Board of Directors Meeting Agenda

Attendees:

  1. Edith Gilliard Canty (Franklin Square)
  2. David McGill (Union Square)
  3. Jane Buccheri (Hollins Roundhouse)
  4. Kelleigh Eastman (Pigtown)
  5. Kris Hoellen (B&O Railroad Museum)
  6. Laura Dykes (Commercial Development)
  7. Abigail Breiseth (Education)
  8. Ashely Valis (UMB)
  9. Jane Shaab (UM BioPark)
  10. Richard Parker (Workforce Development)
  11. Scott Kashnow (Historic Preservation)
  12. Jose Resendiz (Mount Clare)
  13. Heather Kangas (Housing)
  14. Dotie Page (Poppleton)
  15. George Kleb (Bon Secours)
  16. JR Lee (Public Safety)
  17. Donnell Nance (Vibrant Streets)
  18. Charles Callahan (UMMC)
  19. Rich Shores (Barre Circle)

Jane moved to approve the minutes, Edith seconded.

Abigail: listed in the beginning as being the chair of two committees, is only the chair of the Education Committee not the joint Education and Workforce Committee. The minutes were approved

7:10-7:20pm: Community Updates

Moved to the beginning of the meeting in order to ensure that there is adequate time for community and committee updates.

  1. Barre Circle: Not present/no updates
  2. Franklin Square: working on updating the comfort station in the park, haven’t gotten a quote for renovations yet from the City.
  3. Hollins Roundhouse: going to be submitting a request to BOPA for a grant on 1237 Hollins St–Patrick Hartnett will be doing the design. Were on a tour on the design for distancing sites on Saturday, working on getting the sails at the site back up.
  4. Mount Clare: No updates
  5. Pigtown: No updates
  6. Poppleton: Poppleton Now has a new Board and Articles of Incorporation (Dotie Page, President, Paulette Carroll, Vice President, Liberty Henderson, Secretary.
  7. Union Square: April 25th 1st Sunday Sounds in the Park 4-7 with the Ursula Ricks Project
  8. Carroll Park: a group that’s planning some clean ups at the Gwynns Fall Trail 4-7, a Clean Up on the Mayor’s Clean Up meeting at the skate park from 3-5pm. April 28th at 6pm there will be a planning meeting facilitated by Rec and Parks–important to have a lot of people present.

7:20-7:30pm: Committee Updates

  1. Commercial: Meeting next week, and the final logo for W Baltimore St will be revealed
  2. Education: Moving ahead with designing a program to get more young people involved–surveyed many people, and Ruth Kirk Fellows, in the process of scheduling a meeting with Education Committee members. Continue hearing updates from Community School Coordinators.
  3. Historic Preservation: Spent bulk of the meeting talking about St Luke’s Church and the engineering report that came out. Shared video about Malachi Mills House put together by Baltimore Heritage–does refer to Malachi Mills as a Black carpenter and current research indicates he was white. (https://baltimoreheritage.org/civicrm?civiwp=CiviCRM&q=civicrm/mailing/url&u=6200&qid=2451257); Tour of Poppleton being organized by Eric Holcomb by CHAP; Approved 3 letters related to the Center West Development (completing the MOU, –asking for the Board to review them and discuss at a later meeting; Talk coming up about slavery and Mount Clare by an author of a new book organized by the Mount Clare House. Friday 23rd at 12pm (https://www.thepealecenter.org/events/ancestors-of-worthy-life-plantation-slavery-and-black-heritage-at-mount-clare/)
  4. Housing: Leff LaNoue, the City Planner, came to the last meeting, Heather and Carrie will attend the monthly UMB Live Near Your Week meetings. Poe Homes meeting tomorrow 4/21 there will be discussion of homeownership opportunities, Heather shared the flyer for a house for sale in Mount Clare.
  5. Public Safety: Nothing to report, wants to thank everyone who participates in the Public Safety meeting
  6. Vibrant Streets: Just had first in a series of W Baltimore St Streetscaping Charrettes which will be presented to the Committee at the next meeting. Next meeting will be Thursday the 22nd where there will be a presentation on the UMB Fremont St project.
  7. Workforce: with the pandemic decided to focus efforts on advocacy, attended virtual legislative meetings and policy meetings, want to get more involved in a refined, productive way in 2022. Looking into getting training in political advocacy.

 

7:30-8:45pm: President’s Remarks

  • Monthly Community Meetings: Hollins Roundhouse – Wednesday, May 12 @7pm–The Board will be attending this meeting as part of their rotation of attending a neighborhood meeting a month.
  • Guest Presentations:

Meeting began recording at this point

  • 7:30-7:50pm: Lord Baltimore Presentation – Roger Woods

Roger shared a proposed plan for the Lord Baltimore Theater based on the following principles: Highest and Best Use, Intentional not Incidental, Connect Communities, Do No Harm. Plan will involve adding two additional floors to the Theater

Social dancing is a major arts based activity for adults in the region–675,000 in the region are estimated to be involved in social dancing, 28,000 are dance performers. Goal is not to compete with existing dance opportunities–there are limited spaces to dance in the Baltimore region.

A survey pre-pandemic found 600 dance schools, 2,000 dancers, 500 dance companies, with 5 major university dance programs, but a lack of dance space

Vision: Baltimore Movement Arts Center–will have performance space, a motion capture and projection system, studio spaces, production suites, review suites, two front spaces will be for cafe and retail

Will be designed for operational efficiency–green/energy efficiency

Will support the development of numerous independent businesses and services, will have daytime and nighttime hours

B&O would be happy to host dancers at the B&O

Scott: asked about parking–perpetual challenge to every performing venue. Options include vacant lots adjacent to the theater which should work for the early development, would be great to work with UMB on the garage parking to the east. BioPark garage is owned by Wexford, BioPark is happy to facilitate conversations.

Bif: Hollins Market city lot is an option, also could use Morningstar’s parking lot. Likes that the theater would be a premier program, engages use, and touches people at all levels of ability. How do we get started raising funds for it?

Jane B: where do we go from here? Need to establish development funding and establish a Board. Probably several phases of funding (pre-development, development, sustaining funds/economic support plan)

Cecilia: asked if it would be a venue for community dancing? Not so much social dancing as there are venues at Mobtown Ballroom and Lithuanian Hall–will be designed for performances and performances by community groups.

Kris: suggests putting parking in the plan early because its so important

  • 7:50-7:55pm: Confirmation of Lord Baltimore Board Members

Confirmation of Lord Baltimore Board members tabled until next month.

  • 7:55-8:15pm: UMB Pedestrian Safety Improvement Program – Jane Shaab

Jane introduced Luke Mowbry (UMB), Linda Cassard (BioPark), Addison Palmer (STB Engineering), Sandra Matier and Valerie LaCour (DOT)

On March 2nd held a broad community meeting, did a presentation at Hollins Roundhouse, will do a presentation at the Vibrant Streets meeting, and waiting to schedule with Poppleton.

Robust Discussion was had and much feedback was provided to UMB:

  • Laura question about Alternate 3, won’t you still be able to turn on MLK? Answer- No, Level of service on MLK (the volume) is quite bad
  • Jane B- this is going to severely impact those heading south on MLK turning right onto Lombard Street who now have an entire lane to make that turn…now they will be merging
  • Jane B, have you re-looked at the busses making a left onto W Baltimore Street; Rich Shores agrees with Jane
  • Luke, this is one piece to a larger puzzle- UMB is working with the City transportation folks to coordinate
  • Bill Marker-Deeply troubled by the plan; adding another intersection is recipe for disaster; doesn’t see how this won’t add new safety hazards, can we look at bridges instead of new signals/intersections; We had the MLK Blvd corridor committee, and so he will call a meeting of that group
  • Abigail from the chat- One point I haven’t heard anyone make is that this plan puts pedestrians right next to traffic. Also, the impacts on Fremont at Baltimore and the child, bus and pedestrian traffic there worry me.
  • Heather “from Chat” I can tell you too that on Pratt and MLK that people do not follow the signals regarding pedestrian crossing and yielding because they are rushing to turn north onto MLK from Washington. It is very scary!
  • David MacGill- Worried about busses turning onto W Baltimore street
  • Dotie- Why aren’t we taking a more holistic approach? All of these crossing are extremely dangerous.
  • Scot- I think there is an opportunity to look at the whole street and restore the street grid. The issue is Pedestrians and cars conflicting and it would be great to fix the whole thing. Fixing just one piece doesn’t really make sense.
  • Bill- And this would create ANOTHER intersection threatening your kids if they walked or biked north on the path.
  • Contact Luke to provide more feedback at lmowbray@umaryland.edu
  • 8:15-8:25pm: Southwest Fitness & Sports Alliance Update – Ivan Leshinsnky
    • SOWEBO 5k October 3, 2021 will hopefully happen! Kids are free to run the race!
    • Americorp Vista site for summer – now recruiting $3k for the summer (minimum wage)
    • Sportfitnessalliance@gmail.com or ivanleshinsky@gmail.com
  • 8:25-8:35pm: Bmore Ag Proposal for Hollins Market – Leon Pinkett and Alex Fisher
    • Healthy food, jobs, and training to neighborhoods who have been overlooked- bringing Hydoponic farms throughout the city
    • Head house at Hollins Market
    • Estimate due next week from Baltimore Public Market staff about the cost of remediation
    • Contact alex@bmoreag.com or leon@bmoreag.com to follow up
  • 8:35-8:45pm BRNI/CORE Applications FY2022
    • Every year we need to rank our applications in order of priority
    • Scott- do we rank everything in one or do we separately?
    • Motion made by Scott to allow SWP to apply for all of the projects, motion passed unanimously

 

8:45-9:00pm: Executive Session (15 mins)

  • 1325 W Baltimore Proposal
  • NOTE: PoppletonNow! SWP Board Representation: Thursday, April 29th 6-7pm (meeting was canceled 4/28/21)

9:13pm: Adjournment

George motion to adjourn, Second by Scott K, unanimous, we adjourn at 913pm

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