PO
Box 173
Manchester,
WA 98353-0173
“it’s
a great place to live…”
Action
Items:
1)
John Winslow is seeking
volunteers to help with the Manchester Clean-up Day.
2)
All five newly formed
Action Groups are looking for additional volunteers.
See our web-site www.manchesterwa.org
for further details
Minutes:
The meeting was called to order by Chairman, Bob Ballard at 6:30PM in the Manchester Library. Bob welcomed the 31 people in attendance and then reviewed our Council mission and goals in order to help keep us on target. We had self introductions of all in attendance to get to know one another better.
Business meeting:
Review and approval of past meeting’s minutes: The minutes of the May 24th meeting were approved as written. Copies can be found on our web-site (www.manchesterwa.org) and a copy has been posted in the Library meeting room for the last month.
Correspondence: We had two more favorable responses to the sewers survey and an invitation to an event in Port Orchard in August.
Reports:
Treasurer: Carol Kowalski reported that our treasury balance stands at $617.91. This past month we had two new paid memberships (total is now 49) and the MCA donated $20 to offset the web-site hosting expense.
Sewers Sub-Committee: Ron Rada reported no significant changes in status. The proposed boundary definition for LID#9 should go to the County this next week.
Crime Prevention Sub-Committee: Bud Larsen reported that another traffic survey will be conducted on Colchester in the near future. He also reinforced the value of requesting Citizen on Patrol house checks during vacation times (phone 337-7101) to get more law enforcement presence in Manchester. Bud also mentioned that there had been a recent burglary at the Manchester Family Inn.
The committee hosted the successful Crime Prevention activities at the Father’s Day Salmon Bake. There was lots of favorable feedback from participants and visitors alike. The child’s fingerprinting effort resulted in 29 individuals being ID’d for their parent’s future reference.
Upcoming activities will include working with the Port on signage issues, and on a related matter, the Thursday morning meeting (6:45AM at the Inn) will have the County Prosecuting Attorney as a guest on 7/14.
Haida Park Sub-Committee: The Haida Park group had contact with Randy Casteel (Public Works Director) on the potential for some upgrading to the property. Mr. Casteel responded “…the property could have potential to be used to address other community needs also, none of which would necessarily preclude a small park and access trail to the beach, but which would need to be evaluated and coordinated. I am not in a position to commit the property to any particular use at the time. I feel we need to have discussions with the Manchester Community Council or a sub-committee of the Council to evaluate the use of the property and the needs and desires of the community before a commitment is made.” The committee was told that development of the property may be impacted by the proposed LID#9 and preferred to postpone action for approximately one year until that situation becomes more clearly resolved. Lingering issues would include: Formal plan for the project, Timetable, On-going maintenance of the property, and Liability coverage. On this basis, the sub-committee recommended that the MCC table all action regarding the Haida property until the County is in a position to better evaluate the situation. The recommendation was approved by the members in attendance and Bob Lamb will write to Randy Casteel confirming that and requesting that the County contact us when they are in a position to entertain a proposal from the MCC.
Building Height Sub-Committee: Bob Ballard reported there has been no further action by the committee awaiting a resolution on the stop work order on the home that is alleged to exceed the Manchester Plan building height limitations. The committee agrees that further work is required on the verbiage in the Plan to eliminate any ambiguity. Dick Asche suggested that Bill Palmer may be of help to this committee.
Old Business:
Action items:
*The County has responded to our request to add seven “Entering Manchester” signs, by posting new signs along Colchester at Puget Drive and Beach Drive at Caraway Lane. The County claimed the cost of seven signs would be excessive. Our point is that many of the residents within the Manchester Village boundaries don’t realize they are part of Manchester. We will let this one settle a bit before pursuing further.
*The 501c3 non-profit application is awaiting further efforts by our attorney, who is out of the office presently.
*John Winslow reported on the “Adopt-a-road” proposal. The Executive Board had encouraged John to expand this concept to a “Manchester Clean-up Day” perhaps in the early fall. John has looked into the following areas for inclusion: Adopt-a-road will be embraced by the County in the near future, 2Good2Toss program for encouraging re-use of good items is supported by the County and could be further publicized by the MCC, some limited hazardous waste collection of paint and florescent bulbs might be possible, recycling of computer monitors and televisions is supported by the County and might be possible, the County is willing to host a “Clean Kitsap” information booth and this could also include a composting class (our Mary Cathern Edwards is a Master Composter), we could provide space and publicity for a limited number of “yard sale” booths, we could partner with an organization accepting used clothing, and the Friends of the Library are always looking for good used books. John suggested that at the conclusion of the day’s events, we could plan a small celebration with refreshments.
Volunteers to help plan and implement this activity are needed; contact John at johnwinslo(at)aol.com. Other suggestions were the pursuit of the Puget Sound Action team for funding via grant (Carol K.), and the MCA could include some educational information at a booth in the 8/13 festival.
*Conflict of interest section of the Bylaws is awaiting input from the attorney.
New Business:
A member reminded us all of the several recent tragic incidents involving weapons and *requested that the subject be added to a future agenda [deleted per amended minutes: officially declare our meetings “Weapon Free Zones”, with the exception of Law Enforcement officers, who should be encouraged to carry their weapons for our protection. After a brief discussion, the proposal was approved. John Winslow will include this in potential Bylaw revisions pending.]
Ron Robinson then led the discussion on our plan to form five new Action Group sub-committees to address issues related to: Revitalization of the Village Center, Regaining our Historic Village Character, Issues Requiring Partnerships with other Agencies, and Developing a Village Commons. We are hoping to assemble a MCC five year plan to a community-wide meeting this fall and this plan will revolve around the planning and goal setting by these groups.
The groups broke out and began their organization and planning during the next hour of the meeting. At the conclusion of this first get-together of the sub-committees, a presentation was made by each group. The results will be included in a separate section of the web-site (www.manchesterwa.org) entitled “Sub-Committees). These new groups will be holding meetings outside of the regular MCC meetings. If you would like to participate in any of these groups, please contact a member of the action group (see web-site) or John Winslow.
There being no other discussion from the floor, Chairman Ballard adjourned the meeting at 8:23 PM.
Our next meeting will be Tuesday July 26th at
6:30-8:30PM in the Manchester Library. Bob
Ballard and John Winslow will jointly develop an agenda for our next meeting for
distribution with the reminder, several days before the meeting.
At this point we don’t plan to have a guest speaker and the tentative
agenda will focus on continued progress on our new action groups.
If you have any additional items for the agenda, contact John Winslow
prior to July 16.
Respectfully
submitted,
John
Winslow, Secretary-Manchester Community Council
*Note:
Text amended per 7/26/05 meeting