Fox Canyon Neighborhood Association, Inc.

State of the Association President's Report

The vision of Fox Canyon in the year 2003

HOOD PLANNERS
Barrio Builders

Pastor Williams, Honorable Guest, Dear Friends, and Board of Directors, fellow association members, citizens of Fox Canyon, once more, I stand here tonight to give you an account on the job that you all have elected me to do, as the elected President of this organization.

Since its founding, FIVE YEARS AGO, The Fox Canyon Neighborhood Association has been destined to be one of a kind. Since our formative years, we have gathered the STRENGHT, LOYALTY, DEDICATION, DETERMINATION, and VOLUNTEER LABOR of our members, who relentlessly continue to work hard to improve our neighborhood, its quality-of-life and its peace-and-quiet.

We MARKET CHANGE. Change in behavior, attitude and surroundings. Just look around, anywhere in our neighborhood and you will see concrete proof of our handy-work and endeavors. This is how we spent our time, challenging our community to change and working hard to achieve it.

But, we can't do all of what we have done, this past year, without our member's activism, commitment and support. In addition, to the support lend by our friends and partners in the community-at-large, who continue to help us improve by investing money, time and energy in our neighborhood.

We can not do all that we have done without the committed partnership of our Elected Officials and their willingness to be directly involved in our growing up.

2002 was a year of fortune for our neighborhood, EVENTFUL and PRODUCTIVE year, in deed.
From Fox Canyon to Iraq, we strongly support our military, as its ranks are filled with our youth, in the quest to escape the poverty of our HOODS. 2002 was a year of happiness, accomplishments and lots, and lots of work. Today, I am proud and happy to report our past activities and set the goals for our future endeavors, following closely the path and guiding light set by our vision and mission statements.

We are extremely proud to have achieved the following goals:

 Fox Canyon is a neighborhood at the Crossroads of three Council Districts. Today, there is the reality that Fox Canyon is firmly embedded in Crossroads. The reality of which places our entire neighborhood under the blanket of TWO Redevelopment Projects. With this goal accomplished, we can only look to a better and brighter future.

 Thanks to our strong support, time commitment, activism and the action of City Council (our Councilmember included), this year we can write off the Chollas Creek Enhancement Program and Crossroads Redevelopment as completed goals, NO easy task!

 In partnership with Councilmember Madaffer, we now have a CDBG funded Code Enforcement position exclusively serving the CD7 communities east of Euclid, Fox Canyon included. Councilmember, we thank you!

 In partnership with Councilmember Madaffer, the Urban Corps San Diego, sixty-six volunteers and residents achieved the planting of 26 trees on Lantana and 12 on Euclid during ARBOR DAY Fox Canyon, Nov 16, 2002. Councilmember, Sam Duran, Susan Gloudeman, we thank you.

 In partnership with Councilmember Madaffer's Office, soon the Pork Chop will have a light. Thanks to the activism and partnership of Jill Van Cleave and Council Rep Elyse Olson. We thank you both.

 In partnership with Councilmember Madaffer's Office, with great concern for the health and safety of the residents of lower Lantana, a red strip will be painted and NO parking signs will be posted to limit parking on the west and east of the street. So, there, to be room for emergency vehicles to get through. Councilmember, Damon Hitcochk, Rick Matuska, Jesus and Imelda Zavala, your neighbors thank you.

 In partnership with the City Environmental Services, we removed 70 tons of trash, debris and discarded appliances during 2002. Stacy Workman, for your time and patience in responding to our trash calls and scheduling our cleanups, we thank you much.

 True to our Mission: to serve as a link to resources for our residents, the association linked with Rebuilding Together with Christmas in April. EIGHT of our neighbor's homes were totally rehab from the inside out, last April, 2002. Sherry Robinett, Fox Canyon expresses it deep gratitude.

 During Super Ball Weekend, Rebuilding Together and the NFL Rehab THREE homes on Lantana, putting our neighborhood cost-to-cost during pre-time. Sherry, how can we thank you enough?

 Our CDBG GRANTS have produce incredible results. A $6,500.00 Grant funded "Paint the Blight-Out Program" and last May 11, 2002, 36 volunteer neighbors painted six of our neighbor's homes throughout our entire service area.

 This year, a $22,000.00 Capital Improvement CDBG GRANT built 350 linear feet of sidewalk on the east of lower Auburn Drive, corner with Ontario, Culvert reinforcement, gutters and fencing all included.

 A $5,000.00 CDBG grant funded the Fox Canyon neighborhood ID signs. We all have seen the samples, here. Very soon, you will see them on every corner of our neighborhood.

Councilmember Madaffer, Fox Canyon is deeply grateful and honors you for sharing our vision and for your support!

 The Neighborhood Toolbox is up and running producing 2,932 hours of tool use.

 The Probation Department has provided TWO clients, producing 500 hours of community work to our entire neighborhood.

 The Fox Canyon Graffiti Paint-over Volunteer Team has spent 1,325 reported hours ridding our neighborhood of graffiti. Many thanks to our Graffiti Paint-over Coordinator, Ronald Gonzalez, and all the members of the volunteer team that spend hours in the keeping of our neighborhood. Here we also include the Urban Corps San Diego, Tommy Thomas, The Paint Bank, Susan Gloudeman, Jill Van Clive and many others.

 Today, early this morning, I appeared before City Council and delivered into the record the Parks Subcommittee Report. This report is part of our vision, part of our dreams, part of our future. The report is the culmination of the labor of love for our neighborhood. From the bottom of my heart, I sincerely thank the Subcommittee members who placed their names along with work on this report. Susan and Sandra Gloudeman, Rogelio Perez and Jose Chavez, Fox Canyon Thank you.

 In a show of partnership and strong support, the Field Representatives to many of our elected officials sat among our members: Mr. Gary Rotto, from Governor GRAY DAVIS' office, Mr. Jason Weisz from Assemblymember CHRISTINE KEHOE'S Office, Mr. Seth Litchney and now Mr. Robert Young from The City of San Diego's Mayor DICK MURPHY'S Office, Ms. Ellen Agey and now Ms. Elyse Olson from CD7, Councilmember JIM MADAFFER'S Office.

 Department Directors, organizations and community leaders, included but not limited to Shukri Adam, Karen Henry, Jim Varnadore, Police Officers David Toss and now Police Officer Ricky Castro, Curtis Hassey, Paul Henderson, Gary De Busschere, Tracy Reed, came to visit the association. Our many thanks to you all for your strong support and for finding the time and interest to attend our community's meetings.
The past has been busy, very successful, full of excitement, and full of progress, as well. But our vision is greater and our goals target the future. As we are well on the road to become the community of choice within City Heights.

To best decide the future of our city, we need to develop closer and better partnerships with the greater community, with religious leaders, the public/private sectors, other nonprofit organizations, and our elected officials.

The great effort to build the City of our dreams begins right here. This body is the beginning of Democracy in its purest form and it is the gathering of the involved.

There is NO more grassroots than we are. Here we make the decisions that affect the whole City. By changing our neighborhood, we help change and improve our City and, thus, the entire world!

HOOD PLANNERS, Barrio Builders

As HOOD PLANNERS, we have made sure that our fingerprints be all over the Mid-City Communities Plan of 1998, the Euclid Avenue RAP of 2000, the Chollas Creek Enhancement Program of 2002, and lately, CROSSROADS Redevelopment. We have made provisions for our future and for our VISION to be clearly stated and planned, as we see it.

As BARRIO BUILDERS, we reserve the right to choose and decide what our community wants in redevelopment matters and to have that decision respected by everyone else.

We are the ones that have to live next door to drug houses, polluting business, trash, crime and blight. It's time to roll our sleeves and begun the building of our barrio as we see it and in TOTAL CONFORMITY with all the above mentioned plans.

Here, tonight, We serve notice, we will be overseen our future. So it will produce the best quality of life for our residents, the best parks for our recreation, the best neighborhood for our pride.

To fulfill the quest of our MISION, I will solemnly ask the honorable Board of Directors to help me seek, pursue and strongly support the following goals in the year 2003.

1. To best build our BARRIO, we need to stop the densification of our single-family residential housing stock. Maximizing such properties does not create other than encroachment into our canyons and the loss of our open space. We need to build up not out, creating and respecting vista assets. This is alarming, as of today, Four non-permitted construction projects have been stopped along the loop (Auburn/Wightman) alone. We will continue to partner with Neighborhood Code Compliance to work diligently, effectively and aggressively for the cohesiveness of our neighborhood.

2. To best build our BARRIO, we need to be an active force and continue to put our efforts toward accomplishing the opening/extension of Ontario Avenue to integrate, rehabilitate and revitalized the border area between Fox Canyon and Chollas Creek. This capital improvement project will help to decongest the corners of Auburn/Euclid/University and Altadena/Euclid and provide so much needed crime control and safety for this area. Key player to the reality of this dream is our Councilmember, Jim Madaffer

3. To best build our BARRIO, we will continue to long journey to pursuit the development and implementation of the Fox Canyon Park System.

4. To best build our BARRIO, the American Society of Landscape Architects in partnership with our parks subcommittee will have a one-day Park Design Workshop before the end of June. Be ready to support and attend it with the best open mind possible to plan the best park possible.

5. To best build our BARRIO, We need to continue the urban reforestation of Fox Canyon. We will continue to enlist the help of the Urban Corps San Diego to do so. The next step in this process is to plant trees all along the entire Auburn Drive and Wightman Street.

6. To best build our BARRIO, is our goal to continue to put all our energies and those of our members behind dream of our own Fox Canyon Recreation/Community Center and office space.

7. To best build our BARRIO, we will ask CD7 to placed our neighborhood of Fox Canyon on the priority list for Utilities Undergrounding and changing our street bug lights to real lights.

8. To best build our BARRIO, once again, we propose that the Euclid Avenue RAP, Our Front Door, be returned to the control of all the local residents that live along the Euclid Avenue corridor, and stand an overseen subcommittee, in monthly meetings. We are worst now than we were before. As before we did not have the Euclid Avenue RAP to regulate and suspend non-permitted business.

9. To best build our BARRIO, We will continue to put effort on building a Mini-park at the Pork Chop.

10. To best build our BARRIO, we most speak and defend those who can not do it themselves, our pet population! We will seek the help and support of those who are deeply concerned that our neighborhood's dog population is getting out of control and are the speechless victims of human irresponsibility and abuse. It is incredible that at this day and age, there are numerous neighbors that still let their dogs run loose. The Droppings on the streets and in our neighbor's front yards contribute to ill feeling and pollutes our waterways.

11. To best build our BARRIO, we will continue to invite and support the efforts of Rebuilding Together With CHRISTMAS IN APRIL to help homeowners who qualify, repair their homes. Be ready to help, as in a few weeks some of our neighbors homes will be rehab.

12. To best build our BARRIO, Charles Espinoza, Director, The Home Security Program will invest time and resources making sure that our homes are secure. We strongly support and are grateful for his efforts.

13. To best build our BARRIO, we will continue to insist that we need a bus route to run along Euclid all the way to University Avenue and then north to the Retail Village.

14. To best build our BARRIO, we will continue our war against graffiti. Our soldiers are ready, and our will is strong. Out we will go every Saturday morning to clean our neighborhood.

15. To best build out BARRIO, we will decorate our utility boxes and those on District Three, as well, if we may, and develop our mural program, to best fight graffiti.

16. To best build out BARRIO, is to best clean it. The Council Office and the Association are in the planning of a Dumpster clean up within two months and a Parkard Cleanup on Saturday, December 06, 2003.

 As good marriages do, at time, we also have spectacular catfights with our partners. Our intent is to repair and improve upon a dysfunctional relationship. Our neighborhood institutions should be easy and open for any resident, from any area, to join in. To best serve us, these organizations should be upper mobile, democratically solid and respectful. We will continue to pay special attention to the City Heights Area Planning Committee and their bylaws.

"The future of a City Worthy of Our Affection" as Mayor Murphy envisions it, is the reality of a Fox Canyon, as we envision it. ALL of YOU have a bested interest in see it come true, to see it a tangible reality.

As members of this neighborhood organization, we all need to lend our hand in support and spend our energies volunteering to see success in our corporate programs like "Neat Neighborhood, Paint The 'Hoods Blight Out, The Tool Box, and The Mural Program". We urgently need to arrest the spread of blight, slum conditions, garbage, and trash, quickly! With our volunteer labor, we can accomplish the renewal of our neighborhood and a brighter future for Fox Canyon.

There is a sense of great urgency in the need to stop polluting our environment, beginning with our streets, our storm drains, our canyons, our bay and ocean. Pollution starts with our homes our pets, our streets, and US… and ends up in the water we swim in.

From the path of the future, we go walk again the reality of our finances. In fiscal year 2002, the Association mailed out tax-exempt receipts totaling $10,100.00 in cash and in-kind Donations. The Booth Family was our biggest contributor.

For five years in a row, the Association finishes its fiscal year with a surplus. This year's General Fund ended with $91.00 in the black and in the bank. Our Mural Fund has $58.00 and the Neat Neighborhood Fund has $6.00. Funds that are committed to specific and special purpose, in addition to our General Fund.

This Fiscal Year, 2003, we submitted the following CDBG grants applications as follow:

 Let's Paint the Hood's Blight Out
 Sidewalks for lower Auburn to do the section from 4888 to 4892 Auburn Drive
 The Mural Program
 The Neighborhood Toolbox

In general, the state of our Association is solid. We are hard workers and one of a kind, in every aspect. We passed our yearly physical with flying colors.

Above all, I want to honor our Board Members, tonight. They provide the legislative, if you will, and are the rock solid foundation upon which we build… I nearly execute their guidance. I am grateful for the dedication, time, and effort that this group of residents provides to our neighborhood organization, on behalf of their neighbors.

The CORE of our purpose and reality revolves around our volunteers. They have contributed Thousands of hours in labor to our community, from our heart, we thank you!

Before closing, I want to recognize some of our members without whom we could not be here at all, those whom support our organization from the very beginning and are still going strong. Mrs. Catherine Burger at her 91 has missed only seven monthly meetings in Five years.

Our deepest appreciation and gratitude goes to our partners in community revitalization for their efforts to invest energy and resources in Fox Canyon. Tonight, we honor: Mark Kassab of Murphy's Market, Project Clean, CRASH, Urban Corps, Viva Properties, Pip Printing, Alpha Project, Teen Challenge, Price Charities, Catholic Charities, The Tucker Family, Christ Church Unity Youth Group (Youth of Unity), Rebuilding Together with Christmas in April, Estudio E, The San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO, The City Heights CDC, and all the men and woman working for the City of San Diego.

In closing, I wand to express our sincere THANKS and deep gratitude to our hosts Pastor and Mrs. Clenel Williams, Sr., of Bible-way Temple Apostolic Church. For their kindness in allowing us to meet here and use the Church's Cultural Hall as our house. We really could not do all this without their help.

Thank you for your attendance, the refreshments enjoy and have a good night.