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Recap of the June E-G Neighborhood Council Meeting

Recap of the June E-G Neighborhood Council Meeting

The meeting started with a brief announcement from Julie Banks, Community Development Director at the YMCA of the Inland Northwest, who said that the Y is hosting a Summer Meals Program in Corbin Park. The meal program will serve breakfast and lunch to any child 18 years old or younger from Monday, June 22 to Friday, August 14. Julie asked that the neighborhood help raise awareness about the program so that no child goes hungry.

Councilwoman Candace Mumm reported on issues under discussion by the City Council. A new parking ordinance is being proposed that will require fewer parking spaces for small businesses; a public hearing on the matter will be held at the City Council meeting on Monday, June 22.

Councilwoman Mumm also noted that a decency clause regarding adult entertainment might also spill over into the area of adult coffee shops. North Hill Neighborhood Council is almost finished with their neighborhood plan, and they intend to revitalize Garland Street as well as preserve the bluff. A southern portion of Northwest Neighborhood will become the Audubon/Downriver Neighborhood. Letters to the editor regarding Monroe Street revitalization are still encouraged.

Shanna Cejka, the neighborhood parent liaison to Spokane Public Montessori at Havermale, and Olga Lucia Herrera, a grant applicant and Montessori parent, announced that they were successful in soliciting Spokefest funding for a Bicycle Laboratory. The lab would be housed at the school; older students would learn to repair bikes and teach bike safety. The school would like to hold bike-related events in conjunction with Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council.

Amy Dutton reported on proposed Greening Grant locations for autumn plantings in the neighborhood. The traffic triangles at Northwest Boulevard and Monroe Street are potential locations. For residential areas, planting strips must be at least four feet wide. All locations must either have direct access to water and/or a volunteer neighbor or business to commit to watering duties.

The majority of neighborhood council members voted to forego the July neighborhood council meeting. The next EGNC meeting will therefore be on Wednesday, August 12 as part of the Summer Potluck in Corbin Park. The entire neighborhood is welcome to attend the potluck for food and socializing.

Bri Musser has plants for the traffic circle at the intersection of Montgomery and Madison. Others volunteered to help. Jackie Caro from the Office of Neighborhood Services reported on the other traffic circle, which was recently planted by Trinity Catholic School. The traffic island at N Maple is scheduled to have sidewalks installed this year, and another Ponderosa Pine will be planted there as well.

The Emerson-Garfield Farmers’ Market opened last week, and sales showed a 50% improvement over last year’s opening event. It is encouraging to see EBT clients making use of the incentive programs like Fresh Bucks. Broken Whistle, the band that will be performing at this year’s Concert in the Park, played the opening market. Future market activities and events include a water conservation demo on June 12, a garden pest information session on June 19, and a hydroponic gardening demo on June 26. Starting Friday, July 10, the Kids Eating Right Nutrition and Education for Life (KERNEL) program will have a different kid-friendly activity each week and will reward participants with tokens to use at the market. Several sponsors have stepped forward, but some are still needed!

Friends of Emerson Park will meet at the park on Saturday, June 13, at 6:30pm.

Laura Schlangen reported on the Corbin Senior Activity Center. Their Madhatter’s Tea Party had 100 attendees. The 6th Annual Golf Scramble had more sponsors and players than ever. Corbin’s Boutique, a secondhand store, is requesting donations, which can be dropped off at the time of the Emerson-Garfield meeting. The Munch and Mingle Auction will take place on Saturday, September 19, and tickets will be sold at the end of June. An upcoming bus trip to Las Vegas, Zion and the Grand Canyon will cost only $838.

A large portion of the meeting involved discussing how Photo Red revenue is allocated. Up to now, Photo Red funding — which comes entirely from fines paid by drivers who run red lights — has been available exclusively for traffic-calming projects such at the traffic circles on W Montgomery. Recently, however, changes have been proposed that would increase the available annual funds for each district to $150,000 (up from $100,000) and use surplus revenue (including anticipated future revenue) as seed money to attract matching grants for more ambitious projects.

The EGNC conducted a vote on the issue; the consensus was to uphold Councilman Jon Snyder’s proposal, summarized as follows by Paul Kropp in a recent PeTT Committee e-mail:

… leveraging unallocated photo-red revenue to make local matching funds available in a significant amount to use for grant applications to secure engineering and construction funding of larger scale community street or trail projects.

Additional details on this issue as well as the vote tally of the neighborhood council will be available in the meeting minutes (once approved) and a forthcoming blog post from Emerson-Garfield’s PeTT representative.

As a final order of business, Barb Biles reported on Land Use Committee topics, including the six-month moratorium on the building of cell-phone towers in residential zones while the zoning issue is analyzed.

Recap of the October E-G Neighborhood Council Meeting

Recap of the October E-G Neighborhood Council Meeting

The October 8 meeting of the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council began at its new time of 6pm.

Christa Richardson of the Corbin Senior Activity Center started off the meeting by sharing the good news about their Munch and Mingle auction on September 27, which raised $20,000. Of that, $4,000 was directed towards the elevator. The center’s new van arrived as well.

The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) applications were explained, and attendees were invited to participate in determining how the funding for 2015 will be allocated among the neighborhood. Six volunteers formed a committee that will meet prior to the November 24 deadline to do so. Their proposal will be discussed, refined and put to vote at the November 12 meeting of the E-G Neighborhood Council.

Timothy Diko and Melissa Parker have been scouting out locations for sheltered bus stops, bike racks and trash cans to be placed along Monroe Street. Those kinds of projects were chosen because they would not require follow-up costs and would be long-lasting. The consensus of the meeting attendees was that the stop on the west corner of Montgomery and Monroe could use a shelter and nearby bike rack, and the stops on either side of the street at Grace and Monroe could also benefit from the same.

Northwest Neighborhood identified a block of land adjacent to Emerson-Garfield where the residents tend to identify more with Emerson-Garfield than Northwest. Their organization voted to cede the land to E-G. The boundaries to the north are Fairview and Ash to Cochran, south across the T.J. Meenach bridge, along the Pettit Drive Ridge, to Indiana; Indiana east to Belt, and Belt north to Fairview.  A concern was raised regarding the average income of that section of land, and what effect that might have on Emerson-Garfield’s qualification for CDBG funding. The vote to approve the boundary extension was tabled until November.

The Greening Neighborhoods Grant was approved for both applications. The Maple traffic island vegetation can be acquired soon, but the other area may need to wait until November.Spokane Urban Forestry will determine the dates. Over a dozen attendees volunteered to help with planting when the time comes.

On Washington near North Central High School is an organization, Community Frameworks, that would like to contribute to the redevelopment of that area, to include practical beautification and increased walkability. They hope to develop a 33-unit apartment building for lower-income residents. Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council wrote letters of support for their funding applications.

Because there are three elementary schools (i.e., Garfield, Audubon, Spokane Public Montessori) in a roughly one-mile area within E-G, there is a justification for putting together a Safe Routes to School task force with the goal of working with the Spokane Regional Health District to develop an entire pedestrian- and bike-friendly network of paths to these schools. Several volunteers, including councilwoman Candace Mumm, expressed an interest in participating.

A motion was made to provide meeting notes for review and approval by e-mail, rather than waiting until the following monthly meeting. It was decided to e-mail the minutes shortly following each meeting, and voting members can then respond to the e-mail.

Tim Burns, the Police Ombudsman, reported that the five-member citizen oversight commission over Spokane Police Officers is in effect as of September 15. The sheriff’s office has expressed an interest in a similar committee. Adrian Dominguez, an epidemiologist with the Health Department, represents our district (District 3) on the oversight commission. Each of the other two city council districts selected one representative, and the mayor selected two.

City Council member Candace Mumm reported on the approval of a $67,000 traffic calming grant. A pilot program near Gonzaga will experiment with a permeable pavement solution, which could work with N. Monroe as well. The Women and Children’s Free Restaurant has purchased Center Pointe near the Community Frameworks building for their new location. The new city budget proposal was released, and a priority was given to fire safety.

Sara Kimball reported on sidewalk repair near Emerson Park, in response to some large tree roots. There were four curb cuts near Jefferson and Alice for ADA accessibility. A sidewalk on the west side of Madison all the way from Indiana to Emerson Park may be in development in the near to long term.

The Emerson-Garfield Farmers’ Market is on track to have over $40,000 in sales this year. A long line of residents interested in claiming dump passes came to the market for their first time on October 3 and commented positively on the market. The market’s season finale will be on October 17 and will feature a cider press (apples can be brought or bought).

Tim Schwering, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Spokane Police Department, arrived after the meeting had ended due to a long Q&A session at a talk earlier in the evening. He has rescheduled to present on the police body cameras at the November 12 meeting.

Materials for the Sept 10 E-G Neighborhood Council Meeting

Materials for the Sept 10 E-G Neighborhood Council Meeting

Following a much-needed break in July and last month’s Summer Potluck in Emerson Park, the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council will resume its monthly meetings at the Corbin Senior Center (827 W Cleveland) tomorrow — that is, Wednesday, September 10 — starting at 7pm.

Among other things, we’ll be discussing shifting the neighborhood boundaries, Fulcrum‘s plans for renovating a building on N Ash, the status of our Greening Neighborhoods grants, the current crop of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding opportunities, and voting on the proposed MoU between Project Hope Spokane and the EGNC (which you should download and review before voting) regarding the Emerson-Garfield Farmers’ Market.

If you live or work here in E-G or have a child who goes to school here, one or more of these issues will probably be of interest to you. The EGNC is an all-volunteer organization that welcomes participation from everyone who has a stake in our neighborhood, including residents, business owners and community leaders.

Put your iPad to good use and download the September 10 meeting materials as PDFs here:

If you’re on Facebook, you can RSVP for the meeting on the event page.

June Neighborhood Council Meeting Recap

June Neighborhood Council Meeting Recap

Here’s a brief recap of last week’s monthly Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council meeting.

SPD Ombudsman Tim Burns presented an overview of his annual report (available in full from this page). Some broad stats: 218 complaints against the police department were filed last year; the City Council authorized the hiring of 26 additional officers, 220 body cameras, and a $1.3 million expenditure ($400,000 of which involves a state-of-the-art addition to the training academy). The body cameras can be expected to be put in action by September.

For the SPD crime report, Capt. Tracy Ponto-Douglas read statistics for the area between Garland and the Spokane River, and between Division and the Spokane River to the west; these were compared against this time last year. There was much discussion regarding squatters and transients camping on abandoned properties. She noted that this year a practice has been established to offer relocation services and counseling.

Ben Covino from the Lands Council spoke about the river toxins found in fish and sediments. A map of the Spokane River was provided, highlighting the areas where caught fish should not be eaten: mercury, arsenic and lead have made their way from mines in Idaho to the river in Spokane. The homeless, who often catch and eat river fish, are the most at risk, and are a target group for this education.

Thom Caraway and James Kashork from Project Hope, the organization that has partnered with the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council to operate the Emerson-Garfield Farmers’ Market, shared some history about their organization. This year, 38 young people from the West Central and E-G neighborhoods are working each weekday morning until noon for 10 weeks and participating in job training. Project Hope has operated the West Central Marketplace for the past seven years, and has continually been finding ways to improve their scope and efficiency. Technicalities were discussed about how to make the operation of the EGFM fit within the nonprofit mission of Project Hope, and ways to involve the youth. There were no objections to proceeding with this action item.

The annual Summer Potluck will be held at Emerson Park on Wednesday, August 13. The potluck will start at 6pm, and the EGNC meeting at 7pm.

Voting members held a discussion regarding whether to hold the EGNC meeting on July 9 or to skip it as per recent tradition. The motion to skip the July meeting carried.

District 3 City Councilman Steve Salvatori is resigning and moving to Dallas for business purposes. The City Council will appoint a replacement according to protocol.

Eline Helm spoke about the second annual Concert in the Park, which will join forces with this year’s return of Summer Parkways on Friday, July 18. We do need our own insurance, but not a permit. A total of $550 is needed, and we have $370 available — in other words, we need donors!

John Vlahovich spoke about tax increment financing money and Kendall Yards. The committee expects to have approximately $117,000 available for the year; $150,000 was set aside to go towards the Monroe Street improvements as matching money that the City will need to put up in order to use $3 million. The grant will still require the approval of the Transportation Department. One proposal is to make the traffic light on Montgomery and Monroe remain green to north/south traffic, except when a pedestrian pushes the crossing button.

Amy McLean reported on an issue with Avista and the use of smart meters. She mentioned that there have been reports on their health and safety risks.

Laura Schlangen read the June report of the Corbin Senior Activity Center. The WalkAlong and the Golf Scramble events were successful. There is not yet a date for the van delivery. A car theft took place mid-day in the parking lot, and the car was later found abandoned. The center’s biggest fundraiser, the Munch & Mingle Auction, is scheduled for Saturday, September 27. Please attend and donate if you can. The Henderson floor will be redone this month, and there is a new “This & That” discussion group.

Jay Cousins reported on the Community Assembly, which, in a nutshell, is the neighborhood’s representative at City Hall. Support for the Safe Streets initiative, spearheaded by Councilwoman Candice Mumm, was passed unanimously by the CA.

District 3 Candidate Forum Tomorrow (Oct 17)

District 3 Candidate Forum Tomorrow (Oct 17)

The Northwest Neighborhood Association will be hosting a candidate forum on Thursday, October 17 in the cafeteria of Browne Elementary School (5102 N Driscoll Blvd) [map] at 7pm where they will have a moderated discussion and questions with city council candidates Michael Cannon and Candace Mumm who are up for election to replace city council woman Nancy McLaughlin, who is termed out and cannot run for her position any longer.

Victor Frazier and Steve Corker will be the moderators and will take and field questions from the audience in attendance on 3 x 5 cards. All of District 3 is invited to attend this forum, meet the candidates and ask questions. The formal part of this forum will last approximately 30 minutes, and the meeting will be over by about 8pm.

Dump passes will be issued at the end of the October meeting after the forum. Any left over from Thursday night will be issued at the Shadle COPS shop on Saturday, October 19. Verification of address to show that you live in the Northwest neighborhood will be required to receive a dump pass.

The organizers hope to see people from all over District 3 at this forum, given that the ballots will be arriving right about the time that they are hosting this.