Notes From Our Last Meeting

Saturday was the first meeting with out new elected officers. They will be serving a six-month preliminary term. Toya, the block president, started off the meeting.

We are looking for volunteers to help with the block's garden. Contact Fran (frankrause@hotmail.com) if you'd like to sign up for a plot. We have tools and materials available for free. It's been confirmed that the garden is an official public garden with the city. Currently June has keys to the garden, but copies can be made for other members.

The Blog is up and running. We will be using it to discuss things that we don't have time to cover in the meetings.

Malize asked if there's any way we can hurry up the trimming and pruning of overgrown trees on the block. Andrew says that the city reacted within a week when he told the city that a tree was dangerous and was about to fall down, but it seems like the process is slower if you're looking for the trees to be pruned rather than cut down outright.

We also discussed that it was possible, for those of us waiting for the city to plant trees in front of our houses, to do it ourselves. You can request a permit with the form available at this link: http://tinyurl.com/yx7jpx but the process requires licensed contractors to deal with possible underground pipes and can be expensive. If you can wait, the city will do it for free. Sign up for a free tree here: http://tinyurl.com/wznjo

We are going to be making a welcome kit for new neighbors moving onto the block. The welcome kit would be a folder containing importand phone numbers, contact information for city and neighborhood organizations, and answers to frequently asked questions like parking information and trash pickup schedules.

We would also like to start collecting monthly dues, or contributions, to help offset costs of the block association. 5 dollars a month was suggested, though the people in attendance seemed to agree that this would be suggested but not required for participation in the block association. We're looking for as much participation as possible and don't want to exclude anyone because of economics. It was also suggested that the contributions would be more convenient if collected quarterly ($15) bianually ($30) or yearly ($60). We will also be trying to sign up the block association as a tax-deductible organization so that contributions will be write-offs on all our taxes.

It was also pointed out that before we start collecting money, we're going to need to put together out bylaws. The officers are going to put the bylaws together in the next two weeks or so, so that we can have them up on the blog for discussion before the next meeting.

Andrew brought up a good idea he plans to use with his tennants. He wants to give them a discount on their December's rent if they're gone to six block association meeting the preceeding year, or volunteered at the local library. A nice way to get tennants invested and involved in the block. The library is located on Franklin and Hancock.

The floor was opened up for neighbors to voice their goals for the blocks. One person said that their goal is to have no empty houses on the block. They'd like the block to be the kind of place that would be so nice to live, all houses would be filled. Another person said that outreach with the neighborhood children was importand, and another person said he's like the block to be pretty and deal with some thoughful work on our houses we could have a really beautiful block.

We want to have a list put together of the abandoned buildings on the block. The numbers that were mentioned were 175, 186, 207 and the yellow building next to the car lot. Someone said that the situation with 207 was that the contractor had walked off with a lot of money, but the renovation has recently re-started.

We've also heard that there's been rat sightings on the block in the late night hours. We will need to look into possible poison baits through 311, but we're also going to need to be vigilant about keeping our garbage in bags and trashcans and keeping our front walks clean and swept.

The final issue of the night was the block party. Toya would like to combine the efforts of the block association with the VFW and the church so that we can have one big block party a year rather than close the block down for three smaller parties. She also asked us if a block party is really a priority of the block.