[Durham INC] FW: Draft May minutes

Sun Jun 3 21:41:52 EDT 2012

I am resending with a correction in the attendance list.  Regards, pat

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April
Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

NIS Conference Room, Golden Belt

May 22, 2012

Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Bay Point – Kevin Fortin

Colony Park – Don Lebkes

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Downing Creek – Dick Ford

Duke Park – Bill Anderson, Ian
Kipp

Falconbridge Community
Association – Rosemarie Kitchin

Golden Belt – John Martin,
DeDreana Freeman

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Magnolia Place – Darius Little

Old East Durham – Chloe’
Palenchar

Old North Durham – Pete Katz,
Nary Anne McDonald

Old West Durham – Eric Heidt

Parkwood – Mike Brooks

Trinity Park – Philip J. Azar

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan
Sewell 

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Mike
Woodard

Wood Lake – Robbie Willmarth

Woodcroft – Scott Carter

Visitors 

Beth Timson – City of Durham,
Parks and Rec

Lynwood D. Best – City of
Durham, NIS

Laura Drey – Duke Forest
(formerly Trinity Park)

John Martin called the meeting to order, and delegates and
visitors introduced themselves.  Rosemarie moved to approve the April minutes, Don seconded, and motion carried.

Lynwood Best asked delegates to complete the NIS Survey on how well the department
is doing – are they correct in their opinion of themselves?  There will be a SurveyMonkey version on
the web soon.

Motorco is interested in hosting the Neighborhood Hero Awards, but we need to nail down details of venue
and date before we start asking for nominations.  The committee is still planning on having the event in late
October, so nominations will open in early summer (probably with an ad in the Herald-Sun).

There was an extended discussion of a Membership Drive Task Force, capitalizing on the visibility from
the candidate forum and the hero awards. 
There are 2 different ways to do this: 

·      
Increase the participation of organized neighborhoods
(by, for example, sending an e-mail about what we do to neighborhoods on
various lists, or to approach Morgan Associates, which manages many HOAs), or

·      
Increase general awareness of what we do (by, for
example, having a banner and recruiting at events in Durham).  

One caution is to make sure that we have finished the
process of ensuring that having many neighborhoods abstaining on an issue will
not keep us from making decisions.  
Pat moved to form a committee co-chaired by Dick and Darius; Rosemarie
seconded and the motion passed. 
The following people also volunteered to help: John, Susan (to the
extent of writing a recruiting e-mail), Don (depending on the time commitment),
Kevin (if it can be done over e-mail).

John and Peter closed the Wells Fargo bank account, but in the process of opening an account at Self-Help
found that they charge even non-profits $5/month – which amounts to the dues of
more than 2 neighborhoods each year. 
They will investigate whether the fee can be waived or another bank
would be better.

Stormwater has come back to council with a report on
replacing the Duke Diet and Fitness
Center with a constructed wetland to handle run-off from downtown and other
parts of Durham; this run-off eventually ends up in Falls Lake.  The Fitness Center has a gym, a pool,
and lots of features.  About 40% of
the site is in a floodplain.  The
site sits between Trinity Park and Old North Durham.  One question is whether there is some solution that keeps
the building.  We need a process
that is not just trying to maximize how much water is handled, but is
multi-disciplinary and looks at opportunity cost in the bigger picture.

Laura Drey talked about the major dirt-moving and
tree-cutting Duke is doing on Duke University Road; they are making a wetland to stop the collapse
of Duke University Road and treat run-off from their campus.  They had talked about doing “stream
restoration” at a meeting 2 years ago, but what they are doing is a long way
from what the neighbors expected based on the pictures shown then.  

Laura and Philip talked about
the remedial action activities at the “BBT
site,” a former dry cleaner that closed in 1975.  The state is cleaning up a plume of the dry cleaning
chemical PERC by removing soil from the site, which is at Club and Watts.  See  http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/wm/2012-bbt-site-updates.  The neighborhood has worked intensely
to make sure renters, DATA riders who use a near-by bus stop, and others are
told if the air quality at the property is such that folks should limit their
time outside in the area.

Beth Timson of Parks and Rec
made the following announcements:

·      
They are starting the
process of updating the master plan, which will play a large part in
determining Parks and Recreation priorities for the next decade or so, and are
forming a Steering Committee for the process.  They are looking for 12-15 people from diverse backgrounds
and different parts of Durham. Mike Woodard suggested that INC endorse a
candidate or candidates for the Steering Committee; let John Martin know if you
are interested or know someone who would be good.  The application should be on the website.

·      
Durham's Elmira
Avenue Park (540 Elmira Ave.) basketball courts
have been selected a one out of 25 courts nationwide to receive grant funding
for refurbishments through the 2012 Sprite Spark Parks
Project.  How much we get depends
on how many people vote; you can vote daily until May 31 at
SpriteSparkParks.com and use the community code SPRITEPARKDUR.

·      
Come out this summer to
the concert series of the movie series. 
Details on page 23 of PlayMore Guide at www.dprPlayMore.org. 

Announcements, reports, and miscellaneous news

·      
The Beaver Pageant is June 2.

·      
SEEDS’s Doughman Race is May 26 (http://www.doughman.org/race/2012/info).

·      
Two bike-related announcements from Scott:  The Tour de Fat on June 23 will be a
really fun event, and work will begin on June 11 on the last phase of the
American Tobacco Trail, including the bridge over I-40.

·      
Come to the Historic Fitzgerald Cemetery event on
Memorial Day (10-12 on May 28).  http://paulimurrayproject.org/save-the-date-may-28-historic-fitzgerald-family-cemetery-cermony/

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