February 2017

BOARD MEETING MINUTES – Monday, February 20, 2017 – 7:00 p.m., Fuller Park

Board members present: Ryan Fisher, Dick Fiala, Kathy Kornblum, Dan Williams, Mary Jane Mitchell, Andrew Buss, Briana Daymont, Joy Gottschalk

Board members absent: Sandra Bartsias, Eric David, Joy Glasser, Justin Wills, Steve Bieringer

Also Present: Vanessa Haight (TNA Coordinator), Councilmember Quincy, Jeremy Schroeder

Called to order: 7:03pm

Officer Reports:
Secretary – Ryan moved to approve the January 2017 minutes, Dick seconded. Voice vote, motion approved.
Treasurer – No report; Justin was not present.

Councilmember John Quincy
CM Quincy attended to give an updated about various city and neighborhood meetings, including the Community Connections conference on Saturday, April 1st at 9am. He also gave an update on the City resident survey (the biggest issues were 311, 911, and garbage/organics) and gave a brief overview of 2016 City accomplishments.

Jeremy Schroeder
Jeremy attended to give update about a rooftop solar assessment that TNA sponsored in the HPDL neighborhood. TNA was still looking for a fourth assessment site for our CERTs grant and had contacted other neighborhoods to see if they had connections to building owners that might be interested. HPDL was able to identify an interested site (Urban Refuge) and coordinated with them to get the assessment completed within the grant timeframe.

Updates
Workshop: Psychology of Sustainable Behavior: the Sustainability committee is helping to organize a Feb 25th 9am workshop at the Lynnhurst Community Center, focusing on building skills to support voluntary behavior change. The workshop will be hosted by Dr. Christie Manning of Macalester College. The Sustainability committee requested a budget for $50 for refreshments. Mary Jane moved to approve up to $100 for refreshments. Ryan seconded. Voice vote, motion approved.

Green Day: In light of NRP funding re-organization and date conflicts with non-TNA Earth Day events, TNA will not hold a 2017 spring Green Day event but instead hold a sustainability focused event later in the year.

Lyndale Open Streets: The Minneapolis Bike Coalition and various Southwest neighborhoods wish to expand the June 4th Lyndale Open Streets event all the way to 54th St. New neighborhoods along the expanded route include Windom, Kenny, Lynhurst, East Harriet, and Tangletown. The big question is how to draw people down below 46th St which is largely residential until south of Minnehaha Creek. The Bike Coalition is asking for financial commitment of $1500 – $2000 per neighborhood for advertisement/etc, and also business outreach and volunteers for the day-of. TNA will contact Ramsey/Washburn and ask if they want to participate with either a presence or with music. Kathy moved to approve $2000 contingent upon more detailed explanation of what the the Bike Coalition would use the $2000 for. Ryan seconded, voice vote motion approved.

Box Wraps: four professional submissions have been received so far. Vanessa met with 4-5 interested Washburn students and will follow up with them.

LaMac Dry Cleaners: the owner is excited about neighborhood involvement and funding. Windom approved a $5000 grant and the City will grant $35,000. The citizen’s group spearheading the grants asked TNA to grant $5000 as well, which would come from TNA NRP Sustainability fund. Kathy said she is willing to reach out to Diamond Lake neighborhood regarding their interest, if the City thinks it will be helpful.. TNA funding would be contingent upon installation of the new machine and destruction of the old machine (as opposed to dismantling). The City indicated this is an acceptable use of NRP/CPP funds. Mary Jane moved to approve a $5,000 grant to LaMac cleaners contingent upon project completion and successful re-allocation of NRP funds to our Sustainability strategy. Dan seconded. Voice vote, all in favor, motion approved.

49th and Wentworth Traffic: Ramsey is still not very involved, yet is impacted the most. The City and Washburn have already redone signage to make student dropoff/pickup safer and clearer. The City performed a traffic study at 48th and Wentworth and concluded there was not enough traffic to convert the intersection to a 4-way stop. There is no update for 49th and Wentworth handicap accessibility modifications at this time.

Adopt a Storm Drain: the project was initiated last fall in conjunction with the water quality fair. 6 households signed up for storm drain maintenance. Dan moved to approve $50 for lawn waste bags to be given to those who sign up. Kathy seconded, voice vote, all in favor, motion approved.

Neighborhood Priority Plan for Environmental and Sustainability Initiatives
TNA would like to re-allocate $22,700 currently unallocated funds from our NRP Reserve to a Neighborhood Priority Plan for sustainability. These funds would be used for current initiatives including rain gardends, LaMac dry-cleaning equipment grants, events, etc. We will formally vote on the proposal at the March meeting at which point the City must approve the reallocation.

Update on NRP Phase II Planning
TNA has not met threshold for spending certain NRP funds and we must either get a waiver (which we don’t qualify for), spend them in the next year (impossible), or gather neighborhood input in next 14 months through “robust community engagement”. This could include focus groups, a neighborhood survey, and a neighborhood meeting, the results of which would support our proposed recommitment of NRP funds to existing strategies or to any future proposed NRP reallocations. But instead of just focusing neighborhood input on NRP funds specifically, TNA would like to create a strategic plan for the next 3 – 5 years that encompasses all our funding sources.

Joy drafted a TNA Action Plan for submission to NCR to address TNA’s failure to spend the specific NRP funds. Kathy moved to approve and submit action plan to NCR. Andrew seconded. Voice vote, motion approved.

The board reviewed a proposal to seek Strategic Planning Consultant to help develop strategic plan, including the neighborhood engagement process, survey, focus groups, etc. Ryan moved to approve with budget of $20,000, Kathy seconded. Voice vote, motion approved.

The board also reviewed a proposal to create new Planning Committee to interview, hire, and oversee the Strategic Planning Consultant. Dan, Kathy, Mary Jane, and Joy will be on the interview committee, and the committee has been given the authority to hire the consultant after informing the board. Ryan would like to know how the consultant sees board involvement and volunteer engagement as part of the strategic plan.

Website and E-Newsletter Design
The TNA email newsletter template could use a refresh and the website could use clearer organization. Vanessa noted the importance of consistent branding across all our mediums especially as our strategic planning process is coming up. Vanessa reported estimated costs of $1000 – $3000 for website and $500 – $800 for newsletter. Board members requested a very low maintenance website solution, perhaps still based on WordPress which we currently use. Vanessa will develop an RFP and find vendors. Ryan moved to budget up to $4,000 for a website and e-newsletter redesign. Kathy seconded. Voice vote, all in favor, motion approved.

Spring Newsletter
Submissions to Vanessa are due by March 13. Printing target is March 27 to ensure it goes out with enough time before the garage sale in May. Possible topics and their responsible parties are:
Adopt a storm drain (Kristine)
Rain gardens/Metro Blooms (Kristine)
Garage sale (Steve)
Annual meeting (likely focused on our strategic planning process) (Mary Jane or Joy)
Strategic planning process (Ryan)
LaMac/PERC (Kathy)
New coordinator (Briana)
Utility Wraps update (Dan)
Open Streets (Dick)
4th of July call for volunteers (Ryan)
Call for board members (just a box, don’t need an article)

Fuller Park Basketball Hoops
Fuller Park asked TNA to match up to $2,500 for a Hennepin County Youth Sports Grant application for a second basketball hoop. The board decided to wait for public input on improvements to Fuller Park (perhaps from our neighborhood survey) to decide what to allocate for Park improvements.

Adjourned: 8:43

Minutes submitted by Dan Williams, TNA Secretary