Community Council

“Board of directors are elected at the annual meeting of the corporation. Directors serve three-year terms, on a rotating basis, with no more than one-third of the directors' terms expiring at any one time. Members vote on the board of directors. The nominating committee makes recommendations to the membership for the new board positions, and nominations are accepted from the floor.”

“Board members and officers provided copy of 990 with an opportunity to ask questions.”

“Annually the conflicts of interest statements are reviewed by the executive director for appropriate action.”

“The board obtains information on local salaries for non-profit organizations in the community prior to hiring the executive director.”

“Form 990s, and form 1023, are available on the website: https://wwcommunitycouncil.org”

“This annual report highlights community council's work to foster a trusted gathering place where people engage in dialogue, inquiry, and advocacy to build a vibrant region for everyone. Our region includes columbia and walla walla counties and the milton-freewater area. Study implementation highlights affordable housing implementation task force in 2021, community council continued to facilitate the work of the affordable housing implementation task force (itf) as it advocated for the implementation of the recommendations from the affordable housing study report. Highlights of the implementation task force's work include: continued to respond to the covid-19 pandemic and economic crisis by continually updating and distributing its english-language and spanish- language covid-19 housing utility relief information sheet, which briefly explains state, federal, and regional relief measures that have been enacted in response to the pandemic to protect residents from eviction, foreclosure, and displacement. The election of the founding board of directors for common roots housing trust, the first community land trust in our region, which will provide affordable homeownership opportunities to community members earning low incomes. A community land trust (clt) is a nonprofit organization that owns land and develops housing for the purpose of creating permanently affordable homes. Homes on clt land are owned or rented by households, and the land, which is owned by the clt, is leased to the residents for a modest fee. Clts also provide financial services, such as counseling and access to lenders, to support their residents so as to prevent foreclosure. Common roots will create lasting home ownership opportunities for community members who have steady incomes but cannot afford to buy safe, market-rate homes in our region. You can learn more about common roots housing trust by visiting the organization's website, https://www.commonrootshousing.org the successful organization of a virtual community land trust town hall in january 2021 for the purpose of community education and outreach to the public at large, and in particular to prospective common roots housing trust residents, board members, volunteers, developers, neighbors, and donors. Close to 200 people attended the town hall, which had simultaneous interpretation into spanish, and was covered extensively in local media. A recording of the town hall can be accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_e4znruqha building the foundation for common roots, which included: grant writing, raising seeds funds, presenting the organization to prospective donors, requesting local jurisdictions transfer surplus public land for common roots' housing development, participating in regional and national clt community council networks and training programs, drafting the organization's foundational documents, and determining the organization's resale formula and ground lease, which will ensure the permanent affordability of common roots' homes. Advocacy with manufactured home park residents for manufactured home park zoning where manufactured home parks already exist in college place and walla walla. This advocacy resulted in college place becoming the first city in eastern washington to enact manufactured home park zoning with a resident-opportunity-to-purchase provision. Successful advocacy for the amendment of college place and walla walla's comprehensive plans to broaden and deepen the cities' commitments to preserving and promoting affordable housing. The submission of a proposal to amend dayton's comprehensive plan to better support affordable housing in the city. The further development of a multi-media public awareness campaign on the benefits of affordable housing for our community. This included publishing articles in local newspapers and issuing social media posts on affordable housing facts. These can be found on our website. The development of an affordable housing data and measurement r”

“Employee retention credits 63,000”