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DPNA Meeting Minutes
DPNA Monthly Meeting, February 9, 2006
In attendance: Barry Ragin (president), Claire Doyle (secretary), Kara Van Dam (member at-large), Michelle Old (member at-large), Bill Anderson, Peter & Esther Bent, Bert Chessim, Andrew Preiss, Melissa Godwin.
1. Ellerbe Creek Cleanup: Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association is doing a cleanup on Saturday. They have been given 3 acres of land along the creek in Duke Park and Old North Durham. Meet between 10am and 1pm; go to Ellerbecreek.org for more info. (Secretary’s note: this was cancelled due to bad weather but will be rescheduled later in the spring)
2. PAC 2: Bill Anderson and Donna Hicks have been going to the PAC2 meetings. Barry Ragin asked if they could post to the listserv to let people know what’s going on.
3. Bathhouse contract: Barry met w/lawyer and Duke Park resident Dan Read today about the contract. They made the following changes to the contract the city had proposed: We are asking them to put a drop box outside the building for electricity. We have been talking about maybe having the symphony or other events in the meadow and would need to have electricity accessible. Also, we need to specify the level of maintenance from the city, to include paving the loop and draining the meadow. We talked about having a mutual agreement between DPNA and Durham for when 3rd parties want to use the building. Both parties have to agree to allow the 3rd party. The contract currently says we cannot charge rent to anyone. Nothing in contract now about 3rd parties. Insurance: we want to make sure the city takes liability for anything that happens outside the building. Dan says city does not have insurance and is immune from being sued. We also want to change the terms so that the city can’t turn around and charge us high rent if we make good improvements to the building, that we have the option to renew on the current terms. We want to change termination notice from 15 days to 60 days with chance to correct any violation of terms of agreement.
Barry will post the contract to the files section of the yahoo group site.
Barry talked to Randy Pickle (Forest Hills Neighborhood Association). The city owns the building in their park, but they get to use it for free for their meetings and 2 annual events. All other events go through the city. FHNA does not invest time or money for maintenance or upgrade.
The city would really prefer to just raze the bathhouse. Esther Bent says bathhouse has enormous historic value. She suggested an insurance company that insures historic structures. She suggests that we add historical covenants to the building: the Historic Preservation Society of Durham is currently researching making the Duke Park and Old North Durham neighborhoods a bona fide historic district. Andrew Preiss was concerned that a historic coventant could prevent some of the renovations we want to do if we have to preserve historic structure. But Esther said that covenants do not prevent modernization for the comfort of the public.
One way to get around asking for rent from third parties is to ask for voluntary donations.
We could also ask for a cleaning deposit or a credit card number as security against a third party leaving the place a mess. The city will maintain the bathrooms but we have to do any other cleaning.
Esther suggesting a “sponsor the bathhouse” fund. Other suggestions: tiles of children’s art. A mural of the logo on the wall.
Michelle offered to compose a cover letter to talk about our intentions with the contract changes.
4. Other park issues: Bert Chessim suggested that the city provide recycling bins at the park. The kiosk that we requested has been installed, although not as close to the corner as we had hoped. Nobody knows who has the key to open it, though.
5. Gift to DPNA: Barry announced that DPNA received a very generous gift from Ellen Dagenhart, a realtor in Trinity Park. She has sold several properties in Duke Park in the past year and credits DPNA as being a factor in making this a desirable neighborhood.
6. Washington St. sidewalk: Michelle Old would like someone to bring the Washington St. sidewalk issue up at Coffee with Council on Monday. Currently the plan is for a sidewalk only on one side of the street, which means that kids walking to Club Blvd. school would have to cross the street twice to use the sidewalk to get to school.
7. Durham-specific resources for tenants: Melissa Godwin is interested if anyone knows of any Durham-specific resources for tenants about drug treatment, mental health treatment, etc. She is looking for people to speak to a group about these issues.
The next DPNA meeting will Thursday, March 9. Dorothea Pierce of the Keep Durham Beautiful program will be giving a presentation.