June 21, 2022

Hampton Park Terrace Neighborhood Association
Meeting Notes

The June 2022 meeting of the HPTNA was called to order promptly at 7:00 p.m. by Anne Kelley Russell at the Church of Christ Scientist on Moultrie Street.

Our guest speaker was Cardon Crawford from the Citadel who gave an update on several issues and then fielded questions. (1) Basten Hall is mainly finished with some landscaping and sidewalk repairs left to be made. (2) Capers Hall is ahead of schedule and under budget with a finish date in about one year; there will s7ll be some large deliveries of concrete on Friday morning at 1:00 am to avoid traffic so the pour can happen at one 7me. (3) Summerall Chapel has a new roof and will have some mechanical work done. (4) About $117 million in State spending is happening on campus. (5) There will be a path from the Starbucks to Hampton Park. (6) There are plans for a $25 million engineering building somewhere inside the campus, but it is years off. (7) August 13 is matriculation, and Parents’ Day is in October. In response to questions, he made several points: (1) He doesn’t know when the visitors’ side of the football stadium will be done, but that will be en7rely donor funded; probably 2-3 years. (2) The boating center does not provide rentals for the public, only students and staff. (3) Cardon will check into whether the sponsorship program s7ll exists in which people off-campus can be a host family for cadets who love to have a place to go to relax or do laundry on the weekends. (4) Some of the u7li7es on Hagood Ave. are to be buried, but he wasn’t sure about the details. (5) He will strive to give better notice of construction projects that impact access and traffic.

Ben D’Allesandro (treasurer) gave an update on the budget. We have raised $2000 from 48 households through the new dues drive that began a few months ago. We now have $7619.51. The dues are $25 per household.

Kevin Eberle (secretary) had extra June newsletters in case anyone needed one.

Kevin also said that he was looking for any more volunteers to help plan a house tour. The volunteers so far are Laura Horlbeck, Sherri Ray, and Betsy Sidebottom. The committee will meet on Saturday afternoon for the first 7me.

Kim Ralph (VP) talked about social events. The coffee/donut event last weekend was very well attended even though it was hot. It was a rescheduled event after rain interfered with an ice cream social in May.

Kim asked anyone willing to host another event of whatever variety he or she wants to email her. They are easy to host. The next one is going to be at 551 Huger St. (Mark Grogg’s house) on July 23 from 5-7 pm. It will be more adult-oriented, but kids are welcome to attend too. He offered the use of his pool, but cooler heads prevailed.

Kim addressed possibly holding a larger event later this year. In the past, we have had events as part of Spoleto or Moja which allowed those organizers to foot most of the cost while it was held in Allan Park to be more convenient for us. One issue is that any expenditure of more than $100 requires approval of the en7re group. For comparison, the block party we had been working toward in May would have cost more than $1000 because of the need to hire three police officers, pay City fees to close streets, and get insurance. When Michael (1 Glenwood) had been president, he underwrote a lot of the cost by providing lighting and staging through his events business. He is willing to s7ll help. One neighbor suggested that we could charge food trucks to set up as part of the event. A late October or November event seemed like a good 7me to target. Kim will work to have a proposed budget for discussion at the August meeting.

Traci Davis talked about a yard sale and asked interested people (either to help set it up or to take part as a sales spot) to contact her at TraciD67@comcast.net. Maybe in the fall for the 7ming. She mentioned being open to either a consolidated-in-one-spot sale or a bunch of small sales at each seller’s house (with a map provided). It was suggested that Habitat for Humanity could pick up leftovers. A neighbor suggested maybe just giving stuff to have sold by the HPTNA as a donation.

Mark Grogg recapped the Yard of the Month program. Nominations should be sent to him at MarkGrogg@gmail.com. He and some other neighbors walk around and check out the nominations and decide on the monthly recipient. Michael and Butch at 1 Glenwood were the June recipients.

Scooby Lee of 157 Moultrie was injured at work in a propane explosion. Jeff Gleim will get some information and share it as soon as he can.

Richard Geiger updated us on the tree program. He has six people who are willing to accept and water a tree. The cost is only $50 aQer grants and cut rates. He will schedule a meeting with the City to do a walkaround to check on the locations and pick types of trees which will depend on the location. He will also look at problems with existing trees during that same walkaround.

Gervais DelPorto reported on the Infrastructure Committee. Anyone with photos of wrecks should email them to her at GervaisSH@gmail.com. She is working to fix traffic problems on Ashley and Rutledge, but fixes are hard. Many of the streets are owned by the State, and the State will not consider stop signs and relocating traffic signals. Instead, they are looking at squeezing in the width of the streets at intersections such as Ashley Ave. and Congress St. in a process known as bulbing. That will provide a chance for some landscaping there too. The money has already been approved but will have to be rebid because of the increases in costs recently.

Gervais also mentioned ideas included specialty signs to post in yards targeting certain groups such as MUSC workers and Citadel cadets who speed in the neighborhood. Police cars were also cited as a problem.

There was a discussion about the merits of two-waying streets such as Ashley Ave. Many people thought it was a big improvement where it happened on Spring St. and Cannon St. Having one-way, two-lane streets encourages speeding. One resident wondered how two- waying the streets would impact parking.

Gervais mentioned that there are abundant traffic studies, so the HPTNA doesn’t need to pursue those. But getting action from the public officials is a sticking point.

Bob Olsen talked about traffic on the loop around Hampton Park for a few minutes.

James Ravenel has some kittens up for adoption.

It was suggested that maybe we should have some of the local politicians like Marlon Kimpson attend future meetings.

There is a very bad pothole at Congress St. and Glenwood Ave. Claudette Smith is going to get the contact for the City’s pothole reporting office, and Kevin will forward it on to others to start a coordinated campaign of calling about it. It was suggested that Fran Clasby in Wagener Terrace might be a good source to contact since he can get quick attention to such problems.

Bob Olsen talked about two issues discussed at the Neighborhood Consortium meeting: unauthorized block par7es and problems with long-term rentals. Neither impacts HPT.

We voted to donate $100 to the church for hosting our meetings. The church’s representative said they are glad to host us as part of the neighborhood.

We adjourned at 8:05 p.m.