Meeting Minutes
May 20, 2019

Attendees

Staff and Guests

Welcome and Introductions

Mayor Brad Holton welcomed everyone to the Parma Ridge Winery. He sends his regrets from co-host Mayor Nathan Leigh as he was not able to attend the meeting due to Governor Brad Little going to the City of Parma.

Open Discussion

Chad asked how many of the members are live streaming their city council meetings. They have a council that would like to look into this. Debbie indicated they have been doing live streaming and haven’t heard anything negative so far. She encouraged members that are interested in doing this are welcome to reach out to the Nampa IT team.

Community Kindness Campaign

Brad introduced Melissa Nelson who joined us to talk about the Community Kindness Movement.

She has been working on this movement for the last four years. Suicide rate and bullying among children indicate that there is a need for a kinder community. We all need to be taught and actually practice kind acts.

For the last three years, they have been celebrating kindness week during the third week in September. They are currently working with Governor Little to sign a proclamation designating this week as kindness week. During the week, each day there is a specific act of kindness that will be highlighted. For example, thank you not Thursday encourages community members to write a thank you note to someone you appreciate but don’t tell often.

She would like each city or county in the Treasure Valley join in the week-long kindness movement. Her phone number is 208-521-6574 and their website is http://www.communitykindnessmovement.com/

Debbie indicated that the Boys and Girls Club in Nampa is participating in this movement. Garret indicated they have been partnering with the College of Idaho for several years. In addition, several schools in there are participating. He indicated that Meridian, Boise, Parma and others have been participating.

Kelly indicated that the SWDH Behavioral Health has a subcommittee that works on suicide prevention issues. He said that a lot of groups are working on this issue and wished we would all pool our resources together so we could have a bigger impact.

Opioid Strategic Plan Update, Jodi McCrosky – City of Boise

She was here to provide an update prior to their annual meeting on June 27th. She encouraged everyone that can to attend and will send out an invitation to all the Partnership members. If the Partnership members are not able to attend, she encouraged everyone to send a representative, so the Strategic Planning group continues to pursue the work that everyone wants.

We have had a lot of successes this last year. We have developed a Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program that is attempting to divert offenders to treatment programs instead of charging them and putting them into the system. We are learning that it is not as easy as we had hoped. Finding people that want help is the issue. There were ten slots in the first trial and we have four people participating.

Another success has been increasing drug education in the schools specifically related opioid abuse. They are working with the state-wide group and are working to develop a tool kit to give to the school districts.

Kelly indicated that SWDH had just got a grant to assist in this opioid education. He invited Jodi to attend their meetings.

There is a trial at St. Als to do a soft hand-off to recovery coaches for those that have come into the hospital for an opioid overdose. This program is in its infancy and they have received a grant from ODP for this program.

She is working with Ada county to do a soft hand-off to recovery coaches for those that are being released from jail.

Road to 2020 Census Jeff Merrick – U.S. Census Bureau

Jeff said they are trying to get partners in the communities to spread the census message.

The main reason they do the census is the U.S. Constitution says so. The other purpose is for apportioning the US House of Representatives. For example, the 2016 census estimate, Idaho was a about 19,000 people from getting another representative.

Annually 675 billion is distributed annually to the states based on population. Idaho gets about $2.4 billion which equates to approximately $1,473 per Idahoan.

Their goals are to deliver a quality product to the President by December 31st 2020. The 2010 census cost about $17 billion and so far they are on track to reduce that to $15.6 billion for this census. The main reason they are able to do that is reducing paper forms. This is the first year that you can do the census on-line.

Each household will receive a card, in March with a census code on it. You will be able to use that to go the website and complete the census forms.

Another way they are reducing costs is through the use of GIS software to identify addresses instead of having people do a 100% canvasing of addresses. The GIS software will only get about 90% of the addresses so they will still have people canvassing to identify the other 10%.

Starting March 23rd, you will be able to self-respond by using the internet or through your smart phone. People will also be able to call in ad request a paper form. If you haven’t completed the census by about mid-April, then someone will come knock on your door.

In 2010 they had a 75-80% mail in rate. They had to get people to follow up with the remaining 35,000 households in the local area.

They are trying to engage community partners to engage the population to encourage people to respond to the census cards when they arrive. In addition, they are recruiting for Complete Count Committees from officials from government, businesses, the media, education, etc. This committee will get together to brainstorm ideas on how best to spread the word to their local communities.

Debbie asked if there was a decision on citizenship. Jeff indicated this issue was still in front of the Supreme Court.

Joe said we have had a huge influx of people moving into the area. How do you make sure you don’t double count people. Jeff said it all depends on where you at on April 1, 2020. For college students it will depend on where you spend the majority of your time during the year.

Director’s Report

John moved to accept the minutes and financial statement. Joe seconded. Motion carried.

Bill mentioned that hehas talked to both the U. of Idaho and Boise State about getting the newly appointed President’s to join us for a meeting. There is a formal request for meeting procedure that he will be completing and hopefully we can get one if not both to attend a future meeting.

John said he has been in contact with Dirk Mendive with Representative Fulcher’s office to see if they would attend a meeting in October.

He also mentioned that he has spoken with Bobbi Jo Mueleman with the Governor’s Office about attending a future meeting. According to Bobbi Jo, the Governor’s emphasis on local government liaison efforts is different than the previous Governor. Bill indicated he would follow-up with her about attending a future meeting.

Debbie asked we invite Melinda Smyser with the Office of Drug Policy to come to one of our meeting. Bill said he would follow up with her.

Meeting adjourned.