THE ABM
PRESIDENT’S REPORT FOR MARCH 2006
Dear ABMers:
Here is my report for March 2006. It summarizes the ABN’s accomplishment during the month, reviews my activities as your President and highlights the key issues we will be discussing at our March meeting, which will be held on Tuesday, the 28th.
ABN’s Accomplishments: At our February meeting we appointed a committee composed of Tom Scott, Iain Davidson, Larry Horowitz and Richard Maneval to develop a proposal for coordinating the updating of neighborhood plans. This committee has met weekly and will present its preliminary recommendations at our Tuesday night meeting. I have asked Tom to e-mail all of us a discussion outline in advance.
Forum ’06: The City Council’s Planning and Development Committee held a special public meeting on March 22nd dedicated to the consideration of the recommendations of the ad hoc Forum ’06 Taskforce. The meeting followed a “fish bowl” format in which all attendees were invited to take a seat at the table, state their concerns on the four topics under consideration (Public Outreach, Education and Dialog, Neighborhood Planning and Infill Strategy Development, Comprehensive Plan Review Process, and Long Range Planning) and then vacate the seat for another participant. In addition to the four commi-ttee members (Joan Beardsley, Louise Bjornson, Barbara Ryan and John Watts) the attendees included several members of the ABN and the MNAC, four members of the City Planning Commission, three elected officials from the County and a State Senator. The discussion was lively and productive. Since the last two topics were not covered as fully as the first two, Joan Beardsley promised to convene another session. She will be reporting the results of the first one to the full City Council tomorrow.
Neighborhood Visits: During March I attended the meetings of the South Hill, Guide Meridian/Cordata and Roosevelt Neighborhood Associations. My scheduled visit to the South Neighborhood meeting was preempted by attendance at the special meeting of the Planning and Development Committee just mentioned. Here is my tentative schedule for visiting neighborhood association meetings during April. Please, confirm your accept-ance and verify the time and place.
Birchwood: Last
Thursday,
Sunnyland: ?
Community Meetings: During
March, I attended the following meetings as President of the ABN: two City
Council meetings, one Planning Commission meeting, three meetings of the Forum
’06 Taskforce and the monthly meeting of the Mayor’s Advisory Commis-sion. I also attended the reception for the three
candidates for the position of City Plan-ning Director and served as a member
of the evaluation panel for the role-playing exercise through which the
candidates were put. I also had
breakfast or lunch dates with Hal Hart, County Planning Director, Lara Welker,
Director of the Campus-Community Coalition and Jo Zeimit, Human Resource
Director. As an individual, I continued
trying to organize a citizen/stakeholder committee to work on implementing the
Waterfront Futures Group’s recommendations for the Southside and joined a group
of small boat enthusiasts inspecting the Park Department’s building in
As you can see from the accompanying agenda for our meeting next Tuesday, I have reserved 30 minutes for discussing the recommendations of the Neighborhood Plan Update Committee and 60 minutes for discussing growth-related issues, which have been our primary concern since the ABN was established. Please, be sure to attend and to share your best thoughts on these interrelated topics
Cheers!
Ralph 752-1114