HCMI Board Meeting December 19, 2019

Meeting minutes of Holyoke Media – December 19, 2019

Present:

• Scott MacPherson, ED
• Denis Luzuriaga
• Jennifer Myszkowski
• Mike Hines
• Carey Baker
• Patty Norris Lubold

 

Not present:

• Al Williams

 

Call to order: 6:41 p.m.

 

Minutes:

• Motion to accept minutes from 11/20: 
  • Motion: Denis
  • 2nd: Mike
  • Vote: Unanimous

 

Director’s report:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S2-pajJ23slDY3AyozdYDBZWAZ5wLwaN/view?usp=sharing 

• Grants:
  • We received Valley Arts Grants Mentor grants
  • We received the Our Grandmothers grant — valley-wide matrilineal oral history project.
    • Wisteriahurst will be a location in Holyoke for story collection
    • Grandmother stories will be collected from around the region, not just Holyoke.
  • Total grants received in 2019: $292K
• Building:
  • Demo is anticipated to complete by year’s end.
    • Cracked and bowed roof beam found. Support beam added and the building has been temporarily stabilized.
    • Additional asbestos tile found, which will cost about $6K to remediate.
  • Resurrect Building Committee. Building committee is Denis, Carey and Mike.
  • Scott wants to know what kinds of change orders we’re comfortable with him approving. Scott proposes:
    • Scott can approve up to $10K
    • Building Committee can approve up to $30K
    • Whole board must approve up to $50K
  • Board is comfortable with Scott’s proposals, but we’d like to see a running tally of what’s been spent per contract and any additional spending due to change orders — and Scott will keep the Building Committee apprised of developments.
  • Are we OK with Mowry and Schmidt being both OPM and the contractors
    • Denis: Defeats the purpose of having an independent OPM. We were always intending to put it out to bid.
    • Jennifer: I thought Western Builders was in the mix? 
    • Denis: If Mowry and Schmidt becomes builder, we would need to hire another OPM.
  • Associated cracked an underground vault for electrical cables and broke a window at the Annex and is working with the City and their insurer to rectify.
  • Scott hoped that we’d have a masonry contract by this meeting, but that hasn’t happened. He’s hopeful we’ll have a masonry contract at the next meeting.
• Annual hearing cancelled – AGAIN. Will be rescheduled in new year.
  • We’ve never successfully had an annual hearing.
  • When MOU is up, should we rewrite to write it out?
  • Scott to double-check MOU for when that will be and what our obligations are.
• Fiscal Sponsorship
  • Discussion of edits regarding fiscal sponsorship and meal reimbursement limits.
  • Motion to approve revision to the Fiscal Sponsorship Policy as discussed in the merring. 
    • Motion: Jennifer
    • 2nd: Patty
    • Vote: Unanimous
• SWOT
  • EVeryone needs to send responses by January 6.
• Budget:
  • Will vote on the 2020 budget at next meeting.
• Membership Policy
  • Please review. We will vote at the next meeting.
  • See mission statement in the membership form.
• Director of Production job description
  • Please review. We will vote at the next meeting.

 

Other Business:

• Website
  • Still in progress — buttoning down afinal aspects of it.
  • Scott will be surprised if it’s not done by the next meeting. “Feels imminent.”
  • Small tweaks continue to get made – functions, not design.
    • We switched to a new paid version of Google Translate.
    • How podcasts are displaying.
  • Will be published even if not perfect. Once published, can be further tweaked.
  • Jennifer: Let’s publish as soon as it won’t be embarrassing to do so.

• Follow-up on See-Click-Fix
  • Tabled until meeting with the Mayor
• MassPFML
  • Scott will talk to employment lawyer on our questions regarding who is considered an employee for MassPFML purposes. 
• Mobile City Hall
  • Scott now has after-hours access.

 

Next meeting:

• Wed., Jan. 15, at 6:30 p.m. at The Cubit CoWork space – 164 Race Street
  • Agenda:
    • Executive Session item: Employee review
    • Masonry contract
    • 2020 Budget
    • Membership Policy
    • Job description for Director of Production
    • SWOT responses

 

Motion to adjourn,  7:57 p.m.:

• Motion: Mike
• 2nd: Denis
• Vote: Unanimous