[Durham INC] Draft INC minutes

[Pat Carstensen]

Please let me know about changes or additions.

The Nov/December minutes are also below since we didn't approve them last week.

Regards, pat


January Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

Via Zoom

January 26, 2021



Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Braggtown -- Constance Wright, Vannessa Evans

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Falconbridge – Richard Ford

Forest Hills – Sarah Morris

Merritt-Moore -- Bonita Green

Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo, Bruce Mitchell

Northgate Park – Keith Cochran, Debra Hawkins

Old West Durham – David Eklund

Trappers Creek / Greymoss – Will Wilson

Trinity Park – Philip Azar, Mimi Kessler

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller


Andrew Foster -- Duke Law School


Visitors

Annette Smith -- Durham Parks and Recreation

DeDreanna Freeman

Lisa Miller -- Planning

Kayla Seibel -- Planning


President Will Wilson called the meeting to order, and those present introduced themselves.  There were no adjustments to the agenda.  The minutes went out after the last meeting, but did not get re-sent earlier, so we will look at approving them in February.


Bylaws Rewrite -- Andrew Foster teaches a clinic at Duke University on “community enterprises;” at clinics, students get experience while giving free legal advice within the community.  If we worked with them, he would assign a student to work with INC to work on governance, by-laws or other legal matters.  Understanding our options on getting advice, we then started going through the existing by-laws.  One issue is the definition of qualified neighborhoods, in terms of the formality of the neighborhood, especially if we are trying to do outreach across Durham, as well as keeping an equity lens on the definition.  There are also challenges about how to amend the by-laws, how to take positions, and how to compute a quorum.  We used to be more assiduous in checking whether member neighborhoods satisfy the criteria for being a member.  We would also want to look at creating resources that neighborhoods trying to organize can use.  Because Duke students work in semesters, it would be better to do at least a “chuck” of work that finished by May, but there are ways to work around this.  Tom made two motions: one to charter a subcommittee and one to engage the Duke Law Clinic; Suan seconded.  Both passed 9-0.  Philip moved to delegate to the Will the task to appoint members and lead the committee.  This passed 9-0.  Volunteers will include Philip, David, WIll, Tom, and Bonita.


Update Comprehensive Plan Draft Goals -- A subcommittee had 4 meetings to talk about it.  Kayla Seibel and Lisa Miller of the Planning Department joined the meeting.  One question that came up within the subcommittee a lot was a “check-list” of what “neighborhood support” is near a proposed development such as the nearest grocery store, meeting space and so on so we can evaluate whether there is or will be a “deficit.”  We would like to see Community Planning like there is Community Policing -- engagement that is on-going rather than case-related.  Generally there is no goal that is about “improving processes” in the draft.  What parts of the present  Comprehensive Plan failed, and why, so we don’t repeat them, and are we throwing out major ideas (like tiers) in the current plans?  Obviously now that light-rail is off the table, the geographic organizing ideas of our community might be changing.  The equity aspects and getting beyond cars are good ideas.  When it gets down to implementation, we want to see how the issues identified get resolved.  How the goals interact could be clearer.  We need to sharpen regulations rather than weaken them, to know how / whether the can evolve, to see how to do we resolve conflicts among goals, and to figure how we can increase “community capital.”  The engagement process needs to do better at listening to parts of the community that hasn’t been heard before, rather than others saying what they think such communities want or need.  The next steps once goals are adopted for the plan will be to drill down to having policies under the goals and objectives, and to create a new land-use map. The new Plan should be clearer about what is a policy to be followed and what is more like guidance.  The objectives needs to reflect what was said about the wants/needs of the community, while being realistic about what a plan can affect (so some things may be communicated to elected officials that don’t get into the plan as pretty tangential to land-use, and some will take non-governmental actors to achieve).  The goal is to get the objectives adopted by June 30, so need to have comments in on the goals by February 19.  The comments should give some kind of scale of agreement with specific goals -- is it great, OK with changes, or totally wrong-headed.  Planning is working with NIS to use their tools and processes on engagement.  What does equity look like in terms of process and results; how do we tackle gentrification in ways that work for all?  We will try to get out a document for folks to review -- make sure Will has your address if you want it.


Development Update -- Merritt-Moore and their neighbors will be at City Council on Monday at the hearing on the proposed development of 320 homes in their areas.  The developer has worked on putting in stormwater / flooding control, but the big remaining issue is the safety along Cheek Road and other infrastructure questions.  Other concerns include that the it will increase property taxes of those what have been there and sedimentation.  The proposed development is just crammed in without any sense of community.  Please come to the meeting to support the neighborhoods or send a note of support.


Braggtown is also asking for a small area plan, which would be good idea.


Treasurer’s report -- 5 neighborhoods have sent in dues, so please send yours in soon.


We are still looking for a Vice-President.


Adjourn.





________________________________
From: INC-list <inc-list-bounces at lists.deltaforce.net> on behalf of Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2020 6:55 AM
To: inc listserv <inc-list at lists.deltaforce.net>; Best, Lynwood <Lynwood.Best at durhamnc.gov>
Subject: [Durham INC] Nov/Dec draft minutes

Please let me know about changes or additions.  Thanks, pat



November/December Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

Via Zoom

December 9, 2020



Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Falconbridge – Richard Ford

Forest Hills – Sarah Morris

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo

Northgate Park – Keith Cochran

Old West Durham – David Eklund

Trappers Creek / Greymoss – Will Wilson

Trinity Park – Mimi Kessler

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller


Visitors

Lynwood Best – Neighborhood Improvement Services (NIS), City of Durham

Constance Stancil – NIS

Faith Gardner – NIS

Eli Meyerhoff – North Durham Mutual Aid

Lucia Constantine – Old North Durham Mutual Aid



President Will Wilson called the meeting to order, and those present introduced themselves.  There were no adjustments to the agenda. Tom moved and Sarah seconded to approve the September and October minutes; this passed.


The Equitable Community Engagement Blueprint is at

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/durhamnis/pages/592/attachments/original/1543332399/Draft_Equitable_Engagement_Blueprint_%2818%29_11.06.pdf?1543332399

Neighborhood Improvement Services (NIS) has been working on the Equitable Engagement Blueprint since 2018.  NIS will be taking the most recent version to Council, which has “accepted” it but now needs to “adopt” it as a mandate to all departments; NIS wants to consult the community first, conducting conversations with different populations in Durham.  The first equitable engagement plan was done to make more equitable engagement about the Durham Beltline, but once the process was developed, it was seen there was an opportunity to make it into a blueprint to use in other cases in which the city wants community comment and engagement.  The effort involves building more openness within (17 other departments) and outside (finding out where and why people haven’t been involved in the past) the government. NIS used the blueprint in a number of projects in engaging the community, such as asking what to do with the Driver Street property.  They are now doing some training of community partners to have them work as partners in community engagement. In doing research, they learned about building trust -- that it is important to be honest about what “parameters” the public can really affect and that engagement has to be an on-going process, not just started when a project comes up.  Other keys are to remove barriers (for example, provide child care) and to collect / analyze data.  Ultimately engagement is the willingness to share power, instead of listening and nodding and then do what you were going to do anyhow; this is a culture change that will be a challenge.  When asked for feedback from city departments, neighborhoods need to ask whether that department is using the Engagement Guidelines and if not, why not; also we should be asking whether a consultant who doesn’t have the a rich set of connections across the city is really necessary.  We want to encourage not only the city talking to the community, but also the community discussing among themselve.  The LED lights and trees controversies show the value to talking to the community first.


Sarah Morris, Eli Meyerhoff and Lucia Constantine shared information about Durham Mutual Aid.  Durham Mutual Aid is about how neighbors can support neighbors, with solidarity not charity.  The types of help can include food distribution, financial help, and emotional support.  In disaster relief, often the first responders are neighbors, before government helps.  There were at one point 12 active mutual aid groups in Durham; but with mergers and other changes, there are now 5-6 active.  Old North Durham / Duke Park Mutual Aid did flyers and a survey, and learned less about needs and more about offers to help.  They then did door-to-door outreach handing out free masks.  They got over $3000 in Food Lion gift cards for families at Durham Nativity School, gave 52 households $300 in rent relief, and “re-distributed” stimulus check money to 4 families.   They also did some non-financial things.  North Durham Mutual Aid (Northgate Park and Colonial VIllage) has reached outside the formal boundaries of their neighborhoods, such as to the big apartment building west of the neighborhood.  They are delivering groceries to 10-12 families bi-weekly, with 20-30 families having gotten food this year; they have also done some help with rent.  They were engaged in North Durham Alternatives to Policing as a way to use mutual aid as an alternative to calling the police.  They are trying to figure out how to be more sustainable, and trying to get the recipients more involved to create a more democratic model.  If you want to get involved, there is great guide from AOC’s office, donate to Bull City Mutual Aid cash fund, and check out the website durhammutualaid.org.  Generally the Mutual Aid groups are simply clearing-houses between those with need and those wanting to help.  Long Meadow has had a non-financial mutual aid group for a long time.


OLD BUSINESS


Development Project updates -- A neighborhood meeting was scheduled to look at changing the zoning for a single property from the suburban to the urban tier; we don’t know enough to decide what we think about it.   The City has decided to do a small area plan in the Olive Branch Road area; the Planning Commission has been turning down proposals in area because the proposals have been so pitiful, not looking forward to what suburban development could be with better standards, but isn’t against development in the area.  The Planning Commission is asserting itself in a way it has never done before; the Policy Committee is coming up with its own ideas about how the rules can be better (initially, block lengths in new subdivisions).  There will be an opening on the Planning Commission if you want to apply.


Dues will be due in January.


Susan moved to adjourn.  Tom seconded and we adjourned.



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.deltaforce.net/pipermail/inc-list/attachments/20210202/fe826608/attachment.htm>