Board Members Present: Michele Baskin (Secretary), Corey Jennings (President), Matt Williams, Wynn Engle-Pratt (Vice President), Sadie Baker
Staff member – Jennifer McKenzie, Amanda Rothschild
Total Attendees
~ 16, ~ 2 from Thread, ~ 6 on Zoom
Start: 7:09
End: 8:34
Zoom Recording ; Passcode: elk4%#rG
Votes: N/A
Community Announcements
- MountRoyal NightMarket! Friday April 18th 5-9
- Childcare for 20 2-5 y.o. In the downstairs garden space at Church of the Guardian Angel, full time, 8 am – 5:30 pm
- Wed May 9th is the next Seawall Quarterly Mtg
Agenda
- Zeke Cohen as Candidate for City Council President (current Council Member of 1st district)
- Maggie (CoS) resident on Crestmont here as a volunteer, worked for him for last 3 years
- Former teacher in BCPS – triaged in post-COVID environment to get supplies from Mount Royal to the teachers in BTU after they came to them
- Started non-profit, https://zekecohen.com/ , looks for root causes to issues and proudly interacts directly with constituents about issues brought to the offices attention (heavy focus on constituent services)
- Championed Legislation: Healing City Act, Creating Office of Older Adults
- Government needs to be effective and work for citizens
- Focus on local issue – Tree Canopy – Eastwood area close to Dundalk, almost no street trees, partnered with Baltimore Tree Trust and that neighborhood association to get 100 trees planted in the past year, recognizes the 10-20 degree higher temps of areas without tree canopy
- Focus on local issue – Traffic Calming – #1 request from residents in his district is for calming measures like stop signs and speed humps, shouldn’t take 2-3 years to get speed humps and other infrastructure installed, pushing for 5 more traffic engineers in the city budget
- Q on Harborplace project – Cohen of a mixed mind, area needs to be activated, concern about split of the cost between the developer and the city and having the city get stuck on the hook for a bad deal
- Q on trauma informed care for addiction – 1000 deaths from addiction is 3 times as much as homicide, what is being done? Hits personally with family who have been affected. Continues to advocate for BCRI first line of care (~$1 mill), peer navigators in all libraries, fire department is next up to be trained for narcan and addiction/trauma response, believe it is a public health emergency and not a public safety emergency
- Q on Climate Crisis at the local level – 2016 people slammed the door in his face for supporting Red Line and central bike corridor but he believes transportation options are key to reducing climate impacts locally
- Q on protecting vulnerable/migrant workers like those who died in the Key Bridge collapse – Wage theft and exploited workers are a huge concern, need a wage theft commission, need more code enforcement of things that generate revenue for the city while also making the city safer for businesses/workers/citizens
- Q on relationship between city agencies and legislators – How would Zeke alter that “us vs them” mentality? Residents honestly don’t care who is responsible, they just want the things done. So focusing on blame is not productive, but oversight can be done that is still respectful. Respect is still key to retaining quality employees at all levels of agencies.
- Presentation by Thread Baltimore
- https://www.thread.org/
- Enroll lowest 25% academically (often less than 1 for GPA) from 7 partner schools in the city starting at 9th grade, including ACE in Hampden
- Focus is on building family structures that students need to succeed and thrive in school and beyond
- 3000 volunteers currently, goal is to get 5% of Baltimore residents as volunteers (~20k)
- https://www.thread.org/get-involved/volunteer/
- If you have any questions, feel free to email volunteer@thread.org.
- States Attorney Updates
- Juvenile Justice – 12 and under no charges, 13 and above with DJS with diversion programs but many don’t complete; asking for more accountability and seeing a family magistrate within 24 hours and release by a family member only (currently anyone of age can do it)
- HB0814 passed and sent on to to the Governor https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/hb0814 and https://legiscan.com/MD/bill/HB814/2024
- RemFest 2024 Updates
- Debut of poster coming this week!
- Merch will be hats, different colors of t-shirts and coozies
- Community Clean-up
- Saturday April 20th, 10 am
- Meet at CGA
- Focus on Lower Remington, sponsored by Clavel & W.C. Harlan
- Coffee and treats from Doppio