Meeting Minutes September 9, 2008

WARD 3 NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION MINUTES OF BOARD MEETING Tuesday, September 9, 2008
@Hampshire Education Collaborative, Hawley St., Northampton
Attendees: Gerald Budgar, Lisa DePiano, Tim Fisher, Owen Freeman-Daniels, Jim Nash, Gloria Parker, Bob Reckman, Lola Reid, Fred Zimnoch.

General Business: The minutes of the August 12 board meeting were approved. (The July 8 minutes have been posted to the new blog/website. The treasury balance is $426.99. Fred also reported that an Excel file was created to list all members (about 100) of the W3NA.

President’s Report: 1. Jerry and Jim met today with the Design Northampton Notre Dame architectural students and professor. All citizens are welcome to visit the work site (APE Gallery) to give input to the team about what we want our city to be like in 10-20 years.

2.The August 25 Best Practices meeting about the history of the Meadows Plan went very well. Adam Cohen has posted his video of the meeting on his website.

3. October 26 Meadows cleanup: Bob is working on the set up (dumpster, bags, etc.). The police have been patrolling the Meadows more, and the trash is diminishing each year.

4. October 5 Annual Meeting and Harvest Festival will be held at the Montview Ave. conservation land from 1:00 to 3:00. After the meeting, the festival will feature agriculture in the ward with the Montview and Town farms and other older, local farmers. Bob will get the tent, etc., Ed G. will make his fab french fries, the various committees will set up tables, and Bob & Jerry will make up the flyer and coordinate its distribution.

5. TheNorthampton City School project will have an introductory meeting for the public to give an initial overview of how the city works and to recruit people as “students” in the program. The City-wide Groups will help to promote the meeting.

Nominating Committee Business: Jim & Owen presented their revised descriptions of the City Councilor and President of the W3NA board; after some suggestions, both descriptions were approved. Then J & O’s “Means for Achieving Consensus” was presented, discussed, and approved. It has a two-tiered format: Super Majority Model (which strives for unanimity but requires a two-thirds vote) and Majority Model (which requires a majority of those present). Both the descriptions and the consensus will be presented at the Annual Meeting for approval before they can become part of the by-laws. Jerry suggested that we add two seats to the W3NA board: one precinct A alternate and one precinct B alternate. A motion in favor of the proposal was unanimously approved by the board and will be brought to the Annual Meeting for final approval.

Saving Neighborhood Schools: Tim presented the revised letter of support for the Bridge St. School and other neighborhood schools (to be sent to the city) and it was unanimously approved by those present.Website Update: Owen and Lisa will bring a computer to the next board meeting and do a demonstration of the workings of the new website.

Sustainability Committee Update: The proposal for the composition of the 9-member Re-zoning Committee will be voted on by the Planning Board this Thursday, September 12. The W3NA can endorse a candidate for the committee (a 2-year commitment).

Traffic Calming Committee: There will be a meeting of this committee Thursday, September 11 to discuss next steps.

Business Representative Report: Owen wants to get his survey out to the businesses in the community soon and asks for more input. He will do face-to-face interviews whenever possible. Jerry proposes setting up a Business Advisory Committee.

Councilor’s Report: Bob explained the proposed administrative fee for towing, to be collected by the city. (About 16 cars a day are towed in the city so this could be a significant source of revenue.) The Public Safety Committee is looking at new regulations.

Best Practices Committee: Their August 25th forum on the Meadow Use Plan was well attended and reputed to be enlightening to the Sustainability Committee and the audience. The BP committee’s In-reach subcommittee will be doing interviews of city officials, department heads and committee chairs beginning next week.

There will be another open forum of the BP committee Wednesday, October 8 at the Senior Center.

The meeting adjourned at 9:10.

Submitted by lola Reid, Association Secretary