GANA Meeting Minutes

GANA (Green Acres Neighborhood Association) Meeting
7/26/06, 7-8:30 p.m.
First United Church on 3rd St.

Attending
Betty Byrne, Stanley Routon, Noriko Hara, Ginny Kleindorfer, Julia Jackson, Jelene Campbell, Rob Turner, Kathy Ruesink, Marian Shaaban, Kadhim Shaaban, John Gaus, Jessica Gaus, Georgia Schaich, Nathan Harman, Maggie Jesseph, Ann Kreilkamp

Agenda
• Adopt-A-Sign
• Ice Cream Social update
• GANA tee-shirt update
• Garage Sale update
• CERT (Community Emergency Response Team)
• GANA brochure
• Block captain update
• Neighborhood Plan with City update
• Fire Extinguishers
• 3rd and Atwater Corridor

Summary
With Georgia Schaich as meeting chair, we went through the whole agenda list quickly until we got to the agenda item called “fire extinguishers,” when we entered a rousing discussion that spilled over to the final agenda item as well. See below:

The Process
Adopt-A-Sign: Ann Kreilkamp suggested that we divvy up the responsibility for putting out and taking up the signs for our monthly meetings and other events. (You find them at intersections from the day before to the day after a GANA event.) I think it was Nathan Harman who then suggested that we divvy the signs up among the various folks who come to meetings, so that for each event they can be responsible for putting out their sign on their block and taking it up again. Great idea! We passed around a sign-up sheet and these people did: Stan Routon, Julia Jackson, Jelene Campbell, and Nathan Harman. (Come on folks! We’re going to need more people to adopt a sign, since there are 17 of them. Anybody interested? If so, please email me.)

Ice Cream Social (aka Two Scoop Salute): Ann reported for Charlotte Zietlov, who was attending another meeting. The party is on for August 5, between 2 and 4 p.m. in Charlotte’s driveway at 213 S. Bryan. She will make cookies, and will contact those who signed up to help. So come one and all, and bring your friends too, for our second annual summer ice cream social.

GANA tee-shirts: still not here! The internet company from whom Georgia ordered them keeps promising quick delivery, and in fact they were supposed to be here in time for this meeting.

Garage Sale: Julia Jackson reported that it will take place some Saturday in September, but not in a central location. Instead, each household will put their stuff out in front of where they live throughout the neighborhood. Jelene Campbell suggested that we follow the example of another Bloomington neighborhood, and hand out maps of the neighborhood with locations of our various garage sales. Great idea!

CERT: Green Acres is going to be the first Bloomingtion neighborhood to have a CERT-trained team prepared to instantly respond in the event of a community emergency. (For more on the importance of the training and what it involves, see Mark Brostoff’s talk in the Speaker Series Report for June, 2006, GANA website archives). This training has been tentatively scheduled to take place over two weekends, October 21- 22 and November 4-5. Several people objected to Sunday morning, since they go to church, so Georgia will communicate that to the Mark Brostoff, the CERT team organizer. We need ten people from this neighborhood to sign up. So far the list includes Rob Turner, Lois Sabo-Skelton, Brian Boyer, Georgia Schaich, Julia Jackson, Betty Byrne, John Gaus and Ann Kreilkamp. If I’ve forgotten anybody, please let me know; and let me know if you now wish to join the team and take the training.

Block Captains: Georgia has been busy moving this project forward, as she realizes its importance for the continued vitality and growth of GANA. She has made list of 19 short blocks in the eastern half of the neighborhood (where, at least at this point, most GANA participants live), has made phone calls to people who live on those blocks, and so far she has signed up 12 block captains who have agreed to be the eyes and ears and voice of their little neighborhood parcel. They will be the ones to let their immediate neighbors know what’s going on with GANA, and will seek input from them for GANA. The block captains have agreed to meet at 7 p.m. next Tuesday, August 1, at Georgia’s house, 202 South Hillsdale. They include Kim Fernandez, Kathy Ruesink, Nathan Harman and Maggie Jessephs, Marian Shaaban, Timi Sharkey, Jelene Campbell, Betty Bryne, Ann Kreilkamp, Georgia Schaich, Phil Askew and Noriko Hara, Betty Hardy, and Ed and Irene Hartke. Please be there, all you block captains! Georgia was thrilled to tell us that we already have 179 houses covered from the 12 who have signed up. That’s almost half of Green Acres.

Neighborhood Plan with City (for more info this, see archived meeting reports for May and June on the website): We set tentative dates. The first meeting will be on September 9, from 1 to 4 p.m., when we will walk the neighborhood together and then meet at the firehouse on 3rd street to talk about when we’ve seen and what we need. The other dates are all evenings, from 7 to 9 p.m., hopefully at the First United Church, as follows: September 27 (Tuesday), October 18 (Wednesday), November 8 (Wednesday) and December 5 (Tuesday). If you’re interested in helping to plan the future of Green Acres, then please participate in at least some of these meetings.

Fire extinguishers: Nathan brought up the idea of having Corson Fire and Safety (the only remaining fire extinguisher service outfit in town) come to the neighborhood and check our extinguishers for a reduced fee. (Fire extinguishers are supposed to be checked on a yearly basis, and then every five or six years serviced more thoroughly.) It sounded like a great idea, until Kadhim Shaaban interjected an even better one. Actually, he said, we can check them ourselves, so no need to pay anything! He spoke at length about what it takes to check one (it’s not difficult, though complicated to explain here), and he will bring his extinguisher to the August meeting to show us how. So if you want your fire extinguisher to be part of that meeting, bring it with you.

3rd and Atwater Corridor: Georgia said that the neighborhood associations of Elm Heights, East Side and Bryan Park have asked us to join them in solidarity to reject all nine plans that have been put forth by the Indianapolis consultant to the city regarding how to deal with the worsening traffic congestion on these two streets. (See the Herald-Times last week for a big report on the packed meeting at the City Council chambers where most speakers roundly criticized the whole endeavor as way too car-oriented, unsustainable, and terrible for bikers, walkers, and the neighborhoods affected.) We spent some time discussing this whole subject, but since there were only a few of us at that meeting, more of us need to become familiar with the plans. You can do that by going to city website www.bloomington.gov, click on Planning Department, then Public Works Projects. The 3rd and Atwater Project will then come up, so you can see for yourself and hopefully enter your comments in the space provided there. However, just what it would mean to “join” other neighborhoods, we don’t really know. Would we write a letter from the neighborhood association — or what?

Finally, Kadhim and John Gaus briefly championed the idea of re-opening 7th street to go through, which they say would lessen the pressure on both 10th street and 3rd street.

By the way, if you gave any in-kind contributions to GANA during this year (time, talent, stuff, food, etc.), then please let Georgia know before August 10 so she can complete her documentation for the Small and Simple Grant.

The meeting adjourned a full half hour later than usual, but a few hardy souls did stick around to watch the DVD that Maggie Jesseph and Nathan brought to educate us on why it is so important to nourish a sense of community in our neighborhoods. “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil” tells the story of how the Cuban people responded when the Soviet oil spigots turned off in 1990 and forced an immediate withdrawal from that island’s addiction to oil for food, transportation, and so on. Now that the phrase “peak oil”(and the disruptions it will undoubtedly cause) is finally seeping into our national awareness, this movie is a very timely, cautionary, and yet beautiful and hopeful tale. The DVD is available for rental at the county library. See it. It motivates.

Please note my new email address: ann.k1942@sbcglobal.net

Ann Kreilkamp
GANA scribe