October business meeting

Our monthly Eight Streets business meeting will be this Tuesday, October 5th at project Place (Washington & East Berkeley).

6:30-7 - Neighborhood Networking. Meet your neighbors in an informal setting

7-8:30 - Business meeting.

On the agenda this month:

Boston Sports Club - an introduction to their facilities, and a special deal for ESNA Members

Ringgold park - Their Capital Campaign has begin to raise money for the center fountain area. Friends of Ringgold will be there to present the final design and to let everyone know of their fundraising campaign. Visit http://ringgoldpark.org/ for more details

Alleys and Gates - last meeting brought up the issue of gating alleys. We hope to start a discussion about alleys, ownership, and the value of eights. There is no vote or proposal, we just hope to have an open dialog between neighbors. (see a blog posting for more details on this issue)

Some additional notes this month:

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This month's meeting will be run by Heather, who has agreed to take on the role of Vice President of ESNA. She's basically been doing that role as well as secretary for the past year, which was an undue burden. I'd like to take a moment to thank Heather for accepting the role as Vice President.

This does mean we're on the hunt for a secretary for the NA...

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A reminder for this year we meet the first Tuesday of every month, at Project place, at the corner of East Berkeley and Washington. The meeting room is on the second floor; the entrance is the door right next to Meyers and Chang. We had very light attendance last month, so I'm hoping we can have a bigger crowd this week.

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6 Milford was to be on the agenda this month, but has been removed. Their proposal for a deck was tables last month, as there were other construction issues on the site, which abutters were unhappy about. But in the last month, no one from the project has contact Eight Streets. None of the site cleanup that was promised has been done. And while they said they had no hearing date when asked in September, they do have a hearing Tuesday afternoon, which would make a Tuesday night meeting too late for any hearing letter. The Mayor's office knows if the situation, and will let the baord know about our feelings at Tuesday's hearing.

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As the agenda states, we will be having a discussion on the gating of alleys in ESNA. This is a discussion only between neighbors. Talks about gates brings up strong emotions between those very much for and those very much against. I'd like this meeting to be a civil discussion about the pros and cons of gating alleys, approaches other than gating alleys, and the logistical challenges of getting keys to 50-100 people after gating an alley. let's see if we can get a good dialog going.

Hope to see everyone at the meeting on Tuesday!!!