Morgantown Municipal Bike Board

 

Regular Meeting

 

Public Safety Building

 

October 05, 2006

 

New Action Items:

Due date

Responsibility

Action Item

11/2/06

Jonathon Rosenbaum

1.    Finalize question for the LWV

10/19/06

Wamsley and Lozier

2.    Letter to MPO Board leadership

10/19/06

Reger-Nash

3.    Letter to WV gov’t officials re: MPO

10/19/06

Rye

4.    Letter to Dominion Post and Daily Athenaeum re: MPO

11/2/06

Good

5.    Find out info re: radio call-in show

11/2/06

SRTS sub-board

6.    Finalize a plan

11/2/06

Bike Board

7.    Read the charter of the Bike Board, as well as the Bike Friendly Cities website, in order to formulate some ideas for a vision statement

11/2/06

Hein, Pearson, Gmeindl

8.    Implement an email list for the easy communication between Bike Board members

 

 

Meeting Minutes:

 

The first monthly meeting of the Morgantown Municipal Bike Board was called to order at 6:35 p.m. at the Public Safety Building by chairman Frank Gmeindl with the following members attending:

 

Greg Good,  Don Dickerson, Betsy Shogren, Nancy LaRocque, Nick Hein, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Bill Reger-Nash,  Jim Rye, Chip Wamsley, Don Spencer, John Lozier, Tyler Pearson (representative from the WVU Cycling Club), and Frank Gmeindl.  Members missing were Bruce Summers, Anita Mayer, Marilyn Newcome, Sonitt Bhatt, and Rick Martin. 

 

Greg Good volunteered to be the official timekeeper for the meetings. 

 

à Agenda Item 2 (agenda):

-All members present agreed to follow the given agenda. 

 

à Agenda Items 3-5 (MPO items):

-Bill Reger-Nash reported that the Citizen’s Advisory Board meeting on 10/04/06 was well-attended (200+ people).  Emotions concerning the MPO’s proposed plan ran high, and the format of the meeting did not really encourage constructive discussion.  The take-home message from the meeting is that non-motorized transportation needs more and sustained attention.  Constant advocacy is needed.  Don Spencer reported that the MPO board decided that morning that the Beechurst portion of the MPO will be included.  However, the final plan will be approved on 11/30/06.  This leaves 2 months for the Bike Board to make efforts to ensure that 10 cents of every transportation dollar spent on the MPO project will be spent on non-motorized transportation (specifically improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists).  It was decided that Bike Board members would compose and submit letters to key members of the MPO board and the legislature to emphasize the importance and desire for this 10% (see “new action items,” below). 

 

à Agenda Item 6 (question for League of Women Voters to ask candidates):

-By Jonathon Rosenbaum’s initiative, the League of Women Voters (LWV) has agreed to allow the Bike Board to pose a question to candidates at the upcoming "Meet your Candidates" forum sponsored by the LWV.  Possible questions include:

a)      What is your vision for bicycling in our area.  If elected, what would you do to realize your vision?

b)      Do you think local government is doing enough to make Monongalia County more bikeable/walkable?  If not, what would you propose?

c)      How do you propose to create a transportation mix that we can afford?

d)      Federal policy endorsed by Morgantown City Council calls for spending a dime out of every transportation dollar to make the community more walkable and bikeable.  How would you spend that dime?

 

General consensus of the Bike Board was that “d” was the best option.  Rosenbaum will finalize this question, and pose it to the bike board for final confirmation before submitting to the LWV. 

 

à Agenda Item 7 (Safe Routes to Schools sub-board report):

-Nothing to report—they will meet soon.

 

à Agenda Item 8 (Bike Board Plan):

-Chairman Gmeindl presented a proven comprehensive outline for reaching long-term goals.  For more details, please see his powerpoint presentation which very nicely details the necessary process of long-term planning.

            The presentation was received well, and the consensus of the Board is that time spent planning for the future is time well-spent and will ultimately help us to reach our goals in the most efficient manner possible.  Thus, Gmeindl’s planning structure will be adopted for the Morgantown Bike Board. 

Next meeting will be devoted to developing a vision statement. Quickly brainstormed ideas include working to make Morgantown a Bike Friendly City (maybe start at the bronze level and work towards platinum) and developing a method for dealing with “ripe bananas”. 

 

à Agenda Item 9 (New Action Items):

1)      MPO

The following letters will be written in order to express the Bike Board’s concerns regarding the MPO’s 2030 Regional Transportation Plan:

a.       Chip Wamsley and John Lozier will write a letter to the MPO board leadership (Ron Justice, Ansel Kennedy, Mike Kelly)

b.      Bill Reger-Nash will write a letter to the commissioner of highways, Maddox, Joe Manchin, and Don Williams

c.       Jim Rye will write a letter to the editors of the Dominion Post and the Daily Athenaeum

    Greg Good will find out information regarding a radio call-in show.

 

2)      Safe Routes to Schools

Greg Good and the other members of the SRTS sub-committee (Nick, Rich, Sonitt, and now Tyler) will meet soon to finalize a plan.

 

3)      Long-term plan

The entire Bike Board will review the charter in order to generate ideas for a vision statement.  Also, Nick Hein will send out the link to the Bike Friendly Cities website to acquire further ideas. 

 

4)      Email list

Tyler, Nick Hein and Frank will work together to implement an email list for the Bike Board. 

 

 

 

à Agenda Item 10 (Meeting Evaluation):

-Nick Hein suggested that we devote 5 minutes at the end of the meeting for announcements concerning upcoming events, etc.

 

-Positives comments regarding the conduction of this regular Bike Board meeting included the following:

 

-Areas that could be improved included the following:

 

 

Please remember that the regularly scheduled Bike Board meetings are open to the public—bring your friends!

 

The next regularly scheduled meeting is November 2, 2006 at 6:30 pm, at the Public Safety Building.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 pm.

 

 

 

Betsy Shogren

10/10/06