INC NEWS - DRAFT April minutes, May meeting

[pat carstensen]

The May meeting will be May 22.  I'll send out an agenda soon.

Below are the DRAFT April minutes.  Because there is a correction to the 
March minutes, I have included the corrected minutes too.

Regards, pat

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Inter-Neighborhood Council
www.DurhamINC.org
Minutes of Meeting of April 24, 2007

REPRESENTATIVES PRESENT
David Harris	Old Farm Neighborhood Association
Shelley Geyer	Durham County Library -- North
Amanda Arrington	N. Garrett Road
Janet Hitti	Parkwood
Colin Crossman	Walltown
Bill Kalkhof	DDI
Randy Pickle	Forest Hills
Emily Wienstein	Solterra
Melissa Rooney	Fairfield
Barry Ragin	Duke Park NA
Bobbe Deason	Morehead Hills NA
Craigie Sanders	Grove Park
Pat Carstensen	Cross County
Joe Chambliss	Forest Hills Neighborhood Assoc.
Jim Ellenson	Old North Durham

Introductions – President David Harris opened the meeting.  Members 
introduced themselves.

Downtown Durham – Bill Kalkhof of Downtown Durham Inc talked about what is 
happening downtown – though defining "downtown" is one of the open questions 
in their work at a revised master plan.  He talked about the charettes to 
get ideas about connectivity and major development sites (see 
www.downtowndurham.com/Master_Plan_Charrettes.111.0.html) and the on-line 
survey.  He also talked about all the investments going downtown (see 
www.downtowndurham.com/assets/FlashMap/revitalizationhighlights.html)

Other Items
1. The minutes were approved with the addition that the chair identified 
neighborhoods and declared a quorum, and there were no objections.  The 
treasurer's report was accepted.
2. Library – There will be a community workshop on future plans on May 
18-19.  If you want to participate in the workshop or the on-line 
discussion, see dclstrategicplan.pbwiki.com
3. Development Review Process – There will be a presentation of 
recommendations to the JCCPC on April 30.  See 
www.ci.durham.nc.us/departments/manager/drp/.
4. Newsletter sharing – We are working at getting some more-or-less timeless 
articles on the INC website.  If you have topical articles, you should send 
them to the list-serve.
5. New business – Old North Durham brought up a concern about the way the 
city decides to demolish properties – are there new ideas on using instead 
of losing them?
6. You can e-mail pictures of code violations, etc. to Durham One Call.  
They figure out whether the picture should go to code enforcement, police, 
or whatever.  You don’t need to testify.  But don’t trespass while taking 
pictures
7. Events – Duke Park’s Beaver Queen Pageant will be June 2.  There is a 
Sierra Club urban hike on April 30.   There will be a code enforcement and 
impact fee workshops.

The meeting was adjourned


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InterNeighborhood Council
www.DurhamINC.org
Minutes of Meeting of February 28, 2007

REPRESENTATIVES PRESENT
David Harris	Old Farm Neighborhood Association
Carolyn Paige	APS of Durham
Marguerite Ward	Forest At Duke
Ken Gasch	Colonial Village
Kevin Davis	Trinity Park
Lynwood Best	Neighborhood Improvement Services
Randy Pickle	Forest Hills
Risa Foster	Trinity Heights
Annette Smith	Durham Parks and Recreation
Bill Anderson	Duke Park
Melissa Rooney	Fairfield
Cheryl Shiflett	Northgate Park NA
Michael Shiflett	Northgate Park NA
Sandra Sebbas	Durham County Library
Larry Hall	NC House
Julie Brenman	City of Durham
Pam Meyer	County of Durham
Pat Carstensen	Cross County

Introductions – President David Harris opened the meeting.  Members 
introduced themselves.

City and County Budget – A number of requests were made: OneCall for County 
departments, security at water treatment plants, P2C (police to community), 
truancy reduction, and the library.  Getting comments in early (especially 
at Coffee with Council) is better than waiting until they are almost ready 
to pass a budget.  We will look into having a “Coffee with Council / Cookies 
with the Commissioners” as part of INC meeting next year.  Infrastructure 
needs for Durham schools are not growing as fast as in Wake County, but 
charter schools are growing and they get the same operating money per 
student as those run by DPS.

INC Logo – David Harris identified neighborhoods and declared a quorum;  
there were no objections.  Bill moved and Mike seconded adopting a new INC 
logo.  Randy pointed out that the proposed logo says “InterNeighborhood” 
where a lot of things (INC checks, website, etc) have “Inter-Neighborhood” 
or “Inter Neighborhood,” and it would be expensive to change everything.  
Pat proposed an amendment, which passed, that we should keep existing 
materials and just use the new logo on new things (when we write letters, on 
agendas, for new INC stuff, etc), phasing in logo over time.  The amended 
motion passed 8-2.

Pace Car Program – Participants sign a pledge to drive the speed limit, stop 
at stop signs, and generally be nice; they then display a “sticker” on their 
cars.  Neighborhoods are encouraged to publicize the program.  It was felt 
that it would be easier to get folks to sign up if they could do it on the 
web.  David will send out information to the list-serve.

Tenant Training Video – No vote taken because not enough people has seen it.

Property Managers and Community Crime Prevention Initiative – We want to 
build on the success of eviction program for drug cases.  Ken, Chuck, and 
Bill will work on a proposal.


Other Items
1. We approved the February minutes.  We received the treasurer’s report 
that as of 3/27/07, we had $545.07 in checking and $2117.09 in savings.  
Dues are officially past due if your neighborhood hasn’t paid them by 
Saturday.
2. Parks and Recreation has a lot of things going on: a public meeting on 
Durham Athletic Park, egg hunts in lots of parks, Earth Day on April 21, and 
Bimbe Festival.
3. Representative Larry Hall presented a Certificate of Appreciation to Mike 
Shifflett for all his volunteer work from the NC Legislature.
4. On the strategic plan for the library, there are “best practices bus 
trips” to Virginia on April 12 and Greensboro on April 24.  The trip to 
Charlotte was very useful.  There is also a panel presentation on May 10 and 
conference on May 18-19.  Please contact Sandra Sebbas if you are interested 
in participating.
5. If you want to be on the committee looking a fairness for property 
purchased for the Ease End Connector, please let David know.
6. We have collected some articles to put into a newsletter-article-sharing 
area of our website.  We are working on getting them into HTML for the 
website.  The collection will let different neighborhoods reuse good writing 
or at least get ideas for articles.
7. The Animal Protection Society of Durham is a non-profit that runs the 
shelter.  They are growing and getting new committees.  Paws to Recycle is 
collecting cans to support the shelter.  Walk for the Animals will be May 
19. See www.apsofdurham.org/
8. Neighborhood Improvement Services is continuing to work on an approach 
for a system for rental inspections.
9. Neighborhood Heroes celebration will happen again this year, so start 
thinking about your neighborhood’s heroes.
10. National Night Out 2007 will be August 7.  Registration has started and 
we want to have a really good show this year.
11. There are some fun neighborhood walks coming up: John Schelp is leading 
one in West Durham on March 31, Andre Vann is leading one on April 28, and 
we will be doing StepItUp on April 14.

The meeting was adjourned.

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