I am posting the minutes from the May 3 MPWNA meeting to open it up for general comment. I would also like to thank all the people who attended the meeting. I'm glad to see participation and interest in the neighborhood association.
Marcia
Mitchell Park West Neighborhood Association
http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/tempe/mpw/
Minutes of MPWNA Annual Meeting, 3rd May 2008
The 2008 Annual Meeting was held on Saturday, May 3rd from 12:00 noon – 2:00 pm at the Ramada in Mitchell Park.
Marcia Kyle ,Acting Chair, introduced the meeting.
A list of attendees was compiled and is attached as a scanned document at the end of these minutes.
Fran Santos, City of Tempe Police – Commander – Field Operations, was present.
Elizabeth Thomas, City of Tempe – Neighborhood Services – was also present.
The following minutes of this meeting follow the agenda handed out at the time.
1. Voting on previously proposed bylaw revisions to restrict board membership to home owners and exclude renters and businesses. This issue has to be settled before we can continue to any other discussion and voting points. The proposed revisions are:
• Businesses within MPWNA boundary to be designated as 'non-voting' affiliates.
• The majority of the Board at any one time, and for quorum, shall be owner occupants.
The current bylaw for membership in the association says:
• The membership of the MPWNA shall be comprised of all persons owning , residing or doing business in a permanent structure within the boundaries of Mitchell Park West.
There was a lively discussion on the first bullet – the proposed bylaw revision to exclude business owners from board membership. Issues of possible conflicts of interests and neighbors involvement were mentioned.
David Saar was asked to clarify that Childsplay is no longer interested in building the scene shop in Mitchell Park, which he did readily.
A show of hand was taken:
A “yes” vote meant a revision to the bylaws to restrict board membership
A “no” vote meant no change to the bylaws
Yes: 14 No: 17
The second part was about renters no longer being allowed to have full membership on the Board.
Several attendees spoke against this measure: how do we define owner-occupants; some owners do not live in their houses; renters can become owners down the road – they have a vested interest in the neighborhood too. In fact we were reminded that this very association was started by some renters. This change would reflect poorly on the Association and be perceived as unfriendly in an area which is very mixed and diverse.
A show of hand was taken:
“Yes” meant only owners can have full board membership rights
“No” meant that the bylaws remained as before
Yes: 7 No: 24
Conclusion: Both parts of the proposed change to the bylaws were rejected.
2. Vote on nominating and electing an all new Board for a 1 year term. Board structure proposed to include Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, General Members
Marcia asked Kirby – current Board member and John Purchase to give the different views on this topic.
Kirby is in favor of the current board completing the 1 year term; today’s election would allow more board members to be elected. Marcia, Kirby and Joe would remain on the Board until the next General Election. The board should appoint the new Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, Treasurer.
John suggested the General Election should take place at this meeting, and every spring thereafter, as stated in the by-laws. This would allow new members to be added and would also let existing board members be reelected.
There was strong disagreement on the date the general election should take place. It was suggested that the existing members remain in place until the next general election, that new members be added now. There was a discussion about the date for the general election, but in the end, the vote was taken on new board members.
Penny, Monika, April, John, David S., Pat, Matthew, Scott and Ira were proposed and seconded. However since the Board has a maximum of 11 members and there are 3 existing members (Marcia, Kirby and Joe) one person had to recuse him/herself. Pat did so at first, then Matthew let it be known he wanted Pat to stay on the board since he intends to fight for our alleys, so Matthew recused himself.
A vote was taken on confirming these new members to the board and was unanimously carried.
Marcia asked that all new board members leave their email address so they can be contacted easily.
The Board will decide on a date for the next Annual Meeting / General Election.
Kirby invited everyone to help themselves to beer – and contribute a couple of dollars. He was thanked for his goodwill gesture.
3. Request to David Saar to use a Childsplay facility meeting room for all future Board and Neighborhood meetings
David agreed that Childsplay will provide a meeting room for all future meetings (Board and Neighborhood).
4. Vote on the Grant application for park benches as described in the recent newsletter to all residents in the neighborhood
David Saar explained the various points raised by City Hall – They have the last word on the type of benches that can be approved for city parks; they are responsible for them and have specific criteria regarding materials, safety and location; they install the benches on pads.
The idea of a Margaret McGinn walkway that had been suggested previously has been dropped, because only the City Council can make such a designation. There were no comments on this decision.
It was mentioned that the idea of adding benches to our park is to make it more of a meeting place. Elizabeth (City of Tempe) clarified a couple of points: the city does make the final determination but people can make their wishes known and there is room for negotiations. The pads can be individualized, used for art work…Kirby circulated pictures of the earlier bench concept, stating that our grant money should not be spent on city type benches that we might get free down the road, anyway. Elizabeth pointed out that it could be quite a few years before Mitchell Park does get selected for capital improvements. Elizabeth suggested we should decide whether or not we want to go ahead with the grant application for this year or wait for another cycle and have more time to discuss the details. Marcia put this to the vote.
Should we proceed with the grant application as it stands?
Yes: 16 No: 7
5. Vote on a proposal to set neighborhood meetings on same day / time each month for everybody’s planning purposes; say, 3rd Saturday of each month at 4:00 pm. Have the agenda set for every meeting by the 2nd Saturday and meetings every 3rd Saturday. We can have the schedule set for the entire year that way. Maybe we should also focus some of those times on not having meetings but in just getting together to visit, maybe have a potluck or pizza or something, just to let tensions ease
Marcia suggested putting together a calendar for future meetings.
It was suggested that the Board returns to the old way: 1st Sunday of the month, with only a couple of general meetings per year in the spring and the fall. It was also generally agreed that we should have more purely social meetings as occurred in earlier times in the Association.
6. Vote on setting up a subcommittee to review the bylaws in total; do we even need bylaws?
After a brief discussion it was agreed that bylaws are necessary and a subcommittee will review our bylaws.
The Board will decide on the date for the General Election. The next Board Meeting will be around June 1st, at a date that the majority of the board can attend. Marcia will send the agenda ahead of time to each Board member.
7. Report on status of planning for Neighborhood Art Festival
Joe was not present, so this report had to be postponed.
8. Vote on annual voluntary $5 (?) donation to fund association activities
This topic was not addressed.
9. Any other business from assembly
Mark Lymer’s resignation was mentioned at the very beginning of the meeting. His resignation letter is on the web. It was suggested that it be discussed under the “other business” but was not mentioned again.
The neighbors expressed pleasure at the increase in the Board members.
