Duluth Bikes Board Meeting
Meeting Minutes | Toasty’s
10/6/16 • 5:30pm
Present Board Members: Mariana Glitsos, Morris Levy, Michael Latsch, Tara Sieve, Brian Downing, Alyssa Lommel, Ruurd Schoolderman, Shawna Mullen, (late) Mike Casey
Board Members Absent: Jon Loye, Dick Haney, Jenny VanSickle
______________________________________________________________________
Additions to Agenda: none
Meeting called to order at 5:40pm
Review 9.8.16 Meeting Minutes:
- Edit: We were previously Bronze, not Silver.
1: Officer Updates/Reports
- Mariana: Officers met 10.5.16 to learn duties that Brian was in charge of. Brian is putting together all the materials on the Google drive for us to have access to.
- Website is active and live. Action: Board Bios Due ASAP to Michael.
- Jon: $274.00 needs to be added in to the revenue. $1350.00 was donated and will be allotted to Brian; not included in the financial statement.
2: Committee Updates
- Mariana: Events Committee met 10.5.16 and are off to a good start. Raised $50.00 online from the Bikes Bash. Draft Meet up is October 25th at Vikre from 6-9pm with People for Bikes. Speakers are lined up, however volunteers are needed to represent Duluth Bikes, table for DB, assist with door prizes, and share event on social media. Monthly meetings have been established once a month.
- Ruurd: Advocacy Committee met last week and addressed the importance of being involved in city ordinance and community events that Duluth Bikes can participate in. Brainstormed questions for Elissa for the last week of October to discuss thoughts and input. More immediate, there are lot of big picture, but the smaller things are Cross City and Campus Connector to see how those progress. They are short term areas to stay focused on, but equally important. Discussed wanting to develop a relationship with different areas of gov’t (county and city) and looking for opportunities to discuss ways Duluth Bikes can share our thoughts. The bike map will is required to be completed by the end of 2016. Monthly meetings have been established once a month. Ruurd is committee chair.
- Shawna: Do we want to revisit Superior Street since the funding didn’t go through and Michigan St is delayed another year? Ellissa Hansen is hopeful that we could have an impact on that and that now is the time that we step in.
- Morris: I think the focus should be parallel parking, because once you change that, you can increase the space for a pedestrian.
- Ruurd: Who is capable to get together to start tackling this project?
- Jon: I think MNDot has made the decision, that we’re past going to Emily. MNDot has approved the design, but they don’t have the funding…We may need to challenge the design legally.
- Shawna: I don’t know why Ellissa told us to meet with Emily if the process had gone through with MNDot. What if we do a demonstration of a temporary bike lane on Superior St summer 2017?
- Action: Begin brainstorming and discuss actions for revisiting Superior Street.
- Michael: Outreach committee hasn’t met and as far as we have gone would be updating and working on the website.
3: Strategic Action Plan (SAP)
- Added the section of equitable and inclusive transportation.
- Edit: correct second #2 line
- Motion: To approve the updated 2016-2017 focus areas.
- Ruurd: Since this is a big picture outline, please sit down with your committees to go through and address areas you can assist with the development of this plan.
3: Board Decision-Making Process
- Motion: Board to approve decision-making process.
4: Process for ad-hoc items
- Ruurd: we may not always have the luxury of having an Executive Director, but added them. Determine if the topic is committee level or financial/board decision making.
- Jon: Should we set a threshold on the resources/purchases? Something within reason so that we don’t have to wait for the Board? Would have to be a small amount. BUT, should also check with Jon prior to purchase.
- Motion: Up to $25.00 threshold for purchases without Board decision-making, however consult Treasurer. Money spent would be reimbursed.
5: Duluth Bike Tour Maps
- Shawna: Found this on Nice Ride where they have different tours. Themed rides through Duluth. Would potentially need someone with mapping skills.
- Michael: Create a map in google maps—web/mobile formatting.
- Shawna: There could be a “Locally Made Tour”
- Morris: Could be history with a write-up
- Michael: We could see if we could partner up with Zenith City for content.
- Ruurd: The River Corridor and Skyline. Bill Miesky (sp?)
- Shawna: There could be nature themed tour. They print out a PDF where it highlights the areas of the city that align with the tour theme.
- Tara: Lake Superior Zoo has these signs posted at local parks where you scan a square barcode to learn about the animals/bats that are there. It’s a partnership with the City and other organizations. We could do something like this with a partnership with the City and Zenith? Geocache themed ride or Bike and Hike—city is doing this but how could we assist?
- Mike: Could simply use Google maps. Most people will use this as their mode of navigating. We would have to make suggestions for best bike routes.
- Michael: I could play with a google custom map and see what we are capable of doing.
- Tara: Playground ride? Making it a family experience.
- Ruurd: Find the nearest playground and rate it!
- Action: Mike will play around with Google maps to provide examples on some themed routes and share with the board. Can also show others how to do this.
6: Imagine Duluth Transportation Group
- Focus group for transportation group will be Tues, 10.11.16 at City Hall rm 303 at 4pm.
- We should have at least one or two Duluth Bikes representatives going to this.
- Mariana is going to try to get out of some work to be able to attend this.
- Action: Send Mariana any questions or action items she would like to bring forward to Transportation Focus Group.
- Mike: We lost the best Cross-City Corridor route because the city sold of sections of the potential route to the railway. I have asked that the parks department to be involved along with engineering. It started off as an engineering project and then adopted on by parks.
- Ruurd: When you look at bike infrastructure you look at connections and network activity. If you are looking to create value to the pieces (routes), look at the network to activities.
- Shawna: We should have a transportation plan and transportation committee.
7: Other
- Duluth Bikes at Heck of the North was an example on how we could be better organized. Where to meet, items to bring to advertise Duluth Bikes, and other logistics.
- Shawna: I can take on putting together a little package for boothing events.
- Instead of getting a banner, we could just put a printed piece of paper into a plexiglass sign holder.
- Duluth Pack to assist selling Duluth Bikes items.
- Mike: Big Frog printing offers a graphic artist to do things for you and can do a basic printing.
- Tara: Get a sample and we could use that as a give-away for the Draft Duluth.
Meeting Adjourned: 7:09pm
Next meeting: 11.3.16 | 5:30pm| Toasty’s on Superior St.