June 2025 WEND General Body Mtg Minutes

GENERAL BODY MEETING MINUTES

West End Neighborhood Development Inc. 

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025, 7:00 PM 

Hybrid 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    (7:08 PM)

• Welcome
• Motion to adopt June Agenda properly seconded and approved.
  Favor: 33   Oppose: 1    Abstain: 6
• Motion to approve May 2025 properly seconded and approved.
  Favor: 28   Oppose: 0    Abstain: 7

CITY REPRESENTATIVES & ELECTED OFFICIALS, PT 1       (7:10 PM)

• Atlanta Police Zone 4. Captain D. Crowder. Phone: 470-698-7893 Email: djcrowder@atlantaga.gov
• Fulton Commissioner Mo Ivory, Dist. 4. Kysha Ferguson – Director of Constituent Services & Strategic Partnerships. Phone: 404.612.8259. Kysha.ferguson@fultoncountyga.gov
  • Solicited neighborhood input
  • Indicated Commissioner Ivory’s desire to participate in the Tour of Homes

PRESENTATIONS, PT 1    (7:30 PM)

• Atlanta PAD – Muhammad Hafeez – Muhammad@atlantapad.org
  • PAD responds quickly to calls – often in under 10 minutes – and offers a more comprehensive approach than law enforcement that is designed to address the underlying needs that have brought individuals experiencing homelessness to the situations in which they are finding themselves.
  • Atlanta PAD offers community trainings on alternative responses to our neighbors in distress, offering scenario practice and nervous system regulation tactics for de-escalation, as well as a picture of the systems of emergency response in the Atlanta metro area. Talking points include mental illness, poverty, addiction policing, incarceration – and how community members can respond in harm reduction frameworks, while being proactive in caring for our communities. For more info, go to atlantapad.org
  • PAD is able to offer a wide variety of services to individuals experiencing extreme poverty, from transportation to a place to receive their mail to an emergency 7 day respite.

CITY REPRESENTATIVES & ELECTED OFFICIALS, PT 2     (7:45 PM)

• District 4 Councilmember Jason Dozier’s Office. DeMicha Luster – Director of Community Engagement. Office: 404-290-2174 EMAIL: DLuster@atlantaga.gov. To reach Councilmember Dozier: 678-330-6047
  • Discussed homelessness issue at interstate exits, especially Lowery. District 4 has paid to have a camera placed at the Lowery/I-20 intersection. D4 has met with GDOT regarding the underpasses. 
  • District 4 has a case manager with intown cares who evaluates and refers individuals to care as able. Also summer is here and other cities send their persons experiencing homelessness here. The good news is that the Cooper St project breaks ground on June 13th, and is the city’s second rapid-rehousing development.
  • One West End is having a public safety meeting that is centered around the West End Mall specifically. 
  • If you’re experiencing instances of direct harm to person or property, please file a police report in order to properly document them.
  • If you take public transportation, 5 Points Station is under construction, so please be aware of how that may impact delays
  • Friends of West End Park has undergone a park design process with the Dept of Parks and Rec. CM Dozier has allotted up to $100K from infrastructure bond funding to realize the vision for West End Park, which is estimated to cost a total of $140K. KABC and D4 have met to improve the periphery of the park, which is DPW ROW. Parks & Rec will coordinate the project – they need to identify a park project mgr to make it a more complete and official design. Also, D4 is working on flooding that’s going on in the park and is trying to get the area that was identified in the plans, look at what was proposed, look at the details, and hopefully break ground by September.

PRESENTATIONS, PT 2      (8:03 PM)

• Evan Ziegler – Lee+White.
  • Paid Parking at Lee+White- 
  • Traffic at the property has increased dramatically.  Lee has 2/1000 parking ratio, unlike Westside and Eastside have 3-4/1000 ratio. 
  • The first two hours will be free. 
  • The average visit duration is 70-90mins. 
  • Community member suggests supporting alternatives to cars to reach the site, including Beltline Rail. Response:  Lee+White has ordered more bike racks. From Jan-Dec there will be a trial with Beep to have a driverless shuttle between Lee+White, MARTA, and AUC every 15mins. Also there have been discussions around creating 15min parking spots for quick pickups. 
  • Another member suggested the need for additional crosswalks. Lee+White is pursuing at least two more at 1200 White St.

PRESIDENTS REPORT       (8:20 PM)     

• Upcoming Events:
  • June 21st – Community Day Picnic. 3-6 at West End Park. Afternoon of family fun. Please bring food and covered dishes. Our first one was last year and it’s back by popular demand.
  • June 28th – Tour of Homes and Gardens. One of WEND’s biggest events of the year. 11 Stops on the tour this year. There will be a trolley to take folks around. 6 new homes on the tour, as well as Hammonds House and WRen’s Nest. 4-9. Presenting sponsors are Lee+White, 1200 White, Gordon White Parkside Townhomes. We need volunteers, people at ticket offices, ticket takers at the homes. Please volunteer for a 2.5 hr shift and you’ll be able to go on the tour for free.
• We had a loss of a community member Sonja Roberts, passed away earlier in May. We want to announce, recognize, and honor her. We salute her.

 

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION       (8:24 PM)

• Month started with approx $14,200 in account. With expenses, we are around $2,400. Our biggest expense was the deposit for the candlelight concert. 

 

COMMITTEE REPORTS       (8:26 PM)

• Education – Barbara Mislan
  (Education does not have a standing meeting, but communicates by text chain. If you’d like to join, email WENDeducation@gmail.com)

  • No updates this month. The education committee meets ad hoc and is looking for more people who want to be involved with our Washington Cluster schools. 

• Environmental Health & Beautification – Kristen Koehnemann
  (Does not have a standing meeting, but if you’d like to join, email WENDbeautification@gmail.com)

• • A couple of Trees Atlanta events are happening. There will be tree pruning and maintenance in West End on June 7th from 9-12 as well as the Weeds and Wine series on June 11th from 6p-8p
  • A natural way to prevent mosquitos is by placing mosquito dunks in standing water. Mosquitos can lay eggs in bodies of water the size of bottle caps

• Events – Doug Cain
  (Does not have a standing meeting, but if you’d like to join, email wendevents@gmail.com)

  • Relisted June events as well as made a request for volunteers.

• PR+Marketing – Brittney Cain
  (Does not have a standing meeting, but if you’d like to join, email AtlantaWestEndPR@gmail.com)

  • Reiterated that volunteers get to join tour of homes for free. Please repost our shares on social media! 
  • Big Tigger’s Bike Fest on June 14th on Great Lawn and parking lot.
  • June 25th – One West End Community Safety Concerns event

• Membership – Brooks Payne
  (Meets the last Thursday of the month at Strangers in Paradise at Lee+White. If you’d like to join, reach out to Brooks via slack.

  • Congrats to our folks with June birthdays! Nicole J, Lily M, Nick J, Oni B, Adam P, Larry C, John M, Samanta T, Asia F, and Martin P.
  • Tomorrow is WEND Wednesday at Strangers in Paradise, and WEND Members get a discount.
  • New discounts are coming soon.
  • Get your new WEND Membership card that will soon entitle you to discounts at various West End businesses.

• Preservation & Urban Design – Caleb Racicot
  (Meets the first and third Wednesdays at 6:30 PM, as needed. If you’d like to join, email WENDPreservation@gmail.com)

• • 1140 Oglethorpe (at Queen). Was approved, with conditions. It actually requires a partial demolition.
  • 494 Hopkins St. Escalated to Commissioner of DCP. It was supposed to be reviewed last week to lack of quorum at design commission
  • 1291 Greenwich Ave – Illegally/accidentally tore down house. The designs they submitted were inadequate. 
  • If your house was built before 1979, it likely has lead paint in some or all of it. CoA will be doing a lead training for residents. They’ve requested that people interested in training session email them.
  • Regarding properties in disrepair. Please email preservation so that they can empower members to reach out to the appropriate parties to get action.

• Transportation – John Mitchell
  (Meets the third Tuesday of the month at 7:30 PM, as needed. If you’d like to join, email WENDTransportation@gmail.com)

• • Will be moving committee meetings to the third Tuesday of the month. A member of the community has expressed interest in leading the transportation committee. 
  • The next meeting is June 17th where the committee will vote for a new committee leader. 
  • The committee focuses on making sure that West End is a walkable, bikeable, pedestrian friendly community.
• Zoning Committee – Larry Frazer – 8:42
  (Meets the last Monday of the month at 7:00pm. If you’d like to join, email WENDZLUCE@gmail.com)

• • Peeples Street Development
    • Community input sessions began in October 2024. 
    • Motion from committee to submit a letter of support with conditions for the Peeples Street Master Plan. Call for discussion.
      Favor: 27   Oppose: 13   Abstain: 2 
  • Motion from committee to support the sale, with conditions, of a 1.3 acre portion of the APS Peeples Street property to Mr. Willie Watkins. Call for discussion.
    Favor: 15   Oppose: 21   Abstain: 4 

WRAP-UP & ANNOUNCEMENTS

• N/A

ADJOURN 9:55 PM

Draft Minutes Completed on 6/5/25 by DM