INC NEWS - DRAFT November Minutes

[pat carstensen]

Inter-Neighborhood Council
www.DurhamINC.org
Minutes of Meeting of November 29, 2005

REPRESENTATIVES PRESENT
Fred Mowry	West Glen
Ken Gasch	Colonial Village
Nancy Grandjean	Northgate Park
Jay Reinstein	City of Durham, Solid Waste Management
Donna Monroe	Lassiter Street NA
Anne Guyton	ColonialVillage
Rosemarie Kitchin	Falconbridge
Stacey Poston	City of Durham
Mike Woodard	WHHNA
Bill Anderson	Duke Park
Michael Shiflett	Northgate Park NA
Cheryl Shiflett	Northgate Park NA
Myers Sugg	Tuscaloosa Lakewood
Randy Pickle	Forest Hills
Earl Hoke 	US Postal Service
Chris Tinkham	US Postal Service, ctinkham at email.usps.gov, 321.4530
Pat Carstensen	Cross County
Jane Clunie	Placid Valley
Annette Smith	Durham Parks and Rec
Melissa Rooney	Fairfield

Introductions – President Mike Woodard opened the meeting.  Members 
introduced themselves.

Postal Issues – Chris Tinkham, the Durham Postmaster, said that the Postal 
Service can’t make you move your mailbox, but may ask you to make their 
delivery easier (so they don’t encounter dogs, don’t need to mix curbside 
and house-side, etc).  Every move of mailboxes requires signature of the 
Postmaster.  There are lots of advantages to having a single locked box 
serving a cluster of homes.  If a neighborhood wants to get clustered boxes, 
the Postal Service will do a feasibility study to see if they get enough 
efficiencies to pay for providing the new boxes.  Garbage carts blocking 
mailboxes is a problem in cul de sacs.   Earl Hoke ("Big E") of the Postal 
Inspection Service gave some advice on preventing identity theft and told of 
some specific (scary) cases:
1. See their website: http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/
2. Don’t put outgoing bills in your mailbox; give to carrier or use 
collection box.
3. Have a relationship with your carrier.  Let them know when you are out of 
town.  They are trained to sort of keep an eye on neighborhoods on their 
routes.
4. Don’t send cash thru the mail, and don’t send in obvious envelopes (pink, 
etc.)
5. Pick your mail up as soon after delivery as possible.  Be aware of when 
different kinds of mail arrives (bad guys take mail from boxes and take what 
looks useful).
6. Check your credit reports (see appendix A); consider freezing your 
reports.
7. Shred your mail.
8. Avoid mail fraud schemes (if it sounds too good to be true…)
9. Get on "do not mail" lists to limit junk mail with your personal info on 
it (see Appendix A)
10. Use felt-tip pens to write checks (can’t be washed off).

Dues and Bylaws – We are updating bylaws on, for example, the period covered 
by dues.  If you want to be on the committee, contact Mike.

Immigrant Needs – Several neighborhoods are interested in getting Latinos 
more involved.  Immigrants have disadvantages due to language and culture, 
beyond general issue of lack of decent housing.  INC Executive Committee is 
recommending that INC take the lead in doing a video on rights and 
responsibilities of renters (expect to have reported problems fixed, mow 
your grass, etc.).  We will ask for support (money, ideas, content, 
contacts) from other groups (CAN, property managers, realtors, city TV, 
etc).  We voted to spend $500 from the education fund.  Contact Ken if you 
want to work on the committee.

Other Items
1. Pat will send out corrected minutes for October.
2. Dues for 2005-06 are now due.  We have $869.ee in checking and $2225.94 
in savings. We break even each year but could do more if we had more funds, 
so are looking for ways to raise more money.
3. There will be more of an update on yard waste next meeting.  They see a 
need to engage community on ways to pay for what we need to do.
4. We will put a request for more people to call-tree on the list-serve.
5. A version of the UDO will likely be passed on Dec. 5;  they will 
immediately start on work plan for fixing problems.
6. Annette from Parks and Rec reported there is a holiday party for mature 
adults.
7. PAC 2 has had good results on monitoring evictions for maintaining a 
dwelling for the purpose of selling drugs or attempting to sell drugs there. 
  Summary ejection could be extended to other PACs.
8. We are working on creating some INC Publicity Cards to point people to 
the INC extension team, which will help neighborhoods get organized.
9. On January 21, there will be an update on neighborhood watch, etc.

The meeting was adjourned.

Attachment A:  Mike Woodard’s notes, info on cutting off junk mail, info on 
credit checking


At INC's meeting on November 29, Durham Postmaster Chris Tinkham and USPS 
Postal Inspector Earl Holt spoke on a number of issues related to postal 
service.

Movement of mailboxes from houses to curbside:
Postmaster Tinkham said (directly quoting here), "The Postal Service cannot 
force you to move your mailbox." This pertains to homes where the mailbox is 
attached to the dwelling. Earlier this year, an interim postmaster 
authorized distribution of a memo to home owners requesting they move their 
mailboxes to the curb.

If homeowners moved their mailboxes based on this erroneous instruction and 
would like to move the box back to the house, they need to contact Tinkham. 
He will send a supervisor to review the request.

In new homes and subdivisions, delivery will be made only to curbside boxes 
or "cluster" boxes (central-delivery, secure boxes).

If customers are having issues with carriers not delivering to curbside 
boxes because of cars parking, they should contact Tinkham. He will have a 
supervisor look into the issue.

Tinkham's contact information
Email: ctinkham at email.usps.gov
Phone: 321.4530


Identity Protection:
Inspector Holt refers customers to his department's website for detailed 
information about identity theft. He shared these points.

1)     Put outgoing mail directly into streetside mailboxes or mail slots at 
the post office, or hand it directly to your mail carrier.
2)     Don't send cash through the mail. Holt was amazed at how many people 
still do this. Brightly colored envelopes (yellow, pink, light blue) are 
usually giveaways of birthday cards, which often contain cash.
3)     Pick up mail promptly after it is delivered. Don't leave it in your 
mailbox overnight.
4)     Be aware of the type of mail you're receiving and the cycle in which 
you're receiving it, i.e., when credit card bills, bank statements, various 
checks and payments come each month. Something may be wrong if you miss some 
of these types of mail.
5)     Don't use soluble ink when writing checks that you will mail. 
Criminals have chemicals they can use to take off the ink. Use ballpoint 
pens (they leave indentions on the check paper) or felt tip markers (their 
ink bleeds into the check paper).
6)     Tell the Post Office when you will be out of town.

You can request that the Direct Marketing Association remove your name from 
the database of addresses its member companies use to send direct mail 
solicitations. Note that not all direct mail marketers are members, but a 
good number of them are.

Mail Preference Service
Attn: Dept. 7488547
Direct Marketing Association
PO Box 282
Carmel, NY 10512-0282

Credit checking companies:
This is the site recommended by the FTC: 
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

Here are the numbers you always need to contact about your wallet, etc., has 
been stolen:
1.) Equifax:  1-800-525-6285
2.) Experian (formerly TRW): 1-888-397-3742
3.) Trans  Union: 1-800-680-7289
4.) Social Security Administration (fraud line):  1-800-269-0271