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January Delegate Meeting
St. Luke’s Church
January 26, 2010
Attending the meeting were:
Delegates and Alternates
Jim Tuttle – Colonial Village
Don Lebkes – Colony Park
Pat Carstensen - Cross Counties
Bill Anderson - Duke Park
Rosemarie Kitchin - Falconbridge
Melissa Rooney – Fairfield
Jay Levy – Forest Hills
Craigie Sanders - Grove Park
Christina Fish – Morehead Hill
Moe Rivera, Pete Katz – Old North Durham
Brett Walters, John Schelp – Old West Durham
Mike Brooks -- Parkwood
Tom Miller -- Watts Hospital Hillandale
Scott Carter -- Woodcroft
Visitors
Kerry Sutton – Fieldstone on the Eno
April Johnson – Preservation Durham
Tom Miller opened the meeting and those present introduced themselves. Tom passed out copies of the City/County Planning Department directory of neighborhoods and asked delegates to make sure the information on their neighborhood is correct.
Sue Ann Lewis from the NC School of Science and Math presented information on an attempt by the students at the NCSSM to set a new Guinness World Record in how much food can be collected in 24 hours. The food will go to the Food Bank. You can bring food to their collection point on March 20, have a collection point in your neighborhood, or contribute money to a “virtual collection point.” They are also looking for sponsors and responsible people to be witnesses. For more information: http://www.ncssm.edu/fooddrive/
Tom and April Johnson led a brief discussion of Historic Preservation Ordinance Revision and Local Bill. It has become clear that the Historic Preservation Commission can delay demolition of historic properties, but not prevent it. Preservation Durham is bringing in a national speaker to talk about the politics of preservation, and they are looking for co-sponsors (INC doesn’t have $1000 to help on this). April also talked briefly about her work in documenting the building and social history of historic black neighborhoods in Durham.
The October and November/December minutes, which were sent to the list-serve, were approved. On financial and membership reports, dues are still $25 but neighborhoods that can afford more should pay more. We will be sending out reminders to pay dues and neighborhood application forms so we can do better at credentializing delegates and alternates.
We continued going through the bylaws. We voted to change “Newsletter Editor” to “Communications Chair” throughout the document. We discussed that it would be a good practice that if the executive committee is contemplating taking some action for which there is not time to go to a delegate meeting, they should at least ask for comment via the list-serve. We tabled having a vote on the revisions until February.
Bill Anderson gave an update on the Spare a Change campaign to get people to give money to groups that help the homeless, instead of contributing to panhandlers. No vote was needed, but help at getting the brochures distributed would be good. More information at: http://canyouspareachange.org/
On the Jordan Lake boundary, Judge Manning’s ruling only applies to the one property (essentially adds an exemption), which leaves the question of where the line is for other properties. There are also deeper issues, such as where the UDO delegates decisions to the staff and how we deal with the mistake on the validity of the protest petition. The resolution from last year didn’t deal with these questions, but neighborhoods could bring in new resolutions.
On potential revisions to the billboard ordinance to allow digital ones, there has been continuing media coverage, of issues such as contributions to politicians and the high support for the existing ordinance. Elected officials have become aware about the risk of needing to pay to take down a sign if we need to widen a road. If neighborhoods have not passed a resolution in favor of the current resolution, they might want to do so. Any ordinance resolution would have to go through the usual sequence: staff helping write a revision, discussion at JCCPP, and then hearings and votes by the Planning Commission , City Council and Board of County Commissioners.
As part of what will be a very hard budget process (since the decisions will mostly be on where to cut how much), there will be a neighborhood engagement workshop on February 27 at Holton School. Representatives of neighborhoods will deliberate at tables, making trade-offs collectively, and then present their results. INC is looking for neutral facilitators to lead discussions at the tables.
We are still looking for a new meeting place. One possibility is St. Joseph’s Church, which would be free, but not available on Tuesdays. If you have ideas about a place, please contact Tom Miller.
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