July 14, 2015 Minutes

Meeting was called to order at 6:38 pm by board president Denis Houle

ANA board members in attendance: Denis Houle, Sarah Broich, Kelly Falsani, Jeff Forss, Lance Custer, Bri Keeney, Steve Johnson

Others in attendance: Nikki Frederich- Park Director, Nikki Lindberg- ANA Coordinator, Ken Dahler- Ward 13 City Council Staff, 2 interested neighbors (Dave DeNamur and Erik Shuerle)

Secretary Vote

Motion for Sarah to be secretary. Seconded. Motion carried.

City Council Update

Ken Dahler gave updates from City Council office

  • City will not be installing pedestrian level lighting on 54th Street.  The residents voted against this.
  • Airport noise- lots of complaints again. Councilmember has communicated with MACC and found out there has been an increase in flight volume from last year (16% increase). Councilmember is in touch with MACC about this to hopefully decrease again. Council staff said they are doing their best to communicate with them.
  • New ordinance recently passed through city council that restricts flavored tobacco topics (which are often targeted toward youth). Now they can only be sold in tobacco stores.
  • Councilmember is on a sex trafficking workgroup to address this issues and city council lobbied at the state for stricter sex trafficking laws.
  • Organics recycling starts in August (phase 1)
  • There was a comment about the Upton roundabout: Some neighbors are upset that there isn’t foliage on the roundabout and wished that the option for foliage was presented to neighbors with more time to gather feedback. In the future, neighbors would like to learn more about available options like this in a more timely manner so that there is time to gauge interest.

    Council staff acknowledged this as a fair concern and stated he would share with Councilmember. He addressed what likely happened, saying that Public Works typically doesn’t present this option because of their past experience of volunteers for maintaining public gardens not being able to make a long-term commitment. When it falls back onto Public Works, they don’t have the capacity to keep it up.

  • Question from board member: why are the curbs so high on the roundabouts? Council staff said he would look into it.
  • Another question from board member: When will the rest of the neighborhood streets be repaved? (i.e. Upton is bad from 58th to Crosstown.) Council staff said he doesn’t know the schedule offhand and will look into it.
  • Question from neighbor: How much money will councilmember support for the affordable housing trust fund? Answer from staff: Don’t have an answer yet. Those conversations are happening very soon. (There is currently a request to support 15 million for this.)
  • Councilmember expects to attend summer festival.

Park Update

  • Football registration is open online (register at swafa.org). 4th and 5th grade flag football is an option this year.
  • Soccer and Volleyball registration is coming up
  • School starts 8/24
  • Will have a table for sports registration at the festival in August
  • Fall program brochures will be available in print next week (already available online)
  • 2 rooms at the park building have AC during the day
  • There was a question about upcoming park meetings. They are called “Closing the Gap” meetings and are being held to get input on the current and future needs for the parks. One of these meetings is coming up on 7/28 at Lynnhurst. This will go on our website and will also be emailed out.

Committee Updates

Safety Update

None

Community Engagement Update

  • Bri is meeting with Nikki and also councilmember Palmisano to gather information and do some initial brainstorming
  • Request from Bri to board and neighbors- please bring ideas to September meeting about community engagement
  • Reminder that we also need to recruit board members. There are currently 3 open seats. Bri has a neighbor who would like to join the board- she will attend in September and is volunteering at the festival.

Festival Update

  • Committee decided to assign follow-ups to board members. Nikki handed out lists to follow up with to each board member. Nikki will also need help from board to pick up donations. So far we have 22 donations totaling $1000.
  • Buttons are ordered for board members and volunteers
  • Food trucks are lined up (Tommy Veez Fish and Chicken, Red Wagon Pizza, Kona Ice, Sweet Dreams)
  • Nikki and her family made new games for the festival
  • Signs and banners and printed. Everyone should take a sign to put up to advertise festival
  • Water bottles and wristbands are in. Minneapolis tap will be at the event.
  • An ad will go in the SW journal
  • Denis contacted politicians and invited them to the festival.
  • The board discussed the option of having Third Lair at the festival. It would cost $250. There was a motion to contribute either $125 or 250 (depending on if park contributes half) to have Third Lair, if they are agreeable to working with the other sound systems that will be there (band, magician, raffle, etc.). The motion was seconded and carried.
  • Board members should encourage people to volunteer! Volunteers can sign up online.

Coordinator Update

  • Fix it loan- no change since last month
  • Blueprint for Equitable Engagement- will put draft of response together and email to board; meeting August 11th; feedback due soon after
  • Safety newsletter- these were distributed door to door
  • We are on waiting list for bike racks at 54th and Penn (also checking on if there are other places these are needed)
  • Park Meeting: Nikki will email out to neighbors with summary of what will be discussed- Nikki will be out of town so board members should attend meeting if possible
  • Board members need to help distribute welcome packets to neighbors. Will take packets at the end of the meeting today.
  • The CCP was emailed to the board for review prior to today’s meeting. There was a motion to approve the CPP report. Seconded and carried.

Treasurer Report

Current account balances:

Income $19,723.93
NRP $5,151.81

Only expenses were salary and festival expenses.

Secretary Report

There was a motion to approve the May minutes. Seconded and carried.

New Business

Question about the 58th and Washburn variance request. There is a meeting this week to discuss appealing the decision. Neighbors are welcome to attend.

Kelly made a motion to adjourn at 7:55 pm. Bri seconded. The motion carried.