Meeting Minutes 3/20/2014
Swona Meeting Minutes 3-20-14
Prepared by Janis Rich-Secretary
Approx 35 attendees including officers
Meeting officially started at 7:05pm by Brad O’Brien-President
Agenda:
Introductions of attendees-name and address and color of front door
Treasurers report by Jean Caldwell-not counting money received tonight, we have approx $1,040 in the account, request for permission to send $50 to flower fund to Gloria Dei for letting us use the facility, motion proposed and passed unanimously
Agenda items to add tonight:
Item added-Joe Beck’s announcement that the City is holding meeting at the City Hall, room 207 on March 27th to discuss the Fern Street Development project, issues include the impact on neighborhood and traffic, notice received by city by a few residents did not clearly define the bike path/sidewalks, this is located as an addition to Little Tuscany-on the East side of Fern, 135 new units proposed, Bethany Weidner contacted Kathy McCoy at the city, design review is what the meeting is about, Bethany went down to the city and saw a pathway from Fern to 11th, sounded somewhat confusing and non-contiguous sidewalks to 9th, trying to find out prior to meeting what exactly sidewalk access will be, at a minimum we need sidewalks from project to Fern and onto 9th Ave, many issues already with Fern with speeding cars and pedestrian walkers, wheel chairs, and children, also high crime area as well
How will city mitigate for the additional residents
Will there be someone officially representing SWONA, no; this is a design review stage
Item-By Laws:
Updating by-laws, there is a discussion about changing the current by-laws-V.P. Phil Cornell has a copy of the language changes discussed at last meeting, briefly-instead of using newspaper for updates, using email or website for information, changing how dues are determined, copies of changes are provided at this meeting and they were also posted on the website, questions about what constitutes a quorum and in particular how to elect an officer or paying bills, how do we set up the decision making process, this has not been a problem so far, approximately 8-10 people show up at any given meeting and we have approximately 80-100 paid members, request to add a friendly amendment to article 3, section 2 to keep 10% of the membership as the standard “quorum”, discussion about changing the by-laws regarding electing officers and changing paying bills, last meeting we did vote on changing the by-laws to indicate a quorum would be10%
Ann Vandemann is proposing a motion that article 4 (voting for officers) will be elected by majority as long as 10% of the members are present, discussion includes the following comments: what happens if 10% are not in attendance, issues with what if 10% don’t show up, votes by proxy may be an option, proxies open another can of worms, this organization is not in a position to make decisions that truly impacts each others lives, we are here because we are neighbors and not to create hardship, Motion presented to pass the 10% rule for the quorum for section 3 as previously voted and also for section 4, discussion, Dan seconded, passed by vote
Ann V. motion to adopt bylaws as amended, seconded, motion passed by vote
Jean Caldwell, SWONA’s treasurer would like to pass on being responsible for the annual mailing for membership in 2015, this volunteer job may be either under the job of the treasurer or handed off to a volunteer, Jean is happy to help anyone that wants to take on this job, additionally, any job that a neighbor wants to take on, speak up, step up, send an email to the officers and help out, imagine the possibilities to support the neighborhood
Dan Leahy-comments on West Central Park-many dedicated people trying to make this work (Corner of Division and Harrison)-any help would be great, plant sale at the park this Sunday, March 23rd 10am to 2pm, would SWONA like to donate some funds to West Central Park? Website-https://www.aparkforus.org/
Motion to give $100 to WCP, motion seconded, voted to approve funds for the park
Question about what their final iteration of the sight will be-there is a website with details on activities and plans, Jean will contact WCP and find out exactly who to make the check out to
Neighborhood pathway project: city is requesting bids for neighborhood pathways, Phil suggested city add lighting on path from end of Decatur to Caton Way, need to fill out application and then have SWONA add plantings to this section, previously applied but we were denied as city wanted to focus on new pathways, not existing pathways, but this year is an entirely new option,
Motion to go forward with the application as proposed by Phil-preliminary application filled out by Phil, motion seconded and approved
Discussion of homeless camp at end of Decatur, Georgia at the city will start to work on these issues; comments included that: the “path” off 15th is not really a path it is an easement for utilities, if the path is improved this will only lead to more vagrant issues, very steep and unimproved
Elections: Brad has been president for 3 years and needs to resign and new treasurer is needed also as Jean also wants to focus on other things
Bethany Weidner will be willing to take on the presidency role and Ann Vandemann as the Treasurer
Bethany talked about how much the neighborhood means to her and the diversity of the folks in our community, this is a great opportunity to meet new people moving into the neighborhood
Motions to elect Bethany as president and Ann as Treasurer, motion seconded and passed by acclamation
Thank you so much to Brad and Jean for their service to the Association and the neighborhood
Open Discussion
West Olympia Farmers Market-Opening date? They have a website but may not be at Gloria Dei this year, website-https://wolyfarmersmarket.org/
Dan Leahy- Issue keeping Decatur and 16th closed, send comments to city, “please delete 16th and Decatur to comp plan-Section B of the transportation appendix”-our neighborhood made 35 comments asking to delete this, city council is now going to act, if you want to send a new email to the council please do so to reiterate our concerns, may be a study session on April 17th regarding street connections in the comp plan and that
“All connections will be studied”. However, according to city manager Steve Hall, he does not want to study the connections as “all connections must be made”.
Barb Day-besides individual concerns we can act as a body to say we are against the opening, can association send a letter to request to delete these two items from the comp plan to the council?
Jean will count attendance of tonight’s meeting-35 attendees
Request for letter indicating that SWONA formally wants to delete 16th and Fern and opening the end of Decatur at Caton Way be deleted from Comp plan, motion proposed and seconded-
Vote taken and Bethany will write the letter to the council
Richard wanted to thank person that got us involved the Nextdoor website-https://nextdoor.com, Diana Renison was instrumental-this site has been very neighbor friendly
Also, big thanks to Dan Leahy-favorite Don Quixote of our neighborhood and to thank him for all he does for the neighborhood
Appreciate comments regarding Dan Leahy
Also, Nextdoor is not SWONA’s website- https://www.swonaonline.com
Ed wants to acknowledge Bethany also
Meeting officially over at 8:30pm
Next meeting will be the 4th Thursday in June