Mo’ Meetings

6 meetings were added and 2 cancelled this week, 4 of these happened just yesterday, and 4 affect today, Thursday. And see my email about one of the cancelled meetings, I ended up more than a little irritated.

Affecting Today
Yesterday 8:57
Meeting: WOMEN’S INITIATIVES COMMITTEE
Date: 8/27/2015 1:00 PM
Location: ROOM 108 CCB

Yesterday, 10:29
Meeting: GREATER MADISON CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU: BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Date: 8/27/2015 3:00 PM
Location: 201 W. MIFFLIN ST., ROOM 301 MADISON CENTRAL LIBRARY

Yesterday 3:50
NOTICE OF MEETING CANCELLATION
Meeting: HOUSING STRATEGY COMMITTEE on 8/27/2015 4:00 PM at ROOM 313 MMB has been cancelled.

Tuesday, 8:43
Meeting: COMMISSION ON PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Date: 8/27/2015 5:00 PM
Location: ROOM 260 MMB

Too late to make a difference
24 hours and 6 minutes warning – posted on Tuesday at 2:09
This meeting was actually cancelled – I showed up – see more below.
Meeting: COMMITTEE ON AGING
Date: 8/26/2015 2:15 PM
Location: 330 W. MIFFLIN ST., MADISON SENIOR CENTER

Monday, 11:18
Meeting: JOINT WEST CAMPUS AREA COMMITTEE
Date: 8/26/2015 4:45 PM
Location: 614 WALNUT ST, ROOM 132

Monday, 12:21
Meeting: BOARD OF REVIEW
Date: 8/26/2015 1:30 PM
Location: ROOM 108 CCB

Expressing my frustrations

I had it in my calendar that I was supposed to come to the Committee on Aging meeting today at 1:30 from the August 5th meeting. On Friday, when I looked at the weekend meeting schedule, I saw that it wasn’t on there, so I took it out of my calendar. Yesterday at 2:09 I got an email from the clerks office saying there was a meeting today at 2:15, so based on that email, I put it back in my calendar. This morning I prepared for the meeting, made copies of information and rescheduled my afternoon. I went to the Senior Center and found no one there. When I asked downstairs, they told me the meeting was cancelled. This did not appear on the weekly schedule I checked as I was running out of my office to be on time. And of course, I found out after I spent $1.50 (plus credit card fee) on the parking meter. Even more irritating, upon looking at the agenda now, I see that we weren’t even scheduled to talk about housing and homelessness in the first place – which is what I thought I heard the committee members request, in fact, it was the only reason they scheduled the meeting.

I’m so thoroughly confused, and a little irritated. It’s bad enough these meetings are held at times that take away from my work day and supervision of my staff – but now I’ve wasted an hour or more of my day.

I know the subject of timely and accurate meeting notices is a minor detail to many (just something Brenda complains about) but if we are to take seriously recommendations in the equity report and seek to increase public participation or at least let the public have a chance at participation, I really think this needs to be fixed.

Thanks for listening.

Even more frustrating to me is that I went to the August 5th meeting to talk about the need for HOUSING case management for seniors because we applied for money to do that since we saw a great need. Many of the senior center directors concurred and discussed the increase in homeless individuals they were seeing. The committee invited us back to discuss further, but the staff seem to have a different idea about what should happen at the meeting.

Hello Brenda,

The meeting was cancelled because it became clear at 1pm that we could not attain a quorum. I was in a tizzy to inform providers and committee people prior to their travel here. You should be irritated, since you came here needlessly. For that I am sorry, but I did not know that you planned to attend.

It was not possible for me to gather folks to discuss the issues raised by Alder Kemble. Therefore, those issues were not included on the agenda. You will be happy, I hope, that Sue Wallinger, CDD point person on homelessness, is able to attend our meeting in September (Wednesday, September 23, at 1:30pm) and that she and I are seeking representatives from United Way and Dane County to continue this conversation. Matt Wachter and Steve Schooler are others that I intend to speak to and invite. I will distribute the information that you agreed to gather as soon as I receive it.

I very much value your interest and concern about older adults who face homelessness. Thank you.

Regards, Christine

Um, no, I’m not happy. I was asked to provide information but am not being invited to the meeting like the others? And wasn’t communicated to about any of this?

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