Woodlawn Neighborhood Association General Meeting minutes (draft until approved)
February 5th, 2020 at Classic Foods
6:30 – 7:00 Winter Social and Potluck
7:00 – 7:10 Welcome and Introductions
Board members in attendance: Keith Baich, Angala Ehelebe, Melody Randolph, Beth Heins, Maija Spencer, Dennis Kennedy, Shirley Minor, Thelma Diggs
7:10 – 7:15 Approve January meeting notes: Anjala moves (noting two corrections), Maija seconds; all in favor
February agenda: Beth moves, Dennis seconds, all in favor
7:15 – 7:45 New Business:
- Mary Peveto, Director of Neighbors for Clean Air combating Diesel Particulate Emissions
- Submitted petition to Oregon Environmental Quality Commission to put new regulations on Indirect Sources such as construction & railroads
- State Legislature passage of HB2007 in 2019 regulates diesel trucks in Portland Metro Area (15% of emissions); 2010 DEQ Air Toxics Solutions Project estimated that 65% of diesel emissions in the metro area are from Indirect Sources
- Public comments by February 14, 2020 to ISPComment@deq.state.or.us
- http://www.whatsinourair.org/
They’ve been working on air quality issues for about ten years; Mary shared handouts to give more information on the current project. Portland’s air is very dirty – industrial pollution and diesel emissions are a big problem. What is in our air is legal, but it is measured at unhealthy levels. The members of Neighbors for Clean Air are working to make changes to what is considered legal. Oregon faces $3.6 billion in public health costs related to our air quality, and Multnomah County represents a third of that.
65% of diesel emissions come from off-road sources – engines that aren’t regulated in the same way as vehicles. Neighbors for Clean Air are asking the state to use its existing authority to create an Indirect Source rule about air quality and emissions at specific locations. Public comments (asking the state to develop this rule) are being collected until February 14. Examples of indirect sources: distribution centers with idling trucks; a marine port; a construction site.
Maija moves we submit a comment as a neighborhood association on behalf of our community: Thelma seconds, all in favor.
- Christy Hudson, Neighborhood Coordinator Friends with Trees
- Upcoming Tree Planting on Feb 15th
- Volunteer Opportunities
- https://friendsoftrees.org/
Christy has been our neighborhood’s Friends of Trees volunteer coordinator since 2012 – planting is Saturday Feb 8. Friends of Trees is a non-profit that builds community through tree-planting. There’s an annual planting in Woodlawn, 183 trees being planted in 4 neighborhoods Saturday Feb 8. The planting will be staged at Holy Redeemer on N Rosa Parks & N Vancouver. They need volunteers to plant trees and offer trucks; if your truck has a canopy they’ll help you remove (and replace) it. There will be a couple of bike crews helping as well (sign up in advance to do that if that’s your plan). Volunteering to help plant is great; also donating food for breakfast/lunch before and after the event – will be at Holy Redeemer in the basement.
Friends of Trees has other volunteer roles – pruning, coordinating volunteers, planting crews – they train people as needed. All ages allowed to volunteer.
- Guest Speaker-Lisa Loving
- Author of Street Journalist: Understand & Report the News in Your Community, Former Evening News Director at KBOO-FM, Former News Editor at The Skanner
- http://www.street-journalist.com/
- FREE upcoming Write Your Rant workshop at NECN Sat 2/29 12-2pm: Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods – King facility; these workshops will be held once a month at the NECN office.
She spent years teaching people about journalism while at KBOO and The Skanner. It’s important for all of us to learn these techniques – media and news sources are continuing to disappear. Where will we get news in a decade?
Her upcoming workship: Write your rant – four easy steps; the tools of critical analysis and learning how to share our thoughts with the world. We have to learn to take more control over our systems, how to communicate with each other. The workshop will go over ideas like letter to the editor, social media posts, comments on news sites.
She’d be happy to partner with organizations if they want to have a workshop in the future.
Top 3 sources for news in our country today: Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp.
7:45 – 8:00 Old Business
- Website Access, now rehosted (Thank you, Shelly Caldwell) – https://gowoodlawn.com/
- It’s been moved to her hosting and is clean of malware
- Board needs to determine who gets Admin access; Shelly recommends at least one member have access to the hosting service dashboard in case of emergency.
- Anjala would post updates
- We can make the list of members offline
- Probably we can have levels of access, editor vs admin etc
- We may have lost some data, so if people familiar with the content can let Shelly know of anything they know is missing, that may help.
- Motion for reimbursement: $93 total for two plugins – Beth moves, Thelma seconds, board in favor
- Digital Initiative-vote on use of GSuite for email, calendar, and archiving-Melody Randolph. Melody moves we continue to be hosted by gsuite with their calendar and use their archiving functionality. It would cost $72 (instead of our current $70 annual fee). Anjala makes a motion that we spend the money for GSuite; Keith seconds. Board only vote – all in favor.
Melody is piloting videoing our meeting and will try posting to youtube.
- Movie in the Park update-Maija Spencer: submitted our application – we do this in coordination with Portland Parks. Based on her polls our top 3 movie choices were: The Lion King; Mulan; A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. We should find out if we’ve been selected in the next few weeks – will learn the date and movie.
- Community Cleanup Update-Shelly Caldwell
- Vernlawndia! Woodlawn will be partnering with Vernon and Concordia this year
- Planned for May 30th at PCC Workforce Training Center on 42nd & Killingsworth
- We will get four free drop boxes and will see if we can get anything from Waste Management
- Concordia coordinators will make some decisions about who they use for metal and electronics recycling
- New signage needed
Question: how will donations be divvied up?
8:00 – 8:20 Board Business-There are 3 vacant board spots if you want to get involved!
- Treasurer’s Report-Fundraising for Summer-Dennis Kennedy
- Spent no money last month. $9034.58 in the account.
- Land Use and Transportation – 2nd Tuesday at 7pm at Ps & Qs back table. Current topics:
- Recently wrote a letter and got NECN to sign off as well – asking for fire-fighting material caches staged along the rail lines.
- Derelict Cars-see fliers – addressing how owners of derelict cars can get them removed. Need volunteer to follow up.
- Notice of proposed development 1746 NE Lombard – the proposed plan is lovely but the location is dangerous for people entering/leaving the new community due to how quickly people drive in that area. The development is likely to go through but the letter did express concern.
- About two years ago, local churches put together an idea to host tiny homes on properties they own. That idea didn’t persist, but they could possibly build housing or live/work buildings on their properties. This might be a way to encourage affordable housing.
- House bill 4105 would ban new fossil fuel projects on state lands and could restrict Zenith fuel depot; Tuesday 11th, wear red, come to the capitol building from 1-3 when legislature is considering the project.
- AirBnB proposal at 1503 NE Bryant
- A group in the Pearl District has arranged for Cigarette/Trash Disposal at Bus Stops. We need a volunteer to talk to that group to see what it would take to get something similar set up in our neighborhood – see Anjala if you want to volunteer for that.
- Comment from community member: the street sweeping seemed to happen last week, but it was pretty ineffective, just seemed to drive down the center lane; can we provide that feedback. Has the LUTC thought about writing a formal letter from the neighborhood association? Can the letter go above the street sweepers to the commissioner? Thelma motions that a letter get written, Beth seconds – all in favor.
- Another person notes that neighbors can group together to effect change – a recent example is working with the Methodist organization to convince them to sell the church at 15th & Dekum to another non-profit/community use organization.
- Farmer’s Market-Will start back up in June, looking for business sponsors-Keith Baich
- Start back up the first Saturday in June, occurs on Saturdays 10-2; outside Firehouse/Grand Army Tavern. Volunteers who set up or take down get free coffee from Café Eleven or a free beverage from Breakside. Right now they are looking for corporate/business sponsors. Happy to brainstorm with local businesses.
- Board retreat was last month and they came up with some good ideas:
- Decided to purchase a PO Box address
- Decided to buy some inexpensive accounting software
- Working on a master calendar for logistics and operations so they can start to organize/plan over the course of the year.
- NECN-Dennis Kennedy
- No news
- NET-disaster preparedness workshops-Erin Cooper
- NET = Neighborhood Emergency Team – what happens in the neighborhood and city in case of disaster? Talk to Erin if you’re interested in joining NET. Governor Brown has just moved forward some legislation to improve architecture and increase our readiness and resilience statewide. It includes an earthquake early warning system called a Shake Alert – can give 10 seconds to a minute advanced notice. Ask your representatives what they are doing to help us with resilience!
8:20 – 8:30 Final words
- Organizers needed for April 11th Easter Egg Hunt
- Thelma: Stride for seniors is coming up – this is a benefit for Meals on Wheels. It’s their biggest fundraiser. In the past the neighborhood has donated money or raised money via a team. Last year the center raised almost $12,000 and wants to do even better this year. The walk will be on April 25th this year. Needs a team organizer, donations accepted as well! Maija is interested in helping organize the team again this year.
Thelma moves that we donate $300 this year; Beth seconds. Board votes – all in favor.
- Upcoming events, final announcements, thoughts:
- Shirley: Free street reconditioning event: if you know of any unpaved streets in N/NE that need work, report to the Bureau of Transportation and they’ll add rocks and smooth it out, then want homeowners to help keep it up. Portlandoregon.gov/transportation
- Classic Foods monthly first Friday sale is this week.
- Oregon Public House – February 17th all day (11am-9pm), North Star Village gets the profits. North Star Village is a volunteer organization benefiting senior citizens.
8:30 Meeting adjourns
Thank you all for coming! Hope to see you Wednesday, March 4th at 7pm for our next meeting!
