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CAN Board of Directors Meeting Minutes September 24, 2020
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Minutes of CAN Board of Directors Meeting

September 24, 2020 12pm-2.00pm

Virtual G Suites meeting

Present: Executive Committee and Board (17)

Executive Committee                                        

Rick Freeman - Kenilworth Forest - President

Patrick Gilbert - Hawcreek -Vice President 1

Sophie Mullinax - West Asheville-Vice President 2

Joe Fioccola - WECAN-Treasurer

Helen Hyatt-SFB-Secretary

Board Members- representing

Alan Escovitz - Grove Park Sunset

Barber Melton - Hawcreek

Thomas Foran - DARN

Byron Ballard- Wecan

Cheryl Jones - Oakley

Joel Atyas-Oakhurst

        

Members of the Public : Resident of-

Grace Curry-Grove Park Sunset

Norma Baines - Shiloh

Mike Lewis-Gracelyn Street

Rich Lee - Candidate for City Council

Special Guests:

Todd Okolichany and Shannon Tuch Planning Department

1. Welcome - Rick Freeman

This is a Board of Directors Meeting which operates on Roberts Rules ,we invite people to speak but attendees need to wait for BOD  invitation. There will be general comments time at the end of the meeting. The Chat window is open for ‘chat’ options.

The Coalition of Asheville Neighborhoods (CAN) is a 501(c)3 organization that:

2. August Minutes

Helen Hyatt - Secretary requested a Motion to accept the August Minutes as written.

Thomas Foran made the motion Joel Atyas 2nd, there was no discussion and all voted in approval. Minutes are approved.

3. Treasurer Report

Joe  Fioccola reported -

PNC Bank account has Available balance $2504.52

No withdrawals

No deposits

PayPal Balance $1121.31

Transactions since July 17 2020

Recurring payment from Kamibashi $5

Recurring payment from David Rodgers $25

Recurring payment from Kamibashi $5

Recurring payment from David Rodgers $25

PNC advised the fraud case has not been resolved. Result expected by November 15.

Joe put out a call requesting information on 2003 to 2006 financial records which are missing, if anyone has these please can you send them to Joe so he can complete the full CAN records.

4.  Local Candidate Forum-

Helen Hyatt - reported

CAN has moved forward with our Candidate forum for the upcoming elections for City Council. 3 seats are on the ballot.

All 5 candidates have agreed to attend the forum. Date is set for October lst Thursday from 7pm to 8.30pm. Virtual meeting.

CAN reached out to our membership for questions. These were submitted and the Candidate Forum Committee reviewed the questions and consolidated them into 4 main categories.  The questions that did not fit into the categories were listed as other.

We are sending all the questions to the candidates before the forum for written answers, during the forum we will be asking the top 4 questions.

The Forum details and questions are listed below.

Asheville City Council Candidate Forum

October lst 2020, 7pm to 8pm

Virtual Meeting

Rick Freeman presiding-

Candidates committed to attending: 5 candidates 3 minutes per 4 questions

All questions to be submitted to candidates before the forum.

Only top 4 will be asked during the session, but CAN would like written answers to the other questions.

Rich Lee

Kim Roney

Sandra Kilgore

Sage Turner

Keith Young

Questions submitted by Asheville Neighborhoods and consolidated by a working group.

  1. Neighborhoods: What are your thoughts on protecting existing neighborhoods from development encroachment, ensuring infrastructure improvements, and short term rentals?
  2. Development: What action will you take regarding developers who ignore current ordinances regarding protection of steep slopes? What are your thoughts on allowing residents to split lots for infill developments?
  3. Public Input: In recent years, city government seems to be heading toward reducing the role of citizens and neighborhood associations in planning, policy making and development decisions. If elected, how would you improve citizen input, and specifically, where do you stand on requiring City Council hearings and approval on future hotel projects?
  4. Policing: Given the events that followed the killing of George Floyd and subsequent nationwide protests, what are your thoughts on Police Reform, with a focus on race relations and reparations?

  1. Environmental:What is your position on funding an Urban Forester and Urban Forest Master Plan for Asheville to implement the zero net loss tree canopy policy? What ideas and specific actions do you have for reducing carbon emissions for both the city and residents?
  2. General:
  1. What policies would you implement to ensure a multimodal city?
  2. What ideas do you have to bring the community together?
  3. What are your thoughts and ideas on keeping housing affordable in Asheville?
  4. COVID fall out on the city budget, which departments/services will be cut or reduced?
  5. Generational wealth building within the African American community?

Questions are no longer being taken and Sophie will send these questions to the candidates.

There will be half an hour at the end to take other questions during the forum.

We thank the candidates for being willing to participate in this forum.

Rick requested that all Board Members distribute this document to their respective neighborhoods. The limit on the google view will be 100 people.

5. City Council meeting 

Rick Freeman reported -

The last Council meeting was 4hrs 43 minutes. Many people watched it. Do the Board members have any comments or want any action items to be taken? City was In discussion with Eugene Oregon to get ideas on police reform. How can departments be streamlined so the Police do not have to take care of all the social issues. The budget change amendments disappointed both sides of the argument, so it was probably the right thing to do. This is an enormous task, and will take time. People did remain civil in the comments which was a good thing. The new ranger position being proposed for Pritchard park will be reporting to the Parks Dept so will have very little effect and power. The DAs office will not take any action on people abusing the park. This does not seem like a good idea at this point.

This will be a standing topic in our CAN meetings, since CAN meetings follow City Council meetings.

6. Public Relations -

Sophie Mullinax-reported

Initial Goals:

Form a committee 4 to 6 members

Eileen Comeferd has agreed to join.

Looking for other Board members to join this

Skills and attributes needed:

  1. superior written communication
  2. experience with social media page management
  3. experience with working with diverse audiences
  4. Establish  a CAN facebook presence
  5. establish presence on next door
  6. coordinate with government relations committee a need to ensure streamlined messaging with and from CAN

Longer term

New CAN website on Wordpress platform - make it a little less dated and will be much easier to manage and edit in-house

possibly revive member newsletter

Alan suggested we use the various members who are Nextdoor members to spread the information in their area. If CAN cannot get a city wide membership.

Please distribute the needs of Sophie's requests to your neighborhoods and see if we can get a very dynamic team together to help Sophie promote CAN.

Sophie has taken part in the GR committee and Patrick will participate in the PR committee so that they can be coordinated.

7. Special Guests Todd Okolichany  ity Director of Urban and Design and Shannon Tuch Principal Planner Government Relations committee

Patrick Gilbert - thanks to our special to our guests. Planning would be willing to enter a dialog with CAN with the hopes of improving citizen input. Shannon will also be willing to speak with us. We have a list of priorities that GR committee is going to work on. Listed below:

Priorities and Recommendations

PRIORITIES

In terms of committee work and resources, the committee has made the following priorities based on

an assessment of how it affects neighborhoods:

RECOMMENDATIONS

Todd - During the collation of materials for Living Asheville and Plans on a Page there was good collaboration with CAN and the City and the City wants to reconnect and reopen communications that have slipped.

One example is Hotel regulations - there has been an extension of the moratorium to  February to allow the city  to get more feedback and be able to draft regulations for new hotel development.

 If there is a major initiative from the city that will affect neighbors the city will collaborate with CAN. They will provide background with how a project might align with council goals. Allow city staff to provide input and to receive feedback.

Allan - City of Charleston hotel moratorium was shared with council for ideas on how to move forward. Question - how many hotels have been approved but not been built.

Todd - since 2015 approved 2700 rooms and half have been built, so at least 1,400 have not been constructed yet. City of Charleston's rules were looked at and many were implemented. Hotel overlay district. We are trying to restrict where large and small hotels can be built. Scaling back large hotels from residential neighborhoods. Scaled back like in the South slope area is very limited. No hotels in the traditional historic area, trying to put them on main corridors next to highways. Allan requests that Todd follow up and and advise exactly how many new hotel buildings are still coming to the city. 80 to 100 rooms go to a hotel. Todd promised he would advise.

Joel - what form of continuous feed exists with neighborhoods, some were brought forward were experienced on one development but the same things happened on the 2nd development in the Oakhurst area. Todd - When projects come through we try to add it to the list of code changes that we would like to change with new developments. We were going to get a budget to over see code UDO but after COVID this has been put on the back burner, and so this will not happen in the near future.  There is still a long back log of changes the city would like to make but they will take a while. We are trying to improve the feedback list. Please sign up to Simplicity 2, development notification tool.

Shannon - need to improve communication on ongoing things, but there are many different bosses that the department reports to and making everyone happy is difficult. At the end of the day a decision has to be made on all projects and usually it will not please everyone. Things get added and focus gets slim, but they would like to be more strategic and more communication and  CAN plays into this.

Patrick - stated he has always had good responses from the department on questions. Regarding neighborhood coordination - priority for CAN which was made clear to Patrick with the Haw Creek elementary school developers. Buncombe county met with people within 200 feet but the proposal was not adequately explained, and when the full extent was it created a big uproar in the community, and this needs to be improved.

Helen - How can Simplicity continue to keep neighborhoods updated on changes to large projects. For example 172 Asheland project changed significantly from what was originally proposed.  Todd will see if the program can be improved.

Mike - The 200 ft radius of notification should be enlarged as it affects way more than that area. Infrastructure and other things need to be taken into account.

Cheryl - more people are profoundly affected beyond the 200 ft notification.

Rick - the city has gone to a lot of trouble to get neighborhood boundaries and plans on page done. So the residents are expecting to be included in governing.

Todd - Brenda will be getting some additional staff to help with neighborhood communications within the new budget.

Rick in closing - Thank you to Todd and Shannon for attending our meeting and we appreciate your willingness to work with CAN.

8. Budget for CAN for 2021.

Rick - we had promised the Board some written clarification on donations vs dues. EC board met but couldn't come up with a plan without knowing expenses. We needed a budget. So the Board needs to come up with a budget so we can work out what the dues are.

Joe created a DRAFT to start the conversation off.

COALITION OF ASHEVILLE NEIGHBORHOODS BUDGET

***********************DRAFT*********************

EXPENSES YEAR 2021

Advertising

Banner

Billboard

Newsletter

Envelopes

Printing

Stamps

Photography

Video

Business

Bank Charges.......................$ 10.00

Board Insurance................... $475.00

Labor/Wages/Taxes

Legal/ Professional Fees

Office Rent

Phone

PO Box Rent ......................$ 135.00

PO Permit

Website Host

Website Maintenance.............$ 125.00

Events

Refreshments

Space Rent

Speaker Fee

Fundraising

T-shirts printing

Other

TOTAL________________________________$745.00

INCOME YEAR 2021

Advertising

Donations

Dues

Board Member................... $350.00

Individual.......................... $ 35.00

Supporter

Event Registration

Fundraisers

Grants

PayPal.......................................$360.00

T-shirt Sales

Other

TOTAL________________________________$745.00

What are the spending ideas from CAN Leadership?

Allan - does CAN want to do a Congress next year if COVID passes. Rick thinks we should plan for it and build a budget around it. 2nd half of 2021 we should plan for face to face meetings, so we might have to pay for a meeting place. Oakley is still available for the old spot. We are hoping for the East Asheville Library will become available.

We will be meeting virtual for another year, we might need to pay for more G suite meeting capability and paying for the service so we can have more people attending and more options, like the recording.

Sophie - advertising on social media to increase exposure

Possibly the website will need additional funds

Mike - can we advertise on Blue Ridge Radio. Sophie says they are too expensive. Is there any public service available on this service- Sophie will check

Cheryl - what about a billboard?

Sophie - very expensive to advertise on billboards.

Rick anything else needs to be on this budget. Please think about how we can bring the mission forward. Please send a message to the EC. Our goal is to have a budget by next year, so we can start working on fundraising.

9. NEW BUSINESS

2 hour meetings are long.

Is the board willing to meet every month and just have a one hour meeting?

Barber - is agreeable to a one hour every month

Thomas - is agreeable to one hour every month

Cheryl - is agreeable unless there is a hot subject that needs extending the time

Allen - is agreeable

Byron - agrees with Cheryl

Allan - question to everyone.

Have neighborhoods received notifications from the city on how halloween is going to be conducted this year?

The West Asheville Vermont Street event has been cancelled.

Sophie’s neighborhood is doing a modified version.

Aston Tennis Center is collecting candy for distribution to the needy neighborhoods

Shiloh wanted the kids to pick up candy at the center, but not heard anything from the City.

Patrick - we need to think about scheduling a meeting with Ben Woody regarding the Noise Ordinance.

Rick - Ben promised that CAN would get a copy of what the City attorneys changed before it goes public. We requested this would not be this month, due to activity in CAN. We will set up a meeting with Ben at this time. We trust that Ben will come through with his promise.

Meeting adjourned after 2 hours.

Will reschedule  board meetings every month for one hour.

Virtual meeting ended.