RNCC MEETING MINUTES, September 17, 2018
1. The meeting was called to order President Stan Anderson at 7:02 PM. If Cesar Zepeda was at the meeting he would be video streaming the meeting on Facebook. Refreshments were provided by Castro Heights and Panhandle Annex.
2. MSP approval of the Minutes from the previous meeting was tabled until next month.
3. Representatives from the following (13) neighborhoods introduced themselves and some gave reports: Castro Heights, Fairmede/Hilltop, Laurel Park, Marina Bay, May Valley, North & East, Panhandle Annex, Park Plaza, Point Richmond, Richmond Annex, Richmond Heights, Richmore Village and Metro Square, and Santa Fe Neighborhoods.
4. Announcements from RNCC PIO: Madalyn Law announced Crime Prevention’s 35th Annual banquet on Saturday October 20, 2018 at 6:30 pm and the application deadline is October 5, 2018. Laurel Park’s Blues in the Park is happening on September 23rd. BART has a new representative (Ariel Mercado) that wants to visit all of the NCs. Community Parks Assessment Sat Sept 29th, 8:45 to 3:00 pm at Nevin Park. Thursday, September 20, is the Council of Industries Boat Trip.
5. City Department Heads/City Official Reports:
City Manager/Community Services: Rochelle Monk introduced Aly from Healthy and Active before 5 to talk about the Park Assessments happening on Saturday, September 29th from 8:45 to 3:00 pm at Nevin Park. This is Prop 68 money that can be used for low income park locations. They will be touring 25 parks out of our 57 parks. They will talk about lighting in parks, restrooms in parks and the homelessness in parks.
Police Department: Lt Stina Johanson talked about the update of Richmond’s 911 service and it now goes directly to RPD. Crime stats for the whole department are up 8% from the last month but down 4% from the YTD. Southern District is about even from YTD, Central District is up 4% YTD, and Northern District down 1% YTD. RPD has signed up with Nixle and they would like all of the NCs to connect and get more officers on the street. RPD would like the NCs to talk to the City Council about trash.
WCCUSD: Marcus Walton talked about some of the schools getting new Principals and one of them is Kennedy High School and the new principal is a graduate of Kennedy High School. Wilson has moved to it’s temporary campus in El Cerrito and they should begin tearing down Wilson soon. There will be a School Board meeting on 9/18 at Helms Middle School at 6:00 pm and another one on October 2, 2018 at DeJean Middle School. Their first district map was rejected and they need to come up with another one. They are still working on their transition to trustee area elections. 2018 elections will be 2 year seats and the 202 elections will be split between 2 year and 4 year seats.
6. Presentations:
1) RNCC Round table – the Board started things off by asking what the RNCC can do better? We heard that people would like to see an RNCC page on the City website, it’s own Facebook page so neighborhoods can announce what is happening in their area. All neighborhoods having the ability to invite all of their members to the RNCC meetings and to be able to speak at these meetings. Members wanted to see the RNCC bring issues that many of the neighborhoods face together and go to City Council as a group to support what the neighborhoods want. Making sure that all members of all NC’s have the RNCC by-laws. There were a few people that thought this meeting should have been round table only – no department announcements. They would like to have the RNCC tackle issues that are relevant to many ncs, i.e. traffic, speeding, donuts, speed tables. They would like the round tables to be quarterly meetings as we still need to hear from City Officials on a regular basis. The members would like to see the RNCC have committees that will help all of the NC’s and the committees should be open to all members. We talked about the length of the meetings, would people like the meetings to go from 7 to 8:30 or does the 9:00 ending work and if we end early then it is a bonus? Most people were fine with the 9:00 pm ending time but really did not want to see meetings run over. We talked about crime and what NC’s can do with the help of the RNCC to change things in NC’s. Members would like to see more use of the internet to post meetings, make people aware of all that is happening in each NC. Maybe update the bylaws to increase who and how many members can speak from each NC. Telling the Truth is a very important element of what we are doing. Members would like the RNCC to respect their members and not disrespect them as have happened in the past and to support all of the NC’s. Traffic is a City wide issue and we we will start our round tables with this issue in 2019. We will talk with City Staff and let them know what we are doing and how they can help us get these things done. We should nominate a traffic committee at our next meeting and structure meetings to work for everyone.
7. Old Business: None
8. New Business: None
9. Adjournment: 8:55 pm by President Stan Anderson.
Respectfully submitted by,
Jan Mignone
Recording Secretary