Carbondale Reporter

The Carbondale Study Circles Neighborhood Action Group met April 6.

The Carbondale Study Circles Neighborhood Action Group meets regularly at City Hall, 200 S. Illinois Ave.

Here are the meeting minutes as provided by Carbondale:

Meeting Minutes of Study Circles - Neighborhood Action Group, April 6

Attending: Clara McClure, Mary O’Hara, Kathy Benedict, Mary Campbell, Sarah Heyer, Stephen Phillips, 

Announcements

April 15 – 7-9 at Civic Center, Founder’s Day Reception by Carbondale Preservation Commission

April 16 - 9-Noon, Carbondale Spring Clean-up and Recycling Day Starts at Turley Park;

April 21, 6-8 pm, Civic Center, Public Forum on Violence in Carbondale to Address the question - What can we do as a community to make Carbondale safer and more welcoming for everyone? (Will use moderator with 3 minutes for each speaker, comments written on Newprint and then voted on by individuals);

New app for city of Carbondale through Click fix - Easy way to report issues and see follow-up. Lots more uses. Check it out http://en.seeclickfix.com/carbondale;

On-line Survey on Thompson Woods sent out by Sarah

Reports

1. Map Your Neighborhood – Mary O will explore connecting MAP with City Police and Fire Outreach – did not get to

2. 505 W. Main—Fraternity/Sorority Houses Special Use Permit – Talked with Planning Staff. There is no special use permit request for this property as of this date. If someone does file for a permit, it will have to go to the Planning Commission. There will be Neighborhood Notification. It is only variances that go straight to Council. The owner will not apply for a permit and has told the sorority to apply if it wants one. I asked if non-owners could do this and apparently they can with the owner’s consent. Concerns about the parking issue exist. So the property will still exist as rooming house with renters. This is a mixed bag situation in my mind as it sounds like the neighborhood will still have the same problems but with no regulation. I asked Stephen Phillips about Neighborhoods applying for areas where parking permits are required. His response is “Yes”. This already exists. “Yes, please refer to City ordinance 18-12-13: Residential Parking Permit Area http://www.sterlingcodifiers.com/codebook/index.php?book_id=470 If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. “- Stephen Phillips

3. Evaluation of March 31st Session work with City of Carbondale Planning Dept, Local realtors on programming for home ownership literacy. We had around 35 people total at the home buying seminar: 25 seminar attendees /10 support people: NAG, 3-4 realtors, 2 lenders, insurance (Navreet) and western egyptian counseling.

Where they heard about the event:

Facebook - 1

Jackson county homes magazine - 2

Newspaper - 10

Radio - 2;-up

Alliance meeting - 1

Referral (realtor or friend) - 2

Flyer at the library - 2

Email or website - 5

Follow up suggestions: Personal contact with participants. Contact potential buyers who attended ask What do they think their next step is? What help might they need with this? Weekend open house with realtors? Reconnecting potential homebuyers to realtors; Are there generational, Technological, cultural gaps between sales force and potential buyers? Need to get information we are gathering at each meeting into a “White Paper”

4. April 21, 6-8 pm, Civic Center, Public Forum on Violence in Carbondale to Address the question - What can we do as a community to make Carbondale safer and more welcoming for Everyone? (will use moderator with 3 min for each speaker, comments written on news print and then voted on by individuals) – Discussion of what ideas we as group would like to bring up at meeting - People at the meeting want to understand from perpetrators perspective “why? What Happened”. They would also like perpetrators how the violence is impacting them. When appropriate, the group would like to add exploring restorative justice approaches to issues impeding Carbondale’s image. Secondly, we discussed needing a reexamination of nuisance ordinances as there are properties in Carbondale that generate higher than normal calls for city services and are regularly late in paying fines and fees adding extra costs and staff time to the Cities budget. These properties are a part of neighborhood deterioration.

5. City Budget - Mary reported on discussion with City Clerk on Budget process we will continue this discussion at later meeting. Draft letter to Council can still be written with suggestions and Mary will see about doing this.

6. Short discussion of panhandling in Carbondale - ideas ranged from need for more people to occupy public spaces downtown to more restrictions