DUKES COUNTY HEALTH COUNCIL
Minutes
Thursday February 24, 2011
Call to order
Oceana Rames, Chair, called the meeting to order at 7:35 AM. Our next meeting will be April 28, 7:30am
in the Public Safety Building in West Tisbury.
Attendees included: Tom Bennett, Eleanor Beth, Julia Burgess, Tad Crawford, Valerio Destefani, Cindy Doyle, Amanda Hutchinson, Rex Jarrell, Sarah Kuh, Nancy Langman, Karen Meeks, Cynthia Mitchell, Gayle Poggi, Oceana Rames, Connor Smith, Connie Teixeria, Bob Tonti, James Weiss, Terre Young
Oceana opened the meeting with a welcome to our new members, Nancy Langman and Conor Smith. In an effort to orient new members who are required to work with at least one committee, the following two committees were described: The Coordinating Committee explanation was offered by Oceana Rames, Rural Scholars, by Terre Young,
Minutes: As members arrived and a quorum reached. The motion was made to approve the minutes of March 24th. and was seconded and approved unanimously.
Treasurer: Julia Burgess: The request from Elder Services Committee for $250 and from Let’s Move MV for $250 from this year’s budget was voted and approved unanimously
The Coordinating Committee has reviewed the bylaws to address last meeting’s issue which focused on voting rights of the ex-officio Associate Commissioners. This number is growing as the county adds members or representatives. Our concern is that including all Associate Commissioners to the health council as voting members will bring an unknown number of people to meetings. These could be people who don’t always attend our meetings and keep up with our discussions and projects.
Tad Crawford proposed the following amendment to the bylaws:
- Give associate commissioners who have health and human services mandate voting privileges at Health Council meetings. Those Associate Commissioners are: Public Health, Homeless, Handicapped Affairs, and one member of the Youth Task Force.
- These Associate Commissioners will not count in the quorum.
- County employees are ex-officio and nonvoting. They are: the County manager, Director VHCAP, Coalition Coordinator for the Youth Task Force, and the Veteran’s Agent.
Cindy Mitchell seconded the motion and the vote to accept this bylaw change will be held at the April 28th meeting.
Cindy Doyle next offered a description of the Youth Task Force’s work over the last several years.
At this point in the meeting Paula came from the court house to officially swear in new and continuing members to the Health Council. We thanked her for her drive from Edgartown, saving many of us the trip. Thanks also go to Tad for arranging this service for us all.
Sarah Kuh started a review of the Health Care Access program and with awareness of the time and the fact that some new members were not present, we decided to forgo review of committee work and continue at our next meeting.
We talked briefly about the presentation at March’s meeting. All agreed that the presenter, Lee Wotherspoon was very knowledgeable and the topic of health equity is one this group would like to continue.
The meeting adjourned by 9:30
Respectfully submitted, Terre D. Young Secretary
The next meeting will be held on April 28th at 7:30 in the Public Safety Building in West Tisbury.
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