Sustainable Crown Hill Minutes
July 29, 2007

A great turnout! I counted 17 adults, though there could have been a few others outside with kids. I didn’t count the kids but there must have been 8 or so. Also, Dennis reports that 40% of the people attending on Sunday were not present at the first meeting. This is good.

DISCUSSION
BRINGING PEOPLE AND PROJECTS INTO THE STREET
- bringing people out of their houses and cars and into the streets. People got inspired by the Crown Hill Garage Sale event which created a sense of community and actually slowed traffic because there were so many people walking on the streets.

- use street art and City Repair type projects as a way to connect with neighbors, build community, slow traffic and create community.

- Bert reported that even though the School District has surplussed the Crown Hill Elementary School, the park surrounding the school may not be utilized by the community until it is sold which will probably take 3-5 yrs. Bert’s suggestion is that we organize street projects around the park now, which would bring energy and focus to the site, thereby providing momentum and visibility to the community’s interest in the site.

- Michael shared that 3 grants @ $10,000 each have been secured that are to be used to calm traffic…speed bumps, traffic circles etc., in and around 12th and 95th. At least one of these was secured by Crown Hill Neighbors.

- apply to have SEA Streets installed throughout Crown Hill. Could we apply for matching grant from Dept of Neighborhoods? ….the City provides the materials and Crown Hill neighbors do the labor?

- Cinny presented the completed document, “The Greening of Crown Hill” which was funded by, I think, a Dept. of Neighborhoods grant, which she made available for people to look at. It is full of ideas that could be implemented.

NEXT STEPS
Greg summarized and identified 3 themes that keep emerging in our discussions and brainstormed list. These 3 areas of interest were quickly adopted by the group as our first areas of focus. They are:
FOOD: farmers market, garden share, worm share, urban farming, p-patch
STREETS: street art (City Repair), traffic calming projects, creating community via street projects, creating a walking community,
creating a community identity, creating our own “grafitti” that beautifies, creates community, and provides a stamp of identity
BARN-BUILDING: tool share, neighbors watching out for neighbors, learning skills from each other

VISION: We need to clearly articulate the purpose, scope and mission of Sustainable Crown Hill. How do our activities support sustainability? Then, of course, we talked about definitions of sustainability. One measure is that the activity must benefit the environment, the economy, and the community–all three. Mark’s vision of a sustainable Crown Hill is that everything we need is found within the community with a big emphasis on neighbors helping neighbors. There were other good ideas shared as well.

COLLABORATION: It was agreed that it will be very important for us to work closely and collaboratively with Crown Hill Neighbors, our umbrella organization, and Crown Hill Business Assn to ensure that we are not at cross purposes with each other, that we not duplicate
efforts, etc. But more important, we are each others greatest allies and together we have everything to gain and nothing to lose. It was agreed that Molly, Crown Hill Neighbors president, should be invited to our next meeting, which will be about visioning for Sustainable
Crown Hill and helping us make distinctions between Sustainable CH and CH Neighbors, but also to identify where we overlap and how we can help each other.

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