**San Joaquin Valley FinEd Steering Committee**

**Meeting Notes -- December 1, 2004**

**Attending the meeting:** Vincent Salinas, Lena Robinson, Gabriela
Mello, Michael Lane, Philip Smith, Eva Gutierrez, Martha Lucey, Cara
Pierce, Lydia Lopez, Julie Menzes, Jim Price, Frank Ruiz, Bill Hayler,
Laurie Mercer, Esperanza Velazco, Rollie Smith, Rudy Rios, Harry Dulan,
Linda Ortega, Theo Schamerhorn, Adela Coronado, Brian Salinas, Jennifer
Wood, Carla Calhoun, Mary Ronell, Felix Enunwa, Anne-Marie Flynn, Lidia
Mena-Hermida, John Olson

**Announcements:**

-   The President signed a new **Executive Order** authorizing the
    continued operation of the San Joaquin Valley Interagency Task .
    SJVFinEd is one of four initiatives associtated with this Task Force
    -- the others are Regional Jobs Initiative, Clean Air/Clean Energy
    Initiative, and Rural Infrastructure Initiative

-   The **Nothern California Housing Counseling Network** is requesting
    representatives from the San Joaquin Valley to serve on its Steering
    Committee -- Michael Lane, Lydia Lopez, Frank Ruiz and Gabriela
    Mello expressed interest. Rollie will follow up with them

-   John Olson addressed the issue regarding payment to Night Lotus
    Productions -- if you have questions or want more information , feel
    free to contact him.

-   John announced that do to some reorganization at the Federal Reserve
    he will no longer be working with the SJVFinEd group after about
    March -- Lena Robinson of the Federal Reserve will be taking John's
    place serving Northern California

-   Linda Ortega (FDIC) gave some information about the **development of
    a CRA Roundtable for the SJ Valley.** The idea behind the round
    table would be to further economic development in the Valley
    communities. She described how the roundtables have worked in other
    areas. The group had some discussion about what the round table
    might look like and we determined that we would have further
    discussions with FDIC to get this going.

**Schedule of Future SJVFinEd Meetings:**

Meetings will be held the 2^nd^ Tuesday of March, June, September and
December.

The time will be 1:00 -- 3:00 p.m. Locations will rotate.

**The next meeting will be on March 8, 2004 in Visalia.**

**SJV FinEd Executive Committee**

John Olson proposed the idea of establishing an Executive Committeee
whose role would be to:

-   to plan and facilitate the Steering Committee Meetings

-   to set and maintain the strategic direction of the Committee

-   to report to the Interagency Task Force on the progress of the
    Initiative

-   to review any projects undertaken on behalf of the Committee

Rudy Rios, Jennifer Wood, and Martha Lucey agreed to serve on the
Executive Committee along with John Olson, Lidia Mena-Hermida and
Anne-Marie Flynn

The Committee will likely meet once a month outside of the regular
Steering Committee Meetings.

**Steering Committee Mission ,Goals and Initiatives**

Anne-Marie reviewed the mission and goals that the group has set out for
itself and suggested that it is important to keep in mind that we should
be focusing on ACTION as well as discussion in order to accomplish those
goals. Anti-Predatory Lending, EITC Outreach and Education, and IDA
Development w/Employer Sponsored Financial Educaiton are the proposed
initiatives within which to take action.

Mary Ronell or IRS gave a brief presentation on EITC including that
large sums of EITC that are not being claimed in the Valley. We had a
discussion about how members of the group could participate to increase
EITC outreach, education and filing. Below is a list of tasks that
members agreed to:

  ------------------------------------------------ ----------------------
  **What**                                         **Who**

  El Sol Newspaper new financial column, first one Phil Smith
  is on budgeting but future ones could cover EITC 

  Make sure EITC outreach happens through the      Julie Menzes
  schools                                          

  New VITA site in Goshen                          Jennifer Wood

  Outreach to the 8 community councils that CSET   Jennifer Wood
  works with                                       

  Outreach through the Tulare County               Frank Ruiz
  Redevelopmenet Agency                            

  Prepare outreach materials that are appropriate  Anne-Marie
  for farmworker populations                       

  Outreach to farmworker populations through AWHHP Anne-Marie
  grantees                                         

  Make sure that outreach happens on Radio         Lidia, Adela, Gabriela
  Bilingue and Radio Campesina                     

  Create a more "user friendly" fact sheet about   Anne-Marie and Mary
  EITC                                             Ronell, editing/review
                                                   Espy, Lena, Jennifer

  Distribute fact sheets in communities            Anne-Marie will mail
                                                   out packets - all who
                                                   have community
                                                   contacts will
                                                   distribute

  Outreach through Hmong radio                     Martha

  Arriba del Valle --                              Lidia

  Outreach through Fresno County channels          Felix

  Outreach through Spanish language television     Gabriela

  Outreach through Housing Authority Coffee talks  Espy

  Look into the possibility of a fotonovela for    Future -
  EITC                                             
  ------------------------------------------------ ----------------------

**Planning for Other Initatives**

The Executive Committee will meet to discuss the Anti-Predatory Lending
and IDA initiatives. Members of the Executive Committee will be
contacting others to suggest ways that they can begin to participate in
these areas. We will focus on one of these initiatives at our next
Steering Committee meeting on March 8^th^, 2004.