GANA Meetings Minutes

GANA (Green Acres Neighborhood Association) Meeting
7:00 PM, 9/30/04
Georgia Schaich's house

Attending
Marian Hoffa, Georgia Schaich, Julia and Halley Jackson, Janna Anna, Aggie Sarkissian, Lois Sabo-Skelton, Paulette Davidson, Ann Kreilkamp and David Hohnke

Agenda

• Upcoming Tent Party
• Traffic Calming

Summary
Plans well underway for Tent Party. Traffic Calming on hold for now.

The Process
Tent Party: Georgia Schaich and Julia Jackson spoke about their plans for the Tent Party, to be held in a big tent in Bloomingfoods East Parking Lot on October 9 from 4 to 7 pm.

Georgia, Julia, Millie Jackson and Stanley Routon have worked hard to prepare for this event. They were joined by Jana Anna, Phil Eskew, Noriko Hara, Marian Hoffa, Jelene Campbell, and Marian Shaaban to distribute flyers for the event to all houses in the Green Acres Neighborhood.

(For those who don't know, our lovely, tree-splashed section of the city, "Green Acres," is bounded by 10th Street on the North, the Bypass on the East, 3rd Street on the South and the IU Campus on the West (Union Street). There are approximately 450 households in the GANA neighborhood.)

The original idea was for a block party on 5th street. The committee decided that time was too short to get permission from nearby residents as well as from the city (to block off the street). And, since the party is being held in October, the thought of possible cold and rain also dampened the block party idea and they decided to hold it somewhere inside. They approached the area churches, but were turned down, also because of time being too short. Likewise the fire station. So Julia came up with the idea of asking George Huntington, manager of Bloomingfoods, if we could use the tent that will be set up for the Bloomingfoods annual party the night before our party is to be held. He agreed, and also donated a deli tray, and a bread and cheese spray for the event. IF YOU WISH TO BRING FOOD OR DRINK TO SHARE (and we hope you do!) please email Julia at Julia.Jackson@sbcglobal.net so she can coordinate your offering with others.

There will be kids' entertainment, with Halley Jackson, 11 years old, in charge, including an apple bob!

Lois Sabo-Skelton will play her fiddle AND HOPES TO BE JOINED BY OTHERS WITH INSTRUMENTS! So bring your drums and rattles and guitars, pots and pans, whistles, harmonicas, and your clapping hands.

The committee has also lined up an amazing number of door prizes from area businesses, plus Millie Jackson will offer free chair massages.

There will be a table set with places for you to note your neighborhood concerns, and for how you would like to see Green Acres develop in the future. Examples: sound barriers for the upcoming wider Bypass, high speeds through the neighbrhood, safe crosswalks across 3rd and 10th and the Bypass, safe lighting, parking issues, too many people in rental houses, etc. Julia suggested that we think up a slogan, for example "The Neighborhood that Walks."

SO COME! BRING YOUR CONCERNS AND BRING YOUR UNIQUE SPIRIT TO JOIN WITH OTHERS! This Tent Party is our inaugural GANA event. We hope to encourage a greater sense of community as well as to create a neighborhood in which we all feel so at home and so welcomed that we settle in to live here all our lives.

PLEASE DO REMEMBER TO EMAIL JULIA OR CALL GEORGIA at 334-3292 to let the committee know you are coming so they can line up enough food.

Traffic Calming: Russell White from the city's Engineering Department, who has been working with us on this issue, has asked that we hold another meeting to come up with what we would like to see on traffic calming. But after the last attempt and its denouement (see meeting report for 9/3/04), people at this meeting decided to hold off for awhile on even thinking about the issue. All except for David Hohnke, who came up with an idea nobody else has thought of. This is to ask the police department to station a police car on a street in the neighborhood on which cars speed (like Hillsdale) for a week or two, and to do this sporadically. He says other neighborhoods have done this and it works. People stop speeding, at least temporarily, and it costs the city nothing in terms of infrastructure.

He also gave us information re: parking in our neighborhood: if there is not a no-parking sign in front of your house, then you, and anyone else, is free to park there. (Were we to ask the city to put "Neighborhood Parking Only" signs up, it would cost $15 per year per household.) Also FYI, David says that though your household pays taxes up to the center line of the street in front of your house, the city has the right-of-way on the street all the way up on your lawn to where your water main is located.

We meet again on Thursday, October 28, at Georgia’s house, 202 S. Hillsdale.
Ann Kreilkamp
Scribe

P.S. If you want to join me on a walk to an event held at 7 p.m. in the IU Law School this Sunday night, let me know at 334-1987. Mark Lakeman, of Portland, will speak on his project of retrofitting cites with "grassroots changes that promote personal interaction, not just robotic interchange." (See the H-T today, front page story in Local section.) I expect Mark to infuse us with more ideas about how to encourage community spirit in Green Acres.)