Abbott-Downing Neighborhood Association
Meeting Minutes 10.07.03
Attendees
In attendance: Kimberly, Karen, Ken, Alice, Paula, Dick Hoffman, Maggie
Guests: Jill Siefried, Eric Williams (graduate student at UNH)
Minutes
Kimberly called the meeting to order. Minutes of 9/2/03 were approved with one change: to change the date of the meeting at the top of page 1 from August 5 to September 2, 2003.
Ken showed everyone the new scrapbook of our meetings and activities that he has started, and Karen shared the recent Concord Monitor article on researching your old house.
Kimberly then moved to the agenda and asked Jill for an update from the City Planning office.
Jill congratulated everyone who worked on the neighborhood festival and said the city was very impressed with ADNA. All the departments in the city would like to work with us to improve and implement the neighborhood plan, and would be willing to send a representative to our meetings to discuss this. General Services would like to work with us on a spring or fall clean-up day. The Police want to work with us to address schoolyard vandalism. Paige Kingsly of the Recreation Department wants to work with us to develop new activities for kids in the neighborhood—things like moving Caf?© Eclipse from the West Street Ward House (WSWH) to Rumford School, and adding scholarship programs for youth basketball and soccer. They’d also like our help on organizing teen activities and offered the WSWH for these, and building interest in their teen summer camps.
Karen noted that building a partnership with the PTO at Rumford School will be good. They really appreciate our local efforts and would like to recognize us. Ideas such as front yard garden or holiday decorating contests might be considered, and to coordinate these with Groundwork Concord.
Housing Inspection: There’s a serious problem with slum landlords and we discussed what the city can and cannot do about getting landlords to improve conditions at their properties. Code and fire regulation enforcement are definitely needed, and the mayor’s office wants to see the AD neighborhood addressed in this regard. Kimberly suggested this might be something ADNA cold also take on.
Jill handed out a form and asked for our help in identifying recipients for Concord Human Service’s holiday food basket program. Last year they had a hard time finding people in need of this service.
The City is now gearing up on a Master Plan update, and affordable housing will be another hot button. Everyone is encouraged to attend their meetings. Concord 20/20 has all details on their website and is helping with funding. Kimberly will attend City Council meeting this Tuesday.
Festival Update: A big thank you to Kimberly and everyone who did such a great job organizing the neighborhood festival on September 13th. Here’s a summary:
Debriefing included ideas for next year such as adding different food (more variety, veggie burgers), apple bobbing, The bands and balloons were great, but everywhere we could have used more volunteers, especially face-painting. We need to get Rumford School more involved and have them help distribute flyers through the students there. Get more neighborhood businesses involved. Paula makes her own soaps and aromatherapy, and she will work on a Business Development Plan for ADNA. We need to get the Monitor to cover our next festival, and indeed all of our activities. Maggie will make a contact with Sandy Duval.
501(c)3 update: We need more board members, more strategic planning, and clearly formulated goals, objectives, and a budget. For future meetings, the board will meet from 6:30 to 7:30 to address these issues, and an open meeting for the community will be held from 7:30 to 8:30. We’re still waiting to gain approval to officially use Abbott-Downing name.
Nominations: the following proposed slate of new board members will be voted on at our next meeting:
Meeting adjourned at 8:20.
Respectfully submitted,
Maggie Stier
Posted
by keath on 11/04/2003
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