Over the Fence - Fall 2005

2024 Meeting Schedule

Normally meetings alternate between
Alice West Fleet Elementary Library
and the
Public Montessori School of Arlington Library.
Meetings start at 7:00 PM.

Please check the newsletter for details.

Fall 2005

from ARLINGTON HEIGHTS CIVIC ASSOCIATION

President’s Message

I'm excited to announce that Arlington Heights will be having its first block party in quite a few years. The block party will be on Saturday October 22 (with a rain date of October 23) from 1-5PM in the 600 block of S. Highland Street. We will have grills, tables, sodas and possibly a moon bounce and ice cream. Families will be asked to bring their own main lunch item (grills will be available), to contribute a side dish and to donate $5 to the event. Many thanks to Megan Booth for organizing this event.

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, October 18th at 7:30PM at Patrick Henry Elementary School. We will have two presentations. The first will be from Michael Leventhal. He will be speaking about the possible designation of Arlington Heights as a historical district. After that we will hear from Jim Hamre, the Arlington Transit Program supervisor, about a number of bus service changes (Metrobus and ART) that will affect our neighborhood, particularly along Columbia Pike.

I'm also excited to announce that after a lot of positive feedback from neighbors and the county, we've submitted our Parks Enhancement Grant application. The Park Enhancement Grant (PEG) program funds a number of small improvements (up to a maximum of $12,000) to parks and other publicly owned land every year. This year we applied for $10,625 to landscape the west side of Irving Street from Arlington Blvd to South 2nd Street. This is the land adjacent to Thomas Jefferson Middle school, just outside the fence line. This would be a very visual improvement to one of the main entrances to our neighborhood, as well as a great improvement to the TJ walking trail which runs along side the project area. We're very hopeful that our application will be approved. Many thanks to Cathy Camp for the extraordinary amount of effort she put in to pulling this application together. Also many thanks to Susie Ensign for designing our proposed landscaping plan.

If you want to get more involved in the neighborhood, we're currently looking for volunteers for a number of positions. We still need one more representative for the Columbia Pike Implementation Team (CPIT). We also are looking for more volunteers to represent the neighborhood on the Neighborhood Conservation Advisory Committee (NCAC). I would like to thank Betty Siegel, who has done an outstanding job as our representative. She is no longer able to attend the meetings, so we need someone to step in so we can keep getting neighborhood improvement projects like the new street lights on South 6th Street. Also for NCAC, the county wants to begin planning for our third highest priority project, so we're looking for a block captain for this project on Irving Street. All of these opportunities are described in more detail later in the newsletter, but please contact me if you're interested in any of them.

I hope to see many of you at both our coming meeting and block party.

Adam Croswell
President

AHCA Meeting Agenda
Tuesday, October 18, 2005, 7:30PM