Our regular Wednesday meeting was opened at 12:18 by President Laura Camp.  Prayer was led by Luis, with a song led by Steve.  Today we had 17 of our members present, with 1 visitor, our speaker.  Greetings were extended to our members by Mike Hanifan.

Carolyn Ottenbreit started off the Happy Dollars – with a $20 greenback.  She is super happy that her son will start his college freshman year by going to Princeton.

Todd Lattig came up with $4 because his daughter will be going to Bloomsburg University.  This writer took note that Todd is staying ahead of the game – he was already wearing a sweatshirt from that school.

Luis Ponce handed in $3 – his firm finally got smart and transferred him back here from the Mouth Holly office.  Just think of the time and gas that he will save.

Jim Taylor gave a $5 bill to Laura – it is Judy’s birthday today.

Kathie Shankman gave two bucks for Bob’s talk/lecture he will be giving on April 22 on the subject “Women in Rotary”.

Mike Hanifan also gave a buck – his daughter won first place against Mt. Olive.

John Cuozzo passed in a $5 bill – he is helping his sister with her dog.

President Laura wrapped up the giving festival with a dollar – wedding preparations are going well for her granddaughter’s upcoming wedding.

 

NEW MEMBERSHIP BOOK  -  President Laura noted that the membership book project is under the diligent care of Bob, Carol, and Alice.  When asked if we were going to have new photographs taken for this project – her answer was – we will see.

ROTARY QUILT  -  Denise spoke about the Rotary quilt her friend from the Amish community in Pennsylvania made for us.  This quilt is to be raffled off at the end of June.  Raffle tickets are $10 each.  She said that she had wanted to go around to each of the rotary clubs in the county to promote the ticket sales, but her time is constricted because she has to be driving a bus for both the morning and afternoon shift.  She thanked Buzz for taking the quilt to the Branchville Rotary and was able to sell some raffle tickets there.  The tickets are $10 each.  The proceeds of the raffle will benefit Project Self Sufficiency.

 

The Neighborhood Preservation Program (NPP) began with the passage of the “Maintenance of Viable Neighborhoods Act” in 1975. This legislation established a program of grants to encourage and promote the social and economic strengthening and development of neighborhoods. It was envisioned that this would be achieved through the cooperative, concentrated efforts of residents, local lending institutions, businesses, municipal governments and the State of New Jersey. The NPP takes a comprehensive approach to neighborhood development, which affords municipalities flexible and creative options.

The NPP directly serves targeted neighborhoods throughout the state and provide money to revitalize areas in decline. An overall comprehensive cooperative approach that includes all sectors of the community and promotes unified effort has proven to be a successful strategy.

The implementation plan for Newton was based on 586 responses to questionnaires that were mailed out to all households in Newton.

Focus groups were also formed from local organizations or school.  The Greater Newton Chamber of Commerce, the town Economic Development Commission, the town Historic Preservation Commission, the County Community College, and local civic organizations served as specific focus groups addressing issues their individual bodies are concerned with.

One of the primary trusts of the responses focused on Spring Street.  The suggestions dealt with physical improvements to the storefronts, signage and planters.  Also, the responses dealt with having the sidewalks and streets cleaned more regularly, more waste baskets, and safety and loitering issues. 

The college will be hiring a performing arts instructor and having students come up with ideas for public street art.

The program will also work directly with local commercial building owners to make improvements to those buildings.  The program will be able to provide $5,000 to a property owner for specific façade improvements, with the owner also providing funds for the project.  If the owner puts up $5,000, then the town can go up to $10,000 as the grant.

Business signage is another project that can be funded through this program.  This will help develop new signs that will sympathetic in terms of design to the building and neighborhood the building is located in. 

The town is also proposing to use some of the money to install self-watering planters.  This will eliminate the need for public works employees to go around every morning and water all of the plants hanging on the street lights.  There will be a total of 50 new planters.

Students in the Newton High School horticulture program will be responsible for developing a detailed list of the specific type of plants that should be installed in the commercial areas of town.

The town also proposes to decorate the alleyways that lead from the municipal parking lots to Spring Street. 

Wayne McCabe thanked Jessica for her presentation and the interesting information that was covered concerning significant alterations to historic storefronts, signage and streetscape improvements that will be taking place over the next five years, particularly on Spring and Main Streets.

Jim Taylor nailed the weekly fund for a whopping total of $6.  But when he went and picked a card from the diminishing deck of cards (the Jack of spades) – he once again left the ever-growing pot of $265.50 on the table.

With no other business to come before the club, the meeting was formally adjourned by President Laura at 1:15 pm.

 

Respectfully submitted

Wayne T. McCabe