February NLNA Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

Board Meeting MinutesNews
Written By NLNA Admin


BOARD OF DIRECTORS Meeting Minutes

February 12, 2024

Present: Jeff Hornstein, President; Barbara Saverino, Vice-President; Donna Turi, Treasurer; Cristina Grisanti, Secretary; Shakirra Clark; Mariel Lewis; Matt Ruben; Jim Thompson; Steve Westcott; Kevin Wilkins; Francesca Yepikhina; Meesh Zucker;

Not in attendance: Sana Bango; Margot O’Neil;

Also present: Sydney Rexroad, Executive Director, Paula Gansky, former Election Committee Chair, Charlie Costanzo, leading petition to Calm N 5th St, Chino Aponte, Voice of Philly and Small Biz Philly

The meeting was called to order by the President at 6:33 p.m.

Approve prior meeting minutes

Update will count votes in meeting minutes moving forward to align to historical best practices.

Motion: By Barbara, seconded by Francesca. “To approve the minutes of the January Board meeting minutes as presented.”

Passed 11-0-1

Priority Items / guest speakers

  • Voice of Philly.com (Chino) - Starting a hyper-local news website and looking for local stories (also runs smallbizphilly.com), can be reached at info@smallbizphilly.com

    • Paula talked the board through the Election Process as she is resigning as unofficial Election Chair - Thank you, Paula!!

    • Shared final year election pre-prep (even years, President, Treasurer, and 6 Board seats), letters and walked through process

    • Nominations meetings are usually one month before the general meeting (4th Thursday of month), PDF goes out with individuals that are registered so people know who is registered, Rick Angeli previously registered voters

    • Board discussed returning to making the voting only in-person, but recommend keeping voting hybrid to ensure elderly individuals, parents and any other neighbors who might have difficulty attending the meeting in-person still have a chance to hear all candidates statements and vote

  • Calm N 5th Street with Charlie Costanzo - Website & Petition

    • Charlie joined the board meeting via zoom to discuss the 5th St calming plan

    • Charlie lives on 5th St and has worked with neighbors to develop the 5th St Calming Petition

      • Effort has a focus on safety for pedestrians and bicyclists 

      • Background: Neighborhood used to be industrial (2 lanes) but is now more residential but the roads have not adjusted to the residential needs/safety

      • Friends of N 5th St group has come together to focus efforts on making it more safe

      • Charlie has connected with OTIS on the traffic calming measures and OTIS has requested 1) that the effort show neighbor support (e.g. traffic calming petition) and letters of support (Charlie requested a letter of support from NLNA in the board meeting today)

      • 59/249 buildings on N 5th St support the petition so far (property.phila.gov & petition data), 376 signatures so far, comments and support submitted through the petition as well

      • Petition support thus far already shows the majority of support around N 5th St, north of Poplar 

      • OTIS discussed working with neighbors to design the specific traffic calming measures (e.g. would it go from two lanes to one, bike lanes, speed bumps)

  • Motion: By Matt, seconded by Jeff. “To support the NLNA Transportation & Mobility Committee drafting a letter of support for beginning a process with OTIS and the neighborhood to analyze 5th St traffic and traffic calming proposals for N 5th St.”

  • Passed 10-1-0

NLNA Leadership Reports

  • President’s Report: Jeff Hornstein

    • Fundraising

      • Jeff had a great call this afternoon with The Carson owners, interested in supporting the NLNA (also own the Chase ATM) - They would like to sponsor us and get to know our Executive Director, Sydney, and would like to have a meet and greet at their location (open to having neighborhood events: pickleball courts, etc.)

      • Jeff will continue to research and follow up with other developers who gave verbal offers to support the NLNA

    • General Meeting

      • Would like to invite elected officials to the meeting to speak and engage with neighbors

      • Barbara to send contact information to Sydney and Jeff

    • DiBruno Brothers

      • Continuing to work across organizations and businesses involved to resolve the conflict

    • Bus Operations

      • Greyhound stop moved from in front of Northern Liberties strip mall (Any Garment Cleaners dry cleaners, Delilahs, Enterprise) to Noble St as of Feb 1 (additional lighting has been added and police presence…noted that members of the board have not seen the police on Noble everyday in the evenings)

      • PPA is working with bus operators on longer term plans for a Bus Terminal

    • Jeff is excited for committee kickoffs coming up!

  • Treasurer's Report: Donna Turi

    • Revenue is tracking on par from last year

      • Community Center is down as we lost Action Karate this year since they moved to their own location

      • Revenue is also a little behind due to turnover in the apartments and the commercial space (would be great to market the Community Center a little more in the winter)

      • Events revenue is up slightly due to receiving grants

      • Need to continue to work through corporate donors and sponsorships to bring in funding as we budgeted for $75,000 in corporate sponsorships this year

      • Received PTSSD Executive Director grant check

    • Expenses are up due to last year (around Executive Director grant, interim ED, intern)

      • FallFest expenses have not come in yet

    • Working on new Quickbooks and new budget format

    • Donna is looking into new Saving Account options vs CDs and options for donating stock

    • Motion: By Matt, seconded by Barbara. “To accept the Treasurer's report as presented.”

      Passed 12-0-0

    • Executive Director’s Report: Sydney Rexroad 

      • Excited that new committees are launching!

      • NLNA Email Addresses

        • Francesca’s email address password is expiring - needs support

        • Board will be transitioning to only using NLNA email addresses

        • Sydney to send a how to for managing multiple gmail accounts on the same browser to access Google Drive and email accounts

      • Community Center Use

        • Going to continue marketing CC in newsletter

          • Sign on the window of the CC

          • Facebook and Instagram

        • If the event is free for the community then we will let you reserve for free

        • Upcoming events in the CC: Spanish Class, hula hooping class, CPR class, parents group, craft/game night

        • Meesh presented the idea of explore opening the community center for coworking space

      • Fundraising

        • Up to 40 people in the I Love Northern Liberties program (door hangers are working to engage neighbors)

        • Continue to plan for the larger building presence, QR codes, meet and greets

      • Marketing & Comms 

        • New intern will be starting this week (will begin by updating the NLNA.org calendar)

NLNA Committees

Project

  • Playground Renovation Committee (Margot O’Neil) - No report, Margot not present.

    • Discussion around latest activity: FallFest grant report meetings to collect financials and future playground meetings

    • Plan to have Shakirra and the board work with Margot and Jess and support planning a Committee meeting in person in the Community Center in the next 2 - 2.5 weeks to re-engage the committee volunteers

    • Additionally, prior to the committee meeting, will plan a Playground Chair internal planning meeting to discuss status and communication to the committee moving forward and discuss any additional support needed to keep consistent communication

Functional

  • Community Center Operations (Barbara Saverino) - Status Report

    • Asking someone with experience (contractor) to come review the interior and exterior of the CC so as the CC Ops committee contracts for work and improvements, they are fixing issues as defined by an expert (e.g. stucco)

  • Events (Mariel Lewis) - Status Report 

    • Winterfest - Ticket Strategy, Raffle & Auction Review

    • Support needed for pickup  - Sydney to each out when items are ready so Board and others can volunteer to pickup

  • Liberty Lands Committee (Francesca Yepikhina) - Status Report

    • Update on Unhoused individuals sleeping in the park: Plan to have an open meeting coming up with speakers regarding the best ways neighbors can support, help or assist in unhoused individuals who are in the neighborhood or park

  • Zoning Committee - February Minutes

    • Two members have resigned: Joe Mikuliak and Sharon Richman

    • Motion: By Barbara, seconded by Donna. “To accept the Zoning Committee’s recommendation to ratify the presented members as stated in the February Zoning Minutes to continue as members of the committee.”

    • Passed 11-0-1

  • Election Committee - No report, relaunching

    • Relaunch with two board members, and will need to recruit 3 non-board member volunteers

    • Board Members

      • Cristina

      • Kevin

  • NL Action Committee - No report, no activity

Impact

  • Clean Streets & Beautification (Steve Westcott) - Status Report

    • First meeting is February 20

  • Community Engagement / Membership (Shakirra Clark)

    • Met on Jan 29 

    • Mission statement completed and volunteers have supported reaching out to local businesses to request WinterFest auction and raffle items

  • Education 

    • Will schedule a meeting the week of 2/26 to launch the Education Committee

  • Public Safety (Jim Thompson)

    • Planning and scheduling first meeting

  • Transportation & Mobility (Meesh Zucker)

    • Planning and scheduling first meeting

Additional Updates

Old Business

None.

New Business

None. 


The meeting was adjourned by acclaim at 8:35 p.m.

NLNA Admin
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