January 17, 2009

Board Meeting Minutes 01-17


1/17/2009

Carol Pass, Mary Gonsior, Linda Leonard, Earl Sims,

Called to order at 9:57 am at Welna’s Hardware

Agenda approved by consent with a committee of the whole.

Board minutes from November comments:
We passed a more involved motion about excel at our membership meeting.
The paint booth for all the light rail trains was stopped because of the bill Karen Clark’s bill stopped the process.
The bill also stopped progress on the city’s plan to put in a new hot asphalt plant.
We’ve not had time to pursue purchase arrangements for the community garden.
17
Mary moved and Linda seconded the motion to approve the Minutes. Passed

EPIC Finances
Carol and Mary discussed the format of the financial statement and appropriate labels for the report. They are going to use “Statement of Activities” changing the title of “donations” to “restricted grants”, but Carol got different advice from an accountant. There are some differences in report styles between nonprofits and corporations. Mary and Carol will continue the discussion and how best to report our figures. We agreed on a three year depreciation schedule.

-------Earl Simms arrived at 10:20

Report on NRP
Carol went to a Midtown meeting to talk about the mayor’s new community advisory board. Carol was just elected to the NRP policy board. NRP still has more than advisory power. It is a nonprofit that controls millions of dollars for neighborhoods. The new advisory board is what the mayor wants and it centralizes power downtown. No one from the 8th or 9th Ward got on the advisory board even though Carol and Jana Metge applied. The new board has 8 people the mayor and council chooses and 8 people from neighborhoods. The mayor has chosen all anglos, non of whom has been involved in neighborhood organizations. NRP is asking neighborhoods how we want to select the other 8 people. NRP has proposed a formal resolution for a meeting Feb 21st. 60% of the neighborhoods have to respond by the end of January.

Motion: To adopt the NRP resolution; Mary moved/Earl seconded. Passed
Earl would like to meet at Perkins whenever the first Saturday falls on the 1st and ACE isn’t available.

We appointed Carol to attend the Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission meeting on Feb 21 to discuss how to select representatives and to frame issues for the citizen’s advisory committee which will have 8 representatives from the neighborhoods. It’s the beginning of a discussion.

The NRP elections resulted in the election of Kari Anderson as a delegate and Carol as an alternate to the Policy Board.

REPORT ON PARKS

There was a survey from the park board about residents’ view of programs and facilities but they were available only at Stewart Park and almost no one goes there. They were due the 15th of Jan.

Karen Clark spoke with Brad and Carol about state financing of the community center. The design team has not been meeting, but 3 park commissioners met with Brad and Carol,

As chair of the design team, Brad sent a letter to Representative Alice Hausman to correct impressions that Tom Weaver of the Met Council sent, given the documents provided him from the Park Board staff.

Vreeland, MM Anderson, and Annie Young as Park Commissioners reviewed the correspondence with Brad and Carol. They are worried about losing the money to the state and that we need a one story contract right away. They want to meet Jan 21st to decide at the Park Board Meeting with a report about where we are in the design, contract, and money raising process.

Karen Clark sent a letter and a copy of a law that we have two more years on this report to the park board.

***EPIC wants a copy of the Park Staff reports and correspondence relative to the East Phillips Park Building. We’re going to ask Karen  Clark to get that information by her request.

Karen is on the conference committee and holds some power over the Park Board at the Legislature.

***Carol and Brad need to ask Karen to meet with commissioners and the design team and to go to the Park Board meeting next week.


EXCEL ENERGY

There is a concern about the effect of above ground high magnetic influence with the high power lines. EPIC already passed a motion about underground. The community meeting last week surfaced a lot of information. Abbott might write a letter encouraging Xcel to bury the wires. Excel published in the papers already that it is going down the Greenway with criss-cross wires wires. MPCA has no power. Only the public utilities commission needs to issue a permit.  This would negatively impact high density housing and health issues along the Greenway.  We need a new law for needs assessment based on population density as well as distance of the lines. 

We want a rate change to Hennepin County or the entire city to pay the cost of burying the lines. Excel sometimes runs over the community, sometimes cooperates.  Excel is building another substation that they haven’t told us about and it seems they plan to link these to provide power elsewhere.

******Look at the cost and loss to major development along the Greenway for business and housing.
We need to have the city council to oppose overhead lines. Developers have told us they would refuse developments near these lines.

Motion: EPIC is adamantly opposed to overhead high power lines running anywhere in the neighborhood and want them buried down East 28th  .Street.  passed.

REPORTS
Court watch photos
List of foreclosures in Phillips
We have the community of Phillips patrol vests and walkie talkies; cops patrol

Meeting adjourned at 11:45 am.