Steering Committee Meeting Minutes 2018-06

Humboldt Park​​ Dog Park

Steering Committee​​ 

Meeting Minutes

June​​ 2018

7pm Tuesday​​ June 12,​​ 2018

• Greetings and introductions

  • Welcome new members, Lou, Henry, Belia and Carol Ann!

• Application process / status

  • Petition Drive

    • Peter assembled the map previously.  Ready to roll this out. ​​ Peter to publish this to the website and to Facebook group by this weekend.

  • Letters of Support Drive

    • Peter to still create Google Doc to capture the intent.  Let’s use the same map as Petition Drive to go talk to businesses, block clubs, homeowner/condo associations, and other orgs within those areas by this weekend.

• Community Meeting Schedule

  • HPAC: Meghan is trying to put us on the agenda for June 28th.  Carol Ann is following up with Meghan to confirm.​​ 

  • CAPS: Nancy is the POC for the 1423 beat where the HPDP falls within.  Becky following up with her.

  • United Blocks:  Becky will follow up with this group (Glen and Rich) to find a date.

  • Puerto Rican Agenda (PRA): Becky will follow up with this group to find a date. Not sure if this will be a “public” meeting though because the PRA meetings aren’t generally open to general public participants but we would like to present the plans and get feedback.

• Data Collection

  • Off-Leash Dog Stats

    • Becky will send out links to the new members so we can increase the number of surveys we’re collecting.

  • Informal Surveys

    • Critical week for informal surveys.  

    • Becky will send out links to the new members so we can increase the number of surveys we’re collecting.

  • May Survey Completion

    • Peter completed it, need to scan paper copy and post to Slack.

  • Next Formal Survey

    • Becky will collect the one for June.

  • Minutes on Website

    • Peter to email Brian to see what the status of the minutes are.

• Public Relations

  • Block Club Chicago on Wed

    • Mina Bloom’s new article is expected to come out on Wed/Thurs.  

  • Op Ed Status

    • Steering Committee has drafted an Op Ed to help share our story a bit better. Becky has contacted Tribune, Sun Times, and The Reader, but haven’t heard back yet.  Liz will ask her husband if he has any thoughts on how to get traction with them.

    • May want to also reach out to Hoya (part of the Tribune), Red Eye.  Becky will contact both.

  • Slideshow Status

    • Steering Committee made suggestions to the slideshow to tighten up our message.  Becky made updates to address all those points and prepare a nice laminated version that can be more easily used to walk various stakeholders through our plans.  Becky will send out a PDF copy of the latest version to new members.

• Fundraising

  • FOTP Status

    • Peter working on new meeting with Nicole for later this week to resolve the open questions on the contract.

  • Discuss Goals / Strategies

    • Lou wants to lead up our fundraising activities as this has been his background (he runs a few non-profits already), and he has lots of contacts with local businesses.  Plus he has great dogs! ​​ 

• Park Name

  • Some suggestions for naming the park in a way that pays homage to the unique characteristics of the neighborhood:

    • Some play on Paseo Boricua, e.g. Paseo Barkicua.  We should ask the PRA to provide some thoughts.​​ 

    • Name after someone who lives in or is from PR that has a history of rescuing dogs, as more of an honorarium.​​ 

    • Or a name of a historic Puerto Rican.  Maybe ask the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture.

    • Sergeant Stubbie, hero military dog, is inspiring. Any other similar stories that may be good to pay tribute to?

  • Also important for our planning is to be sure all signage is in Spanish and in English.

• June 4 Meeting with Alderman Maldonado

  • Becky walked through the slideshow with Alderman Maldonado on June 4. Following that, he signed our letter of support!  Alderman Maldonado reiterated the importance of continuing to follow the city’s process to share our plans with the community and collect feedback, petitions, letters of support, etc.

  • Peter to add Alderman Maldonado to the website as a supporter.

• Other items

  • Peter to add new members here to the Slack space for future communications.  Becky will check with Meghan to see if she wants an invite (Carol Ann suggested it be Meghan rather than her for alignment with her HPAC committee temporary lead role).

  • Becky has followed up again with the PRA to see if we could get their help in reviewing the DFA plans and to provide feedback.  No response yet. ​​ 

  • Board Positions

    • Brian would like to shift to a general board position and open up the secretary position to someone else.

    • Also have the VP position still open.

    • Everyone to think about it and see if it appeals to them.  And could create new board positions if anyone wants to fill in a role that isn’t one of the 5 defined ones.