Tuesday, October 26, 2010

BPNA Meeting Minutes, September 2010 meeting

September 28, 2010
Minutes

The Bryan Park Neighborhood Association met at the Free Methodist Church in Bloomington, Indiana, on September 28, 2010. Mary Miller, BPNA president, presided over the meeting.

1. Block Party. Mary Miller reported that the block party was held on August 20th. She said the new location on Palmer Street was a success and the party had big attendance again. Nick’s English Hut provided the hamburgers, hot dogs and veggie burgers, and Craig Brenner’s band provided the entertainment. A new feature of the block party was an appearance by BPNA member Joe Lee as his clown alter-ego, Jolee’ the Magnificent. He delighted and entertained the children, as well as the young at heart. Mary also reported that BPNA shirts, aprons and neighborhood history books were sold and many new BPNA memberships were filled out. As a result, the BPNA treasury currently has $1100-$1300. Mary thanked all of the volunteers who worked at the party and thanked the neighbors on Palmer Street for hosting.

2. Proposal to open BPNA Google group. Mary Miller reported that she would like to open the Google group so that any BPNA member can post a message. Under the current format, posts to the Google group can only be made by Mary or Jon Lawrence. Mary said that she will set up instructions on how to make posts and suggested trying it for a month to see how it goes. The topic will be discussed again at the October meeting.

3. Neighborhood Improvement Grant. Mary Miller reported that last week was the deadline for a letter of intent to submit a neighborhood improvement grant. BPNA filed a letter of intent for bridges across the creek in Bryan Park and a kiosk in the park. The grant application will be due in early November.

4. MCCSC referendum on ballot in November. Nancy Lumbley attended the meeting on behalf of a group advocating for the school referendum. She explained that the school system is having a serious funding issue because schools are now funded through sales taxes rather than property taxes. The school board cut $5.7 million from the budget last year and will have to make more cuts without additional funding. She said that the board asked for the referendum, which could add up to 14¢ per $100 of assessed value on a property’s tax rate. If the referendum passes, the additional tax would be effective for 6 years. Ms. Lumbley distributed handouts that showed the impact on property taxes and asked neighborhood members for their support of the referendum.

5. Stormwater Runoff. Mary Miller reported that she, Jack Horton, Peter and Isabel Piedmont-Smith met with Mayor Kruzan and several department heads to discuss the problem with stormwater runoff in the neighborhood. She said the meeting was very good and that the group will meet again on October 7th to see plans from the utility department.

6. Food vending in Bryan Park. Angela Lexmond reported that the issue of food vending in the Bryan Park parking lots has been tabled by the Bloomington Parks Board. She said that Jan Sorby wrote a nice letter to the editor on the issue and that another good letter written by Deborah Myerson appeared in the paper on September 27th. Angela also said that the Herald-Times has been very critical of Bryan Park and Elm Heights residents on this issue.

7. Incident Report. Dick Mitchell reported that a house on Washington Street had a window broken by vandals and that a con man has been asking people for money.

8. Next meeting. The next BPNA meeting is scheduled for October 26, 2010.

Monday, October 25, 2010

BPNA Meeting Tues. October 26, 2010

Our monthly meeting will be this Tuesday, October 26. As usual, we'll meet at 7:00p.m. at the Free Methodist Church on the corner of Grimes and S. Lincoln.


NEW BUSINESS

Update from Isabel Piedmont-Smith, our city council representative.


Neighborhood Improvement Grant

Update on grant our proposal. We will deliver the grant application on Nov. 5. The grant will be for several improvements in Bryan Park: a bridge across the creek where a rocky path is currently used, a boardwalk across the muddy (when it rains) area that runs into the creek, and a kiosk near the playground for park announcement and neighborhood news.


T-shirts and Chef's Aprons

I'll bring several of the items we had printed for BPNA this summer, if you'd like to purchase one for yourself or as an early Christmas gift! T-shirts and aprons are $15 each.


2010 WFIU Fund Drive

Thanks to Joanne Henriot for organizing a Bryan Park team for the WTIU fund drive. The time slot is Sunday, Nov. 14 from 9:30am to noon. Be sure to listen during that time, and make your pledge in support of our local NPR station.


OLD BUSINESS

Proposal to open Google email list

Any comments on the new email list policy?


MCCSC Referendum on Nov. Ballot

Any further discussion on the referendum?


Incident Report

Regular monthly report from Dick and Mary Lou Mitchell, our Neighborhood Watch representatives.


Stormwater Runoff

Go to http://groups.google.com/group/bpna-stormwater-working-group to join or follow the discussion.


Conservation District

Go to http://groups.google.com/group/bpna-conservation-district-working-group to join or follow the discussion.


Please email me at mpm_miller@yahoo.com if you'd like to add anything to the agenda.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

BPNA email list is open to members

The email address is bryanpark@googlegroups.com.


We discussed this at our meeting last week and decided to try it for a month. We've changed the setting on our group email list, so that any member can email the list. Until now, it's been restricted to a small group of BPNA officers and interested members, and everything has been posted through the blog at http://www.bryanpark.blogspot.com/. We'll continue to post items through the blog, and these will arrive as usual.


You have to be a member of BPNA to email the list. Messages posted directly to the list will not appear on the blog. We'll continue to add members directly, as we do now, so we shouldn't be exposed to junk mail from this.


Rather than set up policies ahead of time, we agreed to open it up and see how it goes. In general, please keep your emails related to topics of neighborhood interest. If you have a neighborhood business or service, feel free to email the group to let people know about it.


Be aware that you can reply to either the sender or the whole group. If you feel like you are getting too many messages from the group, you can elect to have them compiled and sent as one message per day. If we start to get that many, though, we may want to talk about stronger guidelines.


We'll talk about this at the next meeting. Let's see how it goes!