Jerry Juhl, Patty Madigan, Hunter, Vince Taylor, and Michael Potts discussed the group's presentations at the upcoming meeting on Sunday. Jerry has volunteered to moderate the meeting, and Vince agreed to present a summary of the group's proceedings as well as his own timeline and proposal for a funding package.

One of the key issues before the Assembly -- everyone in Caspar -- is how do we make proposals and approve or deny funding? There is a fairly urgent need to decide this, because we need to let Prof. Hester and one of the students know if we'd like them to work for us this summer. Questions still exist about the costs of having Prof. Hester, a student, Deena further develop the plans.

Patty suggested that Americorps might be able to support a staff person to help forward the project. Americorps supports community surveys door to door, work with scientists, presentations in the schools, development of community newsletters; focus must be visible and direct service to the community. Community is responsible for a "cash match": $3000; Americorps would provide the worker with health insurance, child care, education award ($4725 to an ‘approved' educational institution or loan payment for Title IV school), minimum wage. Americorps couldn't start a person like this before August, and the typical agreements lasts 1700 hours, then can be rolled over for another 1700 (two terms of service). Clerical help might also come from Vista, but may not be such a great deal. The Americorps person would be sponsored by a foundation or community, employed by CCC. We should consult with Nice Alterman to get our goals and objectives to match her watershed project's. (Nice has also volunteered to facilitate a meeting. Patty thinks it would be very useful especially when dealing with hot-button issues.) We agreed that Patty should let Nice know we're interested in an Americorps person and to have Nice help moderate one of our gatherings.

Several ideas were suggested about possible alignments. Vince said that the notion of a trade between Jackson Demonstration State Forest and Oscar would be highly unlikely, because people are always trying and failing to chip away at JDSF.

There was a general discussion of the Caspar Watershed meeting on May 6-7. Vince and Michael plan to attend. Patty recommends we not announce ourselves, affiliate or politicize, but be observers. Jerry suggests we put off calling ourselves anything as long as possible.

Patty's reported that her assignment of writing up a 2-4 page history of Caspar is going well, and she will follow up with a draft history "chapter" and pictures in 3 weeks. She has identified 6 'periods': coastal Pomo encampments, the first European settler (Siegfried Caspar), Caspar River Mills, the Back-to-the-land movement, the establishment of Jackson DSF, and Caspar of today and tomorrow. Michael will help with electronic/paper publication process, and will work with Lila McMurtry on mapping endangered species in Caspar. Lila has enlisted the help of Laurie Hubbard, local president of the Dorothy King Young chapter of the California Native Plant Society.

We continue to discuss fund raising. Patty just encountered 2 women in Windsor who write grants "Grant Writers" -- could help us find prospects, consult in grant writing process, keep things on track. She suggested that Jim McCummings is a friend of Oscar's and works with the Mendo Land Trust, and might be a good person to talk with. She observed that the danger of establishing a community services district is that if the plan isn't clearly and firmly delineated, the developers can take of the CSD and make it serve their purposes.

The key unresolved issues which must be brought to the assembly on Sunday have to do with furthering the plan, and agreeing on how to handle any money. Vince volunteered his family foundation as an 'umbrella' organization; we agreed it's much easier to use such an entity than to start from scratch. Probably a small, formal advisory committee will be needed to handle disbursements. Vince proposed that two or three people might be entrusted to gather and disburse small amounts (up to $2000) upon consensus by the Assembly.

The next meeting will be on Friday, 1 May, at 11:00. For an invitation to this meeting, email Vince (vtaylor@mcn.org).

respectfully submitted by Michael Potts.