather than just a list. The consensus of the Committee was that the report was good; Lew Jamison and Roy Woolsey will give the presentation and will jointly work out who presents which slides. Lisa Schmidt reported that the Town will probably conduct a Town survey once a new city manager in place. Committee could take lead on designing what might be an opt-in e-mail survey. 12. “Our Town” Newsletter Roy noted the nice seven page article in the last “Our Town” issue on wildfire preparedness. The “Our Town” issue was 16 pages, longer than the usual 12 pages, to accommodate this lengthy article. Regarding Committee contributions to the Newsletter, in addition to Medha’s TEDx article the Committee might consider a questionnaire in a future newsletter. 13. Additional Items or Contributions from Committee Members. None 14. Date for Next Meeting and Adjournment The Committee agreed to meet next on Tuesday October 26, 2021, at 7 PM. Lisa Schmidt would have to call in and suggested a hybrid meeting. Lew Jamison moved, Rajiv Bhateja seconded and the Committee unanimously agreed to adjourn at 8:16 PM. Minutes prepared by Roy Woolsey, September 29, 2021.