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

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

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 7, 2008

Northampton - It took two years and eight major public forums to create a Land Use Plan for the 4,000 acres, mostly flood plain, called the Meadows that borders the Connecticut River in Northampton.

Now, three years later the City's Best Practices Committee hopes to bring many of the original participants farmers, residents, business owners, city employees and elected officials together for the first time since the plan was accepted.

The purpose of this event is to record the story of what many consider a difficult but largely successful public process told by the people who made it happen. The forum, scheduled for August 25 at JFK Middle School, will include former Ward 3 City Councilor Marilyn Richards, current Ward 3 City Councilor Bob Reckman, (then Ward 3 Neighborhood Association President), Gerald Budgar, organizer of the Meadows Coalition, Director of Planning Wayne Feiden and Senior Planner Carolyn Misch.

The Best Practices Committee hopes to attract a number of the estimated 300 residents who were actively involved and other city residents. "We want to record as many voices as possible," explains Lisa DePiano co-chair of the Committee, " Why people acted, what they did and how they felt about the process".

The Committee is researching models for best government practices and will make recommendations to the City Council later in the year.

The Meadows forum will begin at 5:30 PM in the JFK Middle School Community Room on August 25th.

***************MEDIA CONTACT: Alex Ghiselin 413-586-1849.