Castleberry Hill Neighborhood Association
General Business Meeting
July 20, 2009, 6:30pm
The Granite Room – 211 Peters St.
MINUTES
Laurel Emery called the meeting to order at 6:39.
The June, 2009 General Business Meeting minutes were adopted and accepted.
OFFICERS REPORTS
COMMITTEE REPORTS
PR/Communications/Loft Tour
• More information on the Loft Tour at www.castleberryhill.org/lofttour
• We are REALLY looking for lofts right now and would like to ideally have 14-15 to choose from since the Selection Committee is a big part of the process
• Sponsorship packets are finalized and available on the website, Scott, Stefan and Allison are heading that up, can email sponsors@castleberryhill.org for more information; also accepting sponsors from outside of the neighborhood and we are 501c3, which is important for a lot of businesses, especially larger ones; taking submissions for lofts, let us know if you want to submit or know of one that would be good for the tour
• 85% of neighborhood working budget comes off of Loft Tour so important to engage folks on that front
Transportation
• Stimulus funds are in place, looking at transit funds for street cars throughout Downtown and North to Midtown. There is a $300M cap for all of GA. Deadline is Sept 15, 2009. Fund projects that normally get a lot of attention. The street car would come down Peters Street.
Public Safety
• Meeting on Wednesday, July 29th at 7pm at Tilt. Spilane (taking Williams place for the Summer) will be in attendance. Break-in at Deer Lofts parking garage last night. Incident reports HAVE TO BE FILLED OUT!!! They are on the website and we are looking at turning it into a web-enabled form.
• National Night Out on Tuesday, August 4th at 7pm across from Atlanta Fire Station #1. There will be wings from JR Crickets, snacks, drinks and more. Bring a flashlight for a walk across the Nelson Street Bridge and Peters Street and there will be an Open House in the fire station.
• ACERT Training (Allison Parker) – Free 20 hour training, which will allow us as a neighborhood to be prepared for an emergency in the case that we have to wait for city services. Looking for volunteers, possibly 5 people that could go through the training. Email Allison at allison.leigh.parker@gmail.com
GreenCell
• Castleberry Hill will be the first neighborhood movement of this kind. Working to raise awareness about the issue if disposable plastics and promote better options. Worked w/ the first neighborhood clean-up to ensure there was recycling as well.
• The surveys are showing that people are interested in recycling and would like more information on how to get more involved.
• Video by Raygun for the GreenCell movement
• Need a volunteer from the neighborhood to help be the Castleberry Hill GreenCell Ambassador
• If you have questonnaires to turn in email to Jennifer@greenplate.org
• More information at www.greenplate.org
Dog Park
• Have raised $3500 to date
• Logo is almost completed and will be distributed
• We need volunteers, email president@castleberryhill.org for more information
• Add the ability to donate through the website and will have flyers made with new logo to be distributed soon
NEW BUSINESS
• JR Crickets – Bernie (owns El Azteca) & James Sterling (proprietor)
• In Castleberry Point at Nelson/Walker
• James is training w/ JR Crickets (Spring St) location now
• Restaurant w/ a bar, not a bar w/ a restaurant.
• Opening November-December, will be open 7 days/week, 11am-midnight (1am on weekends), delivery available, approx. 60% to go at Spring St location, don’t anticipate parking concerns
• James is expecting to be living in Castleberry Hill
• Moved here from NYC, loves Castleberry Hill
• Wing boxes/To Go is cardboard, no plastic.
• Scott Chapman brought up the concern of trash, especially chicken bones are a big concern of the neighborhood. James says that he will be working on keeping the area around his establishment clear.
• Heather Alhadeff pointed out double-parking issue and how they will handle To Go orders; they are working on this and how to keep the traffic flowing is a big concern, especially on that corner
• Matt McCusker stated that he didn’t think it was appropriate for the CHNA to accept gifts from new businesses in the neighborhood prior to the discussion about the business. Also asked about the loitering issue at the Spring St location. James pointed out that the Nelson St location is not the Spring St location. It’s an implied endorsement.
• Krista Ruggles asked JR Crickets to support the NNO event because we encourage new neighbors to support events and be good neighbors. They have signed a lease and they are coming into the neighborhood.
• Conrad Woods stated that the South Cobb location is totally different and it’s not a bad business, the impression because of the Spring St location is tainted, but not all of the locations are like that.
• Horacio Romero thanked James for coming into the neighborhood and investing in Castleberry Hill.
• Bernie reiterated that James is also looking at living in the neighborhood.
• Jerry Miller (Castlberry Point) said that they have been working with James and Bernie on the lease and that they are being asked to live up to certain things.
• Jim Schneider asked about live entertainment. James and Bernie said they will not have live entertainment.
• Paul Grether and Cerrod Pate asked about liquor license and noise issues. James said they will not be looking for the live entertainment license, only alcohol (liquor, beer, wine). James said that it will be similar to the Taco Mac location in the Metropolis.
• Asked why they chose Castleberry Hill and Castleberry Point. They were shown a number of locations and couldn’t find anything. One night James was driving and saw the Castleberry Point space on the back and loved that it overlooked the city.
• Le Flash (www.leflash-atl.com) – Friday, October 2nd
• If you have a blank wall, if you have power and want to be part of this event let them know!
• Creative Loafing – Best of Atlanta
• Need to get the neighborhood and businesses submitted!!!
OLD BUSINESS
NEIGHBORHOOD ANNOUNCEMENTS
Any New Businesses Opening in Neighborhood
Any Other Announcements
SPECIAL GUESTS: CITY, COUNTY, STATE, & FEDERAL OFFICIALS
City Council
• Cleta Winslow – District 4
o Millage increase vote and issues with mortgage fraud (30310 in district 4 was the worst for this in the US). It’s not a good thing to have to raise taxes in an election year, but if the thought was that the increase would help city services then the vote would be a positive one. Didn’t know enough about the direction and voted against it.
o $50M will have to be borrowed before January since the taxes won’t be in yet in order to bring everyone off of furlough. More cuts may have to come if the economy doesn’t turn soon or if it gets worse.
o Jim Schneider mentioned a mortgage fraud task force, but there have only been individuals indicted, no businesses.
• Kwanza Hall – Jay Tribby representing – District 2
o Helps distribute materials throughout the districts, they did this for the clean up and other CH events. Encourage CH residents to venture to Inman Park on July 29th for an event to raise funds for their private security patrol. Inman Park festival raises the funds for this. This could be a good event to focus on that could work well for the
o Kwanza worked with Jake’s Ice Cream on a Cherry Coke Float flavor; working an a make-your-own ice cream day.
o Also voted against the increase in light of the recent economy, even though it did end up passing by a slim margin.
o Excited about the GreenPlate and GreenCell concepts and in August there will be a proclamation made to make all of the clean up’s in the Fall be self-sustaining.
o City council voted to increase the fee for booting from $50 to $75 and if you have more than 3 unpaid parking tickets in the public right-of-way they will be allowed to boot. There will be a private firm brought in to handle the parking tickets in the coming months.
• LaShawn M. Hoffman – http://www.hoffmanforatlanta.com
o Will be running for District 4 City Council representative
APD
• Come to the July 29th Public Safety meeting at Tilt and/or the National Night Out event on August 4th across from the Fire Station #1
Meeting adjourned at 7:42pm
