The minutes of the October meeting were taken as read. No amendments were made.
Treasurer’s Report, Sandra McNeill
Sandra reported that we had $2951.91 on hand. Shirley told us that the last of the Newtown tote bags had been sold. It was agreed that she should order 50 more bags.
Committee Reports
Community Issues, Sara Holberg
Sara reported that her committee was looking at the concepts behind the “corridor overlay” guidelines. She would email the board members the link to the on-line site. Also, Central Shenandoah PDC has information on bike routes. Sara will send the link to this site as well.
Commercial Property, Craig Peterson
Craig reported that Jazzy-T Café raised between $6,000 and $7,000 at a black tie gala at the Belle Grae Inn. However, they still don’t have a building permit because of problems with lack of parking. It seems that they must reduce the number of restaurant seats, or reduce the number of square feet used for the restaurant, which will have the same effect.
The “George Bowers” grocery store is due to open Nov 23rd. They have a web site.
Old Business
Ed Miska mentioned that he was still looking for a venue for the Christmas Tree Walk Preview party on Friday 19th December.
Bob Craycroft reported that he had renewed the NNA web-site domain contract.
New Business
How to keep the people of Newtown informed about matters that may affect them? Sara said she was reluctant to send too many attachments to emails. There followed discussion about having newsletters in email form only but it was decided that we would continue to put a paper copy of the newsletter into every mail box in the neighborhood. We would also send electronic versions to every email address we had, but giving people the choice of opting-out.
Do we need a “neighborhood concerns” questionnaire?
Bob pointed out that designing a useful questionnaire was not an easy matter and full of pitfalls. It was decided that the best thing we could do was to mention in the newsletter that if anyone had any concerns, they should contact a board member.
The WYSIWYG gallery. This is an arts and crafts gallery being operated by Jim Hanger, Barbara Holt and Brian Vogel in the Local Color site. It will specialize in pottery, glass and jewelry.
It had been suggested that as part of our efforts to support local businesses, we should publish any particularly good interactions with local businesses in the newsletter. This led to the decision that a section of the newsletter should be called “Newtown Salutes…”
This section would highlight any good works in the area, for instance the work of the Grace Covenant church in cleaning up their parking lot area, etc.
In response to a question from John about the lack of Newtown signposts, Craig said there was only the one sign at W. Beverley in front of the Newtown Bakery. We discussed the possibility of having a sign visible to people coming from the downtown area. Would the Darjeeling Tea House let us put a sign up on its patio?
Sally wondered why Newtown didn’t have a single voting station. There seemed to be a least three equally inconvenient venues. Why couldn't we have one central polling site? This is a matter that needed to be raised with the Board of Elections.
No further business. Meeting adjourned at 8.30 p.m.
Next meeting will be Thursday, Jan 15th, venue to be decided. Sally will look into the possibility of its being hosted by the Darjeeling Tea House.
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