Durham INC

Inter-Neighborhood Council

Making Better Neighborhoods

Http://www.rtpnet.org/durhminc

Minutes of Meeting of May 25, 2004

REPRESENTATIVES PRESENT

* Speaker

Administration and Announcements

President Cheryl Sweeney opened the meeting, and members introduced themselves. Fred Foster announced a Durham Voter Coalition candidate forum on June 8 at NCCU.

Durham Court System Needs – Barker French presented the Durham Roundtable’s analysis of current court realities, court needs, and community outcomes.

§ Budgets for NC courts are set by the legislature. Durham gets a relatively small share of a pie that is in the lowest 25 percentile (that is lowest 12 states). The budget is a micro-managed line-item one, so the legislature needs to approve a copier for the clerk.

§ The felony caseloads are going up. Because resources have not grown as fast, the number of pending cases and the age of cases are going up. As a consequence, bail gets reduced or cases get plea bargaining, and defendants are back on the street.

§ NC is pitifully behind in technology – citations need to be typed into the computer, for example.

§ Durham courts are also understaffed by usual calculation of staffing requirements.

§ Some changes proposed are that Hardin will fast-track the worst offenders, the administrative court will speed minor cases, and the Herald-Sun will publish quarterly statistical measures and actual cases that represent successes or failures of system.

§ People are asked to lobby governor and legislature for $300,000 for 2 additional ADAs, 2 clerks, and 1 digital recorder.

§ INC will vote in June about whether to support the Durham Roundtable’s request for more court funding.

Doggie (and kitty) doo-doo – A significant number of people still do not clean up after their pets when they defecate in parks or on other people’s property. The result is ugly, bad when playing children get into it, and unhealthy when it runs off into streams. It has been a major item on Duke Park list-serve and at their neighborhood meetings. Duke Park has put out collections of garbage bags for dog-walkers to use, plus exerted social pressure. One idea is to put information about pet owner responsibilities in the license renewal notices, and possibly also at places like vet clinics. Signs might also help (Canadian parks have some nice ones). It isn’t clear what the current ordinances are, but there was agreement that enforcement of such ordinances is hard. Jessie Eustice will report back at the June meeting

Duke Central Re-zoning – Duke is planning what to do on their central campus. University/College (UC) zoning should support the developments that Duke and the neighborhoods have agreed on (hotel, medical student housing, bookstore, restaurants, bowling alley, etc.). UC, which has limited retail and is pedestrian-friendly mixed-use, is Duke’s preferred zoning. However, a representative of Duke has mentioned General Commercial (GC), which would attract much more outside traffic, have more commercial space, and compete with Ninth Street businesses. Old West Durham is asking INC to support UC, not GC, zoning. We will vote on this in June.

Duke Durham Neighborhood Partnership – Mike Palmer went over some things they are doing. They work with established groups. For example, on affordable housing, they work with Self-Help, Habitat for Humanity, and the Land Trust. They have helped the 6 neighborhoods of SW Central Durham to collaborate more. With NCCU, they have gotten a $4.5M grant for after-school programs. They are also working on access to affordable health care like the clinic in Lyon Park and the possible one in Walltown.

COP (Citizen Observer Patrol) – Mike Shiflet talked about COP, which is now only in District 2 but deserves to be spread to Districts 1, 3 and 4. It lets citizens supplement police (doing things like elderly checks). Some people who are reluctant to talk to police will tell COP volunteers about problems in their neighborhood. It would cost about $8-15K to start (pay for administrative health screens, insurance, etc.)

Other updates / items:

§ Nominating Committee – INC elects officers in September so delegates are asked to consider serving on a Nominating Committee.

§ Durham Housing Budget – Lorisa Seibel asked that people support Housing Department’s budget requests on June 7. It looks like the proposal is to use one-time funding, but that doesn’t give new employees a lot of job security.

§ UDO and Comprehensive Plan – There will be public meetings on these in June. See the Planning Department’s website.

§ Minutes – April minutes were approved.

§ Billboard bill – Letters went out to County Commissioners, City Council, and the Durham legislative delegation conveying INC opposition to this bill. See the attachment for correspondence on this issue.

Adjournment – The meeting adjourned with a reminder to look at the events listed at the bottom of the agenda.

Billboard Bill Correspondence

Dear members of Durham legislative delegation, Durham Board of County Commissioners, and Durham City Council:

At its April 27th delegate meeting, the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham (INC) voted to re-iterate its opposition to the so-called "billboard bill," Senate Bill 534. Even if billboards are the only named structures in the bill, the bill will undermine the use of amortization and therefore, the ability of local governments to use zoning and other regulatory tools to protect neighborhoods from visual blight, dilapidated buildings, and inappropriate uses such as junk yards, nightclubs, and adult entertainment.

The InterNeighborhood Council of Durham (INC) is a private, nonprofit coalition of Durham neighborhood associations.  Our purpose is to work together to preserve and enhance the residential quality of life for all Durham neighborhoods.  Over the last 20 years, we have enjoyed considerable success at the local level. Senate Bill 534 would be a significant set-back for our goals.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact President Cheryl Sweeney at 919-220-0404 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Sincerely,

Patricia Carstensen

INC Secretary

From : Catotti, Diane < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Thanks, Pat!  take care, Diane

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Mr. Carstensen,

Thank you for your input on this matter and relaying the position of the

InterNeighborhood Council. I also do no support SB 534.

Rep. Paul Miller.

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Pat,

At the County's meeting with the legislative delegation last week, we went on record against Senate Bill 534, the "billboard bill." While the bill is labeled the billboard bill, I pointed out that the bill would prohibit the amortization of other nonconforming uses such as junk yards, making it much more difficult to clean up areas of our community.

Ellen

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We are opposed to bill and have let legislators know this loud and clear.

Best to you and Ed. Becky Heron