Community Association

We attended our very first community association meeting last night. It was extremely educational.  First of all, I do not ever want to be the lone guy who supports the 300 person megabar that is coming in.  Secondly, I learned that our community association signs MOU's with local bars and restaurants.


The point of the MOU seems to be to make sure that they are not going to destroy our community with having people come to park in the neighborhood and get drunk and break our stuff.  Since I spent last Saturday morning awake at 3am as a very loud fight happened right outside our window, I'm starting to see the concerns about larger bars, etc. coming into the neighborhood. 


I also learned that I can call 311 to complain about potholes, so they are about to get a large number of complaints about potholes in the bike lanes.  We also got to meet our local police officer, who is returning to the force after being hit by a drunk driver last January and a year-long recovery.  He seemed nice and I look forward to seeing him in the neighborhood.


The community association meeting was a bit demographically varied, between older folks who have lived here for twenty years, and the young guy who was the only one who was psyched for the open air beer garden they want to put in that holds 90 people.  (For the record, I'm only psyched if they serve vegetarian brats and cider.)  Unfortunately, when the young guy stood up, he got yelled at by a bunch of folks, demanding to know whether he was a member of the association, whether he was a homeowner, and how long had he lived there for. 


It was very interesting to listen to the discussion of the neighborhood, because we supported one bar coming in that is going to be pretty upscale and local foodie.  One lady asked what kind of food would be served and the owner listed a bunch of too-hip-for-me places and she said, "yeah, I don't know what those places are" and then he specified it as "new American" and a west-coast concept that originated in Northern California.  The new bar and the mega-bar are listed as having the same capacity, but the big issue with the mega-bar seems to be being built to hold 300 people, even though they have agreed to self-imposed limits of capacity. 


The most exciting news for us was that our local dive bar is going to be taken over by a local bar/restaurant which will be very cool.  I'm hoping that they will a) serve food and b) have vegetarian food, because our local establishments don't have a ton of vegetarian stuff on their menu.  I'm excited to go to another smaller meeting next week to hear what the new owners have to say.  This does concern me a bit from a gentrification perspective, and also because we moved to the area because I don't always want to pay $14 for a cocktail.  I'm also a little worried that the patrons who hang out down the street won't have anywhere to go if they get priced out of the neighborhood joints when they are sold, and doesn't everyone deserve a place where everybody knows their name?  However, none of those folks were at the community association meeting.