ECCO Meeting Minutes for January 7, 2010

ECCO Meeting Minutes for January 7, 2010
Meetings are held at St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church at 7:00
Minutes submitted by R. Kean

Attendance
Board members: Robert Kean, Nancy Ward (President), Brad Durham, Glen Christianson, Tim Norkus Crampton, Ralph Knox, Gary Farland, Judy Shields, and Michael Ekholm.
Others in attendance: Monica Smith, Pat Blakely, Sarah Sponheim, Brianna Patsch, Meg Tuthil, Mark Hines

Announcements and Open Forum
• Pat Blakely gave a summary of recent meetings regarding the future of the Walker Library. Various sites have been considered for a new library, including the original Walker library building (East side of Hennepin). However, the costs for acquisition, remodeling, and maintenance have been deemed to be non-competitive, so the current library site remains the prime candidate. A possible design includes 2 levels of library space with underground parking. Hennepin County has budgeted $12 million for the replacement of the library. The next meetings are Jan 21 and Feb 18, 6:00-7:30 p.m. at the Walker Library. Interested parties are invited to participate in a visioning survey about library. The survey is available on line at: http://www.hclib.org/cac/. Completed surveys should be returned to malpert@hclib.org ASAP but before the Jan 21 meeting.
• Met Tuthill, our new representative on the city council, gave a brief report. Mostly, she is getting up to speed with her new position. She is building an e-mail distribution list and working on a web site. Please call her if you have any issues/concern/suggestions.
• The December Minutes were approved.

Reports:
Treasurer
• The treasurer, Glen Christianson, presented a suggested budget for 2010. The budget was approved with a few modifications. The revised budget anticipates approximately $5300 in income and approximately $4550 in expenses. The current bank balance is $16,621.
The Wine tasting event is again expected to be the Board’s largest source of funds, so Board members were reminded to be persistent in selling tickets for the event this year.

Future of NRP
• Mark Hines is our representative on the new Neighborhood and Community Engagement Commission (NCEC). This is part of the new city organization that will replace the NRP starting in about 2011. The NCEC consists of 8 elected and 8 appointed commissioners. Mark is the elected representative for District 6 which includes East Calhoun. The new structure will also include a new city department (Neighborhood and Community Engagement Department) which will work in coordination with NCEC to run the program and support the neighborhoods. The details of the future program are still very much in the formative stage. Please contact Mark with questions or suggestions at 612-824-9402 ext. 16 or mark@lyndale.org.
Note that East Calhoun is just completing our NRP Phase II plan. This should not be affected by planned changes to the NRP.

SECSE
• Website Walkthrough
The board web address www.eastcalhoun.org has now been configured to automatically forward to the new website (http://eastcalhountest.ning.com ).
Mike and Monica provided a demonstration of some of the features and entertained questions about using some of the tools built into the “ning” service.
Some key points:
o “Members” of the site are allowed to add and edit content, so “membership” is currently limited to board members and others approved by the board (as having a need to edit web content).
o We have no web master or content manager, so site members (i.e board members) are responsible for updating and managing content.
o All content is open to viewing by all visitors to the site.
o The ”contact us” tab provides a means for the general public to provide feedback, which can be posted to the site if appropriate and of general interest.
o The site currently included Google ads along the right side of the window. This is the default mode of the Ning host site and makes the website very inexpensive, but the board is currently evaluating the positives and negatives of other options.

Environment
• On behalf of the board and neighborhood, Sarah is drafting a letter describing our connections to Lake Calhoun and the adjacent park. This will be added to other letters and information being gathered for development of a Lake Calhoun master plan. Sarah will distribute a draft of the letter to the board for review and feedback before it is sent to the park board.

UNN Board
• A motion was made and passed supporting the current organizational structure and ownership of the Uptown Neighborhood News (UNN). This is in response to a recent proposal being considered by the UNN, to change both the management structure and ownership.

The next meeting is February 4