June 2018 Meeting Minutes

Full Minutes Available Here

Date: 6/20/2018, 7pm Location: Asbury United Methodist Board Officers Present – Tai Pruce-Zimmerman, Ethan Clevenger, Amanda Hinkle absent – Suzanne O’Shea Board Members – Pennie Moblo, Bonnie Stone, Lin Woodrich, Doug Barr, Simon Kemp Absent: Roxanne Wilson, Alberta Cook Other’s Present – Rene Kane (City of Eugene), Cindy Koehler (City of Eugene), Jennifer and David Wade, and Leela, Janis, Matthew Puglisi

Meeting called to order by Tai at 7:06pm

Presentation from City of Eugene

Overview of what the City of Eugene has to offer for neighborhood associations. Received various handouts on the neighborhood associations, parliamentary procedure, and more. Discussed the information available on the City of Eugene website.

Discussed financials for neighborhood associations (bucket handout). Funds can be used for things such as newsletters, postcards, outreach funds, establishing website, and more. Discussed the allocation of the funds at different times during the year and how that affects the neighborhoods who are and aren’t using the funds. Briefly touched on matching grants, but Cindy would like to come back and have a separate presentation on matching grants.

Rene discussed another service that the City provides which is the geographic information systems database that can be used for finding businesses, vacant houses, and more. She also discussed the neighborhood analysis section on the City of Eugene website. Through this link, you can find information on the neighborhood such as age, sex, education, work status, crime data, rentals vs. homeowners, median income and more.

Request – Rene and Cindy would like a better description of the Bethel neighborhood to use on our portion of the City’s site. Pictures would be a plus too.

St. Vincent de Paul Youth House Discussion with Paul Neville

Discussion on the St. Vincent de Paul Youth House scheduled for the corner of Legacy continued. SVdP has already had a Girl’s House in South Eugene that they feel has been very successful. Paul discussed the need for Bethel Youth as Bethel has a very high population of homeless youth. Stated there would be an application and screening process for all youth who are a part of the program, curfew, school attendance requirement and more. Paul stated there were businesses already lined up to assist them with getting a job, counseling, and more.

The location is at the corner of Avalon and Legacy in the Bethel Neighborhood. There are .66 acres of buildable land. Unfortunately, according to SVdP, the surveyor gave misinformation to the public. As soon as SVdP was given the OK, they began contacting the neighbors in the area to inform and answer any questions. There have been two community forums so far, with a possibility of more.

Questions and Answers during the presentation –

1. How are the youth picked? The youth are picked according to which funding source SVdP receives (ie. Federal funds or private). There will be an interview / screening process and SVdP will work with other local agencies, including DHS and the school districts to assess the status of the youth. The youth will then have to agree to certain rules including a curfew, no marijuana or alcohol, visitors will be screened, education is a must.

2. Will a blank application be available for the community to see? Yes

3. Are the youth strictly from the Bethel area? No. The youth can come from all over. Transportation will be provided and all school districts are working together.

ABC is taking an official stand to simply promote information and help facilitate conversations about this project to the citizens of the Bethel Neighborhood. We are neither for or against the Youth House as an association. It was discussed to continue to allow public discussion on the ABC Facebook page. There is also an FAQ page on the svdp.us website.

Family Fun Night Review

Lin shared what a success the family fun night was and was very proud of the group for stepping up and making the night happen. Approximately 200 people were fed. There were many donations from Bethel business owners and citizens alike that supported the evening.

Ethan requested a summary of the event to share in the newsletter. Tai will provide the summary.

General Meeting

discussion on the general meeting timing. We discussed having it quarterly.

Discussion on Police Chief Skinner.

Motion – Ethan

Second – Amanda – with request that focus be on public safety

Discussion amongst board. All in favor. Rene added it might be good to tie in with ‘National Night Out’ and have guests for disaster preparedness.

Committees

Brief conversation on events committees, informal offer by Ethan to anyone willing to spearhead the general meeting. Tai will initiate general contact and then we will put a team together from there.

Proposals

Brief discussion on Board Member Doug’s Highway 99 project. Requested a formal proposal to be presented to the board.

Motion to adjourn by Ethan, second by Amanda.

Meeting adjourned at 8:34 p.m.