Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Mo Betta Coverage

Getting the newsletta out betta.

We have some gaps in our canvasing of the neighborhood with the quarterly newsletter, OHNOtes.

If you live on West or in the area between 13th and 17th and would like an excuse to walk around and possibly meet new people who live near you, have we got a deal for you!

Help us distribute the newsletter in your area. A side benefit, besides exercise on a great day, is the odd chance of a quick home tour of some darling older home. One of our couriers got to see a gorgeous green marble fireplace when the owner, who saw them delivering the newsletter opened the door and struck up a conversation. Then invited them in to show off their home.

This town is so much more friendly than what I was used to in Denver.

If you’d like to help us and yourself, please contact me by e-mail. Just click on my name, below this item on the blog.

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.

Friday, February 25, 2005

March 2005 General Meeting

God, and the City Fathers, willing….we can celebrate!

This Quarterly General Meeting will be held at our place; 425 W. 18th Street.

The date is Tuesday, March 1, 2005.

It starts at 6:30 pm. Doors open an half-hour before.

The agenda:

• Status of Mineral Palace Park
   - Historical District Status
   - Resolution Regarding I-25 ‘Improvemment’ Plans
• Historic Tours and Activities
• Administrative Matters
• The Northside Historic Survey (Main Presentation)

The last item (above) will be provided by Adam Thomas, a principle with Historitecture, the company that is expected to be contracted to perform the Northside Historic Survey. You’ll have a chance to hear what is expected to happen, how you can help and what we can hope from it.

We’ve got a lot to celebrate and/or discuss, one way or another, regardless of what the City Council decides the night before.

We invite your participation. Dress is whatever….as long as no laws are broken.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Northside Historic Survey Funding Decision

You are cordially invited….

...to attend next Monday night’s regularly scheduled meeting of the Pueblo City Council. It will happen in the City Council chambers starting at 7 pm.

One of the items for consideration is the matter of agreeing to sign and fund a contract with an organization to conduct a survey of the history and architecture of the Northside area. The information gathered from this activity will go to support claims of historical landmarking certain buildings in the area.

We invite your attendance and solicit your support of this noble endeavor.

If the City Fathers agree to sign the contract, we’ll party at our place afterwards. [Note: Brandy and cigars on the veranda, while the ladies sip champagn in the parlor.]

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?

The Super Slab Is Coming

And what shall we do?

So much to write about today. Where to begin? Ah. Yes…..the Pueblo Chieftain’s article on the super-slab project.

Seems like that massive project to re-route the heavy road and rail traffic to the flatter lands to the east of town is going to come true in the not-too-distant-future after all. This years legislative session is taking up the issue today.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea and its time has just about come. During the, what I called TRANSPLAN 2030, meetings I kibbutzed last Spring it was talked about in almost hushed tones, but I could see the necessity of it. Especially after hearing the reps from the railroads expressing what they had to contend with in moving trains up and down the Front Range, through burgs like Colorado Springs. It sounded like a logistical nightmare to me.

[Hystorical Note: I even had a glimpse of the sort of masstyeria the Imperial German General Staff had to contend with in their planning mobilization for World War I. It was a running joke with them that their best young minds graduating from their military academy went into the railroad planning division and from there into an insane asylum.]

At any rate, the most interesting impacts of this project, when it comes to pass, are going to be as follows:

[1] The new Wal-Mart distribution center. Is it REALLY smart to build the center so far away from the planned route of the super-slab? Doesn’t look like it to me. It’ll just cause the trucks to travel so much farther, if they are coming from out of state. It would be much smarter to build the distrubtion center at the municipal airport industrial park, where it will be conveniently located for both the truck and rail loads.

[2] The plans to widen I-25 through Pueblo proper to ease traffic. The planned super-slab puts all of this planning on its proverbial ear. The need will not be to build a wider and faster road through Pueblo. It will be to build a better connection from the super-slab to the northern part of town. This is because the southern part of town would be serviced by the proposed connection at Stem Beach. So, looks like CH2MHill will have more time on the contract as they re-write their plans to accomodate something any rational person could see coming last year.

[3] Expansion of the industrial park at the municipal airport. Here’s a great thing for the city. And something that will bring in more business as well. As commented earlier, the Wal-Mart distribution center would work better out there. So it will need to be expanded. Maybe for no better reason than to make it inconvenient for the people at the Target distribution center to get into a turf war with their competitors.

[4] Speaking of expanding the industrial park. I understand that Denver doesn’t want any stenkeng piggy-back railcar transfer facilities anymore. The railroad built a huge activity south of C-470 off Santa Fe some time back and the word at the TRANSPLAN 2030 meeting was they didn’t want it there anymore. Here’s a great opportunity for the city. Expand the industrial park, near the super-slab, and get the facility to be moved there. After all, if we don’t know railroads, we don’t know jack.

This thing has great potential, if we have the vision to see it and the courage to seize it.

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.