SCIA meeting Monday April 17th 2006

Meeting minutes

Introduction

Following are minutes from the first SCIA board meeting. I took no formal or informal notes, so the following is from memory only.

Attendees

Present

Wayne Jones
Steve Howard
Sarajane Smith
Pascal Gill
Ron Dougherty
Ron Corder
Eli Sauls

Absent, with prior apology

Wanda Pate

Absent without apology

Winfred Quarles
Glenn Hickman

Minutes

Dalton McGuire meeting

Wayne and Steve met with Dalton McGuire today to discuss the land he plans to develop for the town center and implementation of the Farmer’s Market. Dalton again stated “tell me what to do and I will do it”. He intends to handle the development himself, and looks forward to meeting with the student teams when the time comes. He supports the farmer’s market fully, and has given the SCIA permission to go ahead, subject to legal and other issues. He already has liability insurance, but may need to modify it. He suggests we get vendors to sign an appropriate disclaimer to reduce liability claims. Steve to speak to Bill Pate for initial legal advice

Steve to speak to Patrick Bonck to obtain appropriate permit etc

Email and electronic documents

There was some extensive discussion throughout the meeting about the use of the internet and email. Ron Corder has expressed reluctance at spending a large amount of time on email etc. and reading documents on-screen. In order to be able to keep up with communications within the SCIA and with other organisations, and in order to have a recorded paper trail, we need to be able to use email to communicate with the entire board wherever possible.

Farmers market - progress

Steve reported on discussions with the Chnaro garden center, who is interested in supporting the farmer’s market if possible, although they normally sell commercial/wholesale rather to consumers. Wayne and Steve to view Dalton’s land on Tuesday to see how best to utilise it for the initial market.

Saucier Community blog

Steve reported the new Saucier Community Blog is published and live on the Internet. All board members (with email addresses) have been invited to be able to post to the blog. So far only Lori Sauls has responded … and she is not a board member, but a very helpful and active volunteer.

New Community Plan

A new, updated version of the Community Plan was posted on April 15th. All board members have been encouraged to read this. A copy can be downloaded from the Harrison County website

Board member responsibilities

An action from last week was for all the board members to review the Plan and list their view of their own roles and responsibilities based on that plan. Pascal and Wanda were to share Health and Welfare, and did a good job of extracting the appropriate information for their ‘department’. They also suggested a number of sub-committees that should meet under their general section heading.

Other board members voiced surprise that this was an action from the previous week, although it was discussed extensively and agreed at the meeting. A new action was agreed for the next meeting:-

- Board to review the updated Community Plan and take on their own roles and responsibilities from the revised plan. Some overlap may occur between ‘departments’, so these will require discussion and negotiation at the next meeting.

Change to the board

Eli Sauls has joined the board, responsible for Environmental Issues.

Architectural plan, Andrews University

Andrews University plans to come to Saucier around September for the initial architectural study. They have accepted the SIA’s invitation, subject to funding etc, and have also received invitations from Pat Bonck and Jennifer Evans-Cowley.

Andrew von Maur - the Andrew’s professor who we are in contact with – has expressed support for our request that the process his school takes part in will recognise that they were invited to come here and work for us, thus heading-off complaints of “outsiders coming here and telling us what to do”.

Andrew asks if we could assist in housing the students when they are here, as they are going to be on a tight budget. He will be bringing up to 20 students for a week around September. The SIA board agreed we should be able to organise volunteers to house them.

New Name

After considerable debate, we agreed upon Saucier Improvement Association (SIA) for the new name of the association.

Development Commission

Apparently the Development Commission is promoting northern Harrison county to businesses as a location they can move to while heading north away from possible hurricane damage. The SIA needs to be sure that the Development Commission is working in a way that is sympathetic to the work of the SIA and the community. Thus we need to have a good working relationship with them. Ron Dougherty to make contact with the development commission, introduce the SIA and our work to them so we can begin working together.

DeSoto land sales

Apparently at least one ‘national homebuilder’ is exploring purchasing land from the DeSoto National Forest. We need to know why, what etc, if at all possible, and we need to create a working relationship with DeSoto and any land purchasers so that they can work in a way that is sympathetic to the work of the SIA and the community. Eli Sauls agreed to open communications

Progress on last week’s actions

Below is a summary on the actions from last week. Some have already been reported in detail above.

Meeting with MDOT set up for Tuesday 11th April.

Wayne and Steve to introduce the meeting and MDOT. Steve to do brief presentation.
Meeting very successful – over 200 attended! Radio, tv and newspaper coverage has been very posotive too.

Lori Sauls has agreed to do information and sign-up sheets

Good job! Thanks to Lori for also collating and typing up sign-up sheets etc.

Winfred to produce leaflet for Tuesday's Meeting

Good job! The advertising clearly worked well!!

Wayne + Steve to arrange to meet with Dalton McGuire ASAP to see what he has in mind for the Town Center meeting and for the Farmer’s Market

See notes above.

Ron Corder offered to prepare a sign to advertise "Future Home of Saucier Farmer's Market"

Sign is made. We need to get permission from Dalton to put up the sign. Do we also need County permission?

Steve to take charge of Farmer's Market

See above.

Wayne proposed Steve to start the Blog

See above.

Steve to draft official invitation to Andrew's University to do architectural study

See above.

Members to research needs, requirements, gaps etc.

See above.

Next Meeting

No arrangements were made for the next meeting. Suggest Monday May 1st, 5:30, Wayne’s office.

posted by Steve Howard @ 9:13 PM