Thursday, October 15 at 7 p.m.
NOLA Brewing Co., 3001 Tchoupitoulas St.

The ICNA has multiple initiatives underway and we need your help. There are several committees to join and make a difference in your neighborhood.

Community Outreach and Membership (Co-Chairs are Wendy Waren and Jane Howard):

This committee is tasked with creating and distributing the newsletter, the weekly community calendar, Greening the Channel and membership drives. We would also like to work on things like monthly socials and events at Burke park.

Youth Outreach (Co-Chairs are Jason Nix and Ed McGinnis):

This committee is working with other neighborhood associations to form the Lyons and Burke Booster (LBB) Club. The LBB Club will help support NORD activities at the parks, help with improvements to the park and allow us to hold community events there. They are also working to bring Kaboom! back to the neighborhood. We would also like to support our neighborhood schools but need more volunteers.

Land Use (Co-Chairs are Michelle Kimball and Harvey Stern):

The land use committee is responsible for reviewing all zoning requests and making a recommendation to the board and general membership. We currently have two requests that are technically in the Coliseum Square district but they would like our support as well. Both are on Chippewa & Jackson. An investment group would like to turn the old Synagogue at 709 Jackson into a local and organic upscale market. The other proposed project is to turn the old hospital across Chippewa into condos. Representatives from both projects will be at the Thursday meeting to present their ideas and answer questions. This committee is also very involved in making sure our voice is heard in the Master Plan process. Additionally, the Land Use committee monitors blighted housing in the Channel. We have worked over several years to document every blighted house in the neighborhood and push to have them cleaned up or sold. Going forward we will track the blighted houses in a more timely fashion, post a map with links to blighted houses on our website and continue to work with the City to turn them around.

Crime (Co-Chairs are Adolph Lopez and Karen Chaubert):

This committee attends the NONPAC meetings hosted by the NOPD 6th District every 3rd Wednesday of the month. This is considered their monthly committee meeting and allows us an opportunity to voice any concerns the ICNA has with crime in our neighborhood. This committee also acts as a liaison between the 6th District and the ICNA forwarding announcements for donations or events as requested. Additionally, the Crime committee plans and hosts the National Night Out Against Crime each year in Burke park.

Ad-hoc Committees:
There are two committees working on short-term temporary issues. We have a Legislative session committee that is tasked with developing a plant for tracking and voting to support or oppose the many bills proposed during each legislative session that affect the Irish Channel. This process would apply to city ordinances too. We also have a committee working on updating our by-laws.

Technology (Chair is Trey Bornmann):

This committee manages the ICNA website and email list. We are also working to publish our blighted housing list to the web, link our community calendar to the website and make some general improvements to the site. This committee supports each of the other committees on technical issues.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to seeing you on Thursday,

Kara Morgan
ICNA President