The
Monthly Board Meeting of Edgemoor Neighborhood Association was called to order
at 7:00 on July 5th at the Fairhaven Pavilion.
Brad Rose facilitated the meeting and Lauri Grove recorded the minutes.
A quorum was present.
The
minutes of the June meeting were approved with the following changes: 1) The committee for disaster relief would be
called the Disaster Preparedness Committee.
2) All meetings referred to as Monthly ‘Business’ meetings in the past
would be termed Monthly ‘Board’ Meetings.
Report of Officers
President’s
Report – Brad Rose noted that over
300 surveys were returned to date. Great response! Brad began his
report with a reminder that the CSN Candidate Forum
would be held at 7:00 on July 19th at the Firehouse Performing Arts
Center located on the corner of Harris and 14th St. The forum would include the candidates for
the Mayor, City Council At-Large and City Council 5th Ward
positions. Each candidate was sent 6
questions requiring a written response.
Their answers to those questions would be available for review prior to
the event. At the Forum, there would
also be an opportunity for questions from the audience. Brad continued his report by stating the
public comment period closed for the proposed building on the Union 76 site in
Fairhaven. The public would have another
opportunity for comment at the public hearing.
Some think that development would compromise expansion of the 12th
Street Bridge. A few details were
discussed, then Brad moved on to the upcoming EIS for Fairhaven Highlands. He informed us that the city signed the
contract for the proposed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the Chuckanut
Ridge property. However the developer,
Horizon Bank, had not yet signed. There
was a general discussion about the EIS that included points about the
consultant company’s projected compiling of reports, the scoping process, and
the importance of public comments. Dr
Gibb brought up a good point – we are
building a court case (if it should come to that) during the scoping
process. If valid points are brought up,
but not addressed in the EIS then that could leave grounds for an appeal. CSN planned a forum to be held this Fall to
inform the public how to best word comments and concerns about the
environmental impacts of the development on Chuckanut Ridge. In conclusion, Brad brought up the proposed
changes to the ENA Bylaws recommended by the City of Bellingham. The August and September ENA meetings would
both be General Membership Meetings.
This would allow the required time to propose and approve changes needed
to the bylaws to remain in compliance as a city recognized neighborhood
association. The changes simply
constitute the membership of ENA as all residents, property owners, renters,
and primary business operators, establish that meetings must be held at least
quarterly, and every meeting must be open to all residents.
Motion by Martin Nickerson for Board approval of the proposed changes to
the ENA Bylaws as needed to comply with the City of Bellingham recommendations
for neighborhood associations.
Motion was seconded and passed
unanimously.
MNAC
Report – Brad mentioned a proposed
“Safe Routes to School” program, which was intended to promote kids walking to
school by providing a safe “Walking-Bus” concept. Theoretically, parents would drop off and
pick up their children at a designated place where they would form a group to
safely walk to school. Also, at the MNAC
meeting, Richard Dietz presented information about ‘Elderly Friendly
Neighborhoods’. Richard offered to come
speak at neighborhood meetings and Brad was asked to contact him with an invite
to the August meeting. In addition, Brad
offered to contact the Whatcom Land Trust to speak at the September
meeting. The MNAC continued to work on
items, revisions and changes to the comprehensive plan. Read this months issue of Just so You are
Aware for more details. Pam Went
volunteered to attend the next MNAC meeting in Brad’s place.
Treasurer’s Report – Lois wrote checks to Sandie Koplowitz and
John Erickson to cover approved expenses for the survey mail out. A detailed report was presented for filing.
Income - $0
Disbursements - $1098.88
Balance - $2226.92
Safety – no report.
Growth and Land Use – no report.
Brad covered growth issues earlier in the evening. Pam just mentioned that she received an
e-mail about a business in town – to collect junk or shred papers for
neighborhoods. No interest.
Chuckanut Mountain Park District (CMPD) – Bob
Gibb offered that the committee was still handling some problematic activity
which may end up keeping the CMPD off the November ballot. The Boundary Review
was in process. It has been difficult to
communicate with some residents in the more rural areas where they lack
information and understanding. He
mentioned there were possibly two Boundary Review hearings in Skagit and rumor
had one in Whatcom County. Dr. Gibb also
reported on the SEPA status. It was all
a bit confusing because CMPD covered multiple districts and no one was quite
sure what to do. Joe Yaver thanked Dr. Gibb for all his efforts.
Neighborhood Plan Update - Martin, John, Peter and eventually everyone
discussed survey kinks. Some failed to
follow instructions and therefore questions arose about how to handle it
consistently for the most accurate results.
It was decided to remove all checks for #6 and #7 from the tally since
there was no way to determine ratings.
With one exception – if only one item was checked it could be considered
a 1 rating. Same thing for #19 – unless
each item was rated as instructed – the answers could not be tallied. If someone responded verbally to a question,
but failed to check the box we could not make the assumption. Also comments needed to be typed and e-mailed
to Sandie. Everyone was very happy with
the response to the survey. Thank you to everyone who took time to reply.
Representative Reports
CSN – Most
of CSN business was covered earlier in the evening. Pam Went offered comments during Brad’s
report.. The Candidate Forum should be
very informative. Pam reiterated that
CSN would offer a series of workshops intended to help guide the public toward
well thought out, informed comments during the Fairhaven Highlands EIS scoping
process. She would keep us informed of
dates for the workshops to be held this Fall.
ABN – No
representative. Dr Gibb suggested that
ABN address Fairhaven’s ‘associations’ problems. More cases like Fairhaven Neighbor’s difficulties
could result in disenfranchising other neighborhood organizations. He believes that there is value in continuing
the ABN. It was even implied that MNAC
came together in an effort to diffuse ABN’s power. Martin Nickerson offered to attend the next
meeting and report back in an effort to help ENA determine the merit of
representation in the group.
Responsible
Development /Chuckanut
Ridge – no update
Guest
County
Council District #1 candidate, Dave Pros, dropped in to meet with ENA. He briefly touched on his qualifications as a
candidate in the upcoming election. He
offered that he intends to do what he can to protect our quality of life from
over development, lack of impact fees, and lack of concurrency resulting in
over-stressed levels of service. Dave
fielded questions from the group. Thank you.
Issues and concerns
Jocelynn
Ansell , a resident in Edgemoor, came to the meeting to express her concern
about lost animals in the neighborhood.
She was troubled by the fact that ‘missing animal’ (mostly cats) notices
were being torn down by someone other than the owners. She was thinking that there might possibly be
a disturbing pattern of behavior - and
just wondered if anyone else had noticed or seen anything. We offered her a chance to post a letter in
the newsletter. Thank you.
Also car prowls were reported around Lake
Sammish.
Lois
mentioned she had seen transients walking through the neighborhood and thought
there might be a camp nearby. John
mentioned he had tires slashed at the shop.
Be aware and be safe.
Closing
Meeting was adjourned at 9:00
pm.
The next
meeting scheduled will be an ENA General Membership
Meeting to be held from 7-9 on August 2nd at Fairhaven Park Pavilion. Meetings are open to all residents and we
encourage you to attend.
Respectfully Submitted,
Lauri Grove