PRESENT: Claire Adler, President; Steve Richman, Vice-President; Renya Wasson, Treasurer; Janet Finegar, Secretary;  Shakirra Clark; Jacek Ghosh; Chastity Houston; Joe Mikuliak; Matt Ochs; Don Phillips; Matt Ruben; Barbara Saverino; Amy Sweeney; Kevin Wilkins.
ABSENT: Caitlin Antrim
ALSO PRESENT: Lara Kelly

The meeting was held over Zoom and was called to order by the President at 6:30 p.m.

Motion: By group. “To approve the minutes of the Board meeting as presented.” Passed unanimously

President’s Report: Claire Adler: written report attached and reviewed.

NLNA President’s Report, June 2020

1. PLANNING, DEVELOPMENT AND POLICY

• Construction Impacts: Much construction became legal again on May 1, with further lifts on restrictions on May 26 to allow commercial construction to resume full normal hours (7AM-8PM Mon-Fri, 8AM-8PM Sat-Sun) while construction on one- and two-family residences work hours remain restricted (7AM-5PM Mon-Fri only). Non-emergency work on occupied dwellings and common areas of occupied apt/condo buildings remains prohibited, as does underpinning, demolition of attached structures, and any work involving support of a party wall. Limits also remain on number of workers on-site at any one time (4 for 1-2 family dwellings and commercial buildings 2000 sq ft and under; 1 more per every additional 500 sq ft).
• Philadelphia to Enter “Yellow” Phase: The governor has announced that on June 5, Philadelphia will see more relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions. Already, the city has allowed take-out to be ordered on-site, whereas before orders must be placed by phone or online. The main difference is that in-person retail will be allowed following strict guidelines, restaurants and bars may open outdoor dining only.

2. FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION

• Board Meeting Update: Lara Kelly will join us at our monthly board meetings.
• NLNA Board Election: Thank you to the Election Committee for running a smooth online vote and meeting. We had an impressive number of online voters and meeting attendees. We are fortunate to have four new board members, Caitlin Antram, Shakirra Clark, Chastity Houston, and Matt Ochs and two re-elected members, Amy Smith-Sweeney and Joe Mikuliak. We also have some changes in leadership, as Steve Richman is now Vice President, Renya Wasson is now Treasurer, and I am serving as President, while Matt Ruben is staying on the board as an at-large member. More details from the Election Committee.
• Committee Administration: I want to ensure our information on committees is up-to-date and public. I will be gathering information on each committee chair, a list of active members, a short description of the committee, as well as meeting information. This will be part of our efforts to increase outreach to the community, engage new volunteers, and ensure every committee has the resources it needs. More details at our meeting.

3. EVENTS AND OUTREACH

• Outreach and Spending for Mutual Aid: We continue our efforts to use our $25,000 grant from PTSSD to aid the community and local businesses. Janet Finegar and Don Phillips have done tremendous work delivering packages of goods to families in need, spending about $4,800 of our $25,000 grant from the PTSSD. Steve Richman has single-handedly purchased nearly $5,000 in gift cards to local restaurants, and put in an incredible amount of time into selling most of them for a donation. We are in the process of purchasing about $3,000 in additional gift cards to include other non-restaurant businesses. This will leave us with about $12,000 from the grant, as well as the $10,000 we can add that we have authorized from our reserves to continue aiding families and businesses.
• Positive Programming: While we continue to focus our efforts on our coronavirus response, now is a good time to think about how we can continue and reinvent our programming to fit the guidelines. Programs that have been on pause include the Story Slam, TerraCycle, and the Music Fest.
• Philadelphia Primary Election Update: The primary is on Tuesday, June 2. It is too late to mail-in ballots because they must be received by June 2. Voters who have yet to return their mail-in ballots are advised to drop them off in person in a mailbox that has been installed in front of the City Commissioner’s Office at Delaware Ave. and Spring Garden St. The box is open 24/7 until the deadline. For those who will vote in person, polling places have been consolidated. Most people in our neighborhood will be voting at the Painted Bride at 230 Vine Street.

4. OTHER ITEMS

• Board Polls – Ratification of any online board polls since last month’s board meeting.

Treasurer's Report: Renya Wasson: written report distributed and reviewed.

Treasurer's Report

Statement of Position:
While the 'Summary' table suggests that we have current YTD net income of $38,549, our position is weaker than it appears. YTD, our income in our three core programs (NLNA Ops, Community Center, Quality of Life) is $12,242 under budget. Liberty Lands has $7,900 more income than planned, but only due to an unexpected $10,000 grant from the Smart family. If NLNA is unable to rent space or hold events for the rest of the fiscal year, NLNA could lose $35k in net revenue. Fortunately, expenses are currently $23,585 less than budgeted. The main reasons that expenses are less than expected is because we have not hired a part-time worker or paid for updating the website. As of 5/30, we have received $28,478 for the Covid Relief project and spent $9,899.

Bottom Line: In the worst case scenario, between now and the end of the fiscal year on September 30th, if there is no revenue from: Plant Sale, Spring Festival, 2nd Street Festival or additional rental of community center/space, then the NLNA could face a $12k budget shortfall for events and rentals. Thanks to Steve's excellent management, NLNA has a a very healthy reserve fund of $150K ($25k in savings and $125K in CDs) to cover this shortfall.

Favorable changes:

• $10K Grant from the Smart family for Liberty Lands
• $25K PTTSD grant for COVID relief
• Delay in hiring part-time office worker ($9,350) and web designer ($3K)

Unfavorable changes: 
Lost revenue described above

Options for Board to Consider:

• Delay all new hires
• Do not start any new initiatives without grant funding

Motion: By Matt Ruben, seconded by Steve Richman. “To accept the Treasurer's report as presented.” Passed unanimously

Election Committee: Kevin Wilkins:

Kevin reported that the unprecedented Zoom election went very well, with over 100 people voting, and while he hopes that in the future we can increase the community involvement he felt that the election went very well. (General thanks to all the members of the committee were extended.)

Unchaired Committees: 

With the changeover of the Board, we have no chairs for the Communications, Marketing, Fundraising, Public Safety or Membership Committees. Claire asked Board members to consider volunteering to lead any of these important committees. Don further suggested that the Executive Committee should look at the current committee structure to eliminate redundancies.

Liberty Lands Committee Report: Janet Finegar.

Janet reported that she and Liz sent a set of proposals out to the Park Advisory Group and received feedback. She summarized those proposals as: allowing the playground to be open with a group of parents working on safety ideas, keeping the community garden open as it has been, not accepting reservations for parties, and creating signage for the park to explain these rules and encourage social distancing.

With the Board's approval of these ideas, we plan to put them forward on Facebook first to allow some of the community arguing about them to happen there before putting up signs. Finally, she noted that the traditional enforcement of the park is based upon asking individuals to communicate directly with people who are misbehaving, but that the main volunteers are not comfortable doing that during the virus, so that there is no real enforcement of park rules going on.

Operations Committee Report: Barbara Saverino: written report attached and reviewed.

Lara reminded the Board to please be sure to let her know when they are coming to the Community Center while it is still officially closed. 

NLNA Operations Committee

• Updates since our last meeting (March):
  • Website refresh (including registration process) has been put on hold.
  • Part-time staffer:  put on hold at this time.
• Rentals: NLArts will be offering a virtual camp for first part of the summer. Hoping to offer in-person camp for children in August.
• Yard:  Recommendation that yard will open when city goes into Green stage for opening up.  
  • Barbara will work with Joe on making new sign. Suggest that it be laminated for yard gates.  Will confirm with Lara options for best way.  Will also also ask Claire to post in weekly update. 
  • Opening and closing of gates- Barbara is going to ask Treasurer about option to pay someone to do this when office is not open (weekend and Wednesday) rather than relying on volunteers.  Will also explore option of adding trash removal of yard.
  • Landscaping of yard - need to identify new person.  Barbara will follow up with Janet and Liz and confirm compensation. BIG THANK YOU to Janet for stepping up and weeding this weekend to make our space beautiful once again. 
  • Moving forward, we as a Board need to address hope to increase awareness of the center and rentals which are a portion of revenue and can grow to to support our efforts to better serve our community.
• The Committee will be reviewing list of jobs/things that need to be repaired/replaced.  This includes replacing broken light outside in yard and the base of the gate on 3rd Street. 
• Next meeting is Wednesday, June 17 (either 5 or 7 PM).  

Public Safety Report: Joe Mikuliak.

Joe forwarded the 6th Police District crime report for the third week of May and noted that the weekly statistics have changed little during the stay-at-home order, with overall fewer crimes in our area than one year ago. He further noted that the NLNA currently does not have someone going to meetings with the police for the 26th District and asked for a volunteer to be our representative there.

Zoning Committee Report: Joe Mikuliak.

Joe noted that we should plan for the possibility of needing to hold Zoning meetings in larger spaces to allow more distance between individuals. There was conversation about some large spaces in the neighborhood that might be available. He and Larry Freedman will reach out to those spaces to see if any of them are possible. 

Old Business

Matt updated the Board on the Germantown Avenue sewer replacement project, which is still ongoing. The Water Department is indicating that they may be able to start within the next three-six weeks with a hope that 2^ndStreet will be re-opened before the green phase occurs. 

Claire took a moment to recognize the very important work that Steve Richman as Treasurer and Matt Ruben as President did over the past years putting the NLNA on an excellent financial and structural footing. The Board echoed her acclaim and looks forward to continuing to work with them both.

New Business

Joe asked that the bird droppings on the streets running under I-95 be cleaned. The neighbors usually clean it but have not been doing it during the pandemic. Matt pointed out that the overpasses will start to be rebuilt next year  and we could request that they be done in a way that eliminates the bird nesting spots. Chastity mentioned that her cousin has a powerwashing business: she and Joe will discuss whether he can be hired for that.

Don reported that the Al-Aqsa mosque is doing a food distribution on Saturday from 4-6 and asked if we would like to be co-sponsors. In addition to sponsoring, Renya will send out a request for volunteers to the list.

Motion: By Joe Mikuliak, seconded by Chastity Houston. “To become co-sponsors of the food distribution occurring this week at the Al-Aqsa mosque.”

Passed unanimously

Matt reported that Rachel Paradise, who organized the vigil at Liberty Lands today, suggested some specific language for white people wishing to explicitly affirm their support for people of color. There was some discussion of design and production of signs: Renya and Claire will work on it and we can have copies printed for distribution. 

Steve reported that Katrina has recommended a software package that we might be able to use for merchandise sales and other NLNA uses. She will look into the cost of the software – and Don reminded the Board that there will need to be a sales “infrastructure” for shipping things out, etc. Steve and Katrina will explore the concept. 

Claire reported that the Bicycle Coalition reached out to us to ask for endorsement of their Recovery Streets  proposal to block some streets to cars in order to allow restaurants to do outdoor seating, increase play streets, and increase bus and bike lanes. 

Motion: By Matt Ruben, seconded by Janet Finegar. “To add our names to the Bicycle Coalition's Recovery Streets proposal.” Passed unanimously

The meeting was adjourned by acclaim at 8:20pm