You may be wondering what’s been going on with this website…? Very little, it would seem. But the truth is out there; read on and you will know all.
The next few months will bring changes in our association. At the January 18 meeting, which we hope many people will attend, we will vote on a new charter for the organization, which clarifies our purposes and procedures, and introduces a new name (Southwest Hills Neighborhood Association) and new borders (we will then include the area west of Willamette and south of 39th and 40th Ave., which currently is in Southeast Neighbors).
At the January meeting, we will discuss plans for the coming year, including a number of social events, our spring gardening fair, our summer picnic, and we will ask members what issues and projects we should be working on in the coming in 2015.
We will also bring what news we can about recent moves by Rest Haven. We have received word that Rest Haven Cemetery wants to seek a redesignation for their land south of the cemetery. This would allow the city to include that land in the Envision Eugene inventory of land available for housing. What is unclear is whether anything further is being planned. It’s possible that Rest Haven wants to reactivate an old development plan that had gone through most of the stages for approval, or perhaps they want to create a new plan. It’s also possible that they’re not planning to do anything for the moment, but the change in designation would open the door for future plans. They are scheduling a meeting for neighbors; the date isn’t set but is likely to be on January 14, a few days before our general gathering.
What with all that’s coming up, I thought it would be helpful to clarify our communication methods:
Here is a summary of ways to reach us:
The fastest way to spread word and get feedback is to join our nextdoor.com page and post there.
The best way to get items into our email newsletter is to send them to dkolb@bates.edu.
The best way to get an item before our board for possible action by the association is to email Juan Carlos Valle, valleconsulting@hotmail.com, or David Kolb, dkolb@bates.edu.
Here is a summary of ways to stay informed about what’s up:
By email
Our weekly email newsletter is our most up-to-date and wide reaching means of communication — currently 337 subscribers. Sign up by using the form located on the right side of the crestdriveca.com webpage. We hope to put the texts of email newsletters (sometimes after a delay) at crestdriveca.com and also at nextdoor.com.
On the web:
crestdriveca.com — The Crest Drive Citizens Association has used this website as its official web home. However, the Neighborhood Leaders Council has a plan to produce a system that each neighborhood association can use to maintain their websites more elegantly, with useful links to other neighborhood associations. Because we knew this was in the works, we have been neglecting this website. However the new system will be delayed (surprise!) until next summer.
So we will begin more regular postings to crestdriveca.com. (You’re reading the first one now.)
Although this site has a facility for comments, whenever we enable that facility then we get flooded with spam comments generated by robots trying to sell items. Moderating these comments takes a lot of time, so we encourage those of you wishing to raise issues for discussion to use our nextdoor.com site.
Our nextdoor.com site — the nextdoor site has 110 members — The advantage of the nextdoor site is that it allows discussion and comments. It is available to people within our defined area, ***AND we have recently redefined that area to include the those living west of Willamette and south of 39/40th Aves.*** That area currently belongs to the Southeast Neighbors Association however it will likely be transferred to the Crest Drive Association early in the new year. We wanted to make it available now for people living there to join the next-door.com site for discussions about Rest Haven.
We have a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and though not many people use or follow them, they are available for comments.
By printed mail
Our postcards — a postcard should be going out soon about our winter meeting plans.
Our printed newsletters — paper newsletters have become more expensive but we will be sending out a winter issue in a month or so.
A touch of holiday cheer
We haven’t heard any new crime reports this week.
2015 approaches. We hope you had a good holiday season so far, and that you’re looking forward to creative and unexpected adventures in the coming year. As Yogi Berra is reported to have said, planning is difficult especially about the future. The one thing you can be sure about is that many things will remain the same and many things will change but you can’t know which those will be, so keep an open mind, eyes and ears. Nurture the tender shoots of spring and novelty.
SHiNA 