3rd Meeting April 25th 5 - 6 pm

Our third meeting is coming up, and we hope we draw as big a crowd as last time. It will be the last night of the Lemon Festival, but we hope you can take some time out to come see what is going on with the group. We will meet at 5 - 6 pm at the Bike Trail Tables on Washington Blvd & 8th Ave. If you want to help distribute fliers please contact us at address below. Some of the things we will go over are the status of

• Demolition of the burned down home on Washington email campaign
• Status of Public Works surveys for crosswalks on Bike Trail at Campus & speed control or extra lighting at the fork of E Arrow Hwy & San Bernardino
• Stone Curb self repair workshop - need location & date
• Emergency Preparedness/Safety Workshop ideas

One of the things we have been busy with is getting a petition online for the Historic Stone Curbs and Street Lights, since these two issues were the most prominent among attendees at the last meeting. Please click on the Petition link to the right to read, sign and comment. When we get 300 signatures we will present the petition to city council members and Public Works. If you know others that live in the area, use the bike trail, have a downtown business, or just simply a concern for the historic appearance and upkeep of our neighborhood - please forward them the petition. We are currently looking for a business location where we can leave a hardcopy of the petition for people without internet access to be able to sign.

We hope you can make it & bring something easy to share for the potluck. We recommend bringing your own chair and an umbrella for shade - hopefully it won't be so hot this time. If you have questions send an email to

pleasantviewneighbors@gmail.com.

26 Strong at 2nd Meeting!

Thank you everyone for making it to the second meeting! And thank you to the neighbors that helped distribute the fliers - we tripled our numbers and couldn't have done it without you. Honestly I am a little blown away that so many of us have the same concerns and a willingness to get involved - it's great and I don't want to loose the momentum.

So since we had 26 attendees I came up with 26 things that you personally can do to help out this group. If you want to volunteer for something send an email & I will mark you down - especially if it is for materials or to offer skills, and post your name next to the item.

I am adding another meeting to the month, specifically for group project events. Jim graciously offered to teach us how to repair our historic stone curbs ourselves as a first project - so even if you don't feel like shoveling you can come learn how it is done and bring the people who are shoveling something to drink or tell us jokes. These project meetings will take place the 2nd Sunday of the month, we will have to determine a good month for this project - TBA. We will need supplies, volunteers, location, and photos to get it done. The meetings on the last Sunday will be for open forum discussions.

Since our first project has been to do something about the burned down home at 936 Washington - I would like to follow up our efforts in this by an email letter campaign to the President of the bank that took over ownership of the property in Sept. 2009. This project is on the list below - click it and it will link you to the copy of the letter I sent. You can copy and paste if you wish - but please add something to make your voice distinctive and make sure to change the name.

26 Ways to Help Out in Our Group/Community

Email Coast Capital Group – about burned down home – 936 Washington

Distribute fliers for next meeting

Turn your porch lights on at night

Check your street for lights that need to be fixed – contact Edison with pole #

Count number of lights your street has compared to the # on 2nd street

Materials needed for first project - bags of cement, shovels, wheelbarrows, rocks

Location for first project, send in photos of your curbs ASAP (no high traffic streets)

Homeowner to contact city to repair their stone curb – comparison

Photo of burned down home on Washington

Call Graffiti hotline when you see it

Check out district map and history links on website - New

Photo of Pleasant View Historic sign (close-up)

Contact city about Earth Day Event – shade tree for meeting spot anyone??

Join Arbor Foundation for $10 – get 10 free flowering trees as gift

Submit photos to Shutterfly photo site – help with event planning calendar

Suggestions for group: projects, areas of concern, local events

Neighborhood Watch volunteers

Walking Group coordinator

Note taker at meetings

Need Street Lighting map – can get through Jeff Starkley (909) 930-8483 - $13

Become a member of our website and email list

BYOU – bring your own umbrella & chair to next meeting

Potluck at meetings – bring something easy to share with neighbors

Code enforcement education

Ideas for dealing with rising # of empty homes in area

Find better way for us to interact on the web – Facebook not an option

pleasantviewneighbors@gmail.com

Come to Our Next Meeting!

Welcome to the site - it is still under construction, but you can get an idea of what this group is about from the below posts. We plan to have monthly meetings the last Sunday of each month - the next one will be

Sunday, March 28th 2010

3:00 - 4:00 PM

Bike Trail Tables at Washington and 8th Avenue

Bring something easy to share with your your neighbors and get acquainted. If you plan to come you can send me an email and I will send you the evite invitation so that you can see who all is coming and what they are bringing. Hope to see you there!

Email: pleasantviewneighbors@gmail.com

Some issues we will go over are:

Crime Watch - Safety

Gardening Group - local beautification projects with landscaping - flower boxes

Food Drive - work with Treasure Box organization to help community

Neighborhood Photo Scrapbook Collection - contribute photos of what you like about this neighborhood - can be architecture, landscaping, shops and so on

Home Improvement Projects - code enforcement might be good source for ideas

Local Schools in area - Box Top Drive contribution and other ideas

Anonymous Concerns - give neighbors way to voice legitimate concerns to group without revealing their identity

And anything else people want to look into to help our neighborhood

Hopefully we can figure out who should head up some of these functions and areas within the group and how we can rotate activities among them and how to prioritize.

First Meeting a Success!

I want to thank all the neighbors for coming to the first meeting, and if you weren’t able to make it – here are the notes about what we discussed. TEXT IN BLUE SHOWS ACTION TAKEN OR PROGRESS

Things that we would like to work on –

Safety

Increase Road Safety

Bike Path intersection at Campus and Washington

No crosswalk/Pedestrian signal or warning lights to oncoming cars –

Would like similar warning signs with flashing lights as located on Bike Path intersection with East Arrow Hwy – right before Cherokee Lumber

Safety Investigation to be conducted now by Rene Gurierro 931-4235 Monthly Traffic Safety Advisor Committee Mtg Discussed the best type of warning signal - might conduct monthly mtg with other officials to figure out solutions

East Arrow Hwy and San Bernardino fork

Very dangerous intersection

Cars need more warning, or speed bumps installed

Safety Investigation to be conducted now by Rene Gurierro 931-4235 Monthly Traffic Safety Advisor Committee Mtg Discussed various ways traffic might be slowed such as issuing more patrols to monitor speeds, increase street lighting so bend in the road in more obvious - Speed Bump are out because they cause issues for emergency vehicles

Increase Street Lighting

Research process to follow through city and Edison

Might need to get petition going or signatures for households 500 ft. from installation sites

Would like to be provided with historical looking lighting to match downtown

Historic type lighting is a redevelopment issue that might lack money to support from general fund

Bike Parking

Lack of parking area for bicycles downtown

Community Group Projects

Neighbor Home Improvement Outreach - Exterior

Educate community about city and county programs available Most are incoming qualifying or require equity

House Focus - Burned house at 936 Washington between 9^th and 10^th – Can group help with Demolition or encourage owner to so something

contacted Code Enforcement - Sandi Bare 946-3613, quotes from her email follow: I don't want to paraphrase this "The address for this property is 936 Washington. I took the owner to court almost a year ago and got a guilty verdict regarding the neglect of this property. Unfortunately, he appealed the verdict and his appeal keeps getting passed around to different attorneys which delays compliance. In the meantime, the owner has gone through a judicial foreclosure, so now I am sending notices of violation to the lender that repossessed the property. He informs us that because it was a “judicial” foreclosure, his attorney has advised him to do nothing with the property for the one year period that the court gives the previous owner to reclaim the property. I wish you could do something to help, but unfortunately the legal process has tied our hands. I will be meeting with the Community Development Director on Wednesday to discuss other options and hopefully there is something more we can do besides wait for the court

Community garden – beautification projects 1 Flower Box Gifting idea, find city owned locations that might work in neigborhood with water

Create forum to discuss projects on –

Neighbor can post problem or home improvement project they need help with

Create a tool and skills set collective for community so we can evaluate proposed

projects realistically in relation to our abilities and available equipment

Will need to come up with a fair way of choosing projects –

Jay proposed follow model of Habitat for Humanity

Tool Share – if large tool rented can maybe split price with a neighbors working

on same project (ie – tiller, stump grinder, rotor rooter, paint sprayer)

Heritage Home Street/District Tour

Divide tours by historic districts/seasons – to promote walking tours – smaller more frequent

Join Us for Our First Meeting!

We plan to have our first informal meeting on this

Sunday, February 28th, 2010.

3:00 - 4:00 PM

Bike Trail Tables

Washington and 8th Intersection

We will discuss what we would like to achieve with this group, ways to go about it, who wants to do what, and get to know our neighbors in the process. Please look over the website and you will get some ideas of how you can get involved - suggest your own too!

If you plan to come please bring something to share for the potluck!

Look forward to meeting you.

Welcome to the Neighborhood Group!

First off let me thank you for your interest in your fellow neighbors and your community as a whole. Secondly - let me make it clear that I have never done this before - I am probably going to make some mistakes, I hope they will be small. I would really like to make this a combined effort and function as a group - so no one person is overwhelmed. I am not appointing myself the head of the group, but I will head it up until we have enough members to possibly vote on positions that people would like to have. I also think for safety reasons we should plan to meet in public places, at least until this group is a little cohesive.

I have had some response to the 40 fliers I distributed the other day. Two new households want to participate, so along with my neighbor across the street our numbers doubled overnight! I am hoping more will want to be involved - and the first thing to do if you would like to help out is to help distribute fliers to other households in the area. I have been doing research and have some of the areas I am looking into below. I want to hear ideas on inner organization - if you have them. Whether it is volunteers pick the area of involvement that interests them, or work one project at a time collectively assigning various tasks to everyone - I haven't got this all figured out. Anyway below are some things I am working on setting up, that will need further follow through.

Home Improvement Programs

• Upland City Housing Improvement Program
• Provides loans up to $75,000 to lower income households to bring homes up to code

• Upland Pride Paint Program – pamphlet ; Provide a max of $4000

• Upland Housing Rehabilitation
• Emergency Repairs Program - pamphlet
• Can be structural, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, and code violation
• Provide a max of $5000

• Historic Home Rehabilitation Program
• Provides deferred loans to rehab significant properties
• Max loan $50,000

• San Bernardino County Utility Help
• Income qualifying discounts for monthly gas & electric bills
• Weatherization program - help with insulation, old windows, inefficient appliances, ect.

Other Areas to Look Into

• Easement Improvement Resources
• Water Conservation Incentives
• Solar Power
• Gardening Store Involvement
• Hardware Store Involvement

Emergency Preparedness

• Emergency, Food, Shelter & Services
• Research Resources and Programs through the city – pamphlet

• Homeowner’s Guide to Earthquake Safety – pamphlet
• What should every homeowner do for house and individual safety after earthquake?
• The Gas Company – call to see about emergency shut off instructions

• San Antonio Hospital – what they might need from first responders
• What does a first responder do?

BUSINESS/COMMERCIAL INTERESTS

TO CONTACT TO REQUEST PARTICIPATION IN GROUP –

I think we should have a clear plan put together prior to contacting commercial interests for their involvement. Might need to register as a non-profit and find out legalities for things like soliciting assistance, and liability issues.

PUBLICITY FOR GROUP SUCCESS

I am considering the option of making a documentary of this process, since I am a freelance videographer. This might help us get more official and business involvement down the line. Those not wanting to be on camera can opt out, but please still be part of the group.

________________

Please leave me your comments. This site might have to be reworked a couple of times - so it might be a little disorganized in the beginning. I am just running with it. Also if you want to take on a certain area of involvement - let me know - and it's yours. I am hoping for those who show interest in the group, that we can meet up in person in maybe a few weeks for coffee and to go over what we would like to focus on.

Thanks again!

Julie