Hello North Side Alliance

Notes from Meeting 1/22/08

Hello North Side Alliance!

I hope everyone is surviving the cold. Despite the weather, we had a great, very productive meeting Tuesday night at the Fluffy Turtle. We started out the meeting recapping what we’ve accomplished in 2007. From holding five meetings, to organizing a large meeting with Streets and Sanitation, to participating in/organizing 2 neighborhood cleanup days and to learning a great deal about vacant buildings in the neighborhood and getting started on what we can do to get them cleaned up, we have managed to begin a strong process of community change. For all that couldn’t come last night, give yourselves a round of applause.

Maggie mentioned two ongoing projects to invite everyone else to participate. We learned that the Aldermen are currently in the process of submitting their Aldermanic Menu, which is a budget for ward projects, and community groups can ask for specific funds to go to different needs. Maggie composed a letter which she will send in to the Ward office requesting funding for things like garbage cans on high-traffic areas. She will also be attending a garden club meeting to learn about how to get funding for garden projects. Contact Maggie for more info on these two projects.

Mary then reported on the meeting held in December between NSA and Edgewater Community Council to talk about the work they have done on vacant buildings. See previous emails for the full notes on this meeting.

We then decided to use a tool called a Strategy Chart to help map out what our next steps will be to address the vacant buildings. Please see the full version below. The resulting decision was that our goal is to put pressure on both the city (specifically the Police and the Department of Buildings) and the owners of the two vacant buildings identified on 6100 Washtenaw to get them in compliance with the code. The first step was getting as many letters as possible sent to these parties signed by neighbors in the area. Some people decided to canvass the area around the buildings with this purpose on a date in February to be determined. The drafted letter to the building owners is attached to this email. Please circulate! Feel free to make personal changes.

Next meeting date: February 26th.

Best wishes,
Emily

STRAGETY CHART: HOW TO SOLVE THE VACANT BUILDINGS ISSUE

GOALS:
Reduce the number of abandoned buildings in the neighborhood to as few as possible (long-term goal)
Bring the two problem buildings on 6100 Washtenaw up to code (short-term goal)
Ongoing building maintenance, safety and surveillance (mid-term)

ORGANIZATONAL CONSIDERATIONS:
We have 15-20 regular members and about 40 total
One of our members is a lawyer
We have a blog established (http://nsa50.blogspot.com/)
We have challenges to overcome:
Need more community presence
Need to improve our communication (schools/papers)
Want a more diverse membership

CONSTITUENTS, ALLIES AND OPPONENTS
Constituents
Neighborhood residents, especially the ones who live and own homes near 6100 Washtenaw
Schools, especially Clinton School
Indo American Center
Christ Church of Chicago

Allies
WRPCO
CAPS
The Fluffy Turtle, Susan and other business owners
Edgewater Community Council
Chamber of Commerce
Ald. Stone?
Streets and Sanitation
Opponents
Ald. Stone?
Building owners

TARGETS (Who can give us what we want?)
Building Owners – clean up their buildings!
Police – issue citations to owners for violations
Stone – get everyone else to do their job
Department of buildings – Inspect the buildings

TACTICS
Flyers
Inform people about what’s going on
Action steps about what to do: call 311, send a letter
Go door-to-door to pass out flyers and talk to people
Get a high volume of 311 calls in
write lots of letters to the city and building owners
copy the letters to ald. Stone and the dept. of buildings
Get the Media involved
Post the buildings on thegoodthebadtheugly of the 50th ward blog
send a mailing to surrounding residents

NEXT STEPS
Start sending letters to the building owners
Send letters to the Dept. of Buildings (Sofia will draft)
Canvass the area near the buildings in February with flyers and letters
Write and distribute a neighborhood newsletter with the information

NEXT MEETING: FEB. 26TH