May 2022 Minutes

Welcome – Stephen McBride

• Reminder to please renew  your dues by the June meeting and reach out to Stacey if you have any questions. .

Treasurer’s Report – 

• Preliminary report – bank statement has not arrived in the mail
• Income: $25 in new dues
• Expenses: $15.93 Zoom fees, $105.99 Web Hosting
• Final report will also include interest income from bank accounts

Police Report 

• Contact: George.Downing@pd.Boston.gov 
• C11CSO on Twitter: https://twitter.com/C11cso
• Officer Downing provided details of a few incidents in Jones Hill and the surrounding area. 

Committee Reports 

• Social & Outreach Committee- Steve / Starr / Stacey / Meaghan
  • Please join meetings, which are on 4th Wednesday of the Month at 6:30
  • Working on upcoming draft of neighborhood post card for distribution, meant to welcome and bring in new members.
  • Potential block party over the summer prior to the September meeting
• Planning & Development- Kit Binns / Stephen McBride
• Greenspace & Friends of Downer Park- Carly Cederquist
  • There was some graffiti at the Downer Ave park, which was 311’d and cleaned up quickly

Proposed By-Law Changes Review and Q&A – Stephen McBride

• Harvard Legal Clinic has been working with JHA to help bring JHA bylaws up to date. 
• We ran through proposed changes, with the intent to send out to the association for further review, and vote on these changes in the June meeting. 
• ARTICLE I: Section 4 Address of the association can be approved by the JHA
• ARTICLE II, SECTION 1: Clarify what it means to be a member of the Association, while keeping the Association and its meetings open to all. Also clarifies financial hardship can in the future be approved by the BOD. 
  • Question about the Associate Membership- This membership category allows flexibility for a type of membership that is not resident nor merchant members, but can allow these individuals to engage with the JHA in some capacity. This allows individuals to participate without being voting members. 
  • Question about why there is no mention of dues with regards to Associate Members: This is deliberately not included in this section so it is not codified in bylaws for people to have to pay dues or for JHA to waive dues. “Such terms as determined by the board” provides space for Associate Membership to evolve as Jones Hill evolves. 
  • Question: Can anyone attend a JHA meeting? Yes. 
  • Associate Membership distinguishes a formal tie to the JHA even though they cannot vote.
  • How does one become an Associate Member? This is a developing process within the JHA. 
  • This also provides a category for individuals who wish to donate to the JHA but does not wish to be part of quorum. Currently have 94 dues paying members and currently have 16 people in the meeting. 
  • Question about Resident Membership in terms of those who own property versus renters. Why are we excluding owners who don’t live here/ landlords? This is consistent with the bylaws for years, which is that one needs to live on the hill to be a voting member. This would constitute a fairly significant change of the make-up of the bylaws, which we can’t accommodate in this timeline but can be discussed in future revisions of the bylaws and in future conversations. 
  • Question on if we should continue to name the amount of dues, in the event we want to raise dues. 
• ARTICLE II, SECTION 2: Stipulates how someone becomes a new member
• ARTICLE II,: SECTION  3: Clarifies how membership can end.  We put in a clause that folks have a 30 days grace period after a lapse to pay and maintain their Resident Member status. I know “terminate” is a charged word, but in the event your membership ends, it’s legally terminated 
  • Discussed how to revise section detailing termination of a member. 
  • JHA will work with Harvard Legal Clinic to revise this section, given feedback from membership
• ARTICLE II, SECTION  4: Gives the Board control over payment timelines – which we have agreed are 365 calendar days (and supplied by JoinIt)
• ARTICLE II, SECTION  5: Stipulates who a voting member is.  We’ve adjusted this to make quorum easier to hit. You must be a Resident Member for at least 27 days, paid up on dues, and have been to at least one meeting (including that meeting) to be counted (meaning that if you do not show up for 6 months, you do not count against Quorum, but if you show up at a Quorum-needing meeting, you can vote even if that’s the only meeting you showed up to)
  • Intent to make quorum as clear as possible and to be as open and as accessible an association.
• ARTICLE III:
  • Stipulated what the Voting Matters are
  • Removed language that made it seem like elections could only occur at the Annual Meeting
• ARTICLE IV:
  • Cleared up when an election can occur to be clear that it’s 10 days after a vacancy happens
  • We did not include any changes to the At-Large election schedule.  We discussed this at length with Carmen and decided that, with the expansion of the Board to 9, the confusion that would arise from non-aligned election schedules (and what happens in subsequent elections when there is only 1 open At-Large seat) wasn’t currently worth the difficulty, since we should have stability across at least some of the 9 positions
• ARTICLE V :
  • Created a quorum/voting procedure for Board Meetings
• ARTICLE VIII:
  • Allows amendments to be voted upon outside of the Annual Meeting
  • Stipulated that Quorum is only necessary for vote on the By-Laws
  • Question about if membership wants to vote on something and board decides on if it is voted on or not.
  • Voting members are defined in Article II, Section 5
• ARTICLE IX:
  • Adds boiler plate language to keep us in line with our tax exempt status should the nature of our income ever change

On The Hill 

Attendance:

Stephen McBride

Stacey Cordeiro

Kathleen Rogers

Desiree Baynes

David Hautenen

iphone?

Matthew Hall

Marty Martinez

Rashelle Centeio – Liz Miranda’s Office “Hi everyone! Rashelle with Representative Miranda’s office. Happy to be here tonight. If anyone is in need of services from our office, please do not hesitate to reach out my email is rashelle.centeio@mahouse.gov”

Officer Downing

Carol Conaway

Cicely Stetson

Christine Price

Natahan Tavares

Steve Power

Casey Cochran

Diane Teal

Denise DosSantos 

Chris Vella

Tim Scott

Shonna Alexander – UCHC

Abby Wells