Neighborhood Improvement Advisory Council

Neighborhood Improvement Advisory Council Meeting Minutes Wednesday, April 11, 2018 7:00 P.M. City Hall Annex, 120 Washington Street, 3rd Floor Meeting Began 7:03 pm Members Present: Linda Stark (Downtown), Pat Liberti (Ward 4/Gallows Hill), Anne Sterling (Northfields), Rosemary O’Connor (Mack Park), Norman LaPointe (South Salem), Barbara Mann (Greater Endicott Street), Brendan Murphy (Bridge Street), Wendy Meigs & Margaret Crosby (Historic Derby Street), Lorelee Stewart (Barnes/Clark), Jerry Smith (Salem Common) Guests: None Staff Present: Dominick Pangallo (Office of Mayor Driscoll) Approval of January 10, 2018 Meeting minutes: Approved Public Comment: None Council Updates: • Mack Park: Golf tournament to benefit the Salem Police K9 will be June 4, looking for players and for hole sponsors. May 14 the Essex County Correctional Facility inmates will be at Mack Park for a clean-up. Dominick outlined how other associations could request help from ECCF for clean-up of public parks and spaces in their neighborhood. • Ward 4/Gallows Hill: Continues to be neighborhood concerns about the potential marijuana retailers looking at locations on Highland Avenue, and especially with the proposal for 400 Highland Avenue. April 23 Mayor Driscoll and Councillors Peterson and Flynn will be holding a general update for Highland Avenue area residents, 6pm at Salem High School. • Northfields: Planning Board meets on April 19 to take up a proposed residential project on Franklin Street. Furlong Park clean-up takes place April 21. • South Salem: Canal Street roadway project has resumed work for the spring and will be wrapping up by the summer. Neighbors to Forest River Park will be holding a site meeting with Mayor Driscoll, Councillor Turiel, and the City Engineer on April 21 to talk about the next stages of work at the park. Party complaints at off-campus SSU houses are down so far this year. The neighborhood is looking forward to an update on the timetable for the O’Keefe Center parking lot subsurface storm water storage tank project. • Greater Endicott Street: GESNA met with the City’s Traffic Director and there’s interest in some traffic calming concepts for Winthrop Street. Dominick shared that the same presentation on traffic calming could be shared with other neighborhood associations if there is interest in it. Vehicle break-ins seem to be up in the neighborhood, police are aware. • Bridge Street: Also seeing an uptick in “crimes of opportunity.” Collins Cove clean-up takes place April 21. The Traffic Director is coming to BSNA in early May to talk about the traffic calming program. There’s an interest in doing a neighborhood-wide yard sale, possibly in conjunction with SCNA and HDSNA.  • Salem Common: Last event in the Knights of Columbus Hall will be a SCNA benefit Cinco de Mayo/Kentucky Derby party on May 5. The neighbors are hoping the Hall developers will have another community meeting soon. SCNA would like to see if the City could create a publicly viewable calendar of events, both public and private, taking place each month on the Common. The March storm brought flooding issues to Forrester Street and seems to have caused some manholes on Webb Street to sink into the road. Salem Main Street and PEM are planning a “Porch Fest” in the neighborhood; neighbors have mixed reactions and would like more details. • Historic Derby Street: There are still issues and concerns with Footprint and the commissioning process, with loud noise, smoke, and vibrations happening. Salem PD, Fire, and Lou Arak from Footprint will be at the May 14 HDSNA meeting to talk about emergency response planning at the plant. City Updates: • CLC program survey online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SalemCLC through May 8. • Annex offices and meeting rooms moving to 98 Washington Street on April 17. Opens at noon on April 17; all phone numbers remaining the same. • Highland Avenue community meeting on Monday, April 23, 6pm, SHS auditorium. • Collaborative for Hope homelessness initiative update meeting on Tuesday, April 24, 6pm, Bentley School auditorium. • Transfer Station open Saturdays from 7am to 3pm and Sundays from 9am to 5pm. • Zagster is changing to a more open system this coming week: you can “check in” and “check out” bikes from any bike rack that appears on the map, not just the official Zagster hub stations. • National Guard Muster Saturday, 4/14, 10am-12:30pm. Expect some brief road closures on Church, St. Peter, New Liberty, Essex, and Hawthorne Boulevard, and also loud booms from the howitzer gun. • Street sweeping getting underway April 17-26 on entrance corridors (5-7am) and April 30-May 25 on neighborhood streets (7am-3pm). • Clean Sweeps takes place May 5th, contact Ellen Talkowsky if your association would like to participate. Next Meeting: Wednesday, May 9, 2018, 7pm, 98 Washington Street Adjourned: 8:14 p.m.