East Mountain Neighborhood Association

Our Lady of Lebanon Church

8 East Mountain Road

Waterbury, CT 06706

30 Total Attendees

The meeting began with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Patrick Norton.

Our speaker this evening was Mr Jack Barlow. He came to discuss with us the building directly across the street will be sold. Currently there are two buildings. One is rented by Jeff who stores his tents in there.

In the other building in the past was rented to Home Care Professionals. There once was a store and pharmacy there. Originally it was one room school house. The most recent renters are Resource Employment. (Bastico). Mr Barlow just wanted to let us know what was happening to the building. He also is concerned about the integrity of our neighborhood and wants to keep it that way.

Jean Guisto gave the treasurer’s report. Our membership money keeps coming as well as brick orders. Our last fundraiser the Country Breakfast also brought in more funds. Our current bank balance is $ 9,348.07 less scholarship expenses of $ 500.00 less anticipated brick expenses $ 1,200.00 approx. A motion was made by Turner Langdon to accept the treasurer’s report into the record and it was seconded by Bill Burnes.

Nancy Ptak gave the secretary’s report. A hard copy of the minutes for last month was available for review for those that do not have email A sympathy card was sent to Dave Watterworth for the death of his father.

We welcome Patricia Nurmi and Cindy Riccio at 99 Eastside Blvd to our neighborhood.

Joe Padua was not available to attend our meeting but he gave Patrick Norton an update. There have been some downtown burgalaries. The police department will be starting seat belt checks on Hamilton Avenue so CLICK IT OR TICKET!!!!!

Michael Ptak gave an update on the park renovations. The second coat has been put down on the basketball court. Rich Robbins called on the electrical outlets and there will be 3 outlets installed. The work should end by the spring. WE HOPE. There will be benches around the brick wall area near where the bricks will be inlaid. A question was posed about benches near the playscape. We are unsure as to where other benches will be placed around the park area. Turner Langdon suggested we promote a concert series for the summer at our park. Maybe we can have the local businesses sponsor them so it would not be a direct cost to our organization and it would promote good will on the businesses to pay for local talent in the area to play for us. Turner Langdon reluctantly declined to chair that committee.

Ned Mencio gave a recap of our recent Country Breakfast fundraiser. We had a lot of volunteers show up for set up on Friday and early Saturday morning. We received donations from Olivers Supermarker $ 100.00 Naugatuck Savings Bank $ 100.00 and Peoples Bank $ 100.00. The eggs were donated by Doyle’s Farm. The fruit was donated by Jarjura’s Marker. There were advanced ticket sales of 110 adults and 10 children. Some of whom did not show up. Secondly we had a poor turnout for walk ins. It is disheartening to know the number of families who live in East Mountain and the number of participants who turned out for the event. Ned felt that some contributing factors were: because it was held on the day after Halloween, people were tired from the night before, the sign was cut down and removed before the event, and the overall apathy of our neighbors that did not want to participate. Even though we made a profit 140 in tickets is a poor turnout for neighborhood. Some suggestions for future events were putting up a sign at June’s house on Hamilton Avenue and Peach Orchard Road., Jean Guisto suggested we tie balloons up on the day of an event to alert people. Mr’Carroll commented that he runs two fundraiser breakfasts a year at ST Peter and Paul’s and he has seen a smaller turnout this year due to the economy. Another suggestion was made to have a family plan price. Mike Ptak suggested we not do a breakfast every year maybe every other year. Bob McGovern said he did not hear about the breakfast. He does not drive by East Mountain Road where the sign was posted and he did not check the website. June suggested we find out what other

Neighborhoods are doing for other ideas. We thought that would be too political.

The East Mountain residents did come through and support us when we were fighting the condos. There has not been any other neighborhood organization who has raised the money we raised for that cause.

Tony Loechner commented that our membership sales are down from last year at this time. Jean commented that she still receives checks in the mail sporadically.

Patrick Norton suggested Ned and Mike do a commercial to help spark involvement. Maureen Meade suggests we send self addressed stamped envelopes for a better turnout. We did try that one year.

Mr O’Connor Sr, said his neighbors think that the city puts up the flags in our neighborhood. He suggests someone write a letter to the newspaper to tell them all that we do.

Under Old Business, Bob Perigard said thank you to the organization for his gas donation for EMNA events. Also June has volunteered to collect 1 lb bags of regular coffee for the troops in IRAQ. Anyone wishing to make a donation can drop them off at June’s house at 1300 Hamilton Avenue and she will see to it that it gets to the Prospect Pages. Also anyone who wants to bring them to the next meeting in December can also do so.

Under New Business, The Tree Lighting will be held on December 7^th at 5:30 at the Golf Course. Ned will call Santa to see if that fits into his schedule. Canned Goods were suggested to bring. A sign up sheet was passed around for dessert sign ups. Turner volunteered to call Teri for the hot chocolate. Since we share the cost every other year it is our turn to pay for the drinks this year. Erin and Patrick will not be available this year but they will purchase the popcorn balls and candy canes this year and drop them off to the Ptak house. Our holiday party will be on December 17^th 2008. We will suspend hospitality for this meeting since we are having a pot luck. A sign up sheet was passed for anyone wishing to bring a dish.

Lastly, we heard from Patrick Zailkas and have a refund coming from the $1,000.00 retainer we sent him in the amount of approximately $ 625.00 MERRY CHRISTMAS. Coming up in the not too distant future is our Casino Trip chaired by Nezi. A sign up sheet was passed for some time in March if anyone is interested. Keep it in mind.

Since we have no one contesting the officers, Jean will continue as Treasurer and Turner Langdon will replace Marguerite Smith since she resigned starting in January 2009.

The meeting was ajourned Jean made a motion to ajourn and Evelyn seconded the motion.