Notes from ITLV Meeting of 1/9/19:

In attendance were: Jim & Sue Garcia, Linda Cancio, Fayzah Mughal, Michael Dack, Becky Gunvordahl, Melody Horrell, Melissa K, Matt Buland (new Community Engagement Assistant), Mohammed Umbashi (Ken Cooley’s Field Representative for Constituents’ State Issues), Lorianne Ulm (Community Engagement Manager) and Sherri Rush. Mohammed passed out business cards and reminded us that he can handle any state issue or concern about which we should feel free to contact him.

The meeting convened about 6:15 as Lorianne had us go around the room with each person stating his name, street of residence and favorite food from the recent holidays.

After all the contemplated foods described, Lorianne suggested we think about a potluck meeting soon.

Lorianne kicked off the next agenda item with a shout-out to the success of our recent holiday parade on 12/12/18. We debriefed this event as follows:

Sherri said that as a walker in the parade, she had a great deal of trouble keeping up with the cars and floats. Others mirrored this problem and it was suggested we consider placing walkers/banner carriers at the front of the parade next time.

Linda talked about the fact that the containers of ‘hot’ chocolate did not keep the drinks hot enough like the urns from the previous year’s event did.

Becky suggested the flyers would be more useful if we printed the parade route on the backside of them.

Fayzah seconded Becky’s idea and also recommended that we include our logo on the flyers. Lorianne suggested we might want to re-design the flyers as needed and there were some comments about more efficient ways of getting the flyers distributed.

Although Melody was sick and unable to perform for the parade, she did drive to various sites along the route and observe. She noticed the problems walkers had and also suggested we choose different streets for the route next time to broaden the path to other residents.

Linae appreciated that there was enough wrapping paper this time to allow better pictures and suggested ways to get more residents to the ITLV Facebook page. She also wondered if we could arrange to have the second Santa to stay in the multi-purpose room for pictures while the parade was in progress instead of having two in the parade itself.

Melissa passed for comments since she had not attended the parade.

Matt said he loved the parade but had some electrical problems with his vehicle while participating.

Mohammed expressed that he was very impressed with our efforts and that he would try to arrange for Ken Cooley to participate in our 2019 event.

Sherri commented on how big this event has become and there was some conversation about media participation. Lorianne explained that the city could submit a press releases but that other news many times trumps our events. Linae and Lorianne mentioned that the local ‘Grapevine’ paper photographer appeared both at the parade and in the multipurpose room.

Lorianne said she would bring handwritten ‘thank-you’ cards to our next meeting for us to sign and present to various parade participants.

Jim and Sue talked about specifically thanking 10 parade participants. They posted pictures of houses of winners of the neighborhood decoration contest in the ‘after party’ room. Jim shared his observations about the parade and incorporate to the procedures he created from last year’s event.

• Walkers – A few walkers interfered with the parade start, walking in front of parade vehicles, not being courteous to the participants, and not following safety instructions. He also acknowledged that the parade pace was initially too fast for walkers.

• Parade Start Side Street – This year’s parade was much larger and had many vehicles starting from Explorer Drive rather than from the school parking lot. The lack of traffic control allowed residential vehicles to get in front of parade participants and block their access to the parade route from Explorer Drive to Meteor Drive.

• Pace Vehicle – The “pace vehicle” did the best he could. Half way through the event the police department motorcycles performed circle maneuvers which was extremely helpful to slow down the pace. Future events should have a “color guard” or people holding the ITLV banner lead the parade to better control the pace.

• Growth – This year’s parade with about 25 entries was much larger than previous year. Therefore, if the parade is large, it will require more traffic control and walker control resources.

• Large Vehicles – This year’s parade had two large floats which were successfully staged in the school’s front “student drop-off area”. The parade route was designed and published in August to ensure that parade participants could maneuver through the route.

• Parade Route – The route is changed each year to ensure that the parade goes through different parts of the Lincoln Village community, on both sides of Lincoln Village Drive. The route length has also been kept to around 2 miles to keep the event at a comfortable length for all participants. Continue publishing and publicizing the route early to ensure that residents and participants are familiar with it well in advance of the parade.

Jim also thanked everyone who participated in the parade part and the Cocoa and Cookies with Santa. This included: Matt Butland, Linda Cancio, Michael Dack, Sue Garcia, Becky Gunvordahl, Rich Horrell, Laura Little, Linae Peters, Sheri Rush, and Lorianne Ulm. Laura, Sheri and Melody also assisted with judging for the “Best Decorated Houses” in the neighborhood.

We discussed ways of involving students from local schools more to get more hands on deck for our event.

Our next agenda item was our participation at the May Fair event put on my AM Winn Elementary School on May 18th. Jim received an invitation from the event coordinator for ITLV to participate in this year’s event. has put in our application for this. Melody is very familiar with the event since her daughter had attended the school for several years. She said its purpose is to promote art, nature and crafts for the kids. Melody thought we might want to do a raffle basket to encourage attendance and Lorianne thought we might offer some games with prizes for winners. Jim said the deadline to apply was 4/6/19. Lorianne suggested we could apply for a micro-grant to cover expenses to have a booth there. Fayzah offered to volunteer for the proposed event.

Lorianne indicated that Laura Little, who was unable to attend this meeting, is working on the contact list and will review at the next meeting.

Lorianne also gave us an update on the progress of the neighborhood sign project previously initiated by Michael and Fayzah. The project is headed by Steve Harriman with City of Rancho Cordova who is working with the sign company that will eventually complete the work. Fayzah and Michael will meet soon with the sign company, which will discuss potential designs that would fall within the project budget and will present some possibilities within their scope. Then the sign company will work up 2 or 3 designs for Michael and Fayzah to bring back to the group for a vote.

There was some discussion of changing meeting dates with no resolution yet. We will give it more thought and bring the subject back at a later date. We might consider doing some polling to see whether Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays would work best for current and future members. We should be consistent with the day we choose and if on a trial basis, give it at least 3 to 6 months before making another change.

Lorianne provided a handout about the Neighborhood Engagement Program and how it supports our success in achieving our goals. She suggests that we reconsider our priorities during the present time when there are no immediate projects to attend to, perhaps doing another asset mapping walk like we did a few years ago. We should revisit our events as well to be sure they align with our goals. We last defined our goals as:

Community Pride: better maintenance of properties, aesthetics and cleanliness

Safety: both crime and traffic, real or perceived

More Improved Amenities: parks, signs, gateways, drug store, etc.

Building Community: getting to know neighbors better

She also mentioned an exercise we could do where we pair off and do mock invitations for recruiting new core people. This could result in a social event we could carry out to create momentum with potential new recruits. She would like to see us increase our membership by at least a few more core people.

Lorianne reminded us that she tries to always notify us of upcoming community events at the council level such as the code enforcement presentation the previous day, Council luncheons and meetings. Sherri commented that even children sometimes make presentations at the council meeting. Some members who had attended the code enforcement and other similar community meetings described how informative and entertaining they are and also implored us to attend these events when we can. We should expect to receive revised ‘Good Neighbor Guides’ in the mail soon.

We should expect to have guest speaker, Laura Taylor from Cordova Recreation and Park District (CRPD) at our next meeting. As such, we should consider questions and concerns we would like to bring her. One thing we might ask her about is whether the senior center might be able to expand its activities to residents outside of the elderly. We learned that a long-term future potential city project might be a civic center on Folsom Blvd. next to the Folsom Lake College outreach building.

New business:

There was some discussion about potential new meeting places, especially in light of our hope to expand membership. We ruled out several and decided to just keep this in mind for the future.

Our next meeting will be on January 23rd at Mountain Mike’s.

Notes completed by: Linae Peters