IHPNA General Meeting
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

TSD Ward Building Auditorium
7:15 pm

Attendees were given opportunity to vote for Board of Governors candidates, pay their dues, and update their information for the neighborhood directory.

Carole Allen opened the meeting by asking everyone to complete their ballots and turn them in for tallying. While votes are being counted, the program would be Mark Donaldson, Executive Director of Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC), giving an update on the new Administrative Plat process which is new information since the previous meeting in late June on lots and parcels.

Mr. Donaldson started by giving a synopsis of what had been discussed at the June 27th meeting. Parcels vs. ward lots. The City of Knoxville uses lots; there are some discrepancies between ward lots and parcel lines. Some parcels contain several lots and structures are build over lot lines. That's where the Planning Commission has to step in. There is an initiative by MTAS (at UT) who are doing a study/survey of several other counties and will give their advice on the relationship between parcels and lots. There are no dates yet on their study advice. Councilman Joe Hultquist has been working with MTAS so he may know more about when it will be concluded.

MPC requires signed surveys when there is an application for combining the lots. However, if neighbors share part of a lot and/or are contiguous properties, they can go together and combine their lots to make a one-lot parcel. In that case there would be a single application and they would pay one application fee but would each come out of it with their own parcel. The charge is $130 plus survey charge for the administrative plat fee.

The information on kgis.org shows parcels but does not show ward lots. There has been some discussion about adding that information so property owners and/or prospective buyers would know what is part of a parcel. There is a computer conversion soon (spring 2008) and it has been mentioned that ward lots could be available after that kgis.org conversion is complete.

Carole thanked Mark for coming to give us the additional information. She thanked everyone who had nominated candidates for the Board. There were a good number of nominees and all were contacted; some could not serve due to personal/work commitments but all were flattered to be nominated and appreciated that someone had nominated them.

Votes were still being tabulated, so Carole skipped ahead on the night's subjects and publicly thanked Board members who were cycling off the Board this year. Those included: Lance Dean as Vice President (although his name was still on the ballot for governor), J.B. Finger, Jo Ann Sandifer, Adam Ashcraft, Hilary Drews, Mike Leventhal, and Teresa Walker. Carole stated that Chloe Chitwood had asked to say a few words to the group and, while we waited for the election results, we'd skip ahead and let her make her comments now.

Chloe Chitwood talked about the challenges that had and do face the residents of Island Home. Chloe has lived in IHP for 42 years and challenges are not new to IHP. There are many things that have been done over the years to make the park better (getting rid of the potholes and brush; putting up the green chain link fence; taking down the chain link fence and replacing it with bollards; Jim Hagerman being instrumental in helping with the embankment improvements, etc.). Chloe said "we will persevere and get through this current challenge as well."

Carole announced the election results.
President - Carole Allen; Vice President - Katie Hannah; Treasurer - Carolyn Williams; Secretary - Jeanne Fair (these were uncontested races) District Governors: 1-Sue Wrisberg; 2-Chloe Chitwood; 3-Edward Dildine; 4-Kurt Zinser; 5-Lance Dean; 6-Rachel Craig; 7-Normalee Neubauer; 8-Barb Arnold At-large Governors: Gary Anderson, Laura Barton, Greg Congleton, Brian Douglas, Chris McAdoo, Lee Ann Ratledge, B.B. Strange, Donna Wilson-Renner

Remember the next IHPNA social event is Halloween Costume Contest and Chili Supper, Saturday, October 27th in the Williams' back yard.

Several residents had questions/comments:

What's going on with the tank farm property outside of the columns. Carole answered that the last she had heard from John Gumpert, he was working with the City on the realignment of Island Home Avenue outside of our columns. She will check with him again for an update.

B.B. Strange had a comment about cars running the stop sign on Spence and asked if there should be white crosswalk lines painted there. Carole answered that, when we got the stop sign at that corner, there wasn't talk of doing lines also. She will check on this.

Brian Douglas commented that there have been some dump trucks coming from the airport end of Spence that are not stopping for the stop sign as they go out of the neighborhood.

Rachel Craig asked if Carole knew about work being done that would have involved a large white pump truck in the alley behind her home; she knew it wasn't a KUB truck. Carolyn Williams noticed it close to her home too. Carole hadn't been told of any work being done by KUB or the smoke testing crews, etc.; no one knew of truck markings that would help figure this out.

Von Neubauer asked about sidewalk repair. Carole stated that the last sidewalk repairs that were done in June 2007 were a surprise. There was leftover money in the budget and they had money to do some of ours. Carole has not heard of any more to be done but this is a new budget year. She has sent a list to Mayor Haslam that included some areas that need to be repaired (throughout the neighborhood) as well as some areas that need to be continuous (Maplewood) and new installations (2300+ block of Spence). Many of these were pointed out Ellen Zavisca during her Walkability Audit in summer 2006. She will follow-up and find out if any of our sidewalks made this year's budget list. The street paving on Fisher and Spence Place was another surprise. Carole said "we'll take them and like those kind of surprises".

Speeding traffic was a concern of several residents. Carole has ongoing conversations/contact with representatives of the airport and TSD. That has been helpful in alleviating the problem in the past. However, it takes constant vigilance. If residents can get KAT bus #s, truck #s, car descriptions and driver descriptions as well as date and time of day and location/direction, Carole can have more information when she makes her calls. It's frustrating, but they know we're watching them. It's better than it's been in the past, but there are a few others who still don't abide by the laws.

Tara Dalton asked if there were any other ideas on traffic calming? Carole answered that this had been looked into by the Board about 5-6 years ago. At that time, some changes were made that helped some parts of the neighborhood. The "Cross Traffic Does Not Stop" sign on IH Avenue by the columns was put up and was one of the best things we did - it allowed cars exiting the neighborhood to leave without worrying about being hit by cars turning left from IH Avenue towards the river. Stop signs were put up (after our request to Mayor Victor Ashe) at Spence/Watson. These have helped although there are still people who run them or do a rolling yield. There was some talk about speed bumps. Although some people think that an appropriate solution, there are many others who, in the past, have stated that they don't like this option. Carole talked about several examples of concerns/complaints that she heard when working on the City's Traffic Safety (Calming) Committee two years ago. One comment was that the residents who live near a speed bump might not like the noise that comes from a car going over the humps/bumps all day long. Rachel commented that she doesn't hear such noise from the alley bump that's behind her house; Jim Hagerman commented he hears it.

Brian Douglas commented about the unmarked sheriff's cars coming from the airport. Carole had expressed that concern to the sheriff personnel at an Airport Advisory Council meeting but they claim they don't have unmarked cars. Carole will look into this further - there must be another constituency out there other than sheriff personnel. She'll work on it. Again, car descriptions, location/direction/time of day/date, license plate numbers, etc. will help get to the bottom of this.

BB noted that the City's brush pickup had been very good. Carole added that IHP residents have been doing a good job with putting out brush close to the pickup date. Our neighborhood has looked very neat and many have commented on it.