Attendees
Board Members
Evan Glass (Aurora)
Henry Odeniran (Gramax)
David Fogel (Eastern Village)
John Murphy (Silverton)
Residents
Jason Gedeik (Aurora)
Karol Thompson (8045 Newell)
Janet Owens (8045 Newell)
Elisa Kerneklian (Aurora)
Edgar Diaz-Cruz (Aurora)
Stephan Sylvan (Eastern Village)
Elaine Barker (Eastern Village)
Betty Bierer (Mica)
Joan King (Eastern Village)
Jimmy Obomsawin (Aurora)
Natasha Spaid (Silverton)
Block Party Recap
David: A lot of fun, a lot of work, great times. The building process for the block party was about 4 to 5 months, I couldn’t have dreamed for a better group of people to work with.
We thought, how can we redefine South Silver Spring? Now that there are all these people here we thought it would be a great time to do that.
The Block Party was a great way to introduce the broader community to South Silver Spring…a wonderful opportunity to create real tangible bonds between residents, businesses and institutions.
A group of 10 worked on the block party for 5 months representing 4 of the residential communities.
On the day of, we had over 30 Volunteers.
We had 75 participants; vendors, performing artist and sponsors.
Moorenkos and the Silver spring Urban District estimated around 2000 patrons showed up tot the Block Party.
We also created this great survey and the purpose of that was to gauge what the new community desires are as we continue to grow and build out.
Evan: One of the things we tried to do at the association table was start a membership roll.
Like most associations everywhere there is a marginal membership fee…$10 per household.
SSSNA Financials
John: We did very well at the block party event. (Contact John for financials)
Block Party Feed Back
David: One of the things we talked about internally is that we want to have more food vendors.
Betty Bierer: [The block party was] one of the best kept secrets in Silver Spring…I’ve lived in the area since 1961 and this is the first kind of celebration I’ve heard of in South Silver spring.
Elaine Barker: Suggested that we could have a block party that’s more intimate.
Committees
Safety Committee
Evan: We figured it would be great to form a committee because we all have issues we want to address. We want to create Social, Safety and Redevelopment committees. Relaying what officer Betsy Davis said at the last SSSNA meeting we have to weigh our options with security guards…basically you get what you pay for. Maybe instead of each building having its own Security guard maybe we should combine forces, while certainly more complicated would, I think, be more cost effective, basically a partnership between all the buildings.
Silver Spring Crime Watch (website) keeps track of all the crime in the area, most of it is happening in the predominantly residential areas outside the CBD.
The Motels (Days Inn and Travel Lodge) are considered the worst elements in the South Silver Spring neighborhood.
Stephan Sylvan: Had concerns about The Motels (Days Inn and Travel Lodge and named a recent incident there that grabbed his attention.
(Stephan is interested in joining the Safety committee.)
Karol Thompson: Concerns over the effectiveness of security guards, said that anybody could walk into the building and avoid them if they knew the times that security guards are in active duty.
Redevelopment Committee
Evan: SSSNA receives the blue prints and we would like to weigh in on the designs. Henry will head the redevelopment committee and help advise, as to what we want in our neighborhood. If you walk right out here there are three buildings going up, some of them have retail elements, others don’t. What do we want these retail elements to be?
Henry will help organize the committee. Letters will be written on all of our behalf through the new redevelopment committee.
If you’re interested in what projects are going on around us, whether you want more residential, whether you want more retail. Those issues will be channeled through this committee.
Henry: If you look at the two projects across the street from Acorn Park, you have 1200 Blair Mill, which is going to be a 100% condo project of about 8 stories and a maximum of 90’feet with 96 units, about three stories taller than 8045 Newell Street.
Then across the street from that, you have 1200 East west highway where the mechanic and detail shops once stood, the site is cleared right now. It is going to have over 10,000 square feet of retail and will be 142’feet. We don’t know what kind of retail will be in there.
The purpose of the survey is to influence what kind of retail we can get, developers want to put in dry cleaners and typical shops we usually see. But we can get clothing stores or electronic shops, or whatever we feel should be in there. We don’t even have 100 surveys right now so that’s why it’s important for everyone to fill it out.
Home Properties is developing 1200 East West and JBG is developing the Silver Spring Gateway. We can use the survey to influence their decision.
Evan: We now have the survey online. Jimmy helped create the survey
Jimmy: I helped convert the physical survey into electronic form. You can fill it out on line or fill it out in paper from. Jimmy said, printing it out online would produce a large quantity of paper than the physical document, so it’s better to just fill it out online or on paper. We need to put a paragraph telling people what the survey is about.
Social Committee
Evan: The last committee is the Social committee, basically we all had a great time at the block party, we have Jessup Blair Park over there but no one goes there, we can use some of the association money to have a picnic there.
We have a bunch of restaurants and we can do a roving happy hour, talk to an owner and talk about having a South Silver Spring social event and maybe giving association members a discount.
NEXT MEETING: Discuss meetings times, get committees initiated.
