EPIC Community Meeting Draft Agenda
May 13th, 2021, 6:30 – 8:50
East Phillips Park Cultural &
Community Center, 2307 17th Ave S.
EPIC web address:
eastphillips-epic.com
Email:
epic.ssantiago@gmail.com
Office: 2433 Bloomington Ave.,
Minneapolis, MN 55404
Phone: (612) -280-8418
Board Roster:
Laura Dale, Mary Gonsior, Cassandra Holmes, David Ingold, Shontal Lajeunesse,
Steve Sandberg, Earl Simms, Nikolas Winter-Simat
Board Members
Present:
Board Members
Not Present:
Members:
Guests:
6:30 Social Time
6:45 Greetings and Introductions
●
How to become a member - all members are allowed to vote on
EPIC matters
o
privately
chat Sarah Santiago your mailing address (to verify you live in East Phillips)
and your email address. In doing this you are consenting to being added to
EPICs email list.
6:50 Approve tonight's agenda
Approve minutes from April community meeting
6:55 Announcements
● Next Board Meeting will be: Saturday, June 5 at
10am online, find the link to join at eastphillips.org
o
Board Meetings are
open to the public
● Next Community Meeting will be: Thursday, June 10 at 6:30 online, find the link to join at
eastphillips.org
o
We will hold a vote on
bylaw changes at this meeting
● Next Executive Committee meeting is Thursday, April
20 from 7-8pm online - find the link to join
at eastphillips.org
o
Executive Committee
meetings are the third Thursday of every month
o Executive Committee meetings are open to the public
● EPIC has a housing program! 0% interest! Fix up your home or buy a new home in East Phillips – Check your email for the brochure or go to: mncee.org/eastphillips If you smell a foul odor around Smith foundry or Bituminous Roadways call 311 to report
o Write down your incident number
● Join your neighbors in cleaning up trash on your block for
20 minutes every Saturday anytime between 9am and 11am!
●
Join East Phillips
and Midtown Phillips at a weekly meeting with the mission of positively
supporting our community safety, housing and rebuilding. Put it on your
calendar and save the invitation as it should work every Thursday at 1:00 PM.
Find the link to join at eastphillips-epic.com
● New EPIC Board Officers:
o
President:
Nikolas Winter-Sumat
o
Vice
President: Mary Gonsior
o
Treasurer:
David Ingold
o
Secretary:
Cassandra Holmes
● Edible Boulevard Applications are open until May 14 (TOMORROW)!
o
Edible boulevards is an urban agriculture project devoted to improving
access to fresh produce in our Northside and Southside Green Zones. Their
mission is to teach community members simple and sustainable practices for
creating, growing, and maintaining their own gardens. The fruits, vegetables,
and herbs would be grown on your boulevard—that patch of grass between the curb
and the sidewalk.
o
If you require accommodations to fill out the application form,
please don't hesitate to reach us at mississippiriversourrelative@gmail.com.
To stay connected and find out more, join the Minneapolis Edible Boulevards
Facebook group!
6:55 Community
Participation Agreement Update
7:00 Karen Townsend board appointment
● Karen Townsend and Earl Simms tied
in the 2021 board election for the 2021-2023 term. Karen withdrew her name and
expressed that she would like to be considered for the vacant 1-year board
seat. The executive committee has verified her eligibility and the full board
voted to appoint her to the vacant position. The community now has the
opportunity to ratify this appointment.
MOTION: The EPIC membership confirms the
appointment of Karen Townsend to the EPIC vacant board of directors 1-year
board seat.
7:10 $2,000 advance
a. advance from crime and safety
initiative contract that expired 2017
b. Money needs to be contracted or
returned
c. the board has voted to bring the following motion to the EPIC membership for the first of two community meeting votes
MOTION: EPIC will pay the $2,000 advance back to the city of Minneapolis from the 2017 crime and safety initiative contract,
7:20 CPP Funding
● Partnership requests we have received:
o LERA: Youth
Workforce Development Program: $23,408
o LERA: Native
Youth Arts Collective: $15,614
MOTION: EPIC approves the Youth
Workforce Development Program and the Native Youth Arts Collective proposals,
MOTION: EPIC moves to transfer $39,022
from CPP funding to the Youth and Adult Programming neighborhood priority,
7:35 Bylaw Review
● At this Community Meeting we will
review the new bylaws
● The June Community Meeting will be
the voting meeting for the new bylaws
○ anybody interested in helping to
flyer the neighborhood to notify your neighbors of the new bylaws?
●
The bylaw amendment process is being completed with the
assistance of our outside legal counsel so that our neighborhood stays in
compliance with City of Minneapolis Neighborhoods 2020 updated grant
requirements. This update also makes sure the neighborhood is current with all
state and federal nonprofit regulations and nonprofit sector best practices.
○
The board had a working meeting to go over the new
bylaws some things that came up include:
■ Issues
to avoid:
● Want
to avoid packing a single meeting to pass something
○ Want
to ensure that there is joint decision making between the board and
community/members
■ default
is 51% of board members for most things,
● discussed
that we may want a simple majority for certain things
○ where
do we want to change this?
8:15 Housing Development proposal
● Looking for our approval. Looking
for community endorsement or objections
● Location: 2729 Cedar Avenue
● View
documents:
○ Copy
of neighborhood notification letter
● What we know so far:
○ Currently no plans for garages or
designated off street parking
○ Affordability is based on the
Guidelines provided by Missing Middle Rental
Pilot Program -
the goal of the program is to produce new 2-20 unit rental housing projects on
vacant land throughout the city and provide affordable housing to tenants below
60% of area median income.
○ There will be 3 units per
building. 3 bedrooms per unit.
○Who will be managing the property? There are 2 options being
considered by the potential owners of 2729 Cedar Ave So. The first is the potential owners of the
property self manage the property. The
second would be for the owners to outsource the property management via a
property management company like Renters Warehouse or equivalent in
Minneapolis.
○ Have neighbors surrounding the lot
been notified?
■ Response from the city:
Notification to the neighborhood is the public notification process by the
City. We do not notify individual neighbors of proposals received. The
neighborhood organization may wish to conduct a public meeting to gather
comments. If this project is recommended for approval by staff and approved by
City Council, the developer would sign a Construction Management agreement that
requires them to notify the neighbors. If recommended by staff, during the City
Council meeting a public hearing is conducted and the public is able to comment
on potential land sales under consideration
○ Some concerns the board brought
up:
■ too close to nearby housing?
■ concern that there isn’t green
space
