Join us Tuesday eve, 4-25 at the Optimist Rec Ctr, 703 Oakwood Avenue, at 6:30 (meet and greet) & 7:00 meeting. In addition to meeting Beth Norwood, a talented neighbor, the purpose of the meeting is to decide what action we can take as a community in support of parents to influence kids to not hang out with drug dealers or try narcotics and amphetamines. (“Just say no” campaigns just don’t work.)

This activity is to follow up on results of our January meeting when members and residents voted on safety as the most important topic for us to work on together. Safety includes crime prevention… and we learned from police officers that 80-90% of crime is related to drugs!  If we tackle the drug traffic issues with kids, we have a better shot at preventing crime over the long haul.

BEFORE the meeting, we will ask for everyone’s opinion on ways we can influence kids to stay out of trouble with drugs through an on-line competition of ideas. The on-line competition will be announced via email to members and to Nextdoor accounts in our service area. DURING the meeting, we will make an action plan to implement the ideas that get the most votes and are S.M.A.R.T.  Please, invest 1.5 hours in your community at this meeting.

City Budget Requests

In June we present a list of needs and wants to the Mayor for consideration in the budget process.  Look around NE then come to the meeting or comment here and tell us what else we need from the city:

• Beirne Park- more shade trees & ?
• Oak Park- greening at the street, continue sidewalk east on Oakwood past the park, include trailhead signage downtown
• Bollards along Bankhead sidewalk to protect runners all year preparing for Cotton Row Run
• Bus shelter @ Roses Center
• Smart timers at all Five Points corners
• Bike Patrol of O’shaunessy, McKinley, Rison, Halsey, & Lincoln Village / Meridian Street
• Improve drainage capacity of Dallas Branch watershed to relieve people of the flood zone designation

We hear and know that…

Oak Park Yeti ?

Adam Rosetta reported a “sighting” of a furry creature on the Dallas Branch trail, a spur off of Oak Park Trail.  Adam heard it holler: Whaaboo!, the ‘come on out and play’ signal.  Adam says there will be a yeti tracking party in or near Oak Park this summer, followed up by a fall festival to swap stories and play games on the theme of “our”  yeti.   Join the conversation about this and other helpful (truly) information on nextdoor.com.

Gimme Shelter

On the days when you don’t want to drive out of our area but still want to explore, you may like to know that the first bus shelter for NE was installed on Monday, 4/17/17 on Andrew Jackson Way.  The shelter will mean a lot to the workers of the day-care at Jackson Way Baptist Church, to anyone who wants to ride to the new pools at the Natatorium and to kids who want to ride to the splash pad and disc golf at Brahan Springs Park.   The shelter was requested last year by your NEHCA.  Thanks go to our city Transportation Division, General Services, and Jackson Way Baptist Church.

Cross pollination of neighborhoods

We hosted the first NEHCA spring festival and plant swap, the “Garden Gathering” at Optimist Recreation Center on Saturday, April 8th.  At least 100 generous people came out bringing items to share, to learn about other grow-y things and meet cool people from the NE Hsv neighborhoods. One man said “I think I’ll hang around a little longer and see what else shows up!” He was either referring to the great people or the cool plants. Kids made “pizza gardens”, too. We appreciated support of our city Landscape Management Division/ Green Team, C.T. Garvin’s Feed and Seed, Bennett’s Nursery, Cunningham’s Pot Yard, Mr. & Mrs. Simon of Florida and Five Points, Denise Garrison of Five Points, Anna Pollard of Old Town, and Master Gardener Mary Howe from Brownsboro. And most of all, we thank Sabrina Simõn for conceiving, designing, and implementing the festival.

Self Serve Services

Please use the city service request system known as “Huntsville Connect” or “SeeClickFix” to report blighted property, potholes, streetlights out, trashcans left out after pick up days, etc. NEHCA members see your service requests and can chime in if you aren’t getting resolution. Set up an account and use it often, please.  Sign up here: https://seeclickfix.com/huntsville

As always, if you see something odd going on, say something!
Call 256-722-7100 to HsvPolice non-emergency dispatch