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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/08/2025 - Meeting Minutes MINUTES FOR THE Sister Cities ADVISORY BOARD Date:January 8th, 2025 Time: 5:OOPM-6:30PM Roll Call: The following members of the Sister Cities Advisory Board were present: • Ross Chambless • John Wilson • Matilyn Mortensen • Nicole Gallo • Stacee Adams • Rose Kjesbo • Jane Kim Also Present: • Katherine Matheson (Staff) • Joshua Paluh • Mariah Johnson The following members of the Sister Cities Advisory Board were absent: • Sheri Sorenson • Olga Efimova • Annie Quan • Ahimara Suarez Approval of the Minutes: Adams motions to approve 9/4/24 minutes. Mortensen seconds. All are in favor of approval of minutes. Minutes are approved for November 7th, 2024 Public Comment: No Public are present for comment. Staff Report: By Katie Matheson 1. Introduction of Mariah Johnson a. She will be taking on a lot of the support of the Sister Cities workload 2. Small popcorn gift to board members to say thank you for their work and being on the Sister Cities Board. 3. Introduction of newest board member,Jan Kim 4. Vacancies in district 1 and at large. a. Matheson wants to get the new member committee together to brainstorm some ideas on how to get members to join the board. b. There are two at large board member openings for youth (ages 15-18). i. Please let staff know if there is a youth that might be interested in serving on the board. ii. Mortensen asked if there has been any utilization of contacts within the school district to fill the youth seats. They suggest reaching out to a foreign language teacher or a government teacher to suggest a student that maybe has shown interest in foreign relationships. iii. Matheson said staff is working with the Mayor's Education Advisor to get the pen pal program up and running so they will add that to the list of things to work with them on. c. Chambless asked what SLC Council member is over district 1 i. Matheson told the board it was Petro. 5. Annual Report a. Not finalized. b. No update for Italy. c. Johnson asked to email link to Wilson and Gallo for their input. d. Adding two letters into the annual report. e. Chambless asked some clarifying questions about next steps on voting on the approval of the annual report. i. Mathenson talked about how approving the annual report is a formality for the board and not necessary. f. Board is not voting on approving the annual report with the expectation that the Torino, Italy section, leadership letters, and submission will all be on time. Briefings by the Staff: a. Updates on Sister Cities: i. Chernivtsi, Ukraine: 1. Mayor meeting on Dec 2nd a. Cancelled by Mayor of Chernivtsi due to an emergency meeting. b. Hoping to reschedule 2. Gallo went to a gala to help raise funds for Ukraine. Over $27,000. Was hosted by a neighbor of Gallo named Vitlan Miller. 3. Potential visit next year a. Head of Chernivtsi's department of Economic development named Serhii. On Chernivtsi's city council and in charge of their international relationships. b. Interested in coming to SLC to celebrate 3S years i. The relationship was started when Chernivtsi was still part of the SSR. ii. Izhevsk, Russia: 1. No updates iii. Keelung, Taiwan: 1. Mortensen is going to try and digitize photos from a community member and follow up with rates by a local company. iv. Matsumoto,Japan: 1. Chambless shared a story about Katsu Hyata and Bob Springmeyer and their history with an old 1980 Porsche. The car is being shipped to Japan. V. Torino, Italy: 1. No update. Gallo wants staff to request that the mayor's office reach out to them. vi. Trujillo, Peru: 1. Delegation visiting December 3rd a. Cancelled due to scheduling error. b. Matheson reached out to them, but no response. c. Starting this relationship over because Ricardo Beccera left the board. Staff is planning goals with new committee members. d. Matheson also talked about why it took so long to onboard the new Peruvian Consul General due and why this relationship has been stalled. Business• 1. Approval of Annual Report a. As discussed earlier, no need to approve. 2. New Sister City Current Applicants Discussion a. Updated Sister City Application Discussion b. Mayor Feedback: Report that the mayor requested that we add a sustainability goal. i. Johnson reached out to the SLC Department of Sustainability to get their input and they sent some great feedback to accomplish city goals. c. Staff needs to assemble the rest of the committee and the board needs to vote on which member will sit on that application review committee. d. Wilson inquired about the weight the sustainability section would hold. i. The board talked about the weight that it got put at by Johnson. Mortensen agreed since it was at the mayor's request, a 3 would be a good contributing weight, but it's not a priority. e. Going to share Wilson's concerns with the committee via email on how it impacts potential relationships that don't have a strong sustainability goal. 3. Assembly of Potential New Sister City committee a. Select which board member will sit on the committee Chambless volunteered to sit on the application review committee. i. Gallo and Mortenson added their support for him to join the committee. ii. Mortenson made the motion for Chambless to be on that committee. Wilson seconded the motion. b. Application process timeline: i. Mariah sent out a board meeting schedule for 2025. Board decided to meet every other month, but it has been shifted to February and March to fit in the new timeline of the application process. It will return to every other month after that. The application is not a rolling application process. ii. Board and staff will go through all of applications to make sure they are concrete enough to continue to the committee grading process iii. First committee meeting will take place in April. iv. Final review by board will be first week of May V. Final Recommendations will be sent at end of May vi. This process will take place every 3 years. 1. Pulah asked for Matheson to elaborate on why the committee took this stance. 2. Matheson expressed to protect members of the board and staff from a huge influx of relationships that aren't able to be maintained. 3. Wilson had a question about how many sister city relationships can other countries have. Wilson said that if there is an applicant that already has a sister city in U.S. we could ask that U.S. how the relationship has been. 4. Chambless had a question for Matheson regarding retiring sister city a. After three years of reaching out for three years, the relationship gets put into marital status. b. Create a marital status folder with details of when the cities were contacted and keep track if the board has done its part. c. Mortensen and Chambless asked for those outreach attempts are documented. i. Johnson is going to start a document to keep track d. Matheson expressed their gratitude for the committee members and all of their hard work to figure out the outline for these applicants and guidance for the application review committee. 4. Reminder that there are Sister City committee goal meetings at the end of January and beginning of February. Adjournment: Wilson motions to adjourn. Mortensen seconds. All are in favor of adjourning. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned. P/(I�4,- I, ."� Ross Chambless, Chairperson This document and the recording constitute the official minutes of the Economic Development Sister Cities Advisory Board meeting held on November 7th, 2024.