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May 9, 2005

BNA General Membership Meeting
Convened 7:02 p.m.

Ben Langston, AYOS
Greg Raisman, PDOT

Announcements
Dan Bauer:
**** Safety Committee Meeting 4th Thursday, here

Martha Wright:
**** Mississippi St. Fair still desperately needs volunteers, particularly coordinators for vendors or garage sale vendors. Next meeting may 18th at AYOS.

Dan Bauer:
**** Next Board Meeting Monday May 23rd at Nicole’s house.
**** Hope and Hard Work
**** N-hood website
**** By-law changes delayed

Marcella:
**** Requests a few minutes to discuss police oversight

First Item: Blue Gardenia liquor license
Justin: **** Objections due May 27th

Second Item: Greg Reese of PDOT
**** Photo radar testing grows out of a program targeting traffic safety around schools.
**** Kids 17 and younger are involved in traffic accidents every three days.
**** Most kids hit through “dart out” scenarios.
**** Kids are mostly getting hit in late afternoon within a few blocks of school.
**** What they are doing in Boise:
** Photo radar—the radar tracks your speed, the camera takes your picture if you are speeding and you get a ticket in the mail.
** This has shown success in Australia, reducing fatalities by 28%.
****Passed out cards for traffic livability report line.
Q: Why those five schools chosen?
A: They are in dense urban environments on streets where speeding is possible.
Q: What about speed bumps?
A: They are “another conversation”—if you have a street that’s not performing at its speed limit you use speed bumps. If a thoroughfare is used for emergency response they really don’t want to do it.
Q: Any feedback/response?
A: Police, Boise-Elliot principle both report positive input from community (many parents).
Q: How many tickets?
A: Don’t know.
Q: Will this be ongoing?
A: If it’s successful, it will go on and be done in other locations.
Q: Do you have data that will help verify that this has worked?
A: No, but the study is collecting a lot of data, so it should provide adequate information.
**** Left 2 maps of pedestrian/auto incidents in Boise during the 90’s.

Third Item: Safety Committee Update
**** This month at CSAL meeting there was a good discussion of when to call what emergency numbers.
**** If anyone has a problem with a 911 call, report to Dan or Nicole.

Fourth Item: Marcella on Independent Police Review
**** Portland is one of the top cities in nation for bad police behaviors like profiling.
**** Before this IPR was set up, you called the police to file complaints about police.
**** Marcella was appointed by Sam Adams to be on the committee. They meet the 3rd Tuesday of every month at city hall and the public is welcome.
**** 70% of complaints are about disrespectful behavior by police.
**** Marcella made brochures on the rights of police and citizens in an encounter available.
**** Marcella was drawn to this work after years of negative encounters with police right here in the neighborhood.
**** Marcella feels this process works- the police really are responsive to complaints.

Dan Bauer:
**** Beginning May 2nd city is taking high grass with garbage calls. Later, general high grass calls.
**** Chris: high grass=18 inches.
**** There have been complaints that the Safety and Livability Committee doesn’t address livability.

Fifth Item: Call for open chairs.

Sixth Item: Land Use Committee
**** Last meeting they parsed the 3 or 4 surveys that have been done to come up with a list of desirables for the community.
**** This was partly inspired by the development plans for the SW corner at Fremont and Mississippi.
**** The list of community desirable ideas were:
** More greenspace
** Mixed income residential (use as bargaining tool for other issues).
** Keeping the size and scale of the neighborhood (we’re not Alberta, we’re not The Pearl).
**** Justin opened floor for input:
** Ross: we’re afraid that we’re not working with a xxxx enough sample of the community so we can have xxxx at the table.
** Need to make sure that the mixed-income stays mixed (no low-income buyers turning around and selling for a huge profit).
** Mixed use=affordability (no more than 30% of one’s income) and different sizes to accommodate different resident types (families, couples, individuals).
**** Also, the site on the SE corner of Fremont and Mississippi is for sale, but they’ve run into issues with site contamination.
**** Also, they’re going to work on re-invigorating/re-drafting the good neighbor agreements in the neighborhood. They hope to xxx non-threatening language.

Seventh Item: Neighborhood Clean up
**** Marilyn Miller: the clean up occurs May 21st 8:30-3:30. Marilyn will be contacting all volunteers this week. All ducks are in a row to make it happen. Quack quack.
**** Also, a 70 yr. old man needs help cleaning up his property and Marilyn can hook up volunteers.
Ben Langston (board member AYOS): he and Nancy are going to trade off attending our mtgs. Graduation June 7th.
Q: Can community participate in the graduation?
A: Sounds like a good idea-how? Contact him with ideas.
Justin: Kids might enjoy seeing the cob demonstration at the ReBuilding Center.
Marilyn: Can they help with the clean up?
A: Not sure, they’re all in the neighborhood.
Marcella: New alliance of neighbors at the corner of Failing and Mallory to discuss a greenspace that turned into a discussion about crime and Livability
This Saturday 4-8 they’re having a block party with Tom Potter staffers, hopefully Sam Adams, music by Linda Hornbuckle, burgers and hot dogs.

Meeting adjourned 8:10