Welcome 7:02

Approval of minutes from October

500 Washington Blvd. – Update on future reopening or closing of the street (Tom from Pickles)

• In June, the city offered permits and closures to help restaurants and bars with outside dining

• We applied along with our neighbors

• As long as we are in the state of emergency, we can keep the set up that we have

• There are some days where we can open a lane. There is a concern, with which direction

• No one really wants to sit inside (even when it is raining). It can’t simply be opened and closed based on business volume

• We are talking about survival of a business v convenience of a drive

• When its cold out and people are not sitting outside, the street will be open

• Questions for Tom

  • Was using the medium there considered?

    • They told us that it had to be front extended

    • City doesn’t want to set a prescient in other areas of city

  • It is frustrating to find the alley behind is often blocked (maybe Sliders?)

    • Has told staff that he asked them to park at the meters and not to park in the neighborhood

    • Sadly, they don’t always listen to me…usually on weekends

    • I can try to enforce better

Holiday decorating contest (Nichole Dungee)

• Keep us occupied and lighten up the neighborhood at bit

• People sign up by throwing in $10: winner gets half and the other half goes to charity

• Email with charity of choice and address or drop in my mailbox

• Register by Dec 10

• Judging starts Dec 12

• Any neighbor can judge

• Ballot box in a few places like Tot lot…maybe the Mini Mart (if they are ok with this)

• Bill volunteered to set up an online voting system

  • Would we be missing people then?

Update community on Nov.14th dumpster and neighborhood cleanup 

• Dumpster should be there at 8am

• If its not there, Al will keep people informed

• We will still meet around 9am (9-12 target time)

• Plenty of bags

• Leaves will be a big issue as well as some bulk trash items

• Pickles will host the after party

Purchases a Zoom Account for RDA for one year

• Motion: Al make the motion to purchase a one-year subscription to a Zoom account and revisit after a year to see if we still need it (Megan seconded)

• $65/year for a 5013c group (https://www.techsoup.org/zoom is site to get discount)

• For secret balloting: opavote.com 

• The motion was approved by acclamation

Committee reports

SWGP – Bill

• Since all of the funding for the South Baltimore Gateway Partnership comes from casino impact funds, there was almost no money coming in for most of the summer

• The casinos were reopened at a limited capacity

• There was not a summer community grants cycle, due to the lack of funding

• Some of the larger transformational projects that SBGP is undertaking continued

  • A trash wheel will be in place at the mouth of the Gwynns Falls by early winter.

  • Ground was broken and construction started on the Middle Branch Fitness Center in Cherry Hill.

  • Also, the planning for the Middle Branch revitalization is still ongoing. Details are at: https://reimaginemb.com/ 

Beautification – Megan

• 42 pumpkins and 30 kids participated

• Only one slight hitch but everyone did it and loved it

• Can drive from Xmas

ARC – Deb (for Paul)

• Chap hearing on Pratt st develop

• Approved side massing

• Did not present design at the Nov chap hearing…but should in Dec

• They have from Friday to get the design to us (25 days in advance requirement)

By laws – Paul

• No report

Parking – Ab

• Elec charging stations, 50-70 stations…we have thrown in our hat for at least one (maybe Burgundy lot or another location

• A Stadium event = 30,000 attendance. Therefore, no enforcement w/current COVID restrictions

• Street sweeping remains suspended

• VPP is still coming, but Riverside is first…once they are online, they will work with us. 

  • Can help with guest pass abuse and since we are a pilot program and want it to work, it should increase enforcement

  • Cannot help with current rules

• Pratt and Fremont parking issues

  • 20 spaces secured by developer, with potential of 90 some units being developed

  • New development does not qualify for VPP…but with no enforcement some may park anyway?

  • They are trying to put in 40 units at Fremont…city zoning board needs to approve that. There are open hearing about this

• Change our parking rules?

  • Tons of documents to be posted on NextDoor with data about this

  • If we try to change, it would be in the form of a petition

• Questions

  • Anything we can do to encourage enforcement of the rules we have?

    • Eric Costello: 311 usually. Send me an email (eric.costello@baltimorecity.gov) of the problematic time and days we can work to get enforcement out at these times

  • Love more enforcement, feel for the short-staffed division, but we see the problem all the time now (since more are working at home). The two-hour rule has always been an issue

  • Take a look at the parking data when it is posted. A limited study on a normal day and on a stadium day. It shows that we have negative parking during the periods that were examined

    • Eric Costello: I requested the study. There is some misrepresentation of the methodology that was used. I will be happy to post the full study. We did ask parking authority…the data that was requested was specifically requested by the members of the community.

    • Deb: I got a letter acknowledging that there are some problems in the study data and were dealing with it

  • What is the goal/outcome that the parking committee is seeking?

    • We are concerned w/ the new building and that it will have a negative impact

    • Just to start a dialog in case we need to revisit

    • VPP will be a tremendous help enforcing illegal parking, but not the legal parking

  • If the rules are changed, they could be enforced (will there be enough staffing)

    • Yes, certainly to a point.

Adjournment 8:04