(301) 739-8577

Meeting Minutes October 7th 2009

Name of Organization: Hagerstown Historic City Park Neighborhoods 1st Group
Purpose of Meeting: Officer Election, Crosswalk Discussion

Date/Time: October 7th 2009

Chair: Joe Marshner (Provisional) / Laurel Kahn
Topic Discussion Action Person

Responsible
1. Election Election of Secretary/Treasure took place first with only one nomination to Heather Holman of Reynolds Avenue.

Since two Candidates for are running for President and no Candidates for Vice President it was motioned and confirmed that the winner of the election shall be elected President and the later shall take the Vice President Role.

Deborah Agee of Reynolds Avenue – Wants to make a more cohesive neighborhood.

Laurel Kahn of Reynolds Avenue – Organized the block party, contacted Cindy Blackstone to get the ball rolling on Historic City Park Group, wants to organize events such as a talent show and Christmas party so everyone can get to know each other.
  • Heather Holman was confirmed in as Secretary/Treasurer.
  • Winning 13-10 Laurel Kahn is elected President.
  • Deborah Agee is confirmed as Vice President.

All positions are for a 1 year term.

 Joe Marshner
2. Brief Explanation of Neighborhoods 1st Group Some of the Benefits:

  • The opportunity to get to know your neighbors and neighborhood issues.
  • A direct link to talking to the city and police department to let them know about your neighborhood issues such as crime and code compliance.
  • A budget of $1000 for beautification/events for your neighborhood.
 Cindy Blackstone
3. Discussion of Next Meeting Agenda
  1. Meeting will be on November 4th @ 7pm at the Emmanuel United Methodist Church at the corner of Summit and Howard.
  2. Fire Marshall to come and talk about Fire Safety on Dec 2nd Meeting.
  3. Block Captains are needed for letting the group know the issues on your block.

Laurel Kahn
4. Discussion of Crosswalk @ Reynolds to the City Park The issue of the dangerous conditions for people who try to cross Virginia Avenue at the entrance to the City Park (located approximately at the end of Reynolds Avenue) was brought up in previous meetings. The Hagerstown Traffic Board held a meeting September 10th, 2009 where the addition of a new crosswalk was motioned but not 2nded by the 5 member traffic board. One of the members of the traffic board happens to live in our neighborhood and explained that the reason the board does not want to install a cross walk is because it would provide a false sense of security to those crossing and it is too close to the other crosswalk in front of the Surrey School. That the Surrey School uses their crosswalk on a daily basis and the cross walk at Reynolds would mainly be used during the summer when there are events in the park.

It was also mentioned that Virginia Avenue is considered a State highway (US-11) and changes to it would be more difficult.

 Lt. Reynolds Recommends one of these courses of action if the group is still interested in pursuing this issue of which he would support the group in their choice:

  • Go directly to the mayor that the traffic board reports to with other examples on how cities of similar size deal with their pedestrian traffic.
  • Go back to meeting with city with new ideas and data.
  • Go to city engineer for a list of new solutions

The group suggested these possible actions:

  • Limit Parking around the corner of Reynolds & Virginia for improved visibility for both pedestrians and vehicles and have the city park provide better signage for parking at the park and not on the roads.
  • Have a police officer stationed for traffic control during City Park Events (Lt. Reynolds says this is not currently feasible because of the lack of officers available to the city)
  • Invite the traffic board to a Historic City Park NH1st Meeting to discuss it with the group.
 Lt. Reynolds