[Durham INC] DRAFT April mintues

Fri May 22 17:54:52 EDT 2015

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

April Delegate
Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

NIS Conference
Room, Golden Belt

April 28, 2015

Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Colony Park – Don Lebkes

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Downing Creek – Dick Ford

Duke Park – Bill Anderson

Fairfield – Steve Biccum

Golden Belt – DeDreana Freeman

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo

Northgate Park – Debra Hawkins

Old Farm – David Harris

Old North Durham – Peter Katz, John Martin

Old West Durham – Vicky Welch 

Stage Stop – Dolly Fehrenbacher

Trinity Park – Philip Azar, Carol Anderson, Chuck Eppinette

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell 

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller

Woodcroft –Jose Sandoval

Visitors 

John Killeen – City of Durham, NIS

Jim Wise – News and Observer 

Will Wilson – DOST 

Don Moffitt – City Council

Marissa Mortiboy – Durham County Department of Public Health

Pilar Rocha-Goldberg – Director of the Centro Hispano

Jesus Gutierrez – Habitat for the Humanity

President Phil Azar opened the meeting.  Members introduced themselves. There were no
changes to the agenda. 

Bill Anderson moved to approve the March minutes, DeDreana Freeman
seconded and delegates voted to do this. 

Treasurer Susan Sewell reported that 11 neighborhoods had paid their dues,
some with a further donation.   We have
not had any expenses so far this year and have a current balance of $4738.87.

Jose Sandoval, with Pilar Rocha-Goldberg and Jesus Gutierrez, gave an
overview of Hispanics in North Carolina and Durham, sharing information on what
the changing demographics mean for neighborhoods.  As clarification, “Hispanic” means someone whose
national origin is a country with Spanish as the official language, while
“Latino/a” adds folks from Brazil to “Hispanic.”  Durham is seen as a good place where people
are treated well, so more families are establishing homes here, even if some
members have to travel for work.  The
Hispanic population has been growing significantly since about 1990.  Of the 276,494 people in Durham, 37,021
(13.39%) are Hispanic, splitting as 21,785 (7.88%) Mexican, 2,125 Puerto Rican,
611 Cuban, and 12,500 (4.5%) other (mostly from other countries in Central
America).  About 2/5th of the
Hispanics were working in construction in 2004; with the construction downturn,
we saw a lot of new businesses started. 
In 2004, the economic impact of Hispanics in NC was $780M, so by now,
the impact is probably in the billions. The best guess is that about half of
the Hispanic population is “documented” – has a green card, is a citizen,
etc.   Both census statistics and DPS reports show
that a lot of Hispanics are poor.  If you
want a copy of the presentation and reports used to create it, please contact
Jose Sandoval at sandoval.jm11 at gmail.com.  There was consensus that materials such as the
INC brochure need to have culturally appropriate Spanish versions.

Marissa Mortiboy of Durham County Department of Public Health said that
the Durham health assessment is now available at http://www.healthydurham.org.  Information on the Hispanic residents begins
at page 665.

Durham is now engaged in discussing Duke Power’s radical tree
trimming.  Duke is cutting as much as 50%
of the canopy and butchering relatively young trees.  It is infuriating that staff did not even try
to enforce our rules (the 1982 ordinance) until citizens spoke up.  Duke will argue that other laws pre-empt
Durham’s ordinance; the city attorney is now working on figuring out how much
power we really have.

Reports

 Zoning and Development (cell towers) – We are in the home
     stretch, with governing bodies voting in May on the proposed update to the
     cell tower parts of the UDO.  There
     are some questions on standards for collocation.  The committee will send information to
     list-serve so folks can write to support our positions. 
 Zoning and Development (legislative) – There are lots of
     horrible bills, but in the interest of time, Tom Miller just reported on the
     protest petition legislation.  The
     bad bill passed the NC House, with the small sweeteners of grandfathering
     in any protest petitions filed before May 1st and giving
     neighborhoods at least 30 days notice so they have a little time to
     organize.  The bill is now in the
     Senate.  The good news is 4 or 5
     people across the state are interested in doing a state-wide neighborhood
     conference.  
 A new committee on minilots – They are expanding to look at
     compact neighborhoods as well. 

New Business

The Public Space and Environmental Issues Committee had some
of their coloring page at the Earth Day celebration; it was popular.  They asked for $50 for printing costs.  Bill Anderson moved, Tom Miller seconded, and
the motion passed. 

Neighborhood Reports

 The compact district
     meetings, with people getting to mark boundaries to the district on the
     map, have been interesting.
 Downing Creek is still
     concerned about transit plan’s impact on access to their neighborhood.
 May is Bike Month.
 The Beaver Queen Pageant
     is June 6; there are already opportunities to check out the contestants
     and bribe judges.  More information
     is at http://beaverlodgelocal1504.org.

 Tuscaloosa-Lakewood will
     be supporting the Guglhupf parking lot re-zoning because they have worked
     out adequate protection, but they are not abandoning the principle of
     compatible back yards.

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_______________________________________________
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http://lists.deltaforce.net/mailman/listinfo/inc-list 		 	   		  

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        Posted by: Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com>        

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