Anchorage Assembly: 9-3-26 Anchorage Women's Commission Meeting

All right, so the meeting is called to order at 4:30, and we will say the pledge. All right. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Good job. Thanks, Ashley. You're rolling through it. I'm real proud.

All right. So we've got roll call. Do you guys want to call it?

Do you want me to call it? The introductions too. Ari, are you here? Yes. Okay.

Beth, are you here? Yes. Kayla, are you here? Yes. And Celeste, I see, is here.

And Kristen is here. Yes, I'm on my way. You're good. We're gonna just keep rolling through this. All right.

We're missing Melissa.

And Melissa had said that she was going to be here virtually. She had to pick her mom up. A lot of those words to do. Okay, well, when I had emailed her, it bounced back. That's why I didn't think she was going to be here.

But, um, and we have not heard from Leslie. Okay, she may show up later, um, because I know she's still working. Uh, yeah, she was. And then that's all of us, right? Okay, um, we will open the floor for a motion to approve the agenda.

Motion to approve the agenda.

We do the motion to approve and then to take adjustments. All right, so, um, second.

It's consent, but do you need a—. So Beth has seconded.

It's, uh, uh, approval by consent, but now we'll make the adjustments. Are there any amendments to the agenda? I have an amendment. I would like to make a motion that we amend the agenda to move the mayor from new business to after approval of minutes, but maybe just like whenever she's here and ready, we can have her speak. She has a heart out of 5, so.

Whenever she's ready. Do we have a second?

Second.

Um, so we can do the approval of the motion by consent. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so if there is— is there anybody, um, who wishes to, uh not approve the amendment for the agenda to move the mayor?

Don't want to? Then it passes unanimously. Is there anybody who does not want to approve the agenda?

No. Hearing none, the agenda is approved as amended.

Great. That terminology will not stick in my head, and I have everyone— that's fine. Yeah, I'd have everyone voting on everything at all times, so this works better. Okay, so next up is disclosures.

No, is this yourself? Yes, yes, we're just on disclosures right now, but we're— we just have to do some paperwork really. On to you. Um, you have any disclosures?

Right, thanks. We are happy to have you. All right, all right, this is on the official reporting. I know, I was going to say ours, but we can't say we're not reporters. I'm not the chair.

All right, so we have minutes from the June meeting and the August meeting that we need to approve. So let's start with June, and we'll do this by consent. Can I have a— or can I make a motion to approve the minutes? Yes. For both?

Yeah, June and August. Move second. Second.

And any changes, edits, corrections? Okay, so we will move to— or we will— we can approve by consent. If anyone does not approve of these minutes, please let yourself be known.

Okay, hearing none, both June and August minutes are for you so we can get those up on the website. And now we are to our revised agenda and welcome Mayor LaFrance. Thank you. To the Women's Commission. We have a couple of folks online, although one is on her way.

And, yeah, we— you and I had spoken briefly, and then I'm glad that we could finally get you there. Because I know you're busy. It's great to be here. And I guess we wanted to have an opportunity for you to talk about what you would like to see for women in the community, what you're hearing from women in the community, and then maybe we can ask some questions and give you some updates about the work that we're trying to do. Sure.

And thanks so much to each and every one of you for serving on the Commission. It's really wonderful that you are willing to do this. I know we all have busy lives, so thank you for that. Thanks also for the opportunity to be here. Like Marie disclosed, yes, happy to be here and appreciate the conversation.

And we have had some of these types of conversations with other commissions too, and really would welcome the opportunity to brainstorm. And hear a little more about, like, when you join this Commission, what you think might be your priority or what you're hoping that the Commission can do. I guess I will say that as far as— and I was looking, refreshing myself on your mission and the function of the Commission and just how important it is You know, for our team, for the administration, for every single person lives here in the municipality to have access to opportunities and to have access to equal levels of services, those services, and have a voice. And so, uh, I think that looking at our internal operations and policies, and then also to the municipality's external policies, whether that's like laws and everything. Um, all those are areas that, you know, would really love to hear feedback.

And so I guess even, um, how you focus— do you all have a— did I see strategic plan on your list? Okay. Yeah. Where are you at with that? So I guess we could do a little— I think other than Leslie, who's not present quite yet, and I should actually recognize that we had another commissioner join online.

Melissa is our newest commissioner. Nice. So, um, we have 2 open seats, I should say. Yes. Okay.

Um, so other than Wesley, Ari and I are now the longest-terming or serving members of the commission, and we've been on a year and a half. Yeah, February 24th. Yes. And so I think we were both equally— we came in and we thought, we're just going to help. And then I think that the Commission has struggled quite a bit, particularly during the pandemic, to keep going on lots of things.

And there seems to be a disconnect between what some of us thought the role was and what the mission was as we laid out. So there was conversation about— We should start a nonprofit or we should start a program in the community. And I thought, For me, I went, "Wait, wait, wait, we're advisory committee?" And part of that was that we had some onboarding. Ashley did the onboarding with us when we first started. But outside of that, there wasn't more structured onboarding for the commission itself, right?

Like, what is our role? How should we go about doing this?

So, we— this is where we kind of laid out a plan on how were we going to build the infrastructure for this mission all the way to we couldn't find records. Staff had found historical records now, and so what's our foundation? And then Ari has been leading that effort around infrastructure to set up some onboard, like when we have a new commissioner, we welcome them and we share contact information. And give them some information. Um, we set up an outreach and communications committee, um, specifically because we knew we needed some two-way conversation with women in the municipality.

And then the other part is the strategic planning, which actually starts with, um, a needs assessment in the community. So Yeah, yeah. So we initially, it was everybody bring their ideas and we'll look at the top 3. Right. We thought that we're a very limited set of perspectives that we want to make sure that we're reaching out to the rest of the community and hitting target communities too.

Right. Everything from women who are homeless, Native women, Pacific Islander women, women business owners. Been in— I don't know where that came from. I just came back from Nevada last week. I was visiting.

Yes, Eagle River. Love it. Yeah, um, so we've been working on building up, um, the needs assessment document, um, and some other health department staff been very helpful. Frankie upstairs, uh, met with her and her colleagues. Um, they are interested with me in potentially adding some questions to our needs assessment survey because they too have some goals of getting more community input and outreach around their work.

Um, and then they connected us with the I-team. Yes. I think I just combined that update because I had last week or last month, we hadn't had that meeting yet.

The survey document was fine, the length was fine. They actually suggested that we had more open-ended questions, which I was thinking, we're thinking, oh my gosh, let's make it easy to tabulate. Then when you say, I know, we don't need 20. That's right.

So that's something that we need to look at doing is probably at least in each section. And we went broad for these assessments, so that, that will lead into our strategic planning. Once we have voices heard, then we can put together some recommendations based on what women have said and bring them to your office, bring them to the assembly to say that there's really— Yeah, that seems to fit our purpose as a commission. They are in that advisory capacity. So what I am hearing is that you all, you are building that.

And in that needs assessment, how does data fit in, or do you have access to data? That was one of the things we were chatting earlier, and that was one of the things I was thinking about, like health data. Other data pertaining to women here. Has data been made available to you or conversations? The plan is to, yeah, as the— once we get that community survey out.

Start with that. Yeah, let's get that out, start allowing responses, encouraging responses, and then we start looking at what data do we have access to. Okay. Is that something that your office is able to help give us some direction on? I mean, we have great staff on this and are constantly saying, hey, you guys should know about this and this and this.

So I'm not actually that concerned about what data we'll have access to from the health department. Yeah. Maybe how much data is going to be fine.

But throughout the course, because we don't know necessarily where data sits because we don't know. Sure. No, that's— That's a really good question. I mean, I think about we have a lot of employment data and some data that, uh, that now we've got— but that's one thing we can definitely look and see what's available. Just, yeah, request it through Arlene or Ashley and then send it to me if it's not something you have.

If that's okay, that you don't have access to support services. Um, we'll come up with a list, give that to you guys to— we don't see what we do have out there. Um, another component of this is, um, raw data is nice, um, but it doesn't replace those one-on-one conversations where deeper and more nuanced information comes from. So that is another plan as part of this is to have some targeted listening sessions with women. Relying a lot on community partners.

So nonprofit entities, other service providers.

And we're just, again, trying to get the survey done yet, but that's the vision.

Then to really fill out whatever our recommendation to be. So any additions? That's okay. We just skipped right to it. We already did roll call, so that's why.

Thank you for giving me a chance to Sure, I'm Ariana. I'm the vice chair, co-chair for the—. And President Robert. Nice fact. Yeah, I got all the names.

Yes. And I'm Kristi Traver. I'm the chair. I'm Beth Fletcher. And I'm Celeste Hurley.

Then online, Kayla, do you want to introduce yourself? Hi, Kayla Lucy, member.

And Melissa, are you able to introduce yourself?

Hi, Melissa Scarbeck. I'm a social worker and small business owner in Anchorage.

So do you guys want to introduce yourselves? Of course. Hello, friends. I'm Katie Staudtall, public health division manager. You know me.

Yes, I do indeed. I'm Arlene McGowan, and the WIC Family Service Supervisor. I'm Ashley Durning, Program Manager.

I got great staff. Yeah, I might be a little biased.

No, great combination too of interest in fires. Yeah. Oh, I guess we didn't say that.

Um, and then I'm relevant in this room. It's actually nice to hear from Melissa that she's a small business owner because that's one of the areas that I'm looking to be a small business owner on the council. So that was great. Um, Celeste, do you want to—. Oh, I work at the Alaska Community Foundation, so my background is fundraising.

I work at the Alaska Railroad, but I have a long history with MIT, and I worked in IT my whole career, but I have a long history in healthcare. That's why I love healthcare. It's kind of sad since it's been helping me for the last 40,000 years. Um, yes. Oh, um, hey, Kayla, do you want to, um, talk about your— a little bit about your background, where you work, that kind of thing?

Oh, you're on mute, ma'am.

That would be helpful, wouldn't it? Thank you. So I work at Alaska Pacific University as the grants coordinator, but originally I'm from New York. Lived here since last June.

Do you have a nice mix of— or we have a nice mix of New York residents and lifelong Alaskans too. And then I actually work domestic violence, sexual assault background, and running the victim services program for the Oglala Lakota Violence Association. Yeah, right now we can do that. We saw each other on Tuesday. Nice conference.

But yeah, so, she had questions about all of this stuff. I'm just— well, I love how you played it out. Needs assessment and data, and then also having those 1-on-1 conversations. It is, it is really super helpful when commissions advise and make recommendations or pass a resolution, give feedback, you know, on a policy or something that ought to be there, or law, or how an area where people are underserved. So I'm excited to get your feedback, and I am curious if each of you, or any of you, had— if you joined the Commission with a burning issue in mind, or just wanting to come and learn and connect and figure out, you know, how to make a positive difference, or both, or, or something else.

Civic duty, because you don't have a destination. I know. I got paid for that. Yeah. True.

Yeah. I'm gonna stick my neck out really far on this one. I became very concerned about what I perceive as hostility and violence and, I don't know, legislation against women in the United States, and I wanted to see if I could, I don't know, do something about it.

Yeah, I think civic duty was a big call. I mean, I went through the Alaska Center's Board and Commission Leadership Program as part of the, um, end goal was to join a commission. So, yeah, right on that. But I think, um, you know, growing up in Anchorage, what was really important to me is that families are, um, stable and, and for some part of that, a lot of the childcare duty here that is in our community falls, falls to women. And so that's kind of my burning passion.

My mom worked in childcare and is a midwife, so there's close families right there for me. And it's really hard, I think, for women my age who are starting families to either leave the workforce because they can't afford childcare or just juggle that. So that's just a burning issue. And that's anecdotal, but I just— I get it a lot. Yeah.

Yeah.

How about you, Kayla? Why did you join the Commission? So I joined the Commission because at Syracuse University I was actually on the Senate committee for the university on their Women's Commission. And something that I noticed was that there will be a lot of women in middle management positions, but once you get to the VP They're all male. And I'm like, the math isn't mathing on this situation.

So trying to help create like equality and fairness in the workplace, but I figure can also try and do that on a bigger scale. So Alaska allowed me that opportunity while moving here.

Alyssa, are you willing to share?

Yeah, absolutely. So I haven't lived in Alaska for my entire life, and so I've had the opportunity to do a lot of military trainings, SHARP trainings. And when I came to Alaska, I started working for OCS, and immediately I was taken aback that all of the protective services reports were under the mother's name. And I think that was my very first experience with the disproportionate number of responsibilities that women have even outside of the home, right? So when there are concerns that are going on inside the home, it defaults to moms, women, just ordinarily.

And so I've kind of made it my mission since then to try to make a difference in the communities that I serve because, again, marginalized populations, women fall into that category. And so by joining the commission, I felt that the knowledge and experience and education that I had could be of service to identifying where downfalls are happening with certain populations and what I could do to offer assistance with, you know, kind of mitigating those things.

I have a question if that's sure. Can I go first? Oh, sorry. I think it's a chance I skipped everybody. I would skip to everybody else.

Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, so obviously I have a passion for domestic violence, sexual assault work. We have horrible numbers. Um, Anchorage's rates of sexual violence are 2.5 times the national average. Statewide is just twice. Um, so, um, obviously because we're the biggest city, you're going to see higher numbers, but I also see a real lack of prosecution of these cases, pleading these cases down to misdemeanors, not following through.

And while we have victim services, they lack the depth to really work with victims to heal, and there's not enough attention paid to the prevention side of things. So, healing men's trauma, so they are not perpetrating it against others. So that's a big thing. But when I, I really wanted to volunteer, and I looked around and thought, I could volunteer on the hotline. No, Christine, that's your day job.

You need to diversify. There's other interests to be a healthy person. I thought this would be a good place to spend some time and invest my efforts. And so far, yes, even when we've had struggles, um, in, you know, like meeting forum and moving things along, um, it's still been a good place. Like, listen to all of these women and talking about their passions and waiting to hear when they can move to get to be a part of.

So, yeah. Oh, sorry, I was just curious what examples of committee or commissions giving advisory opinions to you and then how that's turned into actual policy action. And like, not including, say, like planning and zoning, but like, not necessarily only commissions, that way we have an idea of like where we could take some of our, you know, maybe resolutions or something. Yeah, I'll throw out a few and Marie works very closely with the commissions. I mean, the Budget Advisory Commission is one where they typically provide feedback on the proposed budget, or when the alcohol tax is being proposed, they weigh in.

So, I'm sure, um, geotechnical advisory committee, um, and, um, they They have weighed in on different things like around seismic standards for the port. A technical— I mean, they're all same professional focus and everything, building safety standards. The Arts Commission, they've got a function actually as part their connection with some grants.

I mean, I would love to, I would love to hear your assessment of how are we doing in the US Academy based on feedback. And, and if you are interested, um, you know, like digging in, I'll just— when you're mentioning sex assault, domestic violence, that's an area like, Prosecutor's office, you know, has signed something and we're yet making sure we have the resources because the prosecution piece is huge, but it also means we need to work very closely with the state and it means, right, that we have to advocate too. And so I would love to hear your, your review, your assessment of How are we doing? Are there opportunities that we can do more? I mean, the health department does an incredible job, their outreach, and really engaging with folks and being accessible.

Right? Um, and they love to apply that to wherever it is, or even the part about— sorry, Dari, you can keep going. You know, when, um, we came into office, and looking at, you know, some management or in the director positions, right? And this came up also with members, but there are others in the Pennsylvania County Units too, like, how do we find out about these jobs? What's the pathway?

Sometimes municipal jobs can be real specific, like you can take off and leverage all your private sector experience or your profit, but there's still some kind of like, um, funky local government things too. And so how do we open that up so we have a municipality that truly reflects our community, you know? And then of course, uh, when I came on the assembly, was just, um, for a little while me and one other woman, um, and there were 11 of us on the body, right? And that, and that number goes up and down, and there are lots of ways in which we want our first elected officials to reflect community. But I know I heard some people say, like, wouldn't it be great if it was half and half?

I think they're pretty— that's close. Yeah, we have a 6-person assembly. It's not— yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but I mean, especially with your backgrounds and experience looking at it, I know that's been a conversation about who can actually move into those seats, who can run. And, you know, there was a real effort to increase the salaries, right? Those positions, so people didn't have to necessarily work full-time. Could better balance, right, and be open to more. So yeah, your perspectives, your critiques, what you think could be opportunities for what we can do better.

What do you think, Marie? You spend so much time with boards and commissions, right? Yes, and actually what comes to mind, I— that one I'm telling everyone, I think here, when I started with AmUNA in 2006, I worked There was a department in the 5th floor that works on domestic violence and child abuse prevention, and we staffed the Women's Commission at the time. And at the time, because we came from that department, the domestic violence and child abuse, there was some sort of a focus on that and the grants that we're working on. And something that actually came out of that was having— and it's now state law.

I think we started with local. The pets, like if you're harming your pets, then that's a big red flag. And so I know it's something they supported or from speakers, because that's also something you can have is have speakers. So we know people working with APD who at the time had 2 dedicated officers kind of watch or track the people after you file the restrictive restriction orders and and they visit the spouse anyway, even when there's a restraining order. And so there was a focus on those offenders to, like, yeah, it's domestic violence prevention, something long acronym on grants.

So, so, yeah, big focus on that. And so just from those studies, from that, the grants that we had at the time, That's something that came up. So, it's either just supporting it or really, because I remember something, somebody coming here and supporting that. And also the Senior Citizens Commission, Advisory Commission, it's not become law, but I've seen them pass a resolution that they sent letters to the legislature on their opinion about something that is going on, like a bill that they're discussing. You know, so you can do that for state or also local.

So something to kind of keep in mind. Okay, so that's actually something other commissions have done is looked at state legislation and said Anchorage needs to take a stand on this and this is our recommendation. Would you be willing to pass a resolution to assembly to forward it on to them that way? Yeah, yeah, and just, we just ask you to pass it through us too so we're aware before it goes. Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, it's kind of—. It's a package deal. So, um, and to piggyback off of Marty's question, then, uh, what's the best way to bring those forward when we want to bring forward recommendations? Do we sit down and talk to you, um, send you an email about them, uh, prepare up a statement, show up at the assembly meeting and testify? Resolution.

Here we go. Yeah, that's a resolution. Yeah, if that's something. Yeah, that's great too for anything on the agenda too that's up for public comment, especially budget time. You know, a lot of issues with women and violence prevention probably would always— or even just, uh, socially disadvantaged, you know, like usually those the ones who beg for Public transportation, how we know whatever's being cut affects women.

So budget time is a big, uh, big call for action for anybody testifying. And if you as a group would like to do that, I think that— or even looking at like, um, the ACE Board, childcare, that's, that's a big issue. Cannabis tax revenues. Voters, dedicating them for childcare and pre-K. It's created to advise, manage.

So that's—. I think that's an area where with the budget, there'll be proposed appropriations. And even looking, you know, at that aspect, you know, of the budget, if we're stepping there, right? I know all of you are like really committed to civic engagement and sky's the limit as far as meetings you want to go to. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'd like to also offer that you can have speakers from other municipal departments, you know, so the director of ACE, Christina, you know, you can invite her, you know, so. Other departments. Yeah, we started at the top.

Yeah, exactly. Well, see, that's just how good you all are. I mean, but the Municipal Attorney's Office too, because there has been such an effort to build up prosecution, right? And looking at like next steps. And we, we have a task force with the state to address some of these areas.

And, um, DB's Sex assaults are supposed to be our next area, um, with additional resources for drug and addiction. Um, that may have slowed down a little bit, but she could give updates, or maybe Dennis, you're the prosecutor.

Yeah, we're the only women's commission in the state. There's no state— Well, just like important information. Yeah, yeah, nobody else other than— yeah, our commission and then individual departments like doing the work. But yeah, yeah, and I think too, like, we had this conversation with Senior Citizens Advisory Commission. They're like, hey, we want housing downtown too, or we want— and it's not just young people.

And, like, oh, well, there is a real opportunity to advocate. We are in the middle of a community conversation about housing, right? And there's some creative tension between, right, folks, some of the, you know, they want to make sure their neighborhoods stay nice and as they are and are concerned about potential impacts, right? Of infill and greater density. The flip side is we have limited land here, especially land that's connected to utilities, right?

And so having a balanced conversation about why people live in Anchorage, what they love about where they live versus, well, people need a place to stay. How does that impact women, right? I mean, we know like issues— access to resources. So in looking at that through a gender lens too, I mean, that's, that's always helpful. I think we did have a commission that took their viewpoint and weighed in on a few things.

It's always, it's always helpful, you know, and sometimes it results in an amendment or change, or even really changing the direction of legislation.

Oh, hi, Leslie. Do you want to introduce yourself?

Okay, Leslie Bice actually works for the state. Is it Workforce Development? I can't—.

A Workforce Investment Board. Yeah, this is Leslie. I've been—. Hi, Leslie. Yeah, as I mentioned, Leslie is our longest serving member on the Commission.

Oh, great, thank you. Yeah, and just a quick idea too, because, you know, there's a lot to do for women and you're taking time to really make that assessment, but I think there might be easier ways to accomplish some of kind of your interests, because I know we do have talking about employment opportunities and the meeting always holds a, or at least HR, you know, job fair, right? Yeah, so maybe you can partner with them and with your help of maybe spreading the word around, then you can be partner, also increase your visibility in the community to say, you know, Partnership with the Women's Commission, some leadership, because their supporter would love that. We are struggling with that perception. So even though our management, our office side is pretty, you know, yeah, but I think our operations are struggling.

And some leadership issues on women, like if there are other people already doing some leadership seminars or something, maybe you can take it back, get your name on it, and again, Maybe it will be minimal work on your part to maybe just spread the word or have a speaker or something from the community. We'll help you invite someone, but just kind of those things like that, opportunities in the community that won't require work, but you get kind of accomplish some of your goals and, you know, your individual interests. It's an idea. I appreciate you finding ways for us to minimize. I have a tendency to do the opposite, so this is a nice balance.

But also, we all want to do a lot and we want to do it now, but we're only a small number of folks. So that's, you know, thank you. This is on your volunteer outside all your full-time jobs. But yeah, so thank you. So I think we have like last 3 minutes.

Any questions? I wanted to check if anybody has any questions or comments or thoughts.

And, um, it is— maybe I'm speaking partially as a former assembly member. It is really nice to get public perspective on proposed code changes. So, for example, there's, I think, you know, a conversation about cameras. So, right, and on the one hand, of course, we want the very strongest privacy protections we can. The other hand, you know, we have cameras on like people with buses, um, protecting the library, right, water source.

And, uh, and so I think especially when, um, you know, looking at issues with public safety and women too, and how some, you know, wanting people to feel safe, exploring some of that, or, you know, any, any kinds of perspectives too. And maybe it's not as a commission, and maybe it's as individuals. It really is impactful when people share their perspectives. It really is. Whether you're for or against something, And sometimes again, it does result in like an amendment or change too.

It may seem like it's not impactful if you don't get a response. I know sometimes assembly members get tons of emails, but it really can happen. Sometimes we think, oh, they get so many emails and everything, they won't pay attention to this, but it really does. Like hearing, you know, they will not remember who recommended it or where they heard it from, but it does affect— it influences their thinking about from that. So it does.

Yeah, because it's so— yeah, you know, exactly. Really nice. But yeah, would you mind if I share some exciting stuff coming from our HTB funds that are being released? So it's, it's very exciting. Yes, rural health translation programs, right?

And I I just want to say, I'm really excited about this. So, um, the municipality applied for RHTP funding, which is so exciting. Um, lots of money coming in the next 5 years to the state of Alaska. We were the second largest recipient in the nation. Um, and one of the things that we proposed here at the health department through WIC is incorporating a behavioral health provider with our Women and Infants and Children program called Healthy Beginnings.

So we, um, the first in Alaska to have a behavioral health provider embedded in WIC. For maternal and postpartum care and only the second in the nation. The other one is— oh, and theirs isn't completely related to WIC, so I'm claiming that we are the first in the nation. Yes. So it's very exciting, more to come on that.

We were just funding all the data together. Wow. So very exciting, more to come. But one of the reasons that we saw this as a need, speaking, going back to your topic of data, I'm a data nerd. I thought I had a data nerd coffee cup right now with me.

Love the data because it really gives us a solid foundation on gauging what's taking place within our community. Back in February of 2025, from February 3rd to April 30th, 2025, we ran a social determinants of health questionnaire here within the health department. Um, hindsight, don't do a paper survey because I was the only one collecting them.

They were voluntary, they were paper-based, and we provided them to every single customer service-facing role here within the department. And asked people to fill them out. We had an outstanding response. We had 629 people complete the survey. We did not collect any demographic data.

That's also, in hindsight, something we would change. Um, but through that, we learned quite a bit. So out of our 629 responses, 14% were concerned about missing housing. 22% Had anticipated hunger, so they were worried about not having enough food to eat in the coming months. 23% Had no steady income.

25% Say they had income, but it was not enough to meet their needs. The one that I found the most shocking, and it's, I guess, because my children are older, is 49% of our respondents had no access to childcare. So as women, you don't have access to childcare, what are the odds that you're going to go to the dentist with that toddler? Exactly. Pretty small.

Yeah. But we learned about a lot of issues because of that. We were able to formulate that data and use it in a variety of ways. So one of the things that came from this was one, the idea of Healthy Beginnings, as we also— I'm trying to find my data here on this— 16% of our respondents reported general mental health concerns. 10% Reported concerns that they were concerned with their own substance misuse.

When we had 16% that felt isolated or alone and 27% that said that stress, anxiety, depression affected their daily life too. What was really interesting is people chose to voluntarily be in comments next to Natalie. I'm a military wife. I don't have any supports here. And so we had all of that, which is one heartbreaking but incredible data that we're able to utilize that data, one to help us kind of conceptualize Healthy Beginnings, not knowing that RHDP was coming.

So we're really happy that the funding came. Okay. Yeah. But we were also able to utilize that to incorporate the municipality's very diverse community health worker pool to really have somebody help guide people and meet them where they are. Shameless plug, we're currently hiring for that position.

It is currently posted. Um, but I just want you to know, like, on, on the back end of the municipality, we are looking at the data. We are trying to really assess how we can help vulnerable populations. Theoretically, vulnerable populations come into our building every day just because of the services that we offer. And yay, RHP!

We're very excited. Very excited. Yeah.

To be so thrilled. I'm in happy summer.

Oh, that is great. Yeah, our health looks like something, something you can—. Hard. Congratulations. You're amazing.

Well, there were what, 1,900 applications, and you guys were in the top 100 and got them. Like, that's a huge deal.

Now's the time more than ever, maternal health. Oh gosh. And it's interesting, I'm from New Mexico, very maternal, matriarchal society, very close with a lot of folks down there. And one of the things that they notice with their, their WIC program and just different behavioral health providers that I know down there is that they're seeing an increase in women that are experiencing food-related disorders post-birth because their image should be have this baby have six-pack. I personally look like I have a bodice and a tutu with all of my children.

So it's really interesting. This, the uptick that we've seen is not, so really addressing all these issues. It'll be interesting data to see what we're able to do. Yeah, I actually was just sharing last month that if Arlene correct me if I'm wrong on this, that we were seeing an uptick in postnatal hypertension also. Oh wow.

Which is—. Yeah, that's nationally. Oh, it's not just here. Okay. That's national.

Yeah. That was an interesting one though too. Like I can understand that pregnancy related, like while you're pregnant, but afterwards, like what's going on with that when postnatal care is happening. Absolutely. Yeah.

If postnatal care is happening. Another thing that we're—. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's just kind of surviving, make sure that baby goes to the doctor on this time. Exactly. Well, yeah, thank you so much. And yeah, this doesn't have to be the end. I will be your liaison if there's anything.

I mean, she's probably the most accessible mayor. I've been here a while. So most contact I've ever had with the mayor.

Well, really great to see you all. Yeah. Being a part of the commission. And yeah, I feel all excited, like, it's slow, but we're going to get there. So thank you for coming and spending time with us.

Thank you very much. And I'm sorry, thank you for coming. Oh, thanks.

Go, go, go! Take a brief commercial pause. Bio break. Yeah, bio break. Yeah, I swear I've never heard that until like this past weekend.

Really? Oh, that's why it was even to my vocabulary during COVID Everyone, I'm taking a bio break. I'll be right back. Away for a while, back. What, can't we just say break?

Why does it have to be a 5? I don't know why I need to justify my breaks. I think that is healthy self-care. I don't think it's necessary to know why you need a break, right? But I think it was because they wanted their boss to know that it was a necessary break.

But I don't—. That's why I never heard about it, because I never needed to do that at my work. I still think there's any reason to. I have no excuse at my workplace if they're listening, they're like, I don't care why you need a break, go walk around. To go outside, breathe some air, touch the grass.

I was, um, actually, Arley, do we want to put the recording on pause? Can we do that? Sure. Yeah, before we start talking about BioBrace. Yeah.

Is everybody still there?

Off record, actually. Yes, we're still here. We're just muted for some people. I don't Yes, we are officially off break and we have everybody. I just want to acknowledge, I don't think we've had everybody in the room together at the same time, even with the virtual friends.

So I'm just very excited about this. Thank you guys all so much.

I know, I was thinking, I'm like, when I know you guys really well because we had a couple of smaller meetings, but like everybody else's face is a little bit—. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you— if we can't get here, that's why we have virtual. I mean, that is a benefit of living in the modern world. Maybe work in the office on Thursday.

I'll just come up to help. Yeah, and that's what I end up doing. I don't go home first, I just come here. And when the weather's bad, that's another story. I will be online because I'm sorry, I'm not driving down.

I think we should tweet. We're all just, you know, We'll do the weather's bad for sure. We can do that and then just call it as per—. And staff can get out of here too at a decent hour. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. We are back to finished disclosures. We approve the committee report. So, Ari and Leslie, infrastructure.

Uh, there's been no update. Okay. Um, I'll do I'm going to just make a shared decision to talk about strategic planning since I already did. We did get that update before we leave tonight. We need to schedule a meeting.

Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, that's good. But yeah, exactly. Everybody's here with their calendar. So that's the only update I have on strategic planning.

So we're making progress. We keep moving forward. Outreach and communications. I don't know if everyone on the commission is aware that Sharon has stepped down, and Sharon was leading— No, no, no, that's okay. That just came up.

So she was leading outreach and communications. So we have Kayla and Leslie. Have you all discussed anything in the last month?

Okay. Yeah, that's what I figured. It's wrapping out summer. So I think what we need to do is first we need to find out if anybody else wants to serve with the outreach and communications. The reason that this commission or this committee exists is to get our presence known out there and start having those two-way communications.

We need a social media presence, um, some kind of way to share information and get commentary back. It's been a bit of a struggle. There is a Facebook page. Nobody has access to it, and it's been a nightmare for staff to try and get it taken down So I think we just need to create a new one and make sure that our staff have all of the password information so that if staffing changes, they pass it down.

And just to be clear, like, Meta changes all the time. And so from my work, I know that, like, you have to have an individual Facebook account to log into a— Highly recommend that we don't do this. So that we instead use the Municipal Women's Commission. I'm so sorry, I interrupted you. That's okay.

I— but we're on the same path, which is that what's really interesting about Meta is that like, uh, accounts are connected, like a public account page is connected to individual profiles. And so unless— and they're very interdependent. And they're very interdependent. So like, I work on that my day job and then another volunteer organization I'm with and that. Um, so I mean, yes, you could, like, Arlie, you could have access to the, um, like, Facebook page, but it would be your individual Facebook profile.

It wouldn't be like a— and I'm looking at Beth for IT, I guess. I'm thinking there's—. I mean, maybe the city has a page and the health department has a page. Yeah, but it would be attached to individual— there would probably be a slight more of a PIS. Look, there's pages and there's groups and there's other things.

Maybe we need another thing. But I also have kind of like another— and it's just very— another thing that I would just say is like, if we don't have anything to say, it's not worth saying it. And so, yeah, I feel like we should maybe consider taking advantage of the page on the municipal website. I do know that an update to the municipal website is coming. There's going to be potential for us in the future to like put more stuff on there.

And then what we can do is use other people's existing networks to message and link back to our own website. And we can use something like Bitly to shorten that if we wanted to, but that would probably be way less work overall. Something you guys already in theory have access to. We can create graphics and then message that out there through other people's socials and then everything if we need to just links back to our own actual website. That we can never build.

So I think the goal is to build a community of women that we can contact. To ask questions. I think we're never going to be able to do that that way. I think it's maybe a little unrealistic to build that community on Facebook. Well, Facebook is one social media outlet.

There's lots of others. And you can't hit them all with like one post and things. I'm not sure we're ready for— but like, if we had this group, right, we had our page and a lot of people followed us, we did, of course they don't, but they did. And we have people that could say, hey, you took our survey. And then, you know, we could send out, here's the results of our survey.

And now we're, we're going to do talking. We have people that talk to—. Or the question the mayor just had about, uh, the impact of, uh, these, you know, flocking, axing on the cameras on women, that would be a question to post. Um, so I get that there's like technical things behind all the social media that I am not privy to that may be difficult But having a social media presence, in my opinion, of some sort is absolutely critical because of how much communication happens through social media. Well, especially with certain communities, right?

Absolutely. Every homeless person I know has a phone. But, you know, and so I don't know, I do, I do, and again, I don't know that we're to the point where we need it, but I do think that if it— it's a big, it's a big platform. I agree with you, and I don't know that juice is worth the squeeze. I'm not saying that it's not— like, it's a bad idea.

I just think it's going to be a lot of work. It's going to take a lot of time and honestly money to put into ads to get traffic to our— and then actually turn that into people liking it and following it. It's hard to build that. I don't think we're talking about ads. I think we're talking about a typical kind of social services-like page where— oh, I mean, it's not going to have 50% of the women in the community on it, but it can be shared.

I might look beyond it and be like, oh, I'm going to share this on my news. Or if we could get other organizations that have like, I don't know, like, I don't know, they're doing free something screenings or they're something that we're related to, we can put their, their stuff on our page and we could be commonplace where women find information about women's health or women's events or I don't know. Yes, they're not even find us, we just It's not so easy to start, but I think we might want to start growing that. I think after this, I'm hoping in the survey we ask them, I think we need to, that, you know, are you interested in learning more about the Woodworkers' Commission? Are you interested in—.

We did, we need to. We need to. Can we collect your email, your, you know, and that would be valuable to us because then we can— might do that to us once we get some answers. When it comes to the survey, my big concern is we don't have time to hit all these events to do these things in person with a QR code or Picking your recommendation, not a paper survey. Don't do it.

No, no, no. I think we might need to have it available, but our big push is going to be the electronic version of it. How are we getting it out? We can post it on the website, but, and then we can ask the health department to share it out. Put them in Kalani and put them on the street signs and probably get arrested.

I mean, you can do that, but. Yeah, I mean, that's—. You're gonna have a—. I'm just personally, you're gonna have a lot more success if you work with people who already have existing socials and then get them to repost stuff. And not that, again, like, we eventually would become that place, but like, once we— that we, that we have to— we don't have to rely on other people.

Yeah, like, you can network with the existing. So, so it's the Health Department of Socials? Yeah. To follow the—. Yeah, great socials.

I love the one about the car charger and it was little— okay, that's good. So, okay, so we've had lots of discussion here. I want to make sure that we get back to— is there someone interested? Is there anyone else interested in working with Kayla and Leslie on the Outreach and Communications Committee? Because really, this kind of discussion should take place in that committee and then come back to the full Commission with recommendations on what we should do, what a plan is.

Anyone else interested? I don't want to join the committee, but I am interested in— maybe this is like, because I'm the infrastructure lane, maybe I'd be happy to just throw something together on Canva and have the Communications Committee approve it, and then it can go out about like asking new members and just kind of being on top of like whenever we're down to people. I just— we can use the same graphic every time. It doesn't have to be like super fancy, but then it gets out and we can send it to the ombudsman. Like, I have a list of people that I can send.

You guys can put it out. I'm going to find a social media marketing person who wants to do this with us to come and help us. That's what I'm looking for. Yeah, I just think— I'm gonna send it to certain people that I know are in health and also— Yeah, we just love to put something visual out there so that we can fill those 2 seats. And I'm happy to take that on as like infrastructure, but I kind of got like the nose previously.

So I don't know if— do we know when people apply? There's nobody in front of me. There's no—. Yeah, we asked. Yeah.

So, so we do need to do some recruiting. So for those who were not quite here for that part of the conversation, We have 2 open seats, and we asked Maria if there were any applications. There are none, and she said so she could use some— she could benefit from some outreach. So we want to reach out through our networks to particularly add some more diversity to the Commission. Where you know people, but also we would like to put some advertising out.

Because I think all of us either were told about this as an opportunity, or we went looking for it on the MUNI's website. That is not— I think that makes us less common in that regard. I don't know how many people really go to the city's website for things like that. So, We need to get the advertising out. I think, let's do this.

Leslie and Kayla, you guys are the current members of the Outreach and Communications. Are you fine with Ari going ahead and put together a graphic to get some recruitment going for open seats? Yes, I'm okay with that. Yay, thumbs up. Do you want me to?

Run it. What's the approval process for the graphic? Does it need to come back here before it can go out? So it can't go out till October, does it? I'm gonna only speak for myself as my not in the chair role.

I don't think you need to bring it back here, wait another month to bring it back here for us to vote on. I just want to make sure I'm not going to win. I think you guys, if you want to run it through them just to have like somebody else have some eyeballs on it. Once you guys are agreed with it, I'll quick send it to staff, and then I think there's probably approval process on your end before you can post to your—. Yes, historically.

So we would normally send it to our public information officer. That role is vacant as of tomorrow, um, but we will have an acting public information officer. Okay, okay. Sorry, we got a— like, uh, I have an email somewhere that says what specifically a health department is good and not good with, so I'll make sure that I go back to the email, follow those guidelines send it to you guys once you guys approve it is probably my actual, like, just making sure some sort of PIO has looked at it. And then I'll send it also out to probably the Office of Equity Inclusion because they run UniWorks.

Um, and I can post it on my own work email, uh, newsletter that goes out. And, you know, you guys can also post it wherever, socials and stuff like that. So, okay. Um, let's do this. Um, I'll let you guys— I'm going to leave it open for additional people, uh, with outreach and communications.

Um, and also who would like to lead the effort. Um, we'll come back next month, or you guys can email us and let us know so that that group can meet. But maybe Leslie and Kayla, if you meet in the interim to talk about, okay, here's where we left off with Sharon. Here's where we'd like to pick up so that next month we could talk about that and we could give you guys support and get some kind of communications going. And Melissa, we'd love to see you on a committee if you want to let us know which one you're interested in now or after the meeting.

She got the email information.

Sure, I did. I did get the email. So I'm actually traveling right now, and so I haven't had time to really go through and disseminate everything. But I would join one. I just need some more time to look those over.

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for being here. I got your bounce back message or out of office message. I thought, oh, she's not going to make it. And then they told me you'd be here.

I was very happy. So thank you for doing that while you're out of town. Yeah, of course. I appreciate the patience. I was cutting out with reception and you guys were you're like, Melissa, do you want to share?

And I was like, all right, I got to be quick about this. I'm not sure what we're trying to share here, but I'll make it sound good. You did fantastic. Thanks. I appreciate that.

All right. Well, I think we're going to move along. We don't have any old business. New business. We have the Rise and Represent cohort.

It's the new Alaska Center Boards and Commission thing. Yeah, I mean, it's just a heads up of what, like, there is a training for people who are interested. You know more about it. Yeah, you could speak to it. Yeah, I can speak to what it was prior since it's how I got involved in Boards and Commissions, but I highly recommend that folks attend it if they can, but it's an education cohort series for folks who really— to get people to join boards and commissions both locally and statewide.

So it is a statewide education session that's put on by the Alaska Center Education Fund, which is a nonprofit. The Alaska Center Education Fund is just an arm of the Alaska Center, which, which is not about the fact that that's not how the sea works and other things, but their applications close on September 17th for Cohort 2. I was in Cohort 1. And so they've got a new program administrator running it, program manager running it. But it looks like they're just going to take your one information and just kind of run with it.

So there is, I think, kind of an intro session, um, coming up soon, but applications are due September 17th. And I just— yeah, I highly recommend you, you join. I don't know if there's a fee attached to it. I don't think there was. Should I join?

Yeah, it's free as far as I know. Look like there's fee, really? Okay. But, um, I mean, it is significant time out of your day. It was kind of like one whole day session a month, so usually on the weekend.

But we learned a lot. We learned rules of order. We learned just about how boards and commissions work, both in an appointment where you are actually making strategic decisions for a municipality, per se, or if you're like the Women's Commission, more advisory. So, um, and then just learned a lot of different things. They did a really good job.

Um, you were really close with your cohort, and then they— and, and then the goal of those projects you did But I do recommend if you even are, if you are on the commission, it's probably good training to find out your experience with the commission. Thanks. Yeah. I applied last year and did not get on. And I think partly because I was already on this commission.

I don't think you are. I am not. But they think you are. Yeah, but the thing is, is they had so many applications. Yeah.

So they really did focus on people getting new people to get on those boards. So if you're going to apply, I would do so sooner rather than later. And in your application, I don't know if this will help. I don't have any strategic or background or insider knowledge on it. Just talk about how new you are to the Commission and how— yes.

Stronger would be— your application stronger would just be to say that you are on a position but you're looking for more training. Yes, thank you. That sounds very interesting. And how long does the— it lasts probably— I think about 6 months. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. But again, it was like 6 sessions only once a month, right? Yeah. So times were lost, but Okay, so in your free time, I mean, I should put this in the chat, like the—. I think so.

Um, but yeah, we wanted to uplift that, um, as an opportunity. Um, I have two other things that came in. Okay, yeah, let's add to new business. What do you have? Um, well, I sent this to you today.

It came up, uh, Leadership Anchorage, which is They're a group that does leadership training here in Anchorage, but the thing that they do every year is their cohort gets to pick from community projects and anybody. It doesn't have to be like a nonprofit, it's been a community project. So this would be something for maybe the strategic planning. This would be capacity where they could lead— you could submit a project for them to lead your community sessions. There's no funding behind it, so it's just volunteer time.

But I sent you the link to it, and so I would encourage you guys to, like, talk about it, think about it. Maybe not this year, maybe it's a next year thing, but it's every year they do this, and the cohort, the mem— you have to have 3 people in it, and they pick. So you would submit it, and you, you know, people may decide to do it, may not, but it would be a potential for, like, additional capacity for the Commission. And then the other thing is that the League of Women Voters is accepting entries for people who want to be part of their Democracy Fair, which I believe they're doing in October. So that would be potentially a good space for the Women's Commission to table.

It's going to be in the library. They did one earlier in January. My staff went and had a great time and lots of people talked. I'm going to be there in my capacity for work, but that might be a great place to just talk to people, start the conversation, hopefully like some version of the surveys there so you get QR codes out. But Ling is doing some really cool stuff.

I'm sorry, but you could— well, and I can send you the link. Okay, yeah, if you could send the link, that would be great, because here's the other thing then, um, we should probably ask. When we have this survey ready to go, how does the— how do the commissioners feel about— are you comfortable with the 3 of us just going with what we produce, or do you guys want to see it, improve it? How do you want to— how do you want to work that piece? I would love to at least see it before it just goes live since it's going to have to touch— okay, good.

Um, I don't— it doesn't necessarily have to be approval, but maybe it's like, give us like a 30-day comment period and you guys can take that in, and then— or 15 days, make it shorter. But like, that's not an approval, just if I'm like, hey, this is a question you may want to think about a different way, and take those in. And, you know, if we don't submit comments, who cares? But if we do submit comments, okay. What do you guys— yeah, when you get online, what do you think of Ari's suggestion?

Well, and I'm just thinking timeline, if we want to get to this Democracy Now thing with it, like we need to do quicker. But online, Melissa and Leslie and Kayla, Ari made a recommendation that once we finalize it, we put it out to the group for a 15-day comment. Is that acceptable, or would you prefer something else?

I'm okay with that. Okay, great. I'm okay with that too. Okay, Leslie?

I support the team. Thank you. Okay. All right, so that's what we'll do.

Any other announcements?

Um, you mentioned disclosures. I didn't know RHDP was going to get brought up, but just like full disclosure, that is something that the Alaska Community Foundation is, like, has been funded by the state to support, and that's not making my—. Yeah, she announced something. It wasn't a strategic conversation, so I think you're fine. It's only if we're making a decision.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which would have to be really Yeah, and if, if it wasn't already, like, a concern, then I looked at you and go, how many was it? That's why I don't— disclosures go after the agenda, because that way if something's laid on the table that we're making a decision about, then you disclose at the last minute. But, uh, okay, uh, I think if there are no other items for discussion or comment Um, we can call it a night. Um, our next meeting is October 1st, uh, 4:30 PM, and it is 5:47 when we're opening a motion to adjourn before I get to—.

Uh, motion to adjourn. I'll second. You don't have to approve it. It just—. All right, there's a motion and a second for adjournment that Okay, we are adjourned at 5:47.

Thank you. Thank you, ladies. Thank you. So you said something I didn't understand when I talked to you other than— so I'm interested in about fixing backlot prosecution in sexual assault cases. Yes, it was so.