Buckman Community Association

BCA General Mtg Minutes 1-9-03

BCA General Meeting, Thursday, 9 January 2003

Susan Lindsay brought the meeting to order at 9:05pm in the Community Room of the Ritzdorf Apartments, located at SE 12th and Belmont. Board members attending were Lindsay, Jack Maynard, Kevin Krause, Don McGillivray, Jim Evernden, Ann Bowling, Joshua Bickel, and Jarkko Cain.

Buckman Senior Neighborhood Officer McMurray started off the meeting with an update on crime and PPD funding. He said that local officers were putting a focus on property crimes at the moment, since that coverage would soon shrink drastically in the wake of budget cuts. He noted that they were deputizing citizens to put cautionary flyer on cars with valuables left in them. He noted that car prowls, mail theft, and other non-home-invasion property crimes will soon often be punished with tickets, and not jail time. The Neighborhood Officers are planning to arrange crime-preventions seminars for citizens.

Representatives from Central Catholic and from INCCH, a group of CC's neighbors, reported on the hearing for CC's conditional use permit. The hearings officer seemed ready to issue an approval, and the agreement letter between CC and INCCH would likely be attached to the permit.

Ann Bowling reported that there was still no verdict yet from St. Francis Parish as to proposed development plans at their site. It was also reported that there would be a meeting at 7pm Tuesday in the present room for people interested in making a 6-month commitment to helping work out solutions for St. Francis dining hall/crime issues. The meeting is sponsored by ONI.

A meeting at Washington High in room c121, at 6:30pm on Wednesday, Jan 22nd, will discuss the future of that site and the possibilities of a Buckman Community Center being established there. Interested people can email Lindsay at lindsays@pdx.edu for more information.

Lindsay also reported on the 700-person hands-around-Mt. Tabor Reservoir, promoting alternatives to burying the historic reservoirs. Options include filtering the water, guarding it, and routing this water to non-drinking uses; all are much cheaper than burying.

A woman spoke asking for assistance on persuading REACH to sell her the house she has rented from them for many years. Susan Lindsay suggested that REACH might use an upcoming BCA meeting to discuss its policies on selling to its renters.

Ed Lyle presented a superb slide show documenting the building and early days of the park at St. Francis, All present seemed to agree that it was a powerful statement about the value of that park to the local community, and the importance of maintaining and restoring it.

Susan Lindsay adjourned the meeting at 9:30pm.


Minutes submitted by: Jarkko Cain, Secretary