Community Meeting Reflection Paper

One thing of significance that I learned about at the city council meeting was meeting procedure. When I first arrived a pre-meeting workshop about annexation was occurring. After the regular meeting began we started with the Pledge of Allegiance. Next roll call of the council members was taken. Dallas Center has five council members: Mike Kidd, David Bagby, Kurt Pion,. Following roll call was an action to approve the agenda, which was approved. Next up was public communications and concerns. I was surprised that each person only has two minutes to talk about all the issues they

This week, I attended an Open Speaker session at a local AA meeting. There were about 30 participants in the meeting. They were mostly white with ages ranging from childhood to older adult. There were a even number of men and women, and they were some couples in the audience.

The issues and needs discussed were all listed on the agenda and the leaders went through every resolution, department reports, and ordinances. I understood that for the resolutions there were members that signed the resolution and then it got voted on during the meeting. They voted with a keypad device and the public could see who voted

All of the city commissioners were present for the meeting, they include: Todd Neville, Nancy Sikes-Kline, Leanna Freeman, Mayor, Nancy Shaver, and Vice Mayor, Roxanne Horvath. At the meeting just about every type of group was represented, city residents of St. Augustine, business owners, special interested groups, in particular the Clean Up the City of St. Augustine initiative represented by Ed Salvin, and even a local Neighborhood Association represented by its president Susan Rathbone was present. Almost all of the individuals I mentioned attended the meeting to voice their belief that there should be an increase in the budget for improvement of local roads.

The meeting agenda included the topics that were going to be discussed which made the meeting more structured. To start off the meeting, they called the meeting, announced the time and date, took roll call, and then everyone stood up and said the pledge of allegiance. There was a Personal Appearance from Jim Haddock and he first had to state his full name and address. He thanked the city council board for the bills, as he

The board meeting was well run. The atmosphere was positive, supportive, inspiring and respectful. As you entered the boardroom, a table was set up with a sign-in sheet, agendas, handouts, and blue cards. The blue cards were for the public. If they desired to address the board concerning an agenda item, they must fill it out and submit it to the secretary.

The meeting had preplanned agendas concerning the planning staff and services to citizens. The types of services are residential, commercial, and industrial land use development ordinances. The meeting opened with a prayer followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, call to order, determination of a quorum, to ensure all board members are present and adoption of minutes. The Chairman, Mr. Keith Williams, was the moderator and he was very polite and efficient, by giving citizens and local official the opportunity to speak. The atmosphere was very static, because there were great number of residents there awaiting their chance to speak about a certain zoning agenda (City of Gulfport,

Social Service Meeting: On 02/28/2017 Ms. Williams met with her assigned Case Manager for the family weekly ILP Document Review. Ms. Williams’ next ILP Document Review appointment is on 02/07/2017. No issues or concerns were discuss during the meeting. Children were present at the time at the meeting.

This meeting started late due to a lack of council members and also audience. After, ten minutes a third member arrived and the meeting began, however the council skipped the first half of the agenda and jumped to Communications. Ten minutes after starting Communications, a fourth council member appeared and the meeting started all over to the beginning of the agenda. The meeting started over because the council could not approve the minutes and agenda without meeting its quorum. This kind of sucked the women presenting Communications because she had to repeat herself all over again. Communications consisted the presenter communicating with the board different people that were being appointed to different committees. This committees ranged from Keep Atlanta Beautiful to Water and Sewer Appeals

The City of Whittier has two city meetings a month were the people of the community are welcome to attend. One of their city council meetings was held on April 26 at 6:30pm. The council members are Owner Newcomer, Cathy Warner and Bob Henderson. The Mayor Pro tem is Joe Vinatieri and the Mayor of Whittier is Fernando Dutra. There was a good amount of public attendance, but the attendance died out after recess. Public participation was not effective or really used throughout the meeting. The public comments part of the meeting was where the public’s voice was most heard.

Following the portion of the meeting where the public could bring things to the table, the Council continued with its agenda. Multiple departments came and gave reports on what they were doing and their progress. Including

It was my first attending a commission meeting so I really did not know what to expect. The meeting was scheduled for 6pm. I arrived 30 mins before the meeting. When I arrived, the Vice Mayor, Marc Narotsky, was greeting

I chose to attend a city council meeting for this assignment and was very surprised at what I witnessed. The city council served an important purpose and the meeting actually accomplished many important goals. Among the interesting things that I saw at the council meeting were the people who attended, the people who presented, the people who sat on the council, and the subjects that were being voted upon in the meeting.

On July 18, 2017, I attended the City of Gulfport’s City Council Meeting. The council is made up of elected members of the community whose focus is the city’s goals, major projects and infrastructure improvements. The council makes decisions that range from community growth to land use to finances and strategic planning. Competencies demonstrated during the meeting were Competencies 3 and 5. Competency number 3 focuses on Advanced Human Rights and Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice. The meeting demonstrated knowledge of the ideas and concepts related to the notions of social justice, advocacy, leadership, social change, social support, social networks, and social capital consistent with a MSLC perspective. This competency was demonstrated by addressing community concerns by incorporating ideas of citizens and community leaders. Community leaders such as council members and the mayor provided support and clarification of city policies. The citizens advocated for changes in their community by bringing their issues to the city council for resolutions. Competency 5 focuses on Engaging in Policy Practice. This was demonstrated by advanced skills in social work practice including the ability to link theory, policy-practice, and research/ evaluation, and to employ leadership skills to demonstrate and promote such a linkage. This competency was demonstrated by city council members and the citizens of Gulfport, MS. They worked together to ensure

For the service learning project, I teamed up with three of my classmates to volunteer at a lady’s conference at Imani Restoration Centre church (IRCC) on the 16th of September, 2017. IRCC is a non-profit organization which is a Kenyan community founded that focuses on bringing African immigrants together to support and learn the things of God. Samuel Mwangi, the senior pastor of IRCC, said that through the counseling sessions that he holds at the church every Thursday, he discovered that most ladies go through the same challenges. Therefore, he thought it would be great for him to organize a lady’s conference, so that ladies could come together to share and support each other (Personal communication, September, 16, 2017)