DSNA Meeting Minutes: January 2026
DSNA meeting notes 1/26/26 (25 attendees!)
Attendees: Board (-Dustin), Susan Lyman, Jacob, Maxie, Sky, Natasha, Brendan, Alia (ward 1), Carl, Judie, Casey, Riff(?), Mark, Alexander, Glenn, James, Alexis, Sofie, Kathleen, Emiily, Karen, Nancy, Brad
Changes to last month’s minutes? No, MINUTES APPROVED.
Treasury report: we had $400.77 in treasury as of this meeting. But we made 120.64 from the dog calendar (THANK YOU NOEMIE AND BRENDAN!), so that means we now have $521.41 in total in the account.
Announcements from Karen: if we can add 11th Avenue housing plans back to “announcements from the field,” that would be great. RFP is going out for feedback, looking for design-build firms at both Menlo Park and our lot on 11th Ave. Looking for architect/engineer/general contractor for proposal. TINAN Group is working on this. Once they get possible firms, they would bring that to our neighborhood and Menlo Park. They say Menlo Park is probably going before ours because it’s plotted out there.
Brad on ADA ramps: around the city, neighborhoods are getting ADA accessible ramps, prioritized neighborhoods that have sidewalks. They did a few in our neighborhood along bike boulevards, but when they put them in, they were only connecting ramps to existing sidewalks, not earthen paths. This project would use federal monies, which require ADA ramps to connect to “wheelchair accessible pathway,” but importantly, federal guidelines does not mandate that this is concrete, only slip resistant. After reviewing federal ADA guidelines, it’s clear that compacted earthen paths—like those on most streets in Dunbar—would qualify. Due to historical redlining, the city didn’t invest in our neighborhood and we never got sidewalks, do we need to carry on this legacy? Brad drafted a letter that he sent out on our neighborhood listserv this afternoon (draft letter text is included in full at end of meeting notes). The letter is asking that the city find funding and fund ADA accessible ramps in our neighborhood, including earthen pathways. To be clear, we are not requesting sidewalks, only the ramps.
Question: if city approves funds, how will they decide where we put them? Can we ensure ramps are put in areas that actually help?
Answer: We should recommend ramps are put in by the best, most compacted walkways.
MOTION MOVED AND SECONDED: one opposed, all else in favor (24 of 25). Motion passed.
Susan Announcement: distributing orange whistles to anyone who wants one for ICE watch. Send Susan email if you want whistles.
Thomas Announcement re: elections: board elections are coming up in April. If you’re interested in running, we need it in the newsletter that goes out in March. Thomas is not running again, so President position will be open. Thomas is happy to talk to anyone about the experience of being board president.
Quiet Zone Committee should be on regular agenda, for relative importance of achieving quiet zone. Thomas will put this on standing topics. Promise from city is that once Links project is done, they won’t have to blow train horn five times.
Rapid response re: ICE: there is a new Signal group chat called Dunbar and Friends with purpose of building community. Ideas of going house-to-house to see if households need help buying groceries, running errands, etc. If you’d like to be added to chat email Kristy.
Library (Karen): starting new effort of getting the library out to neighborhood meetings, this should be a standing item on agenda. We’ll share community resources from the library (ie. getting New York Times for free(!), Kanopy (free, amazing selection of movies) other resources like local events and music).
Alexander: traffic Survey results: See email – 13 years ago we had study by living streets alliance, but we haven’t had anything since then. On listserv there has been lots of discussion about traffic cutting through neighborhood and other traffic calming related measures. We got some input from neighborhood, but out of 200 ppl we only had 21 responses. Discouraging. Difficult to discern neighborhood opinions from survey. One way street idea was popular. Trying to see if there is real appetite to change.
Discussion about re-opening survey. Many feel that we should re-open survey. And many were unaware that it took place. Not everyone checks email frequently… If we put survey in newsletter that would allow more people to give input. We may reopen survey.
Last month, we voted to support approval of traffic circles and speed humps, all of this will hopefully be approved by city. We have a good number of speedbumps in the queue.
Folks liked the idea of a few spots that block ingress into neighborhood. Love the idea of closing a street or two to cars entirely and having walking/planting zone. 20 mph limit for neighborhoods.
There should be a subcommittee for traffic calming. Show of hand of who would be interested? Sky, Glenn, Laiken and others indicated interest, we’ll connect after meeting. Paper passed around and emails gathered.
We should invite Downtown Links to meeting – what’s happening to the Deck park is not what we agreed to. They had promised to come to our meetings quarterly; we should ensure that happens. Project is near to completion, we’ve expressed our frustrations to them, many were ignored. If you are frustrated with this project you should learn about RTA Next and vote against it.
Some desired to express disappointment from neighborhood about engagement and promises broken. Do we want to send a letter about our disappointment? Some support.
Brendan: Ped crossing will be built by Union Pacific Railroad. Should we be proactive in reaching out to railroad?
Railroad has been a bully, we should still write letter, but it won’t likely make a difference. Two potential letters, one to railroad, one to city, county TDOT, etc. Do we have a volunteer to write the letter? Karen will help. Nancy has written similar letters and can help. MOTION: UNANIMOUS APPROVAL TO WRITE LETTER.
MOTION: WRITE LETTER TO CITY OF TUCSON: SECONDED. UNANIMOUS APPROVAL
MOTION: WRITE LETTER TO RAILROAD: SECONDED. UNANIMOUS APPROVAL
Reports from the field:
Made in Tucson Market will not happen this spring, they are taking a pause. March 29th there will be a celebration instead.
Topics for next month’s agenda: None
More in person meetings requested!
8:05pm: Meeting Adjourned
DRAFT LETTER RE: ADA RAMPS
DATE
Thomas Stellini
Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association President
To (add correct addressees),
The Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association voted, at our January 26, 2026 meeting to support the installation of ADA-accessible ramps from street to existing earthen pedestrian paths and sidewalks in the public rights-of-ways of the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood, and request the City of Tucson and others fund this infrastructure with 411 or other funds.
With 411 money, the City installed just a few ramps in our neighborhood in some (but not all) of the locations where we do have sidewalks, and resident Brad Lancaster got the city to include access from those few ramps to the direction of unpaved public walkways as well - see here for photos and more info.
But the majority of our neighborhood has no sidewalks, as our neighborhood never received the same amount of public walkway infrastructure as the West University and El Presidio neighborhoods to our east and south.
But we in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood do have compacted earthen paths we've been enhancing and stewarding for 30 years with adjoining rain-irrigated native plantings, pruning, and path widenings, gravel removal, and leveling.
It seems unjust for richer neighborhoods with sidewalks get ADA ramps enabling those on wheels or the old and very young that have trouble with vertical drop offs to more easily access the public walkways from the street; but poorer or historically under-resourced neighborhoods without sidewalks (such as Dunbar/Spring) do not.
We are NOT requesting sidewalks, only ramps.
Our understanding of use of federal requirements for federal funding of ramps is: Pathways the ramp will access must be "Firm, stable, and slip resistant". More here: https://www.access-board.gov/ada/guides/chapter-3-floor-and-ground-surf…
Note that the Access Board states "Most loose materials, including gravel will not meet these requirements unless properly treated to provide sufficient surface integrity and resilience. Binders, consolidants, compaction, and grid forms may enable some of these materials to perform satisfactorily but require repeated maintenance."
Compacted native earth is our main public pathway surface.
On page 4 of this linked pdf, you can see examples of accessibility tests we did on our neighborhood's earthen paths with kids' wagons.
Thank you,
President, Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association