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A meeting of the Immigrant Rights Commission (IRC) was held on Monday, Feb. 14, 2005 at City Hall Hearing room 416.
I. Roll Call:
Members Present The meeting was called to order on 5:07 p.m., Commissioners Alexander, Escobedo, Haile, Huie Jones, Kaff, Lau, Lee, Melara, Nguyen, Ow, Specktor, Tran were present. Jones left at 5:41 p.m. & Tran left at 6:30 p.m.
Others Present Dang Pham, Executive Director & Winny Loi, Secretary
II.Approval of minutes for Jan. 10th: Commissioner Haile moved to approve the minutes & second by Commissioner Ow. Commissioner Huie amended the minutes changing “me to met” on the last paragraph of other meetings & activities. The Commission unanimously adopted the amended minutes.
III.Future Activities: Public Comment: Lenoid is the President from the United Humanitarian Mission. San Francisco is very diverse with many immigrants living in the City. Many have problems with the English language. He was interested if SF had instructions in other language for emergency situations. Philadelphia has a crime prevention program & he asked if the commission could do something similar. He feels that there are no instructions on how people can get help from the government. He stated that the nonprofit organization is able to provide these services to the public. He wanted the commission to put out a resource guild to assist the public with this information. The Commission mentioned that to do a resource guide uses lots of city funds & also when the resource guide is produced, many of the nonprofit organization does not exist anymore, so that would be of no help. The Commission plans to forward the information to the Police Chief.
Goals & Objective for the Commission in the next 12 months: The commission wants to focus on Citizenship classes. The want to know what are the percentage of passing, how many classes do they teach, what are the languages, what is the passing rate, how many can pass the class. The Commission will invite David Still to speak on this issue on the next months meeting.
Planning Retreat: The Commissioners will plan a retreat on February 26, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the American Legion on 1524 Powell Street between Vallejo & Green Street. Mr. Pham has asked former Commissioner Gonzalez to facilitate the retreat. Commissioners will be having a potluck luncheon. Goals & Objectives for retreat, oversea the EAS, insure that the department follows the ordinance, enforcement & enhancement. Further discussion for the monitoring plans & discuss regulation to ensure the enforcement to be effective. Citizenship classes for the immigrants. Monitor the Day Labor program.
Endorse the Immigrant Day. The Immigrant Day is an annual event every year in Sacramento to meet with assembly, senators & governors office. They will discuss immigrant issues. Need to know how many commissioners can attend this event. On Mon. May 23rd from 9am –2pm. The Commission Escobedo approved of endorsing immigrant day & was 2nd by Commissioner Haile. The commission unanimously endorses Immigrant Day. Commissioners who participate on May 23rd will be assigned a task on the spot.
IV.Director Report: Received a resignation letter from Commission Zheng. The Commission currently has 2 vacancies at this time. Both seats are immigrant positions. Update the status of the Day Labor Program. Due to the budget cuts, the amount available for the DLP is 50-60K. The city can only sign the contract for 4 months at a time. Mr. Pham also met with La Raza Central Legal & they accepted it. They received a formal approval from the Mayor’s office Budget & now they are waiting for the approval of Civil Service Commission & Department of Human Resources before they can execute the contract with La Raza Central Legal.
Adjournment: The Commission meeting was adjourned at 6:48 p.m.