Neighborhood Boundaries

* North: 10th Street
* South: E. 3rd St.
* East: 45/46 Bypass
* West: Union Street

Original post by Melody

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GANA Welcomes You

Green Acres Neighborhood Association (GANA for short) would like to welcome you to their website. GANA's goal is to foster more communication amongst the Green Acres residents and provide them with a forum for their thoughts and concerns, as well as keeping them informed on upcoming neighborhood events. This site is intend to be a "virtual community," with the goal or maintaining and nuturing a physical community.

GANA meets in person on the from 7-9 p.m. on the last Wednesday of every month at the First United Church on 3rd St. We discuss neighborhood business for the first hour, break briefly for refreshments, then usually have a local speaker or video about community-building. The meetings are free and open to all Green Acres residents and friends, so please come, meet your neighbors, and join us for refreshments (did we mention those?)

To leave feedback on any article in these pages, just click the "comments" link directly below it. To join GANA's email list serve, just sign up at any neighborhood meeting or event.

Original post by Melody.

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Permit parking areas

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GANA Meeting Minutes

GANA meeting report 10/30/05

4:00 p.m. October 30, 2005, at the 3rd St. Bakehouse

Attending
Nathan Harmon, Maggie Jesseph, Georgia Schaich, Jelene Campbell, Julia Jackson, Millie Jackson, Sylvia van Bruggen, Ann Kreilkamp

Agenda

• Quiet Nights
• Sudden House Tear Down
• Speaker Series
• Surveys
• Looking Ahead

Summary
We planned for a Speaker Series, to begin in January; we were upset by the sudden house tear down at the end of 7th street; we discussed possible events for next year; and we agreed to get the neighborhood surveys out, NOW!

The Process
First, GANA treated everyone to drinks, and so the one primary impression of this meeting for me was all the whipped cream slurping. Meanwhile, Georgia reported on the effort made by students from the IUSA (Indiana University Student Association) to get Quiet Nights flyers on doorknobs of Green Acres houses, with limited success. (They had hoped for eight or ten volunteers but only two or three showed up on the evening of September 8.)

Millie and Nathan both came with news that they had witnessed the demolition of a house at the end of 7th Street next to the Bypass. According to signs plastered in front of it beforehand, the house had been “purchased by the state of Indiana in cooperation with the federal government.” Millie and Nathan were both astonished at how the house was torn down and carted away with no regard to recycling or sustainability, presumably to prepare years in advance for the widening of the Bypass which, due to peak oil, may never be built! Both are writing letters to the editor about this. Watch for them in the H-T sometime later this week.

Most of the meeting focused on the upcoming monthly Speaker Series. We decided that, except for an evening when we would ask the police and fire departments to give us a talk on neighborhood safety, we would pull all our speakers from with the Green Acres Neighborhood, with the intention to underscore the purpose and value of the soon-to-be-delivered surveys that hopefully will document the many and diverse talents and capacities of those who live here. Lots of names came to mind of people that might be interested and interesting to others, including someone who knows Feng Shui, a master gardener, a permaculturists and natural building person, a person to talk on wellness, one who could talk about non-violent communication, another who knows astrology, etc. etc. Please, if you would like to be a speaker, or if you know someone from whom you think the neighborhood might benefit from their knowledge and/or experience, please email me and we’ll add them to the list. We aim to start the Speaker Series in January, hopefully at the Baptist Church on 3rd St., and invite attendance from the greater Bloomington area.

Finally, Georgia listed events that we have sponsored in the past or that we have wanted to sponsor, so that we can be thinking about them in advance. They include: PlantShare (in April), Clean-Up (in Spring), a Neighborhood Festival (in September, timed to greet new and returning students), and a Small and Simple Grant for a neighborhood project (proposal due in June) — for example, how about a sidewalk on the north side of 3rd St. between Hillsdale and Overhill? Moreover, we agreed that within this next year we need to put out more information about the neighborhood, both to help us network with each other and for those who might consider purchasing a house with the intent to live in it. Such projects include the website, a banner, and a brochure. If you have the skills and wish to help us with any of these informational efforts, please email me. Thanks!

Finally, four or five of those attending agreed to meet on Thursday, November 3 at Georgia’s house at 1:30 p.m. to do final collation of the surveys with neighborhood emergency preparedness kits and loop them on the doorknobs of all neighborhood houses within a few days after that. So, when you get your survey, please do fill it in and get it back to us. That way we can collect the information and let you know who else you are enjoying this good life with in our Green Acres neighborhood.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ann Kreilkamp
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GANA Meeting Minutes

4:00 p.m. October 18, 2005, at 3rd St. Bakehouse

Attending
Alex Schneider, Nathan Harman, Maggie Jesseph, Jelene Campbell, Adam Lowe, Georgia Schaich

Agenda

• Small and Simple Grant ideas
• CERT
• IU Parking Lots
• Neighborhood Street Lighting

The Process
After settling into our corner of the restaurant with drinks and personal introductions for those who had not met before, we threw out ideas for a Small and Simple Grant. (These grants, all under $1000, are given out three times each year by HAND (Housing and Neighborhood Development), a Bloomington city department. Ideas included the following: using the website as a tool for communication within the neighborhood, a Neighborhood Festival with a music theme to attract others into Green Acres, developing a strong corps of block captains to represent their neighbors at GANA executive meetings, and creating kiosks on strategic corners to be used as neighborhood communication boards. The grants are due in February, April and June, and if funds are awarded, then projects must be completed in August, September and November.

Green Acres has been asked to start a Neighborhood CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) by Mark Brostoff, chairperson of the Monroe County Citizen Corps Council. It is a program that trains people in neighborhoods, the workplace, and schools for basic disaster response skills. For example, CERTs are trained in the following areas: Fire Suppression, Urban Search and Rescue, Medical Operations, and Emergency Preparedness. To have our own CERT we would need to train between 10 and 15 people. We could work together to set the training dates. Check out the Monroe County Citizens Corps website at http://cgi.hoosier.net/~mccc/cgi-bin/main.php. There is a section on CERT. Adam Lowe and Nathan Harman expressed interest.

A discussion followed that revolved around the news and rumors about IU planning to build parking lots close to Elm Heights and Green Acres with major construction in 2006 through 2007. Those at the meeting wanted more information. Nathan expressed an interest in starting a committee that could follow up on this neighborhood concern by expressing our feelings to the IU Trustees in letter form or in person at a scheduled meeting.

As a follow-up Georgia reported facts on her walk with Lois Sabo-Skelton through the neighborhood on the evening of September 11 to survey where additional lighting might be useful — including five streetlights that are out and haven’t been replaced! A discussion evolved that included the following comments, pro and con: lots of cars from college students coming and going in high pedestrian areas; high lights throw more light but this not always desirable to those living in homes near them; better lighting would make the area safer for bikers, walkers, children, students, the elderly — everyone; pedestrians could be mugged, hit by a car, not see obstacles; GANA should promote a bike and walking path through the neighborhood; our city needs to explore solar lighting and the use of timers on streetlights during times when lights not needed; streetlights add to heat and light bubble around our city.

I will pass this information along to Tim Mayer who will involve our neighborhood in the next step of deciding what funds are available to improve dark areas of our neighborhood.

The meeting adjourned at 5:30 p.m.

Georgia Schaich
Interim scribe

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GANA Executive Committee Meeting

GANA (Green Acres Neighborhood Association)
Ad Hoc Executive Committee Meeting
7:00 pm, August 23, at Georgia Schaich’s home

Attending
Georgia Schaich, Tim Mayer, Stanley Routon, Julia Jackson, John Gaus, Jessica Gaus, Lois Sabo-Skelton, Ann Kreilkamp

Agenda

• Proposed use of a now vacant tree-covered lot between 2605 and 2611 East third street.
• Streetlights
• Next regular meeting

Summary
We said no to the idea, in fact, NO WAY!

The Process
Re: Proposed use of lot on 3rd Street. The property in question has no numbered address. 2605 is a house, and 2611 the now defunct mattress store. Tim Mayer, a Green Acres resident and City Councilman-at-large was approached by Tony Laudermilk (who works for Mary Friedman, who owns many properties in Green Acres) to sound him and the Green Acres neighborhood out on the idea of trying to get a zoning variance on the property so that Mary can put a duplex up on it.

Tim explained that though all of Green Acres is zoned “single family residential,” there’s a long history of zoning challenges for certain properties on 3rd street. At this point, there is only one exception to “single family residential,” and that is the three new duplexes on Roosevelt that back up to two new single family homes on Jefferson — all built for student housing. In this case the neighborhood did meet with the developer, Doug McCoy, and gave the green light to the project because he improved the neighborhood, including continuing Roosevelt through from 4th street to 3rd street, stormwater drainage infrastructure, and a pedestian pathway from Roosevelt to Jefferson. So lots of investment in the public good offset the impacts of the new duplexes. At the time of approval, the city’s Planning staff assured the neighbors that this was the only area in Green Acres that could meet the level of infrastructure improvements and thus Planning’s support for the project.

In the case of this new proposed use of the now tree-covered lot on 3rd, the owner wants to either cut a new driveway on 3rd street or cut an alleyway through from Overhill along the fence line in back of the 3rd street properties to the proposed new duplex.

The ad hoc executive committee discussed this proposed use of the tree-covered lot and decided against, due to the following:

• problems with parking
• more traffic
• appearance (this lot is narrow and deep, what woud this duplex look like?)
• please, no alley!
• most important, there are NO INCENTIVES from the owner of this property to persuade Green Acres residents that the public good would be enhanced despite expected negative impacts. Such incentives might include (we’re thinking big here….): gifting a house in Green Acres that Mary currently owns to GANA to serve as a neighborhood center; purchasing a lot in Green Acres for a neighborhood park; convincing and helping the city to create an underpass to the other side of 3rd street from Overhill; and/or continuing the sidewalk on the north side of 3rd to the bypass.

The day after our ad hoc executive committee meeting Tim talked with Mary Friedman who said that the reason she wanted to put a duplex on the property is that she intended to rent to couples, rather than students. However, Tim pointed out that there is no way Planning could either require or enforce her intent; that, in Planning lingo, her intent couldn’t be a “condition of approval.”

Re: streetlights. The city has responded to our request for more street lights, and wants to know where they are most needed. So, if you are interested in this project, then bring a your flashlight and gather with us at Georgia’s house (202 S. Hillsdale) at 7:45 on Sunday, September 11 and we will walk the neighborhood to locate its darkest intersections.

Re: Meetings. Our regular meetings take place at 4 pm on the third Sunday of each month at the new Bakehouse on 3rd St.

NEXT MEETING: SEPTEMBER 18.

Ann Kreilkamp
Scribe (Secretary)

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Ice Cream Social

July 3, 2005

Dear neighbors,

I just returned from three weeks in Turkey where I reveled in the generous, heart-felt warmth of the people in the villages of Anatolia. Imagine if you will, a jet-lagged American woman sitting with an old, white-haired Arabic-speaking Muslim man in the shadowy bowels of a tiny, dusty antique shop. He had been stationed on a little stool just outside. After seeing me pass and greet him three times he kindly beckoned me in. For what seemed like a long time we plumbed the soul in each other’s eyes and drank tea (“chai”) from tiny glasses. Then, gesturing to a obscure shelf under a table loaded with old radio parts he produced for my astonished admiration ancient, leather-bound, intricately decorated copies of the Koran while, in a parallel track, I dreamed of us back here in the U.S. letting go of ambitious busyness to remember our ancient human relish in the time-honored custom of just sitting around in each other’s company.

Little did I in faraway Turkey know that on or around that same day a group of GANA residents in Indiana would suddenly band together and, with only a few weeks’ lead time, summon up a taste of village life!

On July 3, from 2 to 4 pm, at the corner of 4th and Hillsdale, a poster sporting a big ice cream cone drawing announced a “Two Scoop Neighborhood Salute” that beckoned us to shaded tables graced with little fluttering flags next to a vinyl tent-covered table groaning with 12 cartons of ice cream. Neighbors, children, and friends of neighbors clustered together, talking and slurping French Vanilla and Chocolate Mint and 10 other sweet and sweeter flavors in lazy enjoyment of a warm and humid summer Sunday.

Of the 100 ice cream cups donated for the event, only 46 remained, so we figure the hastily arranged party drew over 50 people! As an added bonus, some we haven’t seen before signed up for this email list. Nor did most of us “eat and run,” but lingered, telling each other our stories, getting to know each other better, catching up on neighborhood news.

Now that so many of us recognize each other from previous GANA events over the past year and a half, our shyness has receded. Rather than starting out from scratch, we can now greet each other as friends and continue where we left off. Indeed, after this event especially I would say that it does appear we are morphing into the neighborhood we imagined — a palpable, throbbingly alive village within the greater Bloomington municipality.

Here’s a short run-down on how the party came about.

Sometime in March Jelene Campbell alerted us that she had sent in a nomination to a contest sponsored by Edy’s Ice Cream for a free “Two Scoop Neighborhood Salute” Ice Cream Party. At least two others, Diane Dormant and Georgia Schaich, also submitted nominations. On June 16 Diane found out that her nomination had won! Edy's told her that the party packet was worth $359 (12 cartons of ice cream, napkins, bowls, spoons, 12 ice cream dippers, a disposable camera, table cloth, coupons, and free shipping) and that they wanted the winning neighborhood to hold its party over the July 4th holiday weekend.

Diane called Georgia, who agreed to quickly shepherd the idea into reality. Georgia put out a call for help, and about a dozen neighbors pitched in to make it happen, lickety-split: first email June 16, organizational meeting June 22, 350 flyers printed by the city June 24 and delivered door to door the weekend prior to the event.

Big thanks go to Georgia and Bill Schaich, Patricia Thompson, and Kathy Ruesink for supplying the tables and chairs that made it easy to sit and chat in the shade, Julia Jackson for the fun, eye-catching poster and flyers, Noriko Hara, Phil Eskew, Mariam Shaaban, Lois Sabo-Skelton, and Stanley Routon for walking those flyers to all our homes, Peggy Stuckey, Julia and Noriko for scooping ice cream, Kathy Ruesink for the beautiful bouquet of flowers from her garden — plus uncounted others who helped to clean up afterwards.

May we continue to come alive!

Ann Kreilkamp
Scribe (secretary)

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Brief Outline of City Services

Trash collection

Contact: Public Works Department at 812-349-3410

Trash collection occurs every Monday morning in Green Acres. Place trash at the night before your scheduled pickup. Each 32 gallon container or bag must have an yellow trash sticker attached to it and may not weigh more than 40 lbs. Trash stickers may be purchased for two dollars ($2) at local grocery or hardware stores. Contact the Public Works Department for your scheduled collection day. Click here for more information.

Large Item Colletion (Year-Round)
phone: 812-349-3410

Description

Weekly Curbside Collection
Large items such as sofas, chairs, tables, and similar items can be placed at the curb on your regular trash day throughout the year. Each item must have two (2) city sanitation trash (yellow) pick-up tags attached.

Monthly Appliance Collection
Large appliances such as refrigerators, stoves, washers, dryers, and similar items can be placed on the curb on the last Friday of each month of the year. You must call the Public Works Department at 812-349-3410 by 5:00 p.m. the last Thursday of each month and inform us that you are setting the appliances out for collection. Each item must have two (2) city sanitation trash (yellow) pick-up tags attached.

Non Collectible Items
Large item such as construction materials, tires, or electronic equipment such as televisions, and computer systems are not eligible for this program and will not be collected. For information regarding disposal methods of these items, please contact the Monroe County Solid Waste District at 812-349-2868.

Parking

You may have noticed that Green Acres streets have that small town feel, and parking can be problematic. Please be advised that parking on the street requires a permit in some parts of Green Acres. Click on GANA maps to view which areas. More information about Bloomington's parking permit program is available here:

Parking Permit Program

Metered, neighborhood and reserved parking

Parking Enforcement at 812-349-3436

On the street for more than 72 hours

Bloomington Police Department at 812-339-4477

Car(s) parked on the lawn
Planning Department at 812-349-3423

Rental Property Issues

Contact: Housing and Neighborhood Development (HAND) at 812-349-3420

The Rental Occupancy Permit Program helps ensure that rental property in Bloomington is safe and habitable for city residents. HAND staff can help you obtain property owner information and can answer many questions about rentals in Bloomington.

HAND staff will provide assistance if your landlord fails to make requested repairs that are code related.

Original post by Melody January 17, 2006

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GANA Meeting Minutes

GANA (Green Acres Neighborhood Association) Meeting
4:00 p.m., Sunday, 4/3/05

Attending
Georgia Schaich, Julia Jackson, Halley Walsh, Jelene Campbell, Nathan Harman, Marian Shaaban, Diane Dormant, Ann Kreilkamp, Aggie Sarkissian, Evelyn Lentz, Herschel Lentz, Shirley Bushey, Gilbert Bushey, Ginny Kleindorfer, Kathy Ruesink, Kadhim Shaaban

Agenda
• GANA Plant Share and Home Safety Kit
• New GANA website
• Report on Walk the Neighborhood event
• More on a possible City Repair project
• What should be discussed on this email list

Summary
Another great meeting with G3eorgia moderator and 16 people present. Diane and Jelene reported Plant Share Committee’s plans for and promotion of the upcoming Plant Share event on Saturday, April 23 (rain date, April 30). The whole group ironed out other details for that event. Julia gave an update on the planned GANA website and got suggestions for further features. Those who Walked with the Mayor shared their experiences of that afternoon. Nathan passed around a booklet illustrating cob materials and construction. We found a simple solution to a recent dispute concerning the email list. Total meeting time: 90 minutes.

The Process:
• The title, GANA Plant Share and Home Safety Kit hints at as change in plans. We started to discuss what had been previously planned as a three-pronged event, including Plant Share, Yard Sale and Home Safety Kit at three different Overhill Drive locations, then bogged down over yard sale parameters.

Do we want to advertise to the public, or is it just for the neighborhood? Would people be allowed to drop things off and then leave? Who would be responsible afterwards if their stuff didn’t sell? What about big items like old couches? Could people bring free stuff and just drop it off? If so, how do we avoid getting people’s junk? What’s junk? Would trades be part of it? We slogged through this morass (astrological hint: Mercury is retrograde until April 12) until finally someone made the brilliant suggestion that we postpone the yard sale until later this summer, that we make it an event for any Green Acres resident who wants to take charge of their own stuff on their own front lawn, and that we would advertise to the public. This created instant agreement.

That decided, we simplified further and reduced the other two events to one location, Lois Sabo-Skelton’s long, wide cement driveway at 121 N. Overhill Drive.

In contrast to the above discussion, the committee report on the Plant Share was a marvel of efficiency. Diane, Jelene and Nathan reported that it will include not just plants (that they will label), but garden tools and other garden items, pots and potting soil, water and plastic bags for plants to take home, a brochure table with local gardening events and plant information, and a “plant prize” drawing for whoever brings a plant to share. They passed around a draft of the flyer they will distribute to the front doors of all 351 houses in Green Acre4s. They defined four goals for the Plant Share event: to foster a sense of community, to provide information on gardening ad upcoming gardening events, to beautify the neighborhood, and to improve habitat. (Tip: free mulch at the University School stables off the bypass!)

The Safety Kit part of the event will consist of a table with materials for a Home Safety Kit to assist in the event of disaster (kits sponsored by Monroe County Citizen Corps Council that funnels Homeland Security money into public safety projects). Teenaged Halley will gather neighborhood children to collate these materials for neighbors to take home.

The design and construction of the new GANA website moves ahead. Julia brought her laptop to show us the test site, but discovered that the Bakehouse lacks an internet connection. So she told us about a few features, including pages for a Bulletin Board, Services, Resources, and a way for residents to create their own personal Profile Page for the site. Somebody suggested the HAND phone number be included on the site, and we all loved the idea of a page that lines up the Green Acres landlords with the houses they rent. When the website is finally up and running it will be connected to http://housiernet, (a nonprofit community network for Bloomington and Monroe County).

Six people from Green Acres participated in the Walk the Neighborhood with the Mayor event on Friday, April 1, including Lois, Jelene, Nathan, Julia, Kathy, Diane, and Ann. All but Diane walked, and she held a little soiree for us at her home afterwards. We were joined by about ten officials from various city departments. Besides the mayor, Mark Kruzan, and City Council member and Green Acres resident Tim Mayer, I remember people from utilities, planning and HAND departments, though there may have been others.

We walked from the firehouse down Roosevelt, turned right on 5th to Overhill, left on 7th to Eastgate, then to Diane’s house on Hillsdale. During the walk, little groups formed and unformed, and the Green Acres people got to mingle with city people from various departments and discuss our concerns and ideas to improve our neighborhood. For example, Nathan got to talk to a planning person interested in his ideas for natural ecological solutions to water problems; Julia and Ann got to talk with the Mayor and Tim Mayer about the possibility of city trash cans on some of our street corners. (They referred us to HAND’s Small and Simple Project Fund for neighborhood projects that could be applied to public baskets, especially along routes to campus.)

Along the route city people took pictures of things we showed them — trash littering lawns; rental signs out for way longer than necessary; poor lighting on certain corners; how and where rainwater pools and backs up on Eastgate lawns; security issues due to illegal loitering on the railroad for homes that back up to it on Eastgate; traffic calming needs on especially Eastgate and Hillsdale; deep, dangerous, cliff-like ditches from running and pooled rainwater at the corner of 5th and Hillsdale, then along 5th to Overhill, and especially the corner of 5th and Overhill.

The city officials got to experience the dangerous fast driving on Hillsdale as they tried to cross it on foot. We pointed out what appear to be overoccupied rentals and rentals notorious for loud parties. The mayor instructed the HAND official to call, right then and there, to see if these rentals were registered. Two of them were not! This means a $1500 fine for the landlords. (So if you see a new rental sign go up, encourage landlords to be responsible by calling HAND to check if the house is a registered rental.)

The party at Diane’s was an inspired great way to end the fun tour that took a bit over an hour. She invited two other neighbors from Hillsdale to also attend, and served wine, sparkling water and canapés. After mixing for a short while, the whole group gathered to discuss further the issues already mentioned here plus a few others — including the confusing rules around street parking. The mayor instructed his secretary to keep notes and said he would get back to us with responses to all of them. Finally, we handed him a few letters from neighbors who weren’t able to participate in the afternoon’s event.

Nathan talked a bit more about some City Repair project ideas, especially that of cob benches on private lawns for people who walk the streets and passed around a booklet showing the cob project that he build for his thesis at IU. He said that the city has no problem with putting public things on private land if behind the city right-of-way (for every house, that’s up to the water meter).

Finally, the recent dispute between Diane and Ann (and others privately backing one or the other) concerning what types of discussions belong on the email list quickly resolved when Julia mentioned that discussions tangential or larger than meeting notices and reports can be included on the Bulletin Board of the new GANA website.

The next general meeting will be in June. Meanwhile, the By-Law Committee and the Garage Sale Committee will be forming to meet in May. If you are interested in either of these committees, please do let me know. Thanks.

And remember to bring your plants on April 23, Plant Share day. The flyer to announce the event will give details.

Ann Kreilkamp
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GANA Meeting Minutes

GANA (Green Acres Neighborhood Association) Meeting
4:00 PM, 2/2705
Eastside Bakehouse (on 3rd Street)

Attending
Georgia Schaich, Julia Jackson, Halley Walsh, Marion Hoffa, Jelene Campbell, Nathan Harman, Marian Shaaban, Diane Dormant, Ann Kreilkamp

Agenda

• Late night parties
• Spring GANA Yard Sale and Plant Swap
• New GANA website
• Walk the Neighborhod event
• City Repair projects

Summary
A great meeting with ideas flying thick and fast and people who volunteered for duty almost as fast. We discussed all planned agenda items plus one more: how to respond to the noise and disruption of late night student parties. We set a date for Spring Garage Sale and Plant Swap and a tentative location. We learned about what's to be included in our new website. We set possible dates for the upcoming Walk the Neighborhood event and mentioned possible topics for the mayor that afternoon. Finally, we talked about two City Repair projects, one completed, one for the near future.

The Process
We were thrilled to have nine people present, including two we haven't seen before, Nathan and Diane, both of whom brim with enthusiasm. We decided to keep our monthly gatherings on Sunday afternoons at the Eastside Bakehouse. Next meeting: April 3, 4 pm.

Late Night Student Parties was our first topic. Legal "quiet time" is set for 10 pm (or is it 9 pm?), but many loud parties start later than that and go on until 2 or 3 am. Green Acres streets are narrow, and some are posted no parking, and yet many times extra cars are parked up and down the streets. Plus, in the morning, we sometimes discover tire tracks on our lawns, plus beer bottles and other litter.

This topic arose because one man had asked the neighborhood association to get the police to enforce the laws. There seem to be three obvious ways to respond to this fact of testosterone-driven student life 1) call the police, call the landlord, 2) call the students involved. All present agreed that we want to encourage lines of communication with student renters, rather than sponsor draconian measures that institute an us/them mentality. For example, we might hold a neighborhood music evening for student musicians, or we might bring cookies to students living next door. Plus, anyone wanting to have a party can call the police to tell them how many cars they expect. Or, they can tell their guests to park across 3rd street in the old Chi-Chi parking lot and walk.

Spring Garage Sale and Plant Swap we set for April 23, with April 30th as back up, in case of rain. We tentatively plant to hold it in three different locations on Overhill Drive, reflecting three different activities 1) yard sale, plant swap, and a place for kids activities that includes a table where neighbors can gather and collate their own safety packet for a household disaster plan. Those present at this meeting agreed to be the committee for on the event.

Nathan, Diane, Jelene and Kadhim Shaaban agreed to organize the plant exchange, with the caveat that we need inform ourselves about invasive species, so that our plant exchange doesn't unknowingly spread them around the neighborhood.

Walk the Neighborhood is set for Saturday afternoon, either March 20 or April 3. Join us with the Mayor and other city officials as we walk our neighborhood and discuss improvements to Green Acres that we would like to see the city make. Though Diane's bad knees prevent her from joining us, she volunteered to host a refreshment break at her home half-way through the walk.

The GANA website is under construction as a IU Library Grad School project that Julia organized. Pages currently planned for the website: a History of Green Acres, a Calendar of Events, a Survey of Residents, Photos from the Neighborhood, a Bulletin Board, Kids Corner, a Household of the Month feature, a section where residents can create their own Profiles, and a For Sale/For Rent page. Halley passed around a GANA logo that she designed. For the history page, Nathan agreed to interview Stan Routon, a long-term resident. And, to help foster neighborhood cohesiveness and solidarity, we decided to also include on that page interviews with newly arrived residents, both students and young couples and families. Ann will interview students living near her, and Georgia a young couple near her.

City Repair Projects Ever since the Portland founder of City Repair Project presented in Bloomington, GANA members been have been dreaming up ideas to encourage community-building in Green Acres. Georgia did the first project, installing a map of Green Acres outside her house for a few days that showed properties the city currently lists as registered rentals. Through this email list Georgia invited neighbors to stop by and check out the map, and to note properties near them now for sale and/or functioning as unregistered rentals. Five people responded in writing, and a number of others stopped by to look.

The next project is to design and build a few benches for people who walk the neighborhood so that they may stop and rest or chat. These will be placed at the edge of yards and face the street of owners who agree to them. Nathan, who has experience and training with cob, will show photos and present designs for us at the next monthly meeting.

Nathan also agreed to coordinate a Green Acres team that will train as a CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) with the Monroe Citizens Corps Council that was established in the wake of 9/11 and receives monies from the Homeland Security Office.

Remember, next meeting April 3, 4 pm, Eastside Bakehouse. I will also
send a reminder.

Ann Kreilkamp
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Original post by Melody

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GANA Meeting Minutes

GANA (Green Acres Neighborhood Association) Meeting
7:00 PM, 1/3/05
Georgia Schaich's house

Attending
Georgia Schaich, Julia Jackson, Halley Walsh, Ann Kreilkamp

Agenda

• By-laws interim report
• CONA Meeting
• Mark Brostoff presentation

Summary
Because the only ones to attend this meeting were those on the By-laws Committee, there was no interim report. We brainstormed on neighborhood connectivity and on the new website that Julia is creating. Georgia and Ann ask others to join them at the CONA (Council of neighborhood Associations) training scheduled for February 5, at Showers Building, 8:30 AM to noon. Mark Brostoff of Monroe City Citizens Council presented an exciting idea for both neighborhood emergency preparedness and for building a sense of community in Green Acres. See below.

The Process
Over the past year, GANA meetings have drawn between six and ten people. This time, as the four of us sat there, waiting and hoping for others to walk in the door, we discussed our disappointment. Our October tent party drew a lot of neighbors out of the woodwork, and we had assumed we were well on our way towards building a vibrant sense of community here in Green Acres.

We had changed the meeting from Thursday to Monday nights, to accommodate those who schedules conflicted with Thursday, and now we wonder if Monday doesn't work for anybody! For the next meeting, we've decided to change again, and will meet for coffee on Sunday, February 27 at 4 pm at the new Bakehouse on 3rd Street.

The four people present then brainstormed further on our neighborhood as community. A few ideas: 1) encourage Green Acres as a starter neighborhood for young families who wish to buy homes, 2) join with other neighborhood associations to get the city to regulate duration and frequency of For Rent signs, 3) get a dinner party of eight or so neighbors together at one of the nearby restaurants (Prospect Hill Neighborhood does this), 4) a spring garage sale, 4) activities for kids, like a designated “fun street” (teenage Halley, who did her homework early so she could attend the GANA meeting, tells us there are 30 kids who ride the bus from this neighborhood &emdash;quite a surprise to the rest of us).

Meanwhile, Julia has volunteered to create a website for GANA. Thanks, Julia! Here are some of her and our ideas for the website:

• a place to join our emailing list
• a page to feature one Green Acres resident per month
• a unique, original page for each resident that he or she could create with a password and easy-to-use tools provided on the site
• interests, needs, hobbies, a photo, etc. you name it!
• a survey (to gather information such as mapping the neighborhood for residents
• talents, skills, special needs, etc.)
• links to CONA, HAND and other neighborhood association websites
• a Kids Corner
• Archives of minutes from past meetings
• Bulletin Board
• for example, who has plant cuttings to give away, or needs them; who wants to teach or learn knitting, or tai chi, or how to bake a soufflé, etc.
• emergency information

Julia would love your feedback on these ideas, and on any others you would like to see on the website. Please contact her at julia.jackson@sbcglobal.net.

Georgia and Ann will attend the CONA training on Saturday (8:30 am -12 noon at Showers), and hope others will join us. Five workshops are to run concurrently and if three more Green Acres residents come, we can each represent GANA at one of the workshops and then report to the others. So come! It will be fun, eye-opening, and inspiring to see how other neighborhood associations work. For more information, contact either Georgia, gschaich@yahoo.com or Ann at akcrone@sbcglobal.net.

Mark Brostoff, Chairperson of Monroe County Citizen Corps Council (MCCC), then presented the city's expanded and enhanced National Neighborhood Watch Program. MCCC wants to get neighborhoods involved as affiliate members, by training a group from each neighborhood as a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). Ten to fifteen people are needed to form a team. They will be trained in search and rescue, fire suppression, disaster medical preparation, preparedness, disaster psychology, and disaster preparedness. The class will be 20 hours long, with support material provided (a book, plus an emergency backpack with appropriate equipment). After a disaster, the neighborhood team would be the first on the scene, until first responders arrived. They would go house to house to check on people who are hurt or need help, then mark the houses as needing or not needing further attention from first responders.

Please consider joining our neighborhood CERT team, and please tells others about this valuable volunteer opportunity. This program may interest students who live in this area. (If a student from this area is trained and moves to another area in Monroe County, he or she will then be assigned to the team from that area. So don't let temporary status in Green Acres deter you!)

Also, Mark talked about the “Are You Ready” individual and family disaster preparedness program put on by FEMA (Federal Emergency Preparedness Association), as a course on-line, or as training for families and others which Mark would provide. Please contact Mark at mbrostof@indiana.edu for more information on either of these programs.

And please join us at our next GANA meeting, Sunday, February 27, 4 pm, at the new 3rd Street Bakehouse!

Ann Kreilkamp
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