Central

Houghton

Neighborhood

Association

 

Central Houghton Neighborhood Association

 

Key Upcoming Dates:

 

Mon, Jan 7th – Design Review Board meeting on Parkplace at City Hall

Mon, Jan 14th – Walking Event Subcommittee (for Active Living) meeting 4-6pm in the Norkirk Room.

Tues, Jan 15th – City Council makes their decision on Phase 3 of Annexation – send in your comments before this meeting!

Mon, Jan 28th – Green Kirkland meeting – Houghton Starbucks – 10am

Mon, Feb 4 – Public meeting on design of Library 6:30 – 8:00pm

Wed, Feb 6th – CHNA Annual Meeting – 7pm – Fire Station #22

 

Minutes from January 2, 2008

 

* Next month, on Feb 6th is our Annual Meeting! If there is one meeting you attend in the year – this is it! We will be electing officers and focusing 2008 as a “Green Year”.  Did you make a new year’s resolution to be more aware of your environment or get involve in your community? Well, if you did, come to this meeting!  Do you appreciate this monthly email telling you what is going on in your neighborhood? If so, come to this meeting! We need your support!    

 

* We had a special guest at our meeting; Police Officer Allan O’Neill attended the meeting. He is our Neighborhood Resource Officer or our neighborhood liaison. He came by to encourage us as a neighborhood to contact him if we see suspicious or unusual activity is happening in our neighborhood. He can be contacted at aoneill@ci.kirkland.wa.us or (425) 587-3451. In the future, he will also arrange for the officers who patrol our neighborhood to stop by our monthly meeting so we can get to know them!

 

* The King County Library System would like to invite you to the second public meeting regarding the design for the new Kirkland Library. Lisa attended the first public meeting and the Library really does appreciate the input.  The meeting will be held on Monday, February 4th at 6:30-8:00PM at the Kirkland Library

 

* The Neighborhood Update process has been delayed until 2009….stay tune!

 

* Parkplace continues to move along. There are pictures and drawings available for you to in “envision” the changes. We suggest you take a look at the links provided below.  The next Design Review Board (DRB) meeting for the Kirkland Parkplace project is scheduled for Monday, January 7, 2008, at Kirkland City Hall. Check out the information below and send in your opinions.

 

http://www.ci.kirkland.wa.us/__shared/assets/Park_Place_booklet_pages_1_-_77585.pdf

http://www.ci.kirkland.wa.us/__shared/assets/Park_Place_booklet_pages_8_-_157586.pdf

booklet and preferred plan as presented to the Design Review Board 12/03/07 or you can see 3D “model” of project at http://www.envisionkirklandparkplace.com/gallery.php

.

* The Active Living Task Force has created a subcommittee called Walking Events. The idea is for this committee to coordinate an event to have residents’ walk from one’s home to the Houghton Shopping District, fill out a survey including the following: time it took to walk, route taken (use data to create a “bulls-eye map”), and barriers/problems encountered and get a prize provided by local stores. The details will be identified and worked out by the subcommittee.

 

Planning and coordinating a successful event will take time and dedication. They are seeking volunteers to contribute in many different ways. Tasks may include:

Developing an event checklist, Recruiting volunteers, Seeking donations, Writing letters, Developing a survey ,Developing fliers and other event advertisement, Outreach, Presenting to City Council, Fundraising, Compiling data after the event, and Post event reports.

 

If you are interested in this event, please attend the first Walking Event Subcommittee meeting on Monday January 14th from 4-6pm in the Norkirk room or if you can’t attend the meeting please contact Lisa McConnell at kirby994@verizon.net to let her know you are interested.

 

* Annexation - The Council held study sessions on November 15 and December 4 to discuss annexation and their pending decision with regard to proceeding to Phase 3 of their four-phase decision process. At their November 15 Council Study Session, the Council received updated financial information. Their Phase 3 decision was originally scheduled to take place at their December 11 meeting; however, the Council wanted more time with this important decision point and rescheduled this agenda item to January 15. http://www.ci.kirkland.wa.us/depart/CMO/Annexation_Information.htm Last chance to make comments to City Council on how you feel about this issue.

 

* Thanks for participating in Arbor Day activities at Watershed Park last month. We had 105 volunteers that day!  Your on-going support of volunteer restoration activities is appreciated. We’re working on finalizing volunteer data for our Green Kirkland events this year and hoping soon to send out a thank you message to volunteers.

 

Plans for 2008 events are underway with the next meeting on Monday, Jan 28th – 10am at Houghton Starbucks. The Green Kirkland events are attempting to partner with community groups and they would like to ask a few questions:

  1. Does your neighborhood association have particular dates and times that you’d prefer for conducting volunteer restoration work parties at Carillon Woods and Watershed parks next year? If so, please could you let us know.
  2. Can you could appoint a person to arrange for coffee donations from the Houghton Starbuck. The person would organize the coffee donation and bring the coffee to events.
  3. Can you arrange for donations/sponsorship of refreshments such as muffins, cookies, fruit, energy bars? This year neighbors at Kiwanis Park provided refreshments and it worked very well – one neighbor led the effort and involved other neighbors.
  4. Can you arrange for sign boards to be posted the week before events? E.g., the Market Neighborhood has been using their meeting notice signboards to advertise restoration events at Kiwanis Park.
  5. Are there other ways the Houghton Neighborhood Association would like to sponsor restoration events? E.g., sign boards at park entrances, helping at the sign-in table during events, sending out email messages notifying neighbors of event.

Please send responses/input back to Lisa McConnell at kirby994@verizon.net by Jan 25th. She will consolidate for our neighborhood. Your support is needed to keep Kirkland green!