The Simpson Stump - September 2021

Good morning all!

It's that time again, our next Simpson Neighborhood meeting is right around the corner.

Our September meeting will be on 09/21 @6:30 pm, at First Indian Baptist Church. We may be going on the road to another Simpson location for November and into 2022, just to provide opportunities for other businesses and organizations to host our meetings. So keep your eyes open on Social Media or on these emails for meeting locations.

For September's meeting, we have two guest speakers planned, as well as some neighborhood specific discussions.

1) Councilwoman Pastor's office will be available to give general updates for our corner of Phoenix, as well as hear comments and concerns from neighbors (we're hoping the councilwoman herself will be able to make it!)

2) Earl & Curley and Kimco will present an update on the Christown Mall redevelopment plans, which are still in the early stages. They're currently seeking a Planned Unit Development across the entire mall (which is what the large white boards on all sides of the mall are for). They'll be explaining what that means, what the process is, and generally what the plans for the property is for the next 10 - 20 years. I'm glad we can actually have the councilwoman's office present to hear the discussion.

3) We'll have one of our Community Action Officers available for their regular update on happenings, as well as answering questions about safety in the surrounding area.

4) We have been working with the Phoenix Streets Department on Missouri Avenue issues. We have a better understanding of why it was striped the way it was after it was resurfaced, which is that was a temporary condition while they figured out the final design. We'll discuss what that final design might be, and some of the 'what is possible' and 'what is not possible' discussions we have had with them. A short version: it will be painted back to match the previous design at the very least, we're hoping to get a bit more.

5) We will be reviewing upcoming neighborhood events, both good news and bad news.

• GAIN (our annual potluck) is looking like it will at least be pushed into 2022, so it will not be happening in October. We are looking at having a small get together around halloween, so attend to hear specifics!

• We are still looking at Luminarias in December, and need a LOT of help to make that happen. We're hoping to cover all of Simpson this year, and need people to help organize the assembly, placement and pick up, ideally of their street or corner of the neighborhood. We'll discuss this quickly at this meeting, and it will be the main topic for our November meeting.

• Other opportunities to help. We'd love to have some extra help keeping the website up to date, or to serve as a vice-chair, secretary, a general volunteer to help coordinate with neighbors and businesses, or if you can help with a spanish translation of these and future newsletters.. The more help we have, the more we can hope to do! So if you're interested in helping us keep our activities growing, please let us know!

Also, see the signature at the bottom of the email, we have a new (dedicated) cell phone number as well as email address for the neighborhood! We'll still be available at the old numbers and email, just trying to get everything a bit more formal for the neighborhood.

Thanks everyone, I think that covers the topics for this month's meeting. We'll send out the minutes around 09/28, so if you aren't able to attend you can catch up then. Otherwise, hope to see everyone next week!