Inter-Neighborhood Council

Making Better Neighborhoods

Minutes of Meeting of July 22, 2003

REPRESENTATIVES PRESENT

Dale Stouch	Placid Valley	Lynwood D. Best	City of Durham, Housing & Comm Development
Laila Weir	Herald Sun	R, Gaye Weaver	Old West Durham
Barry Ragin	Duke Park NA	Marguerite Ward	Rockwood
Pat Carstensen	Cross County	Johnea Kelley	Duke Park NA
Ellen Reckhow	Durham County	B J Council	Durham City Police Depart.
Cheryl Sweeney	Northgate Park	Melvin Whitley	Y. E. Smith
Pat Murray	Durham skywriter	Carrie Mowry	Old North Durham
Lugenia Mason	River Forest	Cathy Abernathy	Hope Valley
Don Stauffacher	Marquis Pierre	Bill Anderson	Duke Park

Administration and Announcements

President Melvin Whitley opened the meeting and members introduced themselves.

§ E-mails went out to the list-serve on Unified Development Ordinance issues.

§ Duke Park brought in copies of their newsletter to contribute to INC newsletter.

Information / Committee Reports

§ The minutes were approved.

§ Ellen Reckhow talked about the Durham Neighborhood College. There will be two sessions, with the first starting September 11 and deadline for application August 8. The sessions will be general introduction, budget and finance, emergency services, safety (2 meetings), health and human services, development and planning, environment (including parks and solid waste), neighborhoods (including housing, economic development, and DATA), and tour / graduation. The first 9 meetings are on Thursday nights, last on a Saturday morning. There is a fee of $25 but there are scholarships. INC would like the sessions to be way over-subscribed. Ellen will look into getting materials on web and videotaping sessions or getting them on cable.

§ Gaye still doesn’t have articles on history or awards banquet for the newsletter. Depending on the length, it will probably cost $200 for printing. Postage will be more. We can do labels but need to get addresses right (maybe send request for updates for getting hard or soft copies out to list-serve and Robert’s list?). We may think about putting some or all of the next issue in Spanish. Please contact Gaye if you can help her.

§ On neighborhood presence on boards, Carrie reported there are two applicants for the Board of Adjustment but INC didn’t have information to make any recommendations. In general, we need to do better at recruiting people. Ellen noted that there are some openings they have a hard time finding someone for. One step might be to put a link on INC website. Ellen noted that the county might also be able to put more information on the web than in papers.

§ Nominating Committee has not yet met.

§ The DOT Committee has been trying to find a time to meet. Pat will send out time and information on federal highway bill to list-serve.

§ On a drug treatment center, a group went to Raleigh to look at the Healing Place. They will brief the Board of County Commissioners on August 4. Mental Health Board is putting out an RFP on short-term crisis center, which will include some substance abuse help.

§ Cathy Abernathy, Don Stauffacher, and Lugenia Mason will work on a phone tree for the September meeting.

§ The date for the Neighborhood Hero Awards Event is Thursday September 25. The deadline for applications is August 5, but the committee has discretion to take applications until August 12.

INC Business / Actions

§ INC voted to send a letter of thanks to members of Durham delegation for their leadership in opposing the so-called billboard bill (SB 534). The bill is still in committee, members were asked to send letters opposing it to members of the state senate.

§ We will continue the Parks Discussion in September. People are urged to bring pictures to show what is going wrong. River Forest has been waiting for 6 years for something in their park. It isn’t clear what happened to money from the last bond referendum. One thing we don’t want to get into is saying that other neighborhoods’ parks are less valuable than my neighborhood’s ones. The model of having non-profits develop and maintain pocket parks is flawed because of difficulties keeping the non-profit afloat, let alone actively swimming.

§ INC approved seven questions for the neighborhood agenda.

§ There have been nearly 400 firearms seized so far this year in connection with crimes. Unfortunately, a lot of time the criminal can often plea bargain down to a misdemeanor and be back out on the street. It looks like we will have an extra prosecutor on the issue, so resources to prosecute shouldn’t be an issue. INC voted first to suspend the 30 day rule (allowing time for delegates to get instructions from their neighborhoods) on this issue. INC then voted to ask the DA to have zero tolerance (that is, there will be no plea bargaining for people who are in possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime).

The meeting was adjourned.

Neighborhood Agenda Questions

§ What are the components of a vital, thriving neighborhood and how do you achieve them?

§ Given the problems with abandoned commercial buildings and substandard properties, how do we preserve and enhance the character of residential neighborhoods?

§ Neighborhoods have been concerned about cars speeding through their streets and are organizing efforts to get traffic calming improvements. How do you intend to address this question?

§ Given the number of parks in Durham and the importance of parks to neighborhood character, how would you make parks a point of pride in Durham instead of a source of dismay?

§ What do you know about pedestrian connectivity and how it impacts neighborhoods?

§ How do you measure and guarantee equitable distribution of capital improvements throughout the city?

§ Offenders don’t seem to be taking our current system of fines for ordinance violations seriously. How can we show the city means business about enforcement?