Title
Community Organizing in Bryant Neighborhood and at Pine Lake Cooperative
Memorandum
The Office of Community Development has been working with council members Leigh Greden, Christopher Taylor, Carsten Hohnke and Mike Anglin to address a multitude of issues in the Bryant Neighborhood and Pine Lake Cooperative.
Bryant Neighborhood:
Community Action Network (CAN) is under contract with the City to operate Bryant Community Center. CAN initiated a community organizing effort and organized a meeting of community leaders and organizations on December 11, 2008. The meeting was well-attended by about 30 community members.
Derrick Jackson and Damon Thompson provided insight and advice on how to organize the community, based on their experience in the West Willow Neighborhood. A critical component is neighborhood involvement to both identify problems and help with solutions. After these issues are identified, then an outside consultant can be hired to help facilitate a community revitalization action plan. Three subcommittees were formed to address the following problems: Infrastructure Issues around storm drainage, Community Outreach to get the residents involved, and Housing Foreclosure.
Infrastructure: The Office of Community Development (OCD) has been working with public services, project planning and engineering to figure out how to address some of the drainage issues in the neighborhood. The subdivision was built on a drained wetland, and nearly all of the houses have moisture problems. In addition storm drains are not available in many of the cul-de-sacs. Many of the drainage pathways have become clogged with vegetation. Installing storm drains in the neighborhood was added to the City’s Capital Improvement Plan and was also submitted for funding under the Economic Recovery Plan.
Community Outreach: A plan was developed to recruit court captains, conduct a door-to-door opinion survey on neighborhood conditions, and conduct two neighborhood meetings on M...
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