St. Philip Deacon Episcopal Church

NE 120 Knott St.

Meeting called to order at 6:36pm. 

Motion to accept the minutes for March (Sue, Jonathan 2nds.) Board votes to approve.

NEW BUSINESS:

Civic Life – Change in Code

• Presentation about change in organization structure and bylaws
  • Intention is for greater diversity and inclusivity. How to get there?
• There is not a lot figured out already. They know they want a change, but not exactly how to structure what they want to change it to.
• Seems in-line with the Police Department’s Strategic Plan
• Plan to present new code to City Council in August – if they’re ready. 
• We still have questions about our own structure, if we can stay a non-profit, where our insurance will come from, etc.
• NW neighborhood is putting together an art show, to showcase what neighborhood associations have accomplished. Jonathan volunteers to reach out to see how we can be involved (Jere has contact info). 
• Sue volunteers to reach out to Steve Kohl (Irvington Neighborhood Assn) to see what alliance we can build.
• We would like to be on the record in support of neighborhood associations (geographic representation enfranchised in city code, under auspices of city government). We can do this through:
  • Show and tell (art show)
  • Testify before city council after the code is released (NECN will announce)
  • Letter to city council (Sue to organize/invite contributions)
• We would like to continue to be viable. We will continue to track this as it evolves.

Environmental Center in Linnton

• Trying to save the historic Mill site. Would like to establish a central office for superfund 
• Jere will upload this (as well as 10 other requests for support!) and share with the board so we can comment and help craft letter of support
• Underlying desire for us to support our fellow neighborhood associations and their efforts

Portland Clean Air donation

• Clean Air needs money to support the salary for the secretary (work ~ 2 days a week for the next few months)
• They will get some financial support from NECN, looking for support from neighborhoods also
• Motion to send $200 to Portland Clean Air to support the role of Executive Assistant (Brad, Sue to 2nd.) Board votes to approve.

Domino Tournament

• Organization has already been outlined (by Jessica) for this to be on Friday Aug 16th
  • They have dominoes, and rules to run the tournament
• We need to take the next steps of renting tables and chairs (40 chairs, 10 4-tops)
  • We need to collect prizes – gift cards
    • New Seasons or Natural Grocers (Jere)
    • Starbucks (Shireen)
    • Walgreens, Pizza Schmizza, Jersey Mikes (Sue)
    • NIKE (Jonathan)
    • Pine State and Sizzle Pie (Brad)
  • Ask around to organizations that might have enough
    • Churches (Jere to follow up with Jimmy and Pat)
    • PICA (Sue)
    • Open Signal (Jere)
    • Board members as plan B

Black Parent Initiative – movie in the park

• Motion for good neighbor support of $300 for the movie in the park (Brad, Jonathan to 2nd.) Board votes to approve

 Equity Training

• Goal to have equity training before the next election cycle. Hopefully by August 19th meeting
• Small group will meet with and vet prospective resources to lead the training. Shireen, Thursday, Maggie, Jere. We can take prospectives out to coffee, to meet and get vibe.
  • Thursday’s referral
  • Angela’s referral
  • Sharif (visited board previously)

Walnut Park – serve dinner

• We would like to serve again – identify June 28th (5:30-7) as a day that works. Jere, Sue, Jonathan, Shireen, Maggie will participate.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Treasurer

• The Beginning Balance on May 1 was $13,700.23
• The month end balance was $12,028.27
• The net loss for May was $1,671.96
• In addition, the balance on the ledger for the Neighborhood Livability Projects fund is $12,125.70
• Given these figures, I just want to point out that in reality, the only money we have left in our account is essentially NLP Funds
• The only sources of income for this year have been interest on our account, Eliot News advertising, and a refund to the NLP Find earlier this year and that’s it.
  • Why no Blazer money? (Jere will follow up with Karla about that)
  • Let’s discuss further bat the July meeting.
• Other items to note:
  • We need to make a decision about reimbursement to Friends of Trees for  the work they did in the neighborhood. The issue at hand is that their costs exceeded the amount they requested. Have misplaced the summary of the costs were proposed. Does anyone have that summary for reference?
    • Motion to send FOT the original amount of money we voted for last april (
  • The CT-12 annual report has been submitted recently to maintain our non-profit status. There are a couple other organizational documents to be filed soon.

Community Involvement (Shireen)

• Frog Ferry 
  • Ferry for Transit connect people targeting downtown Vancouver to downtown Portland
  • Looking for ENA to tell the city that we support funding the investment in the planning phase ($200,000)
  • ENA discussion: is this the best allocation of public money? When community centers have been defunded?
• Police Strategic Planning meeting
  • Officer interested in submitting articles to newsletter
  • Shireen proposed that they also give presentations at schools
  • Jimmy concerned about lack of progress with questions from last meeting. Reiterate that plan that was outlined previously will not work.
• General outreach about urban development 
  • Shireen talked to a number of African Americans with historical context and interest in the development and gentrification of this neighborhood
    • There is a feeling that it’s more of the same: same power brokers, same people at disadvantage.
    • Methods are being used to take homes and push African Americans out

Newsletter

• Next issue has been sent to the printer!
• Always welcome more advertisers

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Next meeting: have an executive board meeting to define agenda for next meeting. Jere to call meeting. 

Adjourn 8:33 

—-

Board Attendance: Jere Fitterman,  Shireen Hasan, Jonathan Konkol, Sue Stringer, Brad Baker, Maggie Gardner

Guests: none