Neighborhood Planning Council 2 - North Central

NORTHCENTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING COUNCIL #2 Meeting Minutes—May 14, 2018 SMCDC 47 N. Washington Avenue Battle Creek, MI 1. Call to Order & Welcome: Pastor Joe Hooper, Chair, called to order the NPC#2 meeting at 7:00 p.m. 2. Attendance: Members: Rev. Hooper, Ron Sweet, Kitty Hillian, Prentice Thompson, Commissioner Lynn Ward Gray, Jeffrey Dinkins, Bettie Robertson, Karen Todd, Kristin Denison, Geraldine King, David Draper, Larz Marting Bey (excused) Guests: Krista Trout-Edwards—Land Bank Authority,Ofc. Brand Gentry, Sherry Sofia, Tad McCrumb, Linnea Mobley, Barbara Travis, Kelly Dillman, Chris Lussier, Sharon Yaskulski. 3. Approval of Minutes: Ms. Kitty motion to accept minutes and seconded by Mr. Sweet?. Any needed corrections will be added to next minutes. 5. Guest Presentations: Krista Trout-Edwards—Land Bank Authority: Michigan Historic Preservation Network interested in doing a workshop series in B.C. at 26 Freemont. Three dates of workshop: June 9th—talk about foundational repair; July 14—window repair; August 11—plaster repair and painting workshop. It is $25 for the workshops each day. The community conversation will be happening on August 15. Demolitions: Manchester and Ann Streets, 78 Ann—has to be approve by the State Historic Preservation. Landbank owns some on Greenwood, 5 of them, that we are really concerned about. Pursued some county money for demolition and the County Board of Commissioners have approved and appropriated some monies so that we can demolish some of the most at-risk properties. 78 Ann down will be torn down. A couple houses on Manchester now will be torn down and as well as the one the Foundation is (inaudible). Also, 161 Oaklawn is on that list and 68 Oaklawn. We are able to get a hand full of those properties, but we just don’t want to demo, demo, demo. We wanna see if we can start a conversation and find some resources to help, intervene in some of these houses. First step (inaudible), 2nd Step is that conversation and we’ll see where it goes from there. As you know, The Michigan Historic Preservation Network did a workshop series in Detroit where they did some job training that was really cool, so they are our best bet. Please sign up for the classes they are limited. 12 for the first one, 6 for the 2nd one, there are limited seats. The Fee is $25 and the city was looking at to help some people but haven’t gotten that all figured out but we really trying to get the word out. Call our office later for further info. On August 11, there are three different workshops so you have to select only one. Tad McCrumb—B.C. Engineering Department: Thank you for having me. Passing out a map of the road treatment projects for this summer. Water replacement on Buckeye, Hazel, Hanover and Wilkes starting tentatively end of July and finish up in October. We will be removing….and putting in new water mains. That’s the big one. Got some sealing to do on Parkway where you put stones on top of the (seal) to seal the road and then vacuum the stones up. In replacing the main at Buckeye et others, will people still have to boil water? The answer was Yes. (Kelly Dillman—left sick) . We are doing 2.4 miles of road work. Chris Lussier asked if there were any sidewalk repairs or replacement this summer? There will be repair work where we are doing the water- main replacement in the Buckeye area. Chris asked what caused the reduction in sidewalks? Tad could not answer that. Discussion on sidewalks from Manchester….to…. Rev. Hooper says we have had issues with lack of sidewalks over by the Dudley School. Interrupted Ms. Dinkins. I do have a question. This is about resurfacing the streets. I have come to counsel about my street not draining, and water settles at the curb. There is no drain hole at my corner. Are you, Tad, the person I need to address. I have brought the issue up over the last three years. Mr. T. Block between Roseneath and Roosevelt. I thought there were supposed to be drained holes. Mr. McCrumb tried to explain the draining process. Ms. Dinkins says this is really bad. And I’ve been asking for 2 or 3 years. I’m not sure what it is but the best I can do is look at it, McCrumb says. Does anyone know if this problem hasn’t been looked at within the last 2 or 3 years ask Dinkins? Mr. McCrumb didn’t know. Ms. Dinkins is bringing the problem up again although she has brought it up to counsel numerous times. Again, McCrumb says all we can do is look at the problem, and I can’t picture wood street right now. Chris Lussier steps into clarify how the process and follow-up should happen once the problem has been identified. Mr. McCrumb glad to look into the problem and follow-up appropriately with Ms. Dinkins. Rev. Hooper says from time to time the council has talked about sidewalks by Dudley School. The council believes it is a safety hazard for students to be walking out into the streets. You were talking about the lack of funding…but wouldn’t that be a safety issue as it relates to the State. Mr. McCrumb said it could be, I can’t say that it wouldn’t be. Again, I don’t have a good picture of that. We have a growing list of issues to address with sidewalks. Unfortunately, this year the budget for that has been greatly reduced and that will eliminate most of sidewalk repair for this year. I do design by the management part and not the budget part. Chris Lussier mentioned to Carl Fetters before but the sidewalks in this NPC2 area are noticeably in a state of disrepair, that is noticeable just from walking streets in like other neighborhoods like it’s pretty remarkable. And then there are some other concerns just about safe routes to school, in terms of walking routes that, where, and this is not the only neighborhood obviously that have those issues, parts of South side of town that also have stretches of road where sidewalks are not installed that do lead straight up to the street. And there are other concerns but certainly Dudley school has that issue as well. This whole area is where like sidewalks have been, um sidewalks are in, sidewalks are just like completely broken up or in such incredible disrepair like it looks that no one has done anything with them in decades. (Clearing my throat) We do have actually a bunch of pictures on my phone, Prentice and I went around last year actually and took a lot of pictures. So here again you can take back, sidewalks are in this particular, NPC, Prentice interrupted with that the City cleared two good sidewalks which could not be noticed until uncovered. Chris continuing, says some of the sidewalks are about maintenance issues; how sidewalks in front of properties are being maintained. Some sidewalks are actually good but you could not see because of the 3-inch sod over it. The city did go through and uncover a lot of those and edged a lot of those to increase sidewalks; that plus a bunch of other issues make whole blocks impassable and kids have no other option but to walk in the streets. Ms. Dinkins, I didn’t know you were the person and was going to bring this up during public comment but since you here I guess you would have something to do with this. My neighbors, we have a lot of kids moving into the area; I live right around the corner from Dudley school. And cars fly down the street, the guys in the neighborhood says we need to get a petition together to gets some speed bumps going down there. They literally fly down the street and it is horrible. You see kids out there, because I live near Dudley school. All of that is a hazardous area. I was wondering do we need to get a petition together? I know they have some on Irving Park Drive. We need speed bumps because kids are playing outside. Cars are speeding up and down the street. Sweet: up Wood or Roseneath? Dinkins: Up wood, and they really take off right at Roseneath—I don’t know what, but they think that block is the international speedway or what. They come flying down wood. There is a stop sign at Roseneath…they speed on across or turn down toward Goodale. And they were flying and so we see, my granddaughter was one of them although she was on the slide not riding her bike, but there was some kids right there in street when this car, this red souped up car and it turned off Roseneath and I mean it flew. This has happened before but now I see more kids so this issue needs to be looked into. Mr. McCrumb: Our traffic engineer Greg Rickmar (269-963-3343) works on that’s stuff. I think now speed bumps are initiated through the NPC’s, so your request must be sent through NPC and official request sent to Greg so that he could investigate the matter. Greg will then set some counters set out, do traffic studies to determine what the average speed is, what the outliers are and from that he got some whole certain things to see what is warranted in terms of speed bump size. Please send your official request to me and I can forward that to Greg. Or you can send to Greg yourself. Chris Lussier: I think the council is actually supposed to vote on the matter to request a study. The NPC council must vote on this matter. Last NPC leadership meeting Carl Fetters(?) did a presentation at DPW, they made a policy. They made an actual policy that we can get a copy of it if we need a copy. If DPW gets a request down there, they will notify the NPC chair that they have a request and then come to NPC meeting to state their interest in having a study done to see about traffic calming measures and then the NPC planning council would need to make a motion vote on it and essential forward the request. If the NPC planning council approved it, it would go then, that’s how then DPW would then say ok this is a request and then they would do the study then to determine whether or not…. Dinkins, so I need to make a motion? I make a motion that we that the NPC2 planning council request the city to do a traffic study on the Wood Street area by Roseneath and Roosevelt. Or from Parkway to Goodale… (Rev Hooper: We can get more exact on the details later) I just make a motion NPC put in a request to do a traffic study from Greenwood to Goodale to possibly secure speed bumps. 2nd by Ms. Bettie Robertson. Ok Rev. Hooper: It’s been moved and second that we request from the city to do a traffic study for speed bumps in the NPC 2 area. Question…. All in favor say I. The I’s were unanimous. The motion is carried. Rev. Hooper: Any more questions for Mr. McCrumb. We thank you and you’ll be hearing from us. 6) Committee Reports: Police Department—For March 1-31 and April 1-30 Ofc. Brad Gentry gave report for incidents, foot patrols 92, 100 Traffic Stops, 75, 69 Assaults 21, 16 Burglary 3, 7,Larceny 8, 13, Damage to Property 5, 7 Drug Offense 7,10, Obstruct Justice 12, 23. We are doing lots more foot patrols and traffic stops in this area. One number that I found a little concerning is Larcenies which there are 13 and last year there were 4. So, I started looking into the stats a little bit, looks like a spike of larcenies in vehicles, not really in this distinct area; it sounds like people are leaving their cars unlocked. This time of year, it’s getting warm and know more people are out and walking around walking the streets instead of riding in their cars. Hopefully we won’t see that trend continue. I pulled a report and it doesn’t look like a lot of suspect information on the Larcenies. The other thing I attached to this report is the Land Bank demolition schedule. From the last meeting there was some questions and concerns about some houses needing demolition and put that on the report. Far as the Byrne Grant goes, there was a meeting last Friday at the Salvation Army (4th of April) and there’s a sign-up sheet going around. In our NPC2 specifically, the micro Hot Spot which has been identified as the Irving Park Apartments, the old Youth Building, they recently since the last meeting got all the exterior doors secured, so nobody can come and goes as they please which has been huge. So now you have to key to get in. I have a key and the BCPD has a key. In six weeks, since last week, it has been better. It was also kids from Central going into the building which gave rise to a lot of concerns. Any questions. Rev. Hooper: So, we saying, the change in the weather, is that going to inspire more police presence in the area. Gentry: Oh, that’s another topic of concern. So, I recently just took over Chad’s old position as ( ) now they’re filling my old position. We were running a car short on the North side of town throughout the colder months from January until some weeks ago just to save money and we finally, two weeks ago got back to full staffing. So there are going to be more cars out and about. We were running without Chad, so technically in the after-noon time or day time, three (3) cars in this area…. I don’t think they are going to plan on adding anymore to the North side because of budget constraints, we’ll see, it has already been a busy summer already unfortunately. Dinkins: I’m looking at the number of house you are demolishing. Do you have purpose for the land? I know I see a lot of vacant lots. So what is the plan for all this vacant land. I know the City is trying to rent it out. I was at a city commission meeting and I know they discussed possibly having passing something where they would be able to rent out the lots. One thing I’m curious about is when you rent a lot out, why would someone want to rent a lot unless they putting together to do with the lot. And the other thing, some lots are the city and some lots are the county. I don’t know which are which in my neighborhood. I’m just wondering. Krista-Trout Edwards-- Land Bank Authority: We have three programs that will deal with, beginning: First, is the side lot program. The person who lives next door as long as they are qualified they can purchase the land for $230. They can do whatever they wish. Next, there is adopt-a-lot for $25.00 so let’s say someone wants to buy a side lot but there not qualified because they have delinquent taxes or code issues with their house. They can adopt that property for $25.00 a year and then let’s say two years down the road, their taxes are paid up or their code issue is gone, they can purchase that side lot and anything they paid in adoption fees goes toward the purchase price of the side-lots. Some folks just want to adopt-a-lot but do not want to own it. We have a lady who puts up a little garden up for her mother every year but does not want to own the property. Our third program, the neighborhood low maintenance program. We deal with a lot of vacant lots. We have taken a lot of time since 2015 to see if we can rehab houses. We have a couple going on in this neighborhood. One on Bowen. One on 30 Northside is for sale. We sold one on Saunders last year. There is another one, 95 Bowen and 40 Baldwin there are in the Transforming this home program. Dinkins: I didn’t understand what you just said. You said have a program; are we talking about a house or lot? K.T. Edwards: We are talking about two. We do a lot of demos but before we decide to demo, we say is it really a demo? Do we think we could sell it? And so, we put some into our Transform This Home program and it is picking up speed in this NPC2 area. If we can’t sell it or we try and market it to sell and it doesn’t sell for a long period of time, then we do go with a demolition. We also get a lot of safety inspections on the houses just to make sure we are making the right decisions. So back to your question about vacant lots. We have three programs. Last program is neighborhood low maintenance. Sometimes folks don’t want to buy the property or they are just not a good candidate to purchase the property. So, we do a neighborhood low maintenance program where local groups can mow the properties for a stipend that they can put back into their neighborhood. We have a lot in this neighborhood who participates in the program with almost all the vacant lots are mowed by a group in this NPC2. That program grew out of this NPC2 originally and has been by far the most popular. And sometimes there is just no one to buy the property. Once this year is over and this particular grant is over and I feel like we have gotten our arms around this vacant blotted property program, I know of the City that there is a number of vacant and abandoned buildings have decreased for the first time since 2011. So, we made a lot of headway. So I’m hoping that we are at the end of this process and that there not gonna get 65 more from the treasurer this year after foreclosure. So that’s what I do. We are looking at our land right now, we have an AmeriCorps in our office, looking at where we own groups of land and see what we are going to do with that it in the future. If we are ready for install housing or when we are ready for install housing we want to have that data available for folks. Not saying that’s going to happen anytime soon but it could at some point. And when we do it, we don’t have report right now, we do occasionally get questions about that. Ms. Robertson: Is there a time limit on adopt-a-lot or purchase? If the state hasn’t released it, we cannot sell it. There is no time limit with the Land Bank we have to go by the rules of the State. Is it the adjacent lot or any lot you can adopt? Priority is given to adjacent lots. B) Neighborhood Services: Chris Lussier : Passing around the dates for the Byrne Grant project. We have been doing these sessions for neighborhood projects. We have had four groups that started, NPC2 that was one of the groups that participated last Monday night. Basically, NPCs’ one through four (1-4) each have a group in their NPC that are basically brainstorming ideas, project ideas, for the summer. The next session on June 4th will be going through a story-boarding exercise similar to that of “Porch Improvement Program” and will be flushing out ideas that were brainstormed from the previous session. This NPC, the group had some ideas. I don’t know if Ron or someone wants to speak to that. You guys had ideas last Monday, but we have more people show up June 4th. The last night June 25th you’ll take your story-boarding ideas and turn this into a grant proposal. There are grant funds for both small projects and large projects. The small projects grants can be up to $2,500 dollars. It sounds like a lot of the ideas might result in small projects. But there is the opportunity to go after grants as large as $20,000 dollars. There is another pool of funds that out there specifically for this kind of neighborhood grant making in Battle Creek. If there are some big ideas that the group wants to implement, then you’ll be able to work on them as well. So that June 25th meeting you’ll actually be working on your grant applications, the Battle Creek Community Foundation will be there walking people through about taking your ideas from the story-boarding and turning it into an application and it results, approximately being implemented over the course of the rest of the summer and fall. That was that piece. Then I want to pass out applications for the Byrne Grant Resident Ambassador, this is a very part-time temporary position estimated at 10-15 hours per month for a six months term. There is a possibility to maybe do another six months afterwards. This is for folks interested in doing community work that may have that passion or already engaged into that to some extent already and maybe want to get paid to do more of it. If you live in NPC2, NPC1-4 are eligible. You are getting paid $15.00 per hour. No one is getting rich off this opportunity. It is a way to be compensated for time doing community work. If its something you are interested in. You can also apply on-line, on the city’s website, its posted just like any other job. I think actually its down now, because we just took applications for a period of time and then this week it’ll being going up for again for another period of time. One of the things you’ll notice from this is that we’ll have a couple of resident ambassadors from this neighborhood, and sometime over the summer, one of the requirements we are going to have them attend NPC meetings in the neighborhood where they are. So if it’s not someone who is already attending as NPC member, they may be showing up in the future. Any Questions? I have the NPC reports and will be here after the meeting if any questions. Dinkins: Question about the Byrne Grant. When Kelly brought the Byrne Grant to the planning council. Has the direction changed? Or are we talking about a separate grant. Because she was telling us that an area already identified over there by Central High School, where it had been identified as a high crime area in NPC2. Now this particular information that you are sharing? Are you talking about projects for that particular area or are we talking about something different? Chris Lussier: Good question. There is a focus area for the Byrne Grant and I speak to that portion of that but I can handle the grant funds where they are eligible to be used. Ofc. Gentry: My understanding of it. The only areas where we can spend money under the Byrne Grant umbrella would be the grid that is going to be over West Street, some areas of the High School, and even still goes into another grid which is on another side of North Avenue which is not NPC2 anymore. So the only grid….I thought that was kinda a little bizarre myself that seem to be the high crime area, but they brought in people from University of Michigan and did a big study on it and that’s where they determined where the crime numbers were. Then the micro-hotspot inside that grid is the Village Irving Park Apts., the old youth building is where they want more of a direct focus as far as my end. From my understanding we couldn’t take Byrne Grant money and use it at Claude Evans or use it to put in a side- walk at Dudley, we couldn’t use the Byrne grant money in an unspecified grid area. Dinkins: So the meeting you had the Salvation Army and all the ideas, like you said some people from NPC2 were there and had ideas. Can those people share those ideas, what are we talking about a different project now? Chris Lussier: No… Everything ofc. Gentry said was correct. There are other organizations that are putting forward money and partnership with the Byrne Grant. There is the neighborhood grant that I just mention which will be administered by the Community Foundation; the idea is that those dollars do have to produce an impact in that area but what they have said is that if there is a broader idea, it also impacts on other parts of the neighborhood, then you can have other ideas. What we have been encouraging people to do at these sessions is to think about the data that has been presented on the Byrne Grant and information sharing sessions. Whether data presented about resident perceptions in the area; look at the crime data; some of the drivers of the high crime—it is interesting that it is over in that area and doesn’t include other parts of the NPC2 area. There are some reasons for that and just incorporate that into the process. That’s what we have been encouraging people to do. My understanding is that if they land on an idea that ends up over there at the park then they would be able to fund that with the Battle Creek Community Foundation grant dollars. Dinkins: So, these, the B.C. Foundation’s money is not part of the Byrne Grant? Lussier: Well, these, this effort is connected to the Byrne Grant, it may be that the requirements in terms of the actual dollars that are spent forth may be more loosely. So we have been framing that in those sessions. This has been happening in context within the Byrne Grant. We encouraged the people to take a look at the good work that B.C. City and B.C.P.D. are investing lots of resources and engaging the community around this area. So we are encouraging people to take a look at that. But I don’t think its limit within those ideas. Dinkins: This is not the money that the foundation has where you could go down there, like say if I wanted to do a project on my street, and the Community Foundation has all kinds of different programs that fund neighborhood or street projects. Is this different money from that? Lussier: Yeah, it is different money from that. There are other neighborhood dollars for folks, for neighborhood grant making at the Community Foundation as well. Ward-Gray: Separate Lussier: It is a little bit confusing and we have tried to like after one of the sessions, one of the things we did was to hand a piece that described the different grant funds that were available. The basic thing is we are encouraging to people to come down; if you got a neighborhood idea, the resources are there and we can work through how we can access them and what of kinds of ideas that would likely get funded. That’s part of what we’re gonna do with the process. Dinkins: When you say neighborhood, does it have to be two or three streets, can it be one street, one block…what’s the definition in this particular grant making process, what is the definition of a “neighborhood”? Can it be a street, a block? Lussier: In terms of geography and scope, the only limitations, it absolutely has to be within NPCs’ 1-4. In fact, when we started the last session, one NPC stood up and said we think we should all work together and create one grant idea and do it across all these NPC’s. Then there was a lot of energy around that, so we said do we wanna do that, then everyone changed their minds, and wanted to split it up. In terms of scope, you can focus on something specific or you could do something much broader; it has to be within the bounds of NPCs 1-4. Dinkins: How much are the grants? How much can you get? There are two… These dollars have been set-aside as a part of the Byrne Grant effort for NPCs’ 1-4. If had had other groups within the NPCs who wanted to access these dollars they could have. Not everyone wanted to sit within the NPC. Dinkins: You didn’t answer how much? Lussier: Up to $2,500 for the small grant. Another source, grant up to $20,000. I can’t rattle it out but Kelly would know. Thompson: Can we have a Grant description sheets. How many grants are there? Lussier: Community Foundation administers all of the grant funds. There are two different sources of funding and I don’t know what the total amount is. Robertson: Since we talking about grants, I pass Claude Evans park every day. The park is a big circle inside a big field. Could we get a grant to clear off the big field so we can have a park? Because in the summertime there are a lot of gatherings. Even make a parking lot out of the big field. Could we get someone to clear that out and make it look like the majority of the parks here in Battle Creek? Ofc Gentry: I just talk to Sergeant Rabbit who heads up ( inaudible) we had a conversation about the Park. I always thought the same thing. I think the city owns the lot directly north of Helen Montgomery. I can tell you they are going to start looking into things. Ima start forwarding some information to him that I think, gathered from here and whoever I talk to in the community. Hopefully during the summer months and see what we can do about that because it is becoming a problem and it is now starting to trickle up Hudson, upward Northside as far as congregating and people hanging out. We were talking about a parking lot? I don’t know. We are looking into that. Robertson: Wouldn’t they congregate in the Parking Lot. Ofc. Gentry: I guess its better than blocking driveways. Robertson: The parking lot will look better than what is now and this is just one of the things. They could increase the size of the park. We are getting blocked traffic now which have become problematic. So if we put up no parking signs then no one could park and go to the park. So that where the discussion was going. What is the best course of action? Is to see about parking lot? And that’s why, but I’m not part of Crime Prevention Unit so I won’t speak on that, but that’s part of what they do; how do we solve a problem? It’s through environmental design too. Dinkins: Ofc. Francisco brought up idea and put a water-pad in that place where the water comes out the ground. Lussier: I would say come to the grant session; that’s a triple hit and maybe even a home run idea. Come to the grant sessions. Process is get a lot of ideas on the table. Then find out what ideas are highest priorities, the ones that people feel are most impactful. And then flush out how to accomplish it and then put together a grant application to get it. Of course, there would be the implementation phase which we all know is a lot of work. Dinkins: They have a real nice splash-pad near this lake at the park in Lansing. C) Beautiful Battle Creek Awards—None D) Membership: Rev. Hooper says the council is always in need of members, so if they are some able bodies from the community to help us on projects we love to have more members and let their voices be heard. E) Committee Report: Engagement Committee: Dinkins: Is there an Engagement meeting? Sweet: We haven’t got who is in the committee: Dinkins: I ain’t never been called about nothing. Is was Sam, myself and Mr. Sweet. That has been dismantled since Sam Gray left. Do we have anyone to be on the Engagement Committee and be committed to it? Q? What does the Engagement Committee Do? Dinkins: The Engagement Committee plan events. One of them was the Back-to-School Book Bag give- a-way. That was a big event. Rev. Hooper: Anything in the Community the Engagement Committee coordinates. Q? Do you have to be a board member? Michigan Works can become an organizational member. Ward-Gray: The question at hand is, are you, Michigan Works—Linnea Mobley and Barbara Travis, willing to become an organization NPC2 member? Michigan Works: Yes. Now the vote. Dinkins: I make a motion that Michigan Works become a member as an organization to the NPC2. Seconded by Ward-Gray. Discussion: None Rev. Hooper: All in those in favor say I. It was unanimously approved that Michigan Works become a member to NPC2. So now the Engagement Committee consist of: Rev. Hooper, Jeffrey Dinkins--Chairwoman, Linnea Mobley, Barbara Travis, Nicholas Virgil and Prentice Thompson. Can ask the Board are we interested in doing the Back-to-School Book Bags? Some discussion about residual monies from the last event. It was said there was no monies. Ward-Gray: Charlotte from Kellogg Federal Credit Union is still interested in participating and partnering. F) School Board: None G) Elected Officials: Commissioner Lynn Ward Gray. Accepting applications for the youth advisory board ages14-20 that have an interest. YAB leading town hall May 22, 7-8:30 p.m. in city hall chambers on school safety. Please support the youth and hear their perspective. BCPS, Lakeview Superintendents, and Chief Blocker will be there. Last meeting city council approved pop up shops. Adding another element for entrepreneurs and business owners to sell their wares and services. Those containers will be located just to the side of full blast and across from the post office. 7 cargo containers were purchased. This will allow for 6 to 8 (10x10) pop up tents. But they are really really looking for diverse offering of business. If you know anyone interested, please contact small business development, John Hart and Valerie Bonds. The deadline is coming up soon. We have our Meeting tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. May 15. NPC2 represents City Council well. We will be taking public comments on our budget. We have a balanced budget. This is the season for street treatments and updates, so you will probably see a lot of boil water notifications. If street work being down and doing work on the water lines, you will get a notice sent to your home. If you want to get notifications directly to your phone or e-mail, you can sign-up for notify me. They are coming out fast and furious. They are coming out all the time. The press release about being able to get permits, first come first serve base for the ordinance surrounding the chickens was release today. Up to 20 licenses will be granted. The ordinance has been passed and adopted. They had a food truck this last Friday. They still looking for people for the pop-up shops. If you know anyone contact small business development. That group has a marketing position available. They are looking for an associate to join their team. Questions: About pop-up cargo. If people want to share the space. I think the S.W. Urban League has invested in the Cargo container for the summer and they are going to be working with minority small business throughout the summer. So yeah you can partner. Dinkins: Now since the chicken ordinance has passed. It’s kind of disheartening. I have a question as to once you voted on it and you said “No”. And then they brought it back and it passed. I got a feeling, that the next thing, since they got this passed with the 20, excuse me, now they come back with the goats, then they gon come back with the bees, now they gonna kinda like gradually bring the whole situation back up. I see the opportunity for that to occur. And I guess what I wonder, when the commissioners, what is it that they feel that people who don’t wanna live like a rural lifestyle, who don’t want that, why should their needs or their desires to be overlooked because there is already zoning for that, for people to have chicken, goats, cats, dogs, whatever they want. There is already zoning for that. I know you voted it against that, so I’m not talking about you (Ward-Gray). Commissioner Sherry Sofia who was present, voted against as well. You voted against it as well. I’m sorry I didn’t know who you were. I just feel like it was totally, they totally disregarded the people who don’t want to live in the country. Like 5 cats. I really feel like nobody listen to what the people really wants. I personally think if you ride past that garden over there on Kendall, I think it looks a hot mess. I have seen gardens, I went on-line and looked at some inner city, that looked much nicer and much more well kept and much more appealing. But that thing over there on Kendall looks a hot mess. Yes. Every time you go over there it looks like garbage, it’s just awful, it’s just awful, awful…the city to me is not monitoring it. It doesn’t look attractive. Now when you add some chickens up there, then what? Dinkins cont: The other part, I’m not clear about what the restrictions are. What do you have to have chicken coop, a pen…I don’t know how big it is…. I know out there (Bedford.some location) …the people next door to her have chickens and I know she has chickens always in her driveway and she’s not for it. What do you have in place for the neighbor next door who doesn’t want chickens, but the chickens are always over there. Because your code can’t take care of everything. And I know you can kill the chickens, no you can’t kill the chickens, … Ward-Gray: The Planning Department will be doing the inspections on the chicken coops. Dinkins: I don’t know about chickens, do they fly. Lololol I grew up with chickens, they can’t fly very high, but they do get off the ground says Comm. Sofia. Dinkins: Again, I’m just expressing my frustrations that it was passed. Now I hope if they bring the goats back up…you say chickens are enough? What I’m scared about and they talked about being able to rent or considering on renting their city-own lots. It hasn’t come up. I was at one of the meetings. If that be a consideration, I don’t want anyone renting a lot. Im just saying. The regulations on the Chicken Ordinance says it must be on a property owned. It was a 5-4 vote. Reminder of the May 22, Youth Town Hall. Chief of Public Safety from KCC will be there in addition to the two superintendents who have officers in their buildings. Keeping you informed. It will be aired in June on a Wednesday. On ch. 17 will be DPW information session for May. Cereal Festival 9th of June. 8-12:00 The parade has been changed to 12:00 p.m. on Saturday instead of Friday night. Juneteenth is the week after that. Please and come and enjoy that. Everyone should have gotten a brochure at home of summer activities for Battle Creek. Commissioner Sherry Sofia--and my apologies for not getting to this NPC sooner, but Commissioner Gray spoke several times how the feedback she was getting back from the NPC meetings were not supportive with moving forward with the Chicken Ordinance. She made sure people heard so thank you. I just wanted to share this. Dinkins: May I ask a question about that, I was told and I don’t know if you can answer it, but I understand that there is a commissioner who already had chickens anyway and he you know was pushing this. And to me, isn’t that kinda like a conflict of interest, like you kinda have your own private personal agenda. It just seems something aint right with that. Someone told me he had chickens. Commissioner Sherry Sofia: He had had chickens in the past. And got the letter from the city indicating that the chickens were not allowed within the city limits and had to get rid of the chickens. And then He and his family, have since moved from that house and living in another house in the city. Dinkins: What about the man who has the Bees. He said wasn’t getting ready off his bees for nobody. See to police this kind of stuff is going to be difficult. Ward-Gray: The Sprout Farm was mention at our last Land Bank meeting. The last couple of times, I have spoken with Jeremy, who is owner of the property, about the condition. He mentioned that some space has been leased out to farmers and that they were responsible for there area. My push back, is be on it, so you can make sure its more presentable. I am going to turn it over to Krista. Krista-Trout Edwards: We used to own it. We sold it to Jeremy. We use to do some garden leases, we have changed are approach. We get more complaints. Garden’s are great but when we they start to become unsightly and in disarray then it becomes a problem. So, we changed policies this year. We understand now that Jeremy is leasing the property. Ward-Gray: I understand that the Board of Sprout has changed. And I know that Sprout promised NPC2 a lot of things and I don’t see that after Sprout coming back and saying how great things were going to be. I know this will be one of the things I will stay on top of. Dinkins: It just looks so bad to me. Robertson: Historical Properties. Wants Krista-Trout Edwards to Recap Historic Preservation Program. It has to be a publicly held historical property. 7) Old Business: 8) New Business: Sharon Yaskluski: Two things: In 2016, NYU did an education study, about our city, quite extensive, over 100-page report, funded by Kellogg Foundation. Kellogg Foundation asking Director of Study of NYU to come back and to do a training. The workshop will train community members to serve as liaisons to raise awareness and to understand the impact that equity has in the lives of Battle Creek Youth in our community. May 25. Two sessions 8:11:30 and 12:00 to 4:00. Its free. Very limited. Only 25 people per workshop. The other is. One of the barriers that people have in getting employed is not having a high school diploma. Getting a GED is a hair. One of the things that the State Legislature did in December was to fund a program for free high school completion and that through Graduation Alliance. Three requirements: 23 years of age or older, completed 10th grade, and that will be lowered eventually, and they are a resident in Michigan. They could have gone to high-school anywhere in the country. Graduation Alliance does this in other states and have a track record. They have other programs. One called Dropout Recovery. Identify drop-outs from high-school and either get them into an alternative high- school or this program. Adult High School Diploma program here in Michigan. It is totally on-line and they have a 24/7-hour real live coach. They have someone to talk to any time day or night. I like it because you go directly to website. Anyone interested, I have some cards. There are two websites: Michigan23.com and GraduationAlliance.com. These are fully accredited diplomas! 9) Public Comments: Michigan works gave their reminder of their locations and how valuable they are to the community. Linnea Mobley spoke most eloquently on using the services of Michigan works and the opportunity to make a difference. Karen Todd—Rep. Bizon in the state. They will be hosting Older Michiganian Day. 70 people from Battle Creek will be there on Wednesday. Kristin Dennison: We have in the process 14 houses that are going the F…or grants or rehab. It started 6.4 million and now the funds are down to 3.4 million. And we will get as many as we can. Prentice Thompson: Engagement Committee: Re: Awards to long serving and valued membership. Betty Robertson: Gave accolades and appreciation to Lynn Ward Gray for representation re: Chicken Ordinance. David Draper: Grace Health Pharmacy will be opening. Sharon Yaskluski: Please go to your city meeting and other meetings. It makes a different. Kitty Hillian: Have you notice that behind the SWMDC that there are about 30 cats over in that parking lots? Ron Sweet: What was the vote of the Chicken Ordinance. How many NPCs for and what NPCs are against. Ward-Gray: I attend 4 NPC’s and three were against. 3 were against, 2 were on the record for a being against, and 1 didn’t take a vote. The forth one didn’t take a vote. The majority was against it. If I’m not mistaken, there were six NPCS who were against the Chicken Ordinance and two for it. In my view, this process happened all too quickly. So, do commissioners listen to their constituents. I hope they do. Sweet: It seem when the vote came by it was shoved down our throats. Ward-Gray: Many share your sentiments; however, we vote as a body. Dinkins: I have never seen the city commission undo any legislation that did not work in re: to Chicken Ordinance. So, when the stuff is put in place it is just a done deal. Some of the commissioners who voted for this I don’t want any chickens out in Minges Hills. I wanted a senior citizen to come here to discuss this historical house and she needs help with Deed ownership. Dispute that Dr. Kellogg owns the house for his nurse. So, she only owns the land supposedly. Supposedly she can’t own the house because Dr. Kellogg bought the house for his nurse, whom both are dead. So, the problem still exists. Ward-Gray will look into this I believe. Rev. Hooper: I welcome everyone in coming out and look forward to seeing you at next meeting. 9) Meeting adjourned by Rev. Hooper at 8:55 p.m. The next meeting will be June 11, 2018.