[Durham INC] Draft June Minutes

[Pat Carstensen]

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


June Delegate Meeting of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham

Via Zoom

June 28, 2022


Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Bragtown – Vannessa Mason Evans

Burch Avenue – Richard Ziglar

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen, Ed Harrison

Falconbridge – Dick Ford

Forest Hills – Sarah Morris

Leesville Road Coalition – Steven Knill

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Merrick-Moore – Bonita Green

Morehead Hill – Rochelle Araujo

Northgate Park – Keith Cochran

Old North Durham – Mimi O’Brien

Old West Durham – David Eklund

Trinity Park – Philip Azar, Mimi Kessler

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell

Watts Hospital Hillandale – Tom Miller



Guests

Will Wilson – Past President of INC

Alexis Luckey – Toxic Free NC

Leonardo Williams – Durham City Council

Deb Hawkins – INC Communications Committee

DeDreanna Freeman


President Bonita Green called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone; those present introduced themselves.


Thanks to Council Member Leonardo Williams for joining us.  He went over some of the exciting “sausage-making” happening in Durham: dispersing ARPA (federal Covid) money in the most effective and strategic way, making the use of Shot Spotter transparent and useful to the community, passing a budget.  He has some worries about accommodating the growth (Apple, etc.) coming to Durham:

  *   Housing – Housing is becoming increasingly expensive and providing services to  sprawl is expensive; therefore, we need to figure out how to do density in the urban area, as well as keep things affordable.  The Comprehensive Plan could be more helpful.  Developers aren’t using the affordable housing money that is available.

  *   Transit – We do need regional transit and effective local transit, given the crowding on our roads; we also need to deal with rising costs and ensure equitable funding for transportation systems


Comments made to Council Member Williams: We could be converting abandoned commercial buildings to housing.  “Affordability” is a muddled term, and it is further confused by being mixed up with Chapel Hill data to measure what is affordable.  People are getting pushed out by people moving here with more money.  We need to be building generational wealth.  Expanding Housing Choices has ended up mostly about expanding housing profits.  We need to do better at real community engagement.  The suburban commercial “character” with all the storage buildings is not the best use of our limited land.  Wall Street is buying houses, preventing people from being homeowners and building generational wealth, because of the profit they see, rather than from any commitment to needs of the community.  How do we improve the process / rules to make “make the water less toxic” since we can’t change the “fish” (which is challenging since we only have a couple years to get it right)?


Some of Councilperson William’s projects are a crypto-currency summit, a small business council, a “gap-benefit fund” and an infrastructure fund (for developments that are built to more more affordable or accessible or otherwise taking a risk for the benefit of the community).


Alexis Luckey shared information about Toxic Free NC, (https://toxicfreenc.org/) which works at the intersection of food systems and a healthy and equitable environment.  They have worked against pesticides and other toxins in schools, for the protection of farm workers, and so on.  They watch-dog the regulators and promote safer alternatives to pesticides.  They have a Toxic-Free Families Program and a Just and Sustainable Agriculture Program.  They can do workshops to neighborhoods or organization about pollinators, safer alternatives to pesticides, spray-free zones, etc.


Business

Tom Miller moved to approve the minutes, David Eklund seconded, and this passed.


Neighborhood dues were due in January, so please get those dues in.  Neighborhoods who have paid dues: Birch Ave; Forest Hills; Leesville Road; Long Meadow; Merreick-Moore; Morehead HIll; Old Farm; Old West Durham; Trinity Park; Tuscaloosa-Lakewood; Watts-Hillandale. Thanks for all the dues - please add your neighborhood as soon as you can. $25 dues each January.


Neighborhood Reports and Announcements

  *   Watts Hospital Hillandale – It is amazing how hostile the Board of Adjustment is, and how far it is from the character of Durham.  Part is the membership but partly it is the rules it operates under.

  *   Leesville Road Coalition – They will be doing town halls for candidates that are running in their area.  They will make recordings available.  They could use more questions for the state-wide judicial candidates.

  *   Watts Hospital Hillandale and Old West Durham will have the their Annual Fourth of July Parade.  The parade starts at 10.

  *   The Merrick-Moore Park was dedicated.






We didn’t do anything about a resolution about bylaws from last month



Resolved:

1.  That the Amended and Restated Bylaws be passed as presented on March 22, 2022;



2.  That conforming changes be made to the Articles of Association of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham and that those Amended and Restated Articles be presented to the board for adoption;



3. That Tom Miller be named as the registered agent of the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham as expeditiously are reasonably possible;



4. That in as much as members must reapply for membership to the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham under the revised and restated bylaws, members shall do so within 60 days  of passage and that all neighborhoods participating in the vote on the amended and restated bylaws be eligible to vote on readmission of neighborhoods; and



5.  That the membership fee schedule under the amended and restated bylaws shall remain the same for 2022, that any member who has paid dues in 2022 shall not be required to pay again in 2022, and that any member who has paid dues in 2022 and who does not become a member under the amended and restated bylaws shall be refunded any 2022 dues payment.



Philip has almost completed an application form.  Many delegates didn’t get the final copy of the bylaws and the analysis of the changes since they were buried as a link in the minutes.  We will put them on the list-serve, or they are in the folder (with a clean version and a lined version)  https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UyupE2j3xbbvCef565DHG_DOjDWW9bGO?usp=sharing.








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