[Durham INC] Draft Non/Dec INC Minutes

[Pat Carstensen]

Resending in advance of the meeting next week

________________________________
From: Pat Carstensen
Sent: Thursday, December 1, 2022 7:10 AM
To: inc listserv <inc-list at lists.deltaforce.net>
Subject: Draft Non/Dec INC Minutes

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


November / December  Delegate Meeting

InterNeighborhood Council of Durham, Via Zoom

November 29, 2022


Attending the meeting were:

Neighborhoods

Burch Avenue – Richard Ziglar

Cross Counties – Pat Carstensen

Leesville Road Coalition – Steven Knill

Long Meadow – Pakis Bessias

Merrick-Moore – Bonita Green

Morehead Hill – Bruce Mitchell

Old Farm – Trey Gilmore

Old North Durham – Mimi O’Brien, Helena Cragg

Trinity Park –  Philip Azar

Tuscaloosa-Lakewood – Susan Sewell


Guests

Sarah Barnes – Duke University, Supporting Don’t Waste Durham

Nancy Lauer – Duke University, Supporting Don’t Waste Durham

Emilie McIntosh – Durham Parks and Recreation

Anita Scott Neville – Hayti Reborn

Crystal Dreisbach – Don’t Waste Durham

E’Vonne Coleman – Durham Cultural Advisory Board



President Bonita Green called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone; those present introduced themselves.  We  made adjustments to the agenda since John Killeen had to cancel his presentation/discussion.


Proposed Single-Use Bag Fee – Sarah Barnes is a graduate student at Duke University working with the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. The Clinic is representing local nonprofit organization, Don’t Waste Durham. Crystal Dreisbach is the founder and director of Don’t Waste Durham, which works on systemic level changes to prevent trash, through policy change and innovations.  All of Durham's trash takes a 96-mile trip to Sampson County, so anything that reduces the trash in Durham will have multiple positive impacts.  400 cities across the country regulate single-use bags.  Plastics are a problem from “cradle” (pollution at their source) to their “graves.”  We have been finding heavy microplastics in all the water sources around Durham.  Plastic bags are a huge problem for the recycling industry as well, because they jam up the sorting machinery and cost them a great deal of money.  Store owners spend a lot of money on single-use bags and would love to cut down on the bags they need to buy.  The literature indicates that banning bags can create resentment, but a fee changes consumer behavior and makes people feel like they have a choice.  Don’t Waste Durham is recommending a 10-cent fee, with the fee going to Solid Waste.  One way to reduce the impact on low-wealth customers would be to exempt recipients of government assistance such as WIC, SNAP, and MEDICAID, as well as getting more free reusable bags into the community.  Don't Waste Durham would want to have a significant outreach and awareness-building effort before the rollout of the fee. They are doing a lot of research into best practices, legal issues and so on, as well as meeting with city and county staff and elected officials.  The 4 NC cities furthest along are Asheville, Boone, Chapel Hill and Durham, which are coordinating so they can move policy forward in a unified way.  Don’t Waste Durham is using donated, rescued materials (t-shirts, sheets, etc.) and community volunteers to make “Bull City Boomerang Bags”. They are really cool reusable bags (see http://www.dontwastedurham.org/bull-city-boomerang-bag), available at check-out in the two grocery stores.  They asked folks to share this information across their neighborhoods.  A FAQ sheet about the bag fee is available at: athttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1SF9AcSoLOmuBrloyVdQD3jswmdQMD9ud/edit<http://docs.google.com/document/d/1SF9AcSoLOmuBrloyVdQD3jswmdQMD9ud/edit>


Mimi O’Brien moved to approve the October minutes, with the correction that Duke has removed two (not one) properties from the Crest Street part of their proposed rezoning; this was seconded by Sarah Morris and passed.


Reviewing the past year, we have a variety of presentations.  Generally folks felt it has been a good selection of issues / ideas that affect the whole community and the presentations/discussions provided good information to take back to our neighborhoods.  It is good that we ask explicitly what they are asking us to do on the issue.  Maybe there could be less discussion of development issues and more discussion of safety.


E’Vonne Coleman talked about the Durham Cultural Roadmap, which will survey the Durham community and develop a plan to further enhance Durham’s cultural and arts landscape, maximize resources, and provide a coordinated vision and collaboration among a variety of community, cultural, civic, and business partners. They are looking for representatives from neighborhoods to be on the Cultural Roadmap Planning Group since they see neighborhoods as a resource in their efforts to identify grass-roots cultural stuff that needs to be celebrated and supported.  They will come back to update us on progress.  See https://www.durhamnc.gov/451/About-the-Cultural-Roadmap


Steven Knill put a proposal on the list-serve about changing the ward representative rules in Durham to make the ward representatives real ward representatives, elected only by the people in the ward.  We need to reapportion the wards based on the census, and the city attorney is asking which of two approaches (using current population or using projected future population) should be used for this process.  See https://www.durhamnc.gov/4857/City-Council-Ward-Redistricting


Burch Avenue is having a holiday party on December 18th and is selling luminaries, with one idea for use of the profits profits being  to give to families who need food during the holidays.  On the Duke rezoning, they got lots of people to comment and filed comments from the neighborhood association; the city will give Duke their first round of comments this week, and the neighborhood will then see what revisions Duke makes to their proposal.


TLNA is talking about two things: Working on a grant to get covers for their bus stop and discussing getting a sign to welcome people to their neighborhood.


Trinity Park had its home tour and will be selling luminaria.


Trey Gilmore gave an update on routing of buses to the new Northern High School; they will be meeting with DPS in the new year to make sure DPS is doing what they promised to do.  He would like to know what other neighborhoods see as best practices about code enforcement.


Morehead Hill changed their bylaws to include a new development adjacent (and not in any other neighborhood) as part of the neighborhood.  He is wondering how boundaries got set in the first place.


The revised place type part of the Comprehensive Plan is out.  There is interest in getting neighborhood recorded into the place type map.


Merrick-Moore is still in conversation about infrastructure updates / improvements to the neighborhood.  Amazon moved so the caravans on Cheek Road are gone.  The neighborhood has been working on discouraging speeding on Cheek Road and getting sidewalks.  The community garden property is coming along beautifully (see merrickmoorecdc.org)  and anyone who wants to work with them on the garden is welcome.


Bonita proposed a toast to all the achievements of 2022, to all the good and exciting things we will be doing in 2023, and all the community shared.  And then we adjourned for the year.














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