Category: Minutes

Attendance

• Board Members:
  • Nancy Thompson (President)
  • Jennie Fleming (Treasurer)
  • Brad Archibold
  • Andrew Beattie
  • Sandia Slaby
  • Roberta Golden
• 20+ neighborhood members in attendance
  • Tom Nogler,  Whitney & Luke Bowerman, Joe Hanna, Brad Archibold, LaRay Armstrong, Bev Kooi, Andrew Beattie, Katy Beattie, Nathan Allan, Sherry Chilcutt, Mitch Dennis, Pat Doyle, Terry & Ruth Middlebrook, Ann Mataczinzki

Treasurer’s Report by Jenni Fleming

Savings	$528
Neighborhood Signs Savings	$1295
Legion Way Trees Fund	$150
Community Beautification (from PSE Green Neighbors program)	$504
Checking	$445
13 Month CD (Matures on 4/20/13)	$1026
Total	$3948

Association Officer Elections

The President explained that there are currently 7 board members who have completed their two year term, & 4 who have one more year remaining in their term. She added that our Bylaws require there be a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20 board members.  The President asked for volunteers to step forward to re-up or join the board.

The following people were elected: Luke Bowerman, Bev Kooi, Katy Beattie, Nathan Allan, Sherry Chilcutt, Mitch Dennis, Pat Doyle

President:  Luke Bowerman volunteered & was elected with no objections
Treasurer:  Sherry Chilcutt volunteered & was elected with no objections
Secretary:  Sandia Slaby volunteered & was elected with no objections

Eastside Community Garden

Roberta Golden brought to our attention that the gardens need more people to be involved. There are plots available for $50 per growing season, which includes water & membership to Sustainable South Sound (and with that, a “Buy Local” coupon book). Plots are 20’ x 20’.  The gardens are on the south side of 13th Ave S.E., just west of Central St S.E..  Contact Jennifer for more info at  (360) 481-4235 or ho******@**ve.com.

City’s Trail Connectivity grants

Brad Archbold explained the status of this City program. The neighborhood association has previously been awarded funds for the Fairview walk-through trail (that project was not completed). He said there would possibly additional funds available for next year. If anyone has any ideas for creating such trails in our neighborhood they should bring those to the ENA Board’s attention.

2nd Annual Garage sale

Lee announced that she will coordinate the 2nd Annual Neighborhood Garage sale and suggested the 3rd week of July, to be after Lake Fair. The ENA will take care of advertising and will frame it as a ‘BIG Neighborhood’ sale.  Call Lee at (360) 943-1538 or email at  be************@*****st.net  for more info. There was a discussion about the benefits to doing this the week of Lake Fair – a westside neighborhood has done this successfully for years.

Annual Picnic

Early or mid-August was mentioned for the ENA Annual Picnic. Nancy Thompson confirmed that she will continue to organize this event.

“Mapping Your Neighborhood”

Sandia Slaby announced that the North Eastside Neighborhood Association (NENA) is hosting a “Map Your Neighborhood” event at Roosevelt Elementary School on Wednesday, March 13th, 6:30-8:00 pm.

The event will be a review of the video called “Mapping Your Neighborhood,” which the county provides to anyone who wants to be a “block captain” or “trainer.”  This person’s role is to facilitate a small population (their own city block of households – a maximum of 1015 households) getting together at the “captain’s” home to watch the same video. This helps the block residents get familiar with their neighbors, and get organized and prepared to work more effectively together for increased health and safety reasons in the event of a disaster.  This is when our regular emergency responders (fire, medical & police) are overwhelmed by the numbers in need of help, when our neighbors may either need or be the best source of help available more quickly. For more information about these events email Sandia at sa****@***********nd.org or call her at (360) 866-4561.

Presentations by Concerned Eastside Neighbors & the Medela Development Group

Representatives of the group Concerned Eastside Neighbors (Joe Hanna & Teresa __?) and LaRay Armstrong of the Medela Development group gave extensive presentations, including an update about the current and historical facts regarding these 9+ acres of property (including 2-4 residences). The area is bordered on the north side by the Forest Grove Cemetery, on the the east side by Chambers Street, and on the south side by the freeway. The Medela group has applied to the county for a rezone for greater density.

The Medela group said they had not been able to sell their property and were advised that there would be more interest if the zoning was for greater density housing.  The Concerned Eastside Neighbors group, a group of about 7 neighbors near the property, appealed the county’s decision to accept the re-zone application.  The group claimed the city had been in err with the decision. The appeal was denied and the rezone for greater density in that area has been passed. It will go into effect once the County Commissioner’s formally adopt the rezone sometime this year, no later than December 31.

For more info from the neighbors’ perspective, email them at co************************@***il.com.  The group intends to stay organized and hopefully grow and to be prepared to challenge any actual development that begins to take form when and if the property sells. From their research, they believe they have solid ground upon which to challenge many development projects that would be proposed for a more densely-zoned property.

The CEN group is very interested in more people getting on board now, in order to be better prepared for what seems now like inevitable happenings in the future.  They believe that any major development will affect our neighborhood significantly.

The Medela development group is a small family of siblings who are in or near retirement.  “We want to sell the property… we grew up there… but I  [the one resident landlord] can no longer maintain the land or dwellings that are part of the property…  and we are all three [sisters & brothers] older & want to retire and move on with our lives.”

The meeting came to a close at 8:50 pm.

Attendance

Nancy Thompson, Board Member and President
Brad Archbold, Board Member
Andrew Beattie, Board Member

Neighborhood members

Representatives of the Concerned Citizens with the Medela Development
Mike Carney
Whitney and Luke Bowerman

Board Members

We need Board Members, hopefully at least 6 new or renewing members. We can seek board members at the February Annual meeting.

February Annual Meeting

The February Annual meeting is scheduled for Wednesday February 20th, at the Knox Facility at 7:00 PM in the Boardroom. The room is reserved for that date and time.

A Newsletter will be distributed in advance of the meeting as notification of the Annual meeting. Ruth Middlebrook will provide the distribution of the newsletter. She needs the printed copies by February1, 2013. All articles need to be to Nancy Thompson no later than January 25th at: ti**********@*****ro.net.

Officer Positions

All the Officer positions will be vacant.
Jennie Fleming does not want to continue as Treasurer.
Nancy Thompson does not want a second term as President.
No other Officer positions are currently filled.

Other Business

Joe Hannah, a representative of neighbors who are concerned about the Medela Development, asked to present their concerns with the project and discuss impacts to the Eastside Neighborhood at the Annual meeting. They will provide Nancy Thompson an article for the newsletter. They will also invite a representative of the Medela Development.

Brad Archbold discussed grants available with the City of Olympia for trail connectivity. He asked about any trail that could be available for the grant money. We did mention the Fairview Pathway as a possible recipient. Brad will provide Nancy a paragraph for the upcoming newsletter about the City’s Grants.

Meeting came to a close.

Luke asked if anyone needed to review the September minutes.  With no one asking to review the minutes, Casey moved that the September minutes be accepted as submitted.  Nathan seconded.  Passed with no objections.

Luke told the board that Thurston Regional Planning had asked the ENA to put their name to a grant for money to get a mid-block crosswalk at Madison Elementary.  The issue is that the school encourages parents to use the parking lot at the Methodist church when dropping kids off and picking them up, but there isn’t a crosswalk there, and most kids and adults do not walk up or down the block to use the crosswalk.  City of Olympia has agreed to pay for the striping and signage, but asked the Olympia School District to pay for the ADA ramps and they don’t have the budget for them.  The crossing guards can’t use a crosswalk without the ramps.  Luke, Sam and Whitney voted at the September Board meeting to allow to use of the ENA’s name to the grant, as this has been an issue that has been raised with many of the neighborhood residents.

Jenni Fleming has volunteered to be Treasurer.  She will serve the remainder of Mark’s term, which is until February when we have elections.  Jenni, Luke and Mark will be getting together shortly to have “Treasurer Training.”  Luke and Mark are going to go to the bank to get the accounts taken care of.  The issue is that to remove a person everyone on the account must agree and there are several signatories on the account who are no longer on the board, but the primary (Mark), can close the account, so they will close the account and open a new one in ENA’s name with Luke as the first signatory and then add Jenni.  It will be discussed at a future board meeting if anyone else needs or should be named on the account.

Luke presented a question from Chad Akins regarding newsletter advertising.  He was curious to know if there was any rule that the advertisers had to be within the ENA boundaries.  Everyone agreed that there weren’t any such rules.  Sam pointed out that his business had advertised and they aren’t within the neighborhood boundaries.  We tried to think of a business or business type that we wouldn’t want advertising in our newsletter and couldn’t think of one.

Luke attended the Coalition of Neighborhoods Association general meeting.  The CNA functions as a clearinghouse to disseminate information to all the Neighborhood and Homeowner Associations in Olympia.  They aren’t officially recognized by the City of Olympia, but appear to have been more active in the past 6 months or so.

There were three topics raised at the CNA meeting.  The first was a presentation by Army Assisted Services which is an on-base resource center that helps the enlisted get in touch with the services they may need; i.e. counseling, financial, etc.

The second topic was a proposal that has been submitted to the City by the Northeast Neighborhood Association, called “Sidewalk Connectors.”  They are low-cost sidewalks for homeowners who live on auxiliary streets where currently there are no sidewalks.  They are called Terra Blocks and are a porous rubber / plastic square that are staked together.  The biggest issue is that the city may still require a contractor to install them.

The third topic was a public participation grant through Washington State Department of Ecology.  The Thurston Public Health and Social Services Department’s Environmental Health Division has asked neighborhoods to apply for a grant to be used for their Pesticide Free Neighborhood program.  This same project was done last year as a test in the East Bay Neighborhood.  They are looking for at least 10 households in a neighborhood to participate.  It would be a 10 month commitment, they would evaluate the current chemicals you are using, remove the harmful ones, and provide ecologically friendly alternatives as well as tools, information, and monthly classes.  The folks from the Thurston Public Health can assist in providing wording for the grant, but can’t apply for it for our neighborhood.  The cost is $19,595 ($16,500 staff, $3,095 materials) for the first neighborhood and $6,595 for each additional neighborhood.  It is not a matching grant so the ENA doesn’t have to worry about making or paying any money.  Luke asked if anyone was interested in completing the application for the neighborhood as it has to be submitted before November 3rd.  Jessica Archer and Tim McLeod volunteered and Luke will forward the information to them.

The last thing to come out of the CNA meeting was that they have openings on the steering committee for short-term appointment (until February 2009) when they hold their elections.  Luke offered to ask for one of the positions and asked if anyone had any objections, none were raised.

Nathan asked if Luke was still in communication with the city regarding Madison Scenic Park.  Luke calls David Hanna about every 6 weeks.  There is currently money set aside for the park but they expect 20 – 30K to go towards repair of the trail and hill stabilization.  They will know when the final budget is set how much they will have and in early spring they will have the first meetings for community input.  The biggest hurdle that may stand in the way of the garden project is that a park is “for the public good.”  If private individuals are growing food for their private use, how is it for the public good.  Other cities have overcome this, so we should be able to as well.  The other issue is that there will need to be a partner organization to actually manage the garden.  GRUB has said they aren’t necessarily interested as their plate is full, but Olympia has numerous organizations with experience in this.

The General meeting is scheduled for November 13th.  Currently on the agenda is a 5 minute Open Mic, TerraCommons has a presentation and Tim and Chad are going to talk about winter gardens, and send around a list to sign up for garden tours.

The newsletter will be going to print soon. There will be an article for the elections in February, and the ENA’s new vandalism / graffiti program.

There has been an increase in reported vandalism in the neighborhood, but according to our neighborhood officer there hasn’t been an increase worth noting in our overall district.  We talked briefly about how to handle calls about vandalism, whether to send out an email immediately or not.  We all agreed that they haven’t been that frequent and they should go out immediately with suggestions on crime prevention.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:15pm.