A new Weed & Seed committee, the Neighborhood Restoration Committee, is meeting this Tuesday at 7:00 pm at the home of Holly Gafford at 120 S. 6th Street. Holly is the creator and manager of the RESTORE WW community calendar whose link you see at the top right of our home page. Be sure to check there often to know any and all important meetings that affect our neighborhood. The meeting is open to the public, and Gretchen Lippincott, the Director of Community and Economic Projects, will be there, so anyone who has questions about which properties will be rehabbed in the West Ward will get their chance to get it straight from the source.
The NRC so far has participated in National Night Out by handing out light bulbs to encourage people to leave their porch lights on, provided residents with magnets that have a quick reference for making calls to police for reporting crimes as well as other useful info, gotten the ball rolling on matching funds to clean up a dump site at 10th Street, and made initial contacts for putting in a mural at Centennial Park. Upcoming projects include working on a Safe Haven program for kids walking to and from school as well as identifying potential houses to rehab as well and renters who are good candidates to become future homeowners.
If you go, please post your impressions here afterward!
Yours,
Noel Jones
Neighbors of Easton
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9 comments:
I'm glad to see some talk of Safe Haven -- that's mandatory in any federal Weed and Seed program. It has to be a place with extended hours where kids can come just for a place to go....... Peter
OK,so why aren't these meetings more publicized.....I had personal issues so I could not attend but the outreach has got to get better!!! I know too many people who are unaware. The West Ward is so diversely populated and it needs to be pulled together. AND peterkc is correct!! SAFE HAVENS was part of the original grant funding. Laura Accetta is doing a great job and why reinvent the wheel. Everbody bitching I have personally worked with kids over the summer that were in the original "Adopt A Class" when "WE" came up with that idea they thought we were crazy. HA HA HA crazy like a bunch of Foxes.
All of the Weed and Seed meetings can be found on the City of Easton website.
http://www.easton-pa.gov/sweed.html
I attended this meeting so as to get details from Gretchen Lippincott on an article I'm working on covering the rehabbing planned for Ferry Street, but she did not show. In total there were two people there besides myself, Holly Gafford, a Weed & Seed volunteer who was kind enough to host the meeting in her home, and a paid Weed & Seed employee who came in Laura Accetta's place, because Laura couldn't make it either.
One of the topics discussed was how to get more people out to Weed & Seed meetings. I suggested that consistency would help, as the locations and meeting times are always changing. This week's Safety Committee meeting is a perfect example--it keeps bouncing back and forth between the Salvation Army and the Easton Area Community Center, and the time this week is changed from 7pm to 6pm, which is much more difficult for working residents to attend.
I will be following up with Gretchen Lippincott in person to get the details for the planned use of the rehabbing grant awarded to our neighborhood earlier this summer. All I know at this point is that it is targeted for 3-5 houses, all foreclosed homes, and they are all on Ferry Street so far.
Not to defend anyone, but the city department heads have long days lately because of the budget crunch and the number of projects going on in town that still require work to be done. As much as I'm critical of government, these evening meetings are stretching them pretty thin.
I would wonder how solid Gretchen's attendance really was are if Weed and Seed made assumptions for her. I know I'm speculating, but my past history with Weed and Seed - and admittedly I'm greatly biased - was that you really couldn't depend on them to give accurate information about meetings or do what they said they would when you got to one.
DRL
Thanks for your comments folks. I am the chair for the Neighborhood Restoration Committee and am doing my very best to get the word out! I have corrected the city website's date/time/location for my meetings, made my own blog with all sorts of important dates linked to it, pounded the pavement getting names at events such as National Night Out, and made hundreds of phone calls and emails to remind people and get the word out. As a volunteer, this is not my full time job (I work 3 jobs) but am doing my best to make sure people know what is going on and to maintain a positive "WE CAN DO SOMETHING" attitude at all of our meetings as well as in my correspondence as opposed to making a laundry list of what's wrong. I prefer "To-Do Lists." So please, send any suggestions you might have, come out to meetings (3rd Tuesday of the month, 7:00pm at 120 S. 6th) and tell your friends!!!
Questions, comments, concerns - email restoreww@gmail.com!!! And visit my site - there's a link to your right!
PS I also spoke to Gretchen directly prior to the meeting so I would have the information to pass on to members, no assumptions were made.
Thanks, Holly. I have reached out to Gretchen via email, but she hasn't gotten back to me yet...
And yes, everybody, please check the link at the right regularly for the great community calendar that Holly maintains on the RESTORE WW web site that she developed for Weed & Seed--that's where to find info on Weed & Seed and West Ward Neighborhood Partnership meetings, as well as City Council. Make it a habit to check and you'll always be in the loop!
My bad--I just found the draft of that email to Gretchen in my mailbox but apparently never sent it, so now that I have, hopefully I'll hear back from her soon and will be able to post more complete info on the program.
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