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