1.  The meeting was called to order at 7:01 pm by President Don Woodrow. Don spoke about going to Eleanor Loynd’s retirement/going away party where the guest of honor was taken away on a stretcher, but the speeches continued. We had just heard that she was home from the hospital and was doing well. He also thanked Park Plaza and Laurel Park for tonight’s refreshments.

2.  MSP approval of the Minutes from October 19, 2015

3.  Representatives from the following (20) neighborhoods introduced themselves and some gave reports: Belding/Woods, Castro Heights, Fairmede/Hilltop, Greenbriar, Laurel Park, Marina Bay, May Valley, North & East, Panhandle Annex, Parchester Village, Park Plaza, Parkview, Pt. Richmond, Pullman, Richmond Annex, Richmond Heights, Richmore Village & Metro Square, Santa Fe, and Shields/Reid.

4.  City Department Heads/City Official Reports:

Public Works: Yader Bermudez was not available, but Robert Chelemedos was there in his place. The greenway lights are almost complete, Shields/Reid Park should be completed by Thanksgiving.  They are paving at Hilltop and still working on the Nevin Streetscape.  Robert explained why they do not pave an entire neighborhood.

Engineering Services: Staff – N/A

City Manager/Community Coordinator: Rochelle Monk was on vacation, but Guadalupe Morales, who is an Americorp volunteer working in the City Manager’s office,  who told us about the Love Your Block grants, tool lending library, they are needing a location for the tool lending library as they already have a large donation of tools.  She also updated us on the goat grazing that will be happening around the City to help City keep the weeds down and give the landscapers for the City a little help.

  Mayor’s office: Alex Knox talked to us about a presentation of the City’s finances at City Council on November 17, 2015.  They are also working on revising the Police Commission ordinance on November 24, 2015.  The Urban Forest Advisory Committee will have it’s newly revised ordinance read on 11/17/15 and a few more members will be added.  There will be a grand opening for the wet weather storage facility on November 17th at 11:00 am.  It is a 5 million gallon storage facility.  The Mayor’s office has finally gotten an intern to work with them in the Mayor’s Office.

  Police Department: Chief Magnus spoke to us regarding some changes that will be occurring in the police department.  Internal Affairs will now become the Office of Professional Accountability and they have hired a civilian oversight/project manager that will be conducting investigations and they will be located on the 2nd floor of 440 Civic Center Plaza.  There is an article in the Atlantic Monthly that talks about the COR Resource Office and the good work they are doing.  Violent crime is up and overall all crime is up 4%. The jail expansion has been defeated but we hope to get County money to go to community based programs.  They have 9 new lateral officers that have joined RPD and they have great candidates for the ranger program and should have someone hired in the next 30 days.  The closure rate for homicides are up for 2015; they have solved a large % of the 18 homicides for this year.

Code Enforcement: Tim Higares talked to us about RPD learning about what all Code Enforcement does and what they enforce.  They have demolished 5 properties over the past year with the last one being the old Red Cross radio shacks by the Recreation Complex.  On Tuesday they were able to get their social impact bonds cleared and they are now ready to acquire homes within the City that are zombies or have a missing owner that they can rehab and sell at market rate to Richmond residents.  There are now nine illegal transfer sites within the City and they are setting up sting operations to arrest them.  One of the sites is the S&S Towing lot.  They are in the process of hiring another officer for the streets to replace the Code Enforcement Supervisor that retired.  There has also been an increase in homeless encampments and they go by the book to remove them from their locations.

Planning Department: Staff N/A but they sent their planning project updates.

  Fire Department:  Terry Harris was unavailable but Firefighter Manly Moulton talked to us about 12,000 calls the fire department has already had since the beginning of the fiscal year.  They have had 6 fires this month with the last one being at 23rd Street and Grant during the afternoon rush hour which did cause some issues in their arrival.  They have put together a hazardous material team and station 64 (Bayview Station) is installing car seats for those who are not sure they have done it right.  They have completed the passing out of CO detectors.

5.  Announcements from RNCC PIO: Garland Ellis told us about Free bike repair at the Library on 11/14/15 from 12 -4 pm.  SPDC is having a free workshop for startups on 11/19/15 from 6-9 pm and the Richmond Bay Specific Plan has extended its comment period to 12/15/15.

6.  Presentations:

1) Andres Soto: Crude Oil Shipments going through Richmond – N/A

2) Jan Mignone: NUSA Convention in Houston, Tx – Jan presented the two workshops that she felt we could develop in Richmond.  One was to mark each neighborhood with markers on top of street signs.  Each nc may only have four or five but they would be on the corners that delineate the neighborhood boundaries and these are something each neighborhood could purchase using “Love Your Block” mini grant funds.  The other was from Orange County, Florida and they have a program that makes every person convicted in that county to give the county some of the restitution money for a special program that is returned to the area where he committed his crime.  They collected $70,000.00 in one year and it was used for improvements within the neighborhoods of that county.  She also talked about the two keynote speakers: Angela Blanchard, President & CEO of Neighborhood Centers Inc. and Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, the pastor of the Windsor Village Methodist Church. They were both extraordinary speakers and one of the things that NUSA asked the attendees to do was bring a children’s book to the conference and after Angela Blanchard’s speech, all the attendees gave her the books they had brought.  Jan had brought Richmond Tales; Lost Secrets of the Iron Triangle.

7.  Old Business: 2016 RNCC Executive Board election slate. We had a full slate and it was moved by Myrtle Braxton and seconded by Chiara Jacobus, it was a unanimous vote for the new board as follows: President – Stanly Anderson, Vice President – Naomi Williams, Treasurer – Jerry Yoshida, Corresponding Secretary – Cesar Zepeda, Recording Secretary – Jan Mignone, PIO – Garland Ellis, Sergeant at Arms – Bea Roberson, Director(s) at Large – Margaret Jordan, Madelyn Law, Roxie Stile.

8.  New Business: None

9.  Adjournment: This meeting was adjourned at 8:46 PM.

Respectfully submitted by,
Jan Mignone
Recording Secretary
The next General Meeting will be our Holiday dinner on Monday, December 14, 2015 at 6:30 PM at the Senior Center, 2525 Macdonald Ave.