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Commission debates scope of community liaisons; plan to revisit with new commissioner and consult council
Summary
Commissioners discussed realigning liaison responsibilities to volunteer organizations, debated whether to include PTAs and schools, raised concerns about duplication and staff bandwidth, and agreed to reassess next month after a new commissioner joins and to ask council whether the packet items are valuable.
The commission discussed realigning its community-liaison assignments following Commissioner Connie’s departure and the addition of a new commissioner next month.
Christian raised the idea of including PTAs and PTSAs in the liaison list: “I think we should consider including the PTAs or PTSAs of the local schools.” Commissioners debated scope — whether to include only Newcastle schools or extend to neighboring districts — and whether the ask would duplicate existing school communications. Several commissioners expressed concern about adding workload for volunteer organizations and for commissioners who are already subscribed to multiple listservs.
Amy, staff, cautioned about publishing school events through city channels when events are not open to the broader community: “The city communication channels will not publish fundraisers. Like, we won't promote fundraisers for other organizations,” and noted the city must ensure any published school event is open to the public if it is to be shared.
Commissioners agreed to “sleep on this” until the new commissioner joins in November and to ask council whether the liaison reports included in monthly commission packets are useful. The group proposed reverting to a narrower set of liaisons focused on city volunteer organizations (trails, arts council, chamber, historical society, friends of the library) while allowing organizations to reach out to the commission if they have public-facing events they want listed.
