Ridge Lane Neighbors: Next Meeting will be July 11th

Hello Neighbors, just an early heads-up: since the 1st Tuesday in July falls on the July 4th Holiday, the next RLN meeting will be the following Tuesday, July 11th, 7:00 pm at the SF Public Library Plymouth @ Ocean.

See you then!

P.S. Below are the meeting notes from June 6th & July 11th.

***Meeting Notes from June 6th***

In Attendance:  Neighbors: Kristen and Danielle Casey Callaghan; Lynn Yuan; Patricia Ris; Barbara VanderBorght

Julia Brashares: Sf Public Works; Marissa Alexander: SF Parks Alliance

PARCEL 4 UPDATE

Marissa reported that we are still waiting for the necessary documentation from Suzanne of CatMex, such as scope of work, payment schedule and timeline, before the contract can be signed.  She has promised it will be ready on Friday, June 9.  Work could then conceivably begin 2 weeks after that date.  Marissa will let us know when the contract is actually signed and a work start date set.

Julia reported on the encroachment marking of Parcels 3 and 4 that took place in mid May.  BSM also served notices to neighbors who had property encroachments, some of which we were not aware of, such as the fence from a Tara property that runs along Parcel 3.  That owner called Julia and was rather upset at this news.  Julia allayed her fears of fines and penalties and assured her we would work with her when the time came.  (the encroachment is very slight).  The owner of 55 Ridge was also notified again.  Julia will arrange to set up an onsite meeting between RLN, SFPW and CatMex with him before work begins and his fence is moved.  He has already cut down the overgrowth that was on that piece of land behind the fence.

There is another issue with that piece of land involving the neighbors at 55 Ridge and 3 Caine. The owner of 3 Caine also received an encroachment notice because 2 feet of the property at the side of his house, which now falls behind the fence put up by the owner of 55 Ridge, is actually his, and he would like it as a right of way to be able to get to his back yard without having to go through his house.  There was discussion about what role RLN could/should play in this kind of thing.  Although our main focus now is the improvement of Ridge Lane, as an ongoing community group, it was felt that our general purpose should also be helping neighbors deal with issues that affect their well being in the neighborhood.  Therefore it was suggested that RLN members should meet with the owners of these properties before the official onsite meeting mentioned above. Patricia offered to do this, and suggested that perhaps Scott would be willing as well.

Notices

Julia plans to send out letters to surrounding property owners, and post notices about the work that will be done on Parcel 4 two weeks before the start date (which we don’t actually have yet). It was suggested and agreed upon that some notice go up asap, letting people know that work is being planned and that segment of the Lane will be closed to foot traffic sometime soon…something like Coming This Summer, or Coming Soon…with a brief description of the work planned.  As there is still no kiosk on which to post this, it was suggested we use the fence that juts out at the entrance on Caine in the meantime.  Julia said she would put together a notice, and Kristin offered to print and post it.

FUNDING

Julia reported that she had spoken with Mike Pickford from the SF Transportation Authority.  Sup. Safai had suggested we talk to him about possible funding for Ridge Lane.  However, he said that now Sup. Safai thought it would be better for us to look into getting backing from the BART Station Access Fund.  Kristin offered to contact Sup. Safai to find out more about this.

Community Action Grant Update

The $5000 CAG must be spent by June 15. The grant application stated that we wanted the money for lighting, but last fall we used funding that needed to be spent down to buy 9 lights, enough for Parcel 4. We have agreed to spend the CAG funds to buy more lights, as they will still be needed for the whole Lane.  Barbara reported that the cost for our bollard lights has gone up from previous orders.  There is only one manufacturer for these particular lights.  With the current pricing ($1350 each), plus shipping, we will only be able to purchase 3 lights.  Marissa stated that $90 from an overage of the fall order must come out of these funds.  It was agreed that the remainder of the funds should be spent on dog waste stations and supplies, as these would fall within the scope of physical improvements as specified in the grant application.  Barbara will take care of the ordering and writing the required report.

Community Challenge Grant Update

Marissa reported that the March 2017 grant application was submitted (thank you Scott!).  Although the CCG folks are committed to supporting our project, they are hesitant to award us more money at this time when, due to delays on beginning work on Parcel 4, we haven’t begun spending the money previously awarded.  Therefore, although we can expect to get the full $100,000 we applied for, it won’t be announced with the rest of this cycle’s awards.  We should expect to have that money awarded at the beginning of 2018.  We may be called upon to do some updating of the March application at that time.

OTHER

Volunteer Logs

Danielle asked that everyone be sure to log the time they’ve spent on RLN activities from April 1 through June 30before the end of June so that these can be submitted in our quarterly report.

Neighbor Dispute

There was some discussion about escalating difficulties between some neighbors on Caine, and how the group might be able to help neutralize enmity and further good relations.  There was interest in so doing, but no defiinitive plan as yet.

NEXT MEETING

As the first Tuesday in July is the 4th, it was decided we would meet on July 11.

Respectfully submitted,

Barbara VanderBorght

***Meeting Notes from July 11*****

Ridge Lane Neighbors Monthly Meeting – July 11, 2017

Attended by: Lynn Yuan, Scott Kauffman, Patricia Ris, Warren Longmire, Robert Rodriguez, Moneka Urbanske, Marissa Alexander

Meeting went from 7 pm to 8:15

-Update on meeting with Richard Guerra, owner of 55 Ridge Lane, re encroachment:  Susanne Mendoza from Catmex actually knew Richard from way back.  The meeting went well and all expectation was for a start date around 7/24.

-Discussion of parking on San Miguel blocking Parcel 4 access

-Discussion of right-of-way for property adjacent to Parcel 4 – no action proposed

-Discussion of water meter installation – To be taken care of by Catmex

-Discussion of outreach to BART and Supervisor Safai

-Discussion about Nahal’s plan for the top of Caine

-Notice from Marissa that there will be a Street Parks tour beginning with RL on 7/22.

End of meeting.