01/12/2017, 6:30 – 8:50
Phillips Park Cultural & Community Center, 2307 17th Ave
S.
EPIC web
address: eastphillips-epic.com
Office: 2536
18th Avenue S., Minneapolis, MN 55404
Phone: (612) -280-8418
Board
Roster: Jenny Bjorgo, Rosie Cruz, Laura Dale, Linda Leonard, Carol Pass,
Mary Gonsior
Board
Members Present: Carol Pass, Linda Leonard, Laura Dale,
Board
Members Not Present: Mary Gonsior (E), Jenny Bjorgo (E), Rosie
Cruz (E)
Members: Brad Pass, Jose
LuisVillaSenior, Carlos Parra, Steve Sandberg, Doug VanderVeen, Rep. Karen Clark
Guests: Shirley Heyer,
Michelle Chavez
6:30 Social Time and Introductions
6:30 Social Time and Introductions
Winter jokes.
Add to the agenda a grant report
from JoseLuis
Move crime up to
after the announcements until Rep. Clark can be here
6:55 Approval of Proposed Jan. 12th, 2017 Agenda, Approved by consensus
Approval of December 8th General Membership
Draft Minutes, consensus
7:00 Announcements:
o Next EPIC Board Meeting will be February 4th, 2017, Saturday at the Park 10:00 am to 12:00 noon.
- Next EPIC Community meeting will be February 9th, 2017, Thursday at the Park 6:30 to
8:45 pm.
This meeting will include a major discussion of the reconstruction of Cedar Bridge. Figure out your concerns - Nominations for the Board: Members of East Phillips seeking election to the Board of Directors, whether nominated by themselves or another, should pick up the eligibility papers, sign them and turn them in to an EPIC Board member in the next few weeks.
- Cedar Field Redesign – Still working on the Cedar Avenue Field Park Master, Watch for time & place
7:05 Crime discussion:
General comments. We can discuss and tell stories but we
really need a strategy about what we are going to do and who will do “it”. The
police don’t seem to be willing to locate problem housing and hot spots. They
will investigate if we persist and give information.
How can we identify the problem houses?
SA ?
2600 18th
Near Cedar Field
25th difficult August through September….heroin;
Alleys used a lot for the exchanges.
Doug is not sure the cameras are being used by the police.
The big lights put in on the corner of 16th and 25th have
helped.
What about the barricade? Discussion to have in light of the
summer activities.
5th of January 10-20 shots fired into a home
across from Jose Luis; 18 hour hold out and FBI involved there earlier. A shooting of a relative in the home. Home is
owned by an ex-wife. May be gangster disciples involved. Linda has had
intimidating interactions with that family.
A three year old almost shot by drive by.
Carol talked about shutting the house down. There are other homes in the operations that
JoseLuis knows about.
JoseLuis thinks unemployment is a contributing factor.
Police and regulatory services can assist.
Problem properties unit. You must call 911 EVERY time you
see something and get a case number. They can arrange a housing inspector;
police officer and contractor. The county attorney can also help.
612 673-2233 problem properties. Noah is the head of
regulatory services.
27th and 12th house is associated.
Another one is near Tim Springer’s house.
We need a replacement for East Phillips community liaison
crime prevention specialist.
2900 17th block is really difficult…..all the
2900 blocks off Lake are problematic. Swat team has acted.
7:30 Legislative
update from Rep. Karen Clark
Karen’s car broken
into the third time. People seem to be looking for money or drugs. Her car is
alarmed and they don’t break windows to get in.
Karen working on
opiod crisis and there is a coalition working on treatment options. It’s
called the “pill tax” in legislation. It goes to the pharmacies and physicians
writing excessive prescriptions. It’s to question and restrict the number of
pills and refills. The registration
helps control abuse. The bill isn’t
drafted yet for treatment options.
State level health care is targeting relief to huge deductibles and copays. The governor is wanting financial relief asap
but the Republican version will take longer and perhaps even until next year.
Real ID is
being discussed. A federal data bank for state ID is perhaps mandatory. A
number of states has not complied. The current bill goes beyond the minimum by
requiring undocumented people by law must have legal status before getting
drivers’ licenses.
The Catholic and
Episcopal church are helping with this real ID bill. An ag group and hospitality
and housekeeping group as well. The Chamber of Commerce supported legal
licenses last year, but not this year.
The governor is the only one who can veto the bill. He is supportive of documentation for people
without legal status.
Affordable Housing.
Only 57 Democrats in the
House this year. Renters’ issues and
renters’ rights is a problem. Her bill says landlords and home sellers have to
disclose if it’s in the building. Test and tell and then it has to be cleaned
up. It has to do with “right to know”.
Job initiatives include the fact of over a billion dollars of surplus.
The governor has promised to veto huge tax breaks to the
most wealthy.
The Minneapolis American Indian Center needs repairs and Karen had people that deal
with bonding and the governor put planning grant money in his proposed budget.
It would take 7 million dollars to rebuild it because of structural flaws.
The City of Minneapolis learned that some representatives
will not support city requests to the state unless the city works with the
neighborhood about the Roof Depot site. Perhaps 30% of the unused space should go to
neighborhood priorities. Karen may not get a hearing about it but could at
least get a “people’s hearing”. The Governor is supportive of people concerns.
Last year there was an urban agriculture initiative and
those words are now in the state department of agriculture mission. We lost a 3 million dollar pilot project when
the budget fell apart last year. There was no special session either. The new
bill will call for some funding. The Republican chair of the house Agriculture Committee is supportive and we should be able to get some funding for urban ag again.
Hopefully it would be applied to our neighborhood. Metro State in St Paul,
Duluth, and north side are also interested.
8:00 DOE Solar Challenge
Application was initiated by
Property Services and Bryan Milbrand in the energy department wrote it
after getting some resources from Carol Pass. Carol sent information to Aisha
in Council member Cano’s office. If the city gets the grant they will have to
include the neighborhood. It’s a $40,000 competitive planning grant. It could
lead to $500,000 implementation grant. Greg helped us defeat the burner some
years ago and now seems to be a bit of an ally.
U of M and Tamales and bicycles pilot fish farm project and
looking for an Urban Farm Institute for urban justice. Find
markets and corner stores, etc. It is
$50,000 to study the impact of healthy food and diets in the city. Healthy
living and healthy food institute.
Our new county commissioner Debbie Goettel is former
mayor of Richfield and still interested in moving ahead with these proposals
and finding investors and participants in the project.
Karen is hopeful that both parties will see the the potential
of urban farming and be supportive.
8:12 JoseLuis asked
for East Phillips financial support. There was some discussion about
what it takes to be a partnership and build the community as a proposal that
will gain funding. The neighborhood can’t just hand out money like a grant.
Carol gave an example of a Waite
House partnership for children’s programming.
Michelle Chavez explained NRP phase 1 and 2
plans. If it’s within an already approved strategy. Community engagement dollars every three
years is different. Portions can be set aside for project based dollars. So if we already had NRP strategy for
environment this would work.
Carol did explain that staffing
and office eat up so much of many neighborhood budgets that there isn’t a
possibility of project dedicated funds as priority plans. She mentioned
possibility of joint efforts with Midtown to save overhead costs of staff and
office.
We can submit a budget application
with dollars set aside for projects without knowing what the projects all are
going to be under which priorities. 2017-2019 can be written now. How much for
engagement and how much for priorities.
We can list our strategies and Michelle can send it out. It
is public information. Linda can forward the links from Michelle to others.
8:30 Discussion: Barrier at 25th and Bloomington
Shirley said the barrier helped Midtown immensely because 25th
was the runaway corridor for dealers and prostitutes all the way to the
freeway. Midtown doesn’t want that traffic again.
There is a curved berm by the liquor store on Lake
and about ?...
41st and Cedar and another intersection on 17th
near 42nd
Also down by the light rail stop near Minnehaha
falls.
Without
loitering laws the police won’t even enforce no trespassing for the block next
to SA.
It
seems that SA management goes back and forth about their degree of concern. Doug
reports that 16th Avenue residents really want the barricade to stay
up. The Native American community has a petition to take it down and we don’t
know their rationale. Carol reported
that she wrote the council member a fierce letter about the criminal activity
that was there before the barricade. She conveyed information about people who
died in that location.
Doug
is asking how people can openly deal drugs with cameras on both sides of the
intersections…it seems law enforcement is allowing it.
We
may need another meeting with SA leadership and see if we can get cooperation.
Stop and Shop and SA have cameras but the dealing inside still seems rampant.
[There
is going to be a big meeting about Cedar Avenue and the Bridge on February
9. We have got to be here to talk about the traffic problems. ]
8:40 Q and A about Bylaw Revisions
The
board still wishes to make additional revisions. Once the board approved
revisions have been incorporated into a new red-line version, it would go to
NCR for review. Once the review is complete, the board would publish a FINAL
version of the new Bylaws. EPIC would present an overview to the community (hit
the significant changes), and then there is a vote (yay or nay.)
8:55 Adjournment
In the interest of
Public Safety, please consider the following:
- Alert: ALL RESIDENTS – FOR THE COMMUNITY AND YOUR SAFETY – PLEASE TURN ON YOUR OUTSIDE LIGHTS AT DUSK
- Alert: Are any of your street lights out? Feel Safer and call the following numbers.
- If the poles are wooden call Excel Energy at 1-800-960-6235 or http://www.exelenergy.com/ODL/OUTAGEREPORT:
