Neighborhood Planning Council 1 - Post-Franklin

-POST/FRANKLIN NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING COUNCIL- Thursday December 6, 2018 Chair James Moreno called the meeting to order at 7:03 p.m. at CA Board Room. Attendance: Members Present: James Moreno, Kjersten Priddy, John Cash, LaMarr Mingle, Yvonne Powell and Cindy Fritz. Pat Shellenberger and Linda Carmona (via phone). Members Excused: None Guest and Visitors: Clay Haggard and Kelly Dillman – BCPD (Be Safe), Tommy Engels - BC Code, Chris Lussier – BC City, Deondra Ramsey – BCPS, and Pamela Geleff Additions and Deletions to the Agenda: None Approval of Minutes: Motion made for approval of Nov Minutes was made by Cindy and Seconded by Yvonne. Minutes approved. Correspondence and Announcements: James distributed the BCATS flyer. The City of Battle Creek is looking for individuals for the Human Relations Board. You can apply on-line or you can Contact City Hall if you are interested. Police: Officer Haggard is our new Officer. There were no Police Reports distributed to the members. Officer Haggard had a set of bar charts on all NPCs and NPC#1 is low on incidents where NPC#3 was high. A question on the Marijuana issues was asked and the city is awaiting for clarification from the county prosecutor. Chair asked that a copy of the Charts be left for our records, but they were not, will collect them a next month’s meeting. Kelly announced that the Citizen Police Academy was accepting application for their next class. She reported that 16 grants have been submitted for projects relating to the Byrne Grant. There were 6 grants from NPCs, NPC#1 submitted one for a Pocket Park, Rain Garden; 1 from Trinity Lutheran Church (Rev. Priddy) and 2/3 from Bishop Tino Smith. She then addressed an issue that brought silence and disbelief from members. This was a matter that should have been addressed privately with the Chair. Code: Tommy distributed Code report. He reported another 7 properties were being demolished in the Post Addition. There were no concerns reported to Tommy. Beautiful Battle Creek Award: None If you see a property that you feel deserves a BBC Award you may nominate that property; all that is required is the address. The council will then vote and the address is submitted to City Neighborhood Planning Office, who then proceed with the issuing of the Award. Note – once we submit the addresses the City takes control of the process and we have no say when an address will be awarded. If any member should have a question regarding an address that was submitted they need only ask and the inquiry will be made to the City and the outcome will be documented in the minutes. Membership: James informed member that the new Fire Chief will be attending January meeting and it would be good for all members to be in attendance. This brought on a discussion on how to increase membership. Guest were reminded if they are interested in joining council to let Chair or Vice Chair know and we will get a motion to add them to the membership. Commission Comments: No commissions were present. Battle Creek Public Schools: Ms. Ramsey updated us on the new Challenge 5 initiative that challenges every student to miss not more than 5 days per school year. Goal is to have zero days missed. The Elementary Schools are doing well in this challenge. All schools have seen an increase in attendance. BCPS has invested 30K of the WKKF grant money in classroom libraries for students. BCPS is trying to promote the importance of reading in school and at home. Chair noted that the Post Foundation does a book distribution at Christmas for students at Post/Franklin so they can build their home libraries. The Foundation has done this for 4 years running and has added Verona Elementary this year. Old Business: None. New Business: Chris distributed a list of Community Needs discussion with NPC #1 Post Addition – Responses from 11/2/2017 and gave a presentation on CDBG funding. He asked a question “What would things look like in the neighborhood if we increased programs”. Discussion by all was heard. Chris was invited to attend the February meeting to further discuss the data tool he demonstrated tonight. This will be helpful to neighbors and the NPC. This was a good transition to the next topic of how NPC and Neighbors could work together to improve our communities. James stated that we will discuss how to improve the neighborhood by partnering with planning/city and neighbors at the January meeting. The Kalamazoo Neighborhoods worked with their Planning and Community Development offices to develop detailed plans and maps of how they as neighborhoods wanted to promote themselves and bring about economic change. Members should try and bring a neighbor or two for this discussion. Invitation will be placed in Shopper to encourage residents to come out and meet the new Fire Chief. City Communications office will be contacted to get this information out on city social media platforms. Members and guests were asked to also spread the word. Members Comments: James reminded us that the new Fire will be present in January. Public Comments: None. Adjournment: Meeting was adjourned at 8:45 p.m. Next Scheduled Meeting: Jan 3, 2019 at 7:00 p.m. in the CA Board Room. Respectfully Submitted by Cynthia Fritz, Recording Secretary