West Central Carbondale Neighborhood Association Newsletter
Fall 2004
Fall 2004
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Neighborhood Watch Expansion: A group of new Neighborhood Watch Captains met with Community Resource Officer Randy Mathis at the home of Dennis and Judy Leitner on November 15, 2004. The purpose of the meeting was to acquaint the new captains with their responsibilities, which include contacting the neighbors in their designated watch areas and scheduling meetings and/or other activities to encourage a greater feeling of "connection" among neighbors. The hope is that neighbors who know each other are more likely to watch out for each other, and are more likely to call the police to report suspicious activity on their block. For many years the only official Neighborhood Watch in the West Central neighborhood has been on Elm Street between Forest and Poplar. The current expansion of the Neighborhood Watch represents an increased awareness in our area of the importance of "community feeling" among neighbors. Hats off to the new captains! Please support their efforts to organize your block by signing up to participate and by attending events that they schedule. A special note to Cherry Street residents: we are still hoping that one of you will come forward as the leader on your block. Please contact Robin Russell if you would like to join this groovy group.
The Neighborhood Watch Captains are:
Becky Baker
103 S. Maple
529-3382
Dennis and Julieta Leitner
704 S. Forest
549-8585
jujuden@aol.com
Kevin Grahm
511 W. Walnut
529-7037
kgcarbon@neondsl.com
Leslie Brown
109 S. Springer
351-8257
steinboc@siu.edu
Diane Cheak
506 W. Walnut
529-4434
sucasa@neondsl.com
Robin Russell
702 W. Elm
549-8036
robinr702@aol.com
Lily Boruszkowski
505 S. James
457-5803
lborus@siu.edu
Bryan Crow
112 S. Forest
529-1861
bcrow@siu.edu
Dave Torrance
402 S. Forest
559-7771
dfrank@hotmail.com
Board Member Contact Information:
Area Code 618.
Mailing address: Carbondale, IL 62901
Jane Adams
702 W. Cherry
457-8228
jadams@siu.edu
Sandy Litecky
603 W. Walnut
549-9571
s.litecky@mchsi.com
Kathy Benedict
206 S. Poplar
549-0076
a067346@allstate.com
Hugh Muldoon
700 W. Elm
549-1051
huju@midwest.net
Lilly Boruszkowski
505 S. James
457-5803
lborus@siu.edu
Mary O'Hara
906 W. Schwartz
457-0424
mohara@midwest.net
Caryl Cox
705 W. Elm St.
549-3986
tomcaryl@midwestmail.com
Robin Russell
702 W. Elm St.
549-8036
robin702@aol.com
Bryan Crow
112 S. Forest
529-1861
bcrow@siu.edu
Scott Schuett
710 W. Elm St.
549-8753
peacenik02@planet-save.com
Yuki Kobiyama
710 W. Elm St.
549-8753
peacenik02@planet-save.com
Ann Wallis
713 W. Elm
529-8023
eawkw@yahoo.com
Our winter staple, dinosaur kale, which provides us essential vitamins and minerals during the cold months, is also housing and fattening green cabbageworms in the chilled air. The lovely blossoms of the snow peas are in full bloom right now, and have started bearing the precious fruits that hang beneath their delicate flowers. Recently transplanted baby lettuce and arugula look a bit delicate in the cold rain, and the daikon radishes, turnips and beets are slowly but surely increasing their root mass under the cozy, mulched soil. Late summer seeded, winter cilantro is enjoying cool and wet weather, though it was quite fussy and struggled to cope with the warm spring. Hot summer lover green peppers are quietly waiting for the end of their life cycle while putting forth last efforts for their fruit production hoping for the survival of the next generation.
One day my neighbor, Fern, told me that her gardener friend thinks this will be a cold one according to her observation of the timing in which the spiders laid eggs this year. When my husband and I visited his family in the Kankakee area, a local newspaper reported a story of squirrels burrowing into Halloween pumpkins and eating their seeds suggesting the possibility of a harsh winter. Sure enough, squirrels in or yard have started eating the ornamental squash at our front door. I learned quite a bit of natural wisdom from my grandparents back home when I was a child, but I don't know much about folk tales in this country yet. I am looking forward to seeing how this winter progresses. In the meantime, before a hard frost comes, I still have a few tasks in the garden; adding more leaf mulch to enrich the organic matter in the soil and feed the earthworms, finish collecting seeds from our left over garden vegetables, and planting garlic after cleaning up tomato vines.
After all, the winter garden surprises me for its own cheerfulness. Under the silent surface, it protects and nourishes any lives on earth, and gives us clues of earth's promise for the continuation of life.
Yuki Kobiyama
Peacenik02@planet-save.com
Housing & Neighborhood Committee: You may remember the Carbondale Conversations meetings that took place in the spring of this year. Several committees emerged as the outgrowths of that process, one of which is the Housing and Neighborhood Committee, the function of which is to examine ways to make housing and neighborhoods in Carbondale more vibrant, attractive and robust. One aspect of the neighborhood vitality this committee is addressing concerns run-down rental properties. The committee has discussed ways of protecting renter's rights and clarifying their responsibilities as a way of imbuing in them a sense of ownership and pride in our neighborhoods. To this end, the committee has examined changes they would like to implement in the municipal code. Two of the proposed changes are: 1. Any hidden rental costs must be shown prominently n a lease in bold print and on the first or second page of the lease to be initialed by both tenant and landlord. 2. There must be a statement in the lease indicating the zoning of the property and what this means in terms of the legal number of occupants, also to be initialed by both landlord and tenant. Committee members acknowledge that similar measures problem tenants need to be considered. All of the measures will be presented to the Human Relations Commission prior to recommendations being made to Carbondale City Council.
Neighborhood Cleanup: I think Dr. David Suzuki says it best, "by inspiring friends and family to incorporate environmental values into their daily decisions, we expand the protection of the nature instead of its destruction". This passage may seem irrelevant for what I am about to propose, but please entertain me for the next few lines. All of us on a weekly basis purge our homes of trash, setting it out to the curb for the refuse collectors. You know the saying, "out of sight, out of mind". Our trash finds it new home in a place once teeming with hundreds of plants and animals. Trash does not disappear; t only migrates from place to place, following our (human) footsteps. I am reminded of this on a daily basis as I walk or ride my bicycle to work. Broken glass, plastic shopping bags, fast food containers, missing homework assignments speckle the pavements and line the sidewalks. I realize that our beautiful neighborhood is home to a variety of people with different prioritized values. However, I think we can do great things by keeping the trash cleaned up and encouraging our neighbors to recycle more and discard less. Many of the orphaned trash parcels I witness in our streets and sidewalks are entire recyclable or reusable.
As a member of the neighbor association's board concerned with our environment, I want to keep our homes clean while helping keep our wild places free of wayward refuse. I propose conducting a neighborhood wide clean-up day to take place every other month beginning in January 2005. Many volunteers from Elm Street have agreed to help with this, but I think it would be great if at least one person from the other streets in the neighborhood joined our efforts. I envision Sunday mornings beginning at 9am and finishing around 12pm as a good time to get some exercise and chit chat with our neighbors, and cleaning up our neighborhood. Our first clean up day is scheduled for Sunday January 30, 2005. Please join in keeping our neighborhood beautiful while caring for this patient and life-giving planet.
For more information contact me, Scott Schuette at 712 W. Elm St, by phone at (618) 549-8753, or by e-mail: peacenik02@planet-save.com. In closing, I would like to refer again to Dr. Suzuki when he asks, "what kind of world do we want to leave for future generations?" Thank you for your time.
Scott Schuette