Friday, December 2, 2016

WECAN 2016 General Membership Meeting Minutes • Draft


WECAN December General Membership Meeting Minutes • Draft

Board Members present: Byron Ballard, Joe Fioccola, Rebecca Lance, Rachel
Larson, Floree Lowery, Luke Perry and Pattiy Torno
Members not present: Jessie Nell Coleman Tom Gibson, Mike Kenton, JoAnn
Skinner, and Suzanne Willis.
Also Present: Danny Aull, Stephanie Hall, Len Hall, Floree’s sister from
Baldwin, NY, Charlie Lance, Lee Lance, Caroline Mullins and Marsha
Stickford.
INTROS:  After a super potluck spread and a round of introductions the
meeting came to order at 7:12 pm.
CREEK NAMING: Pattiy introduced the topic of creek naming: RiverLink and
partners seek to name the creek that begins in Aston Park and flows into
the French Broad River behind 12Bones in the River Arts District. Working
with the City of Asheville, they are seeking name suggestions from the
members of three local groups -- WECAN (West End/Clingman Avenue
Neighborhood), RADBA (River Arts District Business Association) and RADA
(River Arts District Artists).
The first step is to collect suggested names, which members of WECAN,
RADBA and RADA can send to dave@riverlink.org. Submissions should include
two or three (or more) sentences explaining the rationale for the name and
will lead to two levels of polling – an initial poll only for the
aforementioned groups will be set up to choose three names from those
submitted by their members. After selection of three, a round of public
polling will go out to the community at large. RiverLink will host these
polls.
The selected name will then go up a chain to City Council and a
proclamation will be signed by the Mayor of Asheville. RiverLink will then
take the information and submit it to the United States Geological Survey
Board of Geographical names. Upon approval, the creek will bear that name
and it will show up on maps as such. This process follows the guidelines
set forth by the City of Asheville in 2014.
Timeline: Present through January 18: Suggested names collected.
January 19: Names submitted to City of Asheville for broadcast via blog,
social media, newsletter, etc. RiverLink will create a poll and all
interested parties can solicit voting. The poll will remain active for a
month on the dates agreed to by RiverLink and the City of Asheville
representatives.
Some discussion ensued considering names such as Mathew Bacoate a general
manager of an African American owned local business which would honor the
neighborhood legacy of living and working. Other names suggested include
Floree Lowery who grew up here, Thomas Yarrow who built several houses
here, The Arno after a river through Florence in Italy, and general names
such as Inspiration, Creation or Spirit. There was consensus that it
should not recall Clingman: a slaveholding Civil War soldier. This will be
an agenda item at the January 5 WECAN Board meeting.
MINUTES/ TREASURER”S REPORT: Byron moved and Pattiy seconded a motion to
approve the WECAN Minutes from November as distributed. The motion passed.
Treasurer Rebecca reported no activity since the November meeting. She
noted that the usual expense of printing and mailing the annual newsletter
was unnecessary this year due to a generous contribution of the printing
by Allegra (formerly Mail Management) and the hand delivery by a great
team consisting of Rebecca, Rachel, Luke and Suzanne.
BLOCK JESSIES:  Danny expressed a concern for the drop off next to the
sidewalk at the end of Jefferson Drive.  He was encouraged to use the
Asheville App and send in a picture.  A “Your Speed “ sign appeared on
Hillard Avenue  near West Haywood and Jefferson. Marsha will get the
results. Pattiy noted that more old mature trees were coming down near
waste management on Riverside to make way for a boat launch.  Marsha
distributed a hand out “RADTIP Pre-Construction Information updated
November 11, 2016.”  Pattiy is concerned about the deteriorating
communication and lack of consideration given to businesses in the River
Arts District. Handouts after people have navigated their ways to a
business are really not helpful and retail businesses over the next two
years (like some of her renters) will be seriously affected. There should
be someone in charge with a plan (such as New Belgium’s Leaders
Roundtable which worked well over the last two years.) So much is still
unknown (such as when and where construction will begin--the north end
should be a high priority,) and that may not be known until February.
Discussion of how communication can be improved since broken promises are
what we have had in the past: Marsha suggested Pattiy talk to Steph
Monson Dahl, Cathy Ball and Sam Powers.  Marsha also handed out an
announcement for the “Living Asheville” Comprehensive Plan public
workshops next week.
ELECTION OF BOARD MEMBERS: Nominations for the WECAN Board Class of 2019
received were: Luke W. Perry, Len Hall, Danny Aull and Caroline (or
Jared.) Byron moved to close nominations Pattiy seconded and the slate
was approved. Orientation and election of officers occurs at the January
5 Meeting.
ACTIVITY REPORT: Joe read a list of activity since the June General
Membership Meeting: June: Plan on a Page, 338 Hilliard: Meehan Parks
Maintenance facility to be turned into 40 units of affordable housing, RAD
Form Based Code, proposal for edible planting. July: Duke Power
distribution lines, Neighborhood Registration, Grail Movie House, August:
National Night Out, Clingman Triangle Plan approved, 1916 Flood
Anniversary, Riverfront Redevelopment begins September: Comp Plan Survey,
New Belgium Tours begin, Owens Bell Park tenth Anniversary October
Community Garden Final Harvest Report, 338 Hilliard contract awarded to
Tribute (Parks and Rec has until March 2017 to vacate.) Comp Plan
Workshop, Bond Issue, The Great Halloween Social (Thanks to Rebecca for
organizing it!) November:  Festival of Neighborhoods Workshops, WECAN
News, Clingman Triangle Planted.
GARDEN CLUB:  Joe did an Adopt A Highway litter pickup on October 7. With
everyone’s busy schedules this month the Garden Club Guerilla maintenance
group will reactivate again in January—weather permitting.
DUKE ENERGY:  This information comes from a meeting with Jason Walls, Duke
Energy. A new process is proposed to start negotiations. Duke is hiring a
3rd party conflict resolution person, UNC has a division which specializes
in this and they have been approached. The meetings will start in January
and go for 6 months, meeting once a month. Present will be SFB
Neighborhood, WECAN neighborhood, Montford neighborhood, Chamber of
Commerce, City of Asheville and Duke.  At these meetings there will be
time to address everything and a solution will be hashed out that will
have everyone on board. Duke has decided to change their approach by being
more inclusive with neighborhoods as they are getting so much push back
and wasting money buying property.  Their old business model is not
working and they recognize it. If you can read a book called Getting to
Yes, this is the process they are going to use. (Getting to yes says no
one gets everything they want but everyone gives something up) He was
aware of the recent sale of the property adjacent to the substation. The
new transmission lines that are going in are replacements for the ones
that are there.  Since they were repositioning everything to make RADTIP
work, they took advantage of updating to current technology, the poles are
30 percent higher. They will follow the same route and terminate at
Rankin, but will have the ability to transmit power more efficiently and
thus reduce the need to build more stations. Rankin is NOT going to be
decommissioned, they are just not going to work it so hard, but adding a
new one. After their new analysis is completed they will advise how many
stations they will need, (hoping it is going to be just one not three.)
Jason has a lot riding on this process because if this works they are
going to adopt this method for all of NC. It is his proposal and his boss
is letting him see it through and see if it will work. Duke has no
experience at all in GIS. The station at Chapel Hill is all out-sourced,
they do not service it, but sub it all out.  Duke does not like to sub out
all their maintenance, (they want to do it themselves.)  Helen told him
this would be a great time for Duke to start the new GIS division and get
up to speed with the world! The usage/growth in Asheville has surpassed
the last building boom, they have installed 10,000 new meters this year
mainly apartments in south Asheville. The new hospital does not need power
until end of 2019. It takes them 18 months to build a new station, so
soonest one will be going is 2018 (end of).  The energy task force sole
purpose is to get people to use less.  One model that is being kicked
around is Duke installing solar on places and buying the power back at
wholesale to resell. But they do need people to be aware that having
everything on and running does not help, (they make more money if you use
more, but not if you use so much they have to create another station to
serve.)  The 3 neighborhoods should meet in December prior to these formal
meetings so we go into this as a unified voice, otherwise we will be
pitted against each other. SFB Representation is Mike Wasmer, Lou
Popovitch and Helen Hyatt. WECAN reps will be among Joe, Rachel, Luke,
Carrie, Josh and Byron.

Meeting adjourned at 8:16 pm
Minutes submitted by Joe Fioccola

Important dates:
Dec 6 Comp Plan Central Area Public meeting 6:30-8:30
at the Dr Wesley Grant Sr Center 285 Livingston Street
Jan 5, 2017 WECAN Board Meeting 6:30 64 Clingman Ave

WECAN Board Meeting Minutes 4January 2024