Tonight is my 21st meeting serving as on the San José Human Services Commission and my 13th meeting Chairing that commission, so I thought I would do a quick round-up of what we’ve done since I joined in January 2018.
I’m making this post for two reasons. One, is I’m doing my annual evaluation of my volunteer commitments, to see where I’m doing the most good. Two, is the city of San José redid their website and links to nearly everything of value I produced for the commission (reports, press releases, work plans) now only leads to dead links, so I wanted to make an archive of my own. All of the documents below are the official versions.
Below is a work in progress. In the next few weeks, I’ll be trying to find copies of each of these files. Some because I’m proud of them, some because I refer to them often, and some because I want to remember how I spend my time as a volunteer.
2018
Note: Any month without an agenda or documents is a month when we did not have quorum and so could not meet.
| Agenda | Minutes | Saved Documents | Major actions / Discussions | |
| Jan | 01-18-18 | 01-18-18 | Missing: (1) Women’s Bill of Rights Memo. (2) Dec 19 Ordinance. (3) Dec 19 Resolution. (4) Dec 19 Vice Mayor Memo. Saved: 2017 – 2018 Work Plan. | This was the meeting where we were told SJPD had arrested 280 women for sex work over a 7 week period in the fall of 2017. |
| Feb | 02-15-18 | 02-15-18 | This is the meeting where Josue Fuentes, District Attorney’s Office of the County of Santa Clara confirmed none of the 280 women arrested for sex work had been charged or referred for services. This is the meeting where I invited Anthony King to speak about the importance of ending SJPD sweeps against unhoused people. | |
| Mar | 03-29-18 | 03-29-18 | Letter to City Council on full funding the gender analysis survey; press release; op-ed. | The commission unanimously voted to send the press release, op-ed, and letter to council, via our staff secretary. We were told we could not, as commissioners, share the release or submit the op-ed without the approval of the City Council Committee on Community and Economic Development; we sought that approval and never heard back. The commission also voted unanimously to send a letter to Immigrations and Customs |
| Apr | 04-19-18 | 04-19-18 | – Women’s Bill of Rights Ad Hoc Committee Update – Community Survey for Gender Analysis Survey – | TBD |
| May | 05-17-18 | 05-17-18 | TBD | TBD |
| Jun | 06-21-18 | TBD | TBD | |
| Aug | 8-16-18 | TBD | TBD | |
| Sep | 9-20-18 | TBD | TBD | |
| Dec | 12-20-18 | TBD | TBD |
The major actions in 2018, from my perspective were: TBD
2019
| Agenda | Minutes | Documents | Major actions | |
| Jan | 1-17-19 | TBD | TBD | |
| Sep | 9-9-19 | TBD | TBD | |
| Oct | 10-17-19 | TBD | TBD | |
| Nov | 11-21-19 | TBD | TBD |
The major actions in 2019, from my perspective were: TBD
2020
| Agenda | Minutes | Documents | Major actions | |
| Feb | 02-20-20 | TBD | TBD | |
| Jul | 07-16-20 | TBD | TBD | |
| Aug | 08-20-20 | TBD | TBD | |
| Sep | 09-17-20 | TBD | TBD | |
| Oct | 10-15-20 | TBD | TBD | |
| Nov | 11-19-20 | TBD | TBD | |
| Dec | 12-17-20 | TBD | TBD |
The major actions in 2020, from my perspective were:
- December 17, 2020: We voted to ask the staff secretary to send the vendor who will be conducting the fully intersectional gender analysis survey a letter of welcome with our committee members’ contact information, along with a copy of the version of the Women’s Bill of Rights that gives trans and cis women the same level of protection, as well as providing women, non-binary people, and men the same level of inclusion.
- December 17, 2020: Statement from the San José Human Services Commission in Support of the Santa Clara County Sanctuary Law (our staff Secretary was instructed to send this to Council and the Mayor): “Dear Mayor Liccardo and Honorable Councilmembers, The Human Services Commission of San José strongly supports the Santa Clara County Sanctuary Law as written (Board Policy 3.54). Deportations do not prevent violence. The threat of increased deportations actively harms our undocumented neighbors, friends, and family members. In solidarity, the San José Human Services Commission.”
- TBD
