6:35 Meeting begins with a Pair and Share Question:

What do you need from you Neighborhood Association the most?  Social engagement, political representation for change or improved identity and safety?  What are you doing to take action?  What most excites you about this group/project?

Minutes read and approved with the clarification that National Night Out has not happened in Eliot since 2010 ( that is the last recorded one at least).

Crime Report and Abatement Committee with Jere Fitterman  

• Sue Stringer updates us on this committee because Jere (jerefit@gmail.com) is not present at this time
• Jere hosted a meeting with Mark Wells from ONI in hopes of restarting Neighborhood Watch
• Interested in getting involved? Find a neighbor who wants to join you on your block and contact Jere and Mark.
• They will get you signs that you can post throughout the neighborhood and in your window.
•  Neighborhood Watch helps create a strong sense of community, which in turn lowers crime
• Also a reminder to be talking to your neighbors about safety concerns they have or help them out by picking up their bigger mail deliveries for them if you are home during the day.  Those little things can make a huge difference.

Art on Williams—Kristin Calhoun with Cleo Davis from Soapbox Theory and Kayin Jalton Davis from Screw Loose Studio

• Honoring the Cultural African American History along North Williams
• Embedded sidewalk murals at 11 different locations with the hope that businesses along Williams will support more installations.
• Functional art kiosk at the NE corner of Cook
• They are recording and documenting the entire process and they will be creating a documentary out of the process
• POIC students are helping and Cleo is teaching a class there. The students are receiving school credit.
• The project will hopefully be finished by the end of the summer!
• Look for it on Facebook at the Black Williams Project

Communications with Kristin Yates and Jeri Stein

After looking through the A-frame whiteboard/chalkboard pictures the board was most in favor of the taller dual sided easel with white board and chalk board from Displays2Go which cost $73.78 each

• Jeri Stein moves that we designate $300 to communications funds.
• All in favor none opposed
•  We will spend 147.56 on two A-Frame boards to see how those work and then use the remainder money on other communications projects.
• Kristin will ask Annie Rudwick for money at the next meeting to order the signs.
• One suggestion has been that we should order magnets that will have the Eliot label on them along with the day and location of the monthly meetings. We could afford 500 magnets with the remainder of the money.  If we decide to use magnets then we need to upload our artwork along with the message that we want included on the magnets. More needs to be discussed regarding this.
• It was mentioned that magnets do not work on the new stainless steel refrigerators and we are very open to other suggestions that will help remind people about the meetings long term.

Neighborhood Cleanup with Sue Stringer May 17th 11am-3pm

• Sue is asking folks to commit to 2 hour shift the day of the cleanup.
• She would love if you would let her know if you will be attending so she can plan how much food is needed.
• There will also be a semi-regulated swap meet.
• Kid’s lemonade and maybe bake sale table.
• One of the two hour shifts will hopefully be walking through the neighborhood to do a small litter pickup and also letting the truck driver know if there are any big objects that need to be picked up.
• Sue also has ideas to help create a Clean Eliot group.
• Maybe businesses would support this by giving out free cups of coffee if you join or we could make garden signs like you see in other gardens that represent pesticide free/ bird habitat gardens so that people feel proud of the work they do to keep Eliot clean.

Neighborhood Street Painting with Jeri Stein—Paint Day is May 30th

• Contact Jeri if you would like to bring food or if you need more information eliotpainting@gmail.com
• Join the facebook group
• Do you know a band who would like to play music on the big painting day…let Jeri know!
• Next year’s intersection painting goal is to be self sustainable and get the neighborhood businesses to help support painting costs.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee

• Are we representing the things that people care about in this neighborhood?
• Are we inclusive?
• What are the values of the board?
• Does our website show the history of the neighborhood?
• These conversations came up during the the creating of the sign caps.  The board became literally frozen when we were trying to decide what to use as a picture of Eliot, previously the City of Albina.
• Jim Hlava, Shirley Bogan, Pamela Weatherspoon and Angela Kremer want us to engage the topic of race within our board.

Some possible goals for the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee would be:

• That we as a board reflect the diversity of the neighborhood.  We need to be accountable for letting everyone’s voices be heard.
• More outreach efforts like the community conversations, which was a ton of work,  but the 1st one had over 70 people show up at it!
• Getting the long term neighbors involved and engaged in the neighborhood.
• Welcoming process—making sure that when new people attend they feel welcome and maybe someone even contacts them before the next meeting to hear how they are doing and if they have any concerns.
• Also, maybe we could create a welcome brochure that helps guide people through a normal meeting so they have the knowledge to help them interact more comfortably.
• Shirley Bogan has many years of experience with diversity work and she acknowledges that it is very difficult work but that it is absolutely needed and can make an organization strong and much healthier if they are willing to work on this.

NECN with Joan Ivan

• NECN gets mail intended for Eliot and Joan would like to know what we should do with this mail?
• Jim Hlava volunteers to look through it to make sure there is nothing we need to respond to.

Community Updates

• Portland Public Update with Kimm Fox-Middleton
• Faubion will temporarily movie to Harriet Tubman
• The principal and director of Faubion would like to come to our next board meeting to answer any questions that we have about the transition.

Juneteenth is looking for volunteers.

Good in the Hood — Get involved!

National Night Out with Becca Pollard

• NECN will pay for our insurance
• Becca is waiting for a package to come in the mail and then she would love to gather a few people who would be interested in this to help out.  It can be a lot of work and creating a team behind it would be great!
• Acknowledgement that Annie Rudwick is not with us tonight and that we need to send flowers.
• Angela will purchase some flowers.

Meeting adjourned

Board Members in Attendance: Angela Kremer, Becca Pollard, Jim Hlava, Jeri stein, Kristin Yates, Patricia Montgomery, Sue Stringer

Visitors: Cleo and Kayin Davis, Kristin Calhoun, Corin Wallace, Kimm Fox-Middleton, Johnny Engleheart, Catherine and Eddie Murphy