Minutes from February 2023 WNA General Meeting

2024-02-11

Minutes from February 2023 WNA General Meeting

Woodlawn Neighborhood Association General Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 7:00 pm

Please make every effort to join us In Person at Classic Foods: 817 NE Madrona

Or online on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/3014662210?pwd=d3VKbXkzVldqYzNWU2RwVm9OUkZyZz09

Meeting recording via YouTube is here.

Meeting ID: 301 466 2210

Passcode: WNA

Also online at Facebook Live

Welcome and Vision: “In the future, Woodlawn will be a place where people live harmoniously, respectfully, and in support of one another. The neighborhood will be a clean and thriving community… All Woodlawn residents will share and pursue the common values of health, efficiency, beauty, equity, and justice.”

7:00 – 7:15 Introductions

Please share name, pronouns, & what brought you to tonight’s meeting
Quick share: “Share one experience (good or bad) from January storm(s)”

7:15 – 8:00 General Business

Approve January meeting notes

Keith offers a motion to approve the notes. Shelby seconded it. Meeting minutes approved.

Board vote via email vote for WNA to sign on to the CEI letter. Voting in favor were Melissa, Linde, Nancy, Barbara, Anjala, Melody, Kieth and Shelby. Dennis abstained; Shirley and Thelma didn’t vote. Barbara has informed Jan that WNA will be included.
Presentation by Commissioner Ryan and updates re: Office of Civic & Community Life. Also in attendance—Kimberly Dixon, District Coalition Supervisor at Civic & Community Life.

Dan currently has oversight over NAs and neighborhood coalitions. He also oversees Dan R. oversees Parks, Arts, Children’s Levy. He spoke of the big changes coming to the city government with the re-structuring with a move to focus on policy and legislative work. Hoping for a City Manager to be appointed who is better focused on the customer service element. He wants Civic Life to get back to its core mission—being steward of convening PDXers over issues they are concerned about on the ground, in the neighborhoods.

Kimberly spoke about the current effort to move 7 District Coalition Office to a 4-only model and will be run by our non-profits. There are three more Three more community info sessions about these changes being offered by the Office of Community & Civic Life—Feb 8, Feb 15 and Feb 20. 6 to 8 pm.

Updates on current projects – in BOLD below.

The others have been tabled until the next meeting because of time constraints.

- Neighborhood Cleanup event
- Easter Egg Hunt—more on this at March meeting. Announcements about the event have been posted on Go Woodlawn—on the events calendar and on the blog.
- Youth board member(s)

Shelby sent sent a message to 25 social studies teachers, college/career counselors and student support folks at McDaniel and Jefferson (the two main high schools that serve Woodlawn students) after our last meeting. She has not heard back from anyone yet. She is looking for creative ideas to get the word out. Perhaps posting the one-page letter in local businesses. If yiou have any thoughts and ideas, let Shelby know.

- T-shirt fundraiser

We only have 14 or so orders so far. We need more!

- DIY Movie Night

Melissa did great job coming up with a list of movies. A poll of potential G-rated movies will be going out on Facebook etc. and then once we have the movie, we can go from there re: planning the event.

- NNO/POP

- Donor Drive 2024

- Communication Equipment from NECN – Meeting Owl trial

The trial happened at the February 6^th meeting. What do folks think? Was it a success?

- Neighborhood socials at neighborhood businesses

Julian announced that a first social will be held at Tough Luck on Dekum—get together on February 21, 2024 starting at 6:30 pm.

- PBOT Letter re: pedestrian crossings on Dekum

We got an answer from PBOT that they are going to research this and we are Level 1 in terms of prioirty which is a good thing.

Announcement of March meeting guest speaker

Matt Roberts, U of Oregon communications VP about what is going on with the converstion of the former Concordia campus into U of O Portland as well as outreach to nearby neighborhoods.

Woodlawn School Jazz Night Fundraiser

Mallory Tyler & Andy from the Woodlawn Elementary School PTA. March 8, 2024. Raising funds for Woodlawn PTA Resilience Fund from COVID years, parents and guardians and can get assistance if in crisis on many issues and needs. Also Staff Appreciation Fund for their incredible teachers. Working on getting the school playground to be ADA compatible.An event that paid homage to vibrant Albina jazz and R & B scene to honor the Black culture in our neighborhood. And black-owned businesses are catering the food and making it.

Melody made a motion to donate $500 to this Jazz Night event. Julian seconded the motion.

Melody made a motion to donate $500 to this Jazz Night event. Julian seconded the motion. Board voted on this and approved the donation.

Time for Neighbor open comments

8:00 – 8:20 Board Business

Treasurer’s Report

Dennis reported that the only expense this past month was $300 to Shelly Caldwell to fund an update to the Go Woodlawn website.

NECN Report – Anjala

NECN is going to be the lead organization in creating the “transition” to District 2.

Secretary Report – Nancy

Go Woodlawn website update—Shelly has the updated version ready to go. She would like to do an in-person training on the new features and how to post. If anyone is interested in learning how to do this work, let Nancy know.

Outreach and community engagement report – Linde
Land Use and Transportation Report – Anjala

Anjala sent the letters out and she has heard nothing back from anyone yet in those offices.

Air National Guard airplane test run noise issues are back again and are being asked to minimize their impace on residential areas. A neighbor has written a letter again about this. Travis Nelson, State Rp for house District 44 N/NE PDX a January 19, 2024 letter.