February 19, 2019 Minutes

Date: February 19th, 2019

Called to Order: 6:30PM

Presided by: Joel Federer (President)

Note taker: Tyler Mulcahey (Secretary)

Board members in attendance: Joel Federer, Tyler Mulcahey, Stephanie Vigen, Ryan Antkowiak, Adriana Dobrzycka, Michael Kootsikas, Brett Anderson, Tara Brown, Lauren Anderson (Coordinator)

Others in attendance: Various neighborhood residents (5 total?)

Board members absent: Jim Hoch, Judy Vecere, Lara Bergman

Southwest Parks & Minnehaha Parkway Regional Trail Master Plans

  • Madeline Hudek, Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board
    • Brought two boards showing Concept A and Concept B for Armatage. Looking for people’s thoughts on the concepts. Collecting input through March 31st.
    • Concerns brought up by board members and present residents:
      • Potential loss of baseball/softball fields for soccer fields
      • Smaller parking lot in both concepts – parking is hard to come by currently
      • Lighting of the parking lot (which is very dim currently) and paving issues should be addressed at the same time
      • Will artificial turf be part of the park concepts? (Yes, currently envisioned in some park’s concepts)
      • Dog park (closer than Lake of the Isles) would be nice
  • Mike Jischke, Minnehaha Parkway Regional Trail Citizen Advisory Committee
    • Seeking feedback for Minnehaha Parkway Regional Trail concept/plan

Park Update, Nikki Friederich —

  • Washburn Tot Lot celebration: Planning celebration in late May or early June. Lauren will see if the Park Board is willing to cover food, drinks, etc.
  • Egg hunt: Bounce house, egg hunt, face painting, caricatures, etc. Will take place on Saturday, April 13th from 10am-11:30am. $5/child registration. Park Board is requesting $250 from the board to support the event. Motion approved for board to cover $250 for the event.
  • Water bottle refilling station: The board had previously allocated $1,800 for this and other park improvements. Lauren is wondering if the board still wants to keep this money allocated for this or not.
  • Fire & Ice recap: It was FREEZING (sub zero temps). Event was moved inside, but still a great success!

Guest Speaker – Linea Palmisano (City Council Member)

  • Good way to reach /engage with neighborhood renters is using Nextdoor. East Harriet has implemented a community garden, where they’ve found it helped increase their neighborhood’s renter engagement.
  • Plugged her upcoming Ward 13 Summit for neighborhood board members – taking place on February 27th from 6:30-8:30pm at the Bakken Museum (Volta Room, 3537 Zenith Ave S).

  • 2018 Annual Report — Lauren had a few items for clarification to finish this:
    Did the board conduct one or more focus groups? Answer: Yes
    How many households did the board reach through door knocking in 2018? Answer: 170 total
  • Did we send out any post cards in 2018? Answer: No
    How many households did the board reach through flyering in 2018? Answer: 250 total

Motion to approve the Armatage 2018 annual report. Approved by the board.

Neighborhoods 2020 — Currently in draft mode. A lot of moving parts and question marks about how funding will be associated with this and how it will work. At some point in the future, the board will need to discuss how we are going to approach this and how we will go about engaging with residents to fulfill the Neighborhoods 2020 diversity rules.

Some similar cities, such as Portland & Seattle, have defunded their neighborhood associations.

SW coordinators (including Lauren) recently met with each other and NCR to discuss strategy.

Starting in 2020, funding of neighborhoods will be done through the general budget and will be reviewed on an annual basis. There is a push for a 3-year funding cycle.

Other New Business

Ice skates needed for Armatage warming house: Motion for $150 for the board to buy some gently used skates or skates on clearance. Tara will take the lead on finding a good deal. Should be able to buy 5-10 pairs of skates. Motion approved.

Facebook Ad for Neighborhood 2020 Feedback: Motion for $100 for Facebook ad through the end of March surrounding Neighborhoods 2020. Motion approved by the board.

President’s Report — Our website currently does not have a SSL certificate. It would take 2-3 hours to implement an SSL to our website, which would then allow the board to add forms for residents to communicate with us (i.e. microgrants, etc.). The board previously purchased (in 2016) 5 hours of web development service from a company to complete this – with 3 hours remaining to use up.

Motion to use up 2-3 out of the remaining 3 hours to install the SSL certificate. Motion approved by the board.

Secretary Report –– January minutes approved via e-mail

Treasurer Report –– Financials e-mailed

Committee Updates —

  • Green team – Recently and discussed zero waste at the upcoming summer festival, setting aside a few rain garden slots for renters (with property owner approval), amongst other things. Please reach out to Lara, Brett, or Lauren if you’d like to get involved.
  • Micro-grant program – Sent out 2-page document on February 11th that contained the guidelines for the micro-grants, as well as a draft application for the micro-grants. Discussion on feedback received from the board thus far surrounding selection criteria. If you have other criteria that you think should be included, please let Adriana & Stephanie know. :: What are our goals as a board for this program? What does success of this program look like? :: When it comes time for advertising for the micro-grant program and getting the word out, we’ll want to ensure we provide examples of grants that were approved by other neighborhood organizations. :: Need to discuss when these cycles will begin and end. Discussion was had to change this verbiage to application period (and include dates for each application period during the spring and fall) :: Add verbiage that we will grant up to 4 micro-grants during each period. Motion to approve the micro-grant program with the amendments the board recommended this evening. Approved by the board.

Coordinator Update —

  • Summer festival — Would like to schedule a planning meeting. Nothing is written down and it would be more efficient. Lauren will send out a doodle poll to find a few dates that work well for the board.
  • Annual meeting initial planning — Micro-grant Q&A will take place. Other suggestions or speakers we’d like to have? Please let Lauren know. Some suggestions brought up: Neighborhoods 2020, Park Staff, Safety Rebate Program, Rain Gardens, etc.

Meeting Adjourned: 8:52PM

Next Meeting: March 19th • 6:30pm