May 5th, 2012, Saturday, 10:00 am
East Phillips Park
Cultural & Community Center, 2307 17th Ave S**
EPIC web address: http://www.eastphillips-epic.com/index.html
Office: 2536 18th Avenue S.,
Minneapolis, MN 55404
Present: Mary
Gonsior, Linda Leonard, Carol Pass, Steve Struthers, Jennie Bjorgo, Earl
Simms
10:00 Introduction:
·
Approval of Agenda (MG, CP)
·
Approval of Minutes from
EPIC Board Meeting, (LL, SS)
10:10 Announcements:
·
EPIC Membership Meeting:
Thursday, May 10th,
6:30 PM, the East Phillips Park Center,
·
EPIC Community Garden Meeting;
Saturday, May 10th, 9:00 am in the Garden;
followed by a community work hour.
2400 block of 17th Avenue.
· GRAND RE-OPENING of the
PHILLIPS COMMUNITY CENTER; This Sat. May 12th, 10 am
– 3 pm, Music, Food, Tours and Fun!
·
13th Annual Little Earth
Mother’s Day
PowWow; This Sat. May 12th & 13th, 11 pm to 6 pm, Sun.1 pm, Cedar Field
at 25th St. &
18th Ave.
·
May Day 2012 Parade; May 13th, This Sunday, 12pm – to ? Bloomington Ave. to Powderhorn Park.
·
Xcel
substation; design. There will be a design charette in
mid-June.
·
Midtown
Greenway; party all night. June 9, 6 pm to Midnight, Light
up the Greenway. Raises money for Greenway services. Reg. req’d for the bike
ride.
·
Abbot-NW
air pollution walk-through; May 31, 6 pm; St. Paul’s Lutheran; Allina
wants to change their fuel oil, which they claim will clean up air pollution
problems. Download documents from www.pca.state.mn.us/qzqh484
10:20 Report on the Annual Meeting
Jose
Luis V. is EPIC’s new board member, elected at the annual meeting. The other
board directors elected are returning to service. We don’t have a quorum to
elect officers. Quorum appears later, it is decided to wait until Joseluis is
present.
10:30 Neighborhood Funding
10:50 Phase II Housing Contract with
CEE- Doug Wise,
·
Housing Rehab Loans –
Loan Pool - $90,000.00, Lottery??? Discussion about contents?
Marketing?
·
Emergency Repair Loans –
Loan Pool $$18,000.00
·
Foreclosure Assistance
Loans – Loan Pool
11:00 Land
Use Issues: Already have these issues: Smith Foundry, Bituminous Roadways,
·
Alliance Housing Project – 2600 17th Ave S. 15 Land
Use Issues: Petition Progress
CP has all the petitions that were signed at the
annual meeting. There are a few petitions still floating out there. EPIC had
hoped to get this done sooner, so everyone needs to help get as many signatures
as possible. CP will distribute extra copies of the petition. Get them signed
and return them to Carol, asap.
·
Smith Foundry, Bituminous Roadways, Allina’s concern with the
Clark/Berglin Environmental Justice Law
We need to consult with Karen about this drive to change the
law, and figure out what to do. For these polluting companies to make any
changes, they must do an expensive study. Now they are talking about changing
the bill.
How do we get action from our Council Member
Several residents who have written letters and
emails to Gary S. to support neighboring residents’ efforts to see the 2003
Minneapolis Plan and Greenway plan for this area, implemented in this
neighborhood, that is, the removal of heavy industrial activities at these
sites. Bituminous Roadways. Smith Foundry,
·
Get the people together:
2850 Cedar, Steve’s block club, 28th & Cedar building.
·
Alliance Project
Petition Collect Signatures area wide Send to??
·
Meet with Herb Frye to
change project
·
Press CM Gary Schiff
11:55
Adjournment
EPIC General Membership Meeting
Minutes
August
11th, 2011, 6:30
p.m. – 8:45 p.m.
East
Phillips Park Cultural & Community Center, 2307 17th Ave S**
6:45 Introduction:
· Greetings and Introductions
· Carol
Pass; Chiffon Willams; Earl Sims; Hanna Lieder; Mohammed CaliLinda Leonard; Brad
Pass; Shirley
Heyer; 3 residents Miko
· Approval
of Agenda
Agenda approved [Linda
and Chiffon with the motion]
·
Minutes from EPIC 7/14 /2011 General
Membership Meeting
Brad
and Chiffon moved to accept the minutes with the addition of spelling out AT as
artificial turf in the motion made at the meeting. Passed
6:40 Announcements:
“Bridging Phillips” August 13th,
Saturday, A Celebration of our Connections on our one Connecting Street, 24th
St. There is an effort to save the
pedestrian bridge.
I 35 improvements with I94 hearing about 28th
and 29th street and that
impacts the fact that the pedestrian bridge has to go…August.17th
5-7 pm at the Shrine building on 26th
Street
Soccer Sign Up for Fall Park League.
Final Review of NRP Phase II Plan at Next Monthly
EPIC Meeting
Please
ask people to email the city council about more family housing units in any
developments. Families are having to leave Minneapolis to find housing because
of foreclosures
6:50 Reading
of the City Core Principles
7:00 Second Review &
comment on NRP Phase II Plan in preparation for a final vote at
next month’s meeting.
Explanation of Funding
We have
$223,827 for housing and $96,783
for Community Enhancement
Explanation of the Plan
There was a door to door survey collected from about 150 residents and 22
businesses in East Phillips.
The survey results
identified the opinions and questions about how funds would be spent in the
neighborhood.
Those survey results
guided the proportion of funds
targeted for various portions of the NRP Phase II Action Plan. The housing plan focused
on using grants and the lottery for
major repairs and there is an appeal group for the lottery process
for an emergency loan. The best deal for us is housing deferred
loans. We probably will contract
with CEE; Center for Energy and the Envirionment.
The other major
expenditure is for development along the Greenway. This is an ongoing project
We went through the
proposal page by page with explanations and commentaries. We made jokes about
wanting a gated community.
We concurred that we
need more money for a website and we need multiple languages. We could use a
volunteer to kwwp our website up to
date.
Q & A on Changes
There was a question
about prepaying and that would no doubt be okay.
Carol explained how you
can build a pool of money by recovering the “due on sale”.
MOTION: To post the plan on
the website;
distribute it; and start the 30 day review for final approval. Passed [male resident and chiffon
made motion]
7:370 Preparation for Phase II
Housing Rehab Support Deferred Loans for East Phillips Residents,
Explanation of the Plan
We
went page by page to understand the implications and process for each category.
We think CEE might be
able to take this on.
We noted that there
can’t be code violations on the house.
We have to market this
program and run the lottery, but CEE in the past was very, very helpful and
they bring their own grants to the process.
Q & A
Preliminary ratification for Review for Next
Month’s EPIC meeting
Motion:
Approve the Draft RFP for
finalization at the next monthly meeting. [male citizen and
Mary seconded] Passed
[Earl
and Mohammed left, but Mary arrived at 7:45 pm].
The
members moved to a Committee of the Whole at
7:45 pm.
7:47 Distribution
of the Phase I survey
The results were
collected at an annual meeting as well as the surveys. We posted how our funds leveraged about one million to gain about 30 million.
7:508:00 Next Steps for Hi-Lake
Apartments
They are not ready to build this fall.
Residents
are urged to call the city council about our need for family housing because so
much rental is foreclosed and people can’t find housing to stay in the
community with their school and other social relationships and networks.
We have some information from city officials that
no more funds are available for the project but we’re going to press for two bedrooms and balconies.
One resident offered to meet mornings with the developer and Carol.
7:58:05 “Bridging Phillips”
Progressive Festival – A
Special Festival connecting & celebrating the Four Quadrants
and the Multi-Ethnicities of Phillips: Our Diversity, Our Unity, Our Community,
All Down Our One
Linking Street, 24th St.
Music, Food, Enchantment! Aug. 13th. EPIC Participation at E. Phillips
Park
--Dallas
Johnson, presenter
The park board is
planning some face painting and activities to this building at 11 am. We will
have a dance in the gym and low key presentations about the building’s history. The East Phillips Garden has a meeting
and work day. The gardeners will be encouraged to attend. Bob Albee knows the budget. We offered up to $800 for this event.
8:0015 Organizing for youth
issues – Ideas? Actions?? Tae Kwan Do?? Youth Soccer??
Big Brothers/Big Sisters?
Update on Somali
Community Focus NPI Project. Mohamed Cali, --Carol Pass
We
need coaches for a lot of sports, especially soccer. One resident knows someone
who might be willing to coach.
8:07 Rosie
Cruz arrived so we re-established a quorum.
8:0820 Crime Concerns and Other Livability
Issues: Help Create List of
Problem Properties. Discuss current
difficulties
on your block. Tracking hot spots, problems and police assistance.
? Does
the owner of the property know about the problem property? No because she lives
in Seattle and a management company runs it. 2520 17th
2931
16th Ave?
And
the house next to it…….maybe 2927…..selling drugs. There are neighborhood
breakins in cars.
There
is a native American prostitute that’s back
now. Chiffon knows her and so does Jenny. A drug dealer is back on the block
too and we might have to use court watch and impact statements and citizen’s patrol to assist in
following up on the drug and john traffic.
Chiffon
talked about a multi-million grant in Chicago to hire felons to teach skills to
senior citizens and other employment options. Chiffon talked about offering
options to people so they don’t turn to criminal options.
22nd
and Bloomington has a Court Watch tomorrow 10:30 am. Pictures of chronic
criminals. Options for impact statements;
Male
resident on Greenway at 2 am and
assaulted on his bike. The follow up is nothing….no leads….in spite of the fact
that cameras are there. We talked about cameras and where they are. The
one on 16th is supposed to be
portable but costs money to move.
Shooting
at 2501 on 17th last night;
another shooting at Little Earth this week too.
Motion: Request
3rd precinct to provide access to all public surveillance real time
video so the public can access it and
rebroadcast it.
Shirley
talked about how Carla at the third precinct has helped with SA tapes in the
past. There are data privacy issues for storage time. If you know the
date/time/place you can ask for the tape.
[male
resident and Mary seconded it]
Passed
8:350 Adjournment:
