Meeting Minutes

Board Members

Allan Whiting, Brooks Barth and Nikki Ricks

Neighbors

11 neighbors in attendance

Jt (Sabin Culture Livabilty Specialist), Mort, Dustin, Tara, Joanna, Devlin, Taylor, Gayle, Judy, David, and Dusty

Speakers or Guests

n/a

Action Items

Email committees to start conversation and organizing

MEETING SUMMARY

The Vernon Neighborhood Association convened on October 18th, with a strong turnout of 11 neighbors. The meeting progressed as follows:

Introductions & Additional Agenda Items (6:00 pm)

• Nikki, VNA Co-Chair, initiated the meeting, recapped the art walk, funding and neighbors introduced themselves, sharing their thoughts and concerns.

Board Elections

• Nikki led discussion with neighbors around committees and inviting them to volunteer based on survey results

New Committees and Roles Based on Survey Results (6:45 pm)

• Nikki delved into the survey results and suggested the formation of new committees and roles within the neighborhood association.

• Neighbors signed up for the following committees:

  • Pedestrian Safety & Traffic Calming Committee

    • David Heller (Chair)

    • Yehudah

    • Sam

    • Dusty

  • Street Trees Committee

    • Brooks Barth (Co-Chair)

    • Dustin Davis (Co-Chair)

    • Maggie

    • Kim

    • Tara

  • Litter and Beautification Committee

    • Taylor Villucci (Chair)

    • Julie

    • Linda

    • Kendal

  • Business Relations Committee

    • Devlin Peck (Chair)

• Various concerns and topics were discussed during this segment of the meeting:

  • Gayle mentioned wanting to rename Killingsworth. She feels it’s a violent name and would like it to be changed. It was talked about that the name is from a real estate developer. Upon further research it seems as though street renaming is put on hold currently due to limited resources (https://www.portland.gov/transportation/permitting/street-naming)

  • Taylor asked what is expected of board members and we discussed the fact that the board is in a transition period currently

  • Mort gave history of VNA and that they used to head up clean up days and the movie in the park

  • Tara mentioned her importance of community resiliency and her interested in businesses

  • Dustin cares about the community aspect and is interested in the traffic committee or trees

  • Joanna is new to Vernon is and interested in getting involved in clean up days but doesn’t want to join the board at this time

  • Devlin is interested in Vegan businesses and would like to support more of that. He is interested in joining the board

  • Brooks is interested in the arboretum and connecting with the group that leads that, he and Dustin decided to lead the trees committee together

  • Allan is interested in continuing on as NECN liaison

  • Hey Neighbor looks like it’s up and running again

  • We chatted about continuing to meet at the Sabin ReEngagement Center for our monthly meetings and change those meetings to community meetings from board meetings

The meeting concluded with action items set for emailing committees to initiate conversations and organize efforts in line with the discussed topics.