Meeting Minutes July 8, 2008

WARD 3 NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION (W3NA)Minutes of Board MeetingTuesday, July 08, 2008@ home of Phil Sullivan, Island Road, Northampton

Attendees: Gerald Budgar, Lisa DePiano, Mac Everett, Owen Freeman-Daniels, Marianna McKim, Jim Nash, Phil Sullivan, & Fred Zimnoch. Bob Reckman, Lola Reid & Gloria Parker were absent.

*Items with asterisks are old business and can be found in previous minutes.

General Business: The treasury balance is $530.05. List serve has 145 members. The minutes of the May meeting were approved.

Speakers Postponed: Yvonne Freccerro of Friends of the Homeless, Adam Cohen of North Street Association and Joel Russell of University of Notre Dame design charrette.

3 County Fairgrounds*: There will be a presentation of the development plan during the Morgan Horse show (3rd week of July). W3NA will sponsor a reception for Morgan Horse show folks that will involve about 30 people and will include food and beverages in the arena. This event will show how the city and neighbors appreciate the Morgan Horse show. Phil will see if Northampton Rotary Club can host two Morgan Horse show officials at the weekly luncheon.

Water Events*: Lisa has arranged a tour of our new Water Treatment plant for Saturday July 12th. Meet at Bridge Street School at 10AM to car pool to the plant.
Citywide Neighborhood Groups (CNG)*: At the fourth meeting on Monday, June 23 the main topic of discussion was the City School that will meet 12 times with 25 max attendees to learn about city government. There was a strong feeling that a smaller down & dirty program of one or two sessions would be more beneficial since it would attract a larger number of people. This idea was presented to Karen Bellavance-Grace from the Mayor’s Office. Later results were that two public meetings concerning city government would be held in September. The attendees of this group might then become interested and attending city school. CNG will have a social in the Fall.

The Ward 3 Neighborhood Association (W3NA) Social Event June 14*: We all agreed that the event was a great success and that Marianna McKim did a splendid job of organizing this event. Most also noted that like past events we enjoyed rain. Before the cemetery event there were about 30+ guests. Fred noted that after the event we received no new members although some applications were taken.

Nominating Committee Report*: Jim has submitted Roles and Responsibilities for Board Members, President, and City Councilor for our review. He will also submit goals and tasks for the officers. He will submit further details on the two-tiered method of voting: 1. unanimity and 2. Super majority (three-quarters). For example how do we treat abstentions with respect to a quorum? Jim is also preparing a slate for Fall elections and asks that Board Members to notify Jerry if they are willing and able to serve in the coming year.

Sustainability Committee*: Jim reported the main concern of the moment is determining the composition of the re-zoning committee. Owen created a 5 page document from the City Sustainability plan that shows the tasks and with what groups the re-zoning committee will interacts with. The result is that the committee should contain persons representing economic, environmental and social equity issues along with an expert in smart growth development. Adding a member from the City Council, the Mayor’s Office and the Office of Economic development makes 7 members. This committee will stand for one or two years. Deadline to form re-zoning committee is September.

City Planning Consultation (Design Charrette): Joel Russell a land use/planning attorney (not a developer), was not able to attend our meeting but Owen reported that architectural students from University of Notre Dame would be at A. P. E (Available Potential Enterprises, Ltd.) Gallery on 126 Main St all day from September 7 - 13 to engage citizens about what they feel is best for the city. This group is looking for publicity, food and financial support. Jim and Adam Cohen have each volunteered to house a student. Phil mentioned that Northampton Rotary Club could possibly host some students for lunch if they could speak about their activities.
Lisa wondered if they would be interested in traffic calming, while Fred wondered if they should take a special look at Bridge, Hawley and Market Street area.
Phil mentioned that there is a triangular traffic island on Pleasant St. next to ATM that the Northampton Rotary Club wanted to upgrade with a Welcome to Northampton sign but city Director of Planning & Development Wayne Feiden wanted to postpone because land is owned by state. The state is planning to transfer land to city but must clean up toxic material left by Staabs Gasoline (150 Conz St.), Sabin Coal & Coke, (19 Fulton Ave.) and others now closed. This traffic island is now mowed by Harold's Garage Inc. (19 Holyoke Street.)

Traffic Calming Committee*: Lisa pointed out that on this Wednesday members will go door-to-door handing out flyers announcing their activities. Meet at Page/Brody house (59 Williams St) near Lola’s. A pot luck dessert event will be held at HEC on 7/17 at 7PM to gather further information followed by a walking tour of neighborhood. Design will follow later with results going to Wayne Feiden (Dir of Planning & Development) for approval.

I91/Exit 19 Committee: Jerry reported that a meeting with 18 people occurred about 3 months ago. Four people attended from Ward3 Bob, Jerry, Mara Ryan and (?). Attitude of MassHighway department was much more open and concerned about the neighbors and anxious for input from neighbors. They reviewed the old plan and the cities plan for Damon Road. They performed a license plate survey and planned to redo the traffic survey to find out the number of cars coming and going on and off exit. Several concerned citizens noted that the installation of traffic lights improved the situation and asked if a $15 million project was necessary. The Highway department is interviewing engineering firms to find a design company. They plan to have a design firm chosen shortly and will have an Advisory Committee mtg in Fall after the design firm is chosen.

City Elections in 2009: Jerry noted that our current Mayor and Michael Beardsley our city council president expects to run for Mayor. This means a new city council president may be needed. We all agreed that we should invite the candidates to Ward3 to get their view on our issues. As an aside Owen Freeman-Daniels suggested that we should get a report from our councilor at the annual meeting on forthcoming issues affecting our ward. This was expanded to include a progress report. It was further suggested that this report might be made monthly.

Best Practices (City) Committee: Lisa reported that Committee has decided on creating three Committees. A Research Committee will query city committees, boards and commissions to find out what their goals and methods are and how they can be improved, a Public Committee to get views from the public, and an as yet Un-named Committee to review the failures/successes and pros and cons of the past Meadows planning which used two methods: TopDown design by city officials and BottonUp by citizen consensus.

New Website: Owen reported that he has set up a Blog for W3NA. It is a work in progress and viewable at ward3association.blogspot.com. Material from our old WEB site will be transferred as needed. He awaits word from Peter Michaels who originally designed the web site for the name of the server for our old web site. (Postings were done by Maggie Solis. Her e-mail address is maggiesolis@gmail.com. Her phone number is 586-4929. She also might have this information.)
Homeless Issues: Postponed.

Future Meeting: Our August 12th meeting will start at 6 p.m. with a potluck supper at Phil’s house on Island Road.

Final Minutes: by Owen: Jerry re-read the e-mail from Lola regarding the "Party House" in the Ward. There was brief discussion about the W3NA's future involvement with the building inspector and other city agencies regarding properties inside the ward.

Submitted by Fred Zimnoch for Lola Reid, Association Secretary