Newport Hills Community Club

Hello Neighbors,
Hopefully all of you enjoyed the Olympics that just occurred only a few hours north of here and the amazing human spirit and unity that was witnessed in 16 days of trials, endurance and celebration. I was able to attend some Olympic events and what a wonderful experience and how lucky we were to have had the world come so close to our doorstep!

For matters closer to our living rooms, I wanted to highlight on a few topics that were discussed at our last board meeting and that have been of interest the past few weeks.

The new park on SE 60th.
o The new park is near closing but has not formally closed yet and the current owner still has personal property on the site. Please be respectful of our neighbor until full transition has occurred.
o The city has proactively secured the existing foundation with metal fencing and removal of this foundation will be one of their first priorities. They are assessing the work and cost for this effort.
o Removal of the foundation and then any upgrades or changes to this park is being spoken of in terms of years at this point. The city was provided money via a levy to purchase the park; building it out and removal of the foundation is another piece based on findings and going through design and planning for what the future may look like.

 Therefore, there are no SHORT TERM plans to build or enhance this property at this time or what those plan may even be. The NHCC is staying in contact with the city and when information becomes available, especially around future planning we will relay that information as soon as we have it. So, stay tuned, but be prepared that an overhaul will be some time in coming.

The Newport Hills Park turf build out.
o The city still needs to conduct their SEPA review (Environmental Impacts) followed by a 2 week appeal process. Everyone who attended previous meetings and or sent an email to the permitting office on this topic will be notified with the results.
o There is still not a published schedule or firm answer in regards to our 4th of July picnic or when the build will start / end. I am awaiting information from the city as to when they will have this. They are aware of the urgency for us to conduct our planning steps for the 4th of July event.

$5,000 City of Bellevue grant proposals
o We have received several great ideas for areas in our neighborhood as candidates for the grant proposal request I blogged about on January 26th http://www.newporthillscommunityclub.org/blog/?p=1010
o The team has been doing work on solidifying information and gathering details to determine which of these are the best and most viable option to submit with the greatest chance of winning the grant money. The team is working hard and we will be providing our results for submission at the next NHCC meeting on Tuesday March 16th.
o I would like to say THANK YOU to the neighbors who took the time and are now spending additional time to provide us ideas and details and for your interest in making Newport Hills a nicer place to live in.

March newsletter

o We are currently awaiting our final review of the newsletter before it goes to print and this is going to be a full
and informative edition!! We have many topics and articles covered, and most of all, dates and information on our 2 next big events – our yearly March membership drive and our yearly Spring Egg Hunt scheduled for Saturday April 3rd.
o Our yearly membership drive is upon us, and with it…some exciting news to go along. We ask you to please read your newsletter when it arrives and make sure to check back to our website in late March. The yearly membership is critical as it is the beginning of our fiscal year and truly sets the stage for what remaining events and newsletters we will be able to provide to the community for the following 12 months. More to come….
o Spring Egg Hunt – our yearly and much anticipated event will once again be held at the Newport Heights Elementary school on Saturday April 3rd. We will have the traditional egg hunt, face painting and more! Come join the fun as we all welcome spring here in Newport Hills!

Thank you all for the comments, emails, ideas and support so many of you have been providing. I love the interaction and spirit we have here in our great community. I will say we can still use more helping hands for some of our positions whether in a lead or supporting role, so if you are able, we would love to have you join us. It is incredibly rewarding!

Sincerely,
Michelle Hilhorst
NHCC President

 We’ve had quite a few inquiries from neighbors about the activity at the old Red Apple the last day or two.  There appears to be TV or Film Production Crew camped outside the building in the parking lot.  We have no information about them at the moment but if you know anything, post a comment here and fill us all in!  We are checking as well….

My Dear Neighbors,
I write to you with an extraordinary amount of joy and excitement! I went and testified to the 2 items in the last post at the Bellevue City Council meeting last night. Well, the stars lined up because after my testimony, I received some incredible news:

As soon as I finished speaking Mayor Davidson said that he had some good news to share and then City Manager Steve Sarkozy shared the great news – that on the consent calendar that evening the council would approve the purchase of this land – known technically as the ‘Tyler Homes Purchase’. It was met with thundering applause and was an amazing feeling to receive that news in the council chambers!

As stated by Mr Sarkozy, this morning the open land on SE 60th has now been PURCHASED by the City of Bellevue for use as park in Newport Hills!! We have a new park on arrival! I was aware that the city had shown interest in this land previously, but it only “recently” went up for sale and as many of you know, information cannot be made public during negotiations. I was NOT aware that this settlement was this close and so the timing was incredible and exciting that on the night we made the request it was granted. How is THAT for service? :-)

I am grateful to the City Parks and Recreation for actively engaging in this piece of land as use of Park vs. development in Newport Hills and for City Council approving the purchase. As Mr. Sarkozy stated, the City and Parks department is well aware that we are a community underserved by parks and I am grateful that they kept this knowledge in the forefront and stayed diligent for us here in Newport Hills.

My understanding in speaking with a member of the Parks Department that even though now purchased, development of a formal park could take some years, just to prepare everyone. However, I would think that should be acceptable as it is a wonderful clear green space and most important, any fear of development can now be taken off the table.

Two items that are remaining and that the City will be following up with me on:
1. The city will supply the tentative renovation timeline that they currently or will have soon for the turf build at Newport Hills Park.
2. A firm answer from the Parks department of whether or not we will be able to continue our 4th of July Picnic at the Newport Hills Park after turf is installed.

The Community Club will stay in contact on these items and relay news as we receive it on any future communications surrounding the park. A big CHEER for Newport Hills goes out today!

A quick note – I would not suggest we all go running through the property yet until we have a confirmed GO from the city as there are still closing items and personal property on this piece of land. I will send a note when I receive communication from the city when there is no more personal property located on the land. We need to respect the current land owner who I believe is also a neighbor of ours.

Thank you all for your support an to Cheryl Nygaard, Ilene Moe and Lisa Vierick who attended with me to provide audience support.

Michelle Hilhorst
NHCC President

P.S. - Bellevue City Council meetings are shown on channel 21 LIVE each Monday a council meeting or study session is held. You may be able to catch a repeat of last nights meeting sometime this week or most likely after the next council meeting airs if you would like to hear the events and the applause that came with it.

Hello Neighbors,
I wanted to let you know that I will be testifying at the Bellevue City Council meeting Monday February 1st. Some of you may recall at the December NHCC meeting, we had 2 City Parks and Recreation folks come and speak to the turfing of the Newport Hills Park. One of the questions that I had was as this appeared to be going through, could the start of this project impact our use of the park for our annual 4th of July picnic. The response was “very likely” and when I asked what we could do to request this not impact that event I was told that I needed to ask the City Council.

Hence, my next step on Monday.

I will be actually presenting on 2 topics. Both topics were presented at the NHCC meeting on January 19th where a motion was forwarded, seconded and I received unanimous Board approval to represent them and also received approvals to represent all present members at that meeting.

Briefly, here are the 2 items:

1. I will request a delay in the start of the Newport Hills Park until after our 4th of July picnic (scheduled for Saturday July 3rd this year) so that there is no possibility that the park would be closed off to us – either entirely or sections – or that there could be large scale equipment left on the site over the weekend also impeding our activities and possibly inviting temptation to some of our younger neighbors if we were to host an event around these items. We do not have an alternate facility to host our event and as many of you know no equal type of park in Newport Hills.

2. Which brings me to the second topic. I will be asking the City Council to strongly consider purchasing the open lot of 4 acres for sale on SE 60th – located between the cross streets of 114th Place SE and 116th Avenue SE. Many of you know which parcel I am talking about; the completely cleared open space with an abandoned foundation in the far quadrant and surrounded on 3 sides by wooded area. This is the last great open parcel of its kind in our neighborhood. I and others think this is a great opportunity for a new grass only park in Newport Hills. We are underserved in parks for the size of our neighborhood in relation to other Bellevue communities and I think a majority of neighbors would welcome this open space stay open and usable as a community grass park vs. a 21 home development.

So, as stated earlier, I will be presenting these 2 topics at the City Council Monday night. I would welcome any support either at the meeting, or via email, and contacting any city council members with your support for either of these items as well. The meeting starts at 8pm at City Hall.

I will post the outcome of that meeting.

Sincerely,
Michelle Hilhorst
NHCC President

Ok, now that I have your attention…..the city of Bellevue is offering a $5,000 neighborhood match program for neighborhoods to apply for specific projects in their neighborhoods. The projects must be on city property such as curbs, open space, near city owned items, etc. and may not be on private property or areas owned by other agencies such as a bus stop owned by Metro.

Neighborhoods must submit a formal application and must match the requested $ with up to equivalent hours of donated labor ($12 / 1 hour pp) or financial donations that will pay for the goods or services needed for the neighborhood’s side of the agreement. Also – the neighborhood must commit to maintaining the area ( either by labor or by donations to provide the maintenance ) the city will NOT maintain these projects.

Neighbors,  this is an excellent opportunity - free money (ok, kind of free) for projects around Newport Hills that many of us may look at from a day to day and think “hmm…I would like to fix that up”. Ok…am I the only one that thinks that?

The Newport Hills Community Club is willing to gather your ideas and provide a forum for determining which project(s) are submitted and to do the paperwork as well.  YOUR job is to submit ideas and help us gather volunteers or donation to implement and together we will help determine a maintenance plan.

For more information, and more of the specific requirements to submit a project is the link to the Bellevue City Website for this project:

http://www.bellevuewa.gov/neighborhood_match_program.htm

Please note – SUBMISSION deadline for consideration is March 1st, 2010. Therefore, we ask that all ideas are submitted to the NHCC no later than February 12th, 2010 to compile, prioritize and communicate back to the community prior to submission.

Please submit your ideas to president@newporthillscommunityclub.org

This is an exciting opportunity and an opportunity we should take advantage of to keep contributing to making Newport Hills a great place to live, work and play!!

We look forward to hearing all your great ideas!
Michelle Hilhorst
NHCC President

At last Tuesday’s monthly meeting, the board and present members discussed whether to keep dues at the existing $10 or rise to $12 or possibly $15 to compensate for rising costs and instability in memberships over the last 2 years.

The community club as many of you know has been suffering non-growth and some decline in memberships, therefore a decline in revenue causing several cuts to occur. The most visible is the decision for 1 less newsletter, going from a quarterly to 3 times yearly, and with fewer pages versus that of several years ago. At our November meeting, the board and present members, decided to forego our yearly volunteer appreciation event and utilize that money towards a future newsletter and Santa Tour. Additionally, we have also experienced increased expenses, some expected and some not.

In the discussion surrounding dues, there were excellent cases for both sides, and with significant donations made late last year primarily for the Santa Tour and some expected costs diminished, we started off this year a little healthier than expected. Therefore, a motion was made and passed to keep dues at $10 for 2010.

Our hope is a new payment channel that will be rolled out, and more awareness to the club will get increased memberships and dues. We also hope that those who have a little more to give are able to do so with donations and such to ensure we can keep the events and communications going strongly for our neighbors. Our goal is to stay financially healthy again this year to keep dues low, but that all depends on you, our neighbors.

Please pass the word to your neighbors to support us along with yourself.

We will be kicking off our 2010 Membership drive here soon, so keep a look out and please keep supporting Newport Hills Community Club!

Michelle Hilhorst
NHCC President

Tonight is the first Newport Hills Community Club Meeting of the New Year! This year – 2010 – we are celebrating a Golden 50 Years of the Newport Hills Community Club serving  Newport Hills since its inception. We look forward in keeping this theme on the forefront here at the club and in the community this year. A great reminder that for many years, so many people have found Newport Hills to be a great place to live, work & play!

In a quote I reread recently, it says “Age is not a destination, but a journey”. For those of you that attended our December meeting to witness the boxes and boxes of documentation of 50 years of Newport Hills meetings and events, it brought a physical reality to the journey that this club and community has travelled. I am excited as your President this year for the great journey that we will continue on together!

Tonight’s meeting will be held in the Youth Center Room at the Newport Hills Community Church to accommodate a larger scale event in the sanctuary.

Here are just some of the exciting High Level topics for tonight’s Agenda:

- Bellevue Neighborhood Matching Program
- NHCC Facebook
- PayPal & 2010 Dues
- Recap of Santa Tour, Holiday Lights contest & Holiday Bazaar
- Roving reporters needed
- Standing Committee Reports
- New Business

We look forward to your attendance and your support for 2010. If you are interested in volunteering – even as little as 2 hours of your time – please contact me so we can utilize your time & talent.

Sincerely,
Michelle Hilhorst
NHCC President
President@newporthillscommunityclub.org

I look forward to next year’s Santa Tour event and serving as your President in 2010!

I also look forward to seeing you at our monthly meetings and next event – Spring Easter Hunt! Continue to check our website for the latest information around Newport Hills!

                                                                 - Michelle Hilhorst - Santa Tour Coordinator

                                                                        NHCC President 2010

Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas!  Santa Claus and his elves toured Newport Hills and Lake Heights on December 19th, handing out oranges and candy canes along the way.  Santa finished the day visiting with families at the Cornerstone Studio II from 1-2:30 PM.

A HUGE thank you to the volunteer elves and drivers (in no particular order):  Ashwin Satpute, Sandi Tampa, Mike Whiteaker, Kris Plunkett, Bentley Altizer,  Steffi Fung, Kristen Neal, Michelle Hilhorst, Herb, Katelyn Kalberer and Taylor Suyama

Santa and the Elf Volunteers!

As well as all the Construction and Interior Design Elves who  set up and broke down the sleigh, readied the sleigh for the  trip back to North Pole storage, decorated and undecorated Cornerstone Studio.  One last, HUGE THANKS to Cheryl for use of the studio space!!!!. 

 And, last but not least, the Holiday Bazaar Experiment vendors:

Vendors braving the chill...

Diana Ponten

Diana Chamberlain of Diana

Margaret, Joshua and Daniel Santjer

Our budget may have been small, but hearts were big and helping hands many.  Thank you all and have a wonderful, wonderful holiday season!

Newport Hills Community Club

That’s right.. we have received confirmation from the North Pole that Santa is making his preparations to land in to the Newport Hills Neighborhood at 9am Saturday December 19th. He is looking forward to seeing all of you, and collecting canned goods along the way for needy neighbors. If you want some great photos and quality time with Santa, join him from 1-3:00pm at the Cornerstone Jazz studio in the Newport Hills Shopping center on 119th Ave SE and bring your camera. Enjoy FREE face painting and perusing our local vendors in the Holiday Bazaar. You may also drop off your canned food donation here as well.

To locate Santa’s tour route, click “Club Events” at the top of the site here, and click on Santa Parade link on the next page.

Tomorrow will be an exciting day in Newport Hills!!!
HO HO HO - Watch for him and see you soon!