Quartely Meeting of the Pacific Neighborhood Association

The quarterly meeting of the Pacific Neighborhood Association was held on Nov. 29, 2011 at the City Hall meeting chambers. There were a total of 11 people in attendance. The current president, Charles Ames, talked about committees that were not active like Crime Watch, by-laws for the association and nominating for Board positions.

Kim Prentice, Clover Park School District spokeswoman, gave an update on CPSD, the state budget and how it may affect CPSD. Prentice also spoke about the Daffodil Princesses for Lakes and Clover Park High Schools.

Gail Conelly, member of the Lakewood Police Community Safety Resource Team, gave an update on abatements being done on the junky properties located on Chicago and Solberg. In addition, the Fir Acres Mobile Home Park is supposed to have a new owner from Tacoma who plans on tearing down the area and building an apartment building.

Many in the neighborhood will appreciate the cleaning up of this particular property.

Elections were held for the upcoming year – results are as follows:

President:                   Renee Rouleau

Vice President:           Cassandra Groce

Secretary:                   Steve Kadar (has another year in his term)

Treasurer:                   Alea Watterberg

Member at Large:      Al Monia (has another year in his term)

During the open forum discussion, a resident of Oak Leaf Apartments brought up two concerns, one of which is potholes in front of the complex on 110th Street.

Gail addressed this previously with him and informed the group that the city's Public Works Department has been contacted and will look into it. If it is directly adjacent to the parking lot, it is the responsibility of the property owner to fix it. If not, then public works will fix it.

Gail has already contacted the property manager and she will take it to her supervisors. Gail has not heard back yet from Public Works. The second issue is that he believes that there should be a crosswalk from 110th St. across Pacific Hwy to the Grocery Outlet. He, and others in that neighborhood walk, many do not drive, and he has received a jaywalking ticket while crossing Pacific Hwy to the Grocery Outlet to shop. He does not believe he should have to walk up to 108^th and cross, then walk back down. It is 4 blocks out of his way and he is disabled and walks with a cane, making the additional distance difficult. Gail will forward a request to staff within the public works to see what can be done.

Three other residents expressed a concern regarding people walking in the street and wheeling their wheelchairs in the street on McChord Drive. There are right of ways. However, many times it is filled with water, especially this time of year. There are no sidewalks and no plans by the city to put in sidewalks for this area so people are forced to walk in the street. They would like to see sidewalks. As an action item, they are to take photos of the area needing sidewalks and bring them to the next meeting for possible forwarding to Desiree Winkler/Don
Wickstrom for follow up.

An Associate Pastor asked about families in the area who needed assistance. Gail explained about Lakewood First Lions and how they have adopted the Springbrook neighborhood, in particular, to help and support. Gail also explained about Communities in Schools and Diane Formoso. Gail will forward Diane’s contact information to her. She states that they currently have hundreds of presents ready and available to hand out, along with food, and they would possibly like to do something in the park. She will work with Diane. Hopefully, something will be done for the Springbrook Park to give local kids a decent safe place to play.