Kerns NA Minutes - September 2008

Posted November 10th, 2008 by angela.kirkman

KERNS NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

September 17, 2008

ATTENDEES:  GT Meili, Angela Kirkman, Jim Kautz, Jack Maynard, Teresa Kinne, Christy MacAnally, Steve A. Engel, Steve Russell, Tess Brown, Scott Scholl, Kevin Moore, Elliott Mantell, Michael Whitmore, Sean Hutchinson, Jay Harris, Megan O’Keefe, non-board members (Emerald Bogue, Ruthann Bedenkop, Mary Francillon)

Chair GT Meili called the meeting to order at 6:05 PM.  The meeting started with introductions and pizza was served.

September agenda reviewed and approved.  July minutes reviewed and approved as amended.

PUBLIC SAFETY (Officer Robert Pickett / Officer Andy Edgecomb)

  • First draft of the Good Neighbor agreement with The Standard was sent out today.
  • Officer Pickett handed out the crime report.  Larceny is the most common crime in Kerns once again.  Three out of fifteen are thefts from cars.
  • Neighbors brought up concerns with homeless people camping in neighbor’s yard 30th &
    NE Hoyt .  There are concerns with people parking their cars, camping and living on the property and around the park.  Immediate neighbors said that the problem is getting worse with people fighting, drinking and cursing all hours of the day.  Officer Pickett will try to get in touch with homeowner and try to establish a no trespassing agreement.
  • Per neighbors request, Officer Pickett will send burglary information from incident on ~NE 32nt and Hoyt to GT to distribute to the board. 

CRIME PREVENTION / GNA’s 

  • Day Labor Hire (Christy MacAnally)
    • Some ongoing peaceful protesting at the site on Mondays.  People protesting the site and protesting the protesters were present.  Currently, there are no issues from close business neighbors. 
    • Owners of the site are planning to build a shelter for the workers in the winter, and they are hoping that this will continue to draw other people still utilizing the SE 6th and
      Ankeny area.
  • The Standard
    • The first draft of the GNA with The Standard has been submitted.

PDX CHILD INVEST FUND (Emerald)

  • Emerald is the campaign manager from the “Yes on Measure 26-94”.
  • The property tax levy approved by voters in 2002 invests in early education, after school mentoring and child-abuse intervention.  The program serves 16,000 children and has been successful.  Since property tax levies need to be renewed every 5 years, measure 64 is needed to continue this funding.  This is not a new tax. 
  • The main challenge of the campaign is to educate people that this is not a new tax and that the program has proven to be successful.  Emerald encouraged us to vote YES and provided lawn signs to interested neighbors.

  

LAND USE (Mike / Jim)

  • Burnside / Couch Project – Plum trees are saved.  Budget reduced to $16.5 million.  The plan includes traffic signals at every intersection and bioswales, but no sidewalk widening.  They hope to be under construction next spring.  The project is entering the bidding process now.  During construction, the intersection between 12th and 14th on

    Sandy will not have traffic, but the street will remain intact.
  • Eastside URAC – Next year there is a significant deficit.  This is part of the reason that the Burnside/Couch project was scaled back.
  • Burnside Bridgehead – PDC has decided not to tear down

    Convention

    Plaza , and hopefully the building will be reused.  Kia Selley (selleyk@pdc.us) is the development manager from PDC, and they are putting together some marketing material to promote the site as a “development opportunity”. 
  • The Jones,

    Kendall

    Building on E Burnside and NE 26th Ave is slated for a new NW OPUS project, so Kerns will have to find a new location for our annual cleanup.  NW OPUS is planning to build a five story building with housing (124 apartment units) with retail on the first floor. 

TREASUREER’S REPORT: 

  • Jim Kautz reported the checking account balance as $987.69 in checking account and $1097.91 in CD. 
  • Teresa has application for checking account from Consolidated Credit Union. 

PICNIC RECAP 

  •  A big thank you to everyone for a successful picnic.
  • In terms of money, we raised $414 in cash donations, $235 from silent auctions, $484 from raffle for a total of $1133.

SMALL GRANT DUE NOV. 3

  • $187K grants available through ONI - $43K for neighborhoods in SEUL – Grants available from $500-5000. 
  • A quick brainstorming activity produced the following ideas:  Traffic circle on NE 24th & Davis, Community Garden, Friends of Trees / Property owners – making Kerns more green, Reduction of chemicals/pesticides with thatching / improving lawns, beautifying burnside, promoting bicycle use in the neighborhood, bike safety (helmets, lights, and bell with Kerns logo)
  • The following people agreed to be on the grant committee:  Kevin, Jay, GT, Ben/Sandra, Megan, and Angela.  The committee decided to meet on Wednesday, October 8 at 6pm at Jay’s house (216 NE 24th).

SE UPLIFT REPORT (Kevin/Ruthann)  

  • Portland Plan is moving ahead.  Survey is being sent out through SEUL.
  • ONI is defining new missions and goals. 
  •  Neighborhood histories to add to SEUL website.  If you have any interesting stories from the neighborhood, send email to Kevin. 
  • Land Use – Leah Hyman is the new land use person at SEUL
  • Ruthann attended the meeting from SEUL.  She is the communications manager and our neighborhood representative.  She will be coming to our meetings on a quarterly basis. 
  • Ruthann passed out updated board member handbooks.  She also gave a neighborhood binder for Kerns that includes a copy of our by-laws, ONI standards, and other information to the chair (GT). 

SUSTAINABILITY

  • Nothing to report – Sandra was not present at the meeting
  • Kill-A-Watts were purchased, and Sandra will sign them out at the next meeting.  GT suggested putting information and way to contact Sandra on our website.

EMAIL / Website update (Angela)

  • Monthly email newsletter is being sent to over 100 people in the neighborhood.  Angela needs to get email signup sheet from past cleanup and picnic events to make sure the list is complete.
  • Kerns website through SEUL is now up and running at http://southeastuplift.org/neighborhood/kerns.  If anyone has anything to add to the site, please email Angela.

CROSSWALKS on 28th

  • There was a meeting with Teresa, Peter from the City and the DaVinci School Principal at the intersection and they tracked it and had 59 pedestrians in 35 minutes.  Peter thought it would be pretty positive that this much traffic would result in a crosswalk.  The debate is now just who should put it in-the city of the school.

BUCKMAN REPORT (Mary)

  • Mary from the Buckman neighborhood came and talked about the campaign to maintain the historic aspect of the neighborhood with all the development going on.  A flier was passed about how to get involved and there is a meeting on Monday, October 13th from 7:30-9 at

    Hinson

    Church which is at SE 20th and Salmon.  Meeting time was changed to 6pm. 
  • Notices were also passed out if you wanted to write to the Portland City COUncil to make changes to the zoning codes so neighbors can retain a voice in the future for their neighborhood.

BYLAWS UPDATE

  • The version that has been run by SE Uplift and has gotten the okay will go out the neighborhood group for folks to review and vote on at the next meeting and then we should be done. 
  • The plan is to approve the bylaws at next month’s board meeting.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

  • Board Member Christy MacAnally announced the she is moving to

    Tacoma, Washington next month and so this will likely be here last meeting.  She was thanked by the group!
  • Common Ground Chiropractic announced they were having a birthday party on September 18th and invited folks to stop by!
  • GT thanked everyone for being so involved!

Meeting adjourned at 7:55pm

Minutes taken by Angela Kirkman with help from Megan O’Keefe