KNA Minutes - March 2009
Kerns Neighborhood Association Meeting
March 18, 2009
Attendees: Megan O’Keefe, Scott Scholl, Tess Brown, Kevin Moore, Steve Engel, David Thornton, GT Meili, Mike Whitmore, Steve Russell, Sean Hutchinson, Jim Dewson, Jack Maynard, Emily Simon, Office Edgecomb, Teresa Kinne
Meeting began with introductions. Agenda was reviewed. We were not able to review the minutes due to technical difficulties with printers.
Treasurer’s Report: Teresa gave the treasurer’s report. We have $1,218.33 in savings and $3,504.63 in checking and we are down to just 2 accounts!
Public Safety: Officer Edgecomb was here to give the Public Safety Report.
- The Standard: A security guard has hopefully been hired for Thurs, Fri, Sat to keep noise outside down and suppose to start this week. Office Edgecomb has been trying to keep this on his nightly rounds to see how it’s going.
- Crime Maps: They were passed out and information gone over. Questions about a reported rape and it was not a stranger to stranger situation.
- Redistricting Info: Office Edgecomb had a hand out that was a summary from the SE Community Policing Forum that had a list of the concerns that were brought up. City Council met yesterday and this was on the agenda and there were questions about how much this switch would cost but no concrete answers were given. The dividing line to Central and East Precinct is now 39th Avenue so our neighborhood is now all in central. There will be a meeting tomorrow night at St. Phillip Neri Church on SE Division and 16th with Commander Reese who is commander of the Central Precinct so he can address the concerns of neighbors and help remind him of how difficult it will be to have Central Precinct take all this on. This was organized by Sue Pierce of the HAND neighborhood in hopes of folks showing up and talking with Cmdr Reese about how difficult this will be for neighbors. New member David Thornton and Kevin Moore are hopefully going to go and represent KNA on this. A plea was made to keep sending in letters about why you do/do not support the redistricting plan!!
Clean Up Committee (Jack)
Jack reported that the first meeting at the Goodfoot went well to get things going. Some artists have been notified to come by and salvage items in our ongoing efforts to reuse! Erik from Buckman has been in touch with Jack and will be coming to the next meeting. Ann from Coke will be bringing posters to the next mtg. Some discussion about a better spot for next year as this is probably the last year and Jones, Kendall, Sauer. The next meeting is March 24th at 6pm at the Goodfoot.
Bike Event Small Neighborhood Grant (Sean)
Sean reported on the meeting they had last Wednesday. Scott contacted Barb at the Bike Gallery to see what kind of items we might be able to get for a decent price. The Sunday Parkway route has been changed so it will now go through Kerns! There was discussion about the best way to get the Kerns event to focus on Kerns folks while having it also connected with this day. Tessa had an idea about having one event at the Picnic in August and then the parkway day was a promotion of some kind and folks liked the idea of tying them together somehow.
GT reported that he had spoken with folks about the bike corrals on Belmont and it turned out that they ended up being more of a donation and so Teressa is going to the Belmont Business Association Meeting on April 14th to talk with Sarah from PDOT. PDOT is trying to come up with a master plan on creating bike corrals and we were invited to the meeting.
SE Uplift Report (Kevin)
Kevin reported that he went to the meeting and that Office of Neighborhood Involvement (ONI) was there and they are looking at ways to cut the budget. They did 5%, 10% and 20% plans and the 10% cut is feasible to keep SE Uplift going. This would be what they were calling the “right budget” which would include keeping the small grants budget and being able to maintain the website! Angela already sent out a letter to city council and others are encouraged to do so as well. March 25th at Mickey Finn’s Pub on SE 45th and Woodstock there is a Neighborhood Engagement Mt-neighbors can go and meet each other! There will most likely be one that includes Kerns real soon.
Land Use
- Burnisde/Couch Couplet: Emily has been communicating with Chris Armes at the City about the trees that were cut down without telling anyone. It has been a frustrating process as there is not a city policy about how things should be handled with trees and so the city’s response to Emily was that there is a meeting tomorrow night of the fixing the city’s tree policy group and that she should go to this. There is an advisory meeting on June 10th at the Jupiter Hotel and the contractor for the project is suppose to be there as contrsutcion will start in July!
- WAMO (Washington Monroe Community Center): Parks Dept got a $625,000 grant to add to the planning that was done in 2005 for this sight. The advisory committee is currently being selected, and it looked like Susan Lindsey from Buckman might be the chair person.
- Burnside Bridgehead: Beam is back on board! They are working on the MOU. Beam has reported that their focus will be on a sustainable/green campus project for the site. PDC cancelled the March meeting so next meeting is in April.
- URAC: KNA needs to formulate a letter that has Mike Whitmore being the KNA rep for URAC and Steve Russell has is alternate and send it to Jolene Jensen at PDC which was voted on last month. Megan will do this. The funding was approved for the Eastside street car for the Lloyd Center to OMSI loop. It will have the South route on MLK and North route on Grand. A new bridge is going up near OMSI that will mirror the St. John’s Bridge, and it will be a bike and pedestrian bridge!
Meeting was adjourned at 8pm.
Minutes recorded by Megan O’Keefe