Denver INC’s May Delegate Meeting was called to order by President, Larry Ambrose at 9 a.m. at the Southwest Improvement Council (SWIC)

Jane Lorimer moved that the Minutes of the April 11, 2015 meeting were approved by acclimation.

 Jan Marie Belle welcomed the group to the Southwest Improvement Council (SWIC) Here is a link to our website article about her talk

• Formed in 1986 – 1987

• 501c3 in 1988

• SWIC became a community center in 1993

• 2005 – 2007:  Community Center was renovated

• In 2012 SWIC was not allowed to buy the community center.  Instead they are a month-to-month renter who could be removed at any time.

• SWIC helps home owners stay in their homes as we see our property taxes continue to increase.  Wages are not keeping up with the increases to the cost of living.

• As affordable house decreases, the need for affordable house increases.

• SWIC offers free negotiation services to help prevent foreclosures.

• Having another youth or adult sports program paying to use the facility would be a huge help to SWIC.

• SWIC would like to buy its building from the City.

Under-grounding of Power Lines Discussion

• This is a problem throughout the city

• Thanks to INC there is now a citizen’s advisory committee to Public Works regarding how and where this undergrounding fund should be allocated.

• 1% is dedicated to under-grounding.

• The city gets 3% of all Xcel Denver revenue.  This goes to the general fund

INC will do a month long Food Drive.

Motion By Larry: to Donate $100 to the SWIC food bank

Action Item: Larry asked Jan to put together a letter that INC can put out to the community

Treasurer report

• University Council gave us $50 to cover food for the April delegate meeting

• See Treasurer’s report for details of each of our accounts

Charitable Giving Discussion  (Jane Lorimer)

• An organizational brainstorming meeting was held and some proposed Charitable giving activities has been discovered.

  • INC can become a clearinghouse for connecting INC member organizations to good charitable organizations

  • INC can invite charitable organizations to participate in INC meetings (sell items)

  • INC can collect donations and money on behalf of a selected charitable organization

• Joanne Kuemmilerin has volunteered to be a chair of our Charitable Giving committee

  • She asks for someone to be a co-chair with her

  • Call the committee “Community Engagement” instead of Charitable Giving

  • A co-chair can be appointed by the president

• Motion By: David Felice;  2nd by Anthony Thomas  to create a charitable committee in lieu of the Dollar Dictionary as a Standing Committee

  • Voice Vote was Unanimous

Committee Reports

Public Safety – Merce Lee

• • Have started a traveling monthly community meeting on public safety with Denver Police partnership.

  • A new RNO member was found through these committee meetings.

    Transportation – Joel Nobel

    • Next Meeting has 3 speakers

      • Bicycle Parking – Pearl St. example of how to create bicycle parking

        • Opportunities exist to install more bicycle parking in the city

        • There already exists a method to set up a temporary bicycle parking station.

      • Auto Parking – Parking next to mixed use transportation has become a concern.

        • This is a 1 year look back at how this program has been going.

        • Deep dive into Highlands & Baker plans

      • Mary Beth Susman – Council Budget Priorities for Transportation in 2016

        • Budget planning begins with the city council

    • In the process of creating a platform for the Transportation committee

      • Plan on having a platform to presented to the delegation during this summer.

      • 1 big focus will be on traffic safety.

        • Advocate for the prevention of pedestrian vs automobile deaths.

ZAP – Margie

• Short Term Rentals

  • responding to the latest proposal from Mary Beth Susman

    • Have short term rentals in every Denver neighborhood

  • The taxation issue has not been resolved yet

    • David Broadwell has been assigned to resolve the issue.

  • Will come back to the delegates with suggestions after we see where this topic is going, from the city perspective.

  • The passed motion was sent to city council

• Concerns in the Elyria Swansea/Globeville neighborhood are being looked at by the committee

  • The greatest concern it to make sure the The Western Stock Show redevelopment will have a positive impact on this neighborhood and near-by neighborhoods

• The ZAP “civic training” is almost complete

  • Training planned for October.

    • Everyone in INC is invited

• A 2nd training is being created for Excise & License and marijuana regulation.

  • A very focused training

  • Probably in early 2016

• Revise the Denver Neighborhood Handbook for online publication

• Next meeting – 2 presenters

  • Overview of community planning and development

  • How to respond to variance requests.

  • Will host a food drive

• Water Plan follow up from the last meeting

  • It was very educational

    PARC – Katie Fischer/ Maggie Price

    • Next Meeting – May 19th

    • PRAB – Meeting May 14th

      • Public Comments are being solicited

      • The rules for small businesses in parks will be discussed

      • Chessman Park and others are not pleased

      • There are 14  permitted parks in the city

    • Using recycled waters in the park

      • 2 studies have been done

      • We have data that seems to confirm the issue of dying trees is related

      • We have asked the City to do a study to identify the problem

    • The “gasification” plant at the Denver Zoo

      • There is concern that this is not going to do what is intended and may be a threat to health and safety for City Park and surrounding neighborhoods.

      • This will be coming up.  The city council already approved the plan

        Communication – David

        • Communication is the custodian of the website and the newsletter

        • Newsletter change – Changing the format to incorporate a synergy with the website

          • The newsletter will feed off of the website

          • The print newsletter is coming to an end

        • Website

          • Goal is to increase traffic to the INC website

          • Please share information from the website (www.denverinc.org) to your RNOs

          • Please link www.denverinc.org inside your RNO website

        • How do we show the functionality to the delegation?

          • The committee is working on finishing the changes, then they can provide some kind of training at a future meeting

Our May Denver INC Delegate meeting was hosted by the South West Improvement Council, and our members responded well to the impassioned plea for citywide support for a worthy but beleaguered organization…Continue reading →