Northwood Plaza Design Workshop: The Results Are In!
The Northwood Plaza Design Team* is thrilled to present the conceptual designs resulting from the Community Design Workshop held in April 2008.

For more info click here:

Maintenance Issues
We recently lost our maintenance chair. Immediately Chris Jones, the president, will attend to maintenance issues. On the agenda are a number of things including the development of a volunteer group to assist with periodic cleanings of trouble spots in the neighborhood, securing a vendor to deal with professional issues at the common areas, and the management of tree fertilization as well as additional maintenance issues.

Speaking of "issues", thanks to Lisa Leventhal, we have compiled a survey of issues within the ON. From that, the board submitted a letter to city hall to address some of our litter issues by adding trash cans along Loch Raven and area that sees a lot of foot traffic which brings a lot of litter. Check the website to get a read the letter.

Shortly, the maintenance committee will begin administering neighborhood housing inspections. This program is part of the Neighborhood Cooperation Program under which volunteers from our community conduct exterior surveys of neighborhood properties to ID housing code issues. With checklists supplied by the city of Baltimore, the program aims to preserve the beauty and attractiveness of Original Northwood and to free it of health and safety hazards.

Well of course, we now have an opening for the maintenance chair. If you have an interest in assisting the community, let us know as the work in the Maintenance and Housing committee is among the most important in the neighborhood. Reading board posts over the past number of months confirms that this committee has high negatives... In other words, if stuff ain't happening, people notice. The board understands that and is focused on developing action.

GNCA:
I went to my first GNCA meeting on May 7, 2008. The good: I got notice about the meeting. The bad: I got it with 24 hours' notice. Even with the short notice, I made the meeting but, it did not take place as the chair, Ulysses Miller, was not in attendance. After spending some time going over Original Northwood's account with Ms. Montgomery the bookkeeper, I can share that the Original Northwood has a balance of approximately $14,000 for the enforcement of the covenants that we agree to adhere to within the neighborhood and other necessary initiatives.

While I look forward to full reporting from the GNCA regarding the finances, I have the records of payment accounts for houses in Original Northwood. I was told that due to confusion over some of the accrued interest in the past, some or part of the bills were zeroed to reflect inconsistency with bills. Like you, it's a difficult situation to swallow when a mandatory organization is difficult to contact, has problems/inconsistencies with its reporting and other problems. And to answer some complaints:

I don't blame residents', but the answer is not to walk away. We need to engage them and insist on more transparency. I did learn the GNCA annual meeting is held in October and I'll make certain that we have plenty of warning. That way we can take our concerns to the meeting.

What happens if you walk away? they can play hardball. they can put a lien on your property until you pay... No need to go there... I believe that if we can achieve a level of transparency, people will understand their obligations and follow-through on it. That means financials that we can trust and more communication from them. So stay tuned as I will follow-through as much as I can to get those items for you.

Website:
We've just finished an update to the ONA site. The good news it's got some bells and whistles like a downloadable calendar so you can keep track of everything we can think to put on the calendar. The bad: there are still kinks so pardon our "mess". By the way we're hearing that Internet Explorer 6 is evil and our site is proving that. The site currently is optimized for Mozilla Firefox, a browser competitor. If you use Explorer, everyone I hear say that Mozilla is far and away better (I couldn't tell you I use a Mac).

Northwood Working Group:
We've uploaded information from the Northwood Shopping Center Working Group. They've put out some potential designs for the Northwood Shopping Center. They have put a face to the vision that we seek and I encourage you to take a look at the items. We're uploading them to the website, www.originalnorthwood.org where you can download the information at your convenience and browse the information.

Safety:
The Safety Committee will unleash a set of safety initiatives that will come your way by the end of the month. Our goal is to develop a number of ways that residents can defend themselves and their neighbors from crime issues by taking precautions and being careful by dealing with our safety concerns as a unit.

Due to a recent visit by the fire department, the width of Roundhill and Deepwood are under concern with the city’s transportation department. While it’s early days as far as a determination, and city representatives have pledged to work with us, they present a need for the street to be widened to ensure the ability of emergency vehicles getting down the street. ONA has drafted communication to work with the city to make certain that safety precautions are taken. We will keep you updated on this process.

Kelway Road Issues:
The frustration of Kelway owners comes to a head with residents coming to a recent board meeting to air their concerns over a covenant violation and the general condition of the Kelway Road Situation. That situation pits the apartment residents (Morgan State University students) against the residents of Kelway Road. The skinny is that the neighborhood has been looking for accountability and reasonable neighborliness from the Morgan Students.

If you haven't watched this development, check out the ONA blog where we discussed speaking with Morgan State officials about their dealing with noise issues from their residents and other issues like trash and parking. With no solid response from Morgan State, the situation seems to be a tinder-box with confrontations between residents and students over noise, parking and trash.

The board has been actively working with both the apartment's representatives and Morgan State University officials. While there are improvements, there are still large concerns that need to be dealt with and the board is seeking to approach these concerns decisively. It seems very troubling that the same individuals who took such a drubbing at the 2007 ONA annual meeting last year would move so deliberately throughout the year. It makes one think that they deserved what they got.

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