Quarterly Neighborhood meeting minutes August 13th
/Sedgefield Quarterly Meeting 8-13-19 meeting minutes
Intro and meeting led by Will Johns, President of SNA
Welcome guests: (Held in Sedgefield Church Sanctuary)
· Jamie McLawhorn: Marsh
· Eric Nelson: CMPD
· Sedgefield Middle Fund Raisers: Lindsey Jones & Meredith Murchison
· Eric Turner: Sedgefield Middle
· Shannon Reichley: Actors Theatre Charlotte (used to be located caddy corner to the Aquatic center on Stonewall). Now are the resident theatre company at Queens. Starting Season 31! Adult contemporary theatre.
Treasure’s Report: Beth, 40 paid members, $15,000 balance
Biggest fundraiser: Sedgefest; looking for neighborhood input
Newsletter update/website: Attendees of this meeting are the first who are able to view the website. Looking for content, asking the neighborhood for help looking at that. Website is officially live, and very much a work in progress.
Looking for content like the history of Sedgefield, interesting facts, restaurants, etc.
Sedgefieldneighborhood.com
Marsh Project Update: Jamie McLawhorn
Don’t have anything new right now, are building apartments on Haverford, Poindexter, Oakcrest, Berkshire block. Completed April 2020. Will be finished with all construction there in September/October 2020.
Duke Power working on Poindexter—supplying power, should be done in potentially two weeks.
Will Johns has spoken with Jamie about metal covers on sidewalk past Haverford. Charlotte Water brought those in. Calling them weekly, asking for removal. They’ve been there about three months.
New development in progress on the corner of Marsh and South, office building with retail on the bottom. Will be parking, three stories of office, 100,000 sq. ft. after rezoning. 50,000 sq. ft. of retail on street level.
Pre-leasing done prior to breaking ground, anticipating that happening in Spring of 2020.
Retention pond, looking to have fountains in the pond so that there is always moving water. City won’t let them do that work until storm water is covered, likely won’t happen until May or June of next year.
Parcel along Poindexter along the pond and where they’re building updates is likely the next to be developed. Fronting some costs on storm water infrastructure, in the apartment business, so likely going to be for rent. All three parcels they’re looking at are zoned for family residences.
950 multifamily units, plus retail on the front, and office retail that was previously mentioned.
Entire build out isn’t expected to be completed for 8-10 years.
Parking for retail and office will be on Marsh and South Blvd. Earliest anticipation of ground break is Spring of 2020.
Q: Renderings available for these developments?
A: Architects working on it, no renderings yet. Trinity Architects? Built Ballantyne.
Q: Is it anticipated that apartment demand is staying consistent or growing, and that is the direction that the city is going?
A: Developments have slowed down a bit, still a good bit of demand for apartments close to the city. Job growth is driving demand.
Q: Traffic impact on Marsh and South?
A: Traffic study was conducted as part of master plan, their focus was on Park Road and the intersection of South and Poindexter. Unsure of what the impact will be of new apartments coming in.
Q: For the office parcel that they’re anticipating, will parking open to the public, or for office and retail only?
A: Undecided right now. Guess is that it’s for office and retail.
Q: Can other lots owned by the same companies be used for other retail spaces? Office spaces available for retail parking?
A: Unsure, yet to be determined.
Marsh Properties is a family business, a bit conservative as far as developments go. Taco Mama and NY Butcher is part of their shop structure over on Park, as well as Surge fitness. Those redevelopment projects were theirs.
Jamie has been willing to jump up and correct things like repairs on sidewalks, fences, etc. The board works on getting things to him ASAP, communication is key. Bring it up, make it apparent to the board, we will work to solve the problem.
Different things that you can get involved in as part of the neighborhood—reducing traffic speeds, helping traffic, etc. Influence on the long-term impact of what’s being built.
Eric Turner, Principal of Sedgefield Middle School: Programs, classes, traffic flow.
Changes taking place on campus: student assignment boundaries have changed. Take effect for their campus this upcoming year.
Navigator report passed out—demographic breakdown of school. Report is updated daily, allows them to see where they are with attendance, behavior metrics, etc.
One of the draws to Sedgefield Middle is their size. Student population under 800 students is rare, and that is all their campus is able to hold. Unable to put trailers on their campus due to landscape.
Alexander Graham is one of their partner schools, have over 1,300 students.
Last year the school was 48% Hispanic, 44% black, 8% white, and less than 1% other.
Demographically they are growing to be 30% black, 30% Hispanic, 30% white, and 10% other. Very rare in Charlotte as well.
The district still has a poverty level that makes this a title 1 school. Will remain that way for two more years. Students will have transportation from other areas to Sedgefield.
AIG—scholars that are academically gifted. Last year, they had the highest number that they’ve had since Mr. Turner has been Principal.
This is typically info that they share internally.
Start time is moving from 9:15 to 7:00, dismissal is moving to 2:30. Moves them to the front of the bus run. They’re now first run in the morning and first run in the afternoon, large improvement.
New Superintendent. Equity issue occurring within the district: different schools have been using different materials, giving students access to different resources depending on where they were.
Making the change in curriculum requirements—all 6th grade students and 8th grade students in certain courses (math and I think he said language arts) are all going to have the same curriculum.
Very active PTO and Booster Club. Bringing theater back to school, as well as 3 math teachers instead of 2 math teachers at every grade level.
Media helpdesk available, new offering available for library sciences.
New clubs—this year offering:
· Girls Who Code
· Odyssey of the Mind
· Field Hockey and Lacrosse
Q: Security and precautions in place for student safety?
A: Our district implemented automatic laws on all the doors, as well as keycard entry. They do lockdown drills twice a year. One is announced, one is not. Drills are approached differently. Submitted their school’s safety plan last Friday.
Active shooters drill on campus will be added. Discomfort in training among students and teachers doesn’t outweigh the potential benefits.
Installed 6 new cameras to cover internal/external monitoring.
44 cameras covering building with the exception of classrooms and restrooms.
Bike rider and walker safety plan. New permission slips applied to middle school, not common outside of elementary schools, but helps in knowing which students are permitted to be in different areas.
Map changes: cars will be entering off of Dorchester. Previous Montessori entrance is now going to be one of the primary entrances for walkers, bikers, and 6th-7th graders. Creating additional bike racks in that area as well.
Baseball field, McDonalds Ave. Not designated car drop off space. Increasing traffic flow on front side of the school. Don’t want Middle Schoolers unsupervised walking through the Greenway.
With the merge of students walking from Dilworth, they’re working to have drop off points supervised and clearly marked to aid in monitoring.
Q: Sidewalk on the end of Sedgefield road: any intention of improving that sidewalk?
A: Working on improving the brush. That was the largest emphasis so that bikers and walkers wouldn’t be forced into the street.
Middle School Fund Raiser, PTO Capital Campaign: Lindsey Jones & Meredith Murchison
PTO President, Lindsey Jones: Parents are really excited with the changes that are taking place. Enrollment for all three grades is looking strong.
Goals and things coming up for the school: Empowering Extraordinary.
Goal of raising $100,000 for the school this year. Started in the Spring, runs through September 30th. Goal is to raise fund to help the school in various areas.
Capital investments: benefitting students for years to come. Supporting Sedgefield teachers and staff with continuing education and training opportunities, as well as enriching students with academic and enrichment programs. School events, school spirit, etc.
Gradual student assignment change, currently 6th grade, will eventually move to 7th and then 8th. Some students are high poverty and have high needs, a large portion of the budget is allocated for those students who need additional support; backpack drives, school supply drives, etc.
Students and neighborhood will benefit from robust PTO and involved student body.
Charlotte has a lot of inequity in education, as well as our stifling poverty levels. Want to even the playing grounds.
Meredith shared her experience going through the changes in the schools. Dilworth was made a neighborhood middle school instead of magnet 10 years ago. Did great things for the neighborhood, anticipate those kinds of changes here as well. Reinvigorated the school community. Sedgefield Middle is the icing on the cake—she has a student that will be a biker to school. Excellent to have a strong elementary and middle school in the neighborhood.
CMS provides a budget to each school for office supplies and materials—doesn’t supply enrichment programs for students.
Hoping to have a novel room at the school accessible to all students.
Provides very basic help for athletic facilities, athletic director pays out of pocket to paint the field. The kind of upkeep that it takes to keep a facility great isn’t covered by CMS.
Tremendous amount of volunteer opportunities.
smspto.org—lists all volunteer opportunities/categories
Church: Other programs we would like from church
This summer we had a movie night hosted on the front lawn here at the church.
Sedgefest: Review, likes and dislikes… planning meeting in late September and invite new team members for planning and execution so lots of planning needed, possible move to late April.
Moving this meeting to a separate meeting at Triple C. Overviewing pros and cons of Sedgefest.
Police: Officer Eric Nelson
Eric is Officer Montgomery’s new partner.
Brought stats from the last 3-4 months. Biggest concern and update right now is car break-ins and car theft in the neighborhood. 2 main individuals who are responsible for 50% of the break-ins in Sedgefield and Myer’s Park. One of the men has multiple outstanding warrants; they’re working on tracking him down. Specifically targets this neighborhood.
Speeding through the neighborhood and cut through: traffic officer comes through to enforce speed and traffic violations as needed. Parking complaints and vehicles on the wrong side of the street, facing the wrong way, etc., due to construction.
CDOT—parking your car on the street slows people down.
Tree Banding up-dates and changes for this year: cut off is August 25th, vine removal. City program, info will come in on Nextdoor and Facebook.
Volunteer program is being extended, can use some of that time to clean up the neighborhood, etc.
Larken Eggleston: City Council
Primary Election is coming up: get out and vote. September 10th.
Mayoral election. Turnout will be 10-15%, vote SERIOUSLY counts.
New neighborhood traffic cone policy has been implemented. Speed bumps and speed cushions. Proactively signing neighborhood streets as 25mph. Bring them the problems, they will take it to CDOT.
Q: Cars and trash cans on the sidewalks?
A: Thinks there was an ordinance passed to keep sidewalks cleared after little boy was killed on his way to school and forced to walk in the street.
Call 311 to enforce.
Q: 2 officers assigned to this area, not able to do patrols in our area due to inadequate staff?
A: We are severely understaffed. Made attempts to address this as best they can, getting our police officers up to the national average. We have historically underpaid our police officers, now we are doing better with comparably paying our officers to what peer cities are making.
Trying to get sidewalks implemented throughout the city—prioritizing as best they can. Improvements versus adding them to completely undeveloped areas.
Social: Sedgetoberfest, Neighborhood Movie Night, Fall Neighborhood Yard Sale, Garden Club, SNAP (Sedgefield Neighborhood “Something “and Parents), others
Sedgefield Butterfly Park Update: County normally spends $45K on parks of our size. Our budget was close to $98K.
Board Elections, Nominations: (election in November?) Paid member=vote
As always, looking for new members who can attend all our meetings and try it out
Board meeting September 10th