May 2009 minutes
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 -7 pm
SWNI Board Meeting
Present:
Board members: Brian Russell, Ken Love, Nancy Hand, Jan Weston, John Gibbon, Jim McLaughlin, Marcia Leslie, Marianne Fitzgerald, Janet Hawkins, Jim Gardner, Tom Schaper, Dorothy Gage, Kathy Bambeck, Carolyn Raz, Alexander Ben-Israel, Jim Thayer Kirky Doblie, Tye Steinbach
Staff: Sylvia Bogert, Executive Director
Others: Lee Perlman, Lee Buhler, Launa Rae Mathews, Ali DeMersseman, Nuin-Tara Key Sarah Eright Miriam Roseburg, Ginger Bradley
President Brian Russell called the meeting to order at 7:02
Ken Love made a motion to approve the agenda. The motion passed unanimously.
Marcia made a motion to approve the April minutes with two corrections:
- The sentence in the trails committee report that reads “Noted individual Board members currently are liable for what happens on trails.” will be changed to “Note adjacent home owners are currently liable for what happens on trails.”
- In the crime prevention report the sentence “The committee has discussed a 90 day pilot project for at-risk kids.” should be changed to “The committee has discussed a 90 day pilot project from the Portland Police for at-risk kids.”
The amended April minutes passed unanimously
Ali, Newman and Sarah, students from the PSU Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning Students gave a presentation on a project they have been working on in the West Portland Park neighborhood. The project, which they started, working on in February, was how to turn West Portland Park into a “20 minute” neighborhood. Brian Shehan met with them and suggested West Portland neighborhood and the NA board agreed. They interviewed people, held several focus group workshops and an open house. They asked people what destinations were important to them and developed a list of destinations that should be within 20 minutes. They felt it was harder to implement a 20 minute neighborhood in the West Portland Park neighborhood due to the lack of existing infrastructure. They also did a technical analysis and conducted a business survey. They presented four major recommendations:
- Improve opportunities for pedestrian access including better crossing, better signing and working with the safer routes to school program.
- Enhance commercial destinations specifically establishing a business association and exploring redevelopment opportunities.
- Build neighborhood identity and character. For example, gateway signage and streetscaping
- Foster a diverse community by encouraging diverse housing such as aging in place so people can stay in the area and foster communication between institutions in neighborhood.
Marianne asked if they found out what kind of businesses the neighborhood wants and they said there was a wide variety such as banks. Jim M. said the most surprising thing for him was how few people knew there was such a thing as West Portland Park. He said the street cap signs they recently got were a start but we need to do a better job at outreach. Alexander said he was surprised there was no business association. Jim M. said there was but it is now inactive.
Jim T. said they collected maps that define the SWHRL area and they also have a dearth of retail. Some think the Strohecker’s property could be redeveloped to include more retail and they are looking into what the NA role could be in encouraging that. Alexander suggests marketing studies for neighborhoods and Sarah said they did some of that as part of their project. Sylvia said several neighborhoods on the east side have done some marketing type mapping using grant money.
SWNI Executive Committee Reports
President’s Report:
Brian said the SWNI/ONI grant has been approved for $273,882 and asked that the board also approve the grant. The motion passed unanimously.
Brian said Patty Lee has again offered her home for the annual SWNI Board picnic potluck on Wednesday, July 22nd at 6:30 pm. There was a discussion on whether to have a separate Board meeting and the consensus was that it would be best to have a brief meeting at the picnic if necessary.
Ken Love invited everyone to the South Portland concert that night in Willamette Park after the picnic.
Treasurer’s Report:
Tom went through the treasurer’s report page by page for the Board. Things look good although there are still some billing problems. Sylvia said they are going to go to a monthly billing for BES which might help. Marianne asked about one of the special projects and Sylvia said it was a Somalia filming project.
SWNI Executive Director Report
Sylvia said the operating budget for the coming year will be $273,882 which is down by $6,397 She said they are still are working on the budget details and may yet be able to save some money. For example, the insurance agent said he has an idea that might save some money which they will look into. BES portion of the contract is $73,000 and it has a line item budget this year.
The Office of Neighborhood Involvement is very excited about the searchable database project Payal has been working on.
Sylvia said a forum on aging in place will be held on September 14th and a land-use forum on slope stability will be held on Monday the 21st of September
Unfinished Business
Bylaw Committee Update:
The SWNI action plan was discussed and Ken made a motion to adopt it. Kathy seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. Marianne suggested putting action plans on the website.
Tye will host the annual volunteer recognition award event on Tuesday, June 30th. Tye said the theme will be “SWNI’s Garden of Volunteers” Sylvia said not all nominations are in and suggested neighborhoods send them to her ASAP.
The SW Watershed Center applied for an AmeriCorps volunteer to help staff the watershed office part time.
Sylvia said the spring clean-up was a huge success with large amounts of debris collected. PCC was especially helpful with their electronics recycling. There were minor problems such as the drop boxes where not in place and the community service workers were late. Kirky asked how our clean-up was different from other neighborhoods in Portland. Sylvia said we draw from a larger area. In other areas they do it neighborhood by neighborhood. Dorothy asked if the money for the fall cleanup was in the budget and Sylvia said it was.
Sylvia said there would a postponement of the vote on the fiscal policy. All of the neighborhood offices are working together to review current practices and clarification on fiscal sponsorship vs. fiscal agent responsibility.
Brian read the proposed bylaw amendment:
The 2009 Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc. Bylaw Review Committee hereby moves that that the Bylaws of Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc. adopted May 28, 2008, be amended so that Article IV, Board of Directors, Section 1, Corporate Powers, Subparagraph b reads,
Contracts, grants, obligations, expenditures, and solicitations of funds, standing rules, and policies shall be subject to approval of the Board of Directors.
Ken made a motion to approve the amendment and Kirky seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously
Brian asked for a vote on the SWNI Committee Standing Rules. Marianne said the lower quorum was easier to work with but agreed we need to get more people on committees. Jim G. pointed out that the rules require board approval for committee head appointments but not for the removal of a committee head. He suggested the words “but may be removed by the SWNI President or Board at any time.” be replaced with “but may be removed by the SWNI President with board approval at any time.” Ken made a motion to accept the rules with the preceding amendment. Tye seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.
SWNI Nominating Committee
Janet presented the SWNI board nominations for the nominating committee. John took his name out of nomination for vice president due to other upcoming use activities that will take a great deal of his time. The only contested election was for 2nd vice president. The two nominees were Jan Weston and Alexander Ben-Israel.
Alexander said he was interested in vice pres to make a difference in community he lives in. Jan said he has been doing board work for 30 years and he thinks he as enough experience and he has the time now and looks forward to doing his part.
Sylvia, Tye and Lee P. tallied the vote as the standing committee reports started. After the Transportation Committee report Tye announced that Alexander had won the election for 2nd vice president by a close margin.
Standing Committee Reports (written reports provided separately before meeting or emailed).
Transportation Committee –
Marianne said Barbur Blvd dominated the last transportation meeting. There were representative from ODOT as well as the City. Marianne said the subcommittee on Barbur projects narrowed choice to the following three: the area around the Barbur transit station, SW Moss to 26th and a continuous bike lane.
Marianne said in June Metro will vote on high capacity transit and Barbur is a high priority. There are many questions and will take years of study and planning. Tigard is pushing hard for this. Marianne said they discussed the Capitol Highway project and there are concerns about the design. John asked if there would be a neighborhood meeting on the project for the three neighborhoods affected and Marianne said it would happen in the fall.
The Transportation Committee had the following resolution for the board to consider:
Motion: Fanno sewer improvements: ask city to reduce diesel emissions and ask for bike lanes.
Dorothy asked if not rerouting traffic on to Garden home road could be included in the motion. Marianne agreed. Janet said the same problem was on Vermont. Jan said if Garden Home Road and Vermont were both closed where traffic will go. Marianne said there was a traffic control plan. John suggested Garden home road be secondary route. Jan suggested signs saying there would be a long delay. Alexander said he preferred secondary route because local access would be so hard to enforce. Marianne accepted an amendment to add a fourth point that request that Garden Home road be added as a secondary route. The motion passed unanimously.
Trails Committee –
Lee B. gave the trails report for Don Baack who is out of town. He displayed the book “Oregon Pedestrian Rights” by Ray Thomas who was a guest at the April Trails meeting. His talk was very informative and he discussed the liability issue that SWTrails is dealing with. Lee B. said Ray was very strong in his opinion that according to Oregon state law property owners are not liable for injury when the property was opened for recreational use as trails are. He said it did not matter if there were improvements such as stairs. He said they only way property owners can be held liable is if they intentionally do something to cause harm. He said the current amendments to state law by the city defining recreational use are not necessary. Lee B. said he felt the suggestion that there was liability in case of injury on a trail listed on the map was not reasonable as it would be impossible to make a perfect map for every condition and user. He pointed out people do not sue mapmakers for auto accidents. Lee B. then read the disclaimer that is on each map. Lee B. said he hoped the SWNI board could do something to support SWTrails so SW Trails could get back to the task of making pedestrian trails in southwest safer.
Jim T. said there was strong disagreement with the City and Ray Thomas on the liability issue and the bill in the legislature while not perfect is a viable vehicle to solve this problem. He suggested SWNI support the bill. Marcia said she did not like the homeowners being responsible for maintenance and Marianne said homeowners under city code are responsible for maintenance. Jim M. said be careful with the law because the city is using the word immunity. He said this does not discuss liability for contractors (i.e. SWNI). Jim G. said he was worried that the cities goal was to shield themselves from liability and then SWNI could be a target. Jim T. said in going through the process of permit for handrail in SWRL he found the city owns the handrail after it is built and therefore liable for it. Marianne said there is still is dialog on the issue and possible future improvements. John said he was concerned about another whole series of other improvements in unimproved right-of –ways such as drainage improvements and this issue opens a can of worms. Alexander asked if the bill puts the burden of upkeep on SWNI and Jim T said no and this is not addressed in the bill. Jim Thayer made a motion to support House Bill 2003 Jim M seconded the motion. The motion passed with the following vote: 13 yes, 1 no, 1 abstain.
Land Use Committee –
John presented the following motion from the land use committee:
That SWNI support the City Council recommendation calling for a no-wake zone in the Holgate Channel (on east side of Ross Island) and in the Ross Island lagoon. Commercial traffic is excepted.
John said it started as a no motor zone but was changed to no-wake as there were uses for motorboats in that channel. It would not affect commercial. The motion passed unanimously.
John said the Portland Plan is back on and Sept 21st will be the Landslide/Erosion Control forum.
Parks and Community Centers –
Kirky said there were no motions for the May meeting. An upcoming event will be a dedication of Dickinson Park and the playground equipment. She said it will be on June 6th from 2-4pm and encouraged everyone to come.
Kirky said they had a very interesting presentation from Portland Parks at the last meeting on a new tree program. City naturists will work with neighborhoods to plant and preserve trees. They will identify two neighborhoods as the first projects.
Kirky said the Parks Committee received a letter from the Portland Parks Board to Commissioner Fish as well as other commissioners and mayor going on record against locating a baseball stadium in Lents Parks. The reason given is that it is a loss of Park land. Lents has 38 acres and the stadium would take 16 acres. Jim M. made a motion that SWNI oppose the use of Lents Parks and any city park for a professional sporting facility. Janet seconded the motion. Jim T. said there are alternative sites other than parks for private sports and those should be used. Marcia said there was another alternate in Troutdale. Carolyn suggested a letter to the Oregonian. Motion passed with one abstention.
Announcements/Suggestions for the good of the organization
Jan said there was a very successful bicycle rodeo with over 100 participants. Portland Police helped out and OHSU School of nursing gave out helmets. Sylvia said everyone worked very hard and she was grateful.
Launa Ray, Sarah and Mirium from the OHSU School of Nursing updated the board on a project they have been working on in Southwest. Jim T talked about the aging in place event and said it was wonderful and it was well attended with 60 attendees and 40 companies that wanted to be involved. They had to weed out some of the presenters due to the size. Jim hopes his neighborhood will form a committee to work on aging problems but they were not able to get volunteers at this time.
Sylvia thanked Tye for his time on the board.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:07
Respectfully submitted
Lee Buhler