[Durham INC] May minutes

Fri Jun 23 07:04:39 EDT 2017

I am sending these out in advance of the meeting next week.  I have included all the minutes that we need to approve.

Regards, pat

________________________________
From: INC-list <inc-list-bounces at lists.deltaforce.net> on behalf of Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2017 8:09 AM
To: inc listserv
Subject: [Durham INC] May minutes

Please let me know about any additions or corrections.  Thanks, pat

May Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham
NIS Conference Room, Golden Belt
May 23, 2017

Attending the meeting were:
Neighborhoods
Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen
Golden Belt – DeDreana Freeman
Lochaven Hills – Keith LePage
Long Meadow – Michael Throop
Orange Factory Road – Patrick and Marie Mahoney
Old North Durham –Peter Katz, John Martin
Trinity Park – Philip Azar
Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell
Watts-Hillandale – Tom Miller
Woodcroft – Scott Carter

Visitors
Will Wilson – DOST
Lynwood D. Best – City of Durham, NIS
Kirk Butts – COD Water Management
Bryant Green– COD Water Management
Annette Smith – Parks and Recreation

President DeDreana Freeman opened the meeting, and members introduced themselves.

Bryant Green of the Department of Water Management talked about the Central Park Water Line Replacement project, as well as other present and future work.  On May 25th at the Armory, there will be a public meeting on the Central Park project, which is expected to take from July 2017 to December 2018 to accomplish.  The project is replacing about 17,000 feet of water mains and valves and 3000 feet of sanitary sewer; these facilities were put in in the 1930’s so are at the end of even a generous expected life and don’t support new growth.  They will put in new pipes next to old ones, then cut over service one customer at a time, so service disruption should be pretty short (an hour in most cases, but longer for more complicated cases); in addition, there will be noise, road and lane closures and loss of on-street parking.  Similar work in American Tobacco will go out to bid next year.  Smaller projects replacing lines in very poor shape include Club Boulevard, North Elizabeth, West Main, and Sprunt Avenue. Other projects are dealing with streams getting too close to the lines (it isn’t possible to make soil over a sewer line as compact as nature does, so streams tend to sneak over), using stream restoration (makes streams “less sneaky”) and line relocation; projects include Aiken Avenue, Forest Hills, and Homeland Avenue. Finally there are lift station consolidations, upgrades, and rearrangements, such as Mud Creek and Fayetteville Road (with our rolling Piedmont terrain, it’s hard to do a lay-out that just uses gravity and doesn’t need some lifting).  You can always look at current projects at http://durhamnc.gov/971/Current-Projects or www.DurhamWaterProjects.org<http://www.DurhamWaterProjects.org>. The department has extensive GIS maps showing details such as quality and age of their facilities.  If you have brown water, call Durham One Call.  Fire code sets the minimum pressure that has to be available at any place.  In term of future demand, the strategy is (1) interconnections to other systems, (2) allocation from Jordan Lake (the Cape Fear basin seems to be less drought-sensitive than the Neuse), and (3) more efficient fixtures to that growth in demand is a lot less than growth in population.  There are discussions of a regional water treatment plant on Jordan Lake to Durham, OWASA and west Chatham.

The treasurer’s report was a reminder to pay dues.

The Committee for Neighborhood Heroes 2018 is looking at ways to consolidate and preserve records of past awards.

John Martin reported that a steering committee is meeting as a result of the grant to plan the Durham Belt Line, a potential rail-trail going north from downtown.  It is a 100-foot-wide strip, so could be a lot more than just a trail.  They are looking for a better name.

Neighborhood announcements

  *   The kick-off celebration of the West Ellerbee Creek Phase II Trail will be June 1 at 12 noon, at Westover Park on Maryland Avenue.
  *   Check out Rock the Park events at https://durhamnc.gov/1014/Rock-the-Park-Concert-Movie-Series
  *   Tuscaloosa-Lakewood has a study group participating in Spirit House's Durham Reads program, focusing on racism.

Note: Over e-mail after the meeting, it was decided that the candidate forums would be Thursday October 12th (mayoral candidates) and Thursday September 14th (council candidates).

April Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham
NIS Conference Room, Golden Belt
April 28, 2017

Attending the meeting were:
Neighborhoods
Colony Park – Don Lebkes
Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen
Falconbridge – Dick Ford
Golden Belt – DeDreana Freeman
Lochaven Hills – Tom Buhrman
Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias
Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo
Northgate Park – Debra Hawkins
Orange Factory Road – Patrick and Marie Mahoney
Parkwood – Janet Hitti
Old North Durham –Peter Katz, John Martin
Trinity Park – Philip Azar

Visitors
Will Wilson – DOST
Lynwood D. Best – City of Durham, NIS
Jeffrey Sullivan – GoTriangle

Vice-president Peter Katz opened the meeting, and members introduced themselves.

John Martin moved approval of March minutes and this passed.

Jeffery Sullivan of GoTriangle gave a presentation on the transit plan. Growth is great, but brings challenges – congestion, changes in air quality, loss of open space, continued mobility and access to jobs and education for everyone, for example. Durham GoTriangle adopted a long-term plan in 2011, and Orange did in 2012; these combined plans include 85K more bus hours per year in next 5 years, bus facility improvements, bus lanes, a Hillsborough train station for Amtrak, and the rail projects. There have been a lot of changes to funding, such as not getting discretionary federal grants for buses and the state reducing their share of light rail from 25% to 10%; the overall impact is that local taxes will have to cover more of the costs and we will have to borrow more. We have a new plan as we have fleshed out some costs, finding out, for example, that the bus facilities will be more expensive than thought in 2011.  The presentation can be downloaded from this link: http://ourtransitfuture.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/0301H_INC_PRES_Durham-County-Transit-Plan.pdf

The Committee for Neighborhood Heroes 2018 is looking at past rewards so we don’t honor the same thing twice (although the same person can be nominated for different things).

As a follow-up on the Lochaven Resolution, City Council decision was postponed until June so folks still have opportunities to support the neighborhood.  A number of strategy suggestions were made by members present.

As a follow-up on Future of Durham Neighborhoods presentation last month. DeDreana is looking at a panel on water for next month.   The slides from the presentation are at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3N_jj7xeljcaEc2WHg0UHQyOVE

Pat Carstensen will send out a report on Bill Board Revisions to Outdoor Adverting Laws  (H 579, H 580, H 173, H 578 and H 581), five bills under consideration in the NC General Assembly that would help the industry.

Orange Factory Road – A charter school on Little River Reservoir got a special use permit; the school for hundreds of students will be using a septic system. The neighborhood is appealing and could use technical help.  Their website is https://orangefactoryroad.wixsite.com/mysite.

Neighborhood announcements

  *   The renovations on the historic house that was going to be torn down in Old North Durham are nearly finished and it looks beautiful. The pocket neighborhood that was supposed to be gorgeous, done by the developer who was going to tear down the house, looks like it is from East Germany. We need to do better at insisting on attractive design of apartments.
  *   The second of the season Northgate Park Food Truck Rodeo is this week.
  *   The Beaver Queen Pageant is coming up. There are 6 contestants and voting (or bribing) is open. http://beaverqueen.swellgives.com
  *   One final Yappy Hour at Durham Central Park is coming up.

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