On Tuesday, April 16, 2013, the Broad Ripple Village Association (BRVA) held its semiannual public meeting at the Indianapolis Art Center. The main topics of discussion were Kickoff to a Safe Summer in Broad Ripple, a discussion of the Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) project the neighborhood is involved in, and a recap of BRVA events of the past six months since the last meeting. The meeting started promptly at 7pm and showed a high turnout of people from the neighborhood. Throughout the meeting, various prizes were raffled off. The prizes were provided courtesy of Union Jack Pub, Marigold, RiviFit, Flatwater Restaurant, Greek's Pizzeria, Brother's Bar & Grill, and Average Joe's Sports Bar. Beer and popcorn were provided after the meeting by Thr3e Wise Men Brewing Company.

The meeting was presided over by BRVA President Jay Wetzel. He began by thanking the sponsors of the door prizes and giving a brief overview of what was to be covered in the meeting. He then introduced Mark Wolf, who made a brief presentation about the upcoming membership drive and the importance of BRVA membership and fundraising.

Jay thanked the members of the BRVA board for all their collective work and then introduced Tom Healy, BRVA board member and president of the Broad Ripple Alliance for Progress, who gave an overview of the past 6 months. Firstly, he spoke about the final adoption of the Envision Broad Ripple development plan for the neighborhood and how that will set the course of future development in the neighborhood to be in line with the community's vision for the look and feel of Broad Ripple. Features such as tree-lined streets and ample sidewalks were highlighted. And the big news was that one of the needs first identified 25 years ago, a mixed-use parking structure, had its first paying patrons as of that day. He was very glad to say that the sidewalks around it were very wide to accommodate the pedestrian traffic, citing it as an example of the sort of details that the BRVA had worked so hard to lobby for. For the BRVA 175th anniversary, the Broad Ripple Alliance for Progress put together a tax deductible fundraising mechanism for raising funds for various BRVA projects, with the goal of raising $175K.

The Art to Art project is a way of connecting Broad Ripple to the Indianapolis Museum of Art via a corridor of public art projects that follows the canal. The newly-christened mixed-use parking structure will feature one such piece of art. They are currently in the process of selecting an artist to create the piece. At this point, they have winnowed 100 submissions from international artists down to a half dozen from which they will make their choice.

Through the work of the Committee for Historic Broad Ripple, Fire Station 32 has been officially recognized on the National Register of Historic Places. Thanks to the contributions of many village supporters, there will be a bronze plaque installed on a large rock in front of the Fire Station. There will be an event later this year to celebrate it.

A challenge grant was issued by the Indianapolis Foundation, which is part of the Central Indiana Community Foundation. It is a $17,500 challenge grant that says that for every contribution of $1,000 or more, the Indianapolis Foundation will match it 1-for-1, up to the cap of $17,500. It will be used for improvements on the Cornell Corridor during "phase 1" of Art to Art, which is an area from the canal to the Indianapolis Art Center. They will look at upgrading some of the features as well as repairing some of the art pieces, such as the large stone sculpture of faces located along the Monon in front of the Broad Ripple Brewpub, which is leaning and needs to be straightened up with a new base for the sake of safety and aesthetics. They would also like to do some landscaping in the form of a community garden in honor of the late Bill Green. He was known as an advocate for natural landscaping long before it was common.

Finally, he mentioned that starting May 21, they will be planting new trees all along College Avenue from 54th street up to Broad Ripple Avenue. Keep Indianapolis Beautiful has worked with a private donor to secure the trees and labor to make it happen. They will also be doing many things this Fall to beautify the area around Cornell when it is being re-paved and new sidewalks are being put in place.

Next, BRVA Public Safety Chair, Elizabeth Marshall, and Captain Mungovan of the IMPD North District gave a presentation about the Kickoff to Safe Summer. First, she spoke about the Block Captain Program, a community-building initiative to encourage people to get to know the neighbors on their immediate block. The goal of the program is that in every block in Broad Ripple there will be one person who is willing to "take point" and be responsible for his or her block, and get the people involved with their immediate community by organizing block parties and other social events so that neighbors will know each other better and be aware of what is happening on their block. The idea is that this can have a direct positive effect on public safety. The BRVA is providing organizational and administrative support for this. You can email publicsafety@brva.org for more information.

As part of their Spring and Summer plan, IMPD will be assigning a special unit to Broad Ripple Village to help during peak hours. This is in addition the usual beat officers that are normally assigned to duty in the Village, and in addition to the off-duty officers that many businesses hire to help with safety. They have been specifically tasked with watching for escalating concerns and can respond quickly to take care of any situations that may occur during the high-traffic times.

The IMPD bike patrol is returning to the village this year. This is something that the BRVA Public Safety Committee lobbied strongly to get. It is an all-volunteer group, and the BRVA extends their appreciation to the extra help that they provide.

Cpt. Mungovan then took questions from the audience. He began by giving a synopsis of the statistics so far this year compared to last year. Violent crime is down 10% and property crimes have dropped 42%, with total crime dropping 36% for the year to date in the Broad Ripple area. He feels that this improvement is very much due to the efforts of the community to work to reduce crime in the neighborhood.

In answering a question, he mentioned the Summer Initiative that the IMPD will be implementing. They will be taking the three ZIP codes in every district that have the highest amount of crime and will be sending extra resources to those areas. They will try to identify key people and locations that seem to be the biggest sources of problems in those areas and make sure that officers are concentrated on those areas during the times when most crime takes place.

He also spoke about the police sub-station that will be set up in the new parking garage. While there will be officers coming in and out of it at all times, it won't be staffed 24/7. There will be six officers permanently assigned to it.

If you need to contact Cpt. Mungovan about any problems occurring in the evening, he can be reached at 317-327-6101. If it is anything during the day, the number is 327-6100, which is the number for the main desk where you can reach the Captain on duty. His email address is, m6405@indy.gov.

Elizabeth then made mention of the Community Night Out which will be happening this summer in conjunction with the national Night Out event. There will also be a Midtown Education Committee meeting on May 15, at the Children's Museum, to talk about education options in Midtown. Lastly, she emphasized the importance of calling 911 when you have any emergency to get the quickest response to the situation.

City-County Councilor-at-Large John Barth then gave a presentation about the Midtown Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) program that Broad Ripple is a part of along with several other Midtown neighborhoods. It is a six-year enterprise that many people have been working on to make happen with all the neighborhood associations working together to identify and reduce significant problems within their combined neighborhood. The TIF is based on property taxes in the area where it is designated. From the date specified, the amount of money taken from property taxes for the usual spending will stay the same, and any increase in tax revenue beyond the initial assessed level during the designated time period of 25 years will go straight toward economic development projects within the area. With the Midtown TIF, these neighborhoods have made the decision to work together towards shared goals of economic development. They feel that by working together with this TIF, there will be much greater chance of success in achieving their goals for economic development in their neighborhoods. What makes the Midtown TIF unique is that they have created the Midtown Economic Council (MEC) to give representation to dictate to would-be developers the places and projects that really need their attention the most. This flips the entire dynamic around from how a TIF is usually done, from being developer-driven, to being neighborhood-driven.

District Councilor Will Gooden then spoke about it and emphasized how important it is that all the neighborhoods work together to improve the quality of the communities. He pointed to the new parking garage as an excellent example of how the neighborhood's assessed value as just gone up significantly from its original value, and how that adds to the revenue possible for the TIF. The same thing would apply to any new project that increases property values within the TIF district. He is very encouraged by the enthusiasm he's seen from the people involved in this project.

John Barth closed the discussion by saying that this is all about encouraging more people to live in Indianapolis, to care more about their homes, and to bring more tax revenue in to the city so that they can have the funds available to do the things that need to be done. They are well aware that they are competing against neighboring communities, such as Carmel, and are dedicated to doing what they can to make Indianapolis an attractive place to live.

Jay then opened the floor to anything people would like to mention regarding the community. There were questions about parking rates at the garage and the possibility of permit parking in the neighborhood.

Oscar Banks, pastor of the Life Work Christian Church, introduced himself and invited anyone who may be interested to attend their services held at the Indianapolis Art Center on Sundays at 10:30am.

Someone asked about any initiatives concerned with abandoned houses in the area and it was mentioned that RequestIndy (www.indy.gov/requestindy) has an iPhone/iPad app that allows people to easily report problems with abandoned or distressed properties.

People from the various groups involved with the Indy Connect transit plan were introduced as being available afterward to take any questions regarding it.

To close, it was announced that the Broad Ripple Farmers Market will open on May 4, 2013, and that the Spring Gallery Tour will be on May 10, 2013.