HHC Minutes 1971 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

Mr . McGuire said that first he leaned toward "Housing" iL n the title , but now could accept "Redevelopment" as perhaps being more appropriate , Mr . Soderer regarded "redevelopment" as a red flag word that could get a lot of people unduly excited . Mr. McGuire responded , knowing that redevelopment was a bad word , but he thought that people should start getting used to hearing it . Mr . Moriguchi agreed with the points made by Mr . McGuire , adding that the City Council is in fact a redevelopment agency and that housing is part of the redevelopment process . Mr . Gonzales said that he first favored "Relations " in the title , in a human , public , broad- scope sense , but that then his thoughts narrowed down to "Redevelopment" , and becoming more specific with the issues at hand , he probably would ultimately prefer "Housing " in the title . The members continued to relate back and forth their feelings . about the implications of whichever term ends up in the job title . At a point in the discussion , Chair- man Keckley took a straw vote, and the Committee settled on the job title to be "Community Redevelopment and Housing Specialist" . Mrs . Henderson felt that the emphasis for now should be on the "Housing" portion . City Manager Fales then presented the "Definitions and Examples of Duties " proposed for the position . Mr . Floyd saw a need of protecting this person from the pull of all groups everywhere for everything and agreed that it would help to have this person be responsible to the Planning Director . Mr . McGuire saw that the person should in a sense be a salesman for the ideas in redevelop- ment and housing generated by the Committee . A member in the audience raised the concern for an approach to rehabilitation of existing housing and asked if the staff aide might also be involved in renter complaints . City Manager Fales responded that if this person becomes involved in renter complaints , he will have no time for anything else . Furthermore , the City staff almost in its entirety is already involved in a continuous process which leads to the up-grading of the community . That sort of thing would certainly not fall on just this one housing aide . Another person in the audience expressed fears that this person will get bogged down in City administration and won ' t have time for research , but hoped that this person would indeed be serving the Housing Concerns Committee and would be the type of person who would have the courage to risk offending people, if necessary , to get the job done . A further hope expressed was that the housing staff aide would truly have a feeling for the problem that is under attack . Chairman Keckley responded that in his opinion this person will be able to work effectively within the normal frame-work of municipal administration . Mr . Gonzales said he had one thought for a bi-lingual person, but later realized that this was not really important . Mrs . Henderson re-enforced this latter conclusion with the reminder that this person must work effectively with groups , - all groups . A brief discussion followed on the "Experience and Education" paragraphs of the job specifications . The Committee underscored the importance of the word "equivalent" , but decided not to give it any special treatment by underlining , capitalization, or otherwise , on the basis that the person that they would truly want would not be deterred by one treatment or the other in the wording . MINUTES HOUSING CONCERNS COMMITTEE OCTOBER 27, 1971 PAGE 2 OF 3