BSCL met on February 1, 2018 for its monthly meeting.

Minutes

President Chris Siple called the meeting to order at 7:30pm. The minutes of the January meeting were approved as drafted. 

Program

Our program was a presentation by the Arlington County Neighborhood Conservation staff of the final design for our NC project to improve the connection from the end of 7th Street South to the W&OD trail. They were introduced by Neal Martin, Barcroft’s NCAC alternate representative.  The design features removal of some of the barricade and curb to permit a paved, curving trail. There are stormwater control improvements as well, and landscaping to provide a screen. The project should begin during 2018.

Comments were generally favorable except for the plan to locate a bollard in the center of the trail to catch cars that might crash through and end up in Four Mile Run. The center bollard replaced an earlier design that had two posts on each side of the trail. When it became evident that there was a consensus opposing the center bollard County staff said they would revisit that part of the design. There was no vote to approve the final design. 

Since the trail connection improvement encourages more pedestrian and bicycle traffic, residents raised questions about how the County could improve the intersection at 7th Street South and S. Wakefield St. There was discussion, but staff said that improvements there were beyond the scope of this project and could well become a future project.

County staff: 

• Tim McIntosh, NC Coordinator
• Laura Simpson, NC project planner. lsimpson@arlingtonva.us 703-228-3813
• Matt Trout, Engineering
• Eddie Cacavari, Engineering

County web page with the 2013 version of the plan: https://projects.arlingtonva.us/projects/7th-street-south-trail-connector/

Newsletter Delivery

Teresa Saunders and Theresa Schweser, co-Publishers of the Barcroft News, briefed us on the program they have undertaken to improve the distribution of the News. They surveyed block captains, adjusted routes, recruited new captains, adjusted copies printed and are working on regular backup for captains who might be out of town. The result is that the News is now getting delivered well before the monthly meeting. They have questions about the inclusion of apartment buildings that the BSCL Board will address.

Communications

Beth Milton raised a question about how the BSCL should be communicating with younger residents who are not being reached well by the current newsletter, web site and email chat list. Those reach "those who live in the real world" well, but do not connect well with those who live on the phone screens. She suggested that adding Facebook and other social media channels would be more effective for her generation. After considerable discussion a committee was formed to develop a communications plan and look into implementation.

Tee Shirt Project

Elaine Squeri updated us on the tee shirt project.  The design competition drew no new submissions to date, so the committee is looking to update the map design.

Notes and Announcements

BCH maintenance: Randy Swart reported that we will probably have to purchase electric warming trays for renters to use, since we can't break them of the habit of using sterno despite the contract clause that prohibits open flames.

The Spaghetti Dinner was held on Sunday January 28th with good attendance and music by the Spaghetti Tones. Among the stalwarts were Eric Harold, Mike Bruno and Michael Nazaretz with his incomparable band.

The meeting adjourned at 9pm.

Respectfully submitted
Randy Swart
Still awaiting a volunteer to be Recording Secretary