Murdock Neighborhood Association Board Meeting -- Minutes

August 9, 2006

The meeting was held at the home of Charles Jones.
The meeting was called to order at 8:15 p.m. by President Bob Fanjoy.
Board Members Present: Fanjoy, Johnson, Jones, Livezey, Hsieh, Murchan
Board Members Absent: None
Others attending:

Minutes

• Minutes of July 12 Board meeting were approved with 3 changes.

Treasurer's Report

• Balance on July 31 was $1,495.57.
• Approved $143.03 for National Night Out expenses (flyer paper, coffee, ice cream and table covers).
• Added 2 new members and 4 renewal members in July.

Old Business

Nominating Committee

• Committee members were announced by Chair Jones: Judy Gilford, Eugene Hu, and Judy Boehm.
• Committee met on August 8 to determine anticipated vacancies: President, Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretary, Parliamentarian.
• 3 volunteers have asked to be considered for board positions.
• The committee will use a current roster of paid members to make calls for suggestions and volunteers, and to verify that potential nominees would serve if elected. Trixie will send Charles the list of flyer distributors since they might be good candidates for the Board.
• The committee will meet in 2 weeks to review results of their work.
• Goal -- Complete list of nominees and determine recommended slate of officers (all names will appear on the final ballot) by the first week in September.
• Committee will do short bios of each person on the list and prepare a flyer for distribution to the neighborhood.
• Trixie will print the flyer and recruit distributors for distribution the 3rd weekend in September (30 days before the election).

Tulip Tree Treatment Pilot Program

• MNA role in the program was limited. After Councilmember LeZotte provided the $5,000 for the treatment pilot study, the association distributed an email flyer to encourage participation (timing did not allow for a full distribution). MNA forwarded the contact information for 16 potential participants to the City Arborist, Ralph Mize. Mr. Mize made the selections of trees to be treated from among those and other volunteers and also selected those that will serve as controls. 13 of the 16 names submitted by MNA were selected to participate.
• Mize announced that 25 trees were selected for injections, which occurred today. In 2 weeks, on 8/23, the city will power wash the sidewalks by the treated trees. The residents with treated trees are not to wash those cleaned walks for another two weeks so that it will be visible whether the dripping has stopped or continued.
• At the next meeting the Board will have a report on the success rate of the treatment and will determine what we can do to assist tulip tree owners, in addition to putting an item in the next newsletter about the program and its results.

Traffic Committee

• Murdock/Portal School starts tomorrow.
• Judy Boehm (committee chair) has asked the San Jose Transportation Department to have traffic officers at both Lynbrook and Murdock-Portal to control traffic when school opens.
• MNA traffic committee will schedule a meeting at Murdock-Portal after school starts and the problems to be discussed have been observed and determined. Doug Johnson will be asked to observe the morning arrivals and report on what he sees.

Board Vacancy

• The vacancy (Gomez) will not be filled since the election of officers is so near. The Board extends its thanks to David for his considerable and valuable service during the year.

National Night Out (NNO) Wrap-up

• The event was very successful with about100 attending.
• District 1 council staff worked with the Parks and Neighborhood Services Dept. to handle the NNO official permits.
• Visitors included SJPD officers, Councilmember LeZotte, and the editor for the new West San Jose Resident community newspaper, Lisa Sibley.
• We need to identify an electrical outlet access. Without it, Barista Jones could not perform, and the Starbucks had to come in a carton!
• Thanks to Doris, who wrote a short story after the event for the website.
• Ice cream was a big hit -- get more next year. Hooray for the dry ice -- no ice cream soup this year.
• Next year we should organize better to use the event as a Neighborhood Watch opportunity. NW groups could be asked to use their contacts and to expand their groups, encouraging all those on their street to attend NNO.
• Thanks to Larry and Margie for ice cream and set up, Charles and Kelli for coffee, Doug Johnson for charcoal and hot grill.

New Business

General Meeting and Election of Officers -- October 25

• The program should be an open forum to select what the association should work on during the coming year. We have had many speakers and not much time for neighborhood business.
• We should use a flip chart to capture ideas.
• An alternate to the chart would be using a PC and LCD projector. Some information could be presented, and any suggestions or ideas could be recorded. Larry will ask Judy if we can get a LCD projector from Lynbrook.
• The advantage of using the flip chart is that the sheets can be posted for neighbors to vote (paste dots by their choice) on the items they prefer. That way they set the priorities for the Board.
• Given the volatility of the tulip tree issue, it might be good to have Ralph Mize do a short presentation. If he started at 8:30, that would leave at least 45 minutes for the neighborhood issues discussion. Doris will check on his availability for that date/time.

Newsletters/flyers

• The Board Election flyer should be distributed the 3rd week in September.
• The October 25 Meeting newsletter can go to distributors the weekend of the 14th and should be completely distributed by the following weekend.
• Trixie will have the shell of a newsletter done after the September board meeting. Someone will need to finish it after the October board meeting, print it, and get it to distributors around the 14th of October.

Handling Website emails

• There have been complaints that emails to the website are not answered.
• Doris spoke with Sigi about potential solutions. Currently there are 3 active emails: mna-president, which is forwarded to Bob; mna-webmaster, which Sigi monitors and forwards as appropriate; and mna-information. Sigi generally sends the information messages to Bob. Now she is setting up a system to get them to Doris, who will forward them to the appropriate person.

Expanding Neighborhood Watch Activity

• Larry: suggested encouraging NW groups to have a meeting and invite non-members from their street. All can be encouraged to attend on October 25 and to join MNA.
• If a meeting cannot work, send email to the NW group with the same message: recruit more members and encourage MNA participation.

Next Meetings:
September 13 -- Johnson's
October -- TBD.

Meeting adjourned at 9:40 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Trixie Johnson, Secretary