8/21/19 Swantown Inn 7-8:30 pm
Attendees:
Board members – Jim Sweeney, Jim Rioux, Roger Horn, Brian Brannies, Sheena Pietzold, Nathan Allan, Sherry Chilcutt, Amy Hill
Others – Cheryl Bayle, Stephanie Johnson (City Parks, Arts, and Recreation), Dave Marty and Koshare Eagle (Indian Creek Neighborhood Association)
Board approved minutes from the July meeting.
Art Crossing – 2 years ago the city started a master plan for art crossings (called gateways in the comprehensive plan). It explored 8 gateways, or transitions between neighborhoods and the city core. It also explored grand boulevards. The goal is to work on place making and expressing neighborhood identities. The art should be reflective of the neighborhoods and also work to connect the neighborhoods to the city and each other. The first area looked at was Harrison and Division, but the limited space available in that area makes the project very complicated. West Bay Drive was moved to the top of the list. Working through the process with the West Bay area really helped develop the process, create templates, and work out some kinks. West Bay is almost at the installation part of the process and Eastside St will be next. The process include reaching out to the neighborhoods at 3 separate points throughout. There is also a workshop for artists which really seemed to help emerging artists learn what they need to do to be public artists for this project. There is a jury to help decide which artists to move forward with and it included neighborhood association president(s), a landscape architect, and city arts commissioner(s). In all, the process for West Bay Drive took about a year. For budget, there is $50,000 for artists to create art, and another $25,000 as a separate installation budget. Stephanie Johnson would like to come to the ENA picnic on Sunday (8/25) to talk to the neighbors for about 20 minutes to gain feedback that will inform the artists’ work. She will also go to Indian Creek Neighborhood picnic at beginning of September. Stephanie will provide a survey monkey survey link with the 4 questions she plans to discuss at the picnic so we can help others not able to attend the picnic still be able to provide input. We will promote through Nextdoor and our website with a 2 week deadline. She will do the same again later for the Indian Creek Neighborhood closer to their picnic.
Candidate Forum – Set for Wednesday, October. 9th at 6:30-8 at Elks Lodge. All 6 candidates for City Council have said they will attend. Not sure if it should include any other political race candidates. Representatives from each of the neighborhoods involved will meet next week on the 28th to coordinate and talk about format, etc. The Elks Lodge will just be taking donations, not charging an official fee. We think we donated $25 per neighborhood at the candidate forum two years ago, but not sure about that. The CNA has been very involved and is supportive. The neighborhoods involved include ENA, Indian Creek, South Capital, Carlyon North, Wildwood, CRANA, and Nottingham. There will probably be another forum on the west side at some point.
Treasurer report:
- Checking: $465.74
- Savings: $1059.77
- Signs: $1302.49
- Trees: $152.48
- Community Beautification: $408.12
Picnic – Ralph’s is donating again. There is a $50 gift card waiting to be picked up. The Eastside Co-op is also donating again, but we haven’t heard back from Big Tom’s yet. Nathan will follow up with them, but if we don’t hear back, we will need to buy the burger stuff ourselves. The board passed a vote to spend up to $400 on the picnic. Anyone who wants to help prep sides and burger toppings, come by Brian’s place to help prep around noon on Sunday. Everyone should make sure their signs are out. Roger will follow up on possibly inviting the Lions Club members – they had mentioned being interested in being a part of their namesake park.
Discussed purchasing new/more signs or perhaps having a build party to make a bunch of wooden sandwich board signs. They’d probably be about $20 a piece and we could make a template and spray paint our logo on them. Tabled the discussion for now.
Sub area plan – It was scheduled for Planning Commission review on Monday, but the City wanted to slow the process a little bit because of a couple of action items added later in the draft development. We’re still trying to keep a tight timeline, but perhaps this gives us a chance to give the neighborhood a chance to review the draft before going to the Planning Commission (which will now likely be in September). We discussed putting a description of the process so far and upcoming as well as the draft plan on the website and advertising it on Nextdoor as well. The Core Team will send a draft version to the Board on Monday (8/26), the Board will provide any comments and/or their approval by email by Friday (8/30). The Core team will then have a draft ready for the Planning Commission in early September.
CNA special meetings – In August, the CNA had a facilitated training on communications. The goal was learning ways to communicate amongst themselves better and in more meaningful ways. There will be a second special meeting on September 28th at the Salvation Army designed for the Neighborhood Association Boards. It will also be related to how we can improve communications amongst ourselves and the city. These are funded through a grant.
Map Your Neighborhood – Trainings coming up on Aug. 28th (city, Fire Station 1 on Eastside), Sept. 10th (county, Thurston County Emergency Services Building on Pacific). If someone attends, maybe we could get the materials and provide them on our website.
Armory – The Military Department really wants to sell the building. The Boys and Girls Club has turned it down, but Jim S. still talking with the new president to convince them. Perhaps we can help get it listed as a historic building. We discussed that the best approach would probably to get it registered at the state level. To get it listed, it would need a sponsor. The Board voted to approve being the sponsor and Jim S. will complete the proper paperwork to make the request. We’ll need to move quickly on this.
Plum Street Village – Nathan attended the second Citizen Advisory Committee meeting. They’re still kind of trying to figure out what they’re trying to accomplish with these meetings. The village is at capacity and have successfully transitioned 7 people. The committee suggested looking into how to get them internet (currently using a hot spot). When folks are transitioned out of the village, they are provided very minimal essentials. Committee discussed things they could do to help connect them with more furniture, kitchen ware, etc. Several of the churches around the city are looking at hosting a few tiny houses. LIHI is helping one church on Boulevard with such an effort. It seems to be going very well still, and there have been no issues with neighbors or the neighboring businesses.
