Drake Neighborhood Association Board Meeting

Wednesday, July 11, 7 p.m.

Holiday Inn Express

Board members present (X)
X / Deb Austin / Bonnie Hall / X / Bill Cappuccio
X / Dean Blum / X / Bill LaHay / X / Jennifer Sayers
X / Betsey Qualley / X / Eldon McAfee / X / Marty Schmitt
X / Trish Davis / Carl McPherson / X / Kevin VenHaus
Lori Fenton / Dolph Pulliam / X / Bruce Wilson
X / Ed Leedom, NBSD / Officer Deb Richardson
  1. Call to Order

Marty called the meeting to order at 7:05pm.

  1. Welcome and Introductions
  1. Carl McPherson has resigned from the board as well as Pam Rothlauf
  • Bill Cappuccio here as a volunteer
  • Nomination by Bill LaHay, Kevin seconded, carried with aye vote. Bill will be replacing Pam’s position
  1. Approval of Agenda and Previous Meeting’s Minutes

Minutes approved with a motion from Kevin and second from Jennifer, carried with aye vote, with the following changes regarding location of Neighborhood activities: 2414 Drake Park Ave, 1100 block of 22nd street and 29th and Cottage Grove

  1. Neighborhood Based Service Delivery

Ed Leedom reported on the following:

  • Pushing to clean-up the 1100 block of 22nd Street. Ed will either send a violation letter to each owner or send a general letter to all of the residents. There are other areas but this area is the worst.
  • A lot of good renewal/ rehabs going and now one of the unpopular landlords has made offers on two public nuisances (1131 28th and 1147 27th) and has already asked Permit and Developments for extensions. Ed has alerted some of the contractors that are doing good work and has provided them information so that they could try to purchase these properties rather than this landlord.
  • Bill LaHay asked Ed if there were any other cities that had some solutions that we could use to make changes in Des Moines. Ed will ask Richard Wright for some information.

Officer Deb Richarson is on vacation

  1. Treasurer’s report
  • Trish provided the balance for the checking and money market accounts
  • Trish did a five year history of the house tour, 2007 was the second highest for profit in the past six years. Highest profiting year was 2003.
  • Number of sponsors has gone down in the past few years for the house tour.
  • Trish went through this months expenses
  1. Bricks, Beautification and update on Michael Garden (25th & Kingman triangular area)
  • A representative from Iowa Outdoor Products is coming on Friday to discuss ideas
  • Still a lot of brick left (at least 2000), nothing will be done with remaining brick until the garden is completely finished, committee recommends keeping them for the neighborhood for various projects
  • Jennifer motioned, Bill seconded that the DNA keep bricks for DNA use
  • Discussion of continuing bricks on the end caps
  • Discussion of funding the remaining work on the garden
  1. Follow-up to some recent neighbhorhood problems/landlord and crime issues
  • Neighbor from 22nd street was here to voice concerns
  • 1100 block of 22nd (1169, 1161, and 1131)
  • 1131 is the worst one- people out late, arguing, etc. Bill Cappuccio has been working with Officer Deb Richardson to talk to the landlord about screening tenants. Bill Cappuccio suggests that we send him a letter that his problems have been discussed by the board and give him two weeks to give us a plan on his steps to resolve them.
  • Discussion of notifying contract sellers as they have an interest in the property.
  • Discussion of sending letters certified so that we have proof that owners received letters.
  • Board would like to discuss issues with landlords individually
  • 1161 22nd has new owners; this is a nine unit building and they working on some evictions. Ed has given them some information to encorage them to do some tenant screening.
  • 2414 Drake Park Ave.- Just received a $4600 fine. Housing Appeals Board is not giving him a break this time because the owner said that he was selling it last year and did not need to fix it up.
  • 2901 Cottage Grove- Deb has been working with landlord, they are doing some evictions.
  • Bill Cappuccio and Marty have met with Chris Hensley
  • Residents who see suspicious or problem activity need to call the police so that these incidents can be tracked and reported. It is recommended that the non-emergency number is called for residents who are in fear of retaliation because you do not have to identify yourself.
  • New landlords need to be educated so that their current problems don’t get worse
  1. Community Garden follow-up Report
  • Water meter will be put in shortly
  1. Committee Reports
  2. Drake University – no report
  3. Drake Business Association
  4. Social was well attended
  5. Next Social is July 26th at the veranda of US Bank, hosted by Drake and US Bank
  6. Jazz and July- check the schedule
  7. Civic Affairs- see neighborhood problems/ Ed’s report
  8. Volunteer/ Scheduling-
  9. Need volunteers for National Night Out, need a couple of grills and people to tend to them, people to cut up food and prepare, etc. Need people to man races with the kids.
  10. Membership-
  11. Possibility of making the renewal date the same date for everyone and possibly in the middle of the year so that it doesn’t hit at the end of the year. Dean will discuss with Denise how this change will work.
  • We might qualify for non-profit mailing, Dean will research how we can accomplish this.
  • Discussion of membership on email- at least half of the membership has email but we aren’t sure how many we actually have email addresses for.
  • Communications- Betsey has volunteered to prepare the newsletter.
  • Audit of Books- Dean, Betsey and Bruce had volunteered last time, volunteers will work on this with the Treasurer sometime in September/ October. Bill LaHay will find out how much his accountant will charge for an annual audit by the end of the week.
  • Address on file with the IRS needs to be updated
  • Committee will also discuss the role of the treasurer, setting expectations
  • Special Events- Next Association Meeting-
  • National Night Out is August 7th
  • Kingman Island Cruise- Date is set for September 8th
  • September 20th is the Quarterly Meeting
  • Sammie Jacks social is August 30th

General rules for a board member:

Make sure you are not speaking on behalf of the board unless the entire board has approved it, you need to come to meetings so that we can meet quorum and you need to be on time.

Everyone should observe proper email etiquette.

Next board meeting will be at Holiday Inn on August 8th

Support our local businesses!

  1. Adjourn

Marty adjourned the meeting at 9:03pm.