January 19, 2020

EPIC Community Meeting 1-9


EPIC Community Meeting Minutes
January 9th, 2019, 6:30 – 8:50
East Phillips Park Cultural & Community Center, 2307 17th Ave S.
EPIC web address: eastphillips-epic.com
Office: 2433 Bloomington Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55404
Phone: (612) -280-8418

Board Roster: Rosie Cruz, Laura Dale, Mary Gonsior, Cassandra Holmes, Shontal Lajeunesse, Abah Mohamed, Carol Pass, Steve Sandberg, Sarah Santiago. 
Board Members Present: Laura Dale, Mary Gonsior, Carol Pass, Steve Sandberg, Sarah Santiago, Rosie Cruz
Board Members Not Present: Shontal Lajeunesse, Cassandra Holmes
Members: Jolene Jones, Peggy Clark, Bill Jones, Rosie Abadomassee, Brad Pass
Guests: Kali Pliego, Shirley Heyer, Claire Baglien

6:30     Social Time

6:54     Greetings and Introductions
6:50     Approve tonight’s agenda, MG, LD, approved
Approve minutes from December community meeting, MG, LD, amended, approved
           

6:55     Announcements

·       Next Board Meeting will be: February 1st at 10am at the EPIC office (2433 Bloomington Avenue)
o   Board Meetings are open to the public
·       Next Community Meeting will be: February 13th at 6:30 here at East Phillips Park
·       Next Executive Committee meeting is January 23rd from 7-8pm at the EPIC office
o   Executive Committee meetings are the third Thursday of every month
o   Executive Committee meetings are open to the public
·      Next Southside Green Zone meeting is Monday, January 27th from 5:30-8pm
o   Members of the public are welcome, please RSVP by emailing  kelly.muellman@minneapolismn.gov
·      EPIC’s Annual Meeting will be Saturday April 18th
o   EPIC has 4 directors up for re-election
o   Primary qualifications for becoming an EPIC board of director:
§  Must be 18 years of age and have attended one previous EPIC General Membership Meeting in the previous 12 months.
§  Must reside or own property in East Phillips, OR be designated as the voting representative of an organization or business in East Phillips
§  Go to EPICs website for nomination forms
7:05     Crime and safety Update – Kali Pliego (10 minutes)
·      Updates on community concerns from past community meetings
·      3rd precinct Court Watch occurs monthly at two locations
o   community impact statements have had a large impact – need community involvement
o   Little Earth Court Watch: 2nd Wednesday of each month
o   Franklin Avenue Court Watch – precinct court watch (not just for Franklin Avenue) – Friday, January 17th at 2100 Bloomington Avenue at 10:30am
·      3 pack – 3rd precinct advisory meeting – January 27 at 6:30pm
o   How to spend money to support the police
o   Elected community members lead 3 pack
o   Plan meals at the precinct for officers
·      Block leader training - January 29th at 6:30 at the 3rd Precinct
·      Last month question raised about the plan for the encampment at 25th and Bloomington:
o   3rd precinct is coordinating with community when encampment arises
§  Officer partners with organizations to house the people
o   Neighborhood Coordinators – self generating work – vists encampments
o   Aid in moving people out of encampments
o   Get rid of garbage
o   There was a meeting today to get all of the 3rd precinct on the same page and working on the same strategies with encampments
o   Working to make sure people are not camping in one spot for very long
o   Partner with organizations to find housing for people in the encampment
o    Volunteer groups dropping off food and resources in one place – Sergeant has informed groups that the donations are not helping the situation and will not be allowed anymore
o    Community member asks how will the 3rd precinct measure success?
o   Kali: Volume of reports, but hard to compare to previous years
·      Concern about robberies and gangs in the area
o     CERT team has worked the area around 17th Ave/16th Ave and 29th Street
·         Community question about whether we can put cameras out in the areas
o     Community member shared that it has helped around Little Earth
o     Kali said that there is a program through the city – purchase permanent camera to light poles - $7,000
·      EPIC has said that they have tried to purchase a camera in the past and the city said there were not enough monitors to watch the footage
o   Kali will look into this and get back to us about this
7:35     Claire Baglien – Homegrown Minneapolis – Urban Agriculture Programs Specialist
·      sharing information about the Minneapolis Garden Lease Program.
·      Homegrown Minneapolis has launched their priority application process, which is open from January 3rd to February 14th. There are a few available lots located in East Phillips (check out their garden lot map here), so they want to be sure neighbors nearest to the lots & most connected to the community know about the opportunities
o   2 lots available in East Phillips – see map at link above
o   Anyone interested in starting a community garden with a blank slate
o   Anyone who wants to lease as a market garden
o   Prioritize people who live in the community
o   There is a staff person to help people through the application process because it can be bureaucratic since it is a city program
·      How to get your soil tested:
·      The University of Minnesota’s Soil Testing Laboratory provides soil testing services. While they don’t test for arsenic, lead tests are available for $16
·      The University of Minnesota’s Department of Soil, Water, and Climate hosts the mobile Soil Kitchen, which provides free screening for lead in soils to communities across the Twin Cities metro area at rotating locations.
·      The City of Minneapolis provides free testing for lead in soil
·      A list of additional metro area laboratories that perform soil tests are included on page 3 Urban Gardens and Soil Contaminants - A Gardener's Guide to Healthy Soil
·      Read more about Lead in the Home Garden and Urban Soil Environment, a publication via University of Minnesota Extension
·      Question about the cost of the program and how accessible it is to low income people
o   Community groups got security deposit taken out
o   City Council guides the program and sets the cost
·      The EPIC 17th Ave garden has 32 plots and has as many as 10 empty plots per year
o   Garden was remediated – fresh dirt
o   Can’t dig further than a foot
o   Contact Brad Pass at 1abjpass@gmail.com if you are interested in a plot
o   Must live in East Phillips
7:54     Jolene Jones with proposal for Little Earth NELC Playground Resurfacing and Fencing
·      Requesting $65,000 from EPIC
·      Looking to replace the wood chips because too much human excrement
·      Playground equipment does not need to be redone
·      Would like to get the work done as soon as possible in the spring
·      Will be putting plum and apple trees in the area
·      The city did not go through the correct process when forcing EPIC to spend $175,000 i.e. going through NCEC
·      EPIC is trying to figure out how much money we have available:
timeline for revisiting all the rejected proposals
Note: The competitive RFP process used to spend EPIC’s funds was executed by CPP/Minneapolis – this is not a process that EPIC has used in the past, and EPIC is not designing a process for reoccurring funding. This is because EPIC is not a funding organization; instead, EPIC has policies to utilize our CPP funds to serve the neighborhood through “partnerships” with neighborhood institutions such as East Phillips Park, Waite House, Hispanic Baseball League, KALY Radio and more. Unfortunately, the competitive process of soliciting RFPs was imposed on EPIC by CPP/Minneapolis, and it actually created unhelpful tension between EPIC and our partner organizations who did not receive funding through the CPP/Minneapolis process.
Here’s what IS happening: Because of the very short timeframe imposed by CPP/Minneapolis, many proposals that EPIC had prioritized for 2020 were cut out at the start of the RFP process. CPP/Minneapolis staff promised to help EPIC revisit these rejected proposals and help us identify other sources of funding for those projects. That is the task that we set for ourselves going forward in 2020. The review of these proposals will begin this month and we will work as quickly as we are able.
8:30     Are you interested in joining a committee? EPIC is forming:
·       Events: EPIC is forming an events committee to plan and carry out EPIC events including the EPIC annual meeting, Summerfest, Cleansweep, NNO, etc.
·       Garden: EPIC owns the garden on 17th Avenue between 24th and 25th Streets. Plots are available and activity will start up in March.
·       Pass around sign-up sheet
8:35     Updates
1)    Timeline for revisiting all proposals that were not funded through the Community Driven Project RFP process:
                                               i.     Meet with Ethrophic and Steve (from the city) and determine amount of money available (CPP and NRP) – will be meeting January 15th
                                             ii.     Decide how much money to disperse via the RFPs and how much to reserve for organizational needs
                                           iii.     Organize the ‘rejected’ RFPs and ‘accepted’ RFPs into EPIC priority (Community connection; public safety/crime prevention; new home construction/housing; environmental justice/community-wide childhood illness; youth and adult programming; community gardens) categories
1.     Which RFPs are our priorities? Which RFPs fall into EPIC priorities that we haven’t funded?
2.     Evaluate communities served
3.     Prioritize proposals and recommend proposals for February board meeting
2)    Smith Foundry – foul odors and pollutants (see safety data sheet handout)
                                               i.     Community members will be going down to city council on Friday 1/17/20 and demand that the city recognizes the Health Impact Assessment for the Phillips Neighborhood
MOTION: The East Phillips Improvement Coalition (EPIC), calls upon the City of Minneapolis to implement the recommendations of the 2017 Health Impact Assessment for Phillips Neighborhood, and thereby cease and desist planning, funding, zoning changes, or any activity that will increase automobile or truck traffic in East Phillips Neighborhood, or in any other way add to the overburden of pollution in Phillips Neighborhood, StS, LD, approved
Discussion: One community person was concerned that we did not have the 2017 Health Impact Assessment for Phillips Neighborhood
3)    Speed bumps on 17th Ave at 29th Street because kids were killed
                                               i.     In the past EPIC has funded half and the block pays half (usually most of the block money comes from businesses and door knock the neighborhood)
                                             ii.     $7500 in the past
                                           iii.     EPIC will try to follow the success of past blocks, with the leadership of the block at 17th Ave at 29th Street
4)    Homeless issues this coming spring - TABLED
5)    Urban farm update – TABLED
8:56     Adjourn