Meeting
MinutesWashtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition
117 North Division Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan
734/487-9058
www.wbwc.org
WBWC Meeting 10/6/05
Meeting came to order at 7:08
Kris Talley conducted the meeting.
Ken Clark, Paul Alman, Erica Briggs, Steve Bean, Cliff Thedog, Tim
Athan, Brenda Bentley-Goenka, Frank Schwende were present.
1. The September meeting minutes were approved.
2. The treasurer reported that our fund balance is $843.03
3. New member intro - Steve Bean
4. Actions/News
A. WBWC 2005 biking /walking projects
Ann Arbor Bike-friendly city designation (Talley) - We need to
officially present the City of Ann Arbor with the Bicycle Friendly
Community sign and certificate.
Huron River Drive paving and closing (Alman) - No update on paving,
but Paul has made progress on closing the road for a day for
bicyclists/pedestrians/etc. Ann Arbor Township and Dexter Village
both say that it's no problem for the short section of the road in
their jurisdictions. He is still checking with the County and Ann
Arbor City. He's taking a low-key approach lining up support and
jurisdictions.
Safe Routes to School/Project Healthy Schools/Eco Center Walking
School Bus (Talley) - Kris talked to UM's Project Healthy Schools.
She sent them an email about Safe Routes to School and they were
interested in working with us on securing funding. Apparently
Project Healthy Schools sent information about International Walk to
School week to all the school principals.
Local Cyclist Deaths: WBWC sponsorship of 5/17/2006 Ride of Silence?
- We were asked if we would be willing to sponsor the 2006 Ride of
Silence. Apparently this is supposed to be a 12 mile route of slow
and silent cycling to commemorate cyclists killed while biking. We
discussed this and agreed to work with the AABTS Safety Committee on
the ride.
"Bicycling for Transportation in Washtenaw County" site/wiki (Clark)
- Ken wrote a draft webpage for helping people try bicyling for
transportation and Bruce Fields moved it to a wiki to make it easier
for people to make changes. We agreed to keep it in the wiki format,
at least for now, and let other people know about it.
Upcoming Events - October 30th, 2:30 Frances Moore Lepay at ???
church
Robert Kennedy is coming to speak at the Ecology Center's annual
meetin November 10th
Albert Gore is coming to speak at the University, with a remote feed
at Mendelsohn theater end of the month
Ypsilanti Public Library is doing a book club reading on "Divorce
Your Car" along with a transportation related documentary video in
their Simple Living series October 26th
The Ann Arbor/County biking map is still being reviewed! The AABTS
recently provided their input.
5. WBWC General Business
A. Membership report/outreach
Membership Report (Schwende) - we have about 40 individual members,
which is down 3 from last year. Frank believes that due to
rollovers, we may only have 27 active members. Frank needs some
updated information to send out in membership applications this year.
We also need new membership cards printed out. Tim will send Frank
the logo/layout for the membership card and Frank will have new cards
printed on a different color stock for the new year.
Renew current bike shops and get new ones (Alman, Schwende) - We will
try to write a better letter and contact the bike shops again.
2005 Board/officer elections - This is mostly covered in the next
topic. Bob indicated that he has not received any responses from the
Sierra Club or the Ecology Center for new board members. We plan to
hold the board meeting at 6pm, before the annual meeting.
November membership meeting: candidates, location, program. - We are
still looking into a location, speakers, etc. We talked about
inviting Norm Cox from the Greenway Collaborative, Eli Cooper from
the City of Ann Arbor and others. We also discussed screening "The
End of Suburbia" or another pro-nonmotorized documentary, and
possibly doing the whole thing at Arbor Brewing. Other possible
locations are Leopold Brothers and Ashley's. Steve suggested we
bring up the wikipage on biking in the county at the meeting.
B. 501c3 Status (Briggs) - Erica did a good deal of research on this
and gave us a one page summary. Costs include $20 fees to the city
and $150 filing fee with the IRS. If we have a lawyer review our
application the costs may be much higher.
C. Newsletter / blog (Krzewinski)
6. Reports from other groups/events
Zurich conference (Bently-Goenka) - Brenda brought back chocolate!!
She also had literature from the Walk 21 conference. Zurich has an
historic light-rail system and they closed the downtown to auto
traffic for the day of the conference. She handed out dozens of
flyers and other material from the conference for people to look at.
Friends of the Ann Arbor Greenway (Mitchell) - Kris attended the
first meeting for the Greenway task force.
Washtenaw Area Teens of Tomorrow -- Youth Mobility (Athan) - Tim
wrote a proposal for Teens of Tomorrow for a bicycle recycling
program in the County.
GetDowntown program (Briggs) - AATA sent an update. They've had
their best ridership month in history. Mainstreet Association is
holding their Winter parade and they would like to have a biking
group involved. Erica is looking into marketing materials. She's
also considering some kind of festival for curb your car month.
AA Environmental Commission Transportation Committee (Clark) - Ken
talked to Mayor Hieftje about the pedestrian recommendations and the
earlier transportation goals for planning.
League of Michigan Bicyclists (Clark) - The LMB Board is still
looking for an executive director, but that should be wrapped up next
month. Erica reported on some of the presentation
AABTS Safety Committee (Alman) - The AABTS Safety Committee held a
very successful LCI seminar.
Non-motorized Transportation Planning Committee (Hritz) - This plan
is about to go neighboring communities for comment. They have 90
days to comment on the plan, after which it comes back to the Ann
Arbor Planning Commission and City Council.
Parks and Recreation (Krzewinski) - No update.
Washtenaw County Non-motorized Steering Committee (Talley) - Many
people reported that the surveys that WATS has on their website are
confusing.
University of Michigan Nonmotorized Transportation Committee (Talley)
- Kris reported that though she hadn't heard from this group for a
while, so she contacted them. Erica pointed out that the University
had held discussions with Zipcar, but apparently the university
decided there wasn't enough interest in carsharing on campus.
Adjourned 9:19pm