On March 3rd, Dorothy Miller made a request via telephone of Elaine Eilers, president of the school board. The information provided today by Ms. Eilers to Dorothy includes the following:

Meeting: March 10, 2005, 7 P.M. — The demographic study is not ready. No demographic study or land use action by the board.

Meeting: March 24, 2005, 7 P.M. — Demographic study should be ready for presentation and discussion.

Meeting: April 14, 2005, 7 P.M. — Land purchase will probably be considered.

As of late this afternoon, the March 10th school board meeting agenda is now posted on the Pike School District’s web site at http://www.pike.k12.in.us

It looks like we want to have a very large attendance of residents at the April 14th school board meeting. Given the information provided about the agenda items for the meetings on March 10th and 24th, it may not be as critical for residents to attend in large numbers at those meetings unless, like me, you care to the nth degree what happens to this land. So if that’s true of everyone else, I’ll be seeing you at the school board meeting this Thursday, March 10, 2005, at 7 P.M. We need to remain vigilant and committed for the preservation of our historic Traders Point area.

Related Zoning Issue

FYI: There is a zoning hearing on March 16, 2005, starting at 1 P.M., at the Marion County City-County Building, 2nd Floor, Public Assembly Room, where a property at 59th and Guion Road is to be considered for rezoning to D5 (high density houses capable of further adding to the population load on the Pike School District). The land is owned by Davis Homes and their earlier idea of putting condos on the property has been dropped now to try for rezoning for high density houses. The Traders Point residents would like to block such rezoning and persuade the school board to purchase this land for their school construction. If you have the time and inclination, presence at the zoning hearing in opposition to this rezoning request couldn’t hurt our cause.

Trees – IPL

At the conclusion of the February 23rd meeting at the Creamery between residents, Councilman Randolph, Attorney Greg Silver, the city forestry representative, and the two IPL representatives, Councilman Randolph got IPL to agree to a cutting cessation while more meetings are convened between IPL and a smaller mediation group of residents and Mr. Silver. The mediation group members (comprised of Cindy and Jerry Baker, Jacque and Mike Griffin, Dr. Rob Huler, Carolyn Bryson, and MaryAnn Stevens) have formed ourselves into a group named, Traders Point Green Preservation (TeePeeGeePee). We have been meeting among ourselves formulating ideas to present to IPL for negotiating a permanent resolution to this tree cutting issue. The meeting with IPL and the mediation group is set for March 15th. Postings to the blog page will update the proceedings.

In the meantime, we need to raise funds for Mr. Silver’s fees. Anyone wanting to show support for these efforts to prevent IPL from rendering the tree-filled, park-like beauty of our Traders Point area into something ordinary and dominated by power poles and pavement may contribute to our legal fees with a check made out to Traders Point Green Preservation and mailed to Jacque Griffin at 7153 West 86th St, Indianapolis, 46278. If you’ve noticed the tree markings on Moore Road and 86th Street, it is not just under the big transmission lines on 86th that trees are marked red for removal. Removal red markings are on trees along Moore indicating the far reaching aggressive tree removal action IPL wants to take.

Keep the Faith. Stay Informed. Through our unity in numbers, we have accomplished good things to date on our issues of the proposed school land purchase and the IPL-tree situation.

Thanks to Everyone for caring and participating in our united efforts to preserve Historic Traders Point.

Sincerely,
MaryAnn Stevens