Meeting Notes (Copied to Meeting Forum)

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1/18 Initial meeting with Joyce

Papa’s Pizza (16321 SE Stark) 1pm-2pm

Facilitator: Ley
Recorder: Silva

1st meeting with Joyce Ley, we reviewed maps of East Portland, discussed area’s (relatively) higher levels of poverty/ethnic diversity

East Portland holds 42% of Portland’s population

As stated in the application, we are expected to:

· Develop a public involvement plan

· Identify key stakeholders

· Identify strategies for connecting with key stakeholders

The purchase of the park property was announced in Feb. 2011. It was purchased jointly through Metro (whose involvement is waning), Bureau of Environmental Services, and Portland Parks and Recreation

Currently, an Ad-Hoc parks committee has been formed to w/in the neighborhood association, has been going for about a year

All we complete must be acceptable, feasible, and conducive to moving forward with the official Master Plan

Standing neighborhood meetings that Joyce is involved with:

1st Tuesday of every month: Neighborhood meeting held at Margaret Scott Elementary School (14700 NE Sacramento)

1st Wednesday of every month: Chairs meeting (not clear on location currently)

1st Thursday of every month: Parks coalition meeting held at EPNO Office (1117 NE 117th – off Halsey St.)

*****all meetings are open to the public, but we should e-mail Joyce in advance if we plan to go*****
Some noteworthy organizations either affiliated w/ the Wilkes Creek project, or worth looking into:

Brown Fields Program

MURP (Masters in Urban and Regional Planning)

East Portland Action Plan (represents the many interests of East Portland, Joyce said she’d bring us all copies for our next meeting)

Max Action (part of the East Portland Action Plan)

Friends of Wilkes Parks

Lynn Barlow is the head of City Nature East (all natural parks on city’s east side)

A railroad bridge is proposed as a crossing over the creek. A similar project has been completed at Whitaker Ponds Park (NE 47th and Columbia – adjacent to the Columbia Slough Watershed Council)

Nadaka Park (name stands for Native Day Camp) in Gresham is a good example of a local park developed through non-traditional means (176th and Glisan-ish)

UPCOMING MEETINGS HAVE BEEN (TENTATIVELY) SCHEDULED FOR
Friday, January 25th (noon-2pm) (Laura adds: This meeting was cancelled today, due to key players being unable to attend.)
Friday, February 1st (noon-2pm)
These are both proposed meeting times/dates but as yet are not official.

A possible meeting location is Human Solutions (12350 SE Powell Blvd)

WILKES CREEK PARK: INITIAL WALK-THROUGH
(1/18 2-3pm)

Total land purchased is 20 acres, the plan is to reserve this 4-5 acre site for a developed park and leave the rest natural

Some old growth trees remain on the site (doug firs?) and there is a plan to plant white oaks

They might pave a road cutting through the site to enable better traffic flow to/around the park (as it is, Fremont St. breaks off at both ends of the site)

The only other park in the Wilkes neighborhood is 2 blocks down and is mainly a playground. Drug activity has been a past issue w/ the playground, and is a topic of concern when plans for a second park get brought up

The new site will ideally not replicate the playground-style park, and instead feature other amenities like a dog park, community garden, jogging/walking trail, etc.

RE: the actual creek - the plan is to remove the spring boards that are “damming” the stream, pulling them out will increase the flow

In the Reynolds school district, the plan is to conduct outdoor lessons around the stream water

Saturday, April 20th is planned for an Earth Day event at the site to increase awareness and continue community involvement at the site. Joyce says the more people involved the better, as sweat equity builds ownership

There is also a “Neighborhood Night Out” event which will be shared (I think between the 2 parks? my notes were fuzzy on this)

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1/23 MEETING 12:30-1pm (all present) 3-3:30pm (Deedra absent)
Facilitator: Srnka
Recorder: Silva

Gretchen set up a dropbox account, but it seems we all need to individually set one up for it to work. Until that happens we will continue to use Google Docs as our primary dumping site for all project-related content

While on Google Docs, we decided to stick to a format where the most recent information is closest to the top (older, out-dated info will fall to the bottom). We should also try and initial our contributions to the google doc (initials after each section you add should be sufficient).

This will also be the site for our working draft that’s due this coming Monday (1/28). Kara will set up headings for the 5 parts, and we have each been assigned a part to be in charge of. What this means is that while we are all free to (and should) contribute to every paragraph, each person has the responsibility of compiling their paragraph’s info into something that’s coherent, flows well, and has sufficient information. Gretchen will then do a final edit of all content, format everything so it is uniform, and have it printed out and ready to turn in on Monday.

Below are the paragraphs w/ who is assigned to each one:

Paragraph 1 - Monica
Paragraph 2- Kara
Paragraph 3 - Deedra
Paragraph 4 - Laura
Paragraph 5 - Linda

So that we have sufficient time to address any issues, last minute catastrophes, and so Gretchen isn’t stuck doing this all Monday morning, 5 of us agreed to have our portion of the draft completed by 5pm Friday (1/25). Deedra, if this is an issue, please speak up.

Use Linda's gmail account from now on.

****ADDITIONAL NOTES TO THE GROUP******We realized in our after-class meeting that there was some confusion re: the group photo. I originally thought that we didn’t need it till Feb. 4th, but as I was composing an email to Dr. Heying to clarify, it became pretty clear (to me, at least) that we need one on this Monday’s draft. I almost wrote him to ask for some leeway, but changed my mind (we’ve now been together as a group 3 times, it feels pretty lame to make excuses) and think we should either meet-up friday and do it or photoshop something.

** Heying clarified that the photo is not due until the revised draft on Feb 4th. This gives me time to get over my anxiety. I know it seems small, but in fact is something I’ve struggled with since childhood. I will however, be ready to take a photo during this next week. LL **

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Meeting Notes 1/30/13 (1:30pm - 3pm)
Facilitator: Kenney
Recorder: Silva
Absent: Laura, Linda

This is a compilation of what we discussed during group time during class today, as well as the feedback we received for our 1st project draft from Dr. Heying (who met w/ each group for 15 min).

Deedra would like to be in charge of editing for the Feb. 4th draft, so she went home with the hard copy and I don’t have a lot of notes on it. Overall, the tone was a bit too informal. No indenting, last names must be used instead of first names, phrases like “grunt work” must be replaced with “field work” and we need to work on correctly naming exactly who/what organizations are involved. We need to explicitly articulate who is in charge of park plans (we did not specify that there was an ad-hoc group that formed from the WC comm. org, which led to some confusion). Finally, Heying was very concerned about Metro’s involvement in the park plan. To state that their participation is “waning” is not sufficient, and regardless of the future money and man hours they plan on contributing, no matter what, they will be involved in the final greenlighting of whatever we help decide, so we need to be in talks with them ASAP. Going along with what Joyce told us at the first meeting, everything we do should ideally be appropriate for utilization and implementation by PP&R, the city, and the WCG, so if we do a bunch of work and Metro decides at the end that they don’t approve for whatever reason, it’s a big waste of time. Going forward, Metro is to be considered a key stakeholder in the project.

We plan to meet in the USP commons at 10:45 am on Friday 2/1. The hope is that we can at least squeeze in a complete hour of group work (just the 6 of us) in case Joyce & co. show up early, pictures take a long time, etc. Meeting priorities will be:

Mapping out a Facilitator/Recorder schedule for the rest of the term
Going over questions we have for PP&R and the others we’re meeting with
Solving some communication issues (which methods are working, which aren’t, getting everyone on board w/ drop-box, the forum Laura set-up, etc.)
Task delegation (as much as we can do, pre-meeting)

We decided that Kara will be the official go-between when it comes to group communication with Joyce.

We looked at some project packets from last year’s 302-303 and realized that we really need to be better about documenting work schedules, meeting notes, etc. Groups did a week-by-week breakdown of what got done, which days, how many hours were spent, who was there, etc. We need to be doing this, and decided that Dropbox would be a good location to keep all those tables.

After the Friday’s meeting, we will hopefully have a better understanding of specific tasks, preferred research methods, and how to divide all the work between the 6 of us.

Kara has committed to contacting METRO to try and get any info she can about Wilkes Creek Headwaters

Deedra is kid-free Monday 1/4 so we were hoping to have a rare AFTER-class meeting from 3pm-4pm (or however late we need to go). If this conflicts with anyone’s schedule please speak up. We’re hoping to utilize the time to process Friday’s meeting and start assigning tasks.

UPCOMING DATES:
Friday, 2/1: 10:45am-noon group meeting (USP commons 2nd flr)
Friday 2/1: 12pm-2pm meeting w/ Joyce, PP&R, etc. (USP 311)
Monday 2/4: 3pm-4pm group meeting (USP 270 after class gets out)

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Recorder Notes
Mission Citizen Involvement!
1 February, URBN 2nd Floor Student Lounge
Facilitator: Silva
Recorder: Srnka
In attendance: Hoppes, Sandau, Silva, Srnka

Issues Discussed:
Silva started a Facebook Page for the Wilkes Community, a preliminary attempt to create a universal and accessible web site for outreach and info. Pulled photo from WCG website for the purpose of association.Facebook as a great supplement to pre-existing website; easy to update, Silva in charge of updating. Silva mapped out the Wilkes Creek area and looked into organizations for outreach. None present within boundaries but many located closely outside. Nearby there is a Vietnamese Buddhist Temple, with a celebration of Buddhist New Year on 2/9 from 6pm-Midnight. There is also a New Beginnings Church which holds both Spanish and Slavic mass. Teamsters Local 162 is in the area. Albertina Kerr, which is a support organization, recently opened their new restaurant in the area. Margaret Scott Elementary, Halsey East Animal Clinic, Slavic Emmanual Church, and Russian Oregon (?) are also in the area. These are great opportunities for outreach but also to seek out translators.

Actions taken/decisions made:
Dropbox is not proving to be a feasible enough sharing method. We will back up to using google docs and e-mail, tentatively. Gretchen will be the primary editor for our revised draft. Facilitator and Recorder schedule is as follows for the following three meetings: F-Linda/R-Kara, F-Deedra/R-Gretchen, F-Laura/R-Linda. The rest will be determined when we can all be together.

Announcements:
Lovett in compliance to begin task tables?
Lovett in compliance to photoshop a picture for Monday?

Monday’s meeting:
After class, 3-4pm in the Student Lounge (space permitting). Need to discuss who will call which organization for outreach/translator details, draft preliminary survey questions (for reaching out to stakeholders), continue facilitator/recorder schedule, additional task delegation, and finally a debrief from Friday’s meeting including what needs to happen from here on out.

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Monica’s notes from Friday 2/1 12pm-2pm meeting w/ WCG, PP&R, PSU, EPNO (not exhaustive but a placeholder before Kara can put her detailed notes up)



Expectations of the Wilkes Community Group: The park project needs more support. Already, many residents with issues/concerns/critiques of the project have spoken. They would like us to mine the community for supportive residents, in the hopes that the more “pro-park” people they have, the faster the project can be achieved. Gathering momentum and facilitating positive ownership of the space.

Expectations of PP&R: Elizabeth Kennedy-Wong roughly mapped out the “Master Planning” process.

phase 1: Site Analysis - before speaking with anyone, we need to have a reasonable perspective/grasp of what is possible. This is going to require not only topographical analysis of the land, but mapping out the rest of the neighborhood to see which amenities exist and what is lacking. Ideally, there will be no duplications (example: an expensive play structure when one already exists in the park down the road) when resources are finite. Part of producing defendable, deliverable outcomes is realizing what can work and what is too expensive (example: trying to put a soccer field on rough terrain that would require costly earth work).

phase 2: Explore Options/Alternatives - this involves landscape architects/mock-ups. What is possible is decided based on topography/demographics of the area, as well as future predicted demographics (the idea that this park will be here for 100 years, so the needs it serves must stay relevant)

phase 3: Final plan - Deciding on which amenities to include, how the natural area is accessed, and mobility to/from/through the park.

Wong made it clear that we are in PHASE 1 of the process (what she called “the strategizing phase”) and basically, that we were all getting way ahead of ourselves in terms of specific ideas for the park. Before we go to the public, much more information gathering must be done.

From what I gathered in the meeting, there seems to be a bit of a clash between WCG’s expectations and those of PP&R. PP&R are clearly the “realists” in the situation and are approaching the park plan cautiously, aware of the many limitations that traditionally occur with expensive city projects. WCG seem to be much more hopeful about future possibilities, and are more open to alternative methods (NADAKA park-style) of getting things done. There was no discussion of things like “sweat equity” from PP&R, though it seems pretty clear that WCG would like to engage the public in this less-expensive, community-building method.

Finally, Kennedy Wong made clear that any resident information we DO gather must be comprehensively documented, meaning that a name and e-mail won’t be enough. Data collection must involve full names, address, phone number and email to be of any use to PP&R.

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