Serving Residents of Lower Downtown & The Central Platte Valley

MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE LOWER DOWNTOWN NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION HELD OCTOBER 7, 2008

Pursuant to proper notice a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Lower Downtown Neighborhood Association was held in the Community Room of the Northern Trust Bank, 1400 16th Street, on October 7, 2008, beginning at 5:20 p.m. In attendance were: Jerry Arca, David Cole, Melinda Cox, Josh Davies, Shannon Gifford, Brian Graff, Diane Huntress, Joyce Lozow, Jim McCotter, San Ong, Paul Rothman, Christine Santucci, Byron Watson, and Mike West. Absent were Diane Huntress and Jack Tone. Jim chaired the meeting, and Shannon acted as Secretary.

President’s time

Mike West is now a member of the Denver Union Station Project Authority (DUSPA). Jim congratulated him on his appointment. Mike reported that the authority was created to establish an entity that would issue the contracts and direct the construction and management of the station. The authority has the responsibility to issue hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds. Other members of the board include Jerry Glick, President, Columbia Group; Don Hunt, President of Antero Resources; Mario Carrero, VP of Entravision Communications Corp.; Councilwoman Montero (a non-voting director); Elbra Wedgeworth, who has been elected chair; Claude Pumilla, CFO of the City and County of Denver (non-voting); Marla Lien, Chief legal counsel for RTD; Terry Howiter, CFO for RTD (?); Peggy Catlin, Deputy Director at CDOT (someone else is filling in for her temporarily); Jennifer Schauffele, Executive Director of DRCOG; Robin Kneich from the Front Range Economic Strategy Center (FRESC); and Tom Gougeon from Continuum and the Union Station Neighborhood Company.

Jim received North Denver Resource Guide in the mail. They would like to include LoDoNA. Jim suggested they look at the website and take information from it.

Jim pointed out that we all have opportunities to attend things that are connected with LoDoNA. He hopes that we’ll try to support them. Examples include the fundraiser that Christine organized at the MCA a couple of months ago, and the LoDo Lights event that Diane organized at the Hamlins last week.

The website is a constant challenge. Please remember to add content, or forward it to Byron. If we want to keep the site relevant, we need to put up information that people can respond to.
The July, August, September minutes, as soon as approved, will be placed on the website.

We agreed to schedule the December meeting for the 9th.

There was a discussion of the Annual Meeting, and what a suitable topic might be. One suggestion was to do it at the MCA. They will probably have their new director by then. David pointed out that LoDo District is looking at doing their annual dinner on March 10th, at the Ellie Caulkins again. Jim said that we normally hold the annual meeting in February. He will be gone most of February and a significant part of January. It was decided that we would shoot for a date during the window that Jim is here: from the 21st of Jan to 6th of February, preferably the last week of January. Christine will check for available days. We will think about speakers, etc. Christine, Joyce, David will work on this. Jerry agreed to help also.

There was a discussion of how many people MCA can hold, and the fact that the museum does not have a catering staff. That is not insurmountable, it’s just something to think about.

Children’s Playground

There will be some new things going in by the 15th. Architerra has told us that the metal decorative pieces on the concrete wall facing Speer will go in, and the bike racks will finally arrive. Apparently Greenway ordered them from one company that never delivered the racks. The money was reimbursed, and new racks were will be ordered. The meeting with Bernstein at the City has not happened yet. He was the liaison 4 years ago when the Rothmans started work on the playground, so they already know him. Jim had forwarded to the Rothmans an invitation to meet the new director of Parks at the Children’s museum later this week. Neither Carol Ann nor Paul can attend, but they will have an opportunity to meet him soon privately.

Minutes

The minutes of the September 8 meeting were approved.

Financial and Membership Report

Net unrestricted cash was $21,392. We have additional restricted funds for the Holiday Project, the LoDo Lights project, and the Philanthropy task force.

For Philanthropy, we raised $4,800, of which $2,850 was donated to MCA for the TECO program and $1,950 will be retained for expenses and working capital for future Philanthropy events.

For the Women’s Series, there have been three events so far (one more is planned this year, in December). For the first event, there was a loss of $53, and for the second, a net loss of $97. For the final event, there was a profit of $451, so overall the net gain has been $302. In addition, there have been up to 7 new members as a result of these events.

The membership total is currently 231 households.

Nov. 1 Block Party/LoDo Lights

Byron reported on the Nov. 1 block party in Diane’s absence. The purpose of the party is to raise money to benefit the LoDo Lights project. To get the street closure/liquor license, he advanced more than $300. Byron thinks he will get the liquor donated. DDRO will pay for the off-duty police and the barricades, which would be a significant sum, so that’s helpful.

They are trying to get some live music to create some energy at the event. The suggestion was made to call Bob Montgomery in Acme Lofts. Byron noted that a rock and roll band needs power, and generally want to be up higher and to have lights. A jazz band has fewer needs.
Byron was able to get the Hot Sounds tables, tents and chairs free, as long as we pick them up and return them clean. We will need volunteers and a truck. The organizers were thinking that we could charge $50 a table for garage sale participants. There was a discussion of whether the combination of garage sale and bands made sense. Ultimately the decision was made not to pursue having a garage sale.

The liquor license is from noon to 7. Byron argues for striking the tents when the sun starts going down. Byron noted that this was the last meeting before the event. He will alert the board when there is more of a proposal.

Diane has talked to Chipotle. They will be a sponsor.

Opera

Byron reported that we will have a 55% discount for one night only, Tuesday, November 11, back of the Orchestra, or the front of parterre – $105 tickets for $50 apiece. The opera is Madam Butterfly. It’s a good production, with only one intermission, and will be presented at the Ellie. Byron has already posted it on the social blog. He will also get an email out to the membership. He wants to make a motion that we will commit to 10 tickets. There is a very good chance that we will sell them as we always have in the past. Shannon moved that we commit to 10 tickets. The motion was seconded and carried unanimously.

Membership Proposal

Josh presented a membership proposal that calls for an elimination of multi-year memberships; an increase in the annual dues; free memberships for students and young professionals, and possibly, the addition of a membership benefits card, similar to LoDo District’s. There would be four levels: Student/Young Professional (free); Household, $50; Sponsor, $100; Patron $250.
Josh pointed out that there may be a perception in the neighborhood that we are more geared to empty nesters. It would be helpful to find a way to increase membership and involvement among younger neighbors. We discussed what age should be defined as “young”. Josh said he thought it would be self-selecting. Others thought maybe 30 years old would be a good cutoff. Christine suggested that we make the first year only free.

We discussed possible tradeoffs between higher dues and higher membership numbers.

The suggestion was to return to a system of offering annual memberships only, and to have the new pricing begin in January.

The question arose about whether or not it could be set up so that Blacktie could automatically renew people in January. We haven’t been providing receipts in the past. Blacktie does that automatically, which is good, since the membership fee is deductible. Christine added that by handling renewals through Blacktie, we eliminate the impediment of people arriving at the annual meeting and immediately being charged.

Jim felt that people would be happy to pay a higher membership fee if they didn’t feel they were being nickeled and dimed by being charged to attend the annual meeting. San felt more comfortable with $30 or $40, with events charged based on costs.

David moved that we accept Josh’s proposal, starting with January 1, 2009. Byron seconded the motion. There was an amendment to have students and young professionals free for the first year and that they be 35 or younger. The motion carried unanimously as amended.

Advocacy

There was a discussion of advocacy proposals. Jack, who was unable to attend the meeting, had relayed to Jim that he would like to form a LoDoNA transportation committee and that he would like to be a part of that. David pointed out that LoDo District has a transportation and parking committee, and wondered whether it made sense to combine forces.

Jerry moved that we adopt the advocacy proposals. David seconded the motion, which carried unanimously.

DUS

Shannon reported briefly on meetings of the various Union Station Advisory Committee breakout groups over the past month.

Good Neighbor Committee

Jim sent out an email with an update on the Good Neighbor Committee. There was a very interesting discussion with Awilda Marquez, Director of Excise and Licenses. The group talked mainly about renewals, problem areas, mediation, and other items. He felt that it was good to have her hear what the Committee was all about. They also discussed how to approach the renewals of licenses for problem bars. Awilda also told the group that she was going to set up a task force to address violence that stemmed from some of the activities at bars.

The Committee did not take any action on anything requiring board approval this month.

David Cole noted that there are some openings on the committee. There are no fixed limits on members, but a couple have moved, and one person has a standing conflict, and as a result all 3 have resigned. The Committee is hoping to increase its representation from the younger age demographic.

Lower Downtown Design Review Board

Mike reported that things were starting to dry up. The one thing that came up in the last two meetings was the Colorado Saddlery building. It would be office space with a penthouse on top with three residential units. Last week, there was only a window approval in the building at 18th and Wynkoop (where the Wynkoop Brewery is located). In addition, the board reviewed a memo on their official position on the design for the proposed tower at Bell Park. The board doesn’t feel that the current proposed design meets the spirit of what was intended.

Communication/Website

Shannon asked for content for newsletter.

Philanthropy

Christine pointed out that she and Joyce were discussing Holiday project. One new thought is an “Angel Tree” at Tattered cover, with suggestions of appropriate books for different ages. People would buy them, we would wrap them and deliver them.

We usually have a budget for the personal care kits for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. The suggestion was made to hosts of holiday parties to have people bring a box of toothpaste from Costco, or whatever, rather than host/hostess gifts.

Joyce has started the process of rounding up chairs and co-chairs for the subprojects.

Social

Joyce reported that M.J. Banbury has agreed to host the third women’s series event. Women will be asked to bring personal care items. Attendance will probably be limited to 100 or 125 people.

The women’s series organizers will have a 2 day retreat in January at the home of one of the committee members in Winter Park, to map out events for 2009.

Restaurant Previews

Melinda reported that 8 Rivers, a new Caribbean restaurant on Blake, is willing to host a restaurant preview on October 21, or October 28. The consensus was to shoot for October 21. Melinda is also talking to Ling and Louie’s for an event in mid-November.

Other Items

We will have several vacancies at the annual meeting, including Melinda, Craig, and Karen Mulville. Jim suggested that we could focus more on that at the next meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:10.

Respectfully submitted,

Shannon Gifford
Secretary

MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE LOWER DOWNTOWN NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION HELD SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

Pursuant to proper notice a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Lower Downtown Neighborhood Association was held in the Community Room of the Northern Trust Bank, 1400 16th Street, on September 8, 2008, beginning at 5:30 p.m. In attendance were: David Cole, Josh Davies, Shannon Gifford, Diane Huntress, Joyce Lozow, Jim McCotter, San Ong, and Byron Watson. Absent were Jerry Arca, Melinda Cox, Brian Graff, Paul Rothman Christine Santucci, Jack Tone, and Mike West. Also present was Carol Rothman, who attended to update the board on the progress of the Downtown Children’s Play Area. Jim was chairman of the meeting, and Shannon was secretary.

Website

Byron gave us a review of features of the new website. In particular, he explained how board members can add items. For the front page “issues, news and events” section, Byron needs to add it himself. Byron explained that the date above an entry is the date that the entry is posted. The photo galleries are also now up. We currently have a capacity of 8 photo galleries; pictures need to be added by Byron. End users of the site can subscribe to RSS (really simple syndication) feeds for selected blogs. This allows people to receive an email every time something is posted in that category.

Byron has sent a series of invitations to board members to join Google blogger, which will allow them to become contributors to the website. He explained that we should create a gmail or google account, or use an existing one. Then, go to www.blogger.com, a website run by Google, sign in, and click on “new post”. The title will show up in bold green. Formatting works similarly to Word, although the range of fonts isn’t as large. It is possible to insert hyperlinks. It is also possible to upload pictures (click “add image”) and videos. There is a box for “labels for this post.” If many blogs are on a similar topic, e.g. “Union Station”, people can search for that label and get all of the posts with that label.

Courrier is the default font. Note that when copying from Word, it is preferable to cut and paste plain text, without carrying over the Word formatting. This is because web formatting language is html, different from Word. One way to do this is to cut and paste to Notepad (which removes Word formatting), and then cut and paste to the blog.

Posts can be saved to finish working on later, or uploaded to the website by clicking “publish post.” It is possible to go back in and edit or remove posts. To edit, go to edit screen. To remove your own posts, press the delete button.

Diane mentioned that there was a section for links and resources. We should also try to ensure that websites that we link to link to us in turn.

There was a discussion about how to promote new website.

Minutes

The minutes from July 1 and August 5 were accepted as revised.

Children’s Playground

Carol Ann Rothman reported on the Children’s Playground. Two major updates are: 1) there has been a change in who is in charge at city hall. She has a meeting with them next week. 2) A decision needs to be made about which playground component to seek funding for next. One option is the round sandbox that is elevated with the shade canopy over it. That is our only piece that can be counted as handicapped accessible, so we know that that has to be done at some time. The cost is $70,000. The other feature that is part of the plans is the water table. That is more expensive, with a cost of $110,000, although the underground infrastructure (water piping, etc.) is in place. She acknowledged that Joyce had mentioned she hopes to have swings, although she notes that although we raise money for this, the city is maintaining it and they own it, so we do have to go by their rules and regulations. Some additional paving and gravel is also desirable but not crucial.

Jim asked if there was a users group that gave input. Carol Ann thinks if you asked about the water table now people would be for it. But note that for six months of the year the water will be turned off.

Carol Ann was asked whether Jeff Shoemaker, from the Greenway Foundation, was still involved. Carol Ann reported that he is very busy right now doing extensions of the bike trail, and other projects. All contributions will still go through the Greenway Foundation due to the tax benefits, but they are less involved.

Josh wondered about whether the city might make additional contributions to the accessible portion. Joyce asked whether there were lots of grant possibilities. Carol Ann explained that there were not, and that we can’t go back to GOCO. She is in touch with one law firm that may cooperate with another law firm to fund the sand box.

Josh voiced his support for the water feature, as did David Cole. We agreed that pursuing the water feature makes sense: it will be a unique addition to the play area.

Retreat Follow-up

There was a brief discussion about voting on the components of the advocacy policy next month.

Philanthropy

Joyce and Christine will meet at the end of the week. Christine has a lot of exciting ideas about future events.

Social

The next women’s event will be called “People, places, and possibilities.” The idea is for LoDo women to know a little bit more about each other. By the end of the evening, each woman will have been introduced to know more about 15 women (5 in a group times 3 different groups). The hope is to make it very non-threatening.

There will be another event in December, dealing with holidays and giving.

Newsletter

The next newsletter will be prepared in early to mid October. A solicitation for holiday project will be included.

Good Neighbor Committee

David reported that Cimarron, at Tivoli, had had a beer and wine license for some time, and had submitted an application for a hotel and restaurant license. Members of the Good Neighbor Committee were unable to reach them, so David Cole went to the hearing. Cimarron signed an agreement on the spot. David moved and Byron seconded the motion that we ratify Cimarron’s good neighbor agreement. The vote was carried unanimously.

Le Rouge’s 2 remaining owners, Ray Jafari and Mo Begerian, filed to transfer the license to Lavish, an LLC owned by the two of them. They finally agreed to our proposal to enter into a short agreement adopting the 2005 Agreement between LoDoNA and Le Rouge and we did not oppose the transfer. David moved and Byron seconded that we approve this agreement. The motion was unanimously approved.

Finally, 5 Degrees requested a special use permit during the DNC. We negotiated an absolute time limit of midnight for the event. Francois gave a $1,000 damage deposit, to be paid to us if the event continued past midnight. It did not, despite a lot of pressure from the promoter, and so the deposit was returned.

Jim talked about the issue of tavern saturation. If the ratio of taverns to people in our neighborhood is higher than it is throughout the city, then you have a prima facie case that we have saturation here. This would lend weight to our opposition to future additional tavern licenses in the neighborhood. He also noted that Awilda Marquez and Deborah Dilley would be invited to future Good Neighbor Committee meetings.

Financial report

San gave the financial report. A total of $4,502.40 was raised through pouring beer at Hot Sounds this summer. Expenditures in the past month were mainly for Aspire website design, which totaled $1,948 through August.

Unrestricted cash is currently $21,701.88.

We currently have 221 household memberships, including 3 new memberships this month.

There was a discussion of multi-year memberships. There are several issues: do we want to have multi-year memberships, and, do we want to have everyone expire in December? Most agreed that changing the time of year for renewing is inconvenient. Currently we generally get people to renew around the annual meeting. There was a discussion of what the price of memberships should be, and whether we should stick to one-year pricing, rather than multi-year pricing.

Josh Davies volunteered to prepare a membership proposal for the next meeting.

Parking

San reported on a pilot project downtown, which would use new parking meters that will accept coins, tokens, and debit/credit/smart cards, but will not accept paper money or parking keys. The new meters are more programmable, so they can tell you what you can do at any given time. San shared a map of the locations where the meter pilots would be run. The plan is to install them in October and test them for 4 months. Separately, there will be a pay-by-phone pilot in the Cherry Creek shopping area. Drivers will register their credit card online with a parking vendor, and then use their cell phone to call the vendor (to charge them for parking).

LoDo Lights

Diane has been working hard. The events listed in the August minutes have been rescheduled: The party at the Hamlins’ loft will be the 30th of September.

The group has sent a request to the city to have a block party on October 4th. They are trying to get a grant and other in-kind donations from the city to limit expenses. Diane received a message from Judy Montero’s office saying that she would be a sponsor, which will come with some benefits. We need a barricade to close the street. We will need to learn whether we need to have security because of the possibility of selling beer. We’re supposed to have porta potties, but if we can use facilities in one of the new buildings, hopefully that will be waived. Diane doesn’t want to move forward on this unless it can be done without expense.

Diane noted that she would have expenses for invitations to the party at the Hamlins. She might temporarily go over her budget but then would be returning money.

Regarding serving alcohol at block party, we need to have defined premises and need to make sure than people don’t leave the premises.

Use of Blacktie Colorado

There was a discussion of using Blacktie Colorado for events. San suggested eliminating American Express as an option, as they charge more than Master Charge and Visa. Everyone agreed.

Union Station

Shannon reported on Land Use/Urban Design breakout group given September 4, and circulated an abbreviated version of the powerpoint presentation. She also reported that the formal public hearing on the Final Environmental Impact Statement for DUS would be held at 5:30 on Wednesday September 10 at the Webb Building.

Other Items

There was a brief discussion about Hot Sounds.

Joyce said Ayn Fox raised the question of whether LoDoNA might want to acquire an inexpensive sound system to use at various events, including the LoDoNA women’s series. It was agreed that Joyce should look into pricing.

The meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,

Shannon Gifford
Secretary

Pursuant to proper notice a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Lower Downtown Neighborhood Association was held in the Community Room of the Northern Trust Bank, 1400 16th Street, on August 5, 2008, beginning at 5:30 p.m. In attendance were Jerry Arca, David Cole, Melinda Cox, Shannon Gifford, Brian Graff, Diane Huntress, Craig Mattingly, Jim McCotter, Christine Santucci, Jack Tone, and Byron Watson, constituting a quorum of the Board. Absent were Josh Davies, Joyce Lozow, San Ong, Paul Rothman, and Mike West. Also present was Teresa St. Peter, Aide to Councilwoman Montero. Jim served as chairman of the meeting and Shannon served as secretary.