Dear Neighbors,
I've had a recent dialogue with Pat Kernighan regarding issues that our neighborhood is facing and am asking that she partner with us to find solutions to tackle the issues. We have invited her to come to our home and meet the neighbors, hear our concerns, come up with solutions that she will commit to, and follow through with implementation. I will add that we can longer put all the responsibility on the city and the police to cure all our problems- we need to step up and become part of the solution and take accountability for our own space and neighborhood so that we can make the Brooklyn Neighborhood (made up of all the little neighborhoods that lie east of Lake Merrit) the community that we all deserve. We seek to form partnerships with all the other neighbors, the city, local businesses and other organizations to achieve our goals and together we are all stronger.
We are striving to work with Pat's office to find solutions together and we will all do our own part to resolve it. I ask you all to contact me direct atskopff@sbcglobal.net or Brittany to let me know what issues you see as needing attention in our neighborhood and, if you can, also provide what action you would like to see happen and possible solutions for the city as well as us as neighbors to perform in order to accomplish these goals. We will forward Pat and her office our list when completely compiled prior to the meeting (we will announce the date and time later when we firm it up). Below is an excerpt of my last email with Pat to give you an idea of some of the issues we have already identified. In some of the cases we have offered solutions. See what you think and let me know:
"previously I mentioned we would like some seed money to invest in landscaping our sidewalks. We are looking for about $10K this year and are expecting neighbors to pay when they can and the charity will cover the costs when it needs to. Josh and I are planning to hold fundraisers at our home and in future years we would like to have garden tours to raise money. Some potential ways you could help us raise money would be trying to fight for it in the upcoming city budgets, ask for local corporate sponsors to help out either by cash or by donating their products or services to be auctioned off by our group (it would be tax-deductible for them). Or you could put us in touch with other organizations with grants available. These are the things we need from you and your office as a partner. I already mentioned tackling the war zone effect (the atmosphere that is created when people concrete over their entire front yard and install tall chain link fences up to the sidewalk)- we already are adding two more issues: the potholes on E 21st and many other streets are excessive. We are aware of the Click-fix app but how do you get a whole street or neighborhood repaved? You need to visit and you will see what I mean. And the crazy thing is people still speed down our street- we need some speed bumps installed. An informed neighbor mentioned there is money in the budget for speed bumps so can you get some installed. I have to be very careful backing out of my drive because people speed up our hill coming up from 14th and 13th Avenues. And I mentioned previously the stolen cars and trucks being dumped as well as forwarded the email of the two guys casing the neighborhood."
Let's all pitch in and take ownership of our neighborhood. Let's clean our streets, landscape our sidewalk strips, make our neighborhood inviting to encourage foot traffic which reduces crime, makes us a more vigilant neighborhood, and makes it an atmosphere where coffeeshops, corner bakeries and restaurants, quirky welcomed pop up markets like Humblebees, cheese boutiques, and funky local nurseries like Berkeley has an abundance of. We can do this! Start today.
As always, thanks for your consideration and commitment to make the change.
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