Community Relations Commission

1 Minutes of a Meeting of the 2 Community Relations Commission 3 Northbrook, IL 4 March 6, 2014 5 6 7 Present: Chair, Ray Wehr; Members: Elliot Bruckman, Nafisa Choudhury, Bruce Doughty, 8 Safa Hamed, Mary Hansen, Sue Huang, Chris Kosla, Alice Lonoff, Ron 9 Mantegna, Dr. Rochelle Singer, Nancy Stoddard, and Susan Weil 10 11 Absent: Dale Duda, Scott Gertz, Linda Goldsher, and Chris Greulich 12 13 Others: Liaison Jason Batalden, Robert Lozaro and Recording Secretary Julie Weldon 14 15 16 Call to Order 17 The meeting was called to order at 7:00 pm at the Northbrook Police Department, Training 18 Classroom by Chair Ray Wehr. 19 20 21 Approval of January 20 AACH Sub-Committee Minutes 22 Motion: (Bruce Doughty – Rochelle Singer) Approve the January 20, 2014 minutes of the Asian 23 American Heritage Committee with the following amendments: 24  Third paragraph correct the spelling of announced. 25  Fifth paragraph change the word bides to bids. 26  Fourth paragraph from the bottom correct the sentence to read ….brush painting have 27 requested (instead of request). 28  Carried. 29 30 31 Approval of February 6 Community Relations Commission Minutes 32 Motion: (Rochelle Singer – Bruce Doughty) Approve the minutes of the February 6, 2014 33 Community Relations Commission with the following amendments: 34  Correct the spelling of the following names Safa Hamed (not Safah); Chris Greulich (not 35 Gruelich) in the members present and in the introduction of new members. 36  Line 104 last sentence start with ‘A’ Glenbrook North High School… 37  Line 129 correct sentence to include the word ‘she’ before has from China, Taiwan and 38 other countries. 39  Line 137 change Vendor to Vendors. 40  Line 142 remove the word ‘to’ prior to put together a package. 41  Line 143 add ‘to visit’ after winner the opportunity to visit the police station. 42  Line 168 should be Member Doughty instead of Mantegna. 43  Line 179 change the sentence to read…The students at Glenbrook North High School 44 are feeling pressure to achieve high scores and not cheat. 45  Line 185 add period at the end of the sentence. 46  Line 198 add period at the end of the sentence. 47  Line 213 replace Village Church with the Northbrook United Methodist Church. 48  Line 219 change the date to April 6, not April 26. 49  Line 220 it should read raise money for Northbrook Citizens for Drug and Alcohol 50 Awareness. 1  51  Line 221 add period at the end of the sentence. 52 - Carried. 53 54 55 Hear from Audience 56 There were no comments from the audience. 57 58 59 Asian Heritage Planning 60 Member Huang reported that they have had a few performers and vendors drop out. Sue is 61 looking into getting a few more performers to participate and will report next month. The 62 committee met with members of the YMCA and will be using a little more of the facilities. There 63 will be a Martial Arts performance. They are looking for volunteers to serve as hospitality guides 64 directing people to the various rooms. They may contact a GBN service club to see if they can 65 get volunteers, but they would prefer to have members from the Commission volunteer. Sue will 66 send an e-mail with time slots asking the Commission Members to volunteer. 67 68 There will be a map in the program book so that attendees know where to go. There will also be 69 a welcome message in multiple languages as attendees enter. The welcome sign will also be 70 done in different languages. 71 72 The committee is considering streaming the event throughout the YMCA as well as streaming it 73 to the Northbrook Channel. They are also considering a short survey to find out how the 74 attendees heard about the event and to collect e-mail addresses and contact information for 75 future promotion. 76 77 The YMCA has the ability to make paper banners, so they are looking into having a banner 78 made promoting the “Year of the Horse”. 79 80 Black History Month Review 81 Member Singer reported that they had a record turnout and having the food in the same room 82 was the way to go. 83 84 They had a budget of $1,000 and Rochelle was pleased to report that they stayed under budget 85 with total expenses at $607. 86 87 The room set up was great. There was some trouble with the sound system, but now they know 88 what to look for. The rapper was the only speaker who did not show up. All of the other 89 speakers were great. 90 91 Attendance was about 110-120 people. All of the committee members agreed to come back and 92 work on it next year. The publicity was well done. 93 94 The committee thanks the YMCA for the donation of space for this event. 95 96 There was a suggestion that next time they might want to set up the chairs in a u-shape to allow 97 for better viewing of the presenters because the YMCA does not have a raised stage. 98 99 Attendance included students from Waukegan High School, Glenbrook North High School, 100 Oakton Community College, and families of the performers, among others. 101 2 102 103 Northbrook Cares Update 104 Chair Ray Wehr reported that he is still looking for a web developer and asked the committee if 105 they knew of anyone to let him know. 106 107 108 Sister Cities Update 109 Member Doughty reported that they have been talking to the Sister Cities Group in Vermont 110 which has had a program since 1991. Vermont Sister Cities have done Mayoral exchanges, 111 sponsored athletic events, have had relations with cities in Russia, France and Israel as well as 112 Alabama. Member Hamed is searching various cities in Illinois that have had success. Palatine 113 has done some successful events. They are trying to find out what works well, how you launch a 114 program, and trying to expand the committee to get a variety of backgrounds. The task is trying 115 to identify cities around the world to work with. 116 117 118 Flamingo Friday/Welcome to Northbrook Planning 119 Chair Ray Wehr reported that the Dairy Queen has promised 100 dilly bars for the Welcome to 120 Northbrook event. 121 122 123 News from Clergy Association and Houses of Worship 124 Chair Ray Wehr reported the passing of Rabbi Daniel S. Moscowitz on March 4. Wehr also 125 reported that as of June 1st Northbrook will only have one Priest, Bob Heinz as Father Tom 126 Moran is retiring. 127 128 129 News from Schools 130 Member Doughty reported that the Glenbrook North High School (GBN) had their 6 one act 131 plays which were directed and acted by the students. Member Hansen noted that they were 132 extremely well done and very impressive. GBN also had their turnabout dance a few weeks ago. 133 134 Member Doughty also reported that the School Board is concerned with and discussing the 135 growing enrollment at Glenbrook South which has close to 3,000 students, while Glenbrook 136 North is still around 2,000. 137 138 139 Old Business 140 There was no old business. 141 142 143 New Business 144 There was no new business. 145 146 147 Eyes and Ears on the Street 148  Chair Ray Wehr and Village President Sandy Frum were approached at the Black 149 History Month event by several residents expressing concern about the Walmart being 150 built in Northbrook. Statements like “that is not what Northbrook is about” keep coming 151 up. To address this issue they are looking to establish a committee to work with Rabbi 3 152 Helbraun to put together a forum where people can come and give their input as to what 153 they believe Northbrook should be. 154  Jason Batalden distributed copies of the Resource Guide draft asking everyone to proof 155 it and submit any edits and/or amendments for improvement by the next meeting. 156 157 158 Next Meeting 159 The next meeting will be held April 3, 2014 at the Northbrook Police Station in the training room. 160 161 162 Adjournment 163 Motion: (Chris Kosla – Sue Huang) Moved to adjourn the meeting at 8:15 pm – Carried. 4