[Durham INC] DRAFT February Minutes

[Pat Carstensen]

Please let me know about corrections or additions.  Regards, pat

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February
Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

NIS Conference Room, Golden Belt

February 26, 2013

 

Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Birchwood – Lisa Richmond

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Downing Creek – Dick Ford

Duke Park – Bill Anderson, Ian
Kipp

Eagles’ Pointe – Donna Rudolph

Fairfield – Melissa Rooney

Falconbridge Community
Association – Rosemarie Kitchin

Golden Belt – DeDreana Freeman

Long Meadow Neighborhood
Association – Pakis Bessias, Sheri Tibbs

Morehead Hill – Carole King,
Susan Callaghan

Northgate Park – Debra Hawkins,
Mike Shiflett

Old East Durham – Chloe’
Palenchar

Old North Durham – Peter Katz,
John Martin

Stage Stop – Dorothy Croom,
Dolly B. Fehrenbacher

Trinity Park – Philip Azar

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell


Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom
Miller, Mike Woodard

Woodcroft – Scott Carter


Woodlake – Robbie Willmarth

 

Visitors 

Lynwood D. Best – City of
Durham, NIS

John Killeen – City of Durham,
NIS

Nick Allen – City of Durham, NIS

Rukea Womack – City of Durham,
Parks and Recreation

Jim Wise – N & O

Will Wilson – DOST

Akira Morita – Orangutan Swing

Steve Cohn – Ellerbe Creek
Watershed Assn.

Tania Dautlick – Keep Durham
Beautiful 

 

 

John Martin called the meeting to order, and delegates and
visitors introduced themselves.  Tom Miller moved and Mike Shiflett seconded
that we approve the January minutes; this was passed.

 

Mike Shiflett moved and Tom
Miller seconded the resolution on urban
trails (see Appendix A); this passed with a voice vote.  One concern is that the next phase on
the Ellerbe Creek Trail just needs funding ($700K from the City to get over $1M
in matching federal funds), and it would be nice to be bringing both the Coffee
with Council.  However, it was
decided to consider a resolution on this trail at the March meeting.  See Appendix B.

 

John Killeen spoke briefly on
the Neighborhood Vitality Index that
is being developed.  It will have
metrics on quality of life and service delivery at the block and neighborhood
level.  One use will be helping the
City choose areas where service needs to be improved, but they expect there to
be other uses, including some by the general public.  Mr. Killeen would like to have continuing engagement on
questions like, “what other metrics would be useful?”  There was concern that the metrics might make some
neighborhoods look less desirable.

 

Akira Morita gave a
presentation on STITCH, which is a community-wide event series weaving Durham's people,
art, and local civic, economic and public scenes. It started with a question
put to Durhamites: What one word encapsulates your hope for Durham? Right now (during
the meeting and on line for the rest of the week) we are voting on the “best”
50 words, which local artists and volunteers will turn into works of art and art
events (such as a community "sew-in" to co-create a large-scale
tapestry of words).  More
information is at http://orangutanswing.com/.

 

John Martin explained three says to act on our priorities:

·      
Legislative – Something to ask of City Council, the
Board of County Commissioners, some agency, etc.

·      
Informational – Something worth having presentations
to INC on

·      
Committee work – Something we need to form a
committee to study

It was noted that we already have internal commitments to do
a Candidate Forum in the fall and some kind of multi-neighborhood party.  The priorities (and votes) are as
follow.  I did a small amount of
grouping.

·      
Speed enforcement on streets (6)

·      
Traffic calming , education (0)

·      
More sidewalks, sidewalk repair (6)

·      
Bond for trails (5)

·      
Trail safety (0)

·      
Trash in waterways (5)

·      
Integrate waterways into neighborhoods (3)

·      
Park and public space maintenance / appearance (8)

·      
Quality of street paving / pavenator report (1)

·      
Improve bus routes (2)

·      
Monitor mass transit and issues (separation study,
development around rail) (4)

·      
Nuisance (ABC stores, barking dogs, bad rentals)
abatement (8)

·      
Parking in front yards (0)

·      
Illegal parking, enforcement on (1)

·      
Illegally posted signs (0)

·      
NIS check-in (0)

·      
Unlicensed group homes (2)

·      
Update review of UDO (9)

·      
Citizen education on planning (5)

·      
Sticking with Comprehensive Plan (1)

·      
Education and effect of charter schools (1)

·      
Food security (1)

·      
Increase diversity of affordable housing within
neighborhoods (2)

·      
Neighborhood unique identity (1)

·      
Partner with local orgs / liaison (9)

·      
Membership and neighborhood formation (3)

·      
Information collection (for youth, new residents,
etc.) (1)

·      
Association / board member training (4)

·      
Interconnect with /among neighborhoods – awareness,
not re-inventing wheels, etc.  (1)

·      
Local business promotion / Sustainabull (2)

Some of the priorities mentioned are more internal, for
allocating INC resources more than asking the city /county / etc.  

 

Dick Ford gave an update from
the Membership Committee.  The letter and brochure on the
advantages of joining INC are much improved, but they got another round of comments
on the brochure, so there will be some more tweaks.  They are pretty close to being ready to move forward to
reach out to “lost” members and neighborhoods that submitted nominees for Hero
Awards.  Thanks to Don and Dick.

 

Birchwood Heights is a neighborhood of
about 200 single-family homes off Highway 98.  It was originally built by the Durham Housing Authority in
the 1980’s.  The houses were sold
to individual owners sometime later, and a Homeowners’ Association formed to
take care of property, including a Community Center.  Mike Shiflett will help them set up a meeting with CAI folks
to talk about Birchwood Heights’ management questions.

 

Major changes to the UDO that allegedly eliminate planning discretion go
to City Council on March 18th; the changes eliminate the Development
Review Board (DRB) but leave a lot of choices up to planners.  We have always been concerned about the
due process in this – notification, discussion and appeal – for neighbors.  One specific example that was brought
in was that the DRB has had the ability to approve disguised cell towers, and
even though there was no way to account for concerns not enumerated in the UDO,
such as nearby gas mains, at least neighbors had a forum to which to bring
their concerns.   The
Tuscaloosa-Lakewood Neighborhood Protection Overlay also involved a lot of DRB
decisions.  Mike Shiflett moved,
and DeDreana Freeman seconded, that we ask
Council for a postponement and form a committee to comment on these
changes.  This passed, and the
committee consists of Tom Miller, DeDreana Freeman, Pat Carstensen, Will
Wilson, and Susan Sewell.

 

The continuing saga of the mailboxes is that although Post Office
management said that a person in Old East Durham didn’t need to move his box to
the curb, the carrier was refusing to deliver mail for 5 days to the existing
box.  There’s no way we can know if
that carrier is going to be appropriately punished.

 

Announcements, reports, and miscellaneous news

·      
Pat Carstensen said John Schelp’s West Durham hike
will be April 13th this year and there will be a lawn clinic on
March 30th.  

·      
Debra Hawkins from Northgate Park said their food
truck rodeos will start on the 4th Thursday, 5 to 8 PM.






Appendix
A: Resolution on Urban Trails

 

Whereas, our
current trail system is a treasured asset to the citizens of Durham, which
provides a source of healthy enjoyment and recreation, as well as an
alternative to fossil fuels means of transportation, and


Whereas, abandoned
railroad lines currently are acting as avenues for criminals to reach our
houses, and


Whereas, an
actively used walking trail is a far better thing to have running between our
neighborhoods than an abandoned railroad line,


Therefore, the
InterNeighborhood Council of Durham urges the wise organizations and elected
officials who are working toward this outstanding effort to add more walking
trails in the City of Durham. This includes efforts to purchase the Duke
Beltline or other abandoned track, and urges the railroad officials to come
walk the potential trails.






Appendix B: Resolution on West Ellerbe Creek Trail Extension

 

WHEREAS the long-desired
West Ellerbee Creek Trail Extension (also known as West Ellerbee Creek Trail,
Phase II, or WEC2) has its approved site plan and is ready to move into the
construction process;

 

AND WHEREAS this is an
important piece in the creation of a full and interlinked Durham greenway
system, connecting the now-isolated but very popular existing section of the
West Ellerbe Creek Trail to the entire Durham trail system by bringing the
trail along the creek from Maryland Avenue at Westover Park (where the West
Ellerbee Creek Trail now ends), across Guess Road (with a powerful
pedestrian-activated HAWK signal to stop the traffic on Guess), under I-85
(there is already a tunnel in place), through North Pointe (between Costco and
Home Depot, with another HAWK signal to get people across North Pointe Drive),
and then along a pretty stretch of the creek all the way to the intersection of
Broad Street and Stadium Drive, where it will meet the North-South Greenway and
link into the existing trail network;


AND WHEREAS adding this
piece of trail will encourage walking and riding bikes in Durham, and will
contribute to citizens more frequently choosing these alternate forms of
transportation versus driving in their cars;


AND WHEREAS the City staff
in the Department of Parks and Recreation and in General Services have
advocated that the trail construction be funded this year, saying “This project
has high citizen interest and when ranked by citizens, greenway trail
connections (i.e., off-road bicycle and pedestrian transportation routes) are
consistently ranked as their highest priority in desired
recreation/transportation facilities (56% selected it as the most important in
our 2012 survey, and 55% said they used trails regularly)”;


AND WHEREAS matching funds
of well over $1 million are being offered immediately for this project by the
federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program, provided that the City
Council can appropriate $700,000 as its share of the construction budget;


AND WHEREAS, if the City
funds are not appropriated in the 13/14 budget, the construction will be
delayed until some later year, and then the opportunity for federal matching
funds may eventually be lost;

 

NOW, THEREFORE, the
InterNeighborhood Council of Durham strongly urges the City Council to include
the full $700,000 of needed funding in the City’s 13/14 capital improvements
(CIP) budget.

 		 	   		  
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