My very first post back in February suggested that this blog would provide a missing source of neighborhood information. At the time there was a "sort of" MPCA website, and a once in a while MPCA newsletter. The website had not been updated in a couple of years, but it did give the Association a slight presence in the community.
Communications lately have consisted of frequent Zone 2 crime reports for those who care to read a lot of tedium. We're most often assured that no crime has occurred within our specific geographical boundaries, i.e. our 4 streets. Officially, that's true, but some incidents have taken place in the MPCA that have not been reported to the APD, and therefore aren't on those dutifully forwarded crime reports. There actually have been a few car break-ins.
While much positive change has taken place in the neighborhood, especially in the area of community involvement, MPCA leadership has deteriorated. The moribund MPCA Board is only interested in promoting social events at this point, and not in exerting even minimal efforts to maintain and protect declining property values in Memorial Park, which is happening due to economic forces in general. But this is the time for our neighborhood to become vigilant about any laxity. For one thing, the City is soon going to reduce its schedule of curbside trash, recycling and yard waste pickup. Everyone needs to be informed so that our neighborhood doesn't start looking like a dump. That's a for instance.
It has not escaped notice that some builders are quite unconcerned with the living conditions of surrounding residents and the damage they are inflicting on the people who are already here.
Rather than force the people directly on either side or behind the construction site to confront the newcomer, the MPCA Board ought to go to bat for people whose property is being damaged or whose lives are being made miserable.
We have an architect and a land developer on our board. They know about building, permitting and such. Between them, they ought to monitor construction sites for regulatory compliance, and perhaps ask for something above and beyond the letter of the law out of consideration for those who are being inconvenienced. Even though they represent the homeowners, it seems that by virtue of their professions, their sympathies seem to lie squarely with builders. Too bad for the owner whose basement will be flooded, or the neighbor who is going to lose a beloved tree.
I have waited some time for someone to speak up about the piles of trash and garbage strewn all over one site which has never had a dumpster, among the many questions about the project, past and present. There is an unfinished house that appears to be abandoned. One house, thankfully finished, had a Port-O-Potty right on the street that was rarely serviced. The stench was worse than anything that ever emanated from the sewer, and could be smelled a block away.
If the MPCA Board does not start taking an interest in building codes and variances in the neighborhood, others will step into the breach. Some people went through quite a bit of effort to start the MPCA, get signatures, write by-laws, get it incorporated and get approval from City Hall.
They did not have in mind at the time that they only wanted an organization to collect money to spend mostly for the entertainment of small children -- which most people do on their own anyway.
Friday, December 5, 2008
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1 comment:
Unfortunately for all MPCA residents, the Gadfly is right: our board has forgotten the reason why our association was formed in the first place. All one has to do is read the Purpose section of our By-laws to see this. A case in point is the recent variance for a fence at the corner of Howell Mill and Wesley Drive. The board did not know about the application for a variance until the NPU-C agenda was mailed out, they failed to get the information about the variance, they failed to investigate and formulate an association position on it, they failed to attend the NPU meeting and present a position, and finally they failed to know that the variance was approved unanimously at the NPU. If they can't perform their responsibilities for a simple variance, how can we trust them to do their job when something significant comes up, such as a subdivision? Can they be diligent when it comes to a destructive path proposal for our neighborhood, knowing that many residents don't want it? You bet. They have their priorities reversed, and the lot of them should resign and be replaced by people who care.
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