11/14/23 @ 7:00 pm

Shaw Butte Elementary School

27 in attendance

Officers in attendance: Ed Dziuk, Co-Chair; Cindy Laird, Sgt at Arms; Kim Horsley, Secretary; Nesley Orochena, Treasurer

Call to order: Cindy Laird called the meeting to order.

Ed Dziuk welcomed everyone and introduced our guests.

Stacia Holmes – Phoenix Parks Department, NW division

• WalkPHX is a citywide initiative to encourage exercise and more use of parks. They will be creating a designated walkway in Cave Creek Park, from Sweetwater, down south to Cactus, with distances marked out. Costs ~$2500. Kat Mase is managing the project.
• Activate and use the park more to discourage transients and messes. Ex: Movie in the Park at Cave Creek Larkspur. Would like to hear what we want and think will work. 
• Cox Meadows applied for a parks grant, which will be discussed and voted on this Thursday at 5 pm (can view live feed on City of Phx website). 

Judy

• Disc golf Phoenix Fall Classic will be held this weekend at our park! One round per day, about 80 players in each round with different t-times. A free sports clinic will be held 12-1 on Saturday at 2400 W Cactus ball field. Food trucks also expected Saturday afternoon.
• Note that walkers in the park always have the right-of-way! Flying discs have beveled edges and can be dangerous!

Joe Kapla – Community Action Officer, Desert Horizon Precinct 

• No arrests in our section of the park since early Oct. PD continue to patrol regularly. 
• PD is running their Annual Turkey drive until Nov 20^th. They have a freezer truck in the parking lot at 56^th St and Paradise Ln, and will deliver frozen turkeys to St. Mary’s Foodbank next Tuesday.
• Question on stollen vehicles. If you google “Phoenix stollen vehicle” you’ll find the PD website where you can enter a license plate number to see if it has been reported stollen. 
• Question on homeless camping in the alley. Camping in alleys is not allowed! Always report to Phx Cares (602-262-6152) or the Parks Department. Can call non-emergency number (602-2626-151) for homeless obstructing walkways or non-emergency criminal activity, but any clean-ups will need to be coordinated with Phx Cares. 
• Homeless person asked for food at neighbor’s door. Officer Kapla recommended to not give them anything, as it will encourage the behavior. There are many services provided by the city.

Krista Roy with Neighborhood Services

• Brought information again on the gated alley program.
• There have been talks of doing a neighborhood clean-up shortly. NS provides the dumpsters. NS can also provide equipment for clean-up (shovels, gloves, bags, etc)
• New transitional housing facility at La Quinta Inn. 140 beds opened Oct 27. Not walk-ins; these folks come from another shelter and are moving to their next stage of housing, which is for 6-months. Provide food and mental and physical health services.
• Annual Action Plan survey is out. Asks residents what is important to you, and where do you want to see more funds spent! Access the survey at: phoenix.gov/nsd/yourvoice
• Annual Slope Holiday Market and Parade is coming up on Dec 9, 5:30-9:30pm. Close Hatcher corridor (Central to 7^th Ave) and have vendors, beer gardens, etc.

Heidi – Community Medical Services Cactus, Heidi.coit@cmsgiveshope.com

• Joined us for the clean-up ahead of the movie in the park event.
• Held clean-up last week and collected over 20 bags of trash! Also conducted outreach and got four people into treatment. 
• Next community clean-up is Dec 9. They will provide the pickers, bags, and donuts!
• Barbell Saves program – drug prevention coalition on third Friday of every month. 
• If you see an area that needs a clean-up, or people congregating in a given spot, reach out to Heidi!
• Krista Roy did a tour of CMS recently and highly recommends it!

Raven – Park Services

• Parks is are aware of the alley camping issue and are on first-name basis with many of the transients folks in the park. Parks was able to make contact with this individual and they moved by the end of the day.
• Parks process: if someone is breaking park rules, start with education. New policy to take down report of the contact, so next time they can have you removed from the park. Subsequent follow-up is the equivalent of a traffic ticket, requiring court appearance. Escalates all the way to warrant and arrest. Parks cannot detain (but can call police to support with enforcement).

Maverick – Outreach with AZ Humane Society

• Highlighted their “cuddle bunch” program. 
• Sunny Slope AZ Humane Society office focuses on sick and injured strays. Includes cruelty and hoarding. You can provide anonymous tip on their website (“report cruelty” at bottom of page)

Shane – Shaw Butte Neighborhood Alliance 

• Dec 19^th they are putting on an open house block watch meeting at Shaw Butte Elementary. Family from the school can come in and meet block watch community members. Aim to engage more of the 600 families in the nearby areas.
• March 19^th – City of Phx Office of Budget Management will come out to their block watch mtg and explain how the annual hearings work. Hearings held in April to gauge projects the community is interested in. Ex: last year a cricket group got $250k for a new cricket field!

Community Announcements 

• GAIN event was a success! 
• Upcoming events: February 13 – Cox Meadows Chili cookoff
• We need to hold elections for new officers! If anyone is interested, please reach out!

• Next year’s grant deadline is December 7^th! We will have an evening meeting soon to brainstorm ideas and write the grant.

Next block watch meeting will be held January 9, 2023 at 7pm.

The meeting was adjourned.