Dickens of a Dinner

Ann Carson gave a rundown of the Dickens schedule, the order of houses, and the volunteers serving at each house.

Lead/Coal Update

Lead got new striping, configured in such a way as to give the impression of narrower lanes. Councilor Benton’s staff (Tom) will be meeting about Coal in the coming days. The Board discussed the merits of signalized crosswalks at Edith and Walter. Bonnie will find out what they look like.

 

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

Election Results

The August election returned all board members on the ballot. Zoey Fink is back from study abroad, so will resume her position on the board. Officers elected were Bonnie Anderson, President; Moisés Gonzalez, VP; Joe Boyd, Secretary; and Ann Carson, Treasurer.

First Presbyterian Anniversary

Ron Halbgewachs invited all to an upcoming celebration on Sat., Sept. 26, for the First Presbyterian Church’s 60 years at its Copper location. The event will have classic cars, a saxophone quartet, an organ demonstration, food, crafts, book sale, and historic displays from the archives.

Crime Report

Retired Officer Seibel, now Crime Prevention Specialist, reported counterfeit money making the rounds in Huning Highlands and warned all to

Since our last annual meeting/block party on August 17, 2014, the Board has worked on the following major activities:

1. Ongoing input to the government (city, county, etc.) regarding the impact of various development projects on the neighborhood (Highland Park renovation; development of the block bounded by Arno, Gold, Broadway, and Central; Lead/Coal issues; Walkable Cities and Complete Streets projects; Albuquerque

316 Central—Solve Maxwell wishes to open a business at 316 Central that serves coffee and specialty drinks in the morning and craft beer and counter food in the evening. Solve brought his concerns before the board that Zoning is interpreting the HH Sector Development Plan Section 1A, Item #3 in such a way as to require a restaurant license before he can open his taproom business. The Item reads, under Permissive Uses: “Restaurant with full-service liquor for on-premise consumption, including microbrewery.”  Elaine McGivern has researc

412 Lead SE (between Edith and Arno)—Jonathan and Angela Murray, who live at Huning Gardens condos at Lead and High SE, wish to build a house on the vacant lot at 412 Lead SE, and had requested to pass their ideas through the neighborhood association before they submitted plans for the June LUCC review. Bonnie, Ann, and Kathy held a preliminary meeting with them and their builder Sean Gilligan last week. The house will be contemporary, and Ann had some suggestions to make it more complementary to historic Huning Highlands. An

Crime Report—Citizen Seibel reported that he talked to the beat officer and added patrols in response to a neighbor’s complaints at the last board meeting of crime, transients, and trash. He also said the department has a new computer that allows him to do more with crime stats analysis. Ron asked the police why the bicycle patrol was being eliminated. Mr. Seibel said the department needs to put officers in cars to cover more ground, but the bicycle patrol will continue until June next year.

Reconsideration of funding for Easter Egg Hunt—Annabelle Candelaria stepped up to take charge of the 20^th annua

Police—Civilian Siebel told the board the neighborhood has done a good job of reporting suspicious activity. The good: There was only one residential burglary since Jan 1. The bad: Auto burglary is up, as well as DUIs. The ugly: Much vandalism and graffiti. A neighbor wanted to know if the police would deal with homeless people in her alley who she has been cleaning up after. Cmdr. Donovan replied that no laws are broken just hanging out, but that they would try to patrol the street more often and that she could contact Safe City Strike Force or 311 if the problem continues.

Tree project—Charge of the project has changed departments yet again, this time under Municipal Development. Planting, scheduled

Police Relations—Lt Sanchez and Valley Area Commander Donovan asked for a neighborhood-association volunteer to help reinvigorate a program called Coffee with a Cop. It’s part of a drive through Citizen Policing Council to reframe and improve citizen attitudes about police. Volunteers are required to pass a background check. Ron, attending from the Presbyterian Church and Nob Hill NA, described his positive experience with the group, meeting once a month at the Caesar Chavez Community Center. He is the VP of the Nob Hill Neighborhood Assocation. Interested parties can call Celine Espinoza at 761-8800, or email her at cespinoza@cabq.gov

Lead/Coal traffic as part of Downtown Walkability—Bonnie reported that Councilor Benton has added into the Plan to move the lanes closer to parking and have the other side serve as a buffer between the bike lane, supposedly safer for bikes and resulting in traffic calming by narrowing the lanes. Sam Kochansky offered that the idea doesn’t make sen

Dickens of a Dinner—Ann Carson reported the Dickens dinner was a big success and made $2,500, not including the cost of house plaques ($250) for the featured houses. First- and second- and third-place winners of the lighting contest were Lee and Penny Spittler, Dave and Audra Carrillo, and Annabelle and Josie Candelaria.

Tree Project—The deadline for signing up for a tree is past, and the number of respondents has been deemed satisfactory, thanks to the outreach efforts of Amy and Ben, Mary, Fernando, and Salley. David Day and Fernando were on hand to report progress thus far. The grant of $50,000 will go to the company contracted by the City. Planting

Dickens of a Dinner—Ann reported a surplus of volunteers for Dickens this year.

Email notices of miscellaneous neighborhood and City goings-on—Bonnie agreed to collate said notices and proposed that once a month she send them to the board.

Crime report—Officer Seidel reported a big jump in auto burglary in our neighborhood, from two in October to seven in November. He advised to take valuables out of the car and put anything tempting, such as loose change, out of sight, and above all to lock up. He said 70 percent of all burglaries happened to unlocked cars.

Tree project—The City will contract out the work of planting; it’s up to the neighborhood to submit signed agreements from property own

Filling Board vacancies—It was unanimously agreed that Sam Kochansky will fill Greg and Joni Neutra’s position and that Ben Sturge will fill that held by Jackie Smee.

Update on Dickens—Ann Carson let us know she succeeded in getting the required number of houses for the annual Dickens event. She passed around a volunteer sheet and “ordered” us all to sign up. We complied.

Review of July support letter for BRT—Bonnie Anderson re-read the letter she wrote in July on behalf of the board to Mayor Berry in support of Option