Duke Park Shop
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DPNA Meeting Minutes
DPNA Monthly Meeting, March 9, 2006
The April meeting was the spring potluck. No minutes were recorded at the May meeting. The June meeting was cancelled.
In attendance: Barry Ragin (president), Rob Dilworth (vice president), Claire Doyle (secretary), Katherine O’Brien (member-at-large), Stuart Kennedy, Melissa Godwin, Bert Chessim
Speaker: Dorothea Pierce of Keep Durham Beautiful
Bathhouse
Barry Ragin will be getting together with lawyer
Dan Read regarding the final edits to the
bathhouse contract. After that they will
then send it to the city.
ECWA Cleanup
There was a successful cleanup at the Ellerbe
Creek Watershed Association property. They
are continuing to clean up every weekend.
They started at Markham and are moving towards
Green, where there is much heavier underbrush
to be removed. They are also planting native
plants. Barry is going to invite someone
from ECWA to come to a DPNA meeting to speak.
Barry wants to plan an official Duke Park
workday cleanup.
Animal Control
Barry has been writing to county commissioners
Becky Heron and Ellen
Rckhow regarding nuisance
animals. He thinks the barking dog ordinance
is unenforceable and needs to be revisited.
It needs to either be rewritten or enforced
as written. Animal Control did come out and
catch a loose dog in the neighborhood today. There
is also a new (interim) animal control director.
Barry brought it up at the Inter-neighborhood
Council meeting, and got the sense that many
neighborhoods are having similar problems.
He’s going to draft a survey about
the problem. Dorothea said she could put
it on her website.
Panhandling proposal
The INC shot down the proposal about the panhandling
ordinance; it was sent back to committee
for re-write.
Keep Durham Beautiful
Dorothea Pierce, executive director of Keep
Durham Beautiful, did a presentation about
the organization.
KDB board members from are drawn from government, realty, tourism, solid waste, recycling, media. There are 4 board openings which Dorothea is actively trying to fill.
It is a volunteer based nonprofit with an operating budget from the city/county, and its program budget from donations. Dorothea is the only paid employee; all others are volunteers.
KDB covers both Durham city and county. They focus on the schools in order to try to change behavior when they’re young.
Dorothea described the “downtown donut.” County-wide, litter is not very bad. But when they looked at a one-mile circle extending out from city hall, they discovered that although the immediate area around city hall is kept clean, the rest of the circle has very heavy litter. The one-mile circle extends partially into Duke Park neighborhood, just past Markham St.
Keep Durham Beautiful is affiliated with Keep America Beautiful, which has been around since 1953. One of the most famous public service announcements ever, the “crying Indian,” was broadcast for Keep America Beautiful in 1971. KDB was certified as an affiliate in 2005. It is in the process of being declared a nonprofit by the IRS. Once this is done, people can donate to KDB and earmark it for particular uses (e.g., Duke Park).
KDB has 4 focuses: litter, solid waste reduction education, beautification, community improvement.
Dorothea cited the “broken windows” theory: if a neighborhood looks like nobody cares about it, criminals feel comfortable moving in. But if the neighborhood is well kept up, then it looks like the kind of place where neighbors will care about what’s going on and not tolerate criminal activity. So a cleaner Durham can help improve perceptions of the city, quality of life, and community attitudes. It is also better for economic development: people who move to the Triangle to work are turned off on living in Durham because the perception of outsiders is that of trash, crime and blight.
KDB organizes community cleanups. They also have “ownership contracts” where you can adopt a park, street, traffic circle, etc. and agree to clean it twice a month for a year. Front Porch Neighbors is a project for neighbors helping neighbors whose house falls below code but belongs to someone who is too elderly/disabled/poor to address the problems. Dorothea does educational outreach (speaking at classes, especially kindergarten through 3rd grade) and presentations to organizations such as DPNA. KDB also organizes beautification events such as bulb plantings—they get thousands of bulbs donated each year. DPNA can request the bulbs in the fall and get put on the list to receive bulbs.
KDB needs volunteers to help and to organize local cleanups. They need ownership contracts (Barry brought up the triangle on Roxboro/Markham as a possible spot that DPNA could contract to maintain). You can also donate money or stuff, and can donate money to Stone Bros & Byrd which is passed on to KDB in the form of huge discounts.
There was a discussion of the issue of people leaving their trash cans at the street long after trash day. Right now, this is actually a felony, which is why it is not aggressively enforced. Barry said that people are lobbying city council to make it a ticketable offense rather than criminal. If you see someone’s trash bin left at the street, you can call Durham One-Call (560-1200) to complain.
Dorothea has been working with Ken Gasch of the Colonial Village Neighborhood Association regarding the trash that is left next to the beaver pond behind the abandoned K-Mart.. She is going to meet with the landlord of Big Lots about the pile of pallets behind the store, which has inspired others to dump appliances, etc. The Big Lots manager has said the pallets are not theirs; Dorothea wants to determine who’s responsible for them.
If you are interested in volunteering or in finding out more about Keep Durham Beautiful, call Dorothea at 560-4186, x. 252, or go to http://ci.durham.nc.us/departments/solid/kdb.cfm
The next DPNA meeting will be Thursday, June 8.