ORDER-2020-81 : Appointment of Karen Grant Blackburn, 15 Lodge Ave., to the Melrose Commission on Women for a three-year term; said term to expire on the last day of February 2023

Transcript (~14 min @ 3:20)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 3:12 Speaker 1: mute you're muted kristen counselor Jamaleddine yes counselor mcmaster yes counselor mcnaught counselor Migliorelli yes president Grigoraitis yes chair eccles yes or yes five yes i don't know if

▶ 3:38 Speaker 1: you heard me kristen i did not counselor echoes you are chairman okay can you hear us jack okay

▶ 3:44 Jack Eccles: so the first order on tonight's agenda is order 2020-81 appointment of karen grant blackburn 15 lodge ave to the melrose commission on women for a three-year term said to expire on the last day of february 2023 at this time i look favorably upon a motion to suspend the rules to hear from the nominee and members of the

▶ 4:05 Speaker 2: administration motion to suspend the rules

▶ 4:09 Jack Eccles: just spend the rules made by councilman masters second by vice chair Jamaleddine uh madam clerk can you please call the roll council Jamaleddine yes

▶ 4:23 Speaker 1: council mcmaster yes council mcnaught yes council mcgliarelli yes president Grigoraitis yes chair

▶ 4:34 Jack Eccles: eccles yes five yes so it looks like we have mayor broder and karen grant blackburn with us tonight so whoever would like to lead out first i think that i think that would be me

▶ 4:42 Paul Brodeur: um karen turn on your camera if you can when you get a chance uh so i am uh i am very pleased to recommend uh karen blackburn for your consideration uh to serve on the melons commission on women as you all know uh this is a commission that got off the ground several years ago under the leadership of um then older woman jennifer lemmerman and it is a commission that has served the city well uh since it was since it was started um i i regret that i didn't bring this nomination forward earlier because i know that karen has spent probably over the past year or so being involved in the day-to-day work of the commission and is anxious to take a more formal role she certainly has a career. She managed to graduate from BU, something that I did not manage to do. I had to move on from BU. But in addition to that academic success, she has done some work in politics, but also extensive work in leadership of nonprofits that are designed to engage the community. And she's done that in prior roles here in Melrose, particularly with the Melrose ed foundation and i think she's going to be a terrific addition bringing that experience to the miller's commission on women so i appreciate your consideration and urge uh unanimous support for um her nomination and her service thank you awesome

▶ 6:24 Jack Eccles: um karen would you like to say a few words i'm gonna unmute you karen oh great so i don't have

▶ 6:33 Speaker 3: the power to do that i i like not having to be in charge of anything right now thank you mayor broder and thank you chair eccles and thank you to the rest of the committee as the mayor shared um not quite a full year but i have attended um as a non-voting member a handful of commission meetings um since the summer and one of the reasons i was really drawn to this opportunity was because of my passion really for women and children and so when I first learned of a vacancy at the Commission I thought wow wouldn't that be great to have a role in creating some programming that can not only support and help to raise up some of the accomplishments and find solutions for some of the challenges that women and girls are facing in our community but wouldn't it be a great opportunity to be a connector intergenerationally? I shared this with Chair Eccles on Friday when he wanted to make sure I knew about all the tech aspects of what will be happening tonight. And I was really excited. First, as a mom of two daughters, I'm quite passionate in my fierceness for them to be able to navigate a world that's deserving of them. And so when I think about the opportunity with the council, I think not only about my girls and their friends and girls who are, you know, their ages, but also, you know, what are we doing to support women who are now stay-at-home moms who used to be rock stars professionally, and right now with their kids in school, they're just sort of like, what do I do with myself now? Then I think about women who are aged out of the workforce, who have tons of experience and expertise that they'd love to share. How are we tapping into what they have to offer and connecting them to young women and girls in our community and to some of these stay-at-home moms who are trying to figure out how to either re-enter the workforce or to do something else that's going to make them feel productive and worthwhile so i just think there's tons of opportunities with the commission

▶ 9:01 Shawn M. MacMaster: and i'd be honored to serve councilman master thank you mr chairman uh good evening mayor good evening uh miss blackburn thank you uh for being here and uh miss blackburn thank you for your your interest in serving the city of melrose i'm always pleased when i see a fellow ward 5 resident step up and take an interest in serving on any of our commissions and boards i'm familiar with some of your professional work and your reputation um you know i've also looked at your resume which is very impressive i'm wondering miss blackburn if you could talk a little bit about how you see some of your professional experience at cradle for crayons and uh formerly at the office of the child advocate being transferable to um the women's commission

▶ 9:47 Speaker 3: Sure. When I think about my time at Cradles to Crayons right now, the commission is very similar to a nonprofit organization. Right now, one of the pieces of work that I'm leading at Cradles to Crayons is a strategic planning process so that we can figure out how we can deploy what we do to serve more kids nationally. So right now across the country, there are roughly 22 million children who are at risk for clothing insecurity, meaning that these are kids who don't have the basic necessities that they need to be successful in life. All the things that many of our kids take for granted, sadly. And as part of that process of figuring out how an organization with brick and mortar in three cities is able to scale nationally. It's really taking the best of what we do, figuring out how to leverage technology to do more of it, figuring out how we can take some risk, be innovative, and how we then put together an operational plan, an implementation plan to operationalize that and put it against a timetable with milestones and benchmarks and everything to be poised for success when i think about the women's commission i think it's largely the same so the women's commission has been in startup mode for the past few years there's been some turnover in the chair role and i think as a group they're still trying to figure out their footing they're still trying to figure out exactly who they need to be in melrose and what they really need to offer so i look at i look at it as an opportunity to bring a strategic lens to the work making sure that it's one thing to have really wonderful engaging events and programming but how is it fitting into helping us achieve our end goal so how are we helping women and girls in the city of melrose how are we advancing um the cause how are we educating people not only with the good that's happening but also educating on things that need to be better and so for me It's taking what's been done for the last few years and building on that foundation and helping to develop a strategy so that there's a path forward for the commission.

▶ 12:08 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you for that answer. And one of the things that I'm very impressed with is the fact that you've been attending the meetings already. So you have a sense of what goes into participating on a commission, the ideas that have been presented and are being discussed, and perhaps most importantly is you know the skill set of those who, you know, who are currently on the commission. So I'm wondering, are there any particular areas of interest or any skills that you have that you think will complement good work being done by the commissioners who are currently serving the city?

▶ 12:41 Speaker 3: It's a great question. At the heart, I'm a planner, and from the meetings that I've attended, there are lots of amazing ideas of things that we'd like to do, and I would like to be able to bring my planning skills to help weave them together into a roadmap that a roadmap that makes sense so that at any point in time anyone on the commission knows exactly what we're doing today what we need to be doing next week and what we should be doing a year from now and how it all works to meet our end goal great thank you i look forward to supporting your

▶ 13:11 Shawn M. MacMaster: nomination this evening and mayor birder i'd like to thank you for advancing ms blackburn's

▶ 13:23 Jen Grigoraitis: name thank you thank you president Grigoraitis thank you and thank you mayor broder and thank you ms blackburn for being here i don't have a question i just wanted to state for the record that i i've had the distinct pleasure of knowing you personally and having an opportunity to serve with you on the winthrop pto and also on the board of the melrose education foundation i know firsthand that you are a rock star i am so excited for what you're going to bring to this commission and i just want to thank you for stepping up to continue to serve your community

▶ 13:50 Speaker 3: thank you that's very sweet of you thank you counselor Migliorelli thank you chairman um

▶ 13:58 Leila Migliorelli: thank you miss blackburn for being here um tonight i uh have also known you for a while but looking at your resume um is quite impressive so i feel really lucky that we're going to have someone with your um depth and breadth of knowledge in the nonprofit world public service and women's issues um joining the commission um i was wondering you know as a former commission member on the human rights commission myself i think one of the areas we struggle with is um getting the community engaged you know not hearing from the same people um and so just wondering given your experience um in in doing that what kind of ideas might you have for the women's commission it's it's a great

▶ 14:38 Speaker 3: question and it's something thankfully that the commission as a whole is trying to tackle uh we We did an event around the Harvard edX display of artifacts, and there was a lot of work put into organizing this event. And it was a lovely event, but there were probably a dozen people there. And really what we've come to realize is that we're talking to the same handful of people. We haven't, if you were to ask those people in Melrose, they have no idea that there's a Women's Commission. And then the ones who do know there's a women's commission, they couldn't tell you what the mandate is and what its purpose is. And so one of the things that we're hoping to tackle is reaching out to a whole slew of individuals to educate them on the fact that there is a women's commission and what the mandate is and how they can get involved. So in some ways, imagine just a very basic grassroots. How do we reach out to the masses? How do we tout our successes? do we just share information about what it is that we're doing and it's realizing that we can't just leverage traditional channels we you know there's really no point to just putting things on Facebook if it's closed to just the people who follow the Commission on Facebook so how are we leveraging events that are open to all to help get that message out so we're really trying to figure out how do we tap into existing structures to broaden our reach thank

▶ 16:12 Jeff McNaught: you I just wanted to echo some of my colleagues sentiments and thank you chairman thank you mr. mayor for nominating this Blackburn and thank you for being here tonight and going forward I find your resume to be beyond impressive and how lucky we are to have you working on the Women's Commission so

▶ 16:38 Shawn M. MacMaster: thank you you have my full support thank you very much motion to recommend for passage mr chair

▶ 16:45 Jack Eccles: there's a motion second motion to recommend uh for passage coming from councillor master second by vice chair Jamaleddine uh madam quickly please call the role you're muted

▶ 16:59 Speaker 1: person councillor Jamala Dean yes McMaster not yes really yes president Grigoraitis yes chair Eccles yes yes congratulations miss Blackburn you'll be

▶ 17:16 Jack Eccles: voted on later at the full council that you don't need to stay for that thank

▶ 17:22 Speaker 3: you all so much I really hope to have the opportunity to serve and to do some

▶ 17:29 Speaker 1: good in the city so thank you bring in the next candidate so the next item on