Nyc Civic Engagement 
	Wednesday, August 12, 2020  

	TotalCaption 
	Captioned by Joshua B. Edwards, RDR, CRR

	This text is provided in rough draft format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

>> Good afternoon, everyone.  I am going to call the meeting to order, everyone.  Can you hear me okay?  Okay.  So thank you everyone for joining us today.  And I just again since we are all on videoconference, I just want to start off with a couple of technical instructions for everyone like we do every time we have been meeting.  Just to remind you, your audio is enabled for the commissioners.  And to avoid background noise, it would be great if you could just mute yourself if you are not speaking.  And you can either click on the raised hand icon next to your name or just unmute yourself if you would like to make a comment.  Otherwise just please keep yourself on mute during the meeting. 
And then the other thing we will be enabling if you signed up in advance, you will be called on first.  And you may also sign up to comment during the meeting.  You can also if you are dialing into the meeting with a phone, you don't have access to a computer monitor, put your name and affiliation to the team.  If you would like to offer comment.  And the meeting host who I believe is Francis will host today will be enabling audio and will call on the dial‑in participants by name to offer your comment.  Also, you can enable closed captioning if you look at the bottom of the screen, there's an ellipsis with dots.  If you click on that, you should an option to enable closed captioning.  
So I am just going to start with a roll call for attendance, if you could just say here when I call your name.  (Inaudible) I see you, you are muted.  Holly?  Holly, okay.  Can you hear me I'm sorry I'm not sure why that happening.  Okay.  Amy is here.  Here, yes.  Mark, Taylor, okay.  I'm here.  Is Lori here?  Donna Gill?  Okay, thank you, Donna.  Anthony Harmon?  Jose Fernandez I saw earlier.  Yes, I'm here.  Linda Lee, I'm here.  Thank you.  Lilliam.  Lilliam Perez.  Hi, I'm here.  Hi, Lilliam Perez.  Annetta.  I'm here.  Hi, and Anastasia.  Hi, I'm here.  Hi.  Okay, perfect, thank you so much.  For anyone my name is Sarah Sayeed.  Our first item on the agenda is just to vote on minutes.  Did everyone get the minutes by e‑mail?  Anyone who doesn't have the minutes for today?  Okay.  Pretty straightforward.  (Inaudible)  
Second.  All those in favor.
(A chorus of ayes.)
Any opposed?  Okay.  The minutes are approved.  I'm wondering if I should hang up and call back or something.
You sound fine now.
Are you using two different devices?  
Well, another laptop (inaudible) for some reason there's an echo.  I agree.  Interesting.  It must be because somebody's device is feeding my lead into somebody else's device.  Okay, let me know if I get unbearable.  All right.  So where am I?  I'm just using two computers because I need to follow along what we are doing today.  So okay, we approved the minutes.  Now we are just going to go through quickly the program updates like we usually do so you know what we are up to since the last meeting which was way back in May, I think.  The first area just to give you a little quick overview of participatory budgeting, we do need to talk about PD in a little bit more detail.  But I know that some of you attended PD advisory committee meeting recently which was really great.  And thanks for doing that.  And if you want to continue to be engaged with the PD meetings we will be sending out the information on the meetings.  The next one actually is coming up tomorrow at 10:00.  If you want to e‑mail us or just put your name in the chat, we can make sure that you get the information.  And one really great development that happened in the absence of not having a citywide program being able to start we are trying to think of ways that we can work on a smaller scale.  So we have been partnering with, I might have, I don't know if I mentioned this last time.  Okay.  We are working with the participatory budgeting youth fellowship program to run a small participatory budgeting demonstration process for youth.  And we are using an online platform called Desidem (phonetic).  And our hope is to take some of the lessons learned from the smaller project to inform a citywide project in the future.  The platform is going to include options for idea generation, convening online assemblies, and voting and longer‑term, we are going to leverage this assembly option and the survey modules of this platform, Desidem, to host virtual community conversations with diversity workers.  
We also want to do like we've talked about this before, doing a one stop shop portal that can include a variety of civic engagement information including voter information, language access, knowing your rights content, ways to become civically engaged.  In mid‑July we partnered with Columbia World Project international of public affairs.  We worked hard of a convening of 30 thought leaders and civic tech practitioners from different sectors like government nonprofit, academia.  And we discussed participatory democracy and how it works through these online platforms including Desidem.  And there were some people who on there who had experience with Desidem, including international folks.  So we were able to get some lessons learned from them.  And another really great thing partnership as part of the Summer Youth employment challenge with DYCD we are working with an organization called Saint Nick's Alliance in developing a youth program for the challenged where we are asking you to compile stories of past involvement in participatory budgeting.  So these were some of the things smaller projects we are working on with PD.  And then for the poll site language assistance, we are going to talk about the rules for interpreters a little bit later.  Just to give you a very, very quick snapshot, I think you might have seen the video that we developed in partnership with democracy NYC and MOIA to educate people on, you know, completing an absentee ballot for the upcoming ballot.  And we are working on voter education for early voting, absentee ballots as well as know your rights.  And we are thinking about ways of possibly adding more early voting sites for interpretation services since we want to encourage people to go vote early just to also partly as a health precaution.  So that's coming up.  And then for community boards, we were, I know I mentioned last time we were working on a needs assessment, so we did complete the needs assessment.  And I finished working on this two‑page summary of it with top‑line results.  So I will share that with you all.  But just to go through it really quickly, we had 49 community boards participate.  And most of the participants are district managers.  So it's 43 district managers.  We had seven board chairs, and also one assistant PM and two vice chairs who filled out the survey.  This is not a survey that's generalizable to community board members because it was just filled out by staff mostly and some chairs, a few chairs.  But I think it's a good beginning for us, and sort of gives in bird's‑eye view of some of the things that community boards would like to see us offer, so we really wanted to just try to offer things that add value rather than being duplicative of what borough presidents and DCP and other folks might be offering.  
So one request we did get that people don't seem to have access to through other avenues is a lot of requests for tech tools training, including for, like, GIS mapping, digital outreach, graphic design.  Some of the other requests that people made included youth outreach support, translation services and language line.  And since the last meeting, we did introduce language line to all the community boards.  So now when it's just like agencies have the ability when someone is calling seeking a different language, agencies can access language line.  Now community boards can do the same.  And we will be working with them on providing some additional best practices including, like, developing language access plans to help them reach diversity workers.  We had a training that presented overview the language line and helped people understand how to use it.  And then you might have seen that we are also offering some trainings in parliamentary procedures.  This week and last week we have been doing trainings on motions and amendments.  We had so far 135 members from Brooklyn, Staten Island, Bronx and Queens attend the trainings so far.  Tomorrow there will be a workshop for Manhattan members.  And the next round, the next two weeks we have workshops dealing with nominations and elections for each of the boroughs.  And then in September there will be a workshop on minutes for secretaries.  And the trainings are being provided by parliamentarians with Metro New York.  The last update that I want to give you is we have a really, really exciting partnership this year with the Department of Cultural Affairs for a public artist in residence.  And we were among several agencies that applied.  And we were awarded this opportunity to host an artist in residence this year.  And Yazmany Arboleda is our artist in residence.  And it's a really exciting opportunity for us to think about how we bring art and social justice and civic engagement work together, and to think of creative ways that we can really get people more enthusiastic and invested in civic engagement.  And I am going to call on Yazmany to please introduce yourself to the commissioners and to everyone else as well who has joined us today.  
>> Yazmany Arboleda:  Thank you.  Hello, everybody.  My name is Yazmany Arboleda.  I'm a proud son of two Colombian parents who came to this country.  I was born in Boston.  I have an artist for the past 20 years things about art.  I also think it's a way of building bridges across people who have different opinions and different ideas of who they are and actually transforming us to understand the world one people.  So work with committees in South Africa, in Afghanistan, in Kenya, in India, in Japan, Colombia, in Spain.  A quick example to give you a little bit of a flavor of the way that I approach the work is I think always when I come into a community, what are our values and how do we name those values together?  And how do those values lead us to a process in which we co‑create something that expresses who we are?  So in the past five and a half years, we are working with communities of Muslims, Christians, Hindus, all kinds of people who believe all kinds of things.  And together we have been painting houses of worship yellow, optimistic yellow.  And we painted 16 buildings.  I always think the buildings in themselves are sculpture, common humanity.  But the artwork that I create is relationships that are being built as people are painting.  Invite people to participate in get to go know each other and honoring the things we might not understand as we go along in a process we are developing because we are doing it together.  And so it's a little bit of a work that I do.  I'm very interested in thinking of how we apply in New York City in a moment in history when we are all transforming whether we want to or not towards the future that belongs to all of us.  So how do we co‑create it together.  I am going to be a brown lunch bag meeting next week I think is anyone who is interested in hearing about my practice and the way that I work represent some of the things that I think I want to bring to work with the Commission, and I would love to be in conversation with you all about your ideas and what you see is the richness of the community we are building to see how that can lead us forward.  I'm particularly thankful for giving me this time and giving me the opportunity to rethink with all of New York how we turn the city into an gymnasium for the human imagination.  Thank you so much, Yazmany.  We are excited to have you with us.  You bring such a great energy to the commission, and yeah, we are really happy to have this partnership.  So I just want to open the floor for any questions from the commissioners, any program updates.  May I?  
Yeah.  
I wanted to ask about the community boards what the nominations and elections cover.  If I'm understanding, is that for the executive positions within each board?  Or something else?  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  That's a very good question.  I actually personally don't recall the full answer to that.  I am going to call on Andy.  Andy Toledo who is our hopefully you can hear me.  I am going to write down the questions.  Just curious what it was.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  You want to know the content of it, right?  Right.  And whether it was for the ‑‑ 
It sounds like that's the only nominations and elections the board has, executive membership, each community board has their own bylaws that they go by which stipulate terms, et cetera, et cetera.  So I was just curious what was part of this discussion.  That is all.  
>>  I mean, I think it's just, I think the idea that we had here is to really help people, particularly new members become familiar with how to do this process online.  Because sometimes a lot of times it's been in person up until now.  So that was kind of the idea if I remember it correctly.  I can send you, you know, more detailed description of what that is.  
And about the poll sites, I was curious what we learned especially now that, you know, COVID (inaudible) many absentee ballots.  How did our stats match up as far as poll sites and language assistance as far as number of people that were required versus number of people that showed up?  And how did we fare with the primary, if you follow what I'm saying?  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Well, in the primary, we did not actually the City did not run an in‑person interpretation program.  
Oh, we did not?  Okay.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  No, because of safety concerns.  
Understood, okay.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Yeah.  So the first time that CEC will be responsible for the poll site public assistance program will be in November.  
Okay, thank you.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  And we are trying to figure out how we move forward with providing interpretation services.  And of course have to engage what we are going to do with COVID and safety concerns, we started talking about this, the need to sort of make sure that interpreters and community members are safe.  A lot of people did use in‑person poll sites during the last election.  So I think it will be helpful to provide interpretation services, and also thinking about the early voting sites and other options.  Thank you.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Sure.  Any other questions?  
I was trying to raise my hand, but it doesn't seem to be working.  It's Mark Diller.  What's going on in the community board training aspect of it, it would be interesting to know if the training with respect to the elections and so forth, takes into account the reality that for many bylaws, many community boards, voting is done by secret ballot, which is kind of impossible in an online setting.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Yeah.  
>> Is there learning about that?  Is there a substitute?  And will that be covered in the training?  
>> Can I interject, point of order.  Voting we've gone through this is open ballot.  Although it's done with a paper ballot, it's done for everyone.  We can't have secret ballots.  We were told by the law department.  
>> Yeah, I'm sorry, I misspoke.  What we tend to do is to have a paper ballot and then just announce the results.  You are correct that anybody can go to the board office and see who voted now.  But it generally makes for more collegial reactions if you don't have to shout out I'm voting for this one or against that one.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that.  I'm thinking I remember this came up that we were talking about the need to help people, like, figure out strategies for how to deal with this paper ballot issue.  But I will make sure that I get more information on the workshops and send it to you all.  
>> I have a question about the residency.  How long is the residency?  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  It's for, Yazmany, I know it's for about a year.  It's one year.  
>> Yazmany Arboleda:  It can be more than one year, but it's at least one year, the appointment.  
>> Great.  And do you have a website, Yazmany, that we can look at your work?  
>> Yazmany Arboleda:  Yeah, absolutely.  It's my first name, Yazmany.net, N‑E‑T.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  We can just drop it into the chat.  
>> Hi, this is Francis.  I will send you more information about the residency.  It takes place in two phases.  So we will go into that in a follow‑up note to you all.  
>> Could we also get the invitation, too, for the workshop that he's having?  
>> Yes.  Next week.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Okay.  In there are no other questions, I am going to keep it moving.  Eve has a question.  
>> Quick question.  Is Yazmany's presentation open to the public?  
>> Yazmany Arboleda:  Could be.  I think it could be.  I think it depends on what the desire is from the Commission in terms of who has access.  But to talk about the work, everyone's welcome in my opinion.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Okay.  Let's talk about that.  That's an interesting idea.  
(Laughter) 
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Thank you.  Anyone else?  Okay.  So I am going to move along to the next item which is today we are going to be approving the rules for establishing the new standards for individuals for providing language assistance services for the Commission's poll site interpretation program.  And if you recall at the last meeting we had and also during the public hearing, we heard feedback from you and from members of the public about the rule.  And I am going to call on Gagan to take us through the final rule before we vote on it.  And as a reminder, once the Commission has approved the final rule, a copy of the rule is posted on the NYC Rules website.  It's published in the City Record.  And it's submitted to City Council.  And this rule will take effect 30 days after it's published.  Gagan, would you please go ahead and share the presentation.  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Hello?  Hi, folks, can you hear me?  
>> Yes.  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Okay, great.  Great.  This is Gagan.  Good afternoon, everyone.  I'm unfortunately having some issues with my WebEx, so I am joining over the phone and Francis is helping me facilitate the visual aspect of the presentation which will go over a little bit of the FAQ doc that was shared with you all a few days earlier.  I want to first off say that we are so grateful for all of your thoughtfulness in the discussion that took place on this over the last couple of meetings.  I'm really grateful to the public and civic who offered.  We've taken into consideration the comments and testimony that we received on the rule.  And we have adapted a few, sorry, a few changes which are documented in the rule we shared, but we will review together.  Francis, could you go to the first slide.  
As folks know, we received testimony that suggested language be added to the rule to broaden the minimum standards for interpreters to include legal and medical certification, and although the CEC sees value in certification for interpreters, especially for interpreters working in legal or medical fields, we think it would greatly reduce the pool of interpreters who we may recruit from.  In past elections during the pilot, there was some difficulty with recruitment at times.  So we don't want to reduce the pool by adding this, another layer of qualifications which the interpreters would need to meet.  It's also difficult because we are doubling the number of languages that will be served into the program as well.  And in addition, certifications may favor interpreters with more formal education or folks who have access to certification processes.  And the interpreters, they must meet the screening requirements of the party vendor and be fluent in English and the language to be served.  And we think that the minimum requirement is sufficient for the work that will take place under this program, and additional standards will be expanded upon the interpreter training itself.
Slide 2.  Sorry.  So another question that we saw come up was why do we need minimum requirements for interpreters ‑‑ sorry, why does the minimum requirement for interpreters including written and spoken fluency in English and the language to be served?  And just to share with folks, the poll site language assistance program will serve the following program languages are listed on screen.  And as the languages expand to languages that may have a spoken language but no written form, the Commission may revisit and revise the rule to shift the qualifications to equitably affect the standards for folks who may speak a language that has no written form.  
We also want to be cognizant that this is something that the vendor will be screening the interpreters for written and spoken fluency as something that is needed in the program at the moment.  And we acknowledge that is a need that might change.  And we also want to acknowledge whether languages are expanded through the methodology or through other means over time, we will revisit this language, revise the standards and go through the same rulemaking process that we did, hold a public hearing and take into consideration comments and testimony and then revise the rule to encompass this change.  The next piece we wanted to address which came up in I think earlier conversation of how cultural context is defined and utilized in the final rule, and we just want to clearly define how it's being contained in the rule.  Cultural competency is stressed in this rule under section 1‑03(a) (8) (iii) under Accuracy ensuring that linguistic expression also includes the culture that the language is rooted to ensure the larger meaning that is conveyed to ensure a more accurate translation rather than a literal translation that may remove the message.  
An example I think of Punjabi in Pakistan versus India versus in the diaspora, it's very greatly differs.  And also it's the same language, the differing cultural frameworks and experiences can create different understanding of the same message.  And so cultural competency is stressed to ensure that interpreter interaction between the voter and the interpreter ares as approximate as possible and take into consideration cultural undertones and points of reference.  
The last slide, Francis.  Thank you.  Now moving into the changes made to the rule itself.  I want to just note that folks had raised some notes around the language of professionalism and the need to more precisely define it within the rule.  And we want to stress that there were comments offered that the CEC thinks are a better fit for the interpreter training itself which expands on the notes that are not included in the revision which includes the note on professionalism and also notes that we received on utilization of media.  Although that is not something that fits into the rule in the way it's formatted.  It's something that will be very heavy in our outreach strategy.  So there are comments that we received that may not directly fit into the rule but are things that we need to consider for the program at large.  And we will share the interpreter training deck with folks prior to sharing with interpreters.  The Commissioners will have a chance to review the expanded definition of professionalism and how it applies to the role of interpreters on election day.  But it's not something that we felt needed to be expanded upon in the rule itself.  We think the definitions of professionalism that's offered through the National Code of Ethics for interpreters in health care is sufficient for the rule at the moment.  Moving into the actual changes that were incorporated under section 1‑03(a) (5) do not directly or indirectly reveal to any person or make public any aggregate total for any particular candidate, party, ticket, or ballot question voted for by a voter.  This definition was included to underscore the importance of nonpartisanship and guard against any undue influence.  This section was added under Section 4 which talks about election.  The second change that were made was to include language on interpreters displaying identification provided by the Commission while performing duties under the program.  We felt it was an important change to include in the rule not just because of testimony that was shared, but also anecdotes that we heard from our stakeholder round table just to avoid confusion and make sure voters very clearly know who the City interpreters are and what languages they provide services in.  So that addition was also made.  The last change that we made and included was clearer language on respect.  It was something that we heard very much emphasized by the Commissioners and also folks at our stakeholder round table and we looked into the National Code of Ethics for interpreter, we found the definition of respect that we want to operate from, and the language that we added was "the interpreter will at all times treat persons served with dignity, courtesy and respect."  And we think that sufficiently covers for the rule the language we wanted to incorporate on respect, although we will expand what that means in the role and the interpreter itself.  And those are the changes that were incorporated.  Do folks have any thoughts, comments, or questions?  
>> This is Mark Diller.  Thanks.  That's very clear.  And I appreciate the effort to incorporate the results of the outreach into modifications.  It looks like the ones I was most concerned with have been added, so thank you.  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Thank you, Mark.  
>> I have a question, how do we monitor especially when you have some of these situations where, and I understand that the spoken word doesn't translate to a written word.  And these interpreters are going to be talking.  How do you protect against electioneering?  
>> Gagan Kaur:  So that's a really good question.  And I think it's a broader question that the Commission will have to consider as we continue operating the program and learn from each election cycle however it's something that we stress upon during the interpreter training.  We also emphasize that interpreters must follow all lawful orders of The Board of Elections which includes not electioneering, but our privacy.  In addition, we have supervisors that have a cluster of sites that they oversee, and that they, again they are not watching the interpreters all day.  They stop by at every site throughout the day a few times to check in on any issues, and also to assess the utilization rate as well.  I think it's something that we will also think about as we establish a protocol for the public to register any complaints against the program.  So as we establish that protocol, I think that's another space where if folks observe any type of inappropriate behavior such as electioneering, they can report it or we can address that immediately.  And potentially dismiss the staffer who is electioneering as it clearly breaks the rule and the spirit of this work.  
>> So BOE still would control that particular pole site and there would be a supervisor.  The interpreters would still be responsible to them, correct?  So if a supervisor thought there was something wrong, they could intercede at that point and make their suggestions, comments, or stop something if they feel something is being done?  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Yes, absolutely.  And there are phone calls throughout the day with the central team with the supervisors to report any issues or any other issues that may come up at the poll site.  So they may be resolved in realtime.  Because some of those issues can't wait.  And we go through that in the interpreter training of what type of issues must be flagged and reported immediately versus what are issues that you can document in the issue document sheet which can be handled at a later time.  Amy?  
>> I have a question.  Can I ask a question?  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Sorry.  
>> Does someone else have a question?  I have a question.  It's Amy.  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Hi, Amy, go ahead.  
>> Hi.  Thank you for some of those additions, amendments:  I think it showed we were listening.  One thing I would like to talk about is there's still the issue of literacy and understanding by both the interpreter and the voter.  And we heard that from a few people who came forward and spoke.  I think what we should look at if we are not doing it is a feedback loop, so while we are training the interpreters, can we also meet with the interpreters or have some sort of feedback loop after the voting process to understand from the interpreters what sorts of issues, concerns, or even top‑line, like, there are three things that happen all day long.  What were those three things?  I think gathering these sort of data points will really help us to make a much more robust program moving forward.  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Yeah, Amy, I absolutely agree.  I think the two points of experience I really think about a lot are both the interpreters' experience with the program, and the voters' experience with the interpreter.  And I think you bring up a really great point about establishing the feedback loop together all of those qualitative points of information just so we can continuously take into consideration, change the program and make it a better experience for both the interpreter and the program.  The MOIA program in the past did survey the interpreters post‑election.  But we will revisit that survey and see if it captures all of the data points that we would want to gather information on.  
>> I mean, we can also go a little bit more into the content of the interpreter training and the kind of feedback that we are going to be looking for in our ‑‑ in a future meeting just so you are apprised of how we are doing that.  We have been also talking with the Language Access Advisory Committee on ways to do outreach for the election.  So we could have a fuller discussion about that if that will be helpful.  
>> It's Linda.  I had a question as well.  Out of curiosity, and forgive me if this was in a previous presentation that I'm just forgetting.  Cultural competency piece in there.  But (inaudible) have some time to ‑‑ sorry.  Just muted myself again.  
It's tough at times different regions have different dialects and language for cultural competencies, what is the criteria?  How are you guys, I know it's tough, but how is it that you guys are going to be deciding on that and what criteria?  Is it just sort of, like, self‑report to say hey, I can see this language, but it's just to let you guys know it's from this region, or is it just, you know, I understand obviously getting into certain languages as it is.  So I was just curious about that.  Yeah, that's a great question and it's something that we need to do further thinking on.  But we remained one of the things that the CEC will need to consider.  Although there are large language communities that may speak the same language, the CEC needs to be cognizant of the country of origin the languages are from it better match interpreters than they have a similar background to interpret the message in a very holistic way.  Like there needs to be more thinking done on that piece.  But it is something that we will stress as we work with our third‑party vendor to recruit interpreters, that will be one note that we will ask them to consider as we recruit folks.  It may be something we need to think about more long‑term because it may be difficult for the November election.  Although it's something that we are going to continue to push is to better understand not only what languages are spoken in which neighborhoods, but the country of origin of those neighborhoods.  So over time we can just build much more accessible holistic systems of exchange.  
>> Thanks.  
>> I have a question.  This is Donna.  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Hi, Donna.  
>> How are you?  I don't see in the rule anything about monitoring or getting feedback from what was provided and there's nothing, a system of checking of what access was provided, how many people, you know, knows types of ‑‑ in the rule, anything that requires any kind of mapping of services or, you know, anything.  Is there some way we can sort of have or know how we would be monitoring what's going on?  Because we are going to need feedback on the access and on what we are actually providing.  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Yeah, absolutely.  Absolutely.  I think the only language that the rule includes on, like, the feedback loop is under number 3 out in the protocol for collecting recording public complaints regarding the program.  That's something we wanted to establish for public feedback.  The other feedback, the need for the CEC to create a report that goes over utilization and, like, the program at large post‑every election.  And that is something which includes the poll site and the languages that were served at which Pole site, number of voters served, going through all of those data points.  The CEC will be compiling a final report post‑every election with all of that information.  And I believe that will be also shared with the Commissioners for your knowledge and your understanding of, like, how the program is developing and going.  
>> So the language is not in the rule?  That will be part of our CEC post‑election process.  
>> Could I ask a follow‑up on that?  Is that part of the obligations of the CEC under with respect to the mayors management report or another obligation of the Commission?  
>> Gagan Kaur:  I'm not sure about ‑‑ it is in the Charter that we need to report on all of our programmatic mandates and the quality of participation, the quantity and quality of participation.  So there's different criteria that are listed in the Charter.  
>> My point being if there's a separate rule that requires that kind of follow‑up with feedback, then it doesn't need to be in this rule if it's in some other rule.  That's kind of the point I was making.  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Yeah it's noted in the charter.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  I don't think we are required to create a rule about it in the same way that we are required to create a rule for the Charter for the minimum qualifications for interpreters.  But the Charter does tell us about how we ought to report on this.  We can also add to the criteria that are listed in the Charter we think there are other things we want to follow up on as well.  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Does anyone else have any other questions?  Just for your reference in the Charter section 3202, number 5, yeah, I think there is a segment D on reporting, which talks about the location of poll sites, the languages provided, the number of individuals who utilize language services, disaggregate by poll site, recommend changes to better serve the needs of English‑proficient voters and any other information the Commission deems relevant.  
>> That seems sufficient to me.  Thanks.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Okay.  If there are no other questions at this time, could we please have someone to, are there any edits to the rule?  This is the final rule, so we would need to, if there are no further questions or edits, we would need to make a motion to approve the final rule for posting.  
>> A question.  Do we want to make that motion now or make that motion after hearing public comment?  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Oh, we are done with the public comment on this.  
>> Okay.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  That was part of the public hearing.  
>> Then it's so moved.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Okay.  Is there a second?  
>> Second.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  All those in ‑‑ 
>> On the motion.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  The motion is to approve the final rule for minimum qualifications of interpreters.  
>> No, I'm saying on the motion, just discussion.  I would like to discuss the motion is what I'm saying.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Of course.  Go ahead.  
>> With all the good work that was done, I still see some concerns.  And I am not going to try to sway all my other Commissioners to vote my way.  But I won't be supporting this and I want to explain why.  With the health certification and with that oversight, I'm just concerned that the ability for electioneering is going to become too prevalent.  We won't see it in November because of the fact as a very democratic city, most of the people will be voting in a certain direction.  But I think it will be become apparent when we get into the primaries next time, I'm just concerned, I'm not sure how much we are going to learn in November also because of the fact that like I said, this is a pretty much democratic town, and the democratic vote will prevail.  But I'm just concerned that without proper certification and especially some of these things where the language and the written don't correspond, there's going to be a lot of communication which was something that was always predominant in electioneering laws to make sure that people didn't get into that discussion.  I'm concerned that's going to take place.  So I just want to explain why, but I'm going to be voting against.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Sorry, can you just clarify.  You are saying that the way that this is written up doesn't get into those, you think that it should be more detailed as far as preventing electioneering?  
>> Right, correct.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  As opposed to being more general?  Okay.  Is there any other discussion on the motion?  Okay, maybe I should just go through what we've done in the past and just to do a roll call on the vote.  Might be easier to just track it.  So chuck?  I'm voting no.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  No?  Murad?  I don't know if you are here.  Eve?  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Holly?  Holly, are you there?  Come back.  Amy?  
>> I just ‑‑ (inaudible) comments.  I think I understand what you are saying, Chuck, and I hear you.  I do think we need to get started.  And so in that vein, I vote to approve.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Okay.  Mark Diller?  
>> Thank you.  I vote yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Lori?  
>> I vote yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Donna?  
>> I vote yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Is Anthony Harmon here?  
Jose Fernandez?  
>> I vote yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Linda Lee?  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Lilliam?  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  I think Annetta is no longer with us.  Anastasia.  
>> I vote yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Holly, I'm not sure if you can hear.  I want to call on you another time if you can vote on this.  Holly?  Not sure what happened there.  Okay.  So there were ‑‑ there was one no vote, and looks like nine votes in favor.  So based on the majority, we are going to approve this final rule for posting.  Thank you so much to all of you for that really important discussion.  And we are going to make sure that we are going to I guess continue to prioritize the importance of the concerns around electioneering, making sure the interpreters are trained correctly.  And perhaps when we present more information to you about the interpretation training there will be more opportunity to underscore some of those points as well.  
So now we are going to move forward to the Language Access Plan.  Per the Charter, every agency needs to provide, put forward a plan for how it's going to ensure that linguistically diverse communities of New York have access to its services.  So this is part of, this is a language access plan that we'll be talking about today.  We did provide you with a Language Access Plan.  And Francis Urroz will take us through that plan we will have a discussion about it.  I guess ideally we do need to vote on this.  So we will see where we end up with the discussion and the presentation.  So Francis, the floor is yours.  
>> Francis Urroz:  Great, thank you.  All right.  So let me show everyone let's see.  Okay.  So just want to make sure everyone is muted.  Okay.  Looks good.  All right.  So as Sarah Sayeed said, the Language Access Plan is part of the Charter, but more specifically is part of a requirement by Local Law 30.  If you are familiar with local law 30.  This is the law that was referenced in the poll site methodology and guides the City to the ten official Citywide languages that all City agencies must comply with.  So per this law, which was passed in 2017 by the City Council, all City agencies must establish a language access coordinator and provide translation interpretation services in the languages listed here.  Prior to this rule, the City only offered languages ‑‑ sorry, translation interpretation services in six languages.  And additionally part of this Local Law 30 that every agency must create a plan that serves two purposes.  One to guide the internal processes of the agency, and two, just make sure it's made available to the public so that the public understands how the agency provides translation interpretation services.  So this is also, you know, part of the larger city federal state laws.  So this law codified Executive Order 120 in 2008.  Became an official law July 1, 2017.  So when we talk about providing translation interpretation services, what we do not want to do is, you know, as it says here, New York City Human Rights Law says we must never let New Yorkers who prefer languages other than English wait an unreasonably amount of time to get services.  But the Commission would take this very seriously as many of our mandates are directly targeting limited English proficient communities.  For the poll site language interpretation program has this pretty much in mind, and extends interpretation to additional languages.  So it's included within our programmatic area.  We are talking not only about languages in the world including Yiddish and Italian as well.  So when we created the PSA, we translated and provided voiceover in Italian and Yiddish.  So moving forward, the Commission will include those two languages as part of our outreach and any documentation that we create must be translated, will also be provided in those two additional languages.  So the language access plan is broken down into ten sections, just mission and background.  The LEP population assessment, the provision of language access, training of staff, recording keeping and evaluation, resource analysis and planning, outreach, and language access complaints and the logistics.  So mission and background, as already mentioned, not only is this part of a federal state local law.  This is also a direct mandate within our Charter to create a plan (reading the slide).  
As far as the language access implementation plan goals, I think every programmatic area the CEC will have its own internal process on how to provide translation interpretation services.  As Gagan mentioned in her presentation, we relied heavily on advisory committee to vet the translations created by the vendors that we contract with.  Our sister partner agency Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs has also been a big part of our translation interpretation vetting.  
For participatory budgeting which we have not gone ahead to implement this program.  But we are thinking about how do we translate terms?  How do we create a strategic plan that includes access to limited English proficient communities?  And this is especially important for the digital portal.  So thinking about what are the vendors we are contracting with that can provide translation to the features that will not be, you know, static, the digital platform as you heard in other meetings is attended to, serve as a hub for information, but also for other New Yorkers to connect to each other.  
So really in the planning stages that we are currently in as we build up this portal, can we contract, what are the contracts that exists, the tools and coding necessary to provide dynamic translations within the system?  So that's something, it's a continuous conversation that you will see when you join the participatory budgeting meeting.  This is something we are actively thinking and we want to make sure we can incorporate it into the digital platform.  Community boards we are Charter‑mandated to report community languages access resources.  So as mentioned earlier, all community boards have over‑the‑phone interpretation at no cost to them in over two hundred languages 24/7.  They are not restricted by using office phone.  All community boards can access over‑the‑phone translation services from the cell phone.  All of them have a number that they can use to access this line when it's needed.  Internally to us, all staff have access to over‑the‑phone interpretation services:  Now moving forward the Commission, we are looking and going through a research phase for contracts.  What are the contracts available through the City's administrative services department that may be useful for community boards to access translation services, kind of standardizing their access as not all community boards have people budget or may have the needs that some others have.  
So at this moment we are interviewing different ‑‑ gathering information from different contracts to see what are the best options to open up language resources to community boards in a way that is not unfair to others who may not have as great resources or their needs don't match what we may be offering.  
Additionally we want to aggregate all this information, all language access information including the trainings that are being offered in one site where all community boards can access.  So that's part of making sure that all communication regarding this resource is standardized.  We are working on a city share internet site so community boards do have access to that.  So they will be able to, hoping that launch that site early in the fall where they can access all the information that we continually communicate to them.
Now LEP population assessments, Local Law 30, the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, the one responsible for implementing Local Law 30, up for the Language Access Plan.  But they ask that we use the department's four‑factor analysis to determine needs and provision of resources.  So factor one, the number of all proportions, there's a typo, of LEP New Yorkers in the eligible service population.  So for this we use the department of city planning's general city data which as you all know comes from the census.  The community survey.  So 49 percent of New Yorkers prefer language other than English.  Of that population, almost 25 percent, but 23.8 percent to be exact, do not speak English.  So the CEC's goal is to, you know, make sure that the city civic processes are open to all so when we talk about providing interpretation and translation services, our programs are open, especially participatory budgeting would be open to all New Yorkers 16 years and older.  So that's the population we are thinking about when we are talk about resources.  The frequency with which LEP New Yorkers interact with the agency.  So at the moment we have, we will discuss a little later we track all constituent inquiries, information, especially our outreach through community‑based organizations.  But our goal is to communicate with the public as much as possible through all programmatic areas.  The importance of benefits, service, information or encounter to the LEP individuals.  As you know we are the only Commission or the only instance in the Charter where civic trust is mentioned.  So it's very important that we provide and that all of other outreach to communities are done through thinking through language access and how we make sure that everyone can participate equally in the spaces, especially now that we are meeting virtually.  What does translation access look like in a virtual space.  And factor four, resources available.  So thinking through right now the contracted translation vendors that we use.  Right now we have a partnership with the Mayor's Office Of Immigrant Affairs.  As we settle our internal contracts to prepare interpretation services, we have formalized contracts with over‑the‑phone interpretation services mentioned.  We are looking to contracting with other vendors that provide easier access or less cumbersome or technically burdensome remote interpretation services.  So for instance for this meeting for over‑the‑phone interpretation services for all our notices that go out, everything is translated, put on, given to, shared with community organizations and for instructions on how to request interpretation services internally, we coordinate with the vendors, paying and scheduling interpretation services they are asked.  
And then there's just an internal or very complicated process to make sure all the interpreters are available virtually.  This is something that we are also making sure that community boards know about and feel confident employing how do you do interpretation through virtual meetings.  So provision of language access services.  So this is just kind of over‑the‑phone interpretation, we have onsite interpretation.  We always contract interpreters.  At the moment that's not possible, so we have video remote interpretation that we, you know, pay from, the community boards would pay from our pocket depending on how we decide what that contract will look like.  But we are interpretation and translation services is something that we always consider for all of our outreach and internal public meeting.  Training language access vetting process.  So this is for our staff.  So all the materials that are created or will be shown to the public must go through an internal process.  We have treated a one pager of important notes for staff to keep in mind.  So understanding, making sure that they all understand and are aware of the resources that are available to them.  And then cultural competency, this is something as Gagan mentioned earlier, and something that we are taking into consideration before the election is how do we translate terms that may not exist or may not translate as well in other languages?  
We had an experience like this when we are translating the poll site methodology especially during the hearing, the translations that we got from the vendor were not accurate or did not translate well.  So we used the language assistance advisory committee to gather their feedback.  And we are using their knowledge and expertise in the languages that they speak to create a glossary that in turn we will send to the vendor and the vendor will use so that our terms our common‑used terms will be standardized across all translations.  So the civic engagement commission, civic engagement is not a term that is easily translatable.  Participatory budgeting is another term that does not translate very well, so we are hoping to use a way to standardize all of our communications, all the PDAs and the knowledge and trust in the community so when we talk about civic engagement we can talk about it in terms that are easily understood and convey the message that we want to get across.  
Recording keeping and evaluation.  We track all inquiries.  We track the language that's provided, the borough.  We know what was exchanged, also just part of how to treat inquiries with the city.  Over‑the‑phone interpretation data.  Now this is actually recordkeeping evaluation for over‑the‑phone interpretation data is available to all people.  So when community boards access over‑the‑phone interpretation, there are a few data points that are collected.  One, it collects the ZIP code of the caller, the language and the duration.  So if community boards, you know, were interested in learning how many calls were made and in what languages and from what ZIP code, that information, we track also, that's also information that we have and we are looking to incorporate that into any translation and interpretation requested tracking.  Translation requests, how much constituents use these services.  Of course we are also tracking city 311 calls.  They also track calls to our info line and advisory committees to evaluate our translation, especially the language that's technical.  But we want to make sure that we are being sensitive to any terms that may not translate.  And as Gagan mentioned, there are, as part of the training that community boards receive on over‑the‑phone interpretation, we did let them know that there are exceptions that must be made when a constituent calls in Arabic to call between Arabic from Yemen or Arabic from Egypt.  And then as well we have surveys where we communicate with community boards, and surveys available on our website that ask constituents to either provide feedback on the services that we provide to them.  Resources analysis and planning, again, use community boards needs assessment as Dr.  Sayeed mentioned earlier.  Translation resources, that's where we are now, vendors and trying to standardize a system for them where they can procure translation services.  We have also use the community partners and staff outreach to identify community‑based organizations, our community‑based organizations that can partner with us to provide more, you know, finer details.  Underground work of pulling data on different communities that Gagan mentioned, the language may not translate well in written format.  So those are community partnerships we are relying on.  I will send you links to some of these community‑based organizations that I think have done great work in identifying the niche languages that are going to help us understand the communities their language needs.  Outreach and public awareness.  Important piece of our work.  We had a contract with Miller, and they have helped us place ads with community and ethnic media, which is very important.  All of our communications with community and ethnic media must be translated before being sent to them.  So a priority of ours for this fiscal year is continuing relationship with community and ethnic media, thinking about what our partnerships and how we can let the public know on translation interpretation services.  So one of our priorities is thinking about radio placements as well for making sure we are aware and we are trying to acknowledge the digital divide that exists through the city.  How do we reach community members who do not speak English but may also not have access to the internet.  As well we are also using our advisory committees, community partners and cross‑agency partnerships.  For our hearing, especially the one back in February to build awareness of the commission.  Language access complaints, so the city 311 calls, make formal complaints.  Routed to the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs and then sent to us.  But also the public can reach out to us through mail, e‑mail, and our website.  Our website also has a feedback loop in there.  And then they are also welcome to call our line directly.  Our address will be changing.  We will no longer be at 255 Greenwich Street, so we need to update that information.  But overall this is a plan we will continue to update as we finalize our contracts.  But it's just to give the public and our staff a process and a plan to which to follow our translation interpretation needs.  Okay.  
>> Great work.  Really great work.  One thing I caught that I think you addressed was data collection of the languages that the CDs will be requesting is going to be ‑‑ (inaudible)?  
>> Francis Urroz:  Yeah, for right now, the only data collection that they have access to is over‑the‑phone interpretation data.  So as they use this information, you know, they can create online profiles with the vendors.  So our vendors' language line and they will have access to, it doesn't record the conversation.  It just notes the language that was used and the caller's approach.  So just we wanted to get a better idea what languages, not everyone fills out the census.  So we are thinking how can we capture that language need and tie a location into that language?  
>> Yeah, excellent.  I was thinking the same thing as you were going through the project.  So I think that that's really important that we have collecting who is typically engaged and what languages they are speaking and where so that we have access to that as well.  In terms of amplifying that this is available, are the borough pressed aware of this and are they helping to push out the message that this is now available at the community boards?  And also the council members I would think would like to promote this as well as MOIA as well as the mayor.  But two quick ways of amplifying this pretty quickly that would help to open up and get more people possibly to the community boards.  
>> Francis Urroz:  We can definitely follow up on that.  I think with every service that we are providing, I think we are going to need to build really strong outreach.  And so far what we've done, and Francis, you can correct me if this is wrong, I'm not sure if we ‑‑ I don't think we worked with the council.  We may have also told the borough president, but we can certainly do more.  There's a lot of room to do more on this, I'm not sure that a lot of New Yorkers know about language line, period.  
>> And also a lot of New Yorkers are not plugged into their CBs, get the message from their borough president because they are engaging with their borough president on a different level.  And also with the council members who they often call about issues that are handled at the community board level, but they are unaware of that.  So I think that would be a really great way for you to amplify it really quickly.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  That's a great idea, thank you.  
>> Francis Urroz:  As part of our community and ethnic media plan that we create, creating at least reserving some funds for knowledge to the public about language access resources available at the community boards will be part of this fiscal year's community and ethnic media outreach plan.  
>> Francis, very thorough and excellent presentation.  I do have a question.  
>> Francis Urroz:  Yes.  
>> So run me through if someone walks into the community board office and they speak Arabic which was brought up before, so we have the ability to dial in and get an Arabic interpreter?  Is that what I'm understanding?  
>> Francis Urroz:  Yes.  Let's say the community board staff member has no idea what language they speak.  There is an option when you dial in language line for an employee there to identify the language for you.  
>> Francis Urroz:  Gotcha.  So now what is the requirement?  How would we handle, say, at a public hearing?  And many times the public hearings run late into the evening.  Is that same service available?  And are we required?  
>> Francis Urroz:  Current New York City Human Rights Law community boards are required to provide interpretation services.  Now, the mode of providing interpretation services will, you know, depend on, for a public hearing it's not advisable to use over‑the‑phone interpretation services.  It's more advisable to bring in an in‑person.  But that's not because of the in‑person.  
>>  But I don't know who is going to come to eye public hearing.  Public comment and I don't know who is going to show up unless they advise ahead of time.  If someone shows up and they are having trouble communicating, they would like to speak in their native tongue, what do we do?  
>> Francis Urroz:  I mean, that's a great question.  One of the ‑‑ the best practice that we have for that is making sure that, and that's part of the city share site to put, you know, templates, have templates for community boards to stay in that language because it's not enough to say there's interpretation available in English.  Inform the public that this is available, but of course you have someone who may be interested in a meeting, but didn't sign up prior to the meeting.  So over‑the‑phone interpretation service, that's something that, you know, is the ‑‑ we could access that's just not really practical for a larger setting for ‑‑ 
>>  I understand.  What hours of operation for over the phone?  
>> Francis Urroz:  24/7.  At the moment it's free.  And by free, we are paying for it, the Commission.  But we are looking for as I said we are looking for a few contractors for translation to written because that's something the commune boards expressed as a priority to them.  So we are looking into what is feasible and what we can do.  And that's something we have had conversations with the borough presidents, Andy Toledo, logistics of what that will look like for community boards.  
>> Thanks.  That's great.  Thank you.  
>> Francis, this is Donna.  I think you answered my question, but my question, my concern is now that the Commission is paying for this, is this something that's going to be coming out of the community board's budget in the future, or who is going to be actually paying for this service going forward?  
>> Francis Urroz:  For now for over‑the‑phone interpretation service, I think it's a cost that I don't want to speak for Dr.  Sayeed.  But just from costs and my prior experience working for the Department of Education on language access, it's not too much of a cost where we would ‑‑ we don't see us giving that to community boards.  I think it's important that we have one resource that will always be available to them to improve general access, over‑the‑phone interpretation is one of those resources you really have to plan too much or think about.  You can just grab your phone and call and have that conversation.  And it works both ways.  You know, you can make a call to constituents and have the interpreter introduce you and leave a message.  If someone calls you, you can do a three‑way call.  But the question is more and looking for what translations and written documents and interpretation, like, in‑person interpretation, and even virtual interpretation, what that process will look like, because that's when the calls start to increase where our budget may not be able to handle, you know, provision of translation and interpretation services, not something that we can do just to ‑‑ we are a very small staff.  So thinking about how can we set up a system where community boards can access that without us having to be the middle person.  Yeah.  
>> I have questions on that part.  But we are having internal conversations and you are always welcome to, if you are interested in joining those conversations and offering your input.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Just for information's sake, the community Board currently are permitted to access their OTPS budgets for translation and interpretation services.  So we did encounter some boards who are doing that already.  I'm not sure, I don't think it's even across all boards, but there are definitely boards who are translating their fliers and also I think boards are providing interpretation in the most commonly spoken language which is Spanish.  But it would be good to assess this on a deeper level, I think, and see what's going on.  And your board meetings, do you provide interpretation?  I mean, I think part of the public notice that you encourage folks to call in or let you know they want interpretation.  But like Chuck said, people just don't necessarily sign up for that.  
>> In the last two years, the council has given the community boards $42,000.  And that expired this June.  I'm not sure if that's going to happen this year, but the budgets are tight this year.  Some of the language interpretation services.  But absent that, it's going to be tough as much as I understand the Commission doesn't want to bear the burden, I'm not sure how the community boards are going to have any expendable dollars for that either.  So keep that in mind going forward.  
>> And in my board we don't have ‑‑ we have ALS which is sign language.  Our community has a huge Deaf population.  So we do have ALS, that language access.  We don't have ‑‑ that is one of the things that we do cover and because Chuck said, part of that $42,000 is going towards having that even when we have, we still have the language, the ALS and the teleprompt where ‑‑ (inaudible) as well.  So that's the reason for my question.  Okay, thank you, I want to just do a time check.  It's a little over 3:30 now and we did have the last half hour for public comment.  So I'm wondering, ideally we were supposed to vote on this Language Access Plan.  And I'm wondering if people feel, think they are able to do that today or should we do further vote to a follow meeting?  I don't want if we want to take more time reviewing the plan if you have had a chance to read it.  I would like some thoughts on that.  
>>  I'm okay to move forward.  
>> Francis Urroz:  This is Francis.  This plan will have many iterations just because of just the contract and how contracts go move very slowly through the City.  So when we do update, I will always follow up with, you know, the details.  But this is generally the framework.  This is our plan.  I think all that we need to do is just add the vendors as we finalize contracts and any other information.  
>> It was very thorough, and I think that we could vote on it today if the other Commissioners feel the same.  
>> I feel the same way.  
>> Agree.  
>> Chuck, do you want to make the motion?  
>> I will make the motion to approve.  
>> Second.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Okay.  So Chuck.  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Holly?  Holly Bonner?  Amy?  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Mark?  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Lori?  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Donna?  Donna?  
>> She was just on.  She left.  
Jose?  
>> Donna is here.  She just needs to be unmuted.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Oh.  She's be muted.  
>> Yes!  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Okay, thanks.  Jose?  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Linda?  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Lilliam?  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Anastasia?  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Okay, thank you.  Okay.  This Language Access Plan is approved.  Thank you.  So for the next ‑‑ was there anyone signed up for public comment, Francis?  
>> Francis Urroz:  No, so I will go ahead and unmute everyone just for public comments.  So here we go.  If anyone would like to offer public comments, please raise your hand or just send us a message in the chat.  Or feel free to unmute yourself and you can offer comment.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  We still have, I guess there are a few people here who are members of the public.  
>> Francis Urroz:  Yes.  There are four.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Okay.  
>> I would like to just bring up something for discussion if it's all right.  One thing I thought it was really interesting when we were talking about civic engagement and participatory budgeting not being easily translated.  And I was wondering if we were working with anyone who is involved in infographics to help try and make pictures that would help to translate these two concepts.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  I know we had started this conversation.  I don't think it came to a conclusion about how we translate civic engagement for sure.  I know Francis and Gagan were both part of that.  Do either one of you want to comment on that?   
>> Francis Urroz:  Yes, so did you say info graph?  Generally we had started talk about.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Generally we had talked about how these terms are hard to translate.  
>> Francis Urroz:  On our end, Gagan and myself have just discussed doing a preliminary just word bank of all the terms that we would like to have translation for, provide our own descriptions and the context for those terms.  And then send them out to the vendor, have that vendor return that to us, and then we will work with the advisory committee and our community partners to, you know, gauge whether those are good translations and have them also provide input on other or how we can translate that.  Now in terms of info graph, I think, let me see if they are here.  I know that Wendy and Miela have been in the design of the digital portal have started to have those conversations and how do we, you know, provide pictures and make participatory budgeting more of something that anyone can identify by looking at the graphics.  So that's kind of right now where they are with participatory budgeting.  And the very, very early stages of this conversation.  I think last week they had a design meeting just about this.  So we are welcome to join those conversations as well.  But I don't think they are on the call.  That is something they are thinking about.  
>> Yeah, is there any professional graphic design or, you know, branding company that's being used to help with this?  I mean, infographics is a language onto itself that really you need professionals who understand how to do that.  And I think that the Commission would really serve itself very well to start to work on pictures that help to convey larger concepts.  Because regardless of what language you are translating into, if you have a picture that's easily understood, it goes a very long way.  So I would urge the Commission to really look into employing professionals in this field to help in that regard.  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Absolutely.  Sorry, this is Gagan.  I'm having issues with my mute button.  I just wanted to add one thing.  We experienced the phenomenon that you are naming with absentee voting and the mail in ballot the Mayor's Office of immigrant affairs to create a PSA that, it, like, follows it's it was kind of like a motion info graph where if folks are not familiar with, you know, this new idea of not new idea, but this new practice around mail in voting, we wanted to make sure that there was a visual guidance of what that process looks like from, you know, requesting the application to signing the ballot, making sure folks knew where to sign their envelopes.  So completely hear you on they need to create a visual guide for some of these processes.  We also have been talking with our language assistance advisory committee on other, what's it called?  Positions of power in New York City, for example, the Mayor's Office, the Comptroller's Office, the borough presidents, what those roles encompass and the responsibilities of those roles look like.  So those are other things we are thinking about that can be mapped out visually to make, to build deeper knowledge around those offices.  And we have not started our conversation with city graphics yet on greeting info graphs for the November election.  But that is something that we will be considering and doing as well.  Because it absolutely to your point, visual guides are just so much more helpful in understanding nuanced processes.  And although folks might be familiar with the term, but the visual graphic can help deepen the knowledge.  
>>  Great, Gagan.  Thank you so much.  
>> Gagan Kaur:  Of course.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  I'm actually even curious about whether the term "civic engagement" is understandable in English.  
(Laughter) 
>> Sarah Sayeed:  I think that the word "civics" is not a part of, like, everyday vocabulary for a lot of people who speak English.  So I think making it accessible even in plain English is going to be a challenge for us.  And we were starting to talk actually with, around the portal, you know, what to name the portal.  And Yazmany was also talking with us a little bit about, like, what are going to be some of the action words that go with a concept like this, "civics" and how do we bring those in?  What are we trying to achieve through this Commission?  
So, yeah, making it accessible is going to be really important for sure.  Are there any other comments either from Commissioners or from members of the public?  
>> Can you hear me?  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Yeah.  
>>  I was wondering if we had reached out to ABNY New York which is A Better New York City Business and young professional organization that is also working towards civic engagement?  And they have a funding arm.  They have a foundation.  I don't know if that could be one of our partners in some of the things that we are doing.  So I think that's what they are called, ABNY Better New York.  So I don't know if you know about them or anything, you know, reached out to them.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  We haven't yet, but we can note it down.  And also really welcome for all of you to continue to, I want to reach out to you again to stay in touch with you one on one.  You know, please feel free to send us, like, partners you think we could be talking to.  One of our greatest challenges I think going forward into this year which I think you can all help with is that CEC is a relatively unknown, you know, entity, both inside government as well as in the city at large.  And I think we have to really put ourselves on the map in all kinds of ways.  And we are working even through participatory budgeting and the language access, language assistance program and community boards, we really need to get out there more.  So whatever your thoughts are on that, we do now have a Facebook page.  So I would love for you all to like that page.  We will make sure we follow up with you on that and then also follow us on Twitter, you know, and we can work out a plan for encouraging more people to follow us.  But just to, you know, friend us, like us, follow us, all those things that we need to get out there more.  So we would appreciate your support with that part of it as well.  Someone had a comment about C‑U‑P, the Center for Urban Pedagogies is another group that we had met with and hopefully we can continue to work with a little bit more, because they have really great visual tools.  Okay.  We are nearing at the end of time.  One thing I do want to mention and we will bring it into the next meetings is that our currently the CEC resolution asks the Commission to vote on various reports that we have to submit to the City.  And one of the reports and some of these reports have these deadlines and, you know, and we often have to turn them around relatively quickly.  And so we, I think we need to talk a little bit about how we go through the Commission approving these reports as we submit them.  One of the reports that we had to submit which apparently had a deadline a while ago that we didn't even know about because we are relatively new is a report on the identifying information law which asks us to report out on what kinds of identifying information we are asking in our programs.  So I will bring that to the next meeting and then we can talk a little bit more about how we want to go through the Commission approval of the reports that we have to submit.  For instance, there are quarterly, I believe quarterly reports on our usage of ethnic and community media.  And so we should just talk more about how to do that, because currently the resolution asks us to go through voting every single time which may or may not be helpful for different situations.  So want to put that on the agenda.  I want to ask you all before we close, are there things, any issues that you would like to put on the agenda for the next meeting?  Any major concerns or issues you would like for us to discuss?  
>> This is Mark Diller.  To the extent that there are going to be additional trainings or resources made available for community boards, it would be great to have a heads‑up in advance of those being rolled out so we can share them with colleagues and so that we can offer whatever we can offer about them.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Will do.  Do you have, does everyone here ‑‑ okay.  Did we send you information on the trainings on nomination elections?  It doesn't sound like we did because you asked about what it was.  So we will make sure we get that to you.  
>> (Inaudible).  
That came from the borough president's office.  
>> Yeah.  
>> I received it from the community board, but only by title.  Not by descriptive.  It was just an agenda of what was coming out and I got it from my district manager and it just showed what the different subjects were but didn't describe the course.  
>> Me too, yeah.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Okay.  I just want to go over, because I know that you both asked about this.  I want to make sure I wrote it down right as to what exactly you were looking for.  You wanted to know about whether these workshops would cover how the balloting process would work in an online meeting?  That was one question.  Did I get that correctly?  
>> Yes.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  And then for nominations and elections, Chuck, you were asking about whether it was covering the ‑‑ 
>> Not sure what it was covering.  Just not sure what it was covering. 
>>  Sarah Sayeed:  Did you see that I put into the chat a description of it?  That didn't answer the question, right, for you?  
>> Oh, okay, now I see it.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Yeah, it says just learning how to properly conduct elections and voting in a virtual setting using standard and alternative methods.  
>>  Okay, I mean, it's probably not too much different than what's going to happen in person be but okay.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  I think in general, it probably won't because you have to follow your bylaws.
>> Correct.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  I think a lot of bylaws were written with the assumption that these meetings would happen in person and some procedures need to be adjusted.
>> Well, the only other interesting thing that comes up now is that you would have to have a different method of tabulating the vote.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Correct.  
>> As Mark mentioned currently right now, we do do it as a piece of paper ballot handed in and it is counted.  It is public record, but it's not an open outcry and they don't go alphabetically like you just did and ask the Commissions who do you vote for.  So that would have to be something that would have to be figured out now in the virtual setting because that process no longer exists.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Yeah, very good point.  Okay.  
>> Sara, if I could just add?  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  This is Andy?  
>> Hi, good afternoon, everyone.  Just for clarity, the course description target audience and learning objectives was all submitted to the district managers and the borough president's offices.  So I don't know why they didn't provide that to the board members, why it got lost, but I will be sure to remind at the end any borough president's office when they do send out the information to include the course description and the target audience and learning objectives of the course.  
>> Actually that's the borough president's office.  This is Donna Gill, the target audience and the dates of the training.  So that e‑mail was very specific.  So we did have that.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  It sounds like everyone did get that, Andy.  I think that maybe there are specific questions that that description doesn't answer.  So maybe we want to think about giving more details, for example, about what would be covered.  And then to find out, you know, answers to those specific questions that were raised.  But there are so many ways we can make the course description more accessible.  And probably it's also the case that some people are, you know, are more experts in this area.  And so don't necessarily need trainings like this.  But probably more helpful for newer members too.  
>> I think the key right now now that we have discussed it a little bit is the virtual meeting setting.  Because like I said, you are not able to submit a paper ballot.  It's going to have to be done differently.  So the question really is what are the choices and what is required?  And you said it correctly.  Other than that, the nominations and the elections are covered by bylaws.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Right.  
>> And each board tweaks their bylaws slightly differently.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Right.  
>> I mean, this is going into it, but there is, I assume that the paper ballots go to one person; is that correct?  
>> Yes.  It's handed in.  It's collected.  Usually the DM them all and they take the tallies.  We don't turn around and say who voted for whom, although you could check that in the public record.  
>> Zoom has the ability to do a survey question.  So the ballots, survey question which only the person running the meeting is receiving that information.  It's not everybody's seeing it.  So just quickly I just wanted to throw that out there.  
>> We explored that.  It actually doesn't work for the reason that generally speaking, at least in Manhattan we were advised by the borough president's IT folks to hold our meetings as webinars so that you can prevent people from Zoom bombing you.  And the problem is that you make the board members panelists and when you do a survey, you are surveying the audience, not the panel.  So Zoom doesn't permit you to do that very logical and sensible thing you proposed because the software won't allow it, unfortunately.  And we have been noodling on that, but so far we have come up with nothing and neither have Zoom.  Great idea.  I wish it worked.  
>> Right.  And we are not set up with Zoom.  We are set up with another program.  That's how we were set up.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  DOIT provided free WebEx licenses.  
>> Only after the borough president in Manhattan spent a ton of money buying Zoom.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Yeah, I think that was a hiccough there.  One of the things we are going to be looking into in the next immediate few weeks and we should really call the meeting to a close, but I want to mention that with virtual meetings, the digital divide poses a challenge.  And I think it's also the case that for not all community board members themselves have online access.  So in other words, we need to see how that is working across the boards.  It's based on, you know, some preliminary assessment.  It seems like people are having difficulty with making quorum, having members join, and then starting in the fall there will actually be the addition of hearings as well as meetings.  So it's going to be really important for I think us to pay more attention to how that's working on the ground.  And if you have the folks who are in community boards or not in community boards, if you have information you want to share with us on how that's working, we would love to hear from you on that.  
>> I thought the City of New York was making a major investment in providing additional program access to people struggling with access.  Although the problem is the device.  If you don't have the device, it doesn't matter if you have internet.  In the work that I do daily is a pretty big struggle.  Healthcare and we are trying to access our patient population and in the Bronx, it is a big problem both because of devices, but mostly because of broad band.  
>> I am also going to agree with that.  Through the chapter I work with, we ended up getting a grant to get tablets for individuals who debate have the equipment.  But the struggle is internet.  
>> And I know that there's a lot of talk now with the Yuler process and public meetings done online that there's a huge concern that many community members will not be able to voice their concerns about new development projects because of this being online.  
>> Sarah Sayeed:  Yeah.  It's an important concern.  I think it will be interesting that I imagine this varies greatly by community board, but probably the public hearing portion for boards are attended to different degrees across the city when they are in person.  I think the visual meeting landscape is going to make that attendance or lack of attendance much more visible to us because you will be able to see how well, like, on a screen how many people there are in every hearing and meeting.  So some of the departments that civic engagement divides that we were working with before with attendance at past hearings and meetings will probably become more pronounced with the digital divide.  But it will be interesting to see what happens.