Kent North Park Neighborhood

8/5/2009

A few of the Board members have been working with Public Works and now Kent PD on traffic calming in our neighborhood, our first priority is the cut-through traffic on 3rd Ave N, between James and Cloudy.

I realize that the entire neighborhood has an issue with traffic and cut-throughs, but this is a dedicated approach to get the city to address our concerns in a serious manner. We need to show/prove/force the issue of cut-through and excessive speed in the neighborhood one street at a time.

If you see four women camped out under the trees at 3rd and Cloudy between 6:30am and 9:00am that is what is happening, stop by and say “hi” to Pam Newcomer, Susan Stoddard, Wendy Atkinson and Tina Budell and tell your neighbors what is happening and come to our next meeting in September for an update on this issue.

Second item I want to pass along, at our last neighborhood meeting we formed a small graffiti clean up committee, well as of 5pm today we will be armed with the anti-graffiti clean up tools provided by the city. If you see new tagging our have existing graffiti that needs to removed, please email the North Park Steering Committee at: steering_committee@kentnorthpark.org or me (Tina) at ccduke@hotmail.com and the graffiti clean up crew will come and remove and document the area with photos for the city to track. Hopefully we can do removal once a month, or more if the issue becomes really bad. I know we all want a cleaner neighborhood, again pass this email along to your neighbors and ask them to get involved in the neighborhood by providing name, email address, address and phone number to become a part of the network that is North Park Neighborhood.

Just got off the phone with Toni from the city and there is a couple of local artist who are interested in going murals in Kent and North Park, also there is a matching grant program available through the city for this type of neighborhood enhancement. If we can get a couple of local business owners to donate money and we get the grant we can hire a local artist to place murals in our neighborhood to discourage graffiti. Let’s get this idea into motion! Does anyone know local businesses that would be willing to sponsor a mural? Let me know, pass my email out to them.

Third item, I have noticed a lot of illegal activity at the Tot Lot on the corner of 2nd and Cloudy and have been calling in the issues to Kent Police who have been very active in patrolling the area when called. If you see something not quite right, under age drinking, drug activity, or cars parked there in the evening when the park is closed, PLEASE call 911 and report a NON-EMERGENCY, you don’t have to give your name or phone but please call and lets show the criminal element that this neighborhood doesn’t welcome them. If we can get enough police presence, we can scare the drugs and gang bangers our neighborhood.

REMEMBER, IF WE ALL DO A SMALL PART WE CAN MAKE BIG CHANGES.