Salem State University Neighborhood Advisory Committee

Salem State University Neighborhood Advisory Committee September 16, 2015 – Minutes Attendees: Dominick Pangallo, Adria Leach, Richard Riggs, Marcia Lambert, Councillor Josh Turiel, Ben Szalewicz, Dana Lothrop, Jack Hoar Absent: Councillor Robert McCarthy, James Rose, Maureen Call Guests: Mark Swingle, Division of Capital Asset Management & Maintenance Signed-In Guests: Kilrun Helgadttier, Linewood & Anne Balentine, Dan Cooper, Sandy Power, Councillor Tom Furey Welcome and Introductions o Dominick starts meeting, moment of silence for late Councillor Joe O’Keefe Approval of the Minutes o Accepted Construction Updates o Parking Garage – Update on construction progress (Ben S, Salem State University) o Next week pave southern edge of site o Curtain wall being installed in elevator lobby o Elevator coming shortly o Work to continue on interior, fire alarms and landscaping o On schedule for middle of November o Questions/Comments o Audience: Do only students who wish to use the garage pay or can anyone pay? - Adria: One fee for commuter students for a commuter parking pass, it is $60 per year. If you transfer in in January will be $30 for the remainder of the year. You can park in any commuter spot. o Audience: If you don’t want to pay, do these people park in the neighborhood? – Adria will address with student life that students should not be doing this. o Chairman Pangallo: After the garage is open can you bring some update on usage back to the committee? – Adria: We had planned to bring back the traffic engineers to go over usage and how it is working. o Sophia Gordon Center for the Creative & Performing Arts – Update on construction progress (Mark Swingle, Division of Capital Asset Management & Maintenance) o Construction is on-going; exterior demo is mostly complete, working on interior o Masonry walls and steel to be starting soon o Apologized for noise, there has been a vacuum truck. Over the next week it will be backed off quite a bit, but the big noise is done o Structural steel has arrived, police detail onsite to ensure student safety o Questions/Comments o Audience: How long is the street going to be narrowed? - Mark: Will be like that through the duration of the project. Audience: If it takes two years, then that’s what it will be? - Mark: Yes, that is the case. o Dana: Is there an estimate? Will it be for the entire duration? - Mark: We will get back to you but there is such a limited space for them to work on they need the space in front of the building. – Dana: How much longer is this project going to take? - Adria: The schedule is up in the air because of some demo setbacks. Original date was May of 2016. – Ben advised  he is working with the contractor on a timeline and will get back to the group on the timeline. o Audience member commented the snow removal in front of the site was awful last year. Mark advised they will make sure they do a better job this year. Chairman Pangallo added the snow needs to be removed, not plowed. o Audience: The street is narrow on the college side, but the police detail are putting out three cones in front of the house, and the police detail are parking in places that we aren’t allowed to park in. They are on the street side on the bike path. Jack suggested they are most likely putting the cones out to prevent two lanes from forming. Adria will look into. o Audience: When is the pole from national grid going to be moved? – Mark: We don’t know. We are waiting on national grid. We should have an update for next month. o Audience: How long are the giant tarps going to be there? - Mark: We will have an answer for next month. – Adria: Can we tighten them up? – Mark: Stated they will work on that. o 287 Lafayette Street – (Ben S, Salem State University) o No solution yet on the HVAC system, still working on it knows it’s a priority o Councillor Turiel addressed the parking issues People are supposed to be parking in the O’Keefe lot, and it’s apparent that people are parking on side streets. Those streets are resident parking only. Over the last couple of weeks parking enforcement has been engaged. Potentially will need to look at expanding resident parking down Summit & side streets, if it becomes a problem. o Captain Riggs added the Chiefs are in agreement that anything that is in violation city tickets will be issued. Many tickets have already been issued. Policy is to still call city police to let them know. SSU can issue city tickets. City of Salem wants to be notified so they can track issues with SSU but if they can’t get to it, they defer to SSU. o Questions/Comments o Audience: Most of Lafayette is legal to park on. Students are parking there. - Adria commented that it is difficult to tell students that they cannot park in legal parking spots. o Audience member commented that students are parked all over Raymond Road. SSU police department and Salem PD will look into. o Jack: During the beginning of the semesters is when they should be driving through the neighborhood. The city needs to be hitting all the neighborhoods. They have been doing several drive thru’s of Josh’s area because of the new building. Some of the workers were parking on the street. It should be a workers policy of where they workers should be parking. It should be at the staging area in O’Keefe. Adria advised that they can revisit. o Audience: Why can’t the meter maids start ticketing? – Dominick: We do, and we add additional enforcement in October. – Adria: The meter maids were monitoring the 2 hour parking lot, and that worked when they did it. Josh added that the Salem PD is starting up a program to use some officers for parking enforcement. o Audience: The student houses on Raymond have a trash issue. There is always trash out. o Audience member added that she had an issue with a student rental house and she called the landlord and they solved the problem. o Chairman Pangallo added that they can find out who the landlord because if there is a citation that effects the landlord, not the students. o Chairman Pangallo discussed the new trash contract. He directed people to handouts he brought with information on the new trash program. o Audience: I’m hearing from students that they are complaining that there really is no place for them to park. Have allowances been made for them or exceptions? - Adria: They have asked faculty and staff to park in Shetland and we take shuttles to work. When the garage is open in November, the lot in Shetland will no longer be leased. We are also working on letting students know how they can make use of the shuttle, how to car pool and ride share. Making people more aware of how they can get to school besides driving. Captain Riggs added that the shuttle bus is going to the T station and by that encouraging students and faculty to use public transportation. o Audience: Were more parking stickers sold then spots? - Captain Riggs: The reality is that there are always more parking stickers sold then there are spots. Hoping that come January, there is going to be a big burden taken off the neighborhoods. o Dana: Why is the parking garage opening in November but we are saying it will take until January until its elevated? - Captain Riggs: Opening the garage in November, there will be a learning curve, December will have a break for the holidays, so we are expecting come January people will have the routine of parking in the garage. Adria reaffirmed that the garage will open in mid November 2015. o Councillor Turiel wants to look at the mix of commuter population and what towns these people coming from. A lot of the traffic in the morning & afternoon on Lafayette are people commuting to work, not student traffic. We should take a look at where people are coming from and why. Jack added the college being in session absolutely makes the traffic worse. o Audience: Is there anything in the new garage that will let people know if it’s full or if there are spaces available? Captain Riggs added they will be using a technology that will allow students to know if it is full or not. o Audience: Will there be a crossing guard on Raymond road? - Captain Riggs: The only cross walk staffed by SSU is the one on Linden. The rest are controlled by the city. The city has been looking at the cross walks, specifically the one in front of the diner. It is poorly lit at night. SSU has stepped up enforcement at the cross walks. o Audience: Last year someone from the college did a walk and agreed that it is not lit up enough. Chairman Pangallo advised they will pull out that report and take a look at it. o 75 Loring Avenue - Update on demolition (Ben S, Salem State University) o Working with Mass DOT to secure permits to demo property, hoping to have in next 4 weeks o Hoping to have house down by end of October and landscaping shortly after. o Question/Comments o Audience: Fencing has been taken out, and there seems to be movement around the property. Captain Riggs advised that they worked with the former tenants to find his cats. Audience member advised the windows were open today. Ben will look into. o North Campus Administration Building Window Replacement (Ben S, Salem State University) o North side of administration building, both stories have windows in bad condition o End of September - beginning of October, they will be replaced o Windows are near the Sullivan building, not facing the Lafayette side o They will be removed via the exterior o Old Business o Neighborhood disturbances o Councillor Turiel stated kids are heading down to Forest River, and SPD is aware of it. Problems on 18 Forest, police had to come and chase kids out of there the first week of school. Councillor Turiel advised that beer bottles have been left on the corner on Holly and Linden, it is not a huge problem but if it keeps up it’s going to become a problem. o Adria reminded the group that when a student has been cited by the Salem Police Department they notify SSU and SSU follows up.  o Dana & Audience: The kids that live in 1 Raymond road had a huge party. – Captain Riggs added they were called and SSU police and SPD went and broke it up. It was the first weekend and it hasn’t been as busy since then. o Adria advised that one of the fraternities from SSU is going to be doing weekly clean ups and getting volunteers together to pick up trash around South Salem. o Audience: Campus is smoke free. But now they are coming into the neighborhoods. They are smoking on the bike path even though it is supposed to smoke free. Chairman Pangallo: We can check on possibly adding some additional receptacles for the butts. Captain Riggs added it is not just students smoking, its staff and vendors too. o Discussion took place on making a smoking area on campus. Adria advised she would look into. o New Business o Chairman Pangallo requested an update on Ellison Science Center update. Ben advised they are working on getting an update. Next Meeting is October 21 at 7pm. Adjourn