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Minutes of the General Membership Meeting of the Westmoreland Association

Minutes of the Nov. 23, 2009 General Membership Meeting

The meeting was called to order at 8:00 P.M. by President Walter Mugdan. A motion was made, seconded and unanimously adopted to waive reading of the minutes. (Mr. Mugdan noted that the minutes were available for review on the Westmoreland website). Treasurer Gary Savage gave the Treasurer’s Report indicating that the balance-on-hand was $16,450.91 as of November 23, 2009. A motion was made to accept the Treasurer’s report. The motion was seconded and the report was unanimously approved.

Old Business:
Parking Regulation – Walter Mugdan wrote to Maureen McCarthy, the NYC Transportation Commissioner to request a change in the parking regulations in our neighborhood. As approved at the Association’s September, 2009 meeting, the letter proposed that there be a once-a-week restriction on parking for several hours to permit street cleaning. In addition to giving the city the opportunity to clean our streets, it would prevent long-term parking by outsiders on our streets. The letter also CC’d Tony Avella, our City Councilman. Tony responded by writing a letter to the Transportation department asking them to respond to our request. We have not received a decision from the Transportation Dep’t. at the time of the meeting.

New Business

Now that a new City Councilman has been elected (Dan Halloran), the Association needs to list the current concerns we have that can be addressed when we have the opportunity to meet with him. Some suggestions that were mentioned by the membership are:
• The Little Neck branch of the Queens public library has been updated recently, but not expanded. Jerry Ianecce had proposed that a new wing be added to the current building to expand its capacity and services.
• We should give Dan a briefing about the installation of the Quad gates at the Long Island Railroad’s Little Neck station. We should ask him to encourage all the parties concerned to continue to move forward with this project.
• Ask Dan to follow Tony Avella’s lead in getting the Buildings Department to enforce Covenants that are attached to property deeds. It would relieve the homeowners in the neighborhood from the time and expense involved in enforcing compliance.
• We should invite Halloran to one of our upcoming Association meetings.
• Building Codes: A formal process has been put in place for citizens to challenge plans for a new building or significant modification of an existing building. Architects are still able to self-certify their plans and drawings. However now the summary drawings of the plans will go online when the application is submitted. There is a forty-five day period subsequent to the online posting during which the plans can be challenged by any member of the public. If the Buildings Department doesn’t agree with the challenge, then there is a fifteen day appeal period. However, the onus is on the public to be vigilant and to find out about the changes before the challenge period expires. We need to find a way to get notification. Perhaps Dan can help us find a way.

New York State Senator Fran Padavan wrote a letter to all civic leaders asking them to help defeat a bill introduced in the City Council by Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, Speaker Christine Quinn, and others that would allow organizations, businesses and politicians to place posters and signs on public property such as light poles to get a pass for their first offense. This would allow politicians to avoid the penalties they face for such offenses. Currently the Campaign Finance Board simply withholds matching funds from politicians to cover the cost of the fines assess to politicians who violate posting rules.

Our meetings during 2010 will be held on March 15, May 17, September 20 and November 15.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:45 PM.

Respectfully submitted

Charles Manna, Secretary

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