North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association
Word of Faith Church
May 27, 2003
7 – 9 pm

Call to Order: 7:05 pm, Alison England, President

There will be a groundbreaking ceremony for the Gardner Community Center, Wednesday, May 28^th to be held at the Gardner Academy, 502 Illinois Drive. Light refreshments will be served at 5:30 pm; the ceremony will begin at 6 pm. All community members are invited. For more information please call 277- 5255.

There is more police presence on Bird Avenue with officers writing tickets to speeding motorists. Many members expressed their delight and hope this will be a sustained effort to slow speeding cars in the area.

There was a combined executive board meeting comprised of the boards of the Greater Gardner Coalition, NWGNA, and the Gardner Advisory Council. There will be very few facilities available this summer for youths due to the renovations of Briebach Park, the Gardner Elementary school, and the Gardner Community Center. The topic of the meeting was to determine how to partner with the City to provide youth activities for the summer months. There is a concern that gangs are recruiting and that neighborhood youth could be vulnerable because there are few planned city-sponsored activities.

Alison and Ed attended the United Neighborhoods meeting and made a presentation about the Tamien Station plan. They explained that the neighborhoods must organize to stay ahead of the City planning land use process. They advocated that a planning and land use committee be formed and coordinated through United Neighborhoods so that regional issues could be coordinated neighborhood-wide. They further advocated that neighborhoods be notified when a developer makes a proposal to the planning department.

A show of hands was taken to see who might be interested in joining the land use committee. Five people present at the meeting are interested in being on this committee. The planning department is developing the material, so we would be the first group to attend. There is a need to develop a neighborhood plan for our area and we also need to understand the general plan for our area.

NWGNA will coordinate with WGNA (Willow Glen Neighborhood Association) on area land use issues. We will also coordinate with other neighborhood associations as appropriate.

The neighborhood-wide garage sale will be held on Saturday, May 31^st. There is no charge to participate. There is a detailed message on the association’s voicemail and on the website. Leaflets have been hand-distributed to homes in the neighborhood association boundaries. Advertisements have been placed in the SJ Mercury News and the Willow Glen Resident. Sandy Kasik, a residential real estate agent, will allow the use of her sandwich signs. We can cover these signs with directional arrows and information and place them around the neighborhood.

Dan Erceg made a request for a dozen helium balloons to tie on these signs.

Those participating in the sale are requested to download and print out copies of the addresses of those who are participating in the garage sale. Please give these copies to those who are buying items.

We are attempting to raise $1,000 for the trimming of the heritage tree. The tree is located at the very end of Hull Avenue. It was discussed that there may be food preparation regulations if we have a bake sale. Alison is to look into the issue in time for the July 4^th party. The bake sale may be moved to the neighborhood July 4^th party.

It was suggested that we locate raffle items to raise funds.

July 4^th is on a Saturday this year. Parts of Delmas Avenue will be closed off for the party. The Dreyer’s antique ice cream truck will be there with a donation of 650 ice creams. Thanks to Dan Erceg for arranging this donation! There are many jobs to do, from handing out fliers to working on the day of the event. Please contact Harvey Darnell to sign up for a fun task at: HarveyDarnell@earthlink.net.

The Committee is also looking for a donation of cookies/ wafers for the ice cream.

There will also be a neighborhood clean-up committee needed for a sweep of the neighborhood on Saturday morning.

The association has two grants to build our signature Fuller Avenue fences along some vacant strip lots. Liz Ortiz, Community Activity Worker, helped to write the San Jose Beautiful grant that partially funded this effort. There are two vacant strip lots along Bird and Atlanta Avenues that could benefit from this fence. We would also like to continue the Fuller Avenue fence past Delmas Avenue.

We need volunteers to provide the sweat equity for this project. There are many jobs to volunteer for:

-drilling the holes for the posts with a bobcat and auger.

- pouring concrete for the posts

- preparing the wood for installation

-priming and painting the wood

-supporting the volunteers with food and beverages

Ed Rast to try to locate an auger. Marc Bauman to price out a bill of materials and develop a schedule for presentation at the July general membership meeting.

This project will be scheduled after July 4^th.

When you call code enforcement they will ask for your name and telephone number. This information is kept CONFIDENTIAL and will not be shared with the person who the complaint is lodged against. Without your name and phone number, code enforcement will not respond to your request, so please leave this information when you call and encourage your neighbors to do the same.

That's all, folks!