DeForest Park Neighborhood Association
Executive Board Meeting
Tuesday, February 23, 2021 via Zoom Meeting (recorded)
Present: Dan Pressburg (President); Joni Ricks-Oddie (Vice President); Keith Oddie (Treasurer); Ryan Blazer; Darlene Broom; & Corazon Lomeli.
Absent: None.
Guest: None.
Meeting was called to order by Dan Pressburg at 6:44 PM. We received an appreciation award from the US Census Bureau for our work promoting Census Up on August 22, 2020.
Upon motion made, seconded, & approved, Ryan Blazer offered amendments to the January 26 Executive Board Meeting Minutes to read that the motions were “made, seconded, & approved” by removing the names of those who had motioned (unless a roll call was required). The revisions are as follows:
- Upon motion made, seconded, & approved, the Executive Board went into executive (closed) session at 6:52 PM.
- Upon motion made, seconded, & approved, the Executive Board left executive (closed) session at 7:43 PM.
- Upon motion made, seconded, & approved, the Executive Board has moved Shaheen Sadhegi as a speaker at the February meeting to March and moved Acting Lt. Megan Tabor to the February meeting.
- Upon motion made, seconded, & approved, the Executive Board meeting was adjourned at 8:17 PM.
Upon motion made, seconded, & approved, the Executive Board has approved the photo / video policy, which will be added to the footer section of the website.
Media Relations while Joni & Keith are on maternity leave just as a reminder and attached to January minutes.
The March monthly meeting with have two (2) speakers: LAB Holdings’ Shaheen Sadeghi or a staff with member. Pasha Darvishian to help with leasing with existing buildings with an update on the lots. Their plans are to launch a website to collect feedback and any issues. LBPD North Division the new Commander, maybe.
Tentative March Agenda
7:00 Flag Salute Video
7:05 PM – TBA / North Station (10 minutes)
7:15 PM – District 9 Update (7 minutes)
7:22 PM – Old Business: Photo / Video Policy
New Business: Ideas for vacant lot next to library
7:27 PM – Shaheen Sadeghi (LAB Holdings) & Pasha Darvishian (Darvishian Group) (20-30 mins / 10 min Q&A)
8:12 PM – Public comment (up to 3 minutes per speaker)
8:30 PM – Adjourn
Joni gave an update on status of non-profit paperwork with the state. Ryan is helping monitor the info email account, and brought up that the filing of the 990-N reminders is popping up for the Federal level of taxes. Joni pointed out that those are companies trying to get our business.
Keith presented a copy of the accounting & treasurer report (see attached statement). We have $3,898.57 in bank. We have 1 deposit from Amazon $12.39 for 2/22/21 & donation from December in $250. Dan asked Treasurer reports to be added after approval of minutes. We have no expenses for this year at this time.
EZ Texting, our current mass SMS texting service, has terminated their “free & EZ plan,” which had allowed us 250 texts a month. Because we only send out reminders for monthly meetings, we never exceeded this threshold but came close when we did the Census-Up event in August. Our current subscriber list is about 280 contacts (each one counts as a text credit). There are currently 283 credits left, so we may get one more “free” text blast for the March meeting. EZ-text has moved us to a pay as you go plan that is $0.035 per text ($10 per blast). The next tier is a monthly plan at $24 a month that includes 200 credits & each text is $0.04 after. Other services exist such as SimpleTexting, and the basic package for them is 500 texts for $25 a month ($0.05 at text) or if paid annually, there is a 25% discount. ExpertTexting is another service that requires a minimum $30 balance to upload, but it’s unlimited texting and $0.0212 per text (approx. $6 per blast). We do not have to maintain the $30 minimum. We will budget $100 for line item for SMS. A decision as to which service was not made at this meeting. We have one (1) more text we can do with EZ Texting before we have to pay them. We will use that credit up and make a decision at the next board meeting.
RiverPark Coalition is requesting to meet with the Board in March in order to present to the April Monthly meeting. They would be given 10 minutes to present to the board. What time would we want them to join our March board meeting? We would also need to offer the developer of 3701 Park Place a chance to present their side. We need to remain neutral as a group with this presentation. Presentation could be at 7:45pm for no more than 10 minutes.
Welcome Wagon for Commercial Property Businesses would be for businesses along Atlantic between Harding and South and South St from Atlantic back towards DeForest. The auto shop on South is parking in the middle of South Street. New business listings can be obtained through business search.
Plan & follow up with commercial property owner at 300 – 320 South St. Joni got info of new ownership and wants to puts in other business other than cannabis shops.
Offer & parameters to activate LAB Holding lot adjacent to the Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library. Wanted to talk about email exchange with Shaheen with some parameters on who can use the space that LAB Holdings.
Upon motion made, seconded, & approved, the Executive Board meeting was adjourned at 8:09 PM.
