Notes on Neighborhood: November 2011

September 13^th, 2011 EACA Meeting
7:00 p.m. Meeting called to order
Austin Dickson, President EACA

• Please review the opinion piece in the EACA agenda regarding the proposed I-20 train

East Atlanta Farmer’s Market – Katie Hayes, Market Manager

• Thank you for your support of the Farmer’s Market
• All markets in the city experience a bit of a lull in the fall so please continue to come to
• Next week, Doria Roberts from Urban Cannibals will be having a CD Release Party
• Sept 29^th we are doing a special “taste” of the Farmer’s Market
• Halloween we will be having lots of kid and family events
• Costumes will be encouraged
• We will end the season with a community dinner

NPU-W Report – Ed Gilgor, Chairperson

• 1981 Flat Shoals has a change of owner application for the alcohol license
• There was nothing negative that came up in the NPU meeting

Motion to approve change of ownership application for the alcohol license at 1981 Flat Shoals Ave
Second
All in favor
Motion to pass unanimously

• There is an application for on premises consumption at 1246 Glenwood Ave, Tomatillos
• Seeking for beer, wine, and liquor
• Applicant has indicated they will signed the good neighbor agreement

Applicant has operated a business for quite a while in the area with no problems
Is there going to be smoking allowed in the establishment?
-No smoking will be allowed
Motion to approve the on premises consumption application at 1246 Glenwood Ave
Second
All in favor
Motion to pass unanimously
Council Update – Councilmember Natalyn Archibong

• Sunday alcohol sales vote came up and I voted no because I have been on the front line of some of the issues that have come up with the restaurants and how it would impact them
• They have communicated to me that it would affect them if Sunday alcohol sales were allowed
• I made this decision as a symbol to ask that I wished that we had engaged the business owners in our community
• It’s my pleasure to introduce the presentation tonight for the Neighbor in Need initiative
• I believe this is a very important program in our community
• There is no better way to say we care about our community than to provide for the least able
• I look forward to ways I can support this in the future

Presentation by EACA’s Neighbor in Need Initiative
Jeff Whitehouse, Initiative Chairperson
The community voted on this initiative in May of 12010
Gwendolyn Jones testimony:

• I am a senior citizen and home owner in East Atlanta for 37 years
• I was nominated for the program by one of my neighbors
• I was in dire need of emergency repairs
• Jeff Whitehouse assisted me through the trials of this and inspected my home and saw the need
• Then he brought licensed contractors out to make the repairs

You don’t have to be intimidated because this is an organization that will help
Continuation of Presentation:

• Looking at what we’ve accomplished in a slideshow presentation
• We’ve received $10,765 in donations, $10,800 from grants, and $3400 in fundraising
• We’ve completed $15,000 in home renovations
• We have helped 8 homes
• We’ve done a lot of heat and ac restoration, roof repair, and getting water turned back on
• Some of our donors have consisted of the Village Church of East Atlanta, Martha Brown United Methodist, The Porch Press, and Keller Williams Realty – Marc Takacs gives $100 towards charity for every home he sells
• We have received grants from the East Atlanta Beer Festival and Natalyn Archibong
• We have had three fundraisers which consisted of selling pumpkins at the Farmer’s Market, a poker tournament hosted at the Midway Pub, and the Taste of East Atlanta
• Several businesses have been of great help and they are Holy Taco, Urban Cannibals, Ormewood Animal Hospital, Midway Pub, Fire and Ice Heating and Air Conditioning, Renner Construction
• We would ask that the community support our contractors in that they are
• We have also been supported by several community members and they have done a great service to the organization

How can you help?

• Anyone would like to come and help is always welcome
• Attend our fundraisers by supporting and helping us raise more money
• Getting out there to know your neighbors and see if there are any needs
• You can contact us and there are business cards here
• You can donate to EACA with a designation to the Neighbor in Need initiative
• We make our decision on who to help as a committee after quite a few questions and guidelines are addressed

Georgia General Assembly – Hon. Jason Carter, Georgia State Senate District 42

• I live in Candler Park and we have a lot in common with East Atlanta
• We had all the district lines re-drawn for next year and please feel free to ask me questions if you have any regarding this
• Re-districting is difficult because of the impact it has on the political incentives
• During the last legislative session we addressed a variety of things 95% is non-partisan
• Massive reforms to the Hope Scholarship which I opposed
• The immigration bill that passed significantly impacted residents in the state of Georgia
• The Sunday Alcohol Sales issue passed onto a city vote
• We would like to establish mental health courts and we reformed the evidence code
• I’m a lawyer in Atlanta and my wife teaches at Grady High School
• Next year there are two things that I believe are going to be important moving forward
• The transportation referendum it is going to be a major event in our state’s history
• People who live in places like East Atlanta have to be comfortable with the way it treats in-town neighborhoods to make sure we are ready to push forward
• Education reform is also an important issue coming onto the agend
• It’s obvious that partisanship affects our re-districting and I wonder how we can change that?
• It would be good to see an independent re-districting commission

Are you involved with the Transportation agenda?

• I have not been involved with the creation of the list but I have been trying to get the MARTAOC committee to the table and I would be happy to help in the future

Public Safety Report – Zone 6, Atlanta Police Department

• We had a couple of pedestrian robberies
• We had an increase in auto theft
• Crime is down 33% from last year

Jennifer Murray, East Atlanta

• Review of Crime Reports and they can be seen in the EACA newsletter
• Review of trends
• We have had about a 39% decrease in the last 3 years
• We still continue to see a lot of AC units stolen as well as people leaving things in their cars

Marta Update – Dr John Crocker

• I am the project manager for the I-20 East transportation initiative
• We are doing due diligence and going out into the community to make sure you understand
• There are 6 alternatives we are looking at and we would like to know what you prefer
• We are going to be at the gallery at South Dekalb on October 8^th as well as several other locations
• You can email me jtcrocker@itsmarta.com
• You can also find us on facebook as the I-20 East Transportation Initiative

Committee Business
Transportation – Ted Bradford

• We have one issue for your approval tonight
• The proposal is listed in the agend
• Review of proposal

Motion to approve the resolution
Second
All in favor
Motion to pass unanimously
Events – Callie Lathangue

• The East Atlanta Strut is coming up this Saturday
• We have the 5k in the morning and the parade in the afternoon
• The Imperial Opa circus will be performing
• PBR will be bringing in an art car
• Brandon Sadler will be painting his winning PBR mural between N’awlins and Grant Central
• We have around 100 booths, 5 stages and bands all day
• The stages will be in the parking lots
• There will be a classic cars and motorcycle show
• If you would like to volunteer or be in the parade, we still need volunteers

Announcements
Austin Dickson, President EACA
Motion to approve the August minutes
Second
All in favor
Motion Passed
Andy Schneggenberger

• You are invited to come to the 2011 Neighborhood Summit
• Engaging people in neighborhoods with best practices, new tools, and resources for building a better community

8:11 p.m. Meeting Adjourned

Porch Press Board Meeting July 18, 2011
by Nancy Leighton
Meeting called to order 7:20. Present: Lyn Hillman, Henry Bryant, Fred Smith, Darin Glass, Nancy Leighton, Marc Takacs, Jelena Crawford.
Minutes: from April meeting read and discussed. Add to minutes information about volunteer appreciation event. We plan to try out different ideas from previous years, such as different type of event, different time and place.
Finance: We have less readily available cash (money not tied up in long term CD) than at any point in recent history. Fred has transferred some money from the CD up to the limit without penalty. The CD expires Fall 2012
Advertising: Henry explains the 50/50 – 50% of the paper must be advertising to cover the cost of printing and mailing. Advertising in recent issues has not covered the cost of printing and postage. There is not a substantial cost benefit in making a smaller paper because of mailing costs. It costs $1,235 to print a 12 page paper and $1,245 to mail it. Postage costs just went up. Discussion: of if we should hire a private delivery company again and past problems we had doing that. Smaller ads cost more per column inch than larger ads.
It was agreed that each board members will try to get 5 new advertisers.
Should we set up a Google group or something so we can communicate with each other about ads and other things? Lyn will look into it. Penny will mail “thank-you” notices to our current advertisers as we discussed in our April meeting? Should Genie get postage to mail letters to potential advertisers. NO, since Board Members will be approaching potential advertisers.
Business cards: Darin looked into getting the free business cards we talked about in our April meeting. He found out that we can not get our logo on the free business cards. Since we want our logo on them that rules that out. A price he did get was. $29.99 + $4 for the logo + $2 for shipping, total nearly $50. Henry suggested using local business East Atlanta Printing. Commenting that they used to advertise with us in the past, he suggested we ask them for a discount or offer them an exchange for an ad in our paper for the card printing. Lyn to get logo and other important information to be included to Darin.
Web site: Lyn’s report, all Porch Press content online on the Web site is current going back to March this year. Online Facebook page needs information on…
Darin brought up our website in his iPad so we could all see what it looks like.
Somebody needs to inform all the neighborhood associations to put our correct website on their websites and to link our web page to theirs. Henry will take care of getting our website in the masthead of the Porch Press.
Darin volunteered to work on Twitter and Facebook.
Discussion of food for our volunteers during proofreading and layout: The costs seem to be rather high. Is there some way we could lower the costs? Do we ask Genie to start picking up something for us again? Should we order something different or from somewhere else? Darin pointed out that Proof night had been picking up food from Dakota Blue or Grant Central because of convenience. It was pointed out that neither Dakota Blue nor Grant Central advertises with us and nobody in the room could remember if they ever had. Someone should ask. Henry pointed out that two restaurants which do advertise with us are also close by, they are Daddy D’z and Doc Chey’s and perhaps we should send some business their way, and besides, Daddy D’z delivers so that would make them equally convenient. The question was asked whether we should only order food from advertisers.
No motion was made, no vote was taken, but it was decided to experiment in the next 3 months in an effort to cut costs. Also to explore seeking more restaurant advertising and possible tradeouts.
Volunteer appreciation: Darin looked into places to have our annual volunteer appreciation dinner. He checked Six Feet Under. Daddy D’s said we could use their whole outdoor covered room but it would be best to wait until October when the weather is cooler. Tin Lizzie’s has a good buffet but it could be a little expensive. We could go to Grant Central on Cherokee. He tried to check with Nawlins but didn’t get a hold of anybody.
We decided on an ice cream social with ice cream from Morelli’s. Will ask Morelli’s to advertise with us in the process! Do we still want to have it in Brownwood Park? Yes. September 15. We could have cookies or pastries too, but small ones, remember it’s desert. This event is for Porch Press volunteers only. Editors ask their frequent writers, the others come from proof reading and layout.
Labor Day date Changes: Proofing will be the day after Labor Day September 6, layout will be Wednesday September 7.
Other projects we’re working on: Practices for Porch Press writers, editors and proofreaders.