Capitol Hill Community Council

Capitol Hill Community Council
General Meeting Minutes: July 16th, 2009

**In Attendance: 18 including 6 officers (Jen, Hong, Tony, Clark, Web, & Josh)

Opening and Introductions

Purpose of the Council**
The Capitol Hill Community Council seeks to be a voice/resource for those who live and/or work in the area. The CHCC will facilitate organized advocacy and events that improve the community. By taking action, the CHCC will create connections throughout the community that make Capitol Hill a more cohesive place to work/live.

Finance Report
CHCC General Account Balance: $1539
Open Space Committee Balance: $ 254.59

Secretary Report

Minutes from June General Meeting our discussed

General Announcements
• East Pike Sale starts tomorrow (7/17/2009)
o Merchants will be doing a can drive for Northwest Harvest
• City Stimulus running right now
• Capitol Hill/Central District Election July 27th at Mount Zion Church
o Capitol Hill Community Council will Co-Sponsor and Volunteer at the event
o More information can be found at http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2009/07/19/politics-local-and-national

Questions for Council
• Questions are raised by community members about the Council duplicating the efforts (Cal Anderson Discount Dollar) of other groups such as the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce.
o President Jen Powers assures the community members that the CHCC will try to meet with as many groups as possible to minimize the duplication of efforts.

Guest Speaker -Ruth Harper and the Capitol Hill Parking Plan
Ruth Harper discusses the multi-year project that is the Capitol Hill Parking Plan. The overall purpose of the project is to improve parking wherever possible, so that it benefits the residents and businesses in the area.
• Various community members voice support for increased zone permit parking and additional pay to park areas.
o The general consensus of the community is that controlled parking guarantees residents access to parking.
• For additional information or to have your voice heard go to: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/cp_caphill.htm

Chill N’ Grill on the Hill
The Chill N’ Grill on the Hill will be taking place on August 4th from 6 to 10pm on East Howell St between Olive and Bellevue. Members of the CHCC have been actively involved in planning the Chill N’ Grill and have asked the council for consideration of financial support for the event in the amount of $50. Unpaving paradise has offered to match the $50 if the measure is passed to bring the total donated to $100.
• Motion is made to approve the expenditure and seconded
o Measure passes with a vote count of 13 Yes- 1 No and 1 Abstention

Committees
The council breaks into two groups based on interest too discuss the different committee opportunities for the upcoming year. The following is a recap of what was discussed by each group.

Policy and Planning Committee
The committee began by discussing the wide variety of Policy and Planning issues that are currently facing Capitol Hill. An extensive overview can be found below.

• Sound Transit plans to put out a "request for proposals" or RFP out to the development community in about 18 months. Developers will then submit proposals to sound transit of what they would like to do with the site. Sound Transit will review the proposals and pick a developer(s) for the site(s). ST plans to enter into a long term ground lease with the developer while ST retains ownership of the land.
o The primary purpose of ST's outreach over the next 18 months is to determine what constraints / qualifications are going to be included in the RFP. This will help them determine the criteria for the project. ST wants to work with the community to structure these criteria to reflect community preferences.
o ST plans to conduct this process in 2 phases
• Broad public outreach (this year),
• An Internal process to change zoning and other requirements to make vision feasible (next year)
o In the early winter the chamber of commerce formed a working group consisting of businesses, institutions, property owners, residents and city staff to work with Sound Transit to coordinate their outreach.
o Sound Transit Plans to conduct 4 community forums where they plan to solicit feedback from the community. Two of these have already occurred. The working group meets every few weeks to help ST plan these outreach events and to "digest" the feedback.
o One month ago, the Chamber put up about $30,000 to hire an architecture / urban design consultant to advise the working group and Sound Transit. They decided to hire Schemata Workshop, a small local architecture firm with offices on 12th Ave. The principle of the firm and his wife both live on Capitol Hill. Schemata has partnered with an established urban design firm, Makers, to help with some of the technical details that were beyond their expertise.

Discussion then moved to the role the CHCC Policy & Planning Committee should have. Some felt the committee should simply be a conduit for community members to express there opinions. Others want the CHCC to actively advocate our interpretation of community interest.
Further discussion was had about splitting the committee into various subgroups based on interest. The street care situation was also broached. The committee ran out of time before a consensus could be reached on either topic.

Events and Internal Development
Events Committee
Secretary Clark Smith led a discussion about the events that the CHCC helped organize in last year, the interest the council would have in these events in the future and additional events the council could become involved in/ create in the coming year.
The group generally supported being involved in some capacity with events such as Pride and Halloween in the future. The group hopes that new events can help raise awareness of the council as well serve as a means to increase the amount of money in the CHCC general fund. Further updates were also given on the Chill N’ Grill

Internal Development
Following a general conversation about events for the year, Hong Chhuor led an initial discussion of the need to develop a set of rules/operating procedures for the organization in areas that are not treated specifically by Council Bylaws; this is particularly true when it comes to committees. The executive committee hopes to develop a set of written policies and procedures that outlines the process for issues such as the creation/dissolving of committees & the appointment/removal of committee chairs. These rules/procedures will help to define the relationship between committees and the larger Council, set expectations regarding responsibilities and assist in conflict resolution.

George Bakan, editor of the Seattle Gay News, commented that as officers of a relatively young organization, we should focus our energies & resources on identifying action items & projects as opposed to getting bogged down in bureaucratic procedures and the creation of more paper. Jennifer Power commented that as we grow as an organization and involve more people, we will need the rules/procedures in order make sure that everybody acts in the interests of the organization as a whole. Justin Carder commented that in the future, we should be more proactive in developing these procedures as opposed to being reactionary, but that the issue of committees needed to be looked at now.

George Bakan followed-up by stating he believes that we should not let previous experiences (i.e. the Capitol Hill Pride Festival) distract us from our real work and that the situation has been addressed and that we should move on. Hong clarified that developing the procedures is an initiative that the new officers of the Council feel a strong need to address and that the ultimate purpose of creating yet another written document is to enable the officers, should the need arise, to take steps & make decisions according to a previously agreed upon set of procedures in an efficient and timely manner.

The discussion ended at 10 minutes to 9 PM without having reached any solid conclusions or developing an action plan.

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