DSNA Meeting Minutes: September 2023 Meeting Minutes

Call to order 7:05

Attendance/Introduction question: What are your feelings about Pumpkin Spice) Tim Hagyard, Karen Greene, Christy Stewart, Faffs Riederer, Natasha Winnik, Lisa Scoblink, Jon Bauer, Sarah Meggison (Housing and Community Development City of Tucson), Michael Collins , Damian Rawoot, Eva Hube, Christopher Rolls, Alexandra Zameznik, Nicholas Mccullough (Supervisor Adelita Grijalva’s staff), Margie Donovan, Tania, Rona, Bernice, Matt, Natalie (SplinterCollective) Alexander Boldruff, Joanna Williams, Abra Bentley, Noemi, Brendon

Changes/approval of previous month’s minutes: approved

Treasurer’s report: nothing new

Announcements (external and internal)

Book Swap Oct. 8 partnering with 4th Ave Historical Coalition at Old Ordinary Bikes Shop (10-1) drop off books and pick up books. Extra books will delivered to neighborhood small libraries. 4th Ave/7th st (around the corner from Antigones)

Originate turns 20 on Oct 28… Twenty Days of Giving, will have Makers Fair to kick off.

Next Board of Supervisors is tomorrow. Visit pima.gov for the agenda. Happy Hispanic Heritage Month! District 5 is very happy to be helping promote Hispanic Heritage Month and the Pima County Historical Courthouse will be hosting events each Friday to celebrate Hispanic Heritage with performances, food tastings, presentations, and more. Visit visittucson.org/viva for more information on all of the community events happening this month. Saturday, September 30 will be busy! The 2nd Annual Yellow Heart Memorial Walk, to honor those who were lost due to COVID. The walk will be starting at 7:00 a.m. and will go until 10:00 a.m. and will begin at the Garden of Gethsemane (602 W. Congress Street). For questions, email TucsonYHM@gmail.com Also on that day is the annual Drum Up for Peace event—this year, it will be taking place at the Kennedy Park Fiesta Area from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and Ward 6 will be tabling. This event is a great community gathering to celebrate a more peaceful world with vendors and resources, as well as activities and food.

SplinterCollective will be having a big celebration Friday Oct 13 and distributed a handout of background information on Estevan Park Community Partnership Project We will be gathering input on mural for park and the project in general.

Discussion

11th Ave Affordable Housing (possible vote) - Sarah Meggison, City of Tucson Housing and Community Development The property next to Salvation Army was given to the City and it will be used for public housing. Our neighborhood has been working on this project for 18 years. Update: The small group already working on this will meet with Sarah as we move into the next phase. City has been working on two sites, this one and one in Menlo Park, which is shovel ready to break ground. This 11th Ave parcel is not quite ready.. New language in code has affected designs for townhouses, and so we are still working on a design to bring to the neighborhood. In addition, the company chosen to work on this project through the RFP (request for proposal) process (FSL - Foundation for Senior Living) had a change in personnel. They are going to move forward with the Menlo Park project since it is shovel ready. Our project will instead be the first affordable housing purchase project to be built using the City of Tucson El Pueblo Housing Development nonprofit. The city did just break ground on the low income housing at NoTell Motel. We do not need to use the design created by FSL/Corky Poster. With the new zoning/entitlements, there are options as to how to best subdivide it out to 8-14 units. Sarah is also looking toward creative funding from IDA (Industrial Development Authority). Corky is still an on-call architect for the city, may or may not be working on this project moving forward. Faffs: thank you for all of your hard work, even with these disappointing results. Is there any consideration of other empty lots in Dunbar? Sarah looks at all vacant lots in Tucson and we are looking at small infill projects.

Estevan Park Community Survey Process Discussion (possible vote)- Alexandra was surprised that the meeting was so conflictive and non-inclusive and seemed to have special interests groups that did not necessarily represent neighborhood, and would like to know 1) should we use insurance money to keep playground open? 2) should we investigate more deeply if the meeting truly represented the neighbors? Parks and Rec is going to put out another electronic neighborhood survey to review everything that was on the board. The City does not actually have money outside of insurance money, although Splinter does have 250,000 from a grant to use now on the park, although it has been difficult working with City on such items as what specific picnic tables can be bought and who should be buying them.. The mural and community garden are two funded items through Splinter Collective, but they seek feedback from neighbors. Christopher is disappointed that he couldn’t make meeting because he cares about the park. He wants to make sure that all voices in neighborhood are heard even if it is a little challenging. He also wants to make sure that there is increased transparency from Splinter Collective and we would like to have them on as a regular agenda item so we can hear what is happening. Joanna suggested that we return to Block Buddies who would keep their neighbors informed (will be on agenda next month) Natasha did attend meeting, and was disappointed that all views were not heard. Conflict of Interest concerns will be added to next month’s agenda.

Pima County budget surplus and affordable housing. Christopher shared budgets and information with listserv - essentially Pima County Board of Supervisors will be voting on Tuesday, Sept. 19th for a one-time move of surplus funds from last fiscal year’s general fund to this year’s affordable housing budget..This would be for $2.2 million. Dr. Heinz (District 2) brought up using half of last year’s surplus undesignated funds towards affordable housing, on top of the 5 million in the account for this year. The Regional Affordable Housing Commission is working hard to actually spend down this money. Christopher asked if this would be a general precedent to use surplus funds, which no, it is a one-time, but the 5 million is recurring fund. Public comments are still open on Pima.gov all the way through the meeting, or you could call in during Call to the Public. Or you could go tomorrow at 9am and speak. Faffs would support a thank you letter to Grijalva for her continued support, which needs to be written tonight. 16 votes for voting on something not on the agenda. A second vote to express support for passing measure and writing a thank you letter. 16 votes for.

Reports from the field

DNARC: (Downtown Neighborhoods and Residents Committee): No news

Downtown Links: a year behind schedule; projected date is next summer

Dunbar Coalition: Resource Fair for Literacy Connects, Saturday, September 23

HFAC (Historic Fourth Avenue Coalition): next meeting 9/26 Keith will be talking about unhoused situation. City now has portable showers available.. Seis passes out water and Gatorade downtown

Stone/Speedway: City is going to buy the other lot so there will be enough room for a development (hopefully involving affordable housing). There is a document on our website describing our guidelines for what we would like to see on that property.

WAMO (Warehouse Arts Management Organization): we need a representative to join their board because once Downtown Links is completed there should be arts and music on the Deck Plaza

For the good of the cause: mural project and community garden, paid account for zoom, possible conflicts of interest of members, reviving Block Buddies

Adjourn 8:36PM