May updates
- Neighborhood Matching Grant
Good news! Our Neighborhood Matching Grant application was accepted! This grant will help us with the following:
- New signage to replace the old signs we had for notifying folks of upcoming meetings;
- Liability insurance that we need to get a permit for our annual picnic;
- Another printing of our Neighborhood Walking Map; and
- Gardening supplies for maintaining our pocket parks.
We’ll provide a few more details at our June 20 meeting.
- Next SWONA Meeting is Thursday, June 20
At our March SWONA meeting, we had a vote on whether to have a longer meeting or to prioritize all the speakers that people wanted to schedule. People voted for a longer meeting to fit everything in, so we are scheduling the June meeting to run from 6:30-8:30 pm (starting a little earlier, ending a little later). There will be a lot to discuss. We will provide some snacks, and encourage others to bring something to share.
Here is the proposed agenda:
6:30 pm Introductions, approval of March minutes, announce Approval of Neighborhood Matching Grant, Bike to Work station acknowledgement, vote to raise annual dues to $10.
6:40 pm Annual picnic preparations. Proposed date on August 17 at Decatur Woods Park to sync with West Central Park event. Discuss Slow Food Ice Cream Social. Vote on proposed date. Ask for volunteers to form preparations committee. Follow up: choose committee chair, collect contact info for volunteers, plan to get City permit for event.
7:00 pm Sub-Area planning discussion. Speaker: Mike Dexel, Northeast Olympia Neighborhoods Alliance (ONNA). Mike will talk about lessons learned from their process developing a sub-area plan. Follow up: vote to continue exploring developing a sub-area plan, ask for volunteers for committee if needed.
7:20 pm Community policing discussion. Speaker: Mike Peters, OPD
7:40 pm Thurston Housing Land Trust presentation. Speaker: Zahid Chaudry
8:00 pm New Courthouse presentation. Speaker: District Court Judge TBD
8:20 pm Other business, suggestions for September meeting topics
8:30 pm Adjourn
Hope to see you there! Look for the new signs!
- Bike to Work Day Station
SWONA sponsored (and Bethany Weidner organized) one of 7 commuter stations for Bike to Work Day on May 16 (https://bcc.intercitytransit.com/events/2019-5-16 ) at the Decatur St "Cut-Through" by the Poetry Post. Thanks to Doo's Donuts and Olympia Coffee Roasters for contributions for this event.
- Olympia Council of Neighborhood Associations (CNA) Meeting
I attended the May meeting of the Olympia Council of Neighborhood Associations (CNA) Meeting so relaying some of the agenda items. CNA got its own Neighborhood Matching Grant to organize a couple of trainings on how to encourage community participation – more details to come as that rolls out. The City has a webpage called Engage Olympia (www.engage.olympiawa.gov ) for its attempt to do outreach. The Thurston County Food Project (www.thurstoncountyfoodproject.org ) collected 5914 pounds of food at their April collection. The next one is on June 15 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at their Mottman Road warehouse if you are interested. I agreed to help organize a candidate forum this fall on the westside of Olympia this fall in advance of the November elections – more details to come. I submitted a petition for one of our members to have CNA endorse a Regional Climate Change Mitigation Plan which will be discussed at the June meeting.