CFSB Board Meeting Minutes July 13 2020
AGENDA
3:00 Call Meeting to Order - Chris Voss
· Roll Call/ Quorum
· Meeting Ground rules
3:10 President’s Remarks - Chris Voss
· Thanks to Mike Nelson
· Advocacy issues are really intense right now
· PCFFA support
3:20 Executive Director’s Report - Kim Selkoe
1. Working Waterfront – Infrastructure
· City Pier Improvements
· Harbor Commission/ Commercial Fisheries Subcommittee
· City Council Letter
· Meeting with City Manager and Economic Development Manager
2. Foodbank program
3. Independent insert
4. Other grants
3:40 Budget and Fiscal Management – 2020 Year to date P&L and Balance Sheet - Michael Harrington
4:00 Board Election Process
· Nominations
· Process/timing
4:45 Old/New Business
5:00 Adjourn
MINUTES
In attendance: Chris Voss, Mike Conroy, Mike Nelson, Michael Harrington, Jeff Maassen, Gary Burke, John Colgate, Bernard Friedman, Andy Rassmussen
Meeting held via Zoom.
Chris Voss opened the meeting at 3pm.
President’s Remarks by Chris Voss:
Chris began by letting folks know that Mike Nelson, our volunteer program officer for CFSB, suffered a bad fall on Saturday – he broke his jaw and has a long recovery ahead. It’s going to be a setback for CFSB because Mike has been so instrumental in our work - he orchestrated our Foodbank donation program, represents us at the Harbor Commission, and has been guiding us expertly in our engagement with the city on shoreside infrastructure needs. Thank you to Mike for all you have given to CFSB, and thank you for continuing to do what you can during your recovery (including attending this meeting less than 24 hours post-surgery!).
Fishery advocacy needs have been intense lately and we want to acknowledge the great job that Mike Conroy has been doing staying on top of issues like offshore wind, Ventura shellfish enterprise, the CARES act disbursement, whale entanglement and AB3030, and staying in touch with us constantly to keep us informed. Chris and Kim propose that CFSB consider at its next meeting voting on a new generous donation to PCFFA to support Mike and acknowledge that he is doing the bulk of the advocacy work that we’ve been struggling to find time for.
We discussed the need for better noticing of general meetings and of setting up a monthly schedule of board meetings to meet IRS requirements. We chose the 4th Monday of the month for a regular schedule. Having regular board meetings may help us better communicate what’s going on with CFSB to members.
We acknowledged that, due to the strain of the pandemic on the CFSB staff, our communications and meeting planning have been very spotty.
This meeting was noticed last Thursday to the board members, and an agenda and prep materials were sent out prior to that time. We have a quorum today, so this can be an official board meeting, although it does not qualify as a General Meeting. We will attempt a General Meeting very shortly.
Director’s Report by Kim Selkoe:
1. Shoreside Infrastructure:
a. We have bird-dogged the waterfront department on their follow through on capital improvements of fishing infrastructure. The hoist replacement and ice house replacement budgets were uncut during their recent budget revisions, and we are very grateful for this. Please send any feedback if you feel they can improve their notification of fishermen about disruptions in the harbor that affect our activities, and keep disruption to a minimum, and express thanks to the waterfront dept when you can for their service.
b. The Harbor Commission subcommittee process to assess and vet our need for a new boat yard recently made a report to the Commission that the fishing and seafood industries require about 47,000 sq ft space outside the harbor, and City Council should be asked for guidance on how to address this need. Head of Planning Commission, Leslie Wiscomb, has been a fantastic advocate for us in this process.
c. We have been meeting with the Waterfront Dept weekly and Mike Jordan (City Councilmember who has the harbor in his district) monthly. These meetings have really helped move the process along.
d. Recently, we have pressed the city to look into a City College lot that the City staff felt may be a possibility for some storage. We are waiting to hear if that is the case.
i. Concern was voiced that this is too small and we should hold out for something more adequate.
e. We sent a letter and attached Fisheries Economic Development Strategy to the City Council and City Economic Development Manager (Jason Harris). It got immediate positive response – we had a meeting with Paul Casey, City Administrator, and Jason Harris. We also did a harbor and fish processor tour for Jason Harris and Mike Wiltshire last week.
f. Aug 4th CFSB and the Waterfront Dept. will be making a joint presentation on our shoreside infrastructure needs and how to address them to City Council.
g. We met with a business consultant, Jeremiah Higgins, with great expertise in creating the financial analyses and ‘pitch decks’ complete with architectural renderings and nice graphics, that are needed for big projects like these. If and when we need these tools, we would go to the board to ask for a vote to use his services. One option to cover the costs is pursuing a Santa Barbara Foundation Express Grant for $5K – can be submitted any time and has rapid turn around.
2. Foodbank donation program.
a. This was a lot of work but went smoothly. Five fishermen participated and 3,227 lbs of filleted fish were created and donated to the Foodbank. All 3 fish processors in town (SB Fish Market, Harbor Meat and Seafood, Get Hooked) participated and coordinated to make it happen. We had a total budget of $32,500 and have $1,616 remaining that will help cover admin costs.
3. Independent 4 page Insert
a. Thanks to Mike Nelson, we received a grant that enables us to have a 4 page insert on CFSB in the Independent. It will run Aug. 20. We want input on how to design this – we have to create it entirely. This will cost money to do. The usual goal of these is to raise awareness about your organization and ask for donations. We will focus on what we have done for the community (e.g., Foodbank program), and how people can get our seafood - highlight the Sat. Market.
4. Pending grants:
a. We submitted a grant to the USDA to fund the legwork to get our shoreside infrastructure project to a shovel ready status. Will find out in September if we get it. The proposed budget was $100k
b. Waiting on a small grant for $10k from Catch Together, also focused on this topic
c. We just received $18K from the Bentson Foundation to spend on COVID recovery projects. We need to stay in engage with them and let them know what we do with the money – let’s discuss this at the next meeting.
Financial Report by Michael Harrington and Kim Selkoe:
Our financial standing is very strong. We received over $82K in grants this year to date: $32,500 for our Foodbank donations program, $6400 remaining Quota Bank grant from TNC, $15,000 for the Saturday Market to set up a boiling station, $10K from the Cable committee and $18,700 from the Bentson foundation for COVID recovery related activities.
We have over $151K in the bank. Our books are in good order thanks to Michael working with our new bookkeeper, Kirsten. Kirsten has helped us make improvements to our protocols and recordkeeping to have better transparency and accountability to the IRS.
To that end, we should update and finalize our 2020 budget and have the board vote to accept it at our next meeting. It has been drafted and reviewed by the executive team earlier this year, but never went to a vote.
Vote on E.D. Consulting contract:
Board normally votes every 6 months to extend Executive Director contract and set aside funds for the cost. We anticipate needing $20K to cover ED consulting fee for the remainder of 2020. We also have $29K available from last year’s (and earlier) fundraising to cover this (not counting the new funds raised this year). Gary made a motion to release $20K from these older sources to cover ED salary needs through the end of the year. Seconded by Chris. Unanimous vote in favor by 5 board members present.
Board Elections:
We will hold board elections electronically. To vote or be on the ballot you must be a paid up 2020 CFSB member. We will do a membership drive prior to the voting deadline.
The board is 7 members. We hope to see new younger fishermen joining the board. Chris has confirmed interest by Garret Rose and Harry Liquornik. All board members present confirmed interest in continuing. We will provide time for others to put their name in the hat.
Each board candidate will name their alternate to represent them if/when they are unavailable for meetings and board votes. This is someone preferably from their fishery. The executive positions on the board (President, VP, treasurer) are chosen by the board after the new board assembles.
We will send out a finalized ballot as a google form. On the form, you will enter your name and email and check a box that you are a current CFSB member (this will be double-checked against our records). You will then select up to 7 candidate/alternate pairs for the board. Your submitted ballot will be emailed to you as a record. To avoid anyone gaming the system, we may also call the named individual on a ballot to ensure they themselves filled out the ballot. The 7 candidates with the most votes will win the board seats. All feedback and ideas for the structure of this process are welcome.
Membership Drive
We have been fairly remiss in encouraging fishermen to keep their CFSB membership active. It is easy to lose track of whether your membership dues have been paid. We will send an email out with a list of the names of paid up fishermen and instructions on how to pay up (mail at 6 Harbor Way #155, CA, 93109, or online through our website) for those who don’t see their name on the list. Could incentivize with a discount on the $70 cost. We will also hire an assistant (see below) to conduct an ongoing membership drive.
Hiring more capacity:
We could really use an assistant to update our website and keep it current, do all our Mailchimp emails (and at a lower cost than what Kim costs to do it), and manage the membership drive, do meeting minutes and scheduling, etc. This will be no more than 10 hrs/week. If the hire is good and committed, we can start to get them versed in fisheries advocacy to assist with webinar attendance and responding to the constant stream of asks/inquiries that are low priority for us. A board member suggested that a new graduate of fisheries science/enviro science would be interested and have the website maintenance skills we need. We will post a job ad on Indeed.com, with UCSB and the fuel dock. Chris made a motion to consider a monthly allocation of up to $800 to pay the assistant; the board would review apps and vote on the selected candidate. Gary seconded, unanimous 5-0 support.
Chris closed the meeting at 5:30pm