Present were:
Jack N. Richards, Commissioner Seattle Indian Center
Augustine McCaffery, Commissioner United Indians of All Tribes Foundation
Lillian Chappell, Commissioner American Indian Women’s Service League
Constance Griffin, Commissioner American Indian Women’s Service League
Terry Danysh, Commissioner Seattle Indian Health Board
Michael Marshall, Executive Director Seattle Indian Services Commission (SISC)
Absent:
Marty Bluewater, Commissioner United Indians of All Tribes Foundation (UIATF)
Rosalee Walz, Commissioner Seattle Indian Health Board-called
Carl Elliott, Commissioner Seattle Indian Center-called
Public: Seattle Indian Center-staff
Shaun Dale Seattle Indian Center-staff
Carol Peloza SISC Staff
AGENDA ITEMS:
1. Approval of Minutes – The minutes of the December 19th, 2000 SISC Board meeting were discussed. Ms. Chappell requested that a motion be made to approve the minutes as submitted. The motion was so moved by Mr. Danysh and seconded by Ms. Griffin, the motion carried, Ms. McCaffery abstained.
2. Executive Director’s Report – Mr. Marshall presented his report to the Board.
a. Financial Reports – Mr. Marshall asked if there were any questions on the financial reports, the only issue Mr. Marshall stated is Traditions & Beyond, which would be addressed later in the meeting. Mr. Marshall also brought to the Boards attention the fact that they had already spent $6,533, which would bring us over budget at the current spending pattern and needs to be adjusted at some point. This high rate of spending was due to the donation of $2,500 to the Indian Center and $3,080 to the Health Board. There being no further questions, Ms. Chappell requested a motion to approve the financial reports. The motion was so moved by Mr. Danysh and seconded by Mr. Richards, the motion was carried.
b. Scholarship Request – There were no requests.
c. Repairs at Leschi Center - Mr. Danysh asked if the work was satisfactory at the Leschi Center. Mr. Marshall stated that he was satisfied with the work, but it still needed to be painted. Mr. Marshall explained what was completed, what we had paid for to-date and how much was still owed, which was approximately $38,400. He also informed the Board that there were several places were the same kind of things needed to be done and he would bring it to the Boards attention at a later date.
d. Interest on Reserves & Debt Service Account, Pearl Warren Building-Mr. Marshall explained how both Banks, Chase Manhattan and US Bank Trust NA has been dealing with the payments received. He explained that US Bank every year adjusts one payment to reflect the interest, but that Chase had not so for the Pearl Warren Building Account and that after a conversation with the Bank they agreed that the Commission would not have to make the next two payments and the third payment would be adjusted. Mr. Marshall informed the Board that the money would be used to make the last payment owed to Advance Construction and the remaining be held in the necessary investments to pay for the other required repairs.
e. State Audit – We are in process of starting the State Audit and need the Board to re-adopt the following Board resolutions involving investment, Traditions & Beyond, and Board expenditures regarding funeral, scholarship requests reviewed by the Scholarship Committee with no Board quorum, and Community Assistance requests brought by the constituent agencies. Corporate Resolution regarding investments – Mr. Danysh made a motion to approve the investment resolution, seconded by Ms. McCaffery, motion was carried. Corporate Resolution regarding Traditions & Beyond – Mr. Danysh made a motion to approve the Traditions & Beyond resolution, seconded by Ms. McCaffery, motion was carried. Corporate Resolution regarding Board Expenditures – Mr. Danysh made a motion to approve the Board Expenditure Resolution, seconded by Ms. Griffin, motion was carried.
f. Seattle Indian Center Christmas Letter – Mr. Marshall stated the letter went out with the Christmas Gifts. Mr. Shaun Dale will get the Board a report on the Christmas Program with other letters of appreciation.
g. Sanitary Control – Letter to the Seattle Indian Center was presented, so all agencies would be aware of the additional costs for this up-coming year. The Rat Control will cost an initial $485 and $85 monthly thereafter and the pressure washing requested by the Health Board will cost $90 per month for the alcoves and additional yet to be determined for pressure washing the parking lots and sidewalks.
3. Board retreat – The proposal from Ms. Kauffman was presented and discussed. Ms. McCaffery requested that information be sent out to Board Members on what was accomplished at the last retreat. Mr. Danysh mentioned that hurdle we are facing is picking a time that every one can agree on. Mr. Danysh gave several suggestions on how we can meet; a weekend or a Saturday starting at nine and going all day; taking a day during the week, starting mid morning and working for a couple of hours into the night; going to a restaurant and conducting the meetings over a three month period and holding the retreat after the meeting was conducted. The Board consensus was that at this point we are still not clear on how we want it conducted. The Board recommended that Ms. Kauffman be contacted to find out the cost for conducting this retreat over a shorter time frame for four hours at a time over a couple of meetings. One of the re-occurring themes is bringing all the organizations together to find out what are the critical needs in the Indian community and how all the organizations can address these needs. We need to get together once a year to interact. The context of the retreat need to be very focused and simple, and it may be easier for Joann to come in and help us out. We need to create a mechanism for the Indian Leaders to get together once a year to address the issues and possibly write a theme for the year on how we would interact and what each organization would accomplish for that year. The members of the Commission need to go back to their constituent organizations to see if this is feasible. Ms. Kauffman will be contacted to find out if a different format is feasible.
4. AIWSL Lease – Tabled until they have a chance to present their proposal at the next meeting, as their membership hasn’t seen it yet.
5. Traditions & Beyond – The comparison sales sheet was discussed. Mr. Marshall stated, “as you can see by looking at these there was a steady build up for the first five years, starting in 1998 there is a fairly steady decline. Mr. Danysh, “What happened after 1997 that caused things to start sliding, if you can say.” Mr. Marshall, “I don’t know, I think that, “ Mr. Danysh, “This trend really picked up steam between 98 and 99.” Mr. Marshall explained that a lot of the regular shoppers haven’t been there this year and that there was a major down trend in retail sales.
Ms. McCaffery stated that she had visited the shop in December and stated she was disappointed with the appearance of the shop, noticed the decline there didn’t seem to be merchandize that we had carried in the past. The shop wasn’t appealing and there seemed to be fewer items.
Mr. Marshall responded that he couldn’t speak to the decline but he could to the curvages, in part the kind of ownership that Ms. Pauley had with the shop, she put in a lot of hours not only in selling, but also in putting merchandize together for the shop. Ms. Peloza also has put in a lot of time in fixing merchandize for the Christmas season. The other thing is that the hours that the shop has been open were not what our expectations had been, people had been telling us that it was not open and we can also tell from the cash register tapes that the hours have not been consistent.
When Ms. McKinney was hired on of the issues was, she felt that there needed to be more Native American stuff, but that has not taken place. There have also not been any new Indian vendors that have been brought into the shop. Ms. McKinney has also not put in the hours that Ms. Pauley had, although that can’t be expected of her. The other thing is the hours that the shop has been open during the month of December are not what our expectations had been. We can tell from the, not what people had been telling us, which has happened, but also from looking at the cash register tapes we can tell by when the cash register has been turned on and off, it has not been a consistent eleven o’clock we are open for business and we stay open for business until five o’clock, the tapes are Zed out at three o’clock in the afternoon it kind of raises an issue about what is going on there. Carol has been spending a lot of time working on that. I think that however the sense of this is, Ellie wanted to change the shop around and bring in more Native American stuff instead of Panabo or Boma, but that hasn’t happened. We have more of the replica items then we had before and there hasn’t been the addition of new arts and crafts sources in quite some time coming in. I don’t think it’s fair to expect the same kinds of things out of Ellie that we got from LeAnn in terms of hours that she put into the shop, she would put in sixty hours a week every week, but I do think it’s reasonable to expect that if the shop is open seven days a week during Christmas, that we be open seven days a week for the hours expected.
Mr. Danysh asked if Mike had any recommendations. Mr. Marshall stated that there were two ways to generate a sense of ownership, one way is to find someone like LeAnn and there are people like her, and the other thing is to make the persons compensation dependent upon the sales they are making, a commission on sales like what Nordstrom does. Right now there is no incentive for sales, the staff get paid whether something sells or not.
Ms. Chappell stated that one of her favorite items is the Pendleton Blankets and Jackets. She thought most everyone bought their blankets from the shop, she had been to two funerals that a lot of Pendleton jackets were worn and she wanted to know how ours had been were selling. Mr. Marshall stated they had not been selling well, they were some marketing issues. Ms. Chappell stated they are a top line and that they need to be pushed and displayed better. Ms. Griffin stated we should put the Indian down there with a Pendleton Jacket on.
Ms. Peloza stated that we needed from the Board what direction they wanted to take with the shop. Do you want us to start selling more Indian articles and get away from the mass produced items?
Ms. Peloza brought up the comp time issue with Ms. McKinney and how she was on her third go around on the hours Ms. McKinney stated she worked. The tapes and daily cash register receipts do not indicate that we were open the seven days a week that Ms. McKinney claimed she worked. The tapes did indicate that the cash register was Zed out consistently for months at a time at 3:30, which would explain the decrease in sales. Mr. Danysh stated that it sounded like we had a personnel/sales/direction issue and that he would be shocked if anyone here stated that we wanted to keep selling the mass produced items versus the Indian made items.
Ms. Peloza stated that the only way we would make it work was by tying salary into sales because now they get paid whether they sell something or not. Mr. Danysh stated that we need to find a way to redirect the purchasing, the buying for the store so the inventory better reflects what we want it to be, and that if we like our employee we have to give her more incentive to do the things we want done there. But by the same token I don’t know if you can retroactively do that, find a way to redirect the salary. If this person was going to make money on commission and the shop is to be open the hours we expect the business has got to be open a certain amount of time, and we may find that our employee may not make what they expect and will quit.
Mr. Richards asked if the massed produced items were made by Indians. Ms. Peloza informed him that the company had bought the copyright on the items and then massed produced them. Some companies are paying royalties on the items sold. The Board was shown the difference between the items and the price, an original totem for $150 and the plastic totem for $31.
Ms. McCaffery would like some assessment of how things are arranged. Mr. Richards asked who has the final say on purchases for the shop. Mr. Marshall stated that LeAnn had; then Ellie, now she has to have approval on purchases. Mr. Richards asked if she knew what she was doing? Mr. Marshall stated that he did not want to go into personnel issues in an open meeting. Mr. Marshall stated that some people look at work like punching in a clock and some people look at work like their major life. Mr. Marshall stated that we say based on the downward trend in sales and the hour’s issue, that we would propose a change in the salary structure, and the person would have to agree with it. We would use the average year of sales 100,000 saying the base salary would be $15,000, and if sales went over the average that they would get an increase based on sales. Mr. Danysh stated that we would have a hard time finding someone to step up to the plate for a full time job at $15,000 but we could with a base salary of $20,000 with the chance of increasing it by sales. Mr. Marshall went into an explanation of the hours the shop was to be open, and currently it is less than 40 hours a week more like 35 hours. Mr. Richards asked who was calling the shots on the hours, Mr. Marshall stated that the decrease in hours just recently came to light. Mr. Danysh stated that hours of the shop needed to be clearly stated and that failure to follow that would be grounds for termination, regardless of who was running the shop. Ms. Chappell asked what the hours of the shop? It was explained that it depended on the season. Mr. Marshall stated that most of the buying occurred between 11:00 and 2:00.
Mr. Dale suggested that we make commissions based on what was sold, if it was an Indian made item they receive a commission on it, but not on the massed produced items.
Ms. McCaffery stated that it seemed to her that there had to be some evaluation of the kinds of items we have in the store and who we wanted to market them to. She also stated the appearance of the shop also makes a difference. She stated that she went into the shop in December and it was dim and dusty. She stated that there was a definite decline, she was disappointed in the shop and there was such a difference in it from a year ago. Mr. Richards asked if the wrong person was in the job. Mr. Marshall responded maybe. Mr. Danysh asked if we had enough information to go forward with a plan. Mr. Marshall stated, in order to make the shop work the staff would need to restructure the compensation schedule at the shop and if it causes us to go over budget we will get back to the Board. Mr. Danysh stated, that is exactly what he was hoping we would say. We should have the authority to make this work the way we think it would best work, and just sort of double check back with the Board and that they would ratify it based on the conversation today, unless it is radically different than what was discussed.

The regularly scheduled Board meeting of the Seattle Indian Services Commission was adjourned at 7:15pm.
Respectfully submitted: Carol Peloza, Assistant Director