These minutes are considered draft until approved at a subsequent ebbc meeting. Please let me know if you find any important inaccuracies to correct.
East Bay Bicycle Coalition – March 20, 2007
7 pm – Board Meeting
Board members present: Craig, Steve, Ole, Leo, Rick, Dave F, Eric, Dave C, Tom
Others: Robert
Treasurer’s report
Rick presented the P&L statement 1/1-3/16/07, and the current balance sheet. He thanked our bookkeeper for her good work.
Robert updates cost for next printing of West of the Hills Map, with an initial run of 5000, followed after changes by another 15000
Quark software purchase
As approved at our last meeting, Robert has spent $200 on software. Jon Spangler will use this for the newsletter.
BTWD brochures
Robert plans to send our brochures and business-reply mailers to ~750 employers in Alameda County for BTWD, and hopes to provide some to Costa Contra County as well. He requests approval to print 2000 of our brochures and business-reply mailers of these for BTWD mailers – APPROVED
Dave F says he has been assured that 511contracosta has no problem with our including our brochures
Cycle California Magazine advertisement
Steve reports that Bob Mack would run an ad for EBBC for a year (worth $1k) in exchange for us doing something to promote the magazine (e.g. handing out the magazine at Bikestation etc.). Robert notes need for someone to deal with details, artwork, etc. Steve will work on this.
DB server problems
Robert reports that our server crashed on 2/2/07; no data were lost. Data have been moved (Dave C and Raines) to the Bikestation; there are continuing log-in problems. Ricardo (BikeAlameda membership director) wants to be involved. Dave C. does not have an explanation as to why problems are occurring; notes that Monday and Tuesday evenings are especially problematic. Eric suggests migrating database to EBBC server, which is professionally managed; discussion of steps to be taken.
East Bay Bicycle Coalition – March 20, 2007
7:30 pm – General Membership Meeting
Announcements
Jen Jackson announces Walk Oakland Bike Oakland – activists who came around Whole Foods Project, organizing around ped and bike issues, neighborhood quality of life. Will continue monitoring the Whole Foods Project. Also looking at better parking for cyclists as parking meters are removed, and making sure Oakland is looking after bike and ped concerns. They want to work with EBBC. Meets 2nd Wed of the month. For more information: walkoaklandbikeoakland.org
Jennifer Stanley announces May 1-2 Pedal Power, organized by CBC, for lobbying in Sacramento about legislation.
Robert reports that TALC summit this weekend, with bike parking. Bill Pinkham will attend. Next month we will start to be busy with various organized rides.
Minutes from 2/20/07 meeting – APPROVED
BTWD May 17
Alameda County – Dave C. unveiled the posters, and says people can sign up for team bike challenge at 511.org soon, also make nominations for bike commuter of the year.
Contra Costa County — Nancy Cuneo (510 215-3035) explains that she is working on the west side and Matt Wood on east side of CoCoCo. Pushing the bike team challenge; Richmond and San Pablo have city teams already. An event is planned for rollout of Richmond Greenway. There will be tune-up events at bike shops.
Matt says organization has carpool, vanpool, guaranteed ride home incentives. They are working on something for bikes – pilot project for bicycle commuting, in which 10 selected people will pledge to commute May-September by bike, hopefully including transit. They will receive free Road 1 bike safety training (April 21 and 28), and will be paid for transit costs and/or per-mile bike commuting, as incentives. Matt will keep track of the participants through October and re-evaluate; he hopes to find funding for the future on a more frequent basis. Matt is planning to get LCI certification so he can teach classes in the future.
Ron Bishop has been offering a course in Walnut Creek, but has not had enough people sign up; he will discuss with Matt and Nancy.
Ricardo (from Bike Alameda) reports that BikeAlameda is having a Road 1 day 1 class in April, with day 2 in May.
April 14 is Yellow Jackets kick-off ride – could be a good time to publicize bike safety classes.
Legislative issues
There are 9 bills of interest: AB 1358,AB 57, AB 534, AB 478, AB 60, AB 1581, AB 437, AB 1472, SB 33. All 9 of these are on our website with information, brief summaries, and links. Main focus for lobbying will be AB 1358, Complete Streets, as mechanism for Routine Accommodation on a state-wide basis. Robert hopes many people will write letters in support of 1358, as well as 534 and 57 (which provide important funding). Notes best thing is to send a fax; next best is a letter, 3rd best is an email; phone calls are problematic because not assured of any written record of the communication. He would like EBBC to support all 9 bills, but especially for 1358.
Jennifer notes that 478 is about to go to committee, so letters are needed soon.
Motion to support all of these by letter: APPROVED.
New EBBC web site
Eric has done a great deal of work, and the website is in beta. Notes first update about 5 years ago by Jennifer Stanley. Content is mostly the same, organization similar. Changes behind the scenes – a modern webpage management system, so easy to put up content (including multimedia) and links without technical savvy. People could collaborate on the newsletter at a special area of website, rather than sending attachments by email. Events calendar currently involves various transformations for newsletter and website, but this will be easier to update with the new website. It is a registration-based system, with various mechanisms to prevent abuse. The site allows users to vote on content as interesting, giving it higher priority; it also allows more democratic (distributed) management of website, as opposed to just one or two people controlling it. This is exploratory, we will see what happens, hopeful that this will be a successful and positive model for our membership and will take workload off people like Robert and Jon.
Robert suggests we each try adding content; his experience is that the new website is very usable.
Speaker – Jason Patton, Oakland’s new Bicycle/Ped Program Manager, to discuss Bicycle Plan Revision
The current plan was adopted in 1999 as part of the general plan. Work on a revision began in 2005 with the hiring of consultants, most notably Carol Levine. A citizen advisory committee has been meeting monthly since April 2005, and a draft plan and draft EIR were released early in March 2007. Public review and meetings are ahead on the draft and then final EIR, and it is hoped the final plan will be adopted by the City Council in September 2007.
According to the vision statement:
Oakland will be a city where bicycling is fully integrated into daily life, providing transportation and recreation that are both safe and convenient.
Jason described a series of goals, emphasizing infrastructure (especially a bikeway network) but also including education and coordination. As a near-term milestone, Jason hopes to have Oakland become a Bicycle-Friendly Community (as recognized by the League of American Bicyclists) by 2012.
More information about the bicycle plan (including a copy of his presentation, to be posted in early April), is available at www.oaklandpw.com/bicycling/bikeplan.htm
Next EBBC meeting – 4/17, Rockridge Branch Library, 7:30 General Membership Meeting