The meeting was convened at 7:07 p.m.
Members Present: Jim Barfoot, Grant Dulgarian, Anneliese Greenier, Vishal Jain, Kerry Kohring, Dan McClellan, Michael McGlynn, Britt Page, Sheila Perlow, Joan Retsinas, Thomas Schmeling, Dean Weinberg.
Members Absent: Sierra Barter, Chris Bull, Daren Bulley, Lee Pichette, Mary Ann Rossoni, Peter Sandby-Thomas, Sharon Lee Waldman.
Guests: David Kolsky, Aaron Regunberg, Marcus Mitchell.
Minutes. Joan moved and Sheila seconded approval of the minutes. Attendance was corrected. All were in favor.
Treasurer’s report. Anneliese delivered the treasurer’s report. She has served as treasurer for a year but is stepping down. She will do one more report but we need to replace her after that. Vishal Jain has expressed his willingness to serve as acting treasurer until a new one is elected at he annual meeting. Sheila moved and Jim seconded to accept the report. Unanimously approved.
Advisory Board Task Force. Dean asks that we think of names of people who would be good additions to the board. Please send them to Dean.
Summit Ave Park Project Dean reports that there are no specific updates on this. Ground-breaking was supposed to be this spring. Bob McMahon’s retirement will likely make this go less smoothly. We received a Senate grant that we gave to Providence Parks Dept. for this project, but the slowdown has meant we have not been able to report to the state on expenses. Dean has been in contact with the Senate about this.
Snowplowing. Grant expressed displeasure with the plowing that the city did this winter. He would like us to inquire about procedures. David suggested inviting city officials to his meeting at Books on the Square. Michael suggested that fall would be better timing, since this winter is over, and this was agreed to by most.
Crime Watch (Kerry) a meeting was help today at Miriam Hospital. 9 or 10 people attended. The purpose was to determine whether there was interest and whether people wanted to be block captains. We have a crime watch but not enough people to be block captains. Several people noted that this has come around several times without getting a permanent crime watch established. A burst of crime is followed by a burst of enthusiasm, but the latter fades each time.
Committee Reports:
Zoning – (Grant) Grant has questions about the way restaurants are treated in the ordinance. He would like us to write a statement to the zoning commission regarding this. It was suggested that Grant draft such a statement and bring it to the Board.
Membership. (Michael) The membership committee has applied for a state Senate grant but has not heard back. This is possibly due to our lack of report on last year’s grant (See above). Dean will investigate.
Events. (Dean) The Music Festival is off to an early start this year. Rebirth Brass band from New Orleans is holding the date of Aug. 15th. We still need to raise the money. Dean has approached old sponsors and new. We will require $14,000 for entire festival. We have $4,000 to date. Dean asks Board members to provide names of potential sponsors. HSMA would like us to repeat the open mic at our booth at their spring festival. This has no cost to SNA.
Newsletter (Kerry) We have a target date of June for the next newsletter. It would be good if we were able to announce the bands for music festival and get a date for yard sale by that time.
Annual meeting. Planning committee is Sierra and Kerry. Sheila also volunteers to help. The Nominating committee is Tom, Anneleise, & Britt.
Shoveling. We had six volunteers this year and three regular shovelees. Volunteers were assigned to homeowners in two week shifts. Some additional requests popped up during big storm. The brigade handled those as best they could.
Bob McMahon retirement. Kerry delivered a gift basket of RI items from Stock on Hope. Bob was appreciative.
Summit and Mt. Hope Neighborhood. The city planning department has invited residents to a meeting at MLK school at 6:30 April 9th to discuss neighborhood priorities.
Dean invited wide-ranging discussion about SNA community. Education emerged as one topic on which Summit and Mt. Hope could work together. This discussion will continue at future meetings.
Tom moved to adjourn. There were several seconds. Meeting adjourned 9pm.
Respectfully submitted, Thomas Schmeling SNA Secretary
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