March 2015

BOARD MEETING MINUTES – Monday, March 16, 2015 – 7:00 p.m., Fuller Park

Board members present: Steve Bieringer, Ryan Fisher, Andrea Siegel, Sandra Bartsias, Lauren Anderson, Karen Costello, Laura Silver, Eric David, Matt Chapman, Dylan Sirny, Mary Jane Mitchell

Board members absent:

Also present: Fuller Park Director Mike Fox, Tjody deVaal, Fred Haas, residents Wayne Sagalaski and Andrew Busse

Called to order: 7:05pm

TNA Coordinator Introduction
Our new Coordinator, Abby, is returning from vacation and will join us at next month’s board meeting. A welcome article will appear in the spring newsletter. Ryan, Steve, Lauren and Sandra met with Abby to start orientation and priority setting.

Sage & Cypress: 48th and Grand
Fred Haas addressed the board on his new business on the northwest corner of 48th & Grand. Fred hails from Northfield, MN and was familiar with the Tangletown neighborhood prior to the retail space becoming available for rent. Fred’s wife, Sarah Nordstrom, does mosaic work and re-embellishes historic pieces and their business partner, Tricia, is a talented muralist. They plan to have a studio in the back with retail space in the eastern section of the building (adjacent to the corner). They are already working with local businesses to refurbish the space and Fred and Sarah’s children plan to offer violin and other enrichment lessons in the space and hope to collaborate with youth programming at Fuller Park. Sage & Cypress will open around Mother’s Day in May. Tjody will drop by tomorrow to take pictures of the space for a local business feature in the spring newsletter – thanks, Tjody!

TNA 2015 Annual Garage Sale
Eric and Steve have built new commercial node signs that will be available for Green Day and the Garage Sale. The signs have weatherproof pockets to hold fliers and maps. Registration information is ready to go in the newsletter. Participant fees will remain the same as in 2014, and TNA will be able to reuse the yellow, weatherproof signs purchased last year.

TNA Spring Newsletter
Articles were due last Monday, March 9th. Thank you to everyone wrote submitted an article. There are a few outstanding articles – please send them to Tjody asap as she plans to send the newsletter to the printer on Tuesday. The spring newsletter also contains an update from new Fuller Park Director, Mike Fox, with the date of the Fuller Park playground grand opening, which is set for 5:45pm right before the Annual Meeting on May 18th.

Tangletown Green Day Event
Sustainability Committee members gave an overview on the event planning. Our vendor for art activities cancelled this past week, but Mike Fox offered to have his staff fill in if the committee can provide materials and ideas for an activity. The board approved a budget for $200 to purchase two standing easels for Green Day and other Tangletown events. Workshops, exhibitors, food and door prizes are coming together and board members are encouraged to attend Green Day on Saturday, April 11th!

Tangletown 4th of July event planning
Board members Steve Bieringer, Andrea Siegel, Matt Chapman, Sandra Bartsias, Laura Silver, and Ryan Fisher all volunteered to plan TNA’s annual 4th of July event. Charlie Siftar is happy to help with the parade and Lauren Anderson can help with recycling and composting. The planning committee will meet in the next few weeks.

Recent Neighborhood Crime
There have been many recent break-ins throughout the northern part of the neighborhood between 46th and 48th Streets. In addition, Mike Fox reported Kris Stevens from Fuller Park witnessed two individuals burglarizing a home at 48th & Harriet who were starting to break into his car. He recorded the plates, called the police who made an arrest and Kris was able to identify the suspect. Lauren connected with Jennifer Waisanen, our Crime Prevention Specialist, to set up a tentative Crime Prevention meeting for next week on Monday, March 23rd at 7pm at Fuller Park pending support from the TNA board. After a brief discussion, the board supports moving forward with a Crime Prevention meeting in March. Mike will put the meeting information up on the Fuller Park sign and Lauren will follow up with Jennifer to confirm the meeting and coordinate speakers. Steve suggested working with Jennifer to identify missing block leaders throughout the neighborhood.

Annual Meeting
Andrea connected with Russ Henry, Co-Chair of the Homegrown Minneapolis initiative, who will speak at the Tangletown Annual Meeting on policy changes that are making it easier to grow, eat and compost local food. Refreshments for attendees will be provided. Ryan offered that we could have Jennifer Waisanen present 10 minutes of crime prevention and safety tips. There are currently three open board slots that will be up for re-election in May.

Officer reports:
• Secretary’s report – Steve made a motion to approve the February 2015 Minutes, which was seconded by Matt and approved.
• Treasurer’s report – Sandra reported that the 2014 reimbursement hasn’t been submitted yet, but it should be under $15,000. Abby will take over City reimbursements starting for FY 2015. The TNA accounts and CPP accounts are at $15,749.46 and $25,377.99 respectively.

Committee reports:
• Arts – Nothing to report. Abby will start taking on the utility box wrap project over the next few months.
• Communication – Laura will send out a doodle poll to schedule a committee meeting in the next couple weeks to discuss strategies to expand TNA’s existing communications including monthly e-newsletters, Next Door, an updated website, an organizational facebook page and 3-4 annual print newsletters.
• NRP – New business Bubbles Ecouture (at 54th & Lyndale in Prime & Polish’s old location) applied to receive a $1,000 business façade grant. Mary Jane suggested the board update its local business master list to include business contact information, building owner information, whether businesses have areas to display info on neighborhood events, talking points for board members reaching out to each business, and whether they have or open to donating to events. Karen suggested including pieces that might be of interest to community members like whether the business is dog-friendly. Mary Jane can find the past version of this list and send it to Abby and the board.
• Sustainability – See above report on Green Day planning. Karen is signed up to attend the April 30th Solar Garden workshop and will report back to the board. Lauren participated in a Lynnhurst Neighborhood Organics Recycling Forum last Saturday morning.
• Business – Continuing the NRP discussion about a local business list, Dylan reported that he found a great wordpress template and that it would take him about an hour to rework tangletown.org with some visual and functional updates. Related to crime prevention, Dylan has offered ongoing self-defense workshops in the past and would be happy to offer a program to Tangletown neighbors. TNA could set a date with Dylan and promote it at the Annual Meeting to increase participation. TNA had historically sponsored workshops through Community Ed at Washburn and with recent increases in burglaries, it might be time to offer them again.

Partner and other announcements:
Fuller Park Director Mike Fox introduced himself to the board. Mike started as a volunteer wrestling coach for the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board in 1986 and started working for the organization soon after. He is excited to work with the neighborhood in his new role. Mike also reported that there might be a higher likelihood for installing air conditioning since Fuller hosts a preschool and is a Rec Plus site, which would make summer meetings more comfortable and prevent heat-related building closures.

Tom Balcom forwarded an email he sent to a neighbor about contacting Public Works to replace lights at the water tower. Steve also followed up with the neighbor interested in making planting improvements to the Gladstone Triangle.

Adjourned: 8:19pm

Minutes submitted by Lauren Anderson, TNA Secretary