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Meeting Minutes
August 16, 2007, 7:00pm
I. Call to Order and Welcome:
The meeting was called to order at 7pm. In attendance were Steve Pollock, Jay Wheeler, Andrea Flores-Shelton, Gracie Corral, Sicy Simoes, George Perez, Gustavo Gonzalez, Tanya Freudenberger, Norma Martinez, Aurora Quevedo, Esau Ruiz Herrera, Alice Sanchez, David Sanchez, SJPD Officer Ronnie Lopez, SJPD Officer Sergio Farias, Diana Wilkerson, Bud LoMonaco, Mario Tavares, Melinda Bettencourt, Helen and Gary Gruba.
II. Announcements:
A. Fleming development Meeting, August 21st 6:30-8:00 p.m. at the Alum Rock Library.
1. Mario Tavares elaborated on this announcement that the proposed plan is to locate single family homes on an approximate acre and a half are off of Fleming Avenue at bottom of Knob Hill and encouraged members to attend to express their concern over the density of the proposed housing development and narrow access route which would lead to further traffic congestion in the area.
B. Two new Academies Starting this Fall at the closed Lester Shields Elementary School Site.
1. Aurora Quevedo, Norma Martinez, Superintendant of the Alum Rock Union School District (ARUSD), and Tanya Freudenberger, ARUSD Board Trustee, proudly announced that on Saturday, August 25th at 10am there will be an opening ceremony for two new primary school academies, one for grades k-2 and a second for grades 3-5 on the recently closed Lester Shields Elementary School site with Assemblymember Joe Coto, City Coucilmember Nora Campos and possibly San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed in attendance. The grade k-2 academy which will occupy one half of the Shields site is named in honor of Dr. Anthony P. Russo and will be focused on Literacy and Technology and the grade 3-5 academy which will be located on the other half has been named in honor of Jim McEntee and will have a Science and Technology emphasis. Norma explained that these new academies are opening under an alternative education model and will be within the Alum Rock Union School District and funded in partnership with Cisco Systems and will include some structural improvements to the old Shields Elementary School site such as repainting, repaving of the entrance and a new digital marquis and equipment such as new laptops for the teachers as well as smart boards and LCD projectors in every classroom.
C. Tanya Freudenberger also reminded attendees in the meeting to attend the Alum Rock Youth Center Comedy Night Fundraiser, saying that it has a great line up of comedians and 100% of the proceeds go to the programs at the center.
D. Tanya also expressed that there is a desire within the school board to find ways to build communication between the schools and the Alum Rock community via groups active in the community such as ARNC. Steve Pollack gave a recap on ARNC history and background for first time attendees and mentioned that ARNC is also looking for projects and/or other ways to connect with the community. The possibility of working closer with the schools to support extracurricular programs and activities is part of the ARNC mission goals of reaching out to the community.
1. David indicated that he and Alice have committed to attend Back to School nights as ARNC representatives. Andrea brought up the point that it would also be beneficial for ARNC to gear its outreach to be more bilingual/bicultural in order to better reach the more than 50% monolingual Spanish-speaking demographic of our Alum Rock residents. Members also relayed the various Internet groups that have been started to facilitate Alum Rock communication: ARNNE, alumrock.ning.com, and The Neighborhood View.
III. Alum Rock Village: Bud LoMonaco
A. Bud was happy to report that the Alum Rock Village Business Association (ARVBA) is currently planning the Light Up the Village Event to be held Dec 1st.
B. He thanked ARNC on behalf of ARVBA for the Litter Pick Up Day and expressed how much it was appreciated by the business owners in the village.
C. They are working on developing their business membership and have expanded the association down Alum Rock to Highway 680.
D. Cal Properties who are the company that are completing the green construction project near the corner of McKee and White Road is preparing to put forth a proposal to the city and has approached ARVBA with a proposal for development of the old Alum Rock Feed & Fuel site to a two story mixed-use design with perhaps retail on the bottom and offices on the second level. The plan will take approximately two to three years as there are issues of environmental remediation of the site due its prior use as a gas station and while the permitting and approval process is carried out.
E. Bus was also pleased to announce the completed installation of a flashing crosswalk in the village which increases the safety.
F. The old Rafiki’s Coffeeshop has been sold to a new and very reputable owner that has the current adjoining tenants very happy to have him as their landlord. This new ownership looks very promising.
G. ARVBA has been able to get clarification on the use of the James Lick High School parking lot. It was thought that it was available for the Village businesses only after 3pm but it was determined that it is actually open all day long for Village business use.
H. David also inquired about the other corner property where Karate studio was formerly located as there has been strange activity noted by community members. Bud said that he would check with the association and get back to ARNC.
I. Bud brought up that there has been some concern regarding the new Miss Café due to illegal smoking inside and disturbing the neighboring businesses. Andrea brought up that it would be good for the association going forward to really look at the permits that were applied for by this business as a means to control some of the nuisance activity.
IV. Neighborhood Issues
A. Beautification
1. County Road and Traffic Issues
a. David has been in communication with Sadeghi Sadegh from County Roads and Airports regarding the issues with Alum Rock streets. He opened discussion to the group to identify street and road issues that they were aware of so that he could come up with a list to bring back to Sadeghi. Gustavo came up with the idea of bringing a map to the next meeting as well as members taking pictures of areas with road/street issues and bringing them back to the next meeting.
2. Reporting abandoned houses in Alum Rock (City Jursidictions)
a. The abandoned houses in question on the East Hills corridor have been identified and the information has been posted to the alumrock.ning.com > Forum > Speak up Alum Rock! > Condemned Houses for a list of condemned homes including publicly available information regarding the property owners.
b. So David identified the next step for ARNC is to have as many people as possible report these properties to code enforcement. Andrea indicated that the Code Enforcement officer for the unincorporated area to talk to is John Toth who can be emailed and john.toth@pln.sccgov.org. Gustavo discussed the possibility of having John Toth come to a future meeting.
3. Reporting gang related tagging/graffiti
a. David reported that the process for reporting tagging is posted on alumrock.ning.com
b. Officer Lopez also indicated that it is important to report the graffiti to SJPD as some of the tags can be indicators of potential gang plans of action or identifiers of recent crimes.
4. Neighborhood Updates - by neighborhood leads
a. Fleming – Andrea announced Thursday, August 23rd will be a Phase II County Pocket Annexation Meeting at the library
b. Valley View Area- Gustavo reported that there had been some petty theft incidents near Miguelito Rd and the Valley View area and for residents to be mindful to keep their doors and cars locked.
c. Officer Farias expressed how impressed he was with the support for each other as community members he was witnessing in the meeting and that despite the county pocket/jurisdiction issues in the area that people can still call on SJPD for help with issues in the neighborhood. He stated that even if an issue is not within SJPD jurisdiction that they can provide the appropriate contacts within the county Sheriff’s department. He also expressed that he hopes he will be able to attend future ARNC meetings.
B. Building community pride
1. Alum Rock Business Association Light Up The Village (LUV) – David announced that he will be attending the next LUV Committee meeting on Monday, August 20 to see how ARNC can support the event.
V. ARNC Business:
A. There was discussion about setting a new meeting time for ARNC in order to avoid time conflicts with the ARUSD and SNI/680 NAC meetings, the 4th Thursday of the month was settled upon.
B. Gustavo requested that a Trustee update is added to the agenda and encouraged member attendance at the Trustee Board Meetings.
C. Andrea lastly wanted to raise awareness amongst the group that the site of Marguerite Terrace is currently being looked at for development into a subdivision for single family homes and that we need to look at whether this is what we as a community want given the needs our increasing aging population.
Closing:
Meeting was adjourned at 8:35pm with the next meeting scheduled to occur on Thursday, September 27th at 7pm.
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