June 15, 2021

Minutes of the Hubbard Farms Neighborhood Association meeting on June 15, 2021

Members Present: Anthony Benavides, Amy Amador, Hannah Miller, Martha Potere, Robert Rodriguez, Deb Sumner, Matthew Fogarty, Adriana Zuniga

Members Absent: Peter Landon, Monte Martinez, Donovan McCarty

Others Present: Caitlin Stadler, Office of Stephanie Chang; John Monnich – attorney for El Club

1. Welcome and Introductions
2. Amy moved and Martha seconded the Board Resolution regarding moving nominations and elections to be completed by September/October. Motion passed.
3. Presentation by John Monnich working with Eric Flaggenheimer who owns El Club and is working on parking. He has been talking with Western High School- Sylvester McIntosh, property maintenance person. Talked for the last 3-4 months. Working on a proposed parking lease. Looking at using the northwest corner lot by Scotten and Bagley – 91 spots. El Club would provide security and cleaning. It would be available for school use during school hours. El Club would lease this from 7pm – 1am. Western would withhold parking for shows deemed inappropriate for DPS. The DPS superintendent would need to sign off. They have shows scheduled to begin in September.

Discussion notes-

• Concern to provide safer parking for attendees – Deb has talked with Omar and Graham over multiple years to provide safer parking alternative after shooting by Palms/Toledo
• Issues with prior parking lot – charging for parking on City land without approval from the City; El Club did not maintain the lot along our main street.
• Security was not good at old lot; cars got broken into during the evening
• More than just event parking for shows; parking could be used for other businesses along W Vernor.
• DS raises concern regarding John’s answer to her question about capacity at the Club when he states 75 max capacity! Who monitors this crowd capacity?  Does the City of Detroit Fire Marshal make visits to the Club when it is a Concert Night?  How does El Club report or verify crowd capacities at Concerts?   
• Need to determine if lighting is working at the parking lot.
• Will El Club be operating the parking lot on non-show nights? Uncertain.
• El Club would need to have staff ensuring that cars do not enter the neighborhood as they exit the parking lot.
• Professional Security needed TO BE HIRED for any parking lot venue used by El Club! DS informs John that DPD can be hired for such security needs.  Also, DPD Commander @ 4th Precinct had agreed to be provided by El Club their Concert Schedule so that DPD could step up their presence when the Concerts were let out & over & attendees were walking around & walking to the cars on the near-by streets. Added by DS 
• Concern re: noise level and conflict with La Esquina at the corner see below…
• John will send an email to the Amy re: what it would like to support HFNA
• Michael Reyes’s operation was brought up by AB. Deb is concerned about what Reyes is doing on these residentially zoned properties; what business is being conducted & the festival atmosphere, & noncompliance with the Historic District Guidelines with Appropriateness & unfinished fencing around corner & what is being stored on residentially zoned property & BSEED Compliance, etc.,…. DS added.  

1. D6 Community Night

• Jessica at HRRA indicated that TJ from Raquel’s office had mentioned there would be a Town Hall
• Amy will reach out to TJ to find out if there will be a Town Hall that we can latch onto.

1. Election

• 7 seats are up for re-election; 3 have indicated they don’t intend to run again; will try to seat 7 spots on the board
• DS raised concern regarding too many Board Seats coming up for election or reelection & this is not healthy for an org.’s stability & consistency; The Board needs to revisit our By-Laws on this to discuss & consider Board seats to have a 1yr., 2yr. & 3yr. term lengths so that Board Seats are rotating only 3-4 seats each year (not 7 seats) like we are faced with this Sept. 2021…What about asking Donovan drafting the Language to meet this need to be considered to be reflected in our By-Laws. DS added.   
• Members signed up for volunteer roles for putting on agenda
• Amy will email prior year drafts of communications to Matthew

1. Events

• Concerts at Clark Park – next concert June 20th – Ismael Duran
• Great activities for young kids

1. Resident Issues

• Robert suggested need to address crime issues in the neighborhood; suggested inviting Commander Sloan to speak on plan for neighborhood. Noted that Commander Sloan came to the last HF meeting to discuss trucking.
• Deb, Hannah, Amelia Duran, Rebbeca Maxon, Jinny Zeigler and John Allen met with Emery to discuss how to lower rents; such as getting grant money to subsidize units for a period of time. Emery was open to this idea. Anthony suggested this strategy could be used in Hubbard Richard for new development on Bagley.
• Deb followed up with MDOT re: getting trees on the freeway side across from Clark Park and is waiting for a response; Caitlin was copied on email and will look into this.
• Caitlin will look for online survey results for Hubbard Farms and forward to us.
• Cement is cracking at her home due to construction on freeway; Adriana put in a claim to Bridging North America but was told that she is outside the vibration area & yet, Clark St.’s road & pedestrian bridge over the freeway between the I-75 Service Drives has been completely demolished & is being rebuilt & Adriana lives on Clark St. about 4-5 houses north of the this very construction for the new freeway interchange for the GHIB! Caitlin will take these concerns to Sen. Chang to raise.

Amy will reach out to TJ to find out if there will be a Town Hall that we can latch onto. @amador.amy@gmail.com

_Assigned to amador.amy@gmail.com_

Amy will email prior year drafts of communications to Matthew @amador.amy@gmail.com

_Assigned to amador.amy@gmail.com_