Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc. Board Meeting
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Draft Minutes
Present: Glenn Bridger, Ken Love, Tye Steinbach, Jan Weston, Jim McLaughlin, Brian Russell, Marcia Leslie, Kathy Bambeck, Janet Hawkins, Kirky Doblie, John Gibbon, Will Fuller, Jim Gardner, Jim Thayer, Agnes Kovacs, Marianne Fitzgerald, Alexander Ben-Israel, Dorothy Gage
Staff: Sylvia Bogert
Guests: Lee Buhler, Temporary recorder, Lee Perlman, Southwest Portland Post, Remi Vorobik, Ryiah Nevo, Danielle Gonzales, Cassandra Scallon, Launa Rae Mathews, Kelly Ridenour, Deanna Toyoshima, Julie Pfister, and Dee Anne Bess from OSHU school of nursing
Chair Glenn Bridger called the meeting to order at: 7:02 pm
Introductions: Glenn asked everyone to introduce themselves and explain a little of their gardening plans for this summer and how it was going.
Agenda: Janet made a motion to approve the agenda and Tye seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
Minutes: Marcia made a motion to approve the April minutes. Ken seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.
Guest presentation: Two groups of nursing students from the Oregon Health and Sciences University have been doing community nursing projects in southwest Portland and they presented their findings to the board. They displayed graphics describing their projects
One group had focused their efforts on children and got a great deal of their information from the community at Hillsdale Terrace. They found there was a need for programs to improve the health of children in our community. After school programs were a big interest, including child care, and child safety programs. They are hopeful the Children’s Investment ballot measure would be passed in the November election.
The other group had focused on seniors and got their information from Ruth Haefner Plaza, Loaves and Fishes, the Multnomah Center and Neighborhood House. They listed many senior health care needs. When seniors do not get proper medical care they end up using emergency services and it would be much more cost effective and humane to give proper medical care to start with.
Janet Hawkins commended the students for an excellent job and felt as a social service worker they did a very good job of identifying the problems and ideas for solutions. Will said that Elders in Action was a good program that can help seniors with some of these problems. Alexander said it would be good to also try to reach those people who were still in their homes. Marcia said there was another project about a year ago that focused on contacting people in their homes. Jim Thayer said he was on a walk in his neighborhood and found an aged resident lying in his yard and he helped him into his house. He asked what should be done in that situation and what neighbors can do to help seniors. Launa Rae suggested contacting the senior social worker at Neighborhood House and Janet suggested the Senior Help Line.
President’s report: Glenn talked about what he has learned in the last 5 years as president of SWNI. He said the SWNI budget has grown significantly and this has helped. He said he was very glad to see SWHRL join SWNI. He feels the SWNI news and web page have gotten significantly better. He remembered how good it was to see such a strong community response at the Unity Rally hosted by SWNI and others several years ago. He thanked the board for being so participatory. He said there were some areas that need improvement including pedestrian walkways and the City of Portland's form of government. He said we need some administrators that will go to bat for citizens. For example, they could not get the city to commit how much money they would contribute to the HALO LIDs and this would have helped foster citizen approval. He said what we need is more people like Dorothy Gage and Don Baack who can push the City to accomplish things and be good advocates.
Executive report: Sylvia talked about the SWNI/ONI grant agreement and said she supported the agreement. Glenn said we are changing from a contract to a grant and asked for board approval. Marianne asked about funding for Ruthann’s position and Sylvia said it was funded for one year at 20 hours a week. Marianne said she hoped the City would make this position on-going.
Ken made a motion to approve the contract. Marianne seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.
Treasurer’s report: Sylvia gave the treasure’s report for Tom Schaper. Cash is a little tight because it is getting near the end of the fiscal year. However, SWNI is on target and they are working on next year’s budget. Sylvia pointed out there were a couple of negative amounts on the report but they will be covered by accounts receivable. Kirky asked why there was an amount of $915 for Hillsdale pool. Sylvia said they received donations for a sign at Wilson pool from one donor and then asked permission to transfer that money to the Light Up Hillsdale project, the donor agreed.
Sylvia talked about next year’s budget. Our base budget will see about a 3% cost of living increase, grants will be funded at the same dollar amount as this year and we have funding for the part time outreach coordinator position. Sylvia said we still need estimates for rent, insurance, and several other items. A budget should be presented next month for approval by the board.
SWNI 2008-2009 Action Plan: Ken summarized the SWNI action plan enclosed in the board packet. Ken made a motion to approve the action plan and John seconded the motion. Yea: 17; Opposed: 0 Abstain: 1.
Volunteer Recognition Party: Tye talked about the annual party for volunteers which will be held on Monday June 30th. The theme is “Volunteers Plant the Seeds that Grow Community.” Sylvia reminded the neighborhoods and committees to submit volunteer names. Ken pointed out that it is important that neighborhood chairs get the names in by the 15th. Will asked if it had to be one volunteer and Sylvia said it could be two but they preferred one.
Sylvia said the candidates fair went well with over 200 people in attendance. The clean-up was a huge success with 18, 40-yard drop boxes filled plus other recycled materials. Over 45 seniors were assisted and they all expressed sincere appreciation. Sylvia said we will need to get additional volunteers next fall to help with the bulky waste and yard debris boxes. Next Cleanup date: Saturday Nov 1, 2008.
Sylvia announced Ruthann’s resignation. In her report to the board, Ruthann said she loved her position and regrets having to leave. Marcia asked if other coalition offices offered full-time positions and Sylvia said the average office had about 3.5 FTE. Jim T said it is a concern that many city and county budgets were suffering due to economic conditions.
Transportation: Marianne gave the joint Transportation Land Use Committee meeting report. They discussed several items such as the Hillsdale Town Center, Red Electric Trail and Barbur Blvd. improvements. Tomorrow at 6:30 at the St Barnabas church there will be a community meeting put on by the City of Portland regarding the Portland Plan. It will be part of a four year planning process. This will be the first meeting in the southwest neighborhoods.
John said his sense of the Barbur Blvd discussion is that the community supports high-capacity transit on Barbur rather than low capacity transit. Marianne said the transit system would go from downtown to Tigard and felt that a streetcar system that made many stops and goes slower would not work as well as high-capacity options. This process is just starting and will involve many neighborhood associations.
Marianne said they also talked about Capitol Hwy. They are looking at improvements but there is no funding.
Schools: Will gave the schools committee report. Unfortunately, they did not have a quorum for their May meeting, so no vote regarding the Children's Health Initiative. Will said members discussed the problem of poverty in a wealthy area. Schools in low-income areas get much more funding per low-income student than more affluent areas, which is a big problem for poor students in affluent areas.
Trails: Jim T said they were considering putting a handrail on a trail next to Old Orchard Road near Strohecker's market.
Parks: Kirky gave the Parks committee report. There is a lot going on in Parks this time of year. She displayed the new map/brochure for all city parks. At the last meeting the guest was Gregg Everhart, Parks department planner and she talked about trail projects in SW Parks. Gregg told them about planned trails in parks and asked the neighborhoods to look for possible trails they missed. The next meeting will be in Willamette Park and the guest is Elizabeth Kennedy-Wong and she will talk about public involvement. She was also a guest at the recent city wide parks team and her main goal is to find agreement on how decisions are made between Parks and neighborhood associations. The Mt Tabor maintenance dept is having an open house to show people how bad things are there. Kirky said volunteers have been amazing in Sylvania Park. Since September, 150 volunteers logged 1156 hours and planted 300 plants in the park. Ken said the South Waterfront Park was about 90% designed and there was a model people could view at the South Waterfront Umpqua Bank. Kirky said Shirley Franklin, the Mayor of Atlanta, will be the next speaker for the parks sponsored speaker series. She said there will be free swimming lessons for kids and Lair Hill Park has been a pesticide-free park for 3 years.
Land Use: John Gibbons presented a motion from the land-use committee:
That the city, when addressing the issue of impacts of lot conformations and property line adjustment, should address those impacts in all (single-family residential) zones.
The letter should be sent to Commission Randy Leonard.
Agnes talked about a skinny lot development right across the street from her house. She said the skinny lot regulations effectively re-zone a neighborhood without considering the impacts of city services such as rainwater run-off.
John said the existing code gives a developer the opportunity to increase density without addressing infrastructure needs.
Alexander asked what the alternatives to small lots are so we can maintain the growth boundary.
John said there was a discrepancy between subdivisions and small lot developments and this motion addresses that.
Lee said they did not realize all the impacts of the skinny lot codes when they were enacted. Agnes said one problem is that neighbors do not get notified on skinny lot developments
The motion passed: Yes: 17, Opposed: 0 Abstain: 1.
John asked people to get their land-use representatives to their next meeting as they will be planning a tour for the Portland Planning Commissioners in July.
Crime Prevention: Jan gave the Crime Prevention report. Monday will be the next meeting with Capt. Leo Krick to talk about the new location for Station 18.
Jim T said his car was broken into in the basement parking at Hillsdale Library and he reported it to the police. He noticed there were two charges on his phone bill that were not his. He gave those numbers to the police and police used them to help solve the case. He commended the police and Officer Brain Hughes for their hard work.
Communications: Sylvia gave the communications committee report for Wes McMullen. They have been talking about the newsletter and suggest hosting a focus group to discuss ways to improve the look and readability of the paper. It is important that neighborhoods get their articles in on time. The committee is considering a word limit for neighborhood reports if submitted after the deadline.
Unfinished Business: Glenn talked about why the bylaws changes were important and the work of the committee to address suggested changes. He also summarized each of the proposed
revisions that have been discussed over the last few months and circulated via email and in the packet of information.
Ken made a motion to approve the bylaw changes as submitted. Tye seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.
Board nominations: Glenn gave the nominating committee report. The following people have been nominated:
President: Brian Russell
1st Vice President: Ken Love
2nd Vice President: Tye Steinbach
Secretary: Susan Egnor
Treasurer: Tom Schaper
John made a motion to approve the slate of officers and Jan seconded the motion.
Alexander asked how the nominations were selected and why anyone would want to serve. Nominating Committee Chair Jim Gardner described committee’s process, which included contacting every neighborhood association, committee chair, and board member to ask for nominees.
Candidate Brian Russell said he is really looking forward to the position of president because he loves southwest Portland and would like to have an impact of making this a better place and on a personal level would like to see a good neighborhood for his children.
The motion to elect the slate of officers passed unanimously.
Brian commended Glenn for a great job as president and asked for a round of applause. Sylvia presented Glenn with several gifts as appreciation for all the good work he has done for SWNI. Glenn thanked everyone and said he is not going away and will continue to contribute.
New business: Glenn said he, Sylvia, Ken and Brian had met with Janet Hawkins about a grant proposal to the city to create equity in community involvement. Janet talked about the grant proposal and the challenges people with low incomes face. She would like SWNI to apply for a grant to help low-income people become more involved in the community. Ken made a motion that SWNI move forward on the grant and John seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
Jim T said he was approached by Arlington NA to sign conflict of interest document. Sylvia said she had heard the IRS will be changing a number of rules concerning nonprofit organization. Sylvia will look into it and bring information it back to the board.
Dorothy talked about the Sellwood Bridge. She said they may consider tolls again after the discussion of toll on the Interstate Bridge.
Sylvia said there will be a Fanno/Tryon open house on June 12th 6-8 in the Capitol Room and she would appreciate board participation. There will be a bike open house the following week on June 18 in the Capitol Room, starting at 5:30pm.
John said the Markham NA Rain Garden will be officially dedicated on Saturday, May 31st.
Tye said the Multnomah Farmers Market, located near the Multnomah Center outdoor basketball court, every Thursday between 3:30 and 7:30 pm through September, is now up and going
Meeting adjourned 8:59 pm
Respectfully submitted by Lee Buhler