ENA Board Meeting

September 11, 2024, 7:00 PM

1613 Union Avenue SE

Members Present

Sherry Chilcutt (President), Jim Sweeney (Secretary), Karen Clemens (CNA Representative), Nathan Allan, Abigail Twombly, Cheryl Bale

1) Approval of the minutes

The August 7th meeting minutes were approved.

2) Mural Celebration Report

The celebration was described as “fantastic.” About 30 people attended including the artist and many children. The homeowners were pleased and the Olympia Beekeepers presence was appreciated.

3) Harvest Festival Oct. 12th 1-4 PM

Tim Smyth has offered to bring apples.

It was suggested we ask each person to bring about a 5-gallon bucket of apples.

If too many people show up at the same time we may need to assign them a time so they don’t have to wait.

Jim will contact Parks staff about a water source for cleaning apples and cleanup.

Karen has a list of people who have indicated they are willing to help.

Jim and Karen will work with Abigail to promote the event.

Following the September 11th Board meeting it was pointed out the Board had not approved expending funds to support the upcoming Fall Festival event. Therefore, six Board members agreed via email to expend up to $100 on incidentals for the event.

4) Armory Naming  

Jim described voting for a new name for the Olympia Armory on the City’s Engage Olympia page. Voting is open until September 27.  

5) CNA Report

The CNA met on September 9. Discussion topics included:

Missing Middle – now referred to “Middle Housing” after the 2023-24 Legislative session.  

Budget – the 2025 preliminary budget process has been underway for roughly five months and is nearing the beginning of the Council stage of the process.

Sidewalks survey – the contract is about 25% completed. The CNA’s app is still important as local information may identify higher priority projects.

Olympia Airport – there has been considerable discussion on noise, pollution and other impacts of increasing air traffic.

Community connections – the importance of community connections in countering loneliness is being recognized, particularly since the pandemic.

6) Annual Meeting

Food security was mentioned as a possible topic with Chris Hyde, the Souper Sunday guy, as a potential speaker. We discussed inviting comedian Sam Miller and decided to look into the possibility of paying him to perform next year. Other ideas were to invite someone from the City such as Mayor Payne, Councilmember Clark, or Kim Kondrat to talk about housing. The item was continued until the October meeting at which time we will decide on who we want to invite. The time for the annual meeting is tentatively set for 6:30 PM Wednesday November 6 at the Swantown Inn, with time to socialize at 6:00.

7) Plum Street Village Report  

Nathan and Sherry toured new buildings at Plum Street Village and met the new managers.

8) Utility Commission report

Sherry described on-going discussions by the Utility Commission about the City’s utility tax.

9) Other

Nathan mentioned a Madison school PTO auction on Dec. 7. The Board agreed to partner with the PTO to promote the event. He also proposed having the Inn sponsor ENA events.

The meeting adjourned at 8:30 PM.