Inter-Neighborhood Council

Making Better Neighborhoods

Minutes of Meeting of September 23,2003

REPRESENTATIVES PRESENT

Virginia Bridges	The Herald Sun	R. Gaye Weaver	Old West Durham
Pat Carstensen	Cross County	Melvin Whitley	Y. E. Smith
Ellen Reckhow	Durham County	Carrie Mowry	Old North Durham
Cheryl Sweeney	Northgate Park	Marguerite Ward	Rockwood
John Dagenhart	Trinity Park	Johnea Kelley	Duke Park NA
Esther Bent	Duke Park NA	Cathy Abernathy	Hope Valley NA
Alice Bumgarner	Trinity Park	Dale Stouch	Placid Valley
Michael Shiflett	Housing Appeals Board	Robert Larson	Grove Park
Melanie Eberhart	Morehead Hill NA	Tom Miller	Watts Hospital – Hillandale NA
Fred Mowry	Colony Park	Bill Anderson	Duke Park
Matt and Blyth Morrell		Lynwood D. Best	City of Durham, Housing & Comm Development
Risa Foster	Trinity Heights NA	Guillo Rodriguez	Watts Hospital – Hillandale NA
Charles Phaneuf	Durham Arts Council	Deb Christie	Colony Hill
David Harris	Old Farm	William Roman	Westwood Estates
Fred Foster Jr.	Durham Voter Coalition	Diane Catotti	Knollwood
Eugene Brown	Trinity Park	Duane Clark	Durham Police Department
Mark Schultz	The Herald Sun	Mark Greenspan	City of Durham

Administration and Announcements

President Melvin Whitley opened the meeting. Members introduced themselves and made announcements from their neighborhoods or organizations.

§ Durham Civil Rights Heritage Project series of opportunities to share heritage

§ Durham Cultural Master Plan, www.durhamculturalmasterplan.org

§ SW Central Durham CommUNITY Festival, September 27.

§ Durham Voter Coalition sponsoring fund-raising contest of singing among churches

§ The newsletters are out – take some home.

§ Aluminum wiring is a ticking time bomb.

§ Neighborhood Summit, Saturday September 27.

§ The Awards Event is October 1 at University Club, 7 – 9.

Terms for Board of County Commissioners – Ellen Reckhow gave a quick summary of the proposal to change to having 4-year terms. Now commissioners spend about 1/5 of their terms running for re-election. Two years is a short time to put together a program and start to show measurable results. In the past, Durham has not had a lot of turn-over so even without staggered terms, we don’t expect 100% turn-over. Durham will still have to do US Congress elections there are no savings on cost of holding an election.

Parks – Some of the comments and suggestions:

§ Old Farm – To combat organized crime, use more organized sports, especially giving kids responsibility as assistant coaches, and partner with police, churches and schools

§ Duke Park has no drinking fountain, has been trying to plan skateboarding area and the someone on staff had expertise to help and wasn’t assigned to that job

§ Flooding lingering in parks

§ Some neighborhoods have no parks, including Old West Durham which lost theirs

§ Mold in building in Y. E. Smith

§ Use our staff instead of hiring more consultants to tell us what we told them

§ Take care of parks we have instead of making more

§ Where did bond money go? Some work done so badly that we may have to re-do it.

Mark Greenspan’s (Durham General Services) response to the comments:

§ Park construction and maintenance are part of Mark’s group. He wants a model department

§ Know parks are broken; it takes time to change momentum to going up instead of down

§ Are getting business systems (work order, knowledge management, project administration) plus internal controls and people skilled to use them. So now will be able to determine priorities, figure out what it costs to cut grass, etc. Also augmenting skills by hiring engineer and architect. Generally improving accountability and increasing capabilities.

§ Will never have resources we need, so need to be smarter. Getting ahead of curve takes having designs to reduce maintenance, figuring out most effective methods, setting minimum maintenance standards, evaluating needs at least twice a year, and having staff that is pro-active (e.g. see tree down when mowing, report it or fix it)

§ He has banned the word “no.” When 311 system in place, call it to report problems. In the meantime, call 560-1122 or Mark (560-4192).

§ Deferring maintenance doesn’t save money. Durham never increased maintenance to pay for improvements from 1996 bonds, not to mention covering inflation. Consultant doing detailed study of what needs to be done (expect a big number). How can neighborhoods help in this?

§ Trying to work within budget to get more help for maintenance side of parks.

Information / Committee Reports / Business

§ INC has about $3200. Pat went over the minutes.

§ UDO Committee is waiting for new draft. The NC-DOT committee is tentatively meeting October 2.

§ INC will sponsor a dessert at the Neighborhood Council. We voted to spend up to $50.

§ On Zero Tolerance on Using Guns in a Violent Crime – that is, not doing plea bargaining in these cases. There will be a press event on Friday.

§ Melvin will be bringing something to the Executive Committee to get a proposal around making sure that some percentage of capital improvement funds go to deteriorating neighborhoods to pave the streets, get sidewalks, get an east-side rec center, and so on.

Elections – The Nominating Committee twisted arms and produced the following slate, which was endorsed 14 to 2.

President: Cheryl Sweeney President-Elect: Bill Anderson

Past President: Melvin Whitley Treasurer: Robert Larson

Secretary: Pat Carstensen Newsletter: Cathy Abernathy

At-Large: Risa Foster and Alice Bumgarner

Cheryl went through her objectives, which are parks, rental property, and INC processes.

The meeting was adjourned.