Wednesday, March 02, 2005

The Day After(math)

Great Party! A fine time was had by all.

The smoked salmon was a hit. Not to mention the Somerset (cheese) and chocolate fondues.

Sorry not to have posted much over the last few days but we were rather busy getting the place ready for last night.

Contrary to initial concerns when a Chieftain article indicated the meeting was open to the public, it was not 400 people trying to cram themselves into the house. It was only verging on SRO. But some of them made use of the big pillows to rest themselves at the feet of their significant other, who had a sofa or chair seat.

The clean-up is going well. Everyone was extremely neat. The only thing we’ve had to do was put away leftovers and wash a few serving dishes and utensils. Thanks to everyone who attended.

I finally got to meet Adam, who will be managing the whole business and likely doing a lot of the grunt work for the historical survey. At first impression, a personable and intelligent gentleman. Very familiar with his chosen field and living what he practices; he’s restoring an early 1900 hotel in Pennsylvania he and his wife purchased. Interesting stories there.

His presentation was excellent. It provided a good representation of what, if it were a military mission brief, would pass for the Rules of Engagement. He told us what he could and would do, under any of a number of circumstances. All of which were based on what the owner of a property or the law would allow. For example, pictures can be taken from an public walk or street, but he will not enter the yard or take precise measurements on the property without the owners expressed permission.

[Note: It was interesting to see the guage he uses to measure the angle on side shingles. I had no idea that the angle on the shingle could be a clue as to the style and/or year of construction.]

We’ve invited him to be a co-author on the blog, to help keep everyone involved apprised of what it going on. Hopefully, in this manner, he can alert us when he is planning on working a particular area and we might expect a visit and make ourselves more readily available. Or inform him that we’ll be out of town so he can reschedule.

Lots of good discussion followed his presentation. Good questions asked. Some of the more touchy ones not directly related to the historical survey itself, e.g., the possibility of enhancing property values of a building or the neighborhood and the repurcussions if the city decides to raise our rate, of taxation, accordingly. But that’s another and very convoluted story.

My thanks to James Amos who did the original Chieftain article. It really ‘stirred the pot’. The monday after the article our phone was ringing off the hook with people telling us they were coming, they weren’t able to make it but wanted to read about it on the blog, that their property was older than the Rosemount and ALREADY on the national register, but wasn’t listed in the article.

This is the sort of thing we’re looking for, interest in the project that generates motivation. Also finding out about properties that may have been missed. This place is great.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Northiside Might Qualify for CDBG Funds?

A ray of hope in an otherwise frowning sky.

If you’re not aware of it, the Northside neighborhood, where OHNO lives, is apparently eligible to apply and possibly even get Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) funds.

These are large wads of money showered down by the gods of Housing and Human Development or some other dieties from Washington DC to help communities deal with certain situations.

BAND got something like $10K, as I understand it, to publish their very well done newsletter. I could be wrong about the figure, but I’m NOT wrong that they turn out a very professionally done product and from whence the money to do the printing came.

But we here in the Northside are generally too well off to qualify for such largess. However, at the latest Pueblo Neighborhood Partnership meeting, it came out that we can submit requests for such funding and the city’s offices that manage it would consider the applications. This does NOT mean they will grant the funding. But if the project does capture their imagination and would be a boon to the city, especially the neighborhoods that they usually try to target for such funding, it could possibly happen.

It might be in our interest to seriously consider doing the work to request such funds. Usually, we’re talking what is termed ‘mortar and brick’, i.e., construction, efforts. I can think of some sidewalks that could benefit from such work. If we did it right, we might be able to get a lot of places fixed. And, if we dovetailed such a one-time-shot with a longer term effort, say the establishment of a special district for a low-low tax for sidewalk repair, it would be maintainable.

The reason this came up was that I got the distinct impression that the city is looking for ways to finish obligating the funds it has received from Olympus on the Potomac. I was getting the idea that if they did not obligate all the funds they have by the end of the year, that the gods on high were going to take their manna back and give it to other people who could consume it.

This looks to me like it ‘might’ be an opportunity.

However, I’m sure there is LOTS of paperwork to be done in order to ask…..

Yo! Chris! You reading this?

Monday, January 31, 2005

The Northside Neighborhood Survey

We’ve got it!

David Cockrell, the city’s Senior Neighborhood Planner, has passed me a limited number of copies of the finished survey.

We’ve asked him for the document in PDF format so we could pass it to anyone who wanted it electronically. If we have to, we’ll scan the document in and generate something that way. However, it would be best if we could have that done via Acrobat, just to make it easy to search it for words and terms.

We’ll keep you apprised.

Friday, January 28, 2005

OHNO Victories

The Night of January 24th.

It’s an Ayn Rand classic, come to life!

Last Monday night, at the regularly scheduled meeting of the City Council, the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) and Old Historic Northside Organization (OHNO), inadvertantly combined forces in order to give the City Fathers an opportunity to do the proverbial ‘right thing’, vis a vis a proposed modification to the city ordinance regarding historic landmarks and the establishment of Mineral Palace Park as an historic district.

It’s rather interesting that the two items came up together like this and the story is certainly worth telling of how that happened. But we’ve got a lot of other things to do before this day is over; so maybe another time. Suffice it to say that these two matters were related. The fun part is trying to understand the why’s and wherefore’s. But, as I said, that’s another, rather long and ‘paranoid’ story. And one better described over fine scotch and tobacco.

So, back on track. The people won a good fight last Monday night. The City Fathers wisely chose to amend the proposed ordinance so that the City Council would not be ‘above the law’, vis-a-vis other private and/or corporate entities. It also agreed to declare Mineral Palace Park an historic district. Both of these decisions will go far in maintaining a quality of life for the general population, well above that realized on Gedi Prime (see classic science ficition series by Frank Herbert).

A round of applause and drinks for all those who participated, either by communicating to the City Fathers via phone or e-mail, attending the meeting itself, and testifying on the matters.

THIS is what makes this land and this community a great place to live.

The Old OHNO Pueblo Entries

What’s become of all those entries of time gone by.

We’ve managed to save the main entries from OHNO Pueblo. In due time, we’ll resurrect them and have them available for future reference. This will be particularly useful when we start looking at what happens with regards to water and transportation issues in the county. But that will take some time to implement.

In the meantime, the old blog side, www. ohnopueblo.org, is still accessible. We’re not sure what is going to happen with the domain name, but we’ll see. And, if you REALLY need to have some information from the old site made available, please contact the Adminstration and they’ll see what they can do.