Meeting notes from last Cumberland Block Association meeting on Thursday, August 26th

Hi neighbors!

Here are notes from our last block association meeting, held at Karen and Andy's place.

Block Party 

Saturday September 11th

Schedule

• Stoop Sale: 10 – 4
• Kids activities: 2 – 4
• Potluck dinner/BBQ: 4 – 6
• (street closed 10–6 – please move cars in advance)

Notes

• Bring your own chair and beverage and an item to contribute for dinner
• Needed: grills for BBQ, Folding tables, DJ and kids games coordinator.  Please email cumberlandblock@gmail.com if you can contribute any of these items.
• Annabelle will hang No Parking Signs
• Tokumbo and Sheethal will distribute and hang Block Party signs
• Jack will invite precinct
• Tokumbo will invite Tish

Ideas welcome!

Trees pits and guards 

• Jack brought an application for tree guards from Marty Markowitz's office (courtesy of Peter (308))
• The application is due September 17th to Marty's office
• The group chose the square design displayed in the application
• Sheethal has distributed a document to each owner whose property is adjacent to a tree pit.  Each owner must give permission to obtain a tree guard.  Please complete and sign this form and put in Sheethal's mailbox (311) asap for enclosure with application.  Please print Cumberland Block Association in the space for organization name
  

Sewer Work

• If anyone has any sewer work they need to do, please coordinate with Toland (297).  He has work to do and will see if he can can the work done before they repave the street, so they don't have to rip it up

Other

• Howard talked about extending the historic district in a couple areas
• Howard recommended we work with the block association on Cumberland b/t Lafayette and DeKalb.  We will invite them to the block party as a first step.

Please feel free to leave comments below or email cumberlandblock@gmail.com with any questions.

Meeting notes and a temporary farewell

Please click here to subscribe to the Cumberland Block Association blog

This month's meeting was great - we assembled at the LeBlanc residence at 304. We met new neighbors and caught up with friends.
Warm welcome to our new members - Annabelle (296), Steve (301) and Cori (304) and thanks to all current members for joining us!


Green Fort Greene and Clinton Hill

We had a guest speaker, Jed Marcus, from Green Fort Greene and Clinton
Hill. He spoke about several initiatives in the works to reduce the carbon footprint of the neighborhood:

• Distributing compact flourescent light bulbs to local businesses to sell at cost
• Bike parking
• Recycling in the local parks
  
• Tree pit expansion (please read about the tree pit survey I did on our block)
• Green business initiatives
• Ways to get involved with Green Fort Greene and Clinton Hill
  

Church on Greene Ave

We also got an update on the church on Greene Ave from Phil via email.

From Phil:

"I did speak this week with a representative of the church at 5 Greene. She was not too forthcoming, but said that they intend to start construction in October / November. Would give me no schedule on completion."

Steve volunteered to get signatures for a petition. The other day I noticed that the garbage around the front of the church lot has been cleaned up. Maybe they are making progress...if anyone knows, please share.



Atlantic Yards
We heard some news about Atlantic Yards from Sean. There is one lawsuit remaining. The situation has changed due to Mikhail Prokhorov's bid for the Nets.



Contractor recommendations
Please continue to share contractor recommendations. We can support good work and possibly get discounts for our block.


Temporary farewell

This will be my last Cumberland Block Association meeting for awhile. Steve has volunteered to maintain the blog in my absence. On a side note: if you are interested in following my stories as a Kiva Fellow in Peru and beyond, please visit http://leapwork.com or for stories by all Kiva Fellows around the world, please visit http://fellowsblog.kiva.org

See you all when I return!
Sheethal

Tree Pit Survey on Cumberland Street

Through Green Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, Council Member Leticia James has given funds to expand 1,000 tree pits in our neighborhood.

The Brooklyn Forestry Division of the Parks and Recreation Department has a particular block survey form to use for this process that includes the following info:

• Address (to determine tree location)
• Tree condition
• Pit type
• Old pit measurements
• New pit measurement (generally 10' x 5')
• Pit treatment (metal guards, paving stones, raised planter, other)
  

Today I walked up and down our block and measured the tree pits. I also took notes on the condition of the tree and any hindrances to expanding the pits (such as gas and water valves, etc). I will submit the info to Green Fort Greene.


Hopefully this project will begin in the fall and will result in healthier trees for our block!


** If there is a tree pit treatment (such as a metal guard), the contractor will get the home owner's permission to expand the tree pit before starting the work. You can opt not to have your tree pit expanded. Please consider the health of your tree before opting out of the tree pit expansion project **


Note: I have put the tree guard project on hold until the tree pit expansion is done. Once the tree pits are uniform and give enough space for the trees to grow without pushing up the sidewalk, I will go back to completing the tree guard project. See info about that project here.


-Sheethal

Cumberland Tree Guards

I have reached out to Hilda who runs the block association on Cumberland between Lafayette and Dekalb and got this response:

The tree pits were organized from a special offer from the borough president's office. The city paid for them completely, we just had to organize and get all the residents to sign 'yes' or 'no', as to whether they wanted them. I think that these were organized in 2004, and then put in in the late summer of 2005. I am not sure if this is still an available program.
I think that the woman that he was in touch with at the Borough President's Office was a Ms. Ensler. (but that name is from memory) Another neighbor organized everything.

Next step: I will reach out to the Borough President's office to see if this offer is still valid. If not, I will see if we can get a "Block Association" discount from local iron contractors.

Suggestions welcome!