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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-10-18 INC Minutes THE INTER-NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL (INC) MEETING OF BOZEMAN, MONTANA APPROVED MEETING MINUTES Thursday, May 10, 2018 Attending: Jennifer Rockne (SCAN), Ginny Cowan (BCNA), Gail MacMillan (BPNA), Suzanne Held (NENA), Joe Genovese (NHVN), Gail MacMillan (BPNA), Maddy Weisz (VUNA), Jono McKinney (MarLin), Bob Wall (SENA) QUORUM Present Tanya Andreasen (Neighborhood Coordinator) Commissioner Terry Cunningham Matt Madsen, City Affordable Housing Program Manager Chris Nixon, Sacajawea Audubon EJ Porth, GVLT Chuck Winn, Asst. City Manager Officer Andy Knight, Bozeman Police Dept. 4:30 Jennifer convened the meeting Commission room in City Hall Public comment: April Craighead (Craighead Institute). Working on project, trying to get input from business owners and homeowners. Trying to get murals painted representing endangered species in Montana. Based on work by Audobon New York (or Google “bird murals”). Institute raised some money via Give Big to purchase supplies for one or two murals. MT has 12 threatened/endangered species currently (3 mammals, 3 birds, 3 fish, 3 plants). Handed out info, including contact info. Suzanne suggested sharing info on NextDoor. Reviewed Apr. retreat minutes (seconds?). Gail moved to approve the minutes. Ginny se- conded. Motion passed unanimously. 4:35 Matt Madsen Matt working with Tanya to draft some questions for a survey around affordable housing. Looking for consensus on what affordable housing is, what are some ideas. Proposing a meeting with INC members on Tues. May 22 – brown bag lunch from noon – 1:30, or later happy hour time meeting from 4 – 5:30 at Urban Kitchen. 4:42 Chris Nixon Problem with burdock growing throughout city. Seed heads can catch birds. Need to dig entire plant out. Don’t try to compost seed heads. Can compost the rest of the plant. Inviting people to try to cut plants out of yards, alleys. Can send out an electronic brochure. Also have a brochure encouraging planting of native species. 4:55 E.J. Porth, Gallatin Valley Land Trust Talked about open lands initiative that will be on the ballot. 4.5 mills to restore funding to Open Lands Program. $20M levy, over 15 years. .5 mills will go to the regional park. Will be on June 5 ballot. Program previously funded by two $10M bonds. Every county dollar has been matched by $5 from other programs and donors. At lot comes from NRCS. Money is allocated by volunteer citizen board. Around 25% of past funds went to projects to buy parks, access. Easements have not required access – concentrating on development rights. This is a levy rather than a bond, so there is no overhead / interest. Will generate a little over $1M / year. Tanya asked what some of the perspectives of people that are not in favor of the initia- tive. Some people feel that accumulation of property taxes is adding up. Some people expect to have access to land, and buying the access easements would cost more. Easements are adopted to individual landowners, trying to build an agreement that will work into the future and provide some flexibility. A lot of landowners donate at least part of the easement – get some tax break. Some people have conveyed some confusion about the difference between this and the City’s parks and open space bond. There was some disagreement about how the money from the City bond was spent. The board is appointed by the County – people can submit applications to serve on the board. There may be two vacancies on the board currently. 5:15 Neighborhood updates NENA meeting – 70 people attended. Amy Hoitsma elected president. Subcommittees being formed – Vision NorthEast moving into NENA, working to com- municate with developers prior to planning stage of projects. Terry Cunningham attend- ed. BPNA – nothing happening organizationally recently. A lot of building projects. One of officers moving. VUNA – meeting next week, May 15. Maddy stepping down as INC rep, but she is hop- ing to remain on steering committee. Tanya helped put together a good agenda. NHVN – met last night. 30 people turned out. Terry Cunningham attended. SENA – no meeting scheduled yet. SCAN – annual meeting recently. Main topics about ADUs, short term rentals, Chris Mehl talked about growth. Elected some new steering committee members, including Carson Taylor. MarLin – quiet lately. Watching the Heebs project. Successful neighborhood cleanup BCNA – met last week. 30 or so attended. Terry Cunningham attended, talked about Ka- gy project. Another presenter talked about health of Bozeman Creek, e. coli problem. A neighbor wanted to work on a neighborhood Halloween event. April retreat – consensus was that it was a good event, was beneficial to get the steering committees involved too. Tanya working to summarize her role, notes from the meeting. Possibly spend part of the time on general discussion, but hopefully spend some time fo- cusing on one or two of the themes that were identified from the first meeting. 5:32 Working Groups No updates from noise ordinance group, landlord outreach group. Ginny and Amanda did a lot of work on brochures. Tanya is working to get the brochures mocked up – meeting with designer this coming Friday. City Finance Office has worked with a design firm to develop a welcome to Bozeman brochure – Tanya will review and see how that might affect the neighborhood-specific brochure. 5:35 Terry’s FYI Thanked neighborhoods for allowing him to participate in their meetings. Each one was a somewhat different focus. Affordable housing, initial budget presentation scheduled for May 14. Each week, the Commission will be working on pieces of the budget. Discussion about the Public Safety Center initiative and decision by the City. Current Law & Justice Center has outlived its useful life. Cost of rehabilitating would be more than building new buildings. Commission decided to put on the ballot an initiative to build a Public Safety Facility on Rouse. Would move police dept. and city courts there. Could also move one of the fire stations to this site and expand it or build a fourth station. Relocate the one on Rouse and also move the one on 19th south. This would be around $38 million. (It would cost more, but would sell existing fire sta- tion) Discussed perception of inability of county and city commissions to cooperate. 5:35 Tanya’s FYI Next month – election of officers for the coming year, annual reports due. Tanya will change format a little, to try to evaluate the impact of neighborhoods. Request for volunteers – 4 people for 2 two-hour shifts to attend Bogert Farmer’s Market on Tue., July 10. Help explain neighborhood associations, INC. Web site development underway – NENA and SCAN leading the way. Technical group assembling to work on it. Trying to rekindle a Welcome Back Bobcat initiative in neighborhoods. Tanya should have materials and menu of options in July to take back to neighborhoods. NCOD and Community Plan will be reviewed this summer, and neighborhoods will be invited to participate. Next meeting June 14. 6:00 No objections – meeting adjourned. Minutes recorded by Bob Wall.