An interesting question was posted to the Facebook Page, and since other folks may have similar concerns, I thought it might be useful to post it here, with my reply.
Question:
I hope you can help me with a few questions as I try to figure out how to participate in the District.
I have looked on Facebook, leather Alliance website and sfleatherdistrict.org, but I’m still confused about how to find information on policies of the district.
For example, where do I find minutes of the last board meeting? Also, Bob announced at the last general meeting that the Manager (CEO) needed to be in place by September 9, but aside from a personal phone call from Bob, I have seen no public statements about the position or selection process. Where can I find an update?
I’m also very eager to learn about the process for hiring consultants, which seem like critical resources on the critical path for the District. Is the board making progress on recruiting procedures to assure transparency in the process os recruiting diverse and well qualifies applications for this position?
Finally, why does the district emphasize the Mission and Vision Sections of the Purpose section of the Bylaws, omitting the Principles Of Governance Sub-Section , which focus on public benefit and participating in a “transparent, inclusive, collaborative, accountable and viable manner.”?
I’m impressed that committee chairs’ email addresses are widely available, but it seems the communication strategy is quite private, and organized access to historic documents regarding the District’s procedures and policies may not be as easy to find. I hope this is due to my lack of technical savvy and you can point me to where I can find historic archives.
Answer:
Thanks for asking. Let me try to give you some answers.
There is a lot on the Web site, so it can sometimes be hard to find stuff. A good place to start is the Welcome page. This page has lots of useful links , such as to the Meetings page (which has links to minutes and videos), and the Bylaws, where you can find all the policies we have officially created to date. Expect links to any additional policies or procedures documents to be included here, and also announced widely.
Board meetings are open to the public, and are announced on our Calendar and Web site, and via emails to folks on our email list. Minutes of Board meetings will be made public once they are approved by the Board, typically at the following meeting. They will be linked from the home page of the Web site as that happens.
A Cultural District Manager has been selected, and their name will be made public as soon as the hiring letters are signed. They have already started attending meetings to get up to speed. The selection process was discussed in detail at the last two community meetings, and the Job Description and other details were on the Web site. (To avoid confusing folks, those links are no longer on the site, but the JD is still viewable at jobs.sflcd.org).
Hiring our consultants is high on the priority list of activities for the new Cultural District Manager and Board, and the search for qualified consultants will be broadly publicized, I am sure.
I don’t know how to fully answer your “Why…” question; The Vision and Mission Statements were approved at an early Community Meeting, and have been very broadly publicized and used whenever we are asked for our “Mission”. Other parts of our Bylaws are also very important to us, and are in no sense “omitted”.
Regarding access to documents, I have regularly encouraged folks to sign up for their own sflcd.org account, which allows them to easily browse the documents on our organization’s GDrive at https://drive.sflcd.org. (“For easier access to our files and email, you can request an “@sflcd.org” email account by writing to help@sflcd.org.”)
The Gdrive holds shared drives and folders for our various Committees and Projects, Our new Board Secretary plans to make it a priority to re-organize those documents, renaming many of them more consistently and identifying older, deprecated, and draft versions as such.
Folks without an sflcd.org account still have access to most of the documents in the Drive, but may need to find a link to them, either on our Web site, in old emails, or by requesting such a link from a Committee chair, Board member, etc.
Let me add that your active participation in the District is as important now as before the Board was elected, and that regular public reporting (via email blasts, posts on our Facebook page, etc.) will be a priority for the Board (as well as being mandated by our Bylaws and city policies). Please watch for specific invitations to join new Committees as they are formed, and please do contact us directly (e.g. at President@sflcd.org or board@sflcd.org) about matters that you feel require our attention, projects that you would like to provide leadership on, or anything else.
I hope this is helpful. Thanks very much for your question. Unless you object, I plan to post your question, and this reply, to our Web site. Best regards,
David Hyman
Outreach Committee Co-Chair