Highland Park Action Committee

April 27th, 2011 Meeting Notes

Announcements

• Saturday, April 3oth: Myrtle Reservoir Park Dedication at 10:30am. (35th and Myrtle)
• Saturday, April 3oth: Help locate a new park in Westwood/Highland Park, express concerns or suggest improvements. Southwest Community Center, 1pm.
• Saturday, May 7th: Wine For Our Times HPIC event, see HPIC website for more information.
• Cloverdale Safety Committee will update us with their progress at next month's meeting.
• The group was asked if it was okay to send an email halfway through the month with events going on in the neighborhood. Everyone present said it was okay.
• The group was also asked if Seattle Parks and (landscape architects) Site Workshop could come to next month's regularly scheduled meeting for the first of three public meetings regarding design for the Highland Park Spraypark project. Everyone thought it was a good idea and the suggestion was made to contact Highland Park Elementary to get design input from some of their students. 

Goals for 2011 and Beyond

This meeting was dedicated to getting input on what the goals for HPAC could or should be. What follows is what the co-chairs presented, with comments from those present included.

Community Outreach

The co-chairs feel strongly that the point of "community outreach" is not to increase membership or to get more people to come to our meetings. Rather, the point is to make sure that our neighbors know that HPAC exists as a resource for them. Should anyone have concerns about Highland Park, they know where to go. If anyone has ideas about how to improve Highland Park, they know where to bring them. If anyone has complaints about anything going on in Highland Park, they can turn to us. If anyone wants to volunteer in their neighborhood to help improve it, we will provide opportunities for that. If anyone needs an organization to stand behind them in the name of Highland Park, we can be that voice for them. If anyone needs help from their community, they can come to us for help in finding it. If anyone wants to announce anything to Highland Park, they have a megaphone to use in us. If anyone needs a friend in Highland Park, we will be there with open arms. Our role is to be an advocate for Highland Park, whether or not our neighbors come to our meetings. And our role is to affect positive change in our neighborhood with our without "membership" numbers.

With this as a goal, we discussed the idea of creating a magnet to send or pass out in our neighborhood that says who we are, what we do, and when our meetings are, as well as useful telephone numbers that would be good for neighbors to have on hand: potholes, impassable right-of-ways, animal control, non-emergency police, trash... It was suggested to add a blank line for "in case of emergency" contact information, as well as looking into getting the magnet translated into different languages. We could look into getting local businesses to sponser the magnet for a spot on there, or apply for a small and simple grant.

We also briefly discussed having more of a presence at local community festivals and gatherings through staffing tables at these events. It will be easier once we get magnets made because we'll have something to hand out. We discussed establishing a list of volunteers that might be willing to staff a table that we could role through so that no one has to do it for too long. It was also suggested to staff a gift wrap table at Barnes and Noble during the holidays- all tips would go to HPAC and it would be a great way to get our name out there.

Community Pride

HPAC can play a role in neighborhood clean up efforts, traffic circle maintenance, tree plantings in the right of ways or local parks, and in contacting owners of troubled properties.

Neighborhood Advocate

HPAC can and should apply for grants for projects in Highland Park. We should have a voice in planning and development- as we have in the design of Westcrest Park, and Highland Park Spraypark. We also have a role in voicing concerns for pedestrian and vehicular safety, as well as for transportation concerns. It was noted at the meeting that some transportation concerns for Highland Park might be getting a Rapid Ride or more buses for the #23 route, as well as some East/West routes. 

Some grant proposals made at the meeting included repaving 16th, funding for magnets,  and funding for a website as Dina Johnson is stepping down as our Web Goddess.

Highland Park Gives Back

Some ideas for HPAC- sponsored volunteer opportunities include crafting for non-profits, Highland Park Happy Hammers to help neighbors in need keep up with their property, Highland Park Arts, and participating in local work parties through the Community Orchard of South Seattle Community College, Nature Consortium, and Earth Corps. One idea presented at the meeting was to get neighbors to make a 20 hour/year pledge to volunteer in our community.

"Resources" on our website

We'd like to add a more up to date and thorough resources section to our website, which includes among other things- block party/Night Out information, where to get free trees for your Right of Way, volunteer opportunities, and neighbors that are interested in trading/bartering services(a "labor library").

Future Meetings

These goals will help define the direction and speakers for future meetings - we will dedicate entire meetings to accomplishing some of these goals. Other ideas floated at the meeting include getting SNAP to come speak to us about disaster preparedness, and having the police come speak about CEPTED principals: using environmental design to reduce crime.

Officer Jon Kiehn stepped into the meeting towards the end to comment on crime in the neighborhood noting that it is primarily car prowling and burglaries. He said he'd be happy to come speak to us about design principals to lower crime in the neighborhood.