DSNA Meeting Minutes: February 2021 Meeting Minutes

1. Call to Order - 7:00 p.m.

2. Sign-In & Introductions

3. Treasurer's Report

$1045.33

4. Announcements

Karen Greene had a meeting with photographer, Becky Hendrick to take photo of houses built in 1921. This is for the map of Dunbar Spring’s historical houses. They have everything up to 1921. We have everything on the map until 1920, so 1921 houses are next. The link to the existing map is here: http://dunbarspring.org/map-dunbar-spring-historic-houses-older-1919

5. Committee Reports

a. 11th Ave: RFP will soon be sent out.

6. Reports from the Field

a. DNARC: Karen wishes to note the difference in ideas between DNARC and Downtown Tucson Partnership. Downtown Tucson Partnership believes Tucson to be very bike friendly and very diverse. Regarding new gentrification issues, Iron Horse Neighborhood is fighting a new student dorm, which is being proposed to be built on First Ave and Tenth St.

b. Downtown Links: Stone Ave is still closed. For resources and updates, please see the following link: https://www.downtownlinks.info/

c. Dunbar Coalition: Sam Brown, Dunbar Board Chair. He is excited about visions and ideas for future collaboration. Barbara Lewis resided in Bills absence. Drew Berryhill is new hire at the garden. POD school exists with 8 students attending 3 days a week. (Pandemic PODs are small groups of students that learn together while schools are closed.) They have Wi-fi for the rest of the fiscal year. Karima White is the instructor. Cox is supporting the cost. Also, Reggie presented a proposal to establish a Gift Shop/Print Shop in the current museum.

7. Discussion

a. Neighborhood Grant Opportunity— Helen Erickson from the UA College of Architecture presented on this grant opportunity. Title is called “Mapping Cultural Natural Assets of your Neighborhood.” Believe that outside inventories of neighborhood’s cultural resources do not really identify things that are important to the actual neighborhood. What is not documented has no protection and no standing; cultural resources don’t have the impact unless they’re documented. They wish to put a mapping tool in the hands of the community. They also aspire to put together a survey tool that is accessible to everyone wanting to participate within the community. Survey tool is both Spanish and English. Location of the resources uploaded by neighbors is determined by the Arc GIS app used. They have added categories from a pull-down menu in order to adapt cultural resources to a particular neighborhood. For example, infrastructure can include things like traffic circles with art. You can also take and upload photographs to have an accurate and personalized record of what is there. Applying for 2 grants, one with UA Libraries, the other with the National Science Foundation. They wish to invite further collaboration with selected Tucson neighborhoods. The mission is not only to collect information, but to determine what is the most useful way to integrate this information into the community. Question was posed about the digital divide and web access not equally distributed among folks. How can they get this web-based info integrated into the neighborhoods? Also, older generations may be particularly averse to developing the tech skills needed to access this info. Project would start in Fall, so they can then start to work with neighborhoods on how to overcome these digital divides. Dunbar neighbors voiced interest in contacting Dunbar Coalition and alumni from the Dunbar school, cuz these folks may be more familiar with buildings in the neighborhood from a historic perspective. Questions arose: Can we help neighborhoods to organize in order to contribute to this cause?...Who do these maps empower or who do they potentially oppress??

b. Small WTF Tower Construction (Bradford update)—Natasha shared how Bradford has met with every City Council office except for Ward 6. Apparently, Ward 6 wishes not to meet with him. Bradford has also met with the mayor’s office. Next step is to get in front of city attorney. Bradford also passed out a flyer door-to-door within many neighborhoods not just within Dunbar. We plan to upload (onto Dunbar website) DSNA’s letter on small cell tower potion.

c. Neighborhood Glass Recycle Committee—Clay Morgan wants to open discussion about creating a glass recycling committee to take people’s glass bottles to the various city-wide drop off location. This is because glass bottles are no longer being accepted by the city’s recycling services. Clay wishes to form a committee to assess need and organize. This is in order to figure out what is needed for those would like to continue glass recycling but cannot do it themselves. He has already proposed this on the neighborhood listserv. Clay will also send out the call on the newsletter via a short article. Jonathan Crowe has already organized his block to take in bottles, taking turns with his neighbors’ week to week. Natasha says Historic Fourth Ave Coalition (HFAC) is working on drop off on North 4th Avenue. Closest drop off to neighborhood is at Mansfield Park or El Rio Neighborhood Center. And Lisa Scoblink said that El Rio Community Center has a drop off. We also have the Block Pals. If we can get the Block Pals organized, then we could capitalize on that resource. The people who are Block Pals may be interested in being Recycle Pals. In turn, maybe Recycle Pals may also start to double as a Block Pal, as a way to fill the Block Pals out a bit more. Faffs, Danny Seymour, and two others on the listserv (Virginia and Frank Jude) wish to be part of the Glass Recycle Committee.

8. Approve January minutes—Motion to approve minutes. 9 in favor and 0 opposed.

9. Adjourn—7:46pm