Meeting Minutes: Friends of the Community Path 07/08/2002

Meeting place: 122 Belmont Street. (Joel and Lynn's house)

Present: Bryce, Joel, Turil, John, Arun

Minute taker: Arun

Action Items:

+ Joel will put out a plea for volunteers to help with our table at ArtBeat.

+ Bryce will create forms for each abutter which we can fill out with information regarding times when we attempted or actually contacted them, and what was said.

+ Bryce and Lynn will write a letter to Mass Highway supporting the possible improvements on the existing path between Cedar St. and Belmont.

+ Arun will talk to the Realtor for the house on sale near the intersection of Montrose and School.

+ Joel will talk to a woman (I missed the name) who saves wetlands in the area about the area under/near the Lowell Street Bridge.

+ Joel will send Kindra the missing minutes so they can be posted on the web site. + John will get the banner to Joel sometime before ArtBeat.

+ Turil will have the Brochure ready and printed for ArtBeat.

+ Turil will think of an art project that we can do for ArtBeat and get the necessary materials.

+ People will approach various bike industry members for support letters for the Community Path. We still need people to volunteer to talk to various places. (*) means we still need a volunteer.

FROM Bryce:

Bike Industry List & signup ------------------------------------------------------

2nd Gear Bike Store (617) 868-0480 157 Hampshire St (Turil)

* Ace Wheel Works (617) 776-2100 145 Elm St Ata Cycle (617) 354-0907 Website 1773 Massachusetts (Arun)

* Bicycle Exchange Porter Sq (617) 864-1300 2067 Massachusetts Bike Security Racks Co (617) 547-5755 14 Avon Pl (Bryce)

* Bikes Not Bombs Inc (617) 442-0004 59 Amory St # 103 Roxbury Bike Stops Here (781) 646-7867 43 Dudley St Arlington, MA (Arun)

* Bilce Link Intl/Strida Bicycles (617) 625-6100 8 Main St

* Boston Bike Tours - Boston Common - 617 308-5902 Broadway Bicycle School (617) 868-3392 351 Broadway (Bryce)

* Cambridge Bicycle (617) 876-6555 259 Massachusetts Independent Fabrication (617) 666-3609 86 Joy St Rear (Joel)

* Montague Corp (617) 491-7200 432 Columbia St # 29

* Paramount Bicycle Repair (617) 666-6072 Park Sales & Svc (617) 666-3647 510 Somerville Ave (Arun) Seven Cycles Inc (617) 923-7774 125 Walnut St Watertown (Turil)

* Special Purpose Vehicles (617) 776-3103 561 Windsor St

Environmental Bond Bill State Representatives Toomey, Jehlan and Ciampa(?) sponsored a line in the Environmental Bond Bill for one million dollars for the Community Path. (The city thought it should be in the Transportation bill, and so do we.) The Bill has passed the House, but our line wasn't in the Senate's version. We have to get past the reconciliation, the Line-item veto, and then actually get the bond, so it is unlikely that we will see this money any time soon. Nevertheless, it gives us good visibility.

MBTA lease

The city hasn't followed up on the MBTA lease yet. The real estate department says it needs to review the terms. Tuck researched the lease terms a bit and also the environmental issues to discuss with the T.

Door-to-door networking. In general, successful, with a few concerns from abutters. See detailed e-mail sent out last week.

Golden Spike II Conference A bunch of us went. It was a lot of fun, and informative. See http://www.masscentralrailtrail.org/ for more on the conference.

Grants

We haven't heard anything form Mass Turnpike. Hopefully we will soon, but we may not get the grant. Bryce is going to write a grant proposal for BikesBelong. We need bike industry support letters for this grant. (See action items)

Alder Outreach

We are scheduled to give a presentation to the Alders at the August 8th meeting.

Community Outreach

We have decided to keep a sheet of paper for each abutter. We will write down each time we try to contact them, and also all the times we actually talk to them. This sheet of paper will be viewable by the abutter, whenever they like, although it won't be public to everyone.

Website update

The website should have all the minutes for the previous meetings. The way it looks now implies that we have suddenly become inactive.

Wetland issues

We will be sensitive to the wetlands concerns regarding the area near and under the Lowelll Street bridge. Joel is going to talk to a woman in the Conservation Committee? about this.

New Signs

There will be two signs put up saying "For more information on extending the Path, visit www.pathfriends.org" (or something similar) near the end of the path at Cedar Street and also at Lowell Street. Thanks to Todd Blake from Traffic and Parking.

Improvements to the existing path

Mass Highway has restarted a project ot improve the existing path, especially where it intersect Davis Square and Mass Ave. (Yeah!) The head of the Mass Highway department has asked us to send him a letter supporting this action. Bryce will write the letter, but Lynn will sign it, since Bryce is also writing letters for the Cambridge Bike Committee and Mass Central Rail Trail.

Next meeting: The next meeting will be August 5th, partially to discuss ArtBeat and the upcoming presentation to the Alders.