Morgantown Municipal Bike Board

Organizational Meeting

City Council Chambers

August 28, 2006

Meeting Minutes:

The first meeting of the Morgantown Municipal Bike Board was called to order at 6:50 p.m. at the City Council Chambers by convener Don Spencer with the following members attending:

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

The membership reviewed the Bike Board Procedural Guidelines prepared for the Bike Board by the Traffic Commission and reviewed by the City Council and the existing bicycle ordinance which is part of the Morgantown City Code.

Thereafter the membership discussed ways of planning to do develop a planning with priorities for the Board’s work. The concepts expressed were as follows:

• Identify things which can be prioritized in terms of available time and resources.
• Work with other interest groups (such as Main Street Morgantown) so that recommendation can be made with which they can assist.
• Focus on items needs and opportunities which have already been identified in the guidelines.
• Assign items to committees – divide and conquer.
• Establish understanding of existing latitude in State Code and work for changes within that Code with other communities.
• Identify critical issues and decide on best approaches for the biggest jobs.
• Make distinctions between strategies and tactics in the methods that we identify.
• Work on a clear mission statement so that we agree on what we want for Morgantown – the rest will follow.
• Need to focus on specifics for a planning process at the next meeting.
• Need to incorporate the very detailed information gathered in a charette processes organized by Greg Good and others two years ago at an appropriate time. In the meantime, Greg will summarize the material.
• Move in the traditional path of setting a vision, a mission, goals, and objectives.
• Create a strategic plan before an operations plan.

In the election of first officers, the membership elected Frank Gmeindl as Chair, Don Dickerson, as Vice Chair, and Betsy Shogren, as Secretary. The possibility of requesting more than one representative from the Youth Commission was discussed.

The first Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m. was established as the regular meeting time for Board meetings until further notice. Meeting will be held at the City Hall or in other City facilities as scheduling may require. Agendas and minutes will be typed, copied and distributed by Karen Brown of the Engineering Department upon request by the officers.

In response to a discussion of web page and list serve resources, Spencer stated that this information will be available from Jeff Mikorski, Assistant City Manager. It was agreed that a discussion of the League of American Bicyclist’s “Bicycling Friendly Cities Program” would be included on the agenda for the next meeting. Nick Hein distributed copies of the 2006 Bicycling Friendly Communities program report

The next meeting was set for September 7 at 6:30 p.m. at City Council Chambers (unless the City Monthly Schedule requires that adjustments be made.)

The meeting was adjourned at 8 p.m.

Attached: Bike Board Membership List

Don Spencer

9/4/06.