EACA Meeting

By Rebecca Kern
January 8, 2012
Meeting called to order at 7:08 pm.
Kevin Spigener introduced himself as the new president. Our December meeting, we had our officers elected. Ted Bradford is our new VP, Ralph Green continues to be our treasurer. One piece of business we did not get to at our last meeting is the election of our secretary. Andrew Levine has agreed to be Secretary position. Rebecca will be joining the Parks committee and continue to be the Communications chair. Everyone should have an agenda and our meeting minutes from our last meeting in December. We will be reviewing and approving them at the end of the meeting.
Had a great meeting with EABA last night. EABA is finally coming together as a cohesive group. We have been looking at the ordinances as apply to the local businesses. Specifically they are looking at parking and sidewalks. The city is looking to fixing our sidewalks where the trees are buckling the concrete. One of the things that has been brought to EABA’s attention is the fencing and outside cafes and dining. There is a lot to the ordinances and it is difficult to initiate something and have the city stick to it.
Currently, the city doesn’t have an agreement with EA businesses as far as the ordinances go. That is soon to change. Encroachments were discussed last night. There is a 4 foot variance for pedestrians in order to have outside dining. Kevin thinks we will see a lot of positive change.
Public Safety – Ted has agreed to stay on as Public Safety chair.
Sargent Gruen – Crime is spiked pretty bad at the beginning of this year. EA took a pretty big hit. 84 arrests out of 116 crimes. Our arrest stats are down for 2013 due to the big spike in the new year. Off to a bad start in 612. 4 burglaries – May, FS & McPherson. 8 vehicle larcenies in the parking lots of the club. Business owners should be advised that there are ways to make their parking lots safer. Should be posting signs about not leaving laptops in cars. Pedestrian robberies are equally high- motive is cell phones. Had some traffic stops that led to some big arrests. Two of the three suspects were convicted felons.
Kevin – last night we met Major Meadows. Meadows discussed that when our police are on duty in EA, each shift is required to do a beat walk in the business district twice on our shift. That means within 24 hours, we should be beat walks 6 times a day.
Sgt Gruen – do we park and walk or directed patrol (code 89). Glenwood & Flat Shoals is saturated with directed patrol. We really need to be parking and walking. Today we were asked to do 2 15 minute park and walks per day per zone.
Kevin – L5P has a mini precinct and sees more presence from Zone 6. He believes it would benefit people coming into the village and people conducting the crimes to see a physical presence.
Sgt Gruen- we may be more on foot sooner rather than later. Again we are off to a bad start, hopefully it is just a beginning of the year spike. Stats in what was previously zone 5 are now included in the new zone 6, so our stats can be a little off. Can’t guarantee anything without with manpower.
Ted – there are no applications this month.
Adopt-A-Street – We have been working on this program for a year. The city has approved the program along with the signage. Our friends at city hall have done a tremendous job of communicating their expectations. We are going to create a committee for Adopt-A-Street.The coordinator will be working directly with city of Atlanta. The city did not have an official Adopt-A-Street program, only an adopt-a-spot program. When we presented AAS the city said they would like to use our program as the pilot for the entire city. That is great news, but finalizing the details was challenging. Heath Turner helped write our first draft of the AAS rules for East Atlanta. The COA attorney took over our rules and wrote something that meets the city’s standards. This Saturday, the COA safety training folks will be training on AAS guidelines. After your first pickup, on the EACA site, you can report your street’s results.
Tabitha and Allen will receive an email and will tabulate. Tabitha is our new AAS coordinator and chair of the committee. Will be working directly with Department of Public Works and will be compiling the reports each month for them. Alan Claghorn is our new Beautification chair and that will allow him some more time to focus on other beautification tasks.
Question – do we have enough trash cans in the village? Answer – We will be submitting the number of trashcans we need to the city. They will also be looking at repairing some of our benches.
Last night they told us if we wanted to do a fundraiser to purchase additional benches or street furniture (approved by the city) it will be our responsibility to upkeep them and they will need to be secured. Question – when we finished the street scape there was $20K that didn’t get used. Hopefully we can still access funding like that. There was a street light that got damaged. Answer – there is a cone on the side of the Flat Iron that has been there since 2007 where there was a light pole. There is also one in front of 529 and the coffee shop. We addressed those things last night and got a commitment that those will be fixed.
Question – what is there timeline? Answer – when we have our upcoming meeting as a group, we need to get the actual addresses along with the exact issues to the city.
Clean EAV – when you are meeting someone for the first time, you can sum up first impressions in 10 seconds. Imagine with anyone you know or if anyone is coming through EA village, what do they see? Kevin can guarantee that they form an opinion on what this area is about. We are all concerned or we wouldn’t be here tonight. We want to see a clean neighborhood. We have tried to clean the neighborhood. We are growing and expanding, so we’ve got more people coming in, which is great for the businesses and our home values, and all of a sudden EA is in the spotlight. What can we do? Turning it over to Kate Crosby for a new program she is spearheading.
Kate- Recycle EAV chair. Project: Clean EAV is my new project. We all know the village is totally trashed. It’s pretty gross and it’s kind of gotten out of hand. I think this reflects poorly on us and we give a bad impression of who we are. Kate showed photos snapped in the fall of the litter. Litter contributes to crime. It’s hard for volunteers to do all the work. EACA has tried to work on this problem by Beautification committee clean ups. Adopt-A-Street launched. But we are not professional street cleaners.
And it is a big problem. Recycle EAV did a lot of research and contacted numerous businesses to get quotes and scopes of service. Above All Cleaners was the leader. They clean an Edgewood Shopping Center. Followed them for a while to check on their work. Andre, the owner of Above All Cleaners, came out right before the Strut and did a free cleanup. He did basic parking lot sweeping. Kate showed photos of the difference. It gave us a taste of what we could do. Kevin made some comments about the photos of Andre’s job. Kate has had communications with Andre since September and he has a vision for our neighborhood.
Kevin – they actually have a money back guarantee. Kate provided a list of cost and services from Above All. The service would be from EA Welcome sign to Midway. Obviously we’ve been working on this for a while. We applied to the EA Foundation for funding as long as we . We raised $2,200 through Taste of EA and Midway Craft Shows. EACA is willing to supplement $1000 from the general fund. That makes us $1100 from the matching grant. EABA promised last night to contribute $2K to the effort. Question – maybe he could meet with the business owners and spread his enthusiasm. Kate – that is a great idea. We have plans to fundraise for this money. Question – Love our enthusiasm about this but the one thing that I am struggling with is that the area is being cleaned is what EABA members are profiting from. Perhaps part of the plan needs to be engaging EABA members to clean up their own space. Also who is the lady with the broom? Kate – part of the reason the problem has gotten so bad is that we are waiting for the businesses to take care of it and they aren’t. This is only for a year. Thinking strategically now and planning for next year, hopefully that will boost EABA next year to come up with more funds. That is one of the caveats of the EA Foundation matching grant, is that we need to engage the business association. Comment – the lady who walks (cleans) the village. Mary Norwood started the program of having people walking and cleaning. She formed a brigade of people who were homeless or needed assistance and that who is that lady is. Not sure who runs the program at city hall. Question – since we are more than halfway to the total, are we going to wait and pay it all at one time or how can we start it? Answer – we are meeting with Andre on Thursday and get him on it now. We have 9 or 10 months to raise the rest of the money. Question – how far will it go down FS? Answer – Holy Taco and Midway and starting the EA welcome sign. Question – Behind the library as well? Answer – we can talk to him about that. Question – do you know what days of the week yet? Answer – no. we are still in negotiations about the time. He knows we are a nightlife district. Question – have we talked to SAND about expanding it to include Moreland. Answer – no, but that is a great next step.
Kevin – there was some misunderstanding on the business side was this just going to be a street sweeper coming around. And no, it is not. These things would take a group of us an entire day to accomplish. We are going to see a big difference. I’ll believe it when I see it but I am hopeful. Kate – what was interesting on the pricing was that much higher for more only one visit per week than multiple visits. Question – does this require that no one parks on the street when they come through? Answer – we are working with them on the schedule. That is why they are going to come twice per day. Question – who would be the one administering the contract with EACA. Answer- Kate, Kevin, Ralph.
Kevin – everyone remembers how the Adopt-a-street program started with a poster board and a vote on the logo. When the city called us down, they wanted their colors. Kevin showed the official EA AAS strong. City will be paying for the top level sign. EA Foundation needs to be commended because they afford us the ability to add the business/community group name. Kevin has a meeting to take a look at the signs in a few weeks. They’ll be placing the poles and their and our sign. Branan towers has been our pilot program for the past year.
The seniors here (called the LitterBugs) have cleaned up Moreland down to the Flat Shoals. If you take a look at the front of Cenci and Gravity, they are flyer free. The LitterBugs have been snatching them down.
Question – about the street cleaning. If we are going to be the organization administering it, don’t we need a motion to approve using the money for this purpose? Because the money will be going through our Treasurer. Motion made. Seconded. In favor of entering into a contract with a memo of understanding with Above All, Kate will be the coordinator of the project and above all cleaners will provide us with a monthly reports of cleanups – 38.
Opposed – 0 Abstentions-1.
Over the past Moko and Kevin have been working with Susan Pierce Cunningham with Trees Atlanta and the Neighborwoods program. About 4 years ago there was a tree planting grant through the arborist’s division. Ted Hitch and Alex planted these trees. This year, we received an amazing gift by the COA, a tree grant. 80 or more trees and they are free. Alan Claghorn has been working with Susan. Susan – works with Neighborwoods program. We did mostly trees in front yards. Alan will tell you how to get involved. We are focusing on the lower are Braeburn, Ora, Cecille, Maynard Terrace and McPherson. These are entrance ways into the neighborhood and clear space further back in the neighborhood. This is all happening this month, January 26. We are meeting at Burgess-Peterson at 9:00am. We going to plant a tree on the BPA land and then we will divide and try to plant 50 trees focusing on those two target areas. We will be visiting neighbors prior to the event to get right of way to plant. These trees will provide shade and beautification. Susan – you don’t have to be on one of these streets if you are interested. Question – what size are the trees. Answer – they are typically 15-gallon containerized trees. We are looking for volunteers to help plant. We’d love to have your help. It is a good time for children as well. The species will be based on what we have available for our nursery inventory – Wildfire blackgum, October Glory red maple, American Sentry linden and White Oak. Question – do you have trees that don’t get that tall? Answer – yes, there will be some places on Glenwood where we will not plant trees that get larger than 25′. Question – I know that you all focus on planting new trees, but what about the older tree care. Answer – we are working with COA on older tree care. Eventually as a beautification committee we can older tree care. The purpose of Clean EAV was to give us time back from emergency clean ups and truly focus on beautification. Question – will there be any fruit trees available? Answer – they don’t live as long as what we’d like for a yard tree. WE have a few native fruiting trees but not what you’d think. Pecans are an example. Question – utilities locating is going to occur before? Answer – yes. Question –what is the deadline to sign up? Answer – January 18.
Living Walls – Program Director Trevor Jones – Moved to EA five years ago. Working with LW for the last three years. We have 25 staff members and we have done 75 murals all over town.
We are a non-profit who changes and promotes public perspective using street art. We just started a partnership with congress for New Urbanists (responsible for Glenwood Park project). We have a year conference in August and we invite local and international street artists. We have four murals in EAV. One of them is from our year long program, Concepts. We have been working with the city lately – city council, department of transportation and urban design commissions. Living Walls wants to focus on EA for the first 2013 Concepts. Kate contacted us about working on a project together. The first idea is to get three artists who focus on geometry who use different perspectives to represent space. Trevor described the three artists’ and their planned work. Concepts will run the last two weeks of Februray. One is Village Fitness and one is Tomatillos. We’d love to get some more walls; please let Trevor know. They would love to do more walls during the summer conference. Any space that is vacant they would also love to highlight as a popup gallery space for an event in March for the artist’s involved in Concepts. We would also like to do a Stroll like the one we did on Edgewood for the conference. On March 9, we will open up at artist market sponsored by EACA and we will do guided tours of the walls in EA. At around 6:00 or 7:00pm, we will turn farmer’s market into a theater space and show a documentary about the Concepts artists. We will have an interactive map of all the murals. Invite you to help by donating your time by volunteering, also looking for donations to fund the rest of the year and asking local businesses to donate portion of their sales that night. We want happy neighbors and hope to have a long standing relationship with the neighborhood. Question – are there specific sizes you are looking for? Answer – we don’t do walls that can’t be seen. We won’t do a project over someone else’s work, even it is a tag (due to the backlash). Large walls that are visible. Question – recently the city has come out against graffiti artists. Would love to see LW work with the city work with these artists as community service. Answer- that is how the Philadelphia Mural Arts program emerged.The COA has just written a new addendum to their public arts program so that if you have any charges against you, you cannot get funded by the city. Question – so we are going to be signing memos of understanding with Living Walls? Are we bringing this up at another meeting or are we voting tonight? Kate – March 9 is the date. Questin – would now be a good time to do something like this? Question – why don’t we support a motion on EACA entering into an agreement with LW. Motion made. Seconded. In favor – 30 Opposed -0 Abstentions 2.
Henry – thanks to EACA for agreeing to be the 501C3 partner with BATL to get a grant to work on our programming for this summer. We have applied for 501C3 status but we will not hear soon enough to start planning programming. We are starting work on this summer’s event now and we are working on a trail project with PATH Foundation to connect the two monuments. Working on funding to do an assessment on McPherson and Walker monuments. A neighbor you might know, Katina Van Cronkhite, approached Henry about working on a book about the history of East Atlanta. We just signed a deal with the publisher to do an EA history book! Hopefully out by 2014. History Lesson – Battle of Atlanta map, Spanish Jim Brown – the father of East Atlanta. Sold the property for the monument to the soldiers originally. It was then deeded to General Sherman. It is deeded to him to this day (or his heirs). If any of you have pictures of your house back in the day from previous owners or research you’ve done, please let Henry know. Community Association appoints a representative to the Porch Press. The nomination tonight would be for two years. Marc Takacs is moving off the PP Board. We ask the neighborhood to nominate two peoples. The two people are Howard Fore and Kurt Henderson. In favor: All.
Next, we need to vote on EACA’s secretary. We now have Andrew Levine who will take over the Secretary position. Kevin nominated Andrew. All in favor: All.
Are there any questions about the minutes? No. Make a motion to approve the minutes as written. Minutes approved by all.