9/18/24

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>>  All right good morning, everyone. I am now calling to order the Civic Engagement Commission public meeting welcome everybody including anybody who is online with us, livestream and in the room to participate with us in person. 
I want to thank begin by thanking everyone on the team for helping as I do every time for helping us to get ready for this meeting especially Abby, also a couple of new team members in the room. 
And one of them is Perez the director of public affairs ‑‑ say hello. 
We also have de von Goodman strengthening the data impact work. We have another AmeriCorps worker not here with us ‑‑ sorry if I am messing that up. 
Then, we have Sadie ‑‑ a person with a design expertise who will be working on our online interfaces making them more response Irvine to the users and Sonia who is people have so many expertise so forgive me if I don't you know like include everything but Sonia will be working with us on the participate platform as well so, we are bringing in the programming capacity to work with the open source platform. 
So we are really excited to have and Sonia and Sadie and DeVito are part of a team called the digital equity team. 
So it is going to be how we are interfacing with people online to make it equitable and accessible for New Yorkers. 
So, today, as we all know, we are live streaming a meeting as part of the open meeting guidelines. Anyone here as a member of the public, which I think is it mostly team at this point, but we ask you to please join our mailing list. If you are here online, please go to NYC. Gov/civic engagement to go to the tab called get involved and on the left side of the page, you will be able to sign up for the newsletter. 
Okay. Thanks. 
Okay we have traditionally reserved the last 30 minutes of meeting for people to have public comments, people can comment publicly by signing up through email or they can sign up when they come into the room. 
So we will review that at that point in the last 30 minutes if anyone wants to sign up. In preparation for the meeting getting us started, I wanted to take attendance. As everyone knows, we have to have a quorum of Commissioners here to have a public meeting, so Murad Awawdeh. 
>>  Giovanni. 
>>  Eve Baron. 
>>  Present. 
>>  Holly ‑‑ is Holly online?  Holly Bonner.
>>  Amy Breedlove. 
>>  Natalie DeVito. 
>>  Mark little. 
>>  Here. 
>>  Ishrat ‑‑ 
>>  He is not here ‑‑ 
>>  Lillian Perez. 
>> 
>>  Anastasia Somoza. 
>>
>>  Mitchell Wu. 
>>  Presents.
>>  For the record, I am Dr. Sarah Sayeed one of the Commissioners and also the chair and executive director. Before we get into the meeting, I wanted to note here that Anastasia Somoza stepped down from the commission, and just wanted to let you all know that we really want to thank her for the service that she has provided and the perspective she provided to the commission particularly to help us become more accessible. 
So, we are looking forward to working in city council to a point someone. I was hoping she could be here but just to say thank you in person however I don't think she was able to make it. 
So, okay. We have a lot to cover today, and we are going through the annual report. 
We will up date the Commissioners the what the team has been doing since the last meeting and of course first thing we have to do is approve the minutes from the last meeting. So everyone should have a copy of the minutes, and this should also be available in your folder right?  
So, can I have a. 
>>  Motion to approve the minutes. 
>>  Second. 
>>  Okay. All in favor?  
>>  I. 
>>  Any opposed?  
>>  Okay. The minutes are unanimously approved. 
So, we will move on. 
Then now we are going to move into the annual report. 
So we can start with the deck. 
>>  I wanted to just begin by orienting us to the charter what it asks us to report as you all read the annual report, you know is it like over 70 pages long. So, there is a lot. Part of it is also probably out in the font like if we shrank the font it is smaller but there is a lot we put in there, not everything is required by the charter. So, I will just go through some of the things the charter requires us to report on, then we can begin with the reports. A lot of the things that I put in the slide are you know related to charter requirements as well. 
So, all right. 
The charter reporting requirements, one the report is due at the end of September. 
Right?  We have to submit this report to the mayor and city council and put it on the CDC website. 
As far as what we need to report, from participatory budgeting, we do have to report on the number of people who participated in the program segregated by borough and any other information we collect, we have an exit survey on the back of the ballot so, we have collected data about who the participants are, and we can report on that. Then the projects selected to be recommended by borough, we have to talk about how we are reaching out to the public, recommendations for changes to advance participation and other aspects of the program, and anything else that we think is relevant. 
For poll site and language assistance, we have to of course report on the languages that we are providing services in and the number of people who utilize these interpretation services, disaggregated by poll site, then we can also recommend changes to better serve the needs of the limiting English voters and any other patient related to the poll site program that we think is relevant then community boards, we are asked to report on the number of boards that utilize each category of resources we provide segregated by borough and recommended changes to better serve the needs of the community boards. 
Some of these things are in the annual report, and like for example, we have to disaggregate the language services by poll site. I didn't put the table in the deck ‑‑ it is the annual report. 
So before we start Wendy and a couple of people will come up to present the information, the for the annual report, we have Wendy, a senior strategy programs officer, and Anila and Barbara director of the outreach programs. 
And Wendy and JP, the language access coordinator will help us with the program updates have I want to thank everyone on the team for helping to write the report. There is a lot of information we have to distill into one place and literally pretty much everybody was involved in the writing and certainly everybody was involved in the work so, really great to be involved in all of the collaboration. Thank you so much. 
>>  Great job. 
>>  All right. So, the first section of the slides covers the peoples money. 
So Wendy if you can come up. 
What I will is for everybody presenting on the team, we do have some slides in here that have graphs and such. So then also there is a lot of information. So, if you can please take your time with presenting the information, some of it will be new to Commissioners, and members of the public. 
Then also getting to the graphs and figures if you can just remember to be attentive to the needs of the visually accessible you know people with visual accessibility needs so if you can just say what the graph is that you were talking about that would be helpful. 
>>  Wendy the floor is yours. 
>>  Thank you, Sarah. 
>>  Good morning Commissioners, wonderful to see you all. I am going to walk us through the slides for the participatory budgeting process last year. There are quite a few slides so, bear with me, I will pause throughout to take your questions but feel free to raise your hand if you would like me to answer a question in the moment. 
So for last years process, we implemented the annual implementation of the projects that were selected as part of the first process in addition to adding the second year of the program simultaneously. 
Once again the process is open to all residents 11 and older to vote regardless of the immigration status. 
The allocation for the process last year was 3 and a half million for the vote phase. 
This year, the process included only the borough based ballots. We discontinued TRIE ballots to reduced allocation as well as our recognition that managing both the team operationally as well as for residents was complicated and challenging for us to be managing the ballot processes at the same time. 

The first year projects included 13 borough projects, 3 projects in the Bronx, 4 in Brooklyn, 2 Manhattan 3 Queens, one in Staten Island for total allocation of 3. 35 million. 33 projects in the TRIE neighborhoods had an allocation of 1. 6 million so it is the implementation of the first year pray with 5 million. The focus areas for implementation largest category topic area selected by residents were mental health related, job training, education, 4 food security 3 health and well being housing assistance 3 ‑‑ arts and culture 3, public safety 2, sanitation one and immigration rights one project.

>>  Second year, so, this past year, just to give you an overview before we get into the report for the ballot betting stage or rather our idea generation sessions, the first phase. We had a total of 82 community based partners hosting a total of 441 sessions reaching 9, 250 New Yorkers with average 21 people per session. 
The collective results of the 441 sessions was a submission of 1943 ideas and also, there were residents also had the ability to submit their ideas online. So, we received 209 ideas digitally. 
Then 1738 ‑‑ 
So, based on the feedback we received in the first ground, we did reduce the total time of the workshops from 2 hours to 90 minutes with a budget trivia game, brain storming, completing worksheets. 
We consistently got a lot of great feedback on people really enjoying having the dialogues and discussions with one another. We want to be sure we maintain that and added a new generation framework to develop eligible ideas. The framework helped to increase the total of in eligible ideas submitted by 27%. We still got quite a few ideas capital eligible or the eligibility criteria so, the way we structured conversations reduced the projects in eligible. 
So the last bullet satisfaction surveys ‑‑ each year, we do ensure that our partners share an exit survey so we have the understanding of how folks are experiencing the sessions. We have 3, 349 people responding. 89% found the sessions in formative. 
90 period agree that the voice was heard. 
89% agree or strongly agree they would like to be involved in the process. 
Second the ballot creation. This is where we moved to the vetting of the ideas and what we will put forward on the ballot. Last year, the first year we watched this process of having committees in residency of each borough, 500 applications ‑‑ this year, we have 1500 applications so it is exciting to see the awareness and interest increase in a year. Of the 1500, applicants were randomly selected based on the demographic represent assist of boroughs totaling 107. So, we had 107 committee members broken into committees with the borough process. 

Unanimous feedback. So the opposite of the generation session is people wanted more people. 
That is ‑‑ well we increased the amount of time committees are spending delivering on the projects. So, this year, we increased an additional 2 hours starting with 12 to 14 and the past year, 16 hours. 
TRIE organizations also participated that was a new element of last years process where they became a part of the committees and they were able to come in to share experiences and have conversations with their on the ground experience with organizations and community partners. 
Committees now are down a total of 407 ideas, and chose 46 on the ballot ‑‑ ten in all boroughs except Staten Island that had 6. 
Of the exit survey again, we have folks submit exit surveys. 
So again, we are constantly ensuring we are getting feedback from participating experience. Of the surveys completed by our what we call the committee members, 91 people, 80% felt confident that the recommendations would be implemented. 65% said they found it to be very trust worthy. 
87% say including decisions effecting them is important. 
I will pause there. Does anyone have any questions based on what has been presented so far is it. 
>>  I want to add as a note. I was curious about the 65%, and I asked about the team about it. I Learned that you know, some of the ways that the answers are coming forward have to do with how we frame the question and how the responses are also framed. So, for the particular question, there was a trust worthy and little trust worthy. 
So, there is not like as fine ‑‑ so, I think if we made it a little bit more parallel kind of scale. We have to think about like how are we making the questions standardized across questions?  Because there is pay way that you ask the questions that is on the scale. It could just be agree or disagree. 
You could have a statement that says, I find the Civic Engagement Commission to be trust worthy. Agree strongly disagree to agree. 
There are ways to ask the question. It is important to also in my ideal like we would have the opportunity in terms of like participatory action research to actually talk to people more about like what we are seeing in the findings and explore some of the answers they are giving. That is all for future. Not now. 
But just wanted to throw that out there. 
As likes sharing the data with the people we are working with. 
So, that is my edition. 
>>  So thanks for the exclamation. So, at what point in the process was the question posed to the folks?  Was it in effect after the idea generation sessions?  Or after the voting was complete?  
>>  That is based on the exit survey from the committee members. 
>>  It may change when the results of vote if their project ‑‑ 
>>  Fair point. 
>>  Yeah. I wanted to add that when I about a reading the report, the survey numbers in regard to how many participants is really a high percentage. 
So you have 97 people out of 107. So, I think giving statistically the people responding to the surveys is really useful information because it is quite high because it is over a third out of the 9 thousand. It is a high percentage. Calling that out is useful.

>>  Thank you. Appreciate that. So the response rate for the voting phase is also incredibly high. 
So we are really proud of that and will talk about that in the updates section. 
Okay. 
So, I will go on ‑‑ yes?  
The power point back ‑‑ 
Next slide ‑‑ we brought on the partners. Note 30 of the 84 partners are the TRIE organizations. Last year, we had a total of the organizations at 33. We had 3 with more than one communities. So in some, they had scaled back more in particular 4 neighborhoods that is smaller in population sides overall compared to the other populations. 
So, 54 community organizations outside of the TRIE an chore organizations also helped us to get the vote in the program updates, we will talk about the process but we seek to be sure we have demographics that we have as priorities in the charter and as communities and populations that are if the circle represented, they are included if our voting process as well as geography in making sure we are doing our best across the city, language, and etc. 
In addition, we tried something new, we worked with the library systems to work with the outreach. 
So all 3 branches participated since the beginning so, we tried to think about the best ways to come up with the institutions, a corner stone process. We had a total vote count just shy of 140 thousand that exceeded the target of the process. 
So, that was great news. 
Including 108 thousand + 108, 364 paper ballots and then the digital votes, you will see the process is still heavily paper based. 
We are still exploring ways to increase the digital ballot ‑‑ paper is a way many people feel comfortable, out and about, it is Frankly quicker. 
So s‑ again that is something we will continue to be thinking about. 
By borough, we had 46, 592 votes cast in the Bronx, 96 thousand plan man ‑‑ 46 thousand Brooklyn, 43, 020 Queens so Queens gets the award for the most and 10, 007 Staten Island. 
So the focus of the 20 selected process. So, note there will be 20 projects implemented compared to the 46 last year. 

So we will go through later the funding of the 20 projects in total amount funding the project. 
Health and well being. Again, it is the top category. The projects, education, second, four, job training development for accessibility for public safety, two, one for the arts and culture. 

Moving into that responses for the exit surveys. 
So we have to understands who voted. 
There is a chart on the slide that displays the percentage as the languages that were ballots casted in a variety of languages. 
The highest percent of ballots cast in a language other than English is Spanish at ‑‑ 35 thousand. This is where my eye site. 
>>  It is 21660 ‑‑ 
>>  Oh ‑‑ 31 thousand is the total number of any ballot in another language ‑‑ 21 thousand Spanish then followed by mandarin that looks like 6 thousand. 
Thank you. Thank you everyone. 
There is also a graph that just breaks out again, the distribution of ballots cast by language 77% of ballots in another language than English ‑‑ and 22% point 4 ‑‑ 
>>  Yeah. It is digital versus paper. 
>>  Were cast digitally. 
>>  In terms of age, you will see there is a bar chart that shows the distribution of the population who voted by age according to the results, the group with the highest participation for the age group 35 to 44 is 16% followed by 26 to 34, and 45 to 54, 12%. 
65 and older, 12%. 
So the older adults, then just note another significant finding is youth between 11 and 167 are about 18 ‑‑ almost 20% of participants so, a great outcome of young people not eligible to vote in the general election. 
In terms of the gender, I think we saw higher percent of males voting than last year so that is great to see. Women made up 58% of Respondents and additional 2% of survey Respondent tell us identified as nonbinary. 
Our city wide voting survey by race, the race category that had the highest category of participation are Black and African American at 31%. 
21% identified as white. 21% identified as Asian. 
And this align with the priorities and goals that we see when we are working with primarily an equity based process in focusing our efforts and engagement with the high percent of people of color. 
And other under represented groups left out of the process. 
Also voting ethnicity ‑‑ 37. 6 identified as Latino, Latinx. 
>>  Just in addition that we did not put on the slides, and it connects back to what you said about response rate, it is in the annual report. The exit survey was completed by 107, 744 people. That a 77% response rate of the people who filled out the ballots, and people answered questions with their 2 different languages. 
>>  Yeah. There is the 77%. 
>>  Yeah. Great to see. 
>>  If I may just add one thing. That is well, 2% were gender nonbinary that is just over 2 thousand people, it would be interesting maybe to corollate that to the age group and see if we can maybe hone in on that. It may be the younger generation or the younger category in which case we can use that in some outreach. 
>>  Great point. 
>>  Great. De von, you made a note of that right?  
>>  Yes. 
>>  Quick question. 
>>  Curious to hear what you think Queens was so successful in having the highest number of votes?  What was being done?  Is it something being done differently in Queens?  
>>  That is really a good question. I don't quite know if we fully analyzed the cause and effects for why we had a high outcome. We also have to look at the partnerships we had and where did they have primarily come from?  
The other sort of I want to say wild card, but a little bit of something we are trying to get a handle on is when we do outreach, engagement, and we have advertisements, to what degree do we have so, if we had, did anyone see the subway adds?  Did everyone see the subway adds?  
>>  Great great great. 
I wonder with the r train, I am off the r train in Brooklyn, queens, those are things we are looking at but I don't have an answer for you. Identify think is there one more slide on TRIE. 
Okay. Coalitions in 33 neighborhoods ‑‑ the highlights of the TRIE program and infrastructure for peoples money. 
We funded 30 CEOs funding 2 neighborhoods, with the grant amount last year was 52 thousand dollars to each neighborhood administration and asked each organization to ensure there was at least 3 other organizations within the coalition. 
In each neighborhood, we asked each organization to facility a minimum of the coalition meetings together throughout the year. 
We reallocated a percent of the fund for the neighborhood, to support the coalitions so that when you are asking folks in other organizations to come to participate to be part of increasing outreach they were compensated. 
So, that was something again that was something that was new we tried here to sample if we can ‑‑ you know, share the pie so to speak and see what we have and the level of involvement that we can have by growing the number of organizations as well as the reach that we have in the communities to be sure we are part of the process of the folks participating.

>>  Leading to November, democracy NYC worked with partners to raise awareness of the election through social media activation with 339 posts on multiple platforms text banking, 306 volunteer shifts across multiple engagements an the collection of 3248 ‑‑ we also piloted a civics 101 workshop to be sure that yes, participatory budgeting is an excellent  door to get folks involved and get excited but wanting to make it more expansive ‑‑ what does civic engagement mean to you and approximate your communities and how can we get you engaged?  So 44 workshops were held engaging 915 residents. We will talk about supportive updates but we will of work that again this year. 
So partners had 166 engagement sections and 339 TRIE residents and we have ‑‑ (indiscernible by captioner) from TRIE residents. 
So over half of the ballots cast were TRIE residents. 

Yes?  
>>  So, any questions on that section?  
Thank you. 
>>  So no just saying thank you. 
>>  Yes. Thank you. Thank you Wendy.

>>  Good morning everyone. My name is Anila and I am the director of voter language assistance services at the Civic Engagement Commission. So, in terms of voter language assistance, in the past year, we were able to provide 100% of services as a plan for 100% of the services in the November 2023 general election, we assisted 551 voters. 
And, 91 poll sites providing 105 language services total. So, this 91 in terms of the rate, it was lower than the utilization rate for November 2022 general election, and we believe that the rate is the effected by the type of positions on the ballot essentially the type of election primarily and to a degree, perhaps also, by the resources that we had in terms of like adds in the community. 
For April 2024 primary, the assisted 215 voters, we had teams at 110 poll sites and provided a total of 144 language services while in June, we assisted 157 voters at 90 poll sites, which had a total of 114 language services. 
As a total, so, in the split primary was about 17% higher than the June 2023 primary. 

In terms of voter education outreach, we came back to the voter education forums, one or two and one in Haitian Creole ‑‑ we were able to distribute information about the program and the right to vote in ones language. Throughout the year with help from the team at CEC as well as the language assistant advisory committee as well as the city agencies that we work with and conduct to New Yorkers. 
We in terms of the paid marketing, we were only able to spend 4 thousand roughly in targeted social media adds only for the June 2024 primary.

>>  Maybe we will just pause for questions on this section?  
>>  Yes anyone have any questions?  
>>  Do you have a question?  
>>  Trying to frame it. Can you give us a feel of ‑‑ what which social media platforms are translated to reaching an audience in the different language?  Which are more successful, I guess?  
>>  Right. 
So, I personally believe for the director for 7 + months and so, I believe for immigrant communities, Facebook is very influential because it allows people to stay in touch with families, over seas as well as their community here. So, I believe Facebook is the most influential social media. 
Well it is Facebook and Instagram are considered one now, but as a whole.

>>  Can you explain what language services means?  Interpreters?  Translation?  
>>  So, it is interpretation, so, any translate allegation of spoken language is called interpretation, when you are ‑‑ converting into another language or reading words that is called translation. 
In terms of unique poll sites and language services, we make the distinction now because certain poll sites, we provide more than one language services. So, especially for early voting, we may have for example 15 unique poll sites, but, almost hundred percent of the poll sites, we have at least 2 languages. 
So, we will have interpreters that would provide services in at least 2 languages. 
>>  Were there any polling sites that we provide services for that were not utilized?  Does that make sense?  
>>  Yes. 
>>  Okay.

>>  So, yes I don't have the figures in front of me now but we have language services with a small percent share that is a total of the services. 
So, for Korean, it happens, I believe it happened in June. For mandarin, Cantonese, it happens, I believe it is the smaller percent shared. 
So for example, mandarin and Cantonese, we have about 4% in total of the services and if it happens that one of the poll sites will have 0. 
It depends on the election. Again. So, it is highly con tested ‑‑ when the key offices are in the ballots, it is usually higher across language services. 
But we will see like the 0 rate occasionally for both sites. 
>>  Yeah. On the table, the detailed tables are in the appendix, they are in the appendix, the detailed tables. I think it makes it tricky also because we can't you know like it is really typical for programs and services to claim success by reporting higher utilization over time right?  You would like to see a graph like this, that is not true for our services because it is very intertwined with the nature of the election. 
Also, I think our methodology is important to keep in mind because we cannot duplicate services that the board of elections provides. We are going to neighborhoods with the highest concentration. So, just to spell it out a little bit more, if the boe does not provide Russian or services in Russian it is covering 40% of the sites in Russian. 
Those 40 sites out of a hundred for example, are ranked by the concentration of the Russian speaking limited English speaking voters around that. 
So, imagine the site with the highest concentration on the top is more likely to have voters needing help than the ones on the bottom. 
So, there is a lot of interconnected factors. Yeah. So, just want to say that. 
>>  To add to that. So, for example, for languages like mandarin and Cantonese where we, which we can only provide services for in Bronx and Staten Island right?  We have the board of election providing the other services in the other boroughs. 
We cannot ‑‑ so, bottom line is that the speakers of the communities are concentrating in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan so that means that the poll sites that we provide Chinese services at, they have the lower concentration of citizen a biding age with the limiting age that is officials that speak Chinese if compared to a poll site in the board of election provided services in Queens, Manhattan, or in Brooklyn.

>>  Yeah. So, my question is not related to the services but it is related to how do we advertise the services?  
Because if they do it on social media so people know that the services are what we do, and in the previous conversation, is that ‑‑ the online presence is not as masked and should be. 
So how do we advertise our services or you know language access so that the people can actually get the information because not everybody is in social media. So, I understands that the budgets really small but we have to understands the way we can get this out. 
>>  Of course. 
So, we do put together posters and pump guards in the program ‑‑ languages and Spanish, and English. We print them out. 
So, we distribute, we come from other city agencies operating in these areas to geographies covered by our services. 
Our engagement team also takes these cards with them when they go to events in the poll site geographies. 
We also develop a digital tool kit that has the additional version of the card and poster as well as a psa that is sub titled with the program languages. 
So, we distribute that so, we do, we started to do this about a year and a half ago. 
We have community based organizations we have identified as working in the geographies or we the language communities we provide services for. 
So, we reach out to them introducing ourselves, the program, and we attach the graphics of the language communities or geographies they cover as well as the language from the individual tool kit. And we have had responses but we are hoping to ram that up. 
So in terms of other tools, so we did for the year, we started already, working the weekend. So, we have the adds out in the city, we have the English version, city wide. As well as the language versions in the zip codes we identify as poll site areas. So, we are doing our best, we are wrapping up the process for the language services for the up coming next 2 years including November. 
So, hopefully, we will have some money left so we will strategize the place in the ads with the community and media going forward. 
>>  Thank you.
>>  You're welcome. 
>>  Thank you. So, something occurred to me while you were describing. So, doesn't like the methodology may call for us to have capacity in a place that ends up not being used. Does the reverse happen?  Has it occurred that someone comes in and asks a location for interpretation services at that the methodology would not place in the location. If so, do we capture the information for future use?  
>>  I believe we made a note of this in the report. 

We have had some interest, you know services, so, we have had various people I believe some from community based organizations, maybe some from electives where we get inquiries as to why are there services in a certain poll site because of a concentration of voters who have English proficiency and needed assistance and resources. 
>>  That is not exact science, I get it. 
>>  Any other questions on this section?  
So, we can go to the language access general?  
Next slide please.

>>  So, we are able as language access to provide comprehensive translation services for the peoples money process, materials were translated into all of the local 30 languages that are 10 ‑‑ sorry, 11 + the Spanish plus the Italian. In terms of the interpretation services, we provided for Arabic and Spanish speakers, enabling them to attend more assembly committee meetings. 
We continue to support the community boards across New York City through a full interpretation contract with language line and provide training on language access for all of community boards so they are able to be implementing language access services. 
And a new language access plan was drafted by the language access coordinator JP, and proved it is out now. 
So, this is our additional achievements in language access. 
>>  Any questions for Anila?  
>>  Okay amazing thank you Anila. 
>>  So, Ben is actually in a conference so, I will pick up on the community boards. 
>>  So in the past year, the community board posted 35 trainings with 15 topics. We worked with 8 partners mostly city agencies to deliver the trainings, topics, included parliamentary proceeds, city budget, disability Ed kit ‑‑ disability training, there were trainings related to housing including discrimination, home ownership, department of buildings, we worked with a trainer on conflict resolution, language access, JPs training and fair and affordable housing. 
In total the trainings were taken advantage of by 739 community board members. A note on the data is that is not 739 unique community board member because they do some may come to more than one. It is the total of how many people attended each. 
You can go to the next slide. 
So the annual report does do the breakout in the appendix of the workshop and how many people attended by borough because we have to report on that. 
We have been trying to as you mention try to integrate better data collection processes. 
So, we started to administrate the exit survey for the community board trainings that is typically set out after the training is done. 
So response rate is not you know as high as this on this because I think it is like made sense right?  We get it after did is done in the email you can use it. 
So we will explore way tell us to do that right after in the training. 
However, these are being positively rated as well. 
They are out of a score of like you know it is like agree disagree scale and strongly they are in favor so the content is in formative relevant to my work. 
It is really high. People rate a presenter as knowledgeable, the work is beneficial to the board. 
So quotes I got, this is a million times better than other trading programs in the past, really human. 
And then, on the disability etiquette analysis so there is a lot of positive engagement with the workshops as well. Any questions on the community board?  
>>  I have one question is there any open ended question on the survey asking if there is something that it was not covered in the workshops that they think is needed?  Because it is a small pool of people. 
>>  We did ask community board members the topics they would like to see covered. I think what is written up in the annual is ‑‑ let me find the section. 
No is it okay. I should be able to find it. 
So, each answered the question about what topic they would like to have covered. 
So some of the topics they like mentioned were a higher number of people ‑‑ budget management data interpretation. 
These are things that people like you know there are so many board members so we can continue to run the trainings. 
>>  Right. 
>>  Another thing is Wendy, I hate to see this but 1500 people responded to be on ‑‑ 
>>  The assembly committees. 
>>  107 were chosen. So, the 1300 people and how we are keeping them engaged because I am thinking that this is a way to say they would be on the community board. These are clearly people who want to be engaged. So, how we may engage them further with our work but also the city at large. 
>>  That is a fantastic question. I definitely want for us on keep discussing. Thank you. 

Okay. Barbara please come up and share information about the outreach team thank you. 
>>  Good morning everyone. 
>>  Good morning. 
>>  Thank you for having me. I have 2 slides to present on one on accomplishments and on services. 
So first, a would like to acknowledge the current meshes of the outreach team. 
The outreach team is unique for the work we do ‑‑ it doesn't just cover ‑‑ but all of it. 
In 2023, the outreach team supported democracy in the November election performing the outreach for language assistance and worked with board leader to partners in the pb vote deliverables. 

In the reduction of the staff member on the team, are was able to really work across all 5 boroughs, attending 439 city wide and engaged 113 thousand New Yorkers. It was done with the tabling and events. 
We supported the Chinese Spanish speaking communities so we will speak the Chinese in Spanish and it showed the importance of having staff members who are diverse in speaking languages. So, we held a virtual panel discussion focuses on civic engagement in the communities. 
It was ‑‑ it is when you are dealing with a vulnerable communities, we will find a way to engage to give back to it. 
So in working with the communities, we the chance to rebuild. 
Any questions so far?  
>>  Any questions on outreach? 
>> 
>>  So for the next slide, the outreach team took over the volunteer engagement 2 years ago. This is advantaging and in the year of receiving funding of the service. Some of the deliverables we had was included building and increasing the participation, attention through advisory committees, assembly committees and engagements such as the votes. 
New York City funded volunteer board leader, materials, swag, events, and year 2, we saw that we were successful able to retain volunteers from year one. 
They were excited to come back. We have had people from year 2 who said they want to come back. 
We had 15 volunteers who had ballots such as the communities canvassing and attending large public events. 
Communities where events occurred included the developments that are in between ‑‑ so, in the end of the campaign, we saw gaps in certain areas with the need to create a policy with the master program. 
We had 28 volunteers in that. Am. 
They all focused on the community whether they are successful already in the community engagement. 
So throughout that, we had one of the largest ‑‑ 

Any questions? 

>>  Any questions?  
>>  I don't think it is a question but, again, I think if we had retaining volunteers, putting statistics behind that, because if you have people coming back, it really means that you are leading a great program. You really want to call that out. So, that is great work. 
>>  So, out of the volunteers that came back, we have all 20 coming back ‑‑ 
>>  Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much Barbara. One thing I will lift up here is that you know, the team talks a lot about everything we are doing is outreach and engagement. Everything. So, it is kind of hard to breakout. It is like an on going conversation to mention to Commissioners in case you have thoughts about how to approach this or talk about the work. Because on the one hand, the engagement team is really doing is going out to events. I remember community affairs, the advantage of having somebody like me is like a person from government going into and having like a face to face encounter with residents. 
That is also happening in another space right?  Like we have city wide program like participatory budgeting where we rely on a bunch of like community organizations to do the work of the engagement. 
So, they are doing outreach. 
It is it slightly different than our team like being face to fails for all of the people who they are interfacing with. 
So, we have to find ways to capture the different types of impact in if a more integrated fashion and think about the linkages between the 2. So I wanted to raise that for all of you to think about it. We are trying to better describe how we are connecting with New Yorkers yeah?  
RIGHTONE:  I will add that we are building trust in the community. So, going to the communities we speak the language of communities and we use body language and verbal things like that in order to be an I believe to relate to the communities. I do have an example of a young lady in Harlem, she is ‑‑ like all day and night in that ‑‑ she needs to come to the sessions with us. She called me and says I believe in what you guys are doing. 
So, she started to tweet about us ‑‑ anything we do she works remotely. 
So, it shows we are gaining the trust of people. That was outreach is all about. Thank you. 
>>  Thank you.

>>  Okay. So, Commissioners, you have been taken through an overview of the annual report. 
So now, we are actually at the moment when we have to vote on the annual report. 
So, are there ‑‑ I should just ask again before we move to that, are there edits that you want to make to the annual report?  I know a couple of questions came up. 
Are any of those questions in a you all raised questions or comments that you want to integrate into the annual report as it stands now?  
>>  I don't think some of the things I brought up were too labor intensive to add to report ‑‑ the statistics in terms of percent of response recall. 
So, if that put me in the report, I think it is valuable. 
>>  Yes?  
>>  My eye goes to things ‑‑ I was a copier in a former life. So, page 30 is still a number to be filled out. 
There is like X X X. Place holder.

>>  Thank you for catching that.

>>  I don't know if it needs to go into the report. 
So, I feel like the participatory budgeting process is like a city wide process from the bottom up place. 
So I don't know if the community boards per say were tracking from what comes up from the budgeting projects. So, building the awareness of what people on the ground are saying the leads are into the training community board outreach, I think it would be helpful to establish that mental health is a priority. 
Did it work?  
>>  I heard something. 
>>  Thank you. 
>>  So, yeah. I just ‑‑ I just wanted us to consider kind of melting what we are learning about communities through the participatory budget process with the approach to more introduction. 
>>  Okay. That is a great idea. So, we will definitely talk ‑‑ like it is like a training opportunities almost right?  
So, like briefing the community boards on the results of the process. 
So thank you. Is that something you want us to integrate into?  
>>  Not necessarily but I want to make a point ‑‑ 
>>  Thank you. That is really helpful.

>>  Anyone else?  Comments or edits to the report?  Okay. Anyone online?  Natalie and Holly are you online?  Did you want to add any edits?  
To the annual report?  
Okay. There is a hands over there. 
>>  Sorry. I do have a question. Earlier, we were talking about the community board 35 trainings, to point out that the 739 members could be doubled or it was repeat numbers right?  I just wanted to ask if that is the masters that could an happening or should we highlight it. 
And also if that also occurs in other trainings as well across the board all the of the community members etc. 
Not just board members, but we had done throughout. 
And if so, we will have that as well.

>>  So the suggestion is when we mention the community board members make a note it will be repeated. 
Are there other examples where we have reported on the number of people who attended something but it would be repeat?  
I think ‑‑ community, what we did here is totaled the people we serve in an entire year. The same could be true for poll site services. 
But we didn't total. We just report it for each election. 
So yeah. So, I mean ‑‑ I think I need to think about this more about the number. 
Certainly, we can add the note. 
Yeah. Thank you. It is really helpful. 

>>  I have a note as well. I am trying to frame it. 
So, there is the section in the community board discussion about translation and interpretation services, and, I think it is ‑‑ in the ‑‑ and we do, make it clear that the only service that the commission is able to provide community boards at this point is a telephone service. 
Which is, difficult if not impossible to use in light of needing it. 
>>  Yes. 
>>  So, then they have a lot to do with the very small amount of utilization for it. 
I think there is something to be included last year, especially in context of the survey that was performed. 
I think it was useful. 
That is that ‑‑ just the one sentence acknowledged the community board budgets do not include an allocation for translation or interpretation services. I think that is all you have to say because we all know they will services that right fully by the way should be expensive, we should be paying close to the expertise real money for real service. 
So, there is some where in the suggestion that the lack of utilization is a lack of from or lack of desire to serve in that way. 
I don't think that is fair it is fair to say we as a city not as the commission or community boards we are not putting our money where our mouth is about the need of the service. 
So, a single sentences says community boards still do not have or do not have allocation for interpretation allocation services. 
If you wanted to keep going, it is not the only place community boards are expected to do something that are not funded. For example, with respect to the meetings of the board members, an members of the public we can get yet we are given the offices are not big enough for the meet, we are the only agency not given the space to do it. So, we have to have a hand to regulate to say please give us ‑‑ anyway that the larger point. What is relevant here is the context of the utilization of the services should include the fact that these are expensive and we as a city are not funding them. Thanks. 
>>  Thank you for that mark. I think just to kind of would it be fair to say that the community boards budgets, there no specific allocation for language services. It is up to the boards to look at the budget to find the resources?  Is that fair to say it that way?  
>>  No. No. 
>>  It is not because ‑‑ we have a lot of conversation on this particular topic here. 
>>  I am the guy who handles that budget for 2 years now so I know what is it and what is not. 
So essentially when you finish y patching the staff unless I were to sell the photo copier, there is no discretionary funding in there. It not the only thing we are expected to do that we can't afford to do but remember the community board baseline budget other than the increases that match the increases that are union employees have been granted in the wage negotiations so if my staff has X percent raise, salary, it increased by that exact amount. 
Other than that, the budget has not changed in 10 to 15 years, the allocation. 
So ‑‑ 
>>  This is the oTPs. 
>>  The overall budget. Excluding rent because it is not fair to standardize rent when some you know ‑‑ my office is in green witch village an probably costs more than offices in other parts of the city. So, that is separate. So, oTP s other than rent ‑‑ the budget other than cost of living increases than the staff in the union contracts has not increased in at least ten years. 

So being what the work load has, there is cannabis management that was not there before, outdoor dining not there before. 
So, the notion of the discretionary funding that the communities boards are choosing to allocate into other places is not a fair statement. 
>>  Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. We can work with you. I will also look at what we said last year. I think we did mention it. 
>>  Yup. Thank you for that. 
>>  Any other comments?  Edits?  
>>  So, just to go back to list out the edits that we have to move forward to a vote, hopefully, something is what we just discussed with the allocation mentioning something about the boards in the budget allocations there was an edit page 30 to be sure it is still there and the third one was interpreting statistics about the percent of Respondent from participates into whatever we are mentioning like surveys. 
So those 3 things. Am I missing anything?  And Mitchell, you had something about making sure that the note about the number of participants training to indicate that the number could keep attendees. So, that is 4 things captured so far. Anything else?  
>>  This is not for this years note, but I want to make the note thinking about it. The community board members will start to turn limited based on the same charter pro vision of the commission. Starting in 2027 ‑‑ the 2 big ones will be 2027 and 2030. After that, it is a 4 times 2 year maximize allocation. How to plan for the dream that will occur, because not everybody is born knowing the details of zoning and land use effecting regional distances so forth. That will be of a significant impact on the utility and utilization of the utility boards. There may be a roll in the outreach looking ahead now in the outreach to be sure we continue to capture those that will be a big deal. 
So, it is not fun now but in a heartbeat or two. 
>>  That is a suggestion for some potential programmer conversation on the term limits issue in the year ahead right?  
>>  I don't want to have a conversation about the term limits because first of all no one wants to hear me talk about that but secondly probably more importantly, it is done. It is the law. 
How everyone feels about it, it the law. 
I have had conversations about this too in the communities people want to see if is it a good idea. That is not where we are. We are that this is coming. Even with the city saying yes, taking community boards out of certain aspects of zoning going forward, there is real work that requires experience and expertise that will be lost when the folks are or required to rotate off. 
So with respect to outreach and recruitment, that is the promise of the borough presidents, it is something that this commission is uniquely able to do especially considering that denying the approach or interpretation of the term limits was to be sure that community boards more completely reflect the communities they serve. 
And, anyway, I will stop there. 
>>  But that is really helpful. I think we can definitely continue that conversation. I know Benjamin did you up for the future of community boards working group. There was a panel discussion on term limits. I know that I think it was Brooklyn also or the president was also thinking about what to do as term limits do take effect. It has the implications for the trainings we apply because if expertise is lost, working closely with the borough presidents to be sure the gaps are covered. 
So, can I just ask you is there ‑‑ just to get back to annual report, is there something you want to add to the annual report about that? 

>>  You know, I think ‑‑ well ‑‑ just in a sense the acknowledgement that the future of the work of the commission may well need to include planning for the implementation of term limits, as they effect community board community members starting in 2027 to 2030. That may be a useful statement to set the stage for the following year. The rest of it as you said it is something that needs to be ‑‑ that is something you ‑‑ with respect to that events, I was actually. 
>>  You were there?  
>>  No actually, I was helping to organize but guess what, UPS got in the way so I had to go in the city and meet you there about that. 
>>  Anyway, but, we did manage to get one of the former borough presidents to be a panelist on that so the folks experienced with that. 
>>  Oh. Thank you. 
>>  So, that is a 5th edit. Natalie?  We can't hear you. You are unmuted but we can't hear you. Hold on a second. 

Okay. We are unable to hear you. Can you indicate by a shake of your head whether you have an edit to the annual report. Okay. You do. So, what I would like to ask you to do is to send it to us by email, and will be sure to integrate the edit. Can you ‑‑ 
>>  Is there a chat?  
>>  There is a chat. Can you put into the chat, the section that it is relevant to?  And maybe a general idea of what it is about?  
Because I want to be mind full of time and try to move us forward into the new. 
>>  Try now Natalie.

>>  Is this better?  
>>  Okay. Great. It is so much quicker just to tell you. 
>>  Okay as regards to the 700 club community board member attendee, it is necessary ‑‑ I don't need clarity at this time. I need it in the annual report when there is a reference to some of the folks are the same people that scares me. Say for instance, among the 700 community board members taking, mark has been counts counted 3 times because he attended 3 times. I don't know if we are talking about ‑‑ let's say discrete numbers of individuals or that count of individuals that may include an attendee who has attended several times in the year. Again, I don't need clarity at this moment. I just ask them to see what we are talking about in the annual report. Does that make sense?  
>>  Yes. 
>>  I want to make a note to everyone here on the particular step. I don't think we put it into the annual report. I think that was just me trying to create a summary for the deck. So, I don't think the team has actually put in the 730 number so if we are going to integrate it, we will put a caveat or just leave it out. 
>>  Yeah. When it doubt, leave it out. Good job, team. 
Good job team. Not so great for adding it in. So, really yeah. Thank you Natalie for that. So, how about we just decide to not have it in the annual report. Is that good?  
So, that will be the 5th edit. We will be sure we are not including that. But is it not in in there. If it is there. 
Okay. 
So, vote to approve the annual report with the edits that have been given here today?  
Second. All in favor. I. Any opposed?  
>>  Okay hearing no opposition, we will go forward with updating the report with the edits and submit it for the first time this year on time. 
So, congratulations. 
So, right now, we are at 12:  30. 
I am not sure I am assuming, Abby was not feeling well and left. So, I am not sure there is no one here from a member of the public who would want to make comments so we have another 30 minutes left in the meeting so I want to go through the program updates if that works for everyone. 
So let's start with that section. I think we have the first part of is to go through the projects implemented. 
So I will invite Lexi up to share information about where we are with the community process overall. 
And, vote results as well as the waiting projects. 
>>  Yes thank you Sarah. Good afternoon everyone. It is always a pleasure to be here with you. I am excited like I will recap a bit about the vote then go into the details that we have and what we know about the winning projects so far ambassador I will give a snapshot of where we are at in terms of what is up coming of the implementation of the projects and execution so if you can just start with slide after this one. So, as we are talking about when we run the program, one of the key things that we are doing is running not only the implementation but the participatory process at the same time. So, phases one to three are a constantly happening at the same time as phase 4 project location. 
So the graph that you see on the screen or rather like the visual that you see on the screen gives you a sense of that. 
Basically breaking out how we run the process by season 1 to 3 then annual cycle, phase 4. In terms of another recap of what Wendy was briefing you all on earlier cycle 2 June first to 156. In the phase, we did 88 communities partners with the library systems and 2 unique services as well. 
The partners ran a partnership with us online and in person engagements to get people to cast votes for the process. In total, we had under 140 thousand votes to be precise ‑‑ it was 139, 688 that is 29 thousand more than cycle one so it is a win to expand our reach this is leading up to the projects funded. 
So, is it important to note why which are pairing these together now recapping that they are the people with on attributed to the projects funded. 
So the overview like before the impact areas, so the topics of the projects the audiences of the projects, and the probes itself in the funding, it is important to think about the people who were voting for the projects so the top area for the projects to be funded in cycle 2 is again health and well being followed by accessibility career development education public safety and arts and culture. 
So health and well being in this case is mental and physical health. You will get the chance to see what the projects are made up of when I go through each borough because I know we have mental health in the past as a separate category. 
On the next side, it is the combination of the information that was submit by folks who put ideas through either through the generation sessions or the platform as well as the folks who serve on the assembly committees who put together recommendations who the projects should be geared toward. So, we are providing this to the organizations to put together proposals for the projects but it is guiding information for the process to get the projects where they are in terms of the audience that there be focused on the most by the projects we have, the top audience is youth with 6 projects to youth, followed by 4 for low income individuals next is older adults with 3 projects then 2 projects for families, 2 projects for folks with disabilities, women have one project and immigrants and English proficient individuals are the focus of one project. 
Next, I will go over information about the projects by borough. So, here is the title of the project, the neighborhood where it is implemented. 
These are all based on the tree neighborhoods that we have been discussing a lot. 
So each project will be implemented in one TRIE neighborhood that was assigned by the CDC so, this came from the information about the vote phase where we have the process and which neighborhoods had a preference for different projects. 
So in Brooklyn, we have 5 projects first is the life prep for high school students in bed stuy ‑‑ in Brooklyn, they will each get 200 thousand dollars ‑‑ the same funding amount if the boroughs so note that going through them. So, keep in mind every borough has a set for all of the projects in Brooklyn, it is 200 thousand dollars. So the second project in Brooklyn is language and job recertification immigration sunset park then errands for older adults and people with disabilities in coney island and Brighton beach and path to successful ‑‑ in east New York, and bush wick then home repair liaisons ‑‑ 
>>  So, Lexington I think he has a question. 
>>  Is it possible to know what organizations got them allocation?  
>>  Yeah. I will give information in the end where basically a snapshot now we ran proposals for the information. Where he in the process of making the selection for the organizations so that is why we don't have the information quite yet to share with you but is it up coming. I will let you know how many applications received for the projects toward the end. 
>>  Yes. Thank you. Great question. 
Awesome. 
Next up, we have Queens. Where we also have a total of 5 projects in Queens, the projects will receive 170 thousand dollars of funding each with the first one here, it is healthy meals partnership with the enrichment hill, queens village, Jamaica, south, and Springfield. 
If there are in instances you see neighborhoods, is because the TRIE neighborhoods have grouping with many in one TRIE neighborhood followed by youth empowerment after schoolwork shops in rock way, the third is connection resource center in wood haven then bridging the skills gap job training for high schoolers in Queens bridge and connectivity for seniors in east elm hertz and ‑‑ so, finally the Bronx ‑‑ we have Mel‑Rose etc. Next up is college preparation for you. 
Next up, we have creative mental wellness program for families with children in Belmont, Florida, University heights and slashing Bronx hunger from the con course and finally youth activity enrichment program with the arts in sound view, in the Bronx every project will receive 174 thousand dollars of funding. 
Great. Last, we have a grouping of Manhattan and Staten Island. Manhattan there are 4 projects and Staten Island 1 project. 
So Manhattan the first project is mothers matter in morning side heights, Hamilton heights and Harlem then restorative education for youth east Harlem, self‑defense for women Washington heights in wood then resource outreach for people about disabilities in the lower east side China town. Each of the projects will receive a total of 150 thousand dollars. 
Last but not least Staten Island that will get the project building success for high school students in the one tree neighborhood we have in Staten Island ‑‑ (indiscernible by captioner) and that project will be funded a total of 180 thousand dollars. 

>>  Then this is exactly what I was alluding at a little bit before, which is that we are in the middle of running and evaluating application process to select the organizations who will be implementing the project. 
So, from August 12 to September 10, we have an application open for organizations to put together in depth proposal going about implement be the project given the fund be amount and time line set for them as well as other information about how we are going to be managing the partnership and what the deliverables will be. We received a total of 81 applications for the 20 projects. So, we got one application for every project organizations were given the very high level information we shared with you as well as the description of the ballot to use that to put together. So, now we are evaluating the 81 submissions and will have a submission in the next month or so on the organizations we will be working with the  and what each of these will look like in terms of individual time line and implementation plan. 
>>  Thank you Lexi. 
>>  Okay. Question?  Sorry?  
>>  I don't have a question but I am just ‑‑ maybe I am questioning the primary audiences graph that you have. 
Like okay targeting women. But how are families not targeting women?  So, trying to understand that. So, it may be good to cross over the winning projects with the target audience so that we understand the youth are part of the job training so we have a better understanding. I don't think the primary audience is giving us the information that you think that you're conveying. 
>>  It makes sense to me. I was encouraging the participate NYC. Gov. We have the list of the projects with the description as well. 
So, if you want to see the ballot, so, there the population and topic are linked to the project and it is a table so you can see which project audiences were suggested for which projects specifically as opposed to more like generalized summary for all of the projects and exactly like you said there is a lot of overlap. It is just like the deliberating the projects, they are put in the audience so it is to help the spirit of the idea that they wants it is captured when the organization actually makes their proposal so this he could have of a sense of someone wanted the project specifically to serve a justice impacted audience. 
They can serve more audiences than that if they want to integrate that as part of the proposal, but it is just a way to know this is the spirit of the idea that the community member really wanted. Yeah. Thank you. 
>>  Yeah. Mark, then Giovanni. 
>>  One of the things we talked about reviewing the results from last year was that the needs that were addressed by the expense funding because this is expense of the capital would probably continue year to year and the funding would expire. So, there is the thought that some portion of the allocation may be usefully employed by the winning partners or service organizations to expand their development or their ability to replace the funding that we are giving them this year so the service that they are proposing to provide can continue after the funding expires. Is that in the works?  Is that part of the criteria for evaluating a proposal?  How would that find it's way into the process?  
>>  That is a good question as well. Sustainability is part of the application, and of the evaluation criteria. So, we are asking to explain how they would make sure that they could have a plan internally to design the project so if that is building off the existing programming or addressing a certain need into the work they do or by guaranteeing that they are talking more about integrating frameworks that may include external sources. There are things we are doing basically on the organizational level to work with them to see what could be done from the program design and evaluation perspective to integrate sustainability into it. 
So part of evaluation we are doing is part the project. So, if the project is more sustainable based on the information they want us to do it is like a time line, a budget they propose and all of information thinking about now, going into an organization of like which one is more sustainable or not and how can we help?  That is another aspect of the question that I can't speak as much to but it is something we are having conversations about and maybe would want to speak more to that. 
>>  I think you did a good job of explaining. We need to be mindful of time. 
>>  So, do you mind explaining a little bit of the question I had, it is an evaluation question. So now that the past year, we implemented year one projects is there a way to get feedback from the satisfaction of the projects from folks. 
>>  Good question. We have not considered that yet, we evaluating in the universes like the participants evaluating the impact on organizations all of that stuff but not more broadly necessarily with people saying like spin it into this idea or something like that. So, that is an interesting great idea. I think the ways to find out how successful partially the outreach is because it is a critical way to understand what is going on and also having their satisfaction level is like whether they like fetal that it was responsive to their needs to have them specifically but I think it is a great idea for consideration to the team. Yeah?  
>>  Thanks Lexi. Wendy are you good?  
>>  Thank you. 
So, we will give you quick updates where we are with idea regeneration plans ecstasy. 
>>  Good afternoon Commissioners, so, just noting a follow up goal that we have in response to your question around sustainability, we did bring on Americore ‑‑ we are excited to have him on board to focus on the impact of the projects to bring on stakeholders in the subject matter expertise so they are aware of work happening to helpful us to shape the thinking behind the projects and I think I piece of that is also you know how the agencies could understands the aspects of the programming we are engaged in that could be interesting to continue. Are there foundations that may be interested in supporting the continuation of the projects?  I do expect that some of the approximate programs are from the gaps that may not be met in other ways. So, we really want to spend time building greater awareness of the work that is happening so, we can kind of bring more partners advocates stakeholders, subject matter experts into the space. 
So keep an eye out that a big lift but if we can start in particular areas, we can highlight this year the benefit of having a new AmeriCorps member. 
Okay. So, I will just quickly update you on time line for the first phase of of the year 3 city wide participant budget ready to launch. Here we go. 
Yup. Then give you a quick overview of the expectation of the partners we are in the process of selecting to help us move through the first phase as well as some of the phase new from the cycle so far. 
Be on. So cycle 3, sorry, trying to not use jargon terms like cycle. Year 3. Idea generation session will be running 6 years starting Friday, October 11 to Friday November 22. We are vetting our partners. We are ‑‑ reviewing the applications for the time line evaluation selection and we are looking to hopefully have partners by the end of the week applications work had been accepted. The dead line was Friday September 6. But we are extending the time line a little bit in the areas, we saw gaps an recruitment, gaps we see whether it is a population demographics that we cover, then we will as you can see the time lean. They on boarding trainings next week. 
Thursday and Friday. 
This year, for the tiers, glad I have my copy here. 
So, we have 4 tiers this year. So, I mentioned earlier in the annual report, our strategy for trying to fill as many gaps, trying to reach as many New Yorkers as possible, the strategy in the way we go about this, we have tiers so, you can apply for tiers. They have to do with how many sessions you are going to run, who you are reaching, and so obviously, we are really looking at peoples capacity. There are organizations that could be ‑‑ you know communities but may not be able to run a lot of sessions. Then there are partners we want to hit a larger demographic. So, tier one, they could receive funding of 15 thousand dollars. 
We are asking them to run 8 to 10 sessions in the boroughs so that is the city wide partnership tier. 
They the second is the borough wide partners so, we are reaching a larger geography on the TRIE organizations and asking the folks for the thousand ‑‑ we are asking to post a minimum of 6 sessions in different boroughs across a single borough. 
Tier 3 is language faith based communities. We realize they may not be able to reach certain may not have the ability to provide language interpretation so this is the added layer. They were asking them to host 3 to 5 sessions. Then this is another tier. It is an open call. This is one session. It is a great way to on board people to bring them without a heavy lift to get to know the process. 
This year, however, we are not requiring them to be trained. We increase the expectation of the training, it will be longer and in depth, and we will be including training around the facilitation strategies, tactics, in addition to understanding the materials. Single session hosts do not have to facility. I will talk about how we are going to do that in what is new. On the TRIE end, mostly the same as last year, we are asking them to attend monthly meetings as part of it, we have capacity building areas in areas that identify as wanting additional training an support. 
We are asking them to continue to have the coalition meetings, continue to have as of last year, post at least 4, and grow the coalition so, having at least 3 an growing between 3 and 10. Organizations actually have coalitions that are larger. 
And then, throughout the program, the specific peoples money, deliverables include ‑‑ meeting with the project implementers. We want to be sure because we know so much engagement and so many people voted in the TRIE neighborhoods we don't want the borough projects to be separate and disconnected so as a deliverable, we are asking to be part of the planning recruitment of the projects. 

They are going to be hosting 5 idea neighborhoods. They will continue to participate in the vetting process by sharing their expertise in their understanding of needs in the community, and they will be expected to host a number of events with the goal of collecting 2 thousand ballots. Also I mentioned earlier, the Civic Engagement Commission workshop. We will ask them to run the civic engagement workshop this year what we are doing different is it is a little bit of a customization to be sure the deck resonates with the communities and neighborhoods to put thought into customizing more for the organization.

>>  I want to do a time check because there ray couple slides to go. Can people stay a little bit after?  
>>  Thank you. 
>>  Last slide. 
>>  Just things new for cycle 3. We are ‑‑ very conscious that the idea generation session that we have has had different levels of success depending on the audience we are working with the department of education to customize the format for schools so it is within the timing. We want students to be involved and partner with folks in the dov who are ready participatory budgets in the schools. There is a clear opportunity there. Another thing new and exciting, we mention tier 4 people that just want to learn, we are training up to 25 new facilitators directly. We will be deploying them. They can go to libraries or just host or recruit. That is really an exciting opportunity to continue to build opportunities residents have to work with us to be ambassadors fort work we are doing and communities. So, this is the first pilot year. I think we have 111 applications this year. We are about to select. We will be in the training I believe it is on October 29?  September 29?  Sorry. Thank you. Thank you. 
Then, there are a few adjustments made as we continue to work on the idea generation session. 
There is a number of components we are keeping ‑‑ the budget trivia going out. I always spend the funding making a digestible understanding the best we can the time we have, explain our phases, we want to do more multimedia and videos. I think that solves the problem of explaining what this is if we do an interactive fun video, everyone gets the same information, it is probably you know a little bit more fun to watch a video than it is to stand in front of a power point. 
So that is something we are billing. Then, we are using function tabletop exercise with the sunnies and everything that will be playful, address mobility issues. So, that is one. Excited for that. Happy to share the assets with all of you. Then, we are planning to launch tier 3 city hall park October ten, we would love to have you all join us. It would be great to meet partners, them to get to know you. We willful probably have a press release. Dr. Sayeed is taking a well deserved vacation and not with us so it would be wonderful to have Commissioners there with us. 
>>  It is a Thursday. 
>>  Thank you. 
>>  Thursday. 
>>  So, that is that for year 3. I can turn it over to JP. Thank you. 
>>  Thank you.

>>  It is a little spiny. 
>>  Hello nice to see you again. 
So I will talk about the language access initiatives on going. 
So first, perfection after Wendy is the language access for the peoples money, so the translation materials including poster card, play book we will be using in the sections as well as facilitator materials, power points things like that. So, that is currently on going. This is something that will be done for each phase of the process. So, it is to be sure that the New Yorkers have the same access to participate. 
It will be all of the materials will be translated into 30 languages as well as Italian and Yiddish. 
And now we turn to the voter language assistance program. We are currently wrapping up the negotiated acquisition for interpretation services provider, the list of the general election poll sites is ready and we are beginning work on that. Services will be provided on November first, second, and third for early voting and on election day November 5th. Just know that November first it will be only Yiddish services for early voting. The rest of the early voting will be on the second and third. 
We will have 20 early voting poll sites and 80 election day poll sites for 27 language services. 
So additional updates. We will have the in person language assistant advisory committee on the 27 to discuss outreach and get to know the members in person that is really exciting. We have our posters showing on the link NYC ‑‑ city wide in English and for voter languages specifications to the zip code services. 
So this would be through November 5. 
So the election center participates ‑‑ it has been updated, posters we can see onto the right have been updated with the dates. We have printed and started to read some yesterday. 
We are working on the digital tool kit that was mentioned earlier that we use for our partners to also distribute information. 
So the CEC staff will be also sharing information with community boards about our voter language assistant services. Every staff member has been assigned a community board. If they do not reside in the services, they will be assigned to the closest one to them. 
So, that is really exciting. Then for unfortunately now, we don't have a budget for the ads. Hopefully that will change but who knows?  That is where we are language access. Thank you sir. 
>>  Thank you. 
>>  I will take us through the community board secrecy. We have some dates lined up for some of the workshops. So, coming up in the family, we have October, November, December. 
We are going to be doing a workshop with the board members for the arts integrating civic engagement and community board members in the conflict resolution workshops, they want to know more about the escalation in the settings, so we are going to do that probably in person to practice a bit and monitor the evaluation. 
These are dates that I don't know it if that is right on the dates but that is another set of workshops that are coming up. 
And, we will be working with the future of community boards working group as well. 
Focusing on the term limits, question, we will be meeting with the offices, trying to plan around that. 
As JP mentioned, where he doing something new this year in terms of the 59 community boards and we want to touch base with each of them individually. 
So, we are going to be leveraging every single team member to go out to increase presentations. The first round of presentations will be focused on the boards with the language services up to November hopefully we are good on the calendars September October to make the presentations then expand to the other boards in the rest of the year. 

Then looking at monitoring evaluation, I mention the escalation training. Today, there was to the meeting, a city council meeting for Veterans and engagement and submitted a testimony written it that with some of the work related to Veterans specifically with the participatory budgeting. 
So, that is the end that. Any questions on the awards?  Okay. Sophisticate, we are at the end of our time and over the time a little bit. 
So, would you like to hear a motion to adjourn the meeting. 
>>  Would you like to adjourn the meeting?  
>>  I be an important topic ‑‑ October is around the corner. Early voting could be  it my understanding we have one state wide ballot initiative and perhaps 5 items on the city. It happens rapidly. So, I don't know if any goal. So, we have the facing even between now and then, I would not hope that we could be in the solution clarity and perhaps at least answer questions whatever, I personally am very con fused  by all of it, so, I can't imagine the average New Yorker. So, that is it for my comment. I know is it not something we get into the end of a meeting but I want it at everyone's radar. 
>>  Thank you for that. That is an important note for us on the language working with the language communities and of course working promoting on social media cross promoting online and with the elections it will be having materials that go into the details of some of this. So, we will be sure this year actually campaign finance board will be translated so, we have the materials to help share for sure. 
So thank you for that. 
There is so much to do in the space of the education where we have a little drop of the emotion. So, okay.
>>  So in that case, motion to adjourn. 
>>  Second. 
>>  Okay all in favor. I. 
>>  Opposed?  
>>  Okay. Great.