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October Delegate Meeting
Herald Sun Community Room
October 27,2009
Meeting was called to order by Craigie Sanders at 7:05pm.
Attending the meeting were:
Delegates and Alternates
Erin Kennedy - Colonial Village
Rebecca Board – Downing Creek
Bill Anderson - Duke Park
Rosemarie Kitchin - Falconbridge
Joe Chambliss and Jay Levy - Forest Hills
Craigie Sanders - Grove Park
Jim McDonald – Hope Valley
Jeane Bross – Lakewood Park
Mike Shiflett - Northgate Park
Fred Foster-Old Farm
Nancy Gallman – Old West Durham
Myers Sugg and Susan Sewell - Tuscaloosa-Lakewood
Scott Carter - Woodcroft
Visitors
Sue Dayton and David Mickey – Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League
Lynwood Best and Earl Phillips - City of Durham
Pat Carstensen - Cross County
Sandra Reddish – DSS
Bob Ashley – Herald Sun
Carolyn Kreuger - Kids Voting Durham
Announcements
Bill Anderson presented a plaque to Bob Ashley of the Herald-Sun in appreciation of their hospitality of providing a place to meet. Starting in January, we will be meeting elsewhere.
November and December meetings will be combined into a mostly-holiday party on December 8th. Please come and bring something to share.
Sandra Reddish spoke about November being Adoption Month. There are 234 kids in foster care in Durham County; of these 20 are in the process of being adopted and 20 more are available for adoptions. She would love to talk to neighborhood meetings, they are looking for mentors, and with holidays coming up, you can provide gifts. Her contact info is
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or 560-8080.
Kids Voting still needs volunteers at some sites for the November 3 election. All the candidates responded to the kids’ questionnaire and were going to be at the candidate forum.
Lynwood Best reported the there will be a landlord training session on November 7. Also they are still looking for more groups to do ComNet.
There will be a meeting for DO Transit on November 4.
Presentations:
Contamination from Dry Cleaning Establishments – Sue Dayton of Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) gave a presentation. BREDL started 25 years ago in response to a proposal for a nuclear waste dump and has been working since then on polluting industries affecting communities. Their site on dry cleaning solvents is: http://www.bredl.org/drycleaningsolvents.htm
PERC was introduced as a dry cleaning solvent in 1934, but really took off in the 1960’s. It is really efficient (1 55 gallon drum cleans 8 tons of clothes), but it and its by-products are pretty nasty stuff (affecting reproduction, neural system, liver, etc.). EPA says it is “toxic, volatile, persistent, and bio-accumulating. There are over 2000 sites with PERC issues in NC. Most of the contamination is from establishments that were careless, not any bad faith). Durham’s geology makes clean-up especially hard.
The Dry Cleaning Solvent Clean Up Act (DSCA) of 1997 established a fund to clean up solvent, paid for with a tax on the chemicals and dry cleaners. Unfortunately, it is underfunded for the need, has a limit of $1M per site, minimizes the danger instead of cleaning it up, and has no compensation for neighbors whose property is affected.
Other states are suing and mandating phase-outs. What you can do is buy clothes that don’t need dry-cleaning, choose wet-cleaning for clothes you can’t wash, and work to ban PERC.
Old Business – Proposed By Laws Change
Mike Shiflett moved and Bill Anderson seconded that we wait until January to take final action on the by laws. This passed.
Jay Levy moved and Mike Shiflett seconded to drop Section 7 (about attendance). This passed unanimously.
There will be a final report (in 2 versions, one showing changes and one a clean copy) on the website.
Meeting was adjourned at 9:15pm.
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