7/31/2019 Nca Minutes June 2012

1/5

Narberth Civic AssociationMinutes of the June 13th Meeting

Board members present:George Lonsdorf, Treasurer Christine Jackson, Andy Haakenson, Georgette DuBois, Secretary

Jim Speer, President Deborah LonsdorfGuests:Lynn Seng, Neil & Audrey YoungCall to order 7:07May minutes approvedTreasurers report:We received check from Lankenau hospital, sponsoring for NarbEarth Day banner for $560.

Final accounting for NarbEarth Day reports a $89.80 overall loss.Citizens Bank: Christine contacted Citizens. It used to be that we needed to keep a $2,000combined balance to avoid fees, but they have changed our arrangement such that we onlyneed to keep $1,000 in savings to avoid fees. Christine says it is very convenient for her to useCitizens, rather than a change to another bank. We can sign over the name on the account toDeborah. In light of this information board votes unanimously in favor of keeping CitizensBank.Report of the President:We had a busy spring, we took on lots of new memberships, including Neil & Audrey Young,

Lynn Seng, all present at meeting. Luncheon for new volunteers, Design Narberth project, voterid registration project, clean up narberth. We have a good focus for moving forward. LauraJackson (Merion) mentioned she used to be a community mediator. Maybe we can offer more ofthat kind of thing in the future.Federation of Civics meeting report: Liz Brown is not present at the meeting, but she didsend along notes and observations (attached at the end of these minutes)Georgette: moves that we table consideration of these topics until Liz can be here here.Board votes to table issues related to these Federation notes.

OLD BUSINESS:NarbEarth Day thank you event:Georgette: It was a great event, with 6 or 7 guests. The event had been allocated $200 , butended up spending a lot less.Clean sweep: went pretty well:We noted so many cigarette butts on the ground.Would like borough to address [general cleanliness] more. Probably we should do a clean

7/31/2019 Nca Minutes June 2012

2/5

sweep at least twice a year.Boy scouts showed up at the wrong place, and didnt join us for pizza. This seems like a lostopportunity not to connect with them.For the future, it would be good to stop in at each business to let them know we (the NarberthCivic Association) are cleaning up in front, and to ask them to continue to keep the sidewalk infront of their business clean. Engage the shop owners in the immediate vicinity.

We never got into those recycle bins. No one ended up being available to open them. Still anopen question what to do about labeling for recycling,trash, etcWe did a walk-around and looked at things and made notes on labeling of trash and recyclingreceptacles. Maybe this fall we can pick that up again.WEBSITE UPDATE (Attached)

Andy: can we make a 1-page primer on how to get in touch with every member of the board,and have a directory of technical stuff available?

Neil: He has used mailchimp: numbers below 10,000 recipients can easily use Outlook for massmailingGeorgette: uses Constant Contact, which provides reports, etc. does Outlook do anyting likethat?Neil: no, outlook does not contain many servicesGeorge: how effective is our outreach? Facebook makes statistics available for how manypeople are reached. It would be nice to know what kind of stuff do people react to. For thesame reason, considering installing Google Analytics on our website, which could be useful tohelp us understand whats effective and whats not.

Georgette: It would be useful to find out who on Borough Council is on each committee, andwho is on commissions [like Planning, etc]What would help the borough keep up this information on their own? [the Borough websitefound to be somewhat lacking in accurate and timely information]We need to know how is the website currently being managed. Is it a paid or unpaid volunteer?We think council needs to make sure thats being taken care of.George: There seems to be a lack of competence as well as interest on the borough website.

Andy: We can ask for budget line item for website maintenance. [This should show who workson the Borough website and in what capacity]

Georgette: is there any conflict of interest for George to help with borough website?George could talk to borough council and find out some info.

Neil: He moved to narberth 2 years ago - - His interest was sparked when he came to a zoningmeeting. Interested in sustainability. Wants to look into working with or taking over NarberthGreensDeborah: interested in the NCA taking this on and giving Avi the opportunity to work with it, or

7/31/2019 Nca Minutes June 2012

3/5

have Neil work with it through us.HARVEST RUN:Phil Heifitz could not be here tonight. He wants to do a run modeled on the CF run, to benefitfood banks (Ardmore and Narberth).

Lots of reasons why this is hard to organize. Lets suggest that Phil get in contact with John &Bunny Nardi, who organize the CF run. Also it was suggested that Phil may want to look intoorganizing something different, as a run may prove to be too difficult.NEW BUSINESS:VOTER ID ACTIONLynn Seng and her organization VRID is partnering with the NCA to inform people about thenew PA voter ID laws. We'll provide the backing of our organization, online information on ourwebsite, and support with the borough. In exchange we'll be getting visibility and doing our job. Idon't think we need to write up all of the details about the law.

Motion to support VRID passes 5-0: Andy, Deborah, George, Georgette, Christine. Jimabstains from vote.George: we would rely on you (Lynn) to provide updates, and we can keep them current on thewebsite.We will try to have visibility for voter ID project at concerts, ball games, and other events.Lynn: This effort may be complicated once political party efforts start to kick in, closer to electionday.BOROUGH AND SCHOOL DISTRICT SETTLEMENT

Andy: Not in favor of the settlement. The agreement has lots of moving parts. In settlementagreements its always bad to stay in bed with enemy. This agreement keeps thr state of thebuilding in limbo, and now it is hard to put money into it at all. For instance we ought to put anelevator in there to perhaps move the senior center in there. This settlement stopped favorablelitigation in progress. If we had a good case then why do we not have a good case now?Jim: Disagrees with Andys opinion of the settlement. Feels this puts us a few steps closer toultimate ownership status.FALL MEMBERSHIP MEETING:Wed like to have Dennis Montagna do his slide show presentation this fall. Sean Metrick saystheyre starting writing the code, and writing will be well underway by the fall.

If we do it in October, this gives us a month to publicize.Is this something we might charge people? $5 suggested donation, free for members or joiningmembers. October 10. Wednesday. Passed unanimouslyLIBRARY WEST WING RENOVATIONThe stonework on the building needs pointing, or anything done on the interior will be moot.Its not yet clear on how the [coffeehouse] concessions would work.The inside is dirty, acoustics bad, lighting is terrible.

7/31/2019 Nca Minutes June 2012

4/5

Andy: theres an issue about title and control of those rooms.Needs to be pointed out that pointing is messy and toxic, which really should be done beforedeck projectJim : Will contact Heidi Boise ask her for a rundown on library deck projectBOARD APPOINTMENT

Moved that Deborah Lonsdorf be formally appointed to serve the remainder of the Civic

Association presidential term, through summer 2013.Passed unanimously.MEETING ADJOURNED 9:05---------------------------------

ATTACHMENTS:FEDERATION OF CIVIC NOTES (Submitted by Liz Brown):

This is a call to action for interested and concerned Civic Association representatives. Pleasepass this information on to your civic association board.The Land Use Committee for the Townships new comprehensive plan is planning to completework on the Institutional Land Use component soon, before moving on to the Residential LandUse and Commercial Land Use components.It appears that the committees recommendation will be for the adoption of an institutionaloverlay in the Townships zoning code. The motivation for this is a perceived need for theinstitutions located in the Township, primarily non-profit entities such as schools, colleges, andchurches located within residential zones, to be able to grow in ways that the underlying

residential zoning does not permit. In other words, it is believed that institutions must be able tobuild with more density, relaxed parking requirements, and more height 65 feet perhaps --than all other users in the zone so that they can expand their facilities, increase theirenrollments, provide more services etc., and they should be able to do this as a matter of right.

As a tradeoff, it is suggested that wider buffers from the surrounding residentialneighborhoods be required than the underlying zoning requires for other properties.As representatives of civic associations whose primary constituencies are the residentialneighborhoods, we need to take a hard look at the proposed recommendation because it raisesconcerns for neighborhood protection that may not be receiving appropriate attention from thecommittee. Institutional growth in residential zones imposes externalities on the surroundingneighborhoods that our zoning code does not address, except for the vague criteria of health,

safety and welfare traffic, overflow parking on neighborhood streets, noise emanating fromHVAC equipment, from people coming to and leaving from events, sometimes in the later hours;light pollution from parking lots and from taller buildings. Experience with institutional behaviorover many years shows that some institutions are model neighbors whereas some have no carefor any but their own interests. Parking on neighborhood streets and inconsiderate behaviorof students/patrons cannot be controlled after approval has been given and the use has beenexpanded.

The call to action is for representatives of the Civic Associations to appear at the next meeting

7/31/2019 Nca Minutes June 2012

5/5

of the Land Use Committee, Thursday, June 21, at 6:00 p.m. in the Second Floor Board Roomof the Township Administration Building, to hear the discussion of the committee, and todecide if more intervention is needed for the sake of neighborhood protection. On June 25,the committees will be delivering their quarterly reports to the Planning Commission. That willprovide an opportunity to comment.

WEBSITE REPORT (Submitted by George Lonsdorf):NCA June 2012 website update

A Clean Sweep page came and went (included a photo of Jim, Georgette and Deborah workingon 10.10.10); it included a link to PDF new Recycling guide merged from two guides listed inseparate places on the Borough website; the link now appears in each Recycling pickup listed inUpcoming Events on the News pageUpcoming Events: If the original listing includes an events location, there is now a link to anaccurate Google map on the listing; observation and testing continues to make sure evenunusual locations are accurately mapped.Rezoning pages - Resources and FAQs - continue to grow. There is no other place for Narbs

to get background on the Rezoning project. Planning Commission members Jim Cornwelland Diane Moore expressed gratitude for the Civics efforts and are looking for more ways tocommunicate the efforts; they say project will not be completed before 2014.Narberth section: Narberth Yesterday, newly re-discovered by past Civic Association president,

Andy Haakenson. Written as a term paper at Temple University in 1944 by lifelong Narb JeanStaples.I contacted Joanne Behm, former Library Board Member, who has given Nar-Trek walkingtours of Narberth. She has expressed an interest in putting her collection of vintage postcardson the NCA website.

Facebook photos from NarbEarth Day and Clean Sweep posted;stats; Google analytics for the website?Wild ApricotJim proposed dropping it;until replaced, the join or renew link would lead directly to PayPal; we will manually record theinfo from the PayPal e-mail; We would use the free MailChimp service to send e-mails;Im in favor after Jim and I meet to document current Wild Apricot functionality we rely on,including email notifications, and the priorities for replacing it. The monthly bill is payable onthe 21st of the month (one week from tomorrow); In order to adequately prepare and test the

alternatives, I propose we pay for July and cancel before July 21; making July 20 the last datewe would use Wild Apricot.