May 18th Meeting Minutes

University Heights Neighborhood Meeting Minutes
Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Sixteen people present. Minutes of the April 20 meeting were reviewed and approved.

1. Gary Loveless, Mayor’s Neighborhood Liaison

Handed out posters for bank accounts—trying to get people off check cashing places. Passed out rain garden brochures. The City Council approved initiating discussion on the sale of the water company. Some questions and discussion about the financing. E-mail Gary (gloveles@indygov.org) and he will send your questions about the sale to the mayor’s staff. There was also a question about the quality of work on the utility project on Hanna.

2. Dept. of Public Works reps Adie Gaines and Marlon Wright talked about the new trash cans. Put your address on the trash can. There is a CAD number that is on the trash can and assigned to the house address. You can have up to 2 cans. The first can is free. An extra can is $65, but it is yours to keep. You need to put all trash in the container and bagged. Bagging will prevent the trash from blowing all over the neighborhood. Pickup is changing from Friday to Wednesday.

There were questions about parking and problems with getting trash picked up, especially on Edwards where cars park on both sides of the street. Put can on the street if possible in those cases. Elderly residents or people with disabilities should call the Mayor’s Action Center at 327-4622. Leaf season will stay the same: bag leaves separately and keep 10 feet away from the trash can. You can drop off trash on Saturdays at 2700 S. Belmont, for a small charge. You can’t leave cans next to the alley during the week, only on trash days. Heavy trash pick up will remain the same.

Note that trash pick-up day will change to Wednesday on June 9.

Question about recycling, how might it change? Recycling is in negotiations right now—they hope to go county wide. The city has requested bids.

3. Election of Co-Coordinators

Ruth Soper was elected to a one-year term, and Angela Lord was elected to a two-year term.

4. Neighborhood Garage Sale

The garage sale committee proposed 2 dates: June 19 or August 28. July tends to be vacation time. Students start moving in August 28th. Were working around some other events. Michael Lientz suggested making a map for those who are participating. The committee can put ads in local papers, maybe offer coupons to students. We agreed to make it August 28.

5. KIB Tree Planting, May 15

Jim reported that the tree planting went very well. We planted 31 trees in our neighborhood, 12 on university property and 19 along Otterbein and adjoining streets. Over 30 people assisted with the planting. Thanks to Richard Lopez for bringing a crew of his employees to help. We had 11 UIndy students assist, so thanks to them. And a big thanks to Nancy Collins and David Wantz for providing coffee and donuts for the event, and making the alumni house restrooms available. Thanks to everyone who helped make the event a success, including those who agreed to take care of the trees in their yards. Remember that each tree needs 15 gallons of water a week from April through October for the next three years. Jerome Delbridge suggested we put in an application to do another planting next year about this time along Bowman and adjoining streets. Four of our neighbors on Bowman signed the previous application, so hopefully they will still be interested in participating. We also had other neighbors express interest after seeing the trees planted. We will need to find locations for a minimum of 20 trees. Jim has an application if anyone wants to sign up to have trees planted in their yard next spring.

6. Neighborhood Park Plan

Some preliminary work is being planned—discussion with possible landscape architects is planned by the university committee working on this.

7. Neighborhood Crime Watch

Diana Faris talked about what we would need to do. It can be no more than 20 houses that face each other. So block by block. Each block would need to have its own committee and would need to have meetings. Ann Westropp is responsible for South district. Neighbors who do this would have to learn procedures. Responsibility is to report crime to the police. You need a membership roster to communicate with each other and for the police. To get signage, you need to have participation and an agreement on where the signs go. The committee needs to have community events—social or educational events. A flyer with information was distributed.

8. Website Update

Karen Barten is our new webmaster. She is updating the website and putting meeting minutes there. She can also announce events there. Send Karen suggestions. Nancy Collins suggested having a message board.

There was a suggestion that we might need to connect with McCana, the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations.

9. Frequency of future meetings

After some discussion about the pros and cons of meeting every one, two, or three months, we decided to hold meetings July 20, September 21, and November 15. We can hold more meetings if needed. The July meeting can be used to plan for the neighborhood garage sale.

10. Your questions and idea

Diana asked about how we might recruit more people. Flyers don’t seem to matter that much. Greta thinks something needs to be happening. For example, the cards that were made at one of the meetings.

Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing will have a home ownership workshop June 26. Go to
https://www.inhp.org/myblock/southside_location.html to learn more.


Minutes submitted by Jim Pennell