Co-chairs: Dianne Lescinskas, Jennifer Deabler
Minutes: Doreen Miller
In attendance: Donna, Heather Harris, Heidi Moesinger, James Newton
Safety Near the Parks
- Patten’s Cove
- A recent incident near Patten’s Cove led to a parked car being hit.
- There are no crosswalks to the park.
- Cars tend to drive too fast along that stretch of Savin Hill Avenue.
- Savin Hill Park
- There are no crosswalks to get to the park.
- Cars use Grampian Way as cut-through to Dorchester Avenue and tend to drive too fast making it dangerous for people to access the park.
- Previous attempts to get crosswalks resulted in the excuse of “There are no sidewalks (with a curb) to install one.
- Proposed actions
- The chairs will send out an email highlighting the problem areas to the interim transportation commissioner Brad with cc’s to Senator Nick Collins, Representative Dan Hunt, Councilor Frank Baker, and Parks Commissioner Ryan Woods to push for crosswalks and/or temporary signage to increase safe access to our parks.
- Suggest a real sidewalk be installed to make it possible to create needed crosswalks.
- Chairs will continue to push for a traffic solution at Sydney and Savin Hill Avenue to address parking and crossing issues.
- Chairs will stay on top of our Slow Streets initiative application to address cut-through and speeding issues. This is especially relevant as more and more development is increasing traffic through the area.
Walgreen’s (Heather Harris)
- Intermittent but persistent problems include
- Public drinking and drug use
- Discarded needles
- Public urination and defecation
- People passed out.
- Homeless camping in the back of the store and theft of objects from neighbors.
- People on Doris Street feel unsafe leaving their homes at certain times of the day due to the vagrancy and problems.
- At a June 27 meeting with Walgreen’s, requests were made by residents for them to cut back the trees, add more lighting and motion detectors, and add more security cameras. Nothing came as a result of that meeting.
- Only when Patrick Fandel threatened to designate Walgreen’s as a problem property did they do some cleaning of the property. Responses remain weak if at all.
- Nick from Walgreen’s corporate offices has been unresponsive as well.
- There was a site visit today by the fire department, ISD, the Public Health Commission, and Keith from the task force.
- George Huynh’s follow-up email to this visit
- Noted a lack of security cameras on the property.
- Stated they would follow-up weekly with Walgreen’s and would stay on top of the issues there.
- Claimed Walgreen’s would eventually be designated as a problem property if things did not improve.
- George Huynh’s follow-up email to this visit
- Action steps
- Heather will send the chairs an email outlining her communications with Walgreens and the focus of her efforts with their responses (if any).
- Once the chairs have Heather’s email, they will include that information in an email outlining the problem to all stakeholders including George Huynh, Councilor Baker’s office (Julie Ryan), Senator Nick Collins, and Representative Dan Hunt.
Other goals
- Get the name of the new BTD director.
- Get crosswalks and/or temporary signage at the entrances of Patten’s Cove and Savin Hill Park.
Next Meeting, October 18, 7 PM on Zoom. The chairs hope to have updates on the current issues.