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November 7th Dist. Roundtable Notes

11/22/2006 5:05 PM by

The 7th District Roundtable meeting was held Monday night from 6-8 PM at EDI on 25th Street. There were two items on the agenda, a set of presentations by the Department of Public Works and a discussion of parameters for a strategic plan for the 7th District.

The meeting began with a set of presentations by Andrew Glen & Darlene Mallory of the Department of Public Works on Leaf Collection and the city’s Citizen Request System. Mr.Glen spoke on the newly reengineered seasonal leaf colection program. Goals of the program include minimizing the impact on the city drain system and improved customer satisfaction. He spoke on the 3 types of leaf pickup, bag&go pickup of 6 bags at the curb, scheduled vacuum collection, & bulk collection. FACT: Typical peak foliage drop occurs in the last 10 days of October. A special leaf pickup will occur prior to the Christmas house tour, stay tuned for more information on that. There was a suprising amount of discussion following Mr.Glen’s informative (if dry) presentation.

Ms.Malory then spoke on the Citizen Request System, an online tool for reporting all types of situations that the city might need to know about or respond to (such as downed limbs, vacant but open houses, criminal activity, etc). Benefits of the online system include 24-hour access by the citizen to their request, email confirmation of receipt, and accountability. If you do not have online access, the same service is offered by phone at 646-7000 or 646-0999.

At just after 7pm, Sharon Burton gave a presentation on developing a strategic plan “to work together to enhance what we have” in the 7th district. The basic thrust is to collect and organize ideas on how to enhance the neighborhood. She has structured 4 broad areas of suggestion, with subcategories as seen here. She basically read over the points outlined in her original document, with some input and clarification from the audiance. One topic of interest that was discussed is the liscensing of landlords, based on working program in Minneapolis and a more palatably named ‘Rental Inspection Program’ in Williamsburg.

Ms.Burton is getting folks to volunteer for the committies for Economic Development, Housing, Education, & Public Safety + Health, and Human Services. If you are interested in signing up, please email Sharron Burton @ scburton@comcast.net.

It came up during the meeting that once ideas have been honed, they will be forwarded to the folks in the local government that are in the best position to act on them. It was described by Ms.Burton that the city council is for ‘shaping policy and rules, land use and ordinance’, while the mayor’s office is responsible for services.

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