Minutes, September 19, 2023

Minutes

 September 19, 2023 Clarksville CDC Monthly Meeting 

6:30 p.m.

Haskell House

1703 Waterston Avenue

Board Members Attending: Aubrey Carter, BJ Friedman, Malcolm Greenstein, Paula Hern, Mary Reed, Chris Thomas

Also Attending - Felecia Miller, Brad Prak

1.     Approval of minutes from the August 15, 2023 monthly meeting.

Paula moved and Malcolm seconded approval of the minutes from the August 15, 2023 monthly meeting. The motion passed unanimously.

2.     Monthly property reports:

a. Brad presented information regarding our properties. Two residents are moving out of 1007 Charlotte, one at the end of Oct, the other no longer has a child who is younger than 18. She will be given a 6-month lease with rent at the current lease terms to end in April.

1007 has foundation issues which will need to be repaired prior to renting these units. One bid came in at $33K for repair. We need another bid.

b. Brad presented August financial reports. We had a net income of $12,800 after major expenses for stairway repairs and water heater replacement. Another unit had the HVAC repaired, but will need to be replaced in the near future.

For the year, we have positive income of about 75K, most of which come from grant money.

c. A written report was provided by Kim regarding the new construction at 1611 W. 10th Street. AYW has almost what is needed to get the permit to build the driveway, Railings will be added to the porch/steps. We are hoping to be able to rent the property by the end of the year.

3.     Report on efforts to obtain needed repair funding.

Mary reported on our efforts to obtain funding for the needed repairs for our properties. She has received estimates obtained from Paul Balmer. All of the older properties were visited and all maintenance/repairs that need to be done were identified. We now have firmer numbers than we had before. Mary will send out this information to the board on or before our November meeting. Then we will submit the cost estimates to city government officials and potential donors.

4.     By-laws revision

Our By-laws were revised in 2011; we updated them in 2020, but were never able to have a  vote on the proposed changes due to the Covid shutdown. Our management structure has been changed since then, so we now need to revisit the By-laws. 

In a proposal emailed to the board from Kim, she proposed that we look at revising By-laws  in chunks beginning in October. The goal is for the board to approve the amended By-laws in February. The proposed by-laws would be posted to the website in March to notify members, and a special meeting, held on the same date as our annual meeting in April, for members to vote on the changes.

Board members agreed with Kim’s proposal. Mary said she has been reviewing the Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation, as well as those from the Blackland CDC to see how they are operating. Since we have little to no participation from CCDC members, this needs to be addressed in our by-laws review.

5.     Discussion of proposed organization and operations of a Haskell House Advisory Group.

Mary provided a proposal about how the Haskell House Advisory Group would operate. The purpose of the group is to provide Clarksville descendants and other interested individuals with the opportunity to:

·      Tell the story of the Haskell House, the neighborhood, and their Clarksville ancestors

·      Participate in media interviews about the Haskell House and Clarksville

·      Suggest ideas for Haskell House programming, including speakers for Clarksville Conversations

·      Broaden the variety of people who are aware of and visit the Haskell House

·      Serve as docents

·      Enrich the experience of visitors to the House

Mary has identified 4 core members, who hopefully will recruit other group members. The board approved the proposal after discussion.

6.     Report on Austin Museum Day at the Haskell House.

Mary reported that the event was hugely successful. There were “tons” of people who attended. Visitors included former Clarksville residents/descendants who were attending a family reunion. We made $552, mostly from sales of merchandise to the folks who were here for the reunion. We also collected 64 new email addresses.

7.     Report from the OWANA steering committee.

Paula reported that the Y wants to redevelop their property to add to their services. They  came to OWANA for support of their project. Paula also reported that Natalie George is the new director of Flower Hill. Mary reported that there is a plan to use the back building as a gift shop and café to raise money for the museum.

8.     Other Business.

We received 2 ACL wristbands for both weekends of the festival. Mary will send emails and post an announcement to FaceBook to advertise the sale. Each wristband will cost $375. BJ volunteered to create a flyer to give to Felecia and for other notifications.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:32 PM.

The board went into executive session.