01.09.2012 General Meeting Minutes

Some discussion prior to the official start of the meeting of the incident with the house on Payne resulted in several recommendations for people to do pressure tests on their gas lines if they smell gas or have recently purchased a new home in Crestview.

Gardening Traffic Islands
Deanna passed out an agreement from the city that needs to be signed by each volunteer who wishes to maintain the traffic island gardens soon to be put in. Recent notification by the city is that they will start to go in at the end of January and be finished by the end of April. There is another waiver document that the CNA must sign as well.

On-line Membership Renewal
The option to provide on-line membership renewals through PayPal (like the Brentwood Neighborhood Association does) was again raised. The consensus was that distributing the renewal reminder notices was a higher priority for now, and the on-line renewal could be discussed once the former is resolved. A motion was made to address the mail outs and assign responsibility for membership at the February meeting. A suggestion was made to add a field in the renewal forms for the option to be reminded by e-mail. There was a complaint about difficulty downloading the renewal form from the CNA web site, and the suggestion was made to provide download instructions (i.e. right-click, Save As…) on the web for people.

Get Your Rear in Gear 2012
A run will take place on March 4th, going down Burnet from Rockwood to Ashdale. This will be announced in the newsletter.

Future Requests by Speakers to Present to the CNA
Steven Zetner wants to talk to the neighborhood about pro-actively approaching the city with the idea of putting affordable housing at the Ryan property. Most people felt that they would rather have the entire area set aside as parkland than affordable housing, but others pointed out that our neighborhood is targeted by the city for increased density. Why not ask Steven why we shouldn’t approach the city with the idea of making the entire area parkland?

Clean Water Fund – Non-profit working to protect the environment. No.

Keep Mopac Local - No.

Mary Arnett – She is looking for a new person to head up the Neighborhood Watch effort in Crestview. There is a workshop (which has been posted to the listserv) on January 14th. Tonia will contact the APD district rep to ask to come to speak with Mary in February or March.

There was a request for a talk from Urban Patchwork on what they do or by someone from the gardening group or the city on planting native species.

Finances
$14203.22
+ $648.00 (ads)
- $412.92 (printing)
TOTAL: $14438.30

Lamar/Burnet Corridor Study Open House January 19th

11.14.11 CNA General Meeting Minutes

Austin Marathon
Ari Wilkin talked about the Livestrong Marathon, Feb. 19th. Most of the runners will be coming through the neighborhood at 8:30-10:30am. We will post a map and traffic guide under the Neighborhood Documents section of the web site.

Rosemary Lindberg
The current DA talked about the Impact Offender program to try to target repeat offenders of property crime and burglaries (the main crimes in Crestview) by incarcerating them. 40 out of 60 cases had been incarcerated as of 2 months ago. Innocence Project posts conviction protocols to address DNA testing. Their office has looked at 400 old cases. Studies have shown convictions based upon eye witness testimony are often flawed because of mistaken identifications. Justice reinvestment grant – housing option for homeless.

Imagine Austin
Steve, the current ANC president, came to talk about the Imagine Austin draft plan (197 pages) that attempts to direct where Austin will grow over the next 30 years. Austin Tomorrow was the same thing from the 1970’s. Mixed-use means more density, bigger buildings, parking towards the back. The growth concept map is available here. We might want to encourage the city to incorporate our original neighborhood plan. Do the 8 priority programs (available here) match Crestview’s values? Would we add more or prioritize the 8? ANC would like neighborhoods to consider the type of feedback they want to give to the Citizen Advisory Task Force and give it. Laura Morrison passed a resolution to look at compatibility of existing plans and Imagine Austin. ANC has asked for the language of the Imagine Austin plan that allows for it to supersede existing neighborhood plans where conflicts occur to be removed. Each priority has action steps. Neighborhoods can suggest to the Task Force action steps relevant to their neighborhood concerns.

ANC Resolution on Short-Term rentals
There is a vote in two weeks. The general assembly voted in favor of our representative voting in favor of the ANC resolution to restrict short-term rentals.

Sustainable Neighborhoods on Ryan property
Steven Zettner is pushing to force the city to look at the Ryan property again to have affordable housing and a park (for some background, see meeting minutes from 3 years ago. We may wish to bring this up again to see what the neighborhood wants, and invite Steven to come talk to us, as well as someone from the Family and Children task force. The general assembly was generally in favor, but would like more specifics before endorsing Sustainable Neighborhood’s letter.

Beautification Committee
This committee works with Friends of Brentwood Park, The Violet Crown Community Works, and other volunteers for beautification. The current project is the wildlife project at the fire station. They would ultimately like for it to be educational. They are hoping for a grant to have more plants for medians in exchange for volunteers adopting medians to care for the plants. They have asked for CNA’s support for the grant from the City of Austin Neighborhood Partnering Program for the fire station project. The general assembly voted to support. The committee wants a signature on the plan. We will post the plan on the web site and look for feedback.

The next meeting will be in January.

There was a request to redo the hazmat collection, since many people left when told it was cancelled.

Don requested to have items regarding on-line membership renewal and ownership of the membership renewal notices to be placed on the January agenda. For background on the previous discussion on on-line membership renewal, see past general meeting and executive committee meeting minutes February-May of 2009, available at the CNA web site.

October Financial Report
$13,052.06
+$810 ad revenue
-$608.92 printing costs
$13,253.14

Crestview Night Patrol Training - Nov. 15th

For those interested in protecting their neighborhood, Mary Arnett of the Citizen-Led Austin Safety Partnership (CLASP) is organizing a training session for night patrols on Tuesday, November 15th, 7:30pm-8:30pm at Genuine Joe Coffee House in the 'board room'. Bring a flashlight, a charged cell phone, a pad to write on that you won't lose later when you figure out those guys you saw were the ones that burglarized a house, two writing implements, and optional: camera if you want.

Airport Boulevard Mobility Corridor Study Open House - Nov. 29

Airport Boulevard Mobility Corridor Study
Community Presentation and Open House

Tuesday, November 29 • 6–8 pm
Center61, 2921 East 17th Street, 2nd Floor
(the PeopleFund building @ the MLK MetroRail station)

Presentation: 6:15 — 6:45 pm
Open House: 6:45 — 8 pm

Come see the latest ideas for near- and long-term ways to make Airport Boulevard work better for drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users. This is your opportunity to learn and provide hands-on feedback on design concepts, cross sections, intersection improvements and more before the study is finalized in early 2012.

For more information, contact Alan Hughes
at 512-974-7186 or alan.hughes@austintexas.gov,
or visit airportboulevard.com.