Absent: Keith Austin, Tisha Calabrese-Benton, Mark Brown, Harold Byrd, Stevan Curtis, Martha Dooley, Kim Hansard, Jan Hutchison, Susan Long, Sam Maynard, Janet McGaha, Page Pratt-Greene, Jenny Raines, Garrett Wagley and Lori Tucker

Staff: Tom Salter, Stephen "Seed" Lynn & Emily Ditty

Call to Order
The meeting was called to order by Page Pratt-Greene at 12:15. There was a quorum for this meeting.

Approval of the Minutes
Page asked board members to review the minutes from the January 2005 board retreat and invited any comments on the retreat. Mary Lou made a motion to approve and Mark Cawood seconded the motion. Approval was unanimous.

Presidents Report – Scott Frith
Scott reported that the nominating committee has not been able to meet and will reconvene during April to recommend officers and new board prospects. There was a brief discussion on the size of the board and the possible need to establish an advisory board. Many active board members wish to continue being involved and would prefer to stay on the board rather than rotate off. There are also excellent new board prospects who would be instrumental in growing and strengthening KKB in the coming years. The executive and nominating committees will make a recommendation on this.

There was a discussion of what to do about the litter ordinance enforcement situation. Tom reported that Page and he had discussed asking the Chief Owen and Sheriff Hutchison to ask their uniformed patrol officers to write one citation each per year. This would increase the number of citations by hundreds and change the litter law enforcement situation dramatically. Mary Lou said we needed to go to the roll call and talk to the officers before they go out on patrol.

A volunteer sign up sheet was distributed for the Earthfest booth and the Trash Bash luncheon.

Scott reported that in a discussion with executive committee, Tom suggested we should try to make additional budget cuts before June 30. While we should end the year around break-even on income and expenses, there is a concern that we should try to have a little more cash heading into next year. There was a consensus that Tom should make cuts as needed.

Neal Denton’s guest, David Vandergriff was introduced. David is a friend of KKB and is a Knox County Extension Agent, former co-chair of the 9C1V Beautification Task Force and past president of the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council.

Executive Director's report – Tom Salter
Tom presented the Financial Statement and Summary for March 2005. Relative to last year we are doing well on income and expenses, but our cash is still lower relative to last year. This situation will persist for the forseeable future. While we should continue to break even, there are no prospects for a major influx of cash. A motion was made by Mary Lou Horner to accept it. Mark Cawood seconded the motion. The March 2005 financial statement and summary were accepted.

• Emily and the interns have sent out information to the radio stations, the weekly newspapers and the school administrative bulletin on GAC.
• Youth Advisory Board had two meetings, one with 8 members, one with 10.
• Tom made a speech to the Old Mechanicsville Neighborhood Interest Group (OMNI). There were about 15 people at 7pm at the Police Academy building (Moses Center). There were a lot of questions about codes issues and how to get people to clean up their own yards.
• The GAC™ kickoff was a success with about 50 people attending the kickoff. We had media on WVLT and WBIR. The News Sentinel ran a major story on citations on March 19^th.
• GAC news coverage through March includes: The Daily Beacon (3 stories), Knox County Schools Admin Bulletin (two issues), Chamber Partnership Newsletter, News Sentinel (2 ads, letter to the editor and a feature story), Southaven News (neighborhood), KUB Connections, Fountain City Focus, Sam Venable Column, Wesley Neighbors Newsletter, Farragut Middle School PTA insert, Community Press for March 05 and several episodes of Be Pretty Proud.
• Don Dare did a feature story on KKB about litter and citations.
• We had a nice booth at the Women's Expo with several thousand people stopping by to learn about litter.
• KKB participated in a public cleanup of the Longview Cemetery. Waste Connections provided containers and Bridgestone picked up the tires. We only had 6 volunteers but picked up 30 bags of trash and 27 tires. The cleanup resulted in an illegal dumping investigation, which ended up with a formal warning. Also, the City of Knoxville picked up a substantial amount of illegally dumped building materials, auto parts, etc. that could not be picked up by individuals.
• KKB staff and board members Ken Bodie did a litter cleanup on Elm Street near the City Transfer Station. We collected 11 bags.
• The results of the Elm Street Cleanup were taken to UT for an item analysis or "waste audit". We do trash audits from time-to-time to make sure we have accurate information about local sources of litter. We had 7 UT students, Seed and Sarah Surak working on the audit.
• Website: 4,074 web site pageviews for March 2005. This is only the second time we have exceeded 4,000 pageviews in a month.

Beautification

• Tom met with Whitney Stanley, Bob Santore, Dr. Kelley and Terry Faulkner to discuss plans for a panel presentation and discussion at the County/City Neighborhoods Conference to be held in April. Tom will moderate the panel. The topic will be how private citizens can implement major beautification projects with government as a partner. Scott Frith will also be a panelist.

• No specific waste reduction activities took place in March.

Awards & Recognition

• A number of individuals and groups were featured on the KKB website blog section.

Membership

• Pledge campaign phone banking results were $1,974 for March. We received $1,000 in GAC sponsorship payments in March.

• KKB submitted the City of Knoxville Grant Application on time.
• KKB submitted a funding proposal to the Tennessee Urban Forestry Grant program on behalf of the East Tennessee ReLeaf program.

Great American Cleanup™
Emily distributed a list of groups signed up as of today.

Youth Advisory Board
Emily and Seed reported that the Youth Advisory Board is meeting but attendance is down.

Unfinished Business
Tom reported on the covered load awareness initiative suggested by Mayor Ragsdale. At this time, plans are being made to do a formal study of use patterns at selected County convenience centers and the City transfer station. We will then test different messages on people using the centers to determine the most effective way to change behavior. Board member Sarah Surak has taken the concept to one of her UT professors to see if we can involve UT students in doing observations and interacting with the study subjects.

New Business
Tom reported that there is container deposit legislation pending in the state house and senate. The bills are being promoted heavily as litter bills although they are actually recycling programs. If the bill passes, the state Litter Grant program would be eliminated. The bill is opposed by soft drink and alcoholic beverage makers, but especially by the state grocer’s association. The bill is supported by non-profits like Scenic Tennessee and constituents from old bottle bill states.

• Earthfest, KKB booth, Saturday, April 23, 9 am to 5 pm, World’s Fair Park, old Court of Flags area
• GAC™ Trash Bash, Saturday, April 30, 11:30 am to 1:00 pm, Cahoun’s on-the-River
• Next regular board meeting – Thursday, May 5, 121 noon, place TBA
• KKB booth at Business Expo, all day, (exact times TBA), Thursday, May 5

Adjournment – the meeting was adjourned at 1:02pm

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