Meeting Minutes, November 4, 2015

Preservation Station, Bonnie Anderson, presiding. Start time 6:30 pm

Board Member Attendance:

Term ending August 2016		Term ending August 2017
Anderson, Bonnie	x	Leverick, Pam	x
Boyd, Joe		Carson, Ann	x
Ben Sturge	x	Grassel, Kathy	x
Gonzalez, Moisés		McGivern, Elaine	x
Grant, Steve		Fink, Zoey	x
Spittler, Lee	x	Thornton, Karla
		Trefethen, Salley	x

High points of the October meeting were read.

Tonight’s meeting welcomed many visitors and invited guests.

New Board Member

The board met and welcomed Pam Leverick as a new board member, replacing Mary Karafonda, who moved out-of-state to care for family members. Pam and her husband own three properties in Huning Highlands.

Fire Station #2

Patrick McKinney attended the meeting to announce the success of Random Acts in acquiring the fire station, which has stood empty for many months. Random Acts will be transformed into temporary housing for families of fire fighters. There are still some minor zoning hurdles to overcome.

Crime Report

Scott Seibel reported the crime activity in Huning Highland for the month of October, which included one auto theft, one auto burglary, one residential burglary, two vandalisms, two theft/larcenies, and one drug charge. Mr. Seibel regarded this as a quiet month in the neighborhood.

Dickens of a Dinner

For those attending the meeting for the first time, Ann Carson gave a short history of Dickens’ 27 years as Huning Highlands’ premiere event. She was also still seeking some last-minute volunteers for the many tasks to make Dickens of a Dinner a smashing success.

New Theatre

After many months of restoration and revitalization work, owners of the building at Lead and Broadway are about to open a new theater at the location. Grand opening is scheduled for the beginning of 2016.

Lead/Coal Update

The focus of the neighborhood meeting centered around what the neighborhood can do to slow down traffic on Lead and Coal. Councilor Isaac Benton attended and gave a brief history of the effort over the past 10 years to improve these previous two-way streets through many neighborhoods between Downtown and Highland High School. Despite a huge stimulus project that funded the redesign and landscaping of these two streets between I-25 and Washington, plus sustained advocacy by Councilor Benton and Huning Highland residents, our neighborhood was left out of the big project except for reducing Lead and Coal from three lanes to two. Later, with Councilor Benton’s help, some bulbouts were constructed and landscaping put in along both streets. Now we are again discussing options for slowing down traffic, such as turning the streets back to two ways, narrowing the lanes, reducing speed limits, adding stop lights, creating signalized crosswalks, increasing enforcement against speeding, and combinations of these options. Neighbors expressed passionate feelings about the advantages and disadvantages of various options. At the end of the meeting, the Board voted to ask Councilor Benton to follow Jeff Speck’s recommendation for slowing traffic on Lead/Coal in our neighborhood. This is the “Downtown Walkability Study” already adopted by the City. The part that applies to us reads, “While studying a two-way reversion, restripe Lead and Coal Avenues from Broadway to I-25 to include two 11-foot driving lanes, a 6-foot bike lane, and a 4-foot striped buffer in between.”  Discussion of this topic will continue at the December 2 neighborhood meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 7:45. Next meeting is Wed., Dec. 2, 2015.