Seton Hill Neighborhood Association March 2009

Following are the notes which I took at the meeting. These are not official documents of the Seton Hill Neighborhood Association and do not reflect their position.

Update of February's meeting: There was a tenant meeting at Orchard Mews on Monday 9 March 2009 and there will be meetings on a monthly basis. There will be additional cameras around the property. They want to have the lights on at all times but they can't. They hope to sign by the end of March to have the Baltimore Police parking for them. It will be on a scattered basis. On lease renewal there is a criminal check on every household over 18. There are new street lights on the other side of the street. There is more police presence. They are spreading the police presence around the neighborhood.

Catalina Rodriguez said that the Baltimore Police Department has the Orchard Mews request. It is a priority and they are going to expedite the process. Two trees have been taken down for the removal of the cul-de-sac.

The operations lieutenant and the drug task force commander are expected. The deputy major is here.

Crime has been low. The district had its first homicide last weekend outside a bar near Maryland General Hospital.

There are four extra officers working over time from 16:00 to 24:00. This comes out of the district’s over-time budget. This might be cut back when Orchard Mews gets their officers.

TheCommunity Law Center was at the recent Police Community Relations meeting.

Jaspers and George streets: We know that the kids who are dealing drugs there live in McCulloh Homes. One individual counted 25 people buying drugs. No police car came by after he called 9-1-1. The best way to handle this type of situation is to cvall 410-666-DRUG. This is better than calling 9-1-1. You can also e-mail Harvey.Martinez at BaltimorePolice dot org. He has no problem receiving e-mail messages.

Deputy Major Avon McElroy: Thee was a major drug investigation last week. There were over 20 under-covered drug agents in this area. They used to deal around the barber shop on Eutaw. There are some warrants and searches and arrests made.

Somebody said that the police officers working at Orchard Mews were not coming to Seton Hill. This is news to the police.

We have two guest speakers. One is Mary Porter from Recreations and Parks and Scott Scasfone is the other.

Lieutenant Dorsey McVickers is running the unit dealing with the drug problems. There are nine officers. He just made a lock-up at the market. If you call 3-1-1, you are wasting your time. 9-1-1 is good. Since the time of this meeting, there have been changes to the 3-1-1 system.

His officer are very aggressive and work. Last year this was the most violent area in the city. Now it is the safest. They destroyed the drugs at 500 Orchard Street and ruined it at 900 Pennsylvania Avenue. They raided 1012 Pennsylvania Avenue and there was a man there with drugs in his pocket.

Mary Porter:

We have many long-range plans for the park and we will work on them in phases. We want to connect all the walkways and make sure that there are also lights on walkways.

The entrance on St. Mary Street is not safe. They pulled away enough bricks to make it safer.

There is a little section of really high wall in the building. They might be able to pull it down.

Fourth on the list is to install new benches. They ave a new design. They are ADA benches. There is a place where wheelchairs can park. The bench outside the door to the building will not have a back.

There is a comprehensive park sign for all of our parks. There will be design standard. It should be done by the end of the summer. In all of our parks we have sign cluster. We will change the language to be more friendly and still give you the rules.

Scott will figure out the best location for trees from BGE.

There will be phases where we will work on the TK Garden and the fountain.

General Service does all their building repairs. They are a part of Public Works.

The other outstanding issue is the cherry trees on Paca Street. We don’t want neighbors to help water the trees when they come in. Generally cherry trees are tough trees.

We are thinking that we will begin construction in the fall. The benches are here but won’t go in until the contractors are here. There are some trees that don’t like to be moved in the fall.

There is talk of making Center Street two days all the way up to Druid Hill Park.

They won’t be starting construction until after the warm season is over.

We have a problem with dogs not on leashes. It is not legal to have unleashed dogs in the park. We are having Animal Control come occasionally. It is a $100 ticket.

Parking permit and street sweeping. Parking is an issue. Bolton Hill just did a survey on their parking. We are looking for space where we can extend parking. They can sweep on strets where there is no parking or parking on one side.

We need to know what we want before we start the process. IF we change our minds, we have to start all over.

We need authorization by DOT first. The city has to make sure that we qualify. The city did allow residential paring on Paca Street and this is not normal. Cheryl mentioned the man who has three cars parked on St. Mary Street.

Parking enforcement in our district is lacking. We are relying on people to get out and check tires. The new law applies within the same zone. The other issue is the visitor permit and abuse. It is supposed to be for no more than three days.

Rats and Sanitation issues: We used to have a problem with wild cats. Now it is a problem with rats. The city is not in a position to buy trash cans.

Dogs in the park: If you have extra grocery bags, put them in the dog bag thing. Parks and Recreation is buying the bags in bulk and selling them to us.

The dumpster is a big expense to the city. We are having a neighborhood clean up on Saturday 21 March 2009. The dumpster will be at the top end of Paca Street on the park side. Karen can’t get a copy of the rules. It arrives on Friday and they start coming around mid-day on Saturday to pick them up.

The mayor is having the annual spring clean-up on Saturday 18 April 2009 [Easter Saturday for Western Christians and Holy Saturday for Orthodox Christians]. We will meet in the park.

We are still doing the “Adopt a Pot” program. It has to be outside. Feel free to sponsor them in other areas as well.

This is the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Elizabeth Seton. This Saturday [15 March 2009] we have the Irish Society coming. It is free and everybody is welcome.

In September 2009 there is an open house for the neighborhood association. It is originally scheduled for June or July. Once the Visitor Center is open, we can use the lecture hall for our meetings.

BGE: The new building is there and the door is locked. There are new traffic plans afoot. It is not BGE.

Sadly the Baltimore Station people will be moving out of our neighborhood. They wanted to stay in the neighborhood and build their headquarter here. They need to expand.

We are trying to get the light rail stop renamed. The owner of the big building there wants to put in a cafe.

Somebody brought the building next to the car wash place on Paca Street and wants to build a club there. The new club is right across the street from a nursing home.

There is a bill to remove the word “Entertainment” and extend it to zones BB and B4. Right now it is only for B1. There will be a new board.