Monday, June 18, 2007

June 14 Meeting Summary

Please see below for notes on our June 14 Neighborhood Council Meeting as well as reminders for future meeting dates. Our next meeting is tentatively schedule for the evening of Thursday, August 16. Please let me or Heather Thomas at (253-277-3281) know if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks.


Meeting Summary
The following items were addressed in order to continue moving forward on our Council Application with a goal of being officially recognized and certified by the City of Kent by the beginning of September.

Neighborhood Council Name
The attending group has decided to move forward using the name “Mill Creek Neighborhood Council”

Neighborhood Council Boundaries
It was debated on whether or not to include:
  1. Both sides of Summit Ave N which is one street East of Alvord (our current cutoff). This addition was requested by City of Kent Councilwoman Elizabeth Albertson who lives on Summit and would like to join our Council.

  2. Include some of the homes North of James Street from Prospect East to Hilltop. (Our current cutoff is Prospect.)

The boundary decision will be put to a vote with the existing Neighborhood Council members. The two map options have been sent out via EMAIL for you to review and vote. Votes must be emailed or phoned in to NgocDzung Smith (253-373-0500) by July 15.

Neighborhood Council Bylaws
i. A committee was established to review the sample bylaws provided by the City of Kent. This committee will meet to recommend a set of bylaws appropriate for our group. These bylaws will be voted upon at our next Neighborhood Council meeting (tentatively set for Thursday, August 16, 2007).

ii. Committee members are: C. McClimans, T. Hainer, W. Kohler, D. Hardy, S. Bersaas

iii.The complete set of sample bylaws will be sent via EMAIL to the Neighborhood Council members for review prior to the committee presentation. Please let me know if you do not receive these bylaws or need a hard copy.

Neighborhood Council Elected Positions
i. As a neighborhood council, we must elect 3 members to the following Officer positions: President, Vice-President, Secretary & Treasurer.

ii. We are currently accepting names of anyone who would like to run for any of these offices. Please email or call me with your information and for which position you would like to run. A list of candidates will be sent out via EMAIL at the end of July. We will run the election on August 7 at our Neighborhood’s National Night Out event. Results will be announced at our next meeting on August 16. If you can not attend on August 7 and would still like to vote, please contact me before that date to cast your ballots.



Potential Future Projects
During the course of the meeting, the following topics were brought up as potential future projects or goals for our neighborhood.

Temperance Street from Clark to Kennebeck
i. Request the City to help with clean up and restoration of this area. Issues affecting this area include drainage, vagrancy, a rickety bridge, illegally parked cars, etc.

Homes on Temperance
i. Homes on this street are affected by flooding when ever there is flooding or overflow from upper streets. There is no curb or existing barrier to prevent these waters from invading the lower homes.
Mentioned was
Aqua Fence as a solution to annual flooding of Mill Creek (info@aquafence.com).

Mill Creek Student Volunteers
i. It was suggested that we form a committee to establish to volunteer projects for their student volunteer programs such as cleaning up the creek area.

Vendor Committee
i. It was suggested that we form a committee to communicate and work with businesses in our Neighborhood Boundaries to deal with issues that are caused or are related to their doing business in our community. Examples of issues are trash removal, lights in the business affecting homeowners, traffic concerns, etc.

Neighborhood Beautification
i. Some sample ideas included a neighborhood park, signage for our historic neighborhood, planting trees along our streets, sidewalks, speed bumps or traffic calming solutions, etc.



NATIONAL NIGHT OUT – TUESDAY, AUGUST 7 6pm- 8pm
The "24th Annual National Night Out" (NNO), a unique crime/drug prevention event sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch (NATW), has been scheduled for Tuesday, August 7, 2007. We cordially invite you to be a part of our NIGHT OUT 2007.

NATIONAL NIGHT OUT is designed to:

- Heighten crime and drug prevention awareness;

- Generate support for, and participation in, local anticrime programs;

- Strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships; and

- Send a message to criminals letting them know that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.

Our Neighborhood Night Out is tentatively planned as a Dessert Potluck to be held in the Museum Parking Lot (pending permission). Please SAVE THE DATE!

Map Boundary Selection - PLEASE VOTE

As we discussed during our Neighborhood Council meeting on June 14, please find attached 2 maps defining different boundaries for our Neighborhood Council. Please review these maps and vote on which one you want to see used. Keep in mind that our boundaries are always amendable. Please vote by July 15.


NEIGHBORHOOD MAP – Option A









NEIGHBORHOOD MAP – Option B