WECAN Board Meeting Minutes October 5, 2017
Board Members present: Danny Aull, Byron Ballard, Rebecca Lance,
Rachel
Larson, and Pattiy Torno. Members not present: Jared Fischer,
Tom Gibson,
Lynn Hall, Mike Kenton, Caroline Mullis, Luke Perry JoAnn Skinner
and
Suzanne Willis.
At Large Members not present: Floree Lowery and Rafael Rettig.
Also Present: Jessie Coleman, Joe Fioccola and APD Officers Justin
Wilson,
William Wood and Michelle?
INTROS: Rachel called the meeting to order at 6:34 pm after a round
of
introductions.
MINUTES/ TREASURER”S REPORT: Byron moved and Rebecca seconded a
motion to
approve the draft WECAN minutes from September 7 as emailed. The
motion
passed. The Treasurer reported no activity but received a request to
serve
as a pass thru for 501c3 for New Belgium to RADA for the Fall Studio
Stroll..
APD/CRO Update: Justin reported that in the last month there were no
’reported’ vehicles break-ins. The Glass Center at 140 Roberts
Street was
broken into a second time through an unlocked window. A suspicious
vehicle, a dually truck, was seen at 2 am casing the neighborhood on
Girdwood Street. Rebecca noticed a suspicious person going to
several
residences on Jefferson Dr. A DWI was arrested on Roberts Street
near
Carolina Glass. There was a fatal heroin overdose on Park Avenue.
Justin
contacted the property owners at the Grey Eagle about campers next
to
their business and one person does have permission to stay there.
Two
others were moved along. Joe noticed a white tent on the DOT State
owned
property north of Park Avenue. Rachel will ask Christiana and Laura
Kirby
and the Pastor of Haywood Street Congregation to a future meeting to
talk
about homelessness. Joe noted a red foam mat behind the bushes at
the
WECAN sign garden has been there a few months. Justin explained that
some
sleeping items were routinely passes out at some of the shelters and
if it
appears to be abandoned then it can be removed. There has been some
graffiti at 140 Roberts St and also at the old Hunter Volvo site.
BLOCK JESSIES: There was no official action taken on Byron and Joe’s
suggestion to remember the late beloved Jessie Mae Jones by renaming
the
‘Sunny Cultural Garden’ at Owens Bell Park after her and replanting
it
with some things from her garden. Marjorie feels supported about the
loss
of her son. Joe, Stephanie and Lynn attended the memorial service.
Jo
Gibbs tragic loss of her teenage son was remembered. And Chris
Weaver, a
teacher at Isaac Dickson and lately of Evergreen took his life.
There
isn’t a lot to be done about illegal parking on Roberts Street and a
dead
groundhog was seen on Short Hilliard. The two large knotweed
lots--recently cleared, across from the Crisps are zoned
neighborhood
business which allows multifamily residential. Rebecca observed that
there
are two new renters across Jefferson at Jenny’s house and Yuri and
Mara
have moved out but have not been as successful in renting as have
the
Davens.
DUKE-ENERGY SUBSTATION Update: The last meeting was on
September 28. Duke
is optimistic that their correct real estate person was finally
located
and made contact with both residential property owners on Knoxville
Place.
The details are transactional but it could take 30-40 days to get
either
or both under contract and if that happens they may be able to close
by
the end of the year. Because of this it was not felt productive to
continue meeting until there was some certainty about whether all or
only
part of the real estate was complete. The four basic principles of
the
working group remain: activate Patton and Clingman corner, protect
adjacent neighbors, allow for community benefit and be invisible.
General
agreements include using new technology of GIS, location somewhere
on the
site, underground distribution lines and invisibility of equipment.
There
are still issues to work out such as size of retaining walls,
preserving
mature trees, minimizing cost, what it will look like from Knoxville
Place. The previously scheduled public meeting on October 11 was
cancelled
until early January and the next working group meeting was pushed to
November 1.
CLINGMAN STREETSCAPE TREES: Pattiy explained a lot of confusion
about who
to contact to make it happen. Duke needs an encroachment agreement
from
DOT unless the city’s original encroachment agreement will suffice.
The
fall is the best time to plant but no lead on how long the agreement
will
take.
RAD FORM BASED CODE: Set to go before City Council on October 24 as
originally presented by Planning and Zoning. There was
discussion about
the confusion between ‘lodging by right’ in the River District and
short
term rentals in city council candidate questionnaires.
RADTIP Update: In preparation for the construction of two miles of
new
(east bank) section of the French Broad River Greenway as part of
the
RADTIP project, the City’s contractors will be installing silt fence
and
removing trees in a section of the River Arts District starting
9/27/2017
and ending 10/17/2017. The City has a permit to remove approximately
twelve small trees in the path of the greenway construction on
property on
the west side of Riverside Drive between the Smith (Craven Street)
Bridge
and Lyman Street. Construction on the Town Branch, Bacoate Branch,
Riverside West Greenways remains on hold.
MSD- Rachel will check back for a schedule for the sewer work.
HALLOWEEN PARTY: on October 31 potluck party will begin at 5:30 and
6:30-7
trick-or-treating will commence. Rebecca suggested a neighborhood
map at
the party identifying suggested routes of participating neighbors.
COMMUNITY GARDEN Update: It was suggested that we start again in
February
organizing and deciding how to assign a bed—by coming to a meeting.
OTHER ISSUES: Pattiy received a letter from a WECAN Resident who is
also a
tennis player and had a long list of concerns with the ‘Aston Tennis
Center.’ Also of concern were the problems some neighbors had with
using
the bathrooms there.
IDEAS FOR WECANEWS: Newsletter will be published next month some
ideas for
articles include 20 years of buildings lost, Duke Substation,
Community
garden, Mr. Bacoate, Jessie Mae, Sam Hartshorn,
MISC: Pete Bassett let Jessie know that her mother cooked food for
his
mother when she was sick and Hattie never told Jessie about it. Also
that
it was dangerous for them to walk down the West End. Some people
threw
rocks.
Meeting adjourned at 8:20 pm
Minutes submitted by Joe Fioccola, Secretary Emeritus
Important Upcoming Dates:
Oct 6 NH
leaders Roundtable 8:30 @ 14 Riverside
Oct 9 C.A.N.
Meeting 7 p.m. Oakley Community Center
Oct 10 City
Council Primary Voting
Oct 26 Pattiy’s
Birthday
Nov 1 Duke
Substation working group 4-6 pm
Nov 2 Next
WECAN Board Meeting Thursday 6:30 pm
Nov 7 Election
Day
Nov 11 Cotton
Mill Studios Grand Opening
Nov 21 Publication
Date for WECAN NEWS
January 2018? TBA
Duke Substation Public Meeting
