November 18th
Call To Order - 9:03AM
Today we were graciously hosted by Anything But Beer. If anyone else would like to host our monthly meeting, please reach out to us.
Members - We had 10 participants in today’s meeting representing businesses, residents, and community leaders.
Safety/Security
Again, we did not have a representative from the city or police department with anything to report. We have received a new contact for someone for someone with the city and were told that they will hopefully be at next months meeting.
Beautification (Chair: Betsy Elkins)
We are moving forward with planning for our spring clean up/resident social for the week of Earth Day (April 22nd). We had initially planned for this event to happen on Saturday April 23rd, but we may want to coordinate with the Downtown Committee (DTC) to have it at the same time as their cleanup event.
We have received some new connections (via DTC) at the Parks Department, including their Landscape Designer + Planner, Greenhouse Crew Leader, and Parks Planning Team. We are scheduled to have a meeting with these members in January to jump start the planning process.
Street Barriers - We are currently looking for other avenues of funding for the street barrier project. We are currently working on a grant through Tomorrows Neighborhoods Today (TNT) for one barrier, and the DTC has confirmed that they will continue to match our grant money for the barrier on the other end of the street.
Street Closure - We discussed if there was any indication from the city to either close Genesee St permanently, or open it back up, and the city seemed to want to leave that up to the residents/businesses of the neighborhood. The brief discussion at the meeting today has our association leaning toward permanent closure of the street. The DTC will continue to reach out to business owners in the square but if you have an opinion, please let us know so that we can include it in our recommendation to the city.
Events
Resident Social - We held our last social event was November 12th and hosted by Metro Fitness during their annual member appreciation party. A handful of residents were there to help celebrate Metro’s 26 years in business in the square.
The next resident social will be in the spring and will be in conjunction with our spring cleanup event listed above. Directly following the cleanup event, we hope to congregate somewhere for some food and drink afterwards. If you would like to host our “post cleanup party”, please contact us.
Pop-Up Events - Today we discussed a way to use the square more efficiently/effectively and showcase our little corner. We came up with an idea to host some small vendors in the square for a pop-up market. The association can also charge a small vendor fee which will help support the association and their projects moving forward.
“Hanover Squares”
This sounds like a great idea, but it doesn’t seem like we have the community support or man power to undertake a project like this.
Identity/Outreach
We have an exciting new logo/branding design that we are finalizing. We will be presenting this at the next meeting.
We have some ideas about creating some public art as a part of this project and we will reach out to the Syracuse Public Art Commission to see what our options are.
New Business
Neighborhood Planning - The 81 project was brought up today and we talked about the projected park that will be included just north of the square. This park will be in our neighborhood and we should try to get involved with it’s planning. We will reach out to Anthony Rojas with InArchitects and see where we left off with our planning from before.
Window Wonderland - The DTC has a record number of participants in the window decorating contest this year. Please see the map and vote for your favorites and support your neighbors!!!
Dash and Dot - Santa’s elves have returned, and they brought holiday gift guides and activity guides for the holiday season. Check out all their adventures on the DTC social media sites.
Meeting Adjourned - 9:37AM