Neighborhood Planning Council 2 - North Central

Meeting Minutes NORTHCENTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING COUNCIL #2 Washington Heights United Methodist Church - Hub of Hope, 153 N. Wood St. Sept 11th, 2023 at 6:00 PM MINUTES 1.Call to Order & Welcome @ 6:06 PM: Pastor Monique French called to order and welcome. Introductions. Announcements: Pastor Frech. Get through agenda, hold comments to end. Revise agenda to have discussion areas. Provide people with time to preset. Mary Bourgeois had an accident. Keep her lifted in prayers. Provide her with encouragement Pretense Thompson resigned as secretary. Will elect new secretary. 2. Attendance [Renew/Join (R or J); Member (M); Guest (G); City Rep (C)]: Monique French (M), Larz Martin-Bey (M), Jeff Breedlove -- Scientology (M), Whitney Wardell -- NIBC (M), Corporal Brad Gentry (BCPD), Cynthia Wyatt (G), Sam Gray (M), Patricia Martin (M), Excused: Mary Bourgeois Absent: 3. Approval/Amendment of Agenda: . Motion to approve agenda for Sept 11th by Sam Gray. Whitney second. Ayes have it 7 for, 0 against. 4. Adoption of the Agenda: Sam Correction: MI Hope funding. Not MY Hope funding. Motion to approve minutes with one correction. Support. Approved. 7 for. 0 against. presentation by French. 5. Correspondence (sent/received) & Announcements: Sam Gray asked for a Moment of Silence for the everyone killed in 9/11. Moment of silence and remembrance. Whitney: NIBC received a number of different granst for rehab. MISCH grant, MI Hope funding, NEP funding. Will be receiving more MISCH funds. Another round for MI hope. Totaling in 1.2 million. 6. Committee & City Staff Reports: a. Police Department/Fire Department: Corp Brad Gentry Went over reports. Hot month. 13 agg assaults. Up from most other months. Uptick in crime. Homicides in city. Not in NPC 2 retaliation in NPC 2. Stolen vehicles going up in city. Caught one of kids last week. Part 1 and 2 combined. Ranked 2nd out of 9. Total number. NPC 3 out of 9, busiest. Hope crime goes down with weather. Corp O Bryant. General Dollar, no issue at time. Working on Hubbard and Parkway. House not a problem. Kids are rumored to be breaking into places and assaulting people. Hope to have no issues in next month or two. b. Elected Officials: Pastor French. Tour some of the farms throughout county. Concerns shared with us. Nothing to affect us. Food comes from farms. Looking at some stuff. Also, passed the transit authority for the county. Other counties have opportunity to opt out. c. Neighborhood Services: Yolanda Johnson: Goes over report. Eric Morris has been in area looking for chickens without permit. Busy with that. Weeds are majority of what we are enforcing. Don’t have code enforcement for weeds. Just were blessed with code official for nPc4. Takes pressure off. Closing up certain matters. Working with code official during mpc3. Was injured. Tumbled down hill. Not physically able to do work. Corp Obryant. Parkway. 324 Parkway. Vacant 7 years. Someone purchased it. Living in back yard. High complaints about individual defecating. Checked out property. Had dog in house. Evidence he is living in trailer. Citation for trailer and inoperable vehicle. Hazard. Worked with Ms. Martin on property with high weeds. E Goodale. Has warrant out for arrest. Not doing anything to correct violation. Junk vehicles. People coming and sleep on lot in vehicles. Has another trailer. Reached out to owner. Renter irresponsibile. Has authority to deal with owner. Erving park. Citizen has high weeds. Have contractor to cut down weeds. d. Beautiful Battle Creek Award: 1) Whitney: On Washington, rock wall. The porch got messed up. Took a lot to get fixed. Looks a lot better. That was a pretty tough time. Larz: hasn’t been presented at city. Yolanda: That department just got a new employee. She was a former employee of BC. Just need to send email to find out what’s going on. Pleased to have back. As long as have documentation in minutes will take it personally. 2) Sam Gray nominates 153 North Wood. Washington Heights Church e. Membership: f. Committees: g. Battle Creek Public Schools: None 7. Presentation: none 8. Old Business: French: Lighting on graves. Some things supposed to checked out. Gentry: Checked on Spring. Lights down there. Parties weren’t an issue. No shooting like last year. Might want to take a look at. Yolanda: Noticed improvement on Graves. Noticed no vehicles on street. 9. New Business: French: A lot of transitions in the NPC2. Some of the things we can do to help the community. Viable place and a place want to live. Envision what we see as a community as a whole. If we don’t have vision then we will be floating. Work on plan. Allot some time out to plan next meeting. Strategy to improve the community. Take time out to work collaboratively together. Visioning session. Think ahead of time. That will make it more productive. And brainstorm. Think of ways to fund vision. Sam: initial thoughts. Because you have the MI hope funds. How would that work, getting it out to residents. I have seen things in shopper. French: word of mouth. Call 211 and walk through process. Habitat received funding. All three have received a lot of people. Whitney: MISHDA has them go to them. Habitat out of funding. Had a meeting with 211 to get out to community. Went to Albion city commission. Flyers. Sam: door knock. Strategic on how we did that. Something to talk about . Help to increase membership, know that we exist. People who know there is funding. Packing out pastor Hoopers church people who are interested in applying. Turned up a lot of other stuff. Like people who are renting who are not registered. French: at our capacity. 8 or 9 homes. Sending people down to NIBC. Handed cards to neighborhood. Larz: We packed the church on Washington. We didn’t deliver. People started leaving. Wasn’t a real good deal. If we are talking making a change, we need finance. When people bring proposals, we make decision, if we make the wrong decision, then ask who are they? They are going to be complaining. French: Once we have vision. Try to solidify resources to make the vision come to pass. Bring ideas back, encourage people to come out. 10. Public Comments/Member Comments: Matin: called Corp O’bryant. Car on Stewart. It’s been there for 2 months. Gentry: legally registered and parked. Can’t do anything if it is operable. Next questions. Salvation Army in old Felpaush. People coming over that didn’t live in area. Across street, house put tarp over fence. Is it legal?. Walking dog. Pit bull comes over fence, husband punched it. Gray color house on Goodale. Yolanda: if an issue would fall under zoning. Has something to do with fencing. Opaque fencing. Will ride by it. Depends on how many dogs. Can be referred to animal control Ms. Wyatt: last Saturday. House on Holland was blasting music nobody could get sleep. Called three times. Turned music off at 3:15am. Why take so long? Gentry: possible. When knock on door turn it down, then when leave turn it up. Would have to look. Try to give somebody a warning on noise, before write ticket. Could be turned down when I pull up. Occurred last Saturday. Don’t hesitate call us. Wyatt: holland house. Trees leaning over half way over to my yard. They are still on roof. Yoland: will deal with that. Martin: address church on Retner and Goodale. Did some cleaning. Need to take grass out of sidewalk. Will cover sidewalk. Sign is covered by trees. Whitney: BC schools. What info would be needed to be present. French: before they did have a representative. Will reach out so they have representation. Whitney: Monique Cheek didn’t know about the resources. Will reach out to participate. Whitney: garbage can on Oneita. Sunlight farms. Whitney: any updates, presentation on Hanoor grocery store at family dollar. French: talked to him. Will let dance studio use space was working out details with plan and will go before commission. He does plan on going forward. Will reach out to him invite him to give presentation Wyatt. Corner of Wood and Michigan. Yolanda:. Hanoors building. Some of structure fell on street. Has secured place properly has closed out litigation on respect to garbage. He owns that property, family dollar and property behind it. Has been maintaining well lately. It is in the monitoring system to go by monthly. 450 michigan, talked to that owner today, requested city maintain and cut grass. One of those things can’t let up off it. City will put lean on it. French: was talking about traffic and speeding. Don’t know if it is as bad. Haven’t had many calls. Couldn’t do speed bump because the way it destroys plow. Lease the play ground to city of battle creek, put bbq grill in park area. Concern with them doing that could be liability to us. Make sure safe place for families. Parks and recs. Check into that. Duska French: Hanoor Singh said will get building demolished. Had asbestos report. French: need to elect NPC 2 secretary. Whitney nominates Jeff Breedlove. Sam supports. Voted unanimous. 7 for 0 against. French: Ron Sweet hasn’t been here. Allocate time. Stay to 7:30 to really envision what we want to see in this neighborhood. Don’t want it turn into complaining session. Can’t do everything but we can do something. Start really thinking because new people coming to battle creek. 11. Next Meeting: Monday, Oct 9th, 2023 at 6:00 PM @ Washington Heights UMC. 12. Adjournment: @ 7:09 PM by Monique French, Chair. Motion to adjourn by breedlove. Support by am. Voted unanimously 7 for, 0 against. Minutes submitted by: Jeff Breedlove NPC2 Member NPC 2 Mission: To improve the quality of life by listening and engaging residents. NPC 2 Vision: A safe, friendly, family-driven neighborhood where everyone wants to live. The City of Battle Creek will provide necessary reasonable auxiliary aids and services, such as signers for the hearing impaired and audiotapes of printed materials being considered in the meeting upon reasonable notice to the City of Battle Creek. Individuals with disabilities requiring auxiliary aids or services should contact the City of Battle Creek by writing or calling the following: City Clerk Office (269) 966-3348/TDD Mailing Address: City Hall, 10 N. Division St., Room 104, Battle Creek, MI 49014 Phone: (269) 966-3315 ~ Fax: (269) 441.0380 ~ Web: www.battlecreekmi.gov