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Advocacy Meeting Notes - 4/16/08

Attending: Ray Delgado, Sharon Hermach, Steve Sinderson, Bob Hoel, Rebecca Clancy, Ken Glicka , Pamela Brookstein (CBF), Dave Simmons (guest from Elk Grove Village) Mark Heyse (guest from Villa Park) and presenting guest Ed Barsotti (LIB). Our guests for both Villa Park and Elk Grove are interested in starting advocacy work in their communities. Note: Guests can become committee members by repeated appearances. 

We reviewed the following community contacts made during the past month:
Elmhurst Alderman

Steve Morley – Steve Sinderson
Steve Hipskind – Bob Hoel
Norm Leader – Joanne DeZur
Mark Mulliner – Bob Hoel

This brings our Council contacts to 6 of 14 Alderman on the Council.

Park District

Jim Rogers – Deputy Director

Elmhurst Chamber of Commerce

John Quigley – President
Recommend we become a member ($135)

Mayor Tom Marcucci

Villa Park Trustee

Dave Hegland

All contacts were very interested and generally supportive of our advocacy efforts to the extent of brainstorming issues with the committee members.

We have a pretty good network of officials in place and will not plan specifics contacts going forward at this time.

At an earlier meeting we had put together our talking points and posted them at the website. Bob Hoel suggested that we need to review the prioritization of the list, putting a new one at the front of the list: develop a safe environment for kids to bike in. Rebecca has agreed to take this on. Ed cautioned that we need to be somewhat careful in that we don’t want to perpetuate the public thinking that “bikes are for kids.” Good point that will be kept in mind as this is worked on.

Bike-friendly assessment bike ride for Elmhurst officials. It seems this is still on target for June and we will begin working with a CBF transportation planner on routing. The point was made by Pamela that the should not just focus on the bad elements but must include the favorable areas and those where modifications can be made at small expense. It was agreed that the ride would not be open to the public and should include elected and appointed city officials as well as our committee. Since both Pamela and Ed have the most experience with these rides their input is especially valuable. They pointed out that Friday is a good day, probably in the morning. The ride should be organized by the city. I don’t think that will be a problem given the contacts that we have made.

Ed Barsotti lead a discussion on a list of items the committee felt should be “deliverables” of a Bike Task Force. The discussion was based on LIB’s soon to be released “Guide to Municipal Bicycle and Pedestrian Planning.” The notes of this discussion will be typed up and delivered soon to the committee for review and comment.

Outreach items

  1. EPD Family Bike-a-thon, May 17, 10 a.m. to noon. Safety Town by the ElmhurstDepot. Looking for at least 6 volunteers to cover the Bike Club table and answer questions on biking in the community. Bob will put out a request for volunteers before the next meeting but it was pointed out that personal appeals to selected Club members may be more effective. We will also be brought up at the next full Club meeting. This will provide exposure in Elmhurst and recruit new Club members. The Club has already been included on Park District Literature as sponsors of the event.
  2. Cool Cities Green Fest (August 9), next organizing meeting on April 23, 7 pm, Elmhurst Public Library. I will attend this meeting as the Club rep and this will list the Club as an event sponsor. This meeting will help define what role we can plan. The organizers have suggested a family-oriented bike ride would be really great.
  3. Bike to Metra Week. June 7 – 13 This is an offshoot of Bike to Work Week because many suburbanites take the train to work, already a green-friendly method. This is being coordinated by Pamela (CBF) and will cover 10 Metra stations in the western suburbs:
June 9 - Naperville (both stations)
June 10 - Lisle, Winfield
June 11 - Wheaton, Downers Grove
June 12 - Elmhurst, Hinsdale
June 13 - Lombard, Villa Park

Like last year, the Club will minimally cover the Elmhurst station with a table and Club literature, another opportunity to recruit members and advocate for bike-friendly communities. Members will be welcome to help at other stations as well. (Thanks to Larry G for volunteering already to help in Lombard.) We will start asking for volunteers at the May Club meeting.

Communications. An important element of what the committee is doing will be to get the word about biking out to the public. Our thanks again to Sharon and Cindy for their excellent work managing the web site and responsiveness to requests to post materials.

We need to start putting together material for press releases to the community newspapers. These articles will be designed to educate both cyclists and motorists on bike safety and bike issues. Ed and Pamela have both offered the use of already prepared materials at the LIB and CBF websites, respectively. Ray was asked if he could find a new PR person for the Club to help with our communications efforts.

    Meeting Assignments
  • Rebecca will review our talking points and prioritize them for republishing on the website.
  • All those who have spoken with a city official…please maintain your contact and keep the group updated.
  • Bob will continue working with CBF (Pamela) on a bike-friendly assessment bike ride.
  • Bob will write up our list of what we want out of a Bike Task Force based on our discussion with Ed.
  • Ray will recruit a new Club PR person.
  • Keep the creative juices flowing.

Next meeting will be May 14, at 7:30 pm.

Bob Hoel
(bob.hoel_at_comcast.net)

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