ENA Board Meeting
Jan 10, 2023
7:00 PM
1613 Union Ave SE

Attendees: Sherry Chilcutt (President/Treasurer), Roger Horn (Vice President), Jim Sweeney (Secretary), Jim Rioux, Cheryl Bayle, Abigail Twombly, Karen Clemens

Approval of the minutes:

Cheryl & Sherry will make changes to the Dec. 14, 2022 minutes for the Board to review. Roger said the minutes included his idea for awarding holiday decoration prizes that didn’t happen. It was agreed this is something we should plan to do later this year.

Treasurer Report:

Checking $749.40
Savings $963.62
Neighborhood Signs $1307.39
Legion Way Trees $153.48
Community Beautification $410.21
Total $3584.25
Jim S. suggested donating extension cords to New Bridge Church to replace some of what they lost. A motion to approve spending up to $50 was made, seconded and approved unanimously.

Address List – mailing:

Jim R. has a map for checking Eastside addresses. The areas remaining (7, 8, 9, 10) will be checked soon. Cheryl would like to have a large map showing addresses.

Land Use & Environment Committee Report:

Jim S. briefed the Board on draft 2023 work plans for the Land Use & Environment Committee and Planning Commission. Both work plans include the Neighborhood Centers project. The Planning Commission’s work plan did not include sidewalks. This project has been assigned to the Public Works Transportation section but they have not yet developed a scope of work. Based on discussion during the Commission’s January 9 meeting, this will likely be corrected. The Planning Commission’s work plan does include staff time for subarea planning, if one of the RNAs chooses to use it.

RNA Grant ideas:

• Purchase ENA window clings for cars.
• Conduct another mailing.
• Annual picnic; pay for live entertainment.
• Purchase a barbeque grill.
• Purchase an apple press.
• Build kiosks.
• Technical support for a centralized CNA website which would support every RNA (Lydia already said we could do this).

Should we change our status to 501c3?

We’re currently a political organization. If we want to change this it needs to happen by about March or April.

What should we be working on?

• RNA annual report to the City.
• Block parties.
• Talent show at the Armory.
• Annual picnic, including live music or other entertainment.
• Better ways to connect with neighbors (we listed upcoming events in the 2022 newsletter which was very effective).
• A 2023 events calendar.
• Outreach to previous Board members.
• Recruiting new Board members to help with events.
• Website dues paying system (Some have complained about having to create an account to get on the email list).

Should we plan a celebration for the opening of the Spray ground?

Roger will contact Sylvana Niehuser.

CNA Report:

Karen briefed the Board on the January 9 CNA meeting:

• Dontae Payne reported the Council will be looking at sidewalk funding in 2023.
• The City is looking to improve its way-finding signage.
• Lacey is purchasing a hotel to accommodate campers who are being removed from rights-of-way.
• A final ‘Olympia Strong’ report is due in May.
• There is a need for more housing for ‘ALICE’ (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) families, especially in Olympia.
• The CNA is working to update its bylaws and MOU.

Also: Jim R. attended a January meeting about the Regional Fire Authority. Tumwater has a property tax cost calculator on its website. Abigail and Cheryl will determine a time and place to get together to talk about an events calendar and let the rest of us know.

ENA Board Meeting
Dec 24, 2022
7:00 PM
1613 Union Ave SE

Attendees: Roger Horn, Sherry Chilcutt, Jim Sweeney, Karen Lang Sweeney, Abigail Atwombly, Cheryl Bayle

Approval of the minutes:

No minutes available from Annual meeting.

Treasurer Report:

Checking $699.40
Savings $963.62
Neighborhood signs $1307.39
Legion Way Trees $153.46
Community Beautification $410.17
Grand total $3534.04

Annual General Meeting Report, Nov. 30 th

About 20 people came. There was significant snow that evening which lowered attendance. We have email addresses that need to be entered into our new system. We will hold this item till Nathan returns and we can quiz him. Jim Sweeney will send thank you email to Angel Nava and Stephanie Johnson.

Mailing address

List Still in progress. Cheryl would love to get her hands on the large map that Jim Rioux has to help her identify address associated with vacant parcels.

Oly Lightstravaganza report

Doing a great job with outdoor events. Several more events coming.

Winter Walkabout

Instead of our traditional walkabout, we might ask people to pick the top 3 holiday displays and let us know. We will award a prize to the top 3. We are going to skip the mapping exercise this year due to a lack of energy. Roger will write a blurb and post it on the website. We will give $30 gift cards to Big Toms or Left Bank. Roger will write a blurb on Saturday and Sherry will put it on Nextdoor. People will be invited to email Roger with their picks.

Email List Issues

Jim Rioux is not getting all the board emails, through google groups. We will commit to adding Jim’s personal email in our communications forever.

RNA grant blurb finished?

Roger and Sherry will work on that and get it sent in by end of year.

Land use & env committee-Neighborhood center

Dec.15th Jim Sweeney is available for online attending and keeping us in the loop to see where we are with the neighborhood center.

Mail chimp – vs website

Where do new emails get added? Hold for future meeting.

New Board members and looking to elections.

Abigail will join the board. Dave Groves was ill tonight and will attend a future meeting. Roger has agreed to continue as Vice President, Jim Sweeney was voted in as secretary and Sherry will continue her dual role as Treasurer/President.

Looking towards 2023

What projects are we considering?

ENA Board Meeting
10/13/2022
7:00 PM
Swantown Inn

Attendees: Sherry Chilcutt, Roger Horn, Cheryl Bayle, Nathan Allen, Jim Rioux

Treasurer Report

Checking $996.18
Savings $963.48
Signs $1307.26
Trees $153.42
Beautification $410.09
Total $3800.37

All grant requirements are done except narrative about the project.

Approval of Minutes

Minutes approved with edits from Roger.

CNA Report

None CNA representative was not in attendance.

Talent Show – Salvation Army

Roger shared latest version of banner. B&B Sign Company agreed to requested changes.

Roger shared questions for talent. The board agreed to send the questions.

Roger has seven acts. He would like three more. Nathan suggested reaching out to the City’s poet laureate. Roger asked about talent outside of neighborhood. All agreed that would be OK.

Roger’s dance group leader suggested SambaOlyWa.

Sherry and Cheryl will make snacks.

Roger asked if Hank would serve as MC. Sherry said yes.

Roger asked if Hank would know of others that could perform. Sherry will ask.

Roger shared a draft program. Roger asked for help with the brochure. Nathan offered to help after Monday.

Sherry asked about what kind of Covid precautions we should take? Roger suggested buying masks and making them available to attendees.

Address List

Jim showed a map of the neighborhood zones he created. Jim shred printed copies of the database broken out by zones.

Nathan asked that we come up with key so that people checking the homes know what to put into the database. Jim will come up with a key based on what Sherry already started and then upload the database to google docs and share the file with everyone on the board

Membership Programs (Move to 3)

Nathan reviewed the recommendation from Jim R. The board agreed with the recommendation.

Nathan already paid for the license. $320 for two memberships. ENA portion would be $160.

Nathan will confirm cost and request approval for reimbursement at next meeting.

General Meeting – November 3, 5-8 pm.

Sherry location is at Armory. Charge $84.

There was discussion about speakers. It was decided to invite parks staff to discuss progress on the Armory and art installation near the neighborhood. Nathan explained Community Solar program and suggested we reach out to them to speak.

Jim will facilitate nomination of new board members.

Sherry will reach out to area churches to see if they have interest in participating as board members.

Sherry mentioned that Zoom has a transcription tool that we may want to use to capture meeting notes.

ENA Board Meeting
9/15/2022
7:00 PM
Swantown Inn

Attendees: Sherry Chilcutt, Roger Horn, Cheryl Bayle, Nathan Allen, Jim Rioux, Jim Sweeney,

Treasurer Report

Checking $759.55
Savings $963.27
Signs $1306.91
Trees $153.36
Beautification $409.97

There may be an invoice from the mural project that was double paid. We may need to reconcile with the City. At this time the City says we are ok.

Homes First is trying to raise $500 to start work on five houses. Sherry will keep in touch with them and see if they need ENA support.

Taxes have been filed. Sherry will change our tax status to a non-political non-profit. This will make us eligible for significant cost savings that political non-profits are not eligible for.

CNA Report

Sherry had some concern about the fact that we were unable to back up Karen for the last CNA meeting. The consensus was that this will likely be rare and its OK if ENA is not in attendance once in a while.

The board discussed the City’s proposal for a Regional Fire Authority. The significant increase in property tax with no clear benefit to Olympia citizens was frustrating.

Talent Show – Salvation Army

Roger has three acts for sure and one more poet will be asked. He wondered if we should we ask for others from the northeast or any other neighborhoods? Jim Sweeney suggested downtown.

Nathan suggested reaching out to the ODA.

Sherry will check in with Andy a professional trumpeter.

Nathan suggested putting up a flier in capital guitar.

Roger has a few other leads he will contact including reaching out to Avanti high school. The date and time is set for Saturday October 22, 3-5 pm.

Address List

Jim R was successful in splitting the data so that we can sort by street name. He will try to do some further breakdown to group houses into zones.

Member List Status and Levels Discussion

The board decided to form a small group to come up with a proposal. The group will consist of Dan, Jim R, and Nathan.

Nathan reminded the board that the basic reason for the change is to have a database of active people in the neighborhood. Our current system can’t do that for us. The intent is to encourage donations but not require it. The business level will give us a way to promote neighborhood businesses.

November General Meeting

Sherry asked what date worked better for everyone, November 3rd, or 9th. Roger pointed out that we had already set the date for November 3rd. The board decided to stick with November 3rd.

There was some discussion about the location. Newbridge and the Armory were mentioned. The Armory seemed a better choice. Sherry will contact Stephanie about the Armory.

We will plan to start at 5:30 pm with snacks and start the meeting at 6:00 pm.

The board discussed the following topics for an agenda. Nathan pointed out that we should pick something that will bring people out and we need to give people a positive reason to attend.

• Nathan– Quince St. village
• Jim Sweeney – Citywide homeless plan.
• Jim R -Lions Park improvements and other parks issue
• Jim S – Emergency Management
• Sherry -City events

Jim reminded the board that we will need to nominate new board members so that we can choose officers in January.

Nathan agreed to contact old officers to see if they have interest.

Jim R will send message to e-mail list from last annual meeting.

Art Crossing Meeting at the Armory

How can we best support attendance?

The meeting is scheduled September 29 at 6:30 am.

Sherry is looking for messaging to get people to attend. Jim will help Sherry write something.

Jim will get pictures of artwork that the chosen artist created to Nathan.

3900 Boulevard Rd Meeting at ORLA

Jim Sweeney shared that people from LiHi spoke well about homeless community in Olympia.

Roger said that he also attended and didn’t hear any opposition. Some important issues were highlighted.

Sherry said the issues raised were traffic and stormwater.

The concerns from people from the Newcastle neighborhood were parking, flooding, transportation, access to LBA, and loss of open space.

Interpretive Sign at Armory – $50,000 Contract

Jim S volunteered to serve on the committee that will give input on the content and design of the sign.

Sherry mentioned that the Armory received $1 million grant for Heritage Capital Project Grant.

Minutes

• Approval of March Minutes
  • Motion Approved
• Decision on who is going to be Secretary, or if it will be handled jointly.
  • Jointly handled, by Melissa and Sheena.  If backup needed Brian will fill in.
• ENA Generic Business Cards
  • Distribute to Board Members (10 to 20 each)
• Dog waste stations update
  • Call for volunteers to help on last installation.
  • Ira waiting for Nathan to get back to him.
• Neighborhood Match Grant Update
  • RNA (Recogonized Neighborhood Association) updated with City of Olympia by Sherry.
  • Decisions made in May. Volunteer hours can be billed starting in May.
  • Take out bounce house as it increases insurance from $101 to $400+?
  • Annual picnic. Need to have lower insurance. Bouncy house not approved by city.
  • Ideas instead: sack races. Face painting. Children’s museum booth.
  • Band: Oly Mountain Boys: bluegrass band. $750 for two hours.
• ENA Sign Cleaning
  • Nathan has personally purchased an extension pole for his own use and offers this for cleaning our signs.  Hence we just need cleaning product. “Simple Green” is Nathan’s suggestion. Any better ideas? Simple green at Home Depot $20 on sale. We’re saving $100!
• Annual Garage Sale
  • More signage? Serve dual purpose with Annual Picnic promotion and general meetings.
  • 10 more signs and 15 more stands (as they break) = $182.57
  • Waiting to vote until matching grant comes through.
• CNA – Report from attending CNA meetings.
  • Report from Tim Minarachi, who is representing the ENA until a board member can attend.
  • First of, they’re re-upping the MOU, or Memorandum of Understanding that establishes a bridge between the CNA and the City. – minor changes to section it’s filed under from Land Use to Administration (basic relocation) They are adapting a set of standards to guide public input.
  • They want to “rebuild trust between the city and citizens through involvement” In short, the entire meeting was about continuing to develop the CNA, lots of back-patting.
  • They are going to try to get the city to start an official position in an “office of neighborhoods”, basically take on a staff position to handle the paperwork side of things. Or at least that’s the impression I got. There was also a lot of talk about recruiting more neighborhoods and increasing involvement in the CNA- basically it seems to me they have the same problem as the other neighborhood associations with attendance and involvement. They really had no idea how to involve more people.
• Federal and State Procedures on Highway Noise Abatement
  • Julie Rodwell would like to discuss if our neighborhood has ever looked at more noise protection from I5.
  • PDF: Federal and State Procedures on Highway Noise Abatement.
  • Highlights:
  • I-5 built in 1969, 1 year before noise mitigation in place.
  • Trying to find out how we qualify for a retrofit.
  • No project, no readings.
  • I-5 isn’t officially a code violation for noise.
  • WSDOT says the canyon falls in the grey zone, but it’s not true.
  • Ivy and wood fences do not keep noise out. Appears to be the city right of way, maps aren’t definitive.
  • Reasonableness criteria:
  • We need official readings.
  • Possibility of homeowners building the wall
  • Local improvement project? Outlay is minimal (with approval) and having it be a living wall or art wall and spread out over 30 years possibly.
  • Formula to have a degradation for funding depending on how close you live.
  • Benefits: health vs. hearing loss
  • Should we write our legislators?
  • Motion made by Brian for Julie, as our ENA representative, to go to the City of Lacey and any government agency, to find out more about the costs. Motion approved by ENA board.
  • Can someone in the area, an acoustic consultant or a decibel reader do preliminary readings?
• Proposal for another security minded ENA General Meeting brought forward by Anna Schlecht
  • Anna isn’t present.
  • Security was discussed but to have a Neighborhood Watch, we have to have someone spearhead instead of just saying we need to have this group. All of the residents would have to participate.
  • Everyone needs to get to know each other better. Have more lights, motion detectors. Report the crimes.
  • Bring up safety issues at the May General meeting. Could be June.
  • Nathan feels we should have positive upbeat meeting and skip the safety issues update.
• Bike Boulevard in Eastiside – Sophie Stimson, Senior Planner, Public Works Transportation
  • a. Route: Electronic version will be on site.
  • b. Citizens advisory committee involved in developing the route.
  • c. Council wanted a route through the downtown area.
  • d. Will be in the works around next Spring 2016.
  • e. This is a pilot project to see how the community responds and make the case to fund more of these projects.
  • f. This really is the beginning of the project and much more to work on.
  • g. Information will be given as they spend more time researching.
  • h. Tacoma rail also being contacted as improving the pavement around the tracks is their responsibility.
• Olympia village convergence building – Pat Russmussen
  • a. See presentation on website.
  • b. Ie.)Portland has a project called City Repair where they paint decorative art on the intersections to slow the traffic.
  • c. People in neighborhoods all doing events at the same time.

    i. The Commons@Fertile Ground

    ii. GRuB Farmhouse

    iii. Edible Forest Gardens

    iv. Love our Local Festival

    v. Joy Avenue Pathway

    vi. Farmer’s Market

  • d. Develop a schedule in our neighborhood and other neighborhoods for placemaking.

    i. Coordinate with week of the picnic

    ii. Possibly paint the bulkhead on 5th at Boundary

  • e. Someone brought up National Night Out.

    i. More info is needed.

• Treasurers Report
  • a. Renewing Long Term CD

    i. Due in the next week. It’s worth $1031.09.

    1. Keep it in the CD or put in Savings account

    2. Motion brought up to put into savings. Motion

    approved.

  • b. Accounts as of 3/31/15

    i. $698.94 in checking

    ii. $328.93 savings

    iii. $1297.22 in Signs

    iv. $150 in trees

    v. $505.36 for Community Beautification

• New business.
  • a. Theresa – Forest Cemetery: backside of property being developed.

    i. Proposing a new development. 18-24 new units per acre on 9

    ii. Supposed to be a 1 year moratorium on zoning

    iii. Distance of cemetery to Freeway is 200 yards.

    iv. No city/county ordinances for sound.

    v. Public meeting April 23rd and public hearing coming

    vi. Information posted on website.

    vii. CEPA review was done through Puget Sound Energy acres property and not done on site. The desire is to have the city planner come to the site.

    viii. Brian will try to attend and speak for 3 minutes as a neighborhood property owner and a representative of the ENA and that we are “concerned” about the amount of traffic that will develop in this area.

    ix. Theresa would like the development to be single family instead of rental units.

    x. Where is the new master application?

    xi. co************************@***il.com

• Meeting adjourned at 8:45pm
• Minutes submitted by Melissa Bluestein, Joint ENA Secratary