Meeting Minutes August 12, 2008

WARD 3 NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONMINUTES OF BOARD MEETING
Tuesday, August 12, 2008@ home of Phil Sullivan, Island Rd., Northampton
Attendees: Gerald Budgar, Lisa DePiano, Owen Freeman-Daniels, Marianna McKim, Jim Nash, Bob Reckman, Lola Reid, Phil Sullivan, Fred Zimnoch. Guests: Adam Cohen, Tim Fisher, Joel Russell.
*Items with asterisks are old business and can be found in previous minutes.

Guest Speakers:

1. Adam Cohen of the North Street Neighborhood Association (formed a year ago to oppose the proposed 31-condo unit in 5+ acres of woods behind North Sreet). Adam informed us that Brad Shimel is their Association’s new lawyer who will bring their law suit before Land Court. Also, Terry Blunt, conservationist, is acting as mediator between the North St. Assoc. and Doug Kohl, the developer. One proposal is to allow Kohl to build one house at the end of Northern Ave. and sell the rest of the land as conservation land trust. State Representative Peter Kocot is in favor of urban parks.

2. Joel Russell, lawyer and professional urban planner, represents the Northampton Design Forum, a new group formed to promote the Notre Dame project in which six “top notch” design student and their professor would come to Northampton for a week to study three areas of Northampton for sustainability. The project would seek citizen input through charettes. The study would continue then for several months back at Notre Dame and would result in a booklet for Northampton to use in their continued city planning. The cost of the project is $15,000. $9,000 has already been raised.

After these presentations we broke for a potluck supper organized by Lisa. We then continued with our regular meeting.

General Business: The minutes of the July 8 meeting (by Fred Zimnoch) were approved. The treasury balance is $465.99.

Fairgrounds*: The July 23 Fairgrounds meeting was successful. Among other things we learned that the grandstand will come down and a new one will be built. The Fairgrounds Committee has expanded by several members.

Upcoming Events: We decided the annual meeting will take place Sunday, October 5. Meadows cleanup will be October 26. We also discussed the idea of a Harvest Festival, celebrating the agricultural growth in our ward with Montview Farm and Town Farm and some of the old farmers.

Nominating and Membership Committee: 1. Jim and Owen agreed to Fred’s suggestion to hire Deborah J. Tomasi to type up the membership list into an Excel spreadsheet so that we can better track membership and dues payments. 2. Tim Fisher was nominated and voted in as Ward 3A representative. 3. The job description for Board Member was presented, modified and officially adopted.

Saving Neighborhood Schools*: Tim Fisher informed us that the city has hired a consulting firm to do a study of various ways to cut costs for education. Jim Nash and Tim read the draft of their proclamation letter to be signed by the Board of Directors. The board gave feedback. Now T & J will revise it, bring it to the Annual Meeting, and then send it out to the City Council and publish it on our web site.

Web site/Blog*: Owen announced that the new blog is up and running. The domain is go daddy and is sponsored by google. Board members can upload almost anything; it is very multimedia friendly.

Sustainability Committee Update*: The committee to form the Re-zoning Committee has met 4 times since our last board meeting. They decided that the Re-zoning Committee will be comprised of nine members: 3 community members, 3 experts in land-use issues, one conservationist, one person from housing, and one economic development person. Jim and Owen liked the model they came up with but Jerry and Fred thought it was stacked in favor of dense development.

Traffic Calming Committee Update*: Lisa and Lola reported on the following developments: (l) neighborhood canvassing, week of July 7 (2) neighborhood meeting, July 17 (3) Lisa and Lola’s meeting with Laura Hanson, new Director of Transportation, July 31 (4) Lola’s conversation with Carolyn Misch, August 11. Lists of NeighborhoodTraffic Problems and Solutions, generated at the neighborhood meeting, were passed out.

Report of Business Representative: Owen has formulated a survey for the businesses in the ward, the goal of which is to build W3NA business membership and involvement and to promote the businesses in the ward. Board members should look at Owen’s draft and come to the next meeting with feedback.

Landfill expansion: Councillor Reckman said the City Council will look at the epidemiology report and the health report and that there will be more public forums in the fall. The decision about the expansion probably will not be made till next spring. The Council will need to look into alternatives if the landfill is not expanded.

Best Practices: This committee now has 4 working groups: 1. public forums (the next will be August 25, looking at the Meadow Use Plan) 2. in-reach (questionnaire will be sent to all city officials regarding how they make decisions, etc.) 3. research committee 4. putting their final report together (the draft will be ready in December or January; the final report in February or March). The meeting adjourned at 9:15

Submitted by Lola Reid, Association Secretary