Minutes, April 17, 2018, Annual Meeting
Minutes from the April 17, 2018 Clarksville CDC Annual Meeting
Members present: Mary Reed, Malcolm Greenstein, Teri Taylor, Chris Thomas, BJ Friedman, Paula Hern
Others present: Rose Gabriel
1. Presentation of the “State of the CCDC” Annual Report, Mary Reed, President.
The text of Mary’s State of the CCDC Annual Report:
When I was thinking about what to say about the CCDC’s past year, the following words immediately came to mind: “tragedy,” “weather” and “public affairs.”
I thought of the word “tragedy” because RuthAnn Brown died suddenly last October and her death was a huge loss for Clarksville and the CCDC because in many ways RuthAnn was Clarksville. She was also a reminder of how things used to be in Clarksville and of the importance of trying to preserve the neighborhood’s history and traditional sense of community. Clarksville will never be quite the same now that she is no longer barreling down the streets in her big old car, making us laugh with her crazy sense of humor, serving up plates of barbecue at the Fun Fest, or loudly speaking out about the things she disagreed with, especially when those things involved the Republicans.
The word “weather” popped into my mind because last year it disrupted our plans like no other time in my memory. Specifically, we had to cancel our ice cream social because of Hurricane Harvey; heavy rain and thunderstorms forced us to cancel the Haunted House; and this year, we cancelled our January board meeting because of snow and ice.
And I thought of the words “public affairs” because of several initiatives the CCDC undertook in an effort to not only educate area residents about some important issues that will affect them, but also to help the CCDC become more of a leader in addressing those issues. Specifically, we wrote a very comprehensive position paper on CodeNEXT that was highly praised and shared, and we began our Community Conversation series. As a reminder, between July of last year and January of this year, we hosted three Community Conversations, each of which tackled a different timely issue and featured expert speakers. The first one educated people about CodeNEXT; the second focused on whether affordable housing, density and diversity were mutually exclusive; and the third addressed LHDs -- what they do and don’t do -- and introduced the Clarksville Buass-Martin local historic district to attendees. And since then we’ve developed a website for the LHD, submitted our draft design standards and draft LHD application to the city’s Office of Historic Preservation for its feedback, and began work on a guided walking tour for the Buass-Martin area.
As a result of Community Conversation #2 at which John Henneberger suggested that individual neighborhoods take on the challenge of increasing affordability and diversity within their boundaries in accordance with their own values and priorities, the CCDC began work on an ambitious proposal to do just that in all of Old West Austin. The proposal was shared with a wide variety of people in order to get their feedback and buy-in and it was generally met with enthusiasm. I will provide an update on this project during today’s regular board meeting.
2. Presentation regarding the CCDC’s Financial Status, Teri Taylor, Treasurer. (report to be attached)
3. Presentation regarding the CCDC’s housing program, Rose Gabriel, Property Manager. (report to be attached)
4. Announcement of Election Results, BJ Friedman, Election Administrator
BJ Friedman, Election Administrator, announced the election results. Current board members, Malcolm Greenstein, Paula Hern, Kim Kronzer O’Brien, Mary Reed, and Chris Thomas were reelected to another 2-year term.