Minutes from March 2022 WNA General Meeting 2022-03-17

Woodlawn Neighborhood Association General Meeting Minutes March 2022 minutes

 (draft until approved at next meeting)

Woodlawn Neighborhood Association March 2022 Meeting agenda 

Present: 

Board: Melody Randolph, Anjala Ehlebe, Thelma Diggs, Elizabeth Kennedy, Dennis Kennedy, Barbara English, Nancy Flynn, Keith Baich 

7:00 – 7:15 Welcome and Introductions. Please share your name and pronouns.

7:15 – 7:20 Approve February meeting notes and March agenda: Dennis moves we approve the meeting notes; Thelma seconds; all in favor. March agenda: Dennis moves we approve, Beth seconds, all in favor. 

7:20 – 8:00 General Business

1. Meals on Wheels 2022 event: join NE Neighborhood Heroes team when you register or donate!
   Updates from Nancy: NE Neighborhood Heroes is the team we’ve participated with before. The walk will be at PIR/Portland International Raceway on Saturday April 16th. Please join and recruit others, and also ask for donations. So far there are only three members! Links here: https://www.mowp.org/events/stride-for-seniors/ and https://give.mowp.org/team/383752
   Thelma is hoping for a donation from the neighborhood – will bring it up next time.  
2. Updates on Neighborhood Cleanup planned for Sunday June 5th – 

Melody: Walgreens doesn’t care if we close down Ashley street.

Nancy: there’s a pretty big wrinkle – talked to someone at SOLVE that they can NOT sponsor neighborhood cleanup events. We’d been hoping that SOLVE could sponsor the costs and then we could apply for a Metro grant to reimburse the costs. The dumpsters cost 400-500 apiece and we estimated we’d want 5. We’d need to front the money and hope the grant would come through which expires at the end of June, but the grant is specifically for SOLVE-sponsored events, which this wouldn’t be. 

We used to get dumpsters donated from Waste Management but that possibility ended in 2020 when we were planning. 

Update from Rick: Ridwell can provide a staff person and can take clear plastics. They can’t provide any funding, however. 

Nancy will see if the Concordia Neighborhood has any plans for a cleanup. Melody will contact Adopt One Block. Nancy will contact other waste companies to see if they could sponsor dumpsters and will also see what it would take to get a permit to close Ashley street on the block between Parr Lumber and Walgreen’s. 

Rick will contact Commissioner Hardesty’s office, and Dennis will contact Commissioner Mapp’s office – both to express there is a real desire to have cleanups come back with some support from the city. 

Perhaps we could be creative and expand the Saturday SOLVE-linked cleanup: have Ridwell to accept clear plastic, see if we could find some scrappers/recyclers who could maybe staff a drop off zone. 

8:00 – 8:20 Board Business

1. Treasurer’s Report-Dennis Kennedy: 
   1. Spent $50 last month to the Secretary of State to renew a license to be a charity in Oregon. That makes 2 out of 3 annual activities, the next one will be our CT-12, due in May. 
   2. Balance: 6744.95 
2. Land Use and Transportation-Anjala Ehelebe
   1. No city notices that affect us. 
   2. Concordia University property has been bought and will be used by University of Oregon will use it to house an institute for children’s health. There are several articles online including on OPB.org. 
   3. Question for Land Use: there are burned-out houses on NE Stafford that remain unrepaired; Anjala will resume contacting the city about them. 
3. Farmer’s Market-Keith Baich:
   1. Market resumes in June, exact dates being worked out. 
   2. Have $3817 in their funds. 
   3. The market paid Dallas to work a few hours over the winter to submit grants, they have found four to apply to so far. Grants would be used to match SNAP dollars and run more programming. They are seeing applicants from vendors. 
4. NECN-Anjala
   1. Group called We Shines wants to build temporary shelters for people transitioning out of homelessness. They are running into bureaucratic issues. For example, a church donated land to build temporary shelters, but the city is requiring they connect to sewer, electric grid, which would cost about $50,000 to set up. It seems like the city agencies aren’t working together smoothly. We Shines is still forging ahead to try to install a temporary housing installation. 
   2. The new director of NECN suggested that they need to create their equity and diversity statement, so a group has formed to work on that. 
   3. Jona Davis know about NECN and its prior efforts for Equity and Inclusion.  jona@necoalition.org
   4. Budget is in the black
   5. NECN will resume being a voice for people in their neighborhoods.
   6. Meetings are public and held by Zoom 
5. NET-Beth Heins: 
   1. NET is resuming in-person (masked) training. 

8:20 – 8:30 Final thoughts, announcements, other upcoming events

• Dennis was contacted by a representative of a person running against Commissioner Hardesty and that person may get in touch to see if they can present at our meeting in April (though the board can’t take a position on candidates). Mayor Wheeler tentatively responded to an invitation to join our meeting in May. Another commissioner might join our June meeting. 

8:30 Meeting adjourns

Thank you for coming! Hope to see you Tuesday, April 5th at 7pm for our next Meeting!

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