December 2025 General Body Mtg. Minutes

Draft Minutes, Pending Approval

GENERAL BODY MEETING MINUTES
West End Neighborhood Development Inc.
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025, 7:00 PM
Virtual Meeting

2025 Officers

Marquise “Tony” McNeal, President – president@atlantawestend.com
John Mitchell, 1st Vice President – firstvp@atlantawestend.com
Kimberly Carlisle, 2nd Vice President – secondvp@atlantawestend.com
Troy Farina, Treasurer – treasurer@atlantawestend.com
Dave Mardis, Secretary – secretary@atlantawestend.com
Melba T. Furlow, Recording Secretary recordingsecretary@atlantawestend.com
Kim Scott, Past President – kimscottmanagement@gmail.com
Terry Ross, Parliamentarian – t-ross01@hotmail.com

 

INTRODUCTION (Tony McNeal, President)  

CALL TO ORDER  –  7:04 PM

• Welcome
• Motion to adopt December Agenda properly seconded and approved. (Dave Mardis and Barbara Mislan)
  Favor: 21  Oppose: 0   Abstain: 0
• Motion to approve November 2025 Minutes properly seconded and approved. (Brooks Payne and Matt Hawkins)
  Favor: 20  Oppose: 0   Abstain: 2

PRESIDENT’S REPORT  –  7:09 PM

• WEND’s Annual Holiday Soirée will be on Saturday Dec 13th, at 929 Lee St. SW, Ste A230. – Complimentary for WEND members. $20 suggested donations for non-members.
  Please RSVP so that we know how much food and drink to have on hand!
• The Executive Committee has discussed creating an Ad Hoc Grants Committee to explore grant opportunities. Possible grantors include Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta. Arts grants could be an option as well. Committees would not have to go through the Grant Committee in order to apply for grants, but the Grants Committee could assist. Olivia Hollis and Terry Ross will be on the committee, among others. Motion from Executive Committee to create an Ad Hoc Grants Committee. 
  • Favor: 17  Oppose: 2   Abstain: 5

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION  –  7:15 PM

• Account balance of $14,092.66.
• Question/comment from member B.B. about giving preference to local merchants when purchasing items made with cash donations. (While the vast majority of contributions to the Halloween Food Drive came in the form of direct donations of nonperishable foods, a small portion of the items donated were ordered from Costco using cash donations that community members made to WEND).

   COMMITTEE REPORTS  –  7:17 PM – Pt 1

• Education Committee – Barbara Mislan, Co-Chair
  (Education does not have a standing meeting, but communicates by text chain. If you’d like to join, email WENDeducation@gmail.com)
  • M. Agnes Jones is requesting that we sponsor several  families. They have provided us with a holiday wish list. Ideally your contributions are new, but lightly used is ok as well. You don’t need to sponsor a whole family or a whole child. Single gift donations are welcome as well.
  • Herman J Russell West End Academy is looking for coats (new or gently used), deodorant, mesh/clear backpacks, sweatshirts and sweatpants,
  • For Booker T. Washington High School, we are supporting emancipated youth (7 individuals, 3 who are parents themselves). 
  • The deadline for MAJ and BTW donations are December 14th.

CITY REPRESENTATIVES & ELECTED OFFICIALS 7:29 PM  

• Councilmember Jason Dozier’s Office – DeMicha Luster
  • Monday was the last Council meeting of the term.
  • The Mayor wants to extend the TADs. There are a lot of conversations around TADs. Residents and businesses pay into TADs from property taxes. 
  • CM Dozier’s office continues to work to address the influx of unhoused individuals under Lowery / I-20 underpass.
  • Request from a community member for a report from our public safety officials. WEND President has requested a year-end report from Zone 4 and it should be in the works.

   COMMITTEE REPORTS  –  7:33 PM – Pt 2

• Environmental Health & Beautification – Kristen Koehnemann – Chair (Not present)
  (Does not have a standing meeting, but if you’d like to join, email WENDbeautification@gmail.com) and visit the committee page

• Friends of the Parks Groups
  • Rose Circle Park Update from Barbara Mislan – New signs have been installed at the garden, the rain garden, and the orchard. Please walk through and check them out! 
  • West End Park – Update from Tony McNeal. We recently found out that we did not receive the Park Pride grant we had applied for. We are still working with CM Dozier and the Parks on some other funding. The retaining wall being built at Lawton and Lucille is related to future work for the rain garden.

• Events – Doug Cain
  (Does not have a standing meeting, but if you’d like to join, email wendevents@gmail.com)
  • The last event of the year is the WEND Christmas party at 7:00 on December the 13th. Please RSVP here! 

• PR – Brittney Cain
  (Does not have a standing meeting, but if you’d like to join, email AtlantaWestEndPR@gmail.com)
  • There will be a holiday event at Monday Night Garage on December 14 12–6PM! Santa will be there!

• Membership – Open Chair Position
  (Meets virtually on second Tuesdays via zoom. More information on committee page
  • WEND needs a new Membership Chair.

• • Preservation & Urban Design – Caleb Racicot
    (Meets the first and/or third Wednesdays at 6:30 PM, as needed. If you’d like to join, email WENDPreservation@gmail.com)
    • 1298 Lucile – continuing to work with the applicant re: windows
    • Have had a few informal meetings with future applicants to assist them in preparing for their applications..
    • Please reach out to participate in the committee.
  • Transportation – Matt Hawkins
    (Meets the third Tuesday of the month at 7:30 PM. For more info, visit the transportation committee page
    • Request by member B.B. to the Committee Chair to make contact with a MARTA liaison to help keep us informed about changes and updates.
    • Atlanta City Councilmember Eshé Collins is planning to introduce legislation to make it legal for the property owner of the West End Production Park to build a data center there (the Northeast corner of Murphy Ave and Ralph David Abernathy Blvd). The Committee has written a letter in opposition to the data center and is motioning for the letter of nonsupport for a data center at that location to be approved by the WEND body and sent to the designated recipients.
      • Favor: 22  Oppose: 2   Abstain: 3

• Public Safety Chair – Alex McBride (Not present – no report)

• • Zoning – Larry Frazer 7:55pm
    • ALC-000126312165 – 576 Lee Street, SW – Shaniece Ross here to present for the applicant. Caribbean fusion menu. 28 parking spaces, servesafe certified, 16 connected security cameras. Recommendation from committee is to support the application.
      • Favor: 22  Oppose: 1   Abstain: 5

• • Z-25-65 – 0 Peeples St. Zoning Conditions Letter – As of Nov 13th, the ZRB voted to approve rezoning of this parcel. The Zoning Committee was charged with coming up with some conditions that would be presented at the City Council Zoning Committee meeting on December 8th. They came up with 8 specific conditions. Recommendation from the committee is to support, with conditions.
    • Favor: 21  Oppose: 2   Abstain: 4

• • Z-25-46 – The ZRB voted on 11/13 to defer on this, pending the outcome of the survey issues. 

WRAP-UP & ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Committee Chairs, be sure to turn in your proposed budgets no later than December 15th – no exceptions.
• Brent Brewer wanted to thank everyone in the West End community for attending Atlanta Streets Alive. Over 9000 people attended. If you enjoyed it, please do the survey.
• Douglas Blanchard – new owner of 954 White Street, right next to Rose Circle Park. Drop by and say hi!
• This Friday is NPU-T’s Intergenerational Group Outing to the Morehouse Spelman Concert. Please reach out to Mr. Ross at 
• NPU-T will have its holiday party on Wednesday, Dec 10th. Join us!
• Carl Nes and some other neighbors are re-starting their bridge club. Please call 404-755-2000 if you’re interested in joining.

ADJOURN 8:24 PM

Draft Minutes Completed on 12/4/25  by DM