Nancy Carter's email - n3157w@yahoo.com
Many thanks to all of you who came to welcome Chief Monroe last night. That full house was great! Hope all the questions were answered. All the staff and I appreciated them and the suggestions.
Please help us extend the invitation tree. If you know of other leaders or key neighborhood folk who did not know about the meeting, please send me their email.
It would be important for them to know about the Independence Blvd. Area Plan meeting on June 24, 6-7:30pm, at the Merchandise Mart. I'll be late getting there: going to Raleigh to lobby for our little ones (and the Eastside....) with the Smart Start Board.
Thanks again for the impression you made on our Chief and for the support you gave our CMPD!
Best,
Nancy C
Summary for those who could not attend:
The Chief wants an even tighter focus...that means, to me, even more neighborhood attention and engagement. An Eastway business owner requested a shopping center business association to help reduce crime...a great idea (we're working on an association on Central Ave. as well as on Independence and Albemarle). Another Eastsider suggested tougher penalties for home invasions, a legislative matter, but that led into what we all are doing to improve the judicial system in CLT. In the new budget, we've allocated over $4,750,000 to them...technology capacity, 2 new ADA's and 3 support positions, more anklets for tracking, more 911 telecommunicators, help to our crime lab and we've also doubled the afterschool allocation...on the prevention side!
Alden Whitmore from NCDOT faced a tough audience and heard our message about relocating the displaced businesses on Independence in our area (and Tom Flynn said that a staff member has been hired by CLT to assist in this effort!), about preserving the quality of our neighborhood. He said that construction on this next phase will start in Dec., 2010. We fought for not putting the HOV/HOT lanes down the center of Independence successfully! Thereby we saved our decision making capacity for rapid transit. NCDOT is now proposing to put those high speed lanes adjacent to the concrete barriers on the interior lanes.
David Carol of CATS and Keith Parker, its CEO, spoke to the street car, currently scheduled for 2018, but the Council is investigating ways to jumpstart it sooner. Because of outstanding service and the success of the South Corridor, CATS has received $22M in grants for specific purposes which will help save our CLT dollars to move the NE Corridor along.
Tom Flynn said that Burlington Northern is doing well at Eastland and Sears "ok." The City is talking with them about their future at Eastland. The Council and Manager have allocated $16M for infrastructure there plus $6.7M for a new Eastland fire station and $1M for a police station upfit there. He emphasized that it is not the City's intent to buy the whole mall, but to look for a private partner to develop the area. I'll ask him to post his excellent summary on the charmeck.org web site.
