The Community of Belle Morris Is Now Online!

Our neighborhood now has a Web site! Our new Web site includes information about Belle Morris an online newsletter, a list of the local schools in our neighborhood, and community pages about issues and events that affect our neighborhood. Links to city government officials and services, including the police, make it a great communication channel.

Our new Web site is not just an information source, but also a place for all neighbors to be connected on the Internet. Want to tell people about an upcoming meeting, garage sale, or lost pet? Then post a notice in the "Community Calendar". Want your own personal Web page? Then create one in the "Meet Your Neighbors" section - tell people about yourself, your family, your hobbies, or your interests. Concerned about a neighborhood issue? Talk to your neighbors - solicit new viewpoints. Go to the "Talk About It" section and create a new discussion.

This is our Web site - anyone can use it - and it's easy to use! You don't need any special computer skills to post information to the site - simply fill out forms and the information is posted! All you need is Internet access - everything is in an extremely user-friendly format.

So check it out! Our new Web site can be found at: www.neighborhoodlink.com/Belle_Morris/home

Volunteers needed to hand out invitations

Hi,

We need people to hand out invitations to the next Belle Morris Community Action Group meeting on the following streets:

Cecil Ave between Whittle Springs Road & Nadine Street
Chicago Ave between Whittle Springs Road & Nadine Street
Coker Ave between Whittle Springs Road & Nadine Street
Lawson Avenue
Lucky Ave
Massey Street
McCroskey Ave
Newman Street
North Sixth Ave.
Rim Street
Rodgers Street
Ross Street
Washington Pike
Whittle Springs Road
Please let me know what street you want and I will have the invites printed for you.


Warmest regards,

Sandy Salmen
Cell: M-F after 6PM: 865-455-0015 (all day Sat & Sun)

Article Request for Newsletters

Please send your articles to bellemorrisna@gmail.com.

We are Registered!

The Belle Morris Community Action Group is now official!

Possiable Mission Statement

The mission of the Belle Morris Community Action Group is to build pride in our community and to provide support to our neighbors and our families by providing the means and opportunities to collectively address the issues and interests common to our Belle Morris neighborhood.

Our Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Belle Morris Community Action Group is Monday 10/11/2010 at 6:30 PM at City View Baptist Church located at 2311 Fine Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917-4897.

You’re Community Wish List

Please post your ideas for improvements and community that you wish to be discussed at our next meeting.

Organized Crime Questions

Please post your questions for the Organized Crime Department so we can have everyone’s question answered.

Possible Neighborhood Association Projects and Activities

"Greet the New Neighbor" program
"Kid Watch" Safe Neighborhood program
"Neighborhood Night Out"
Block parties
Child safety programs
Crime prevention initiatives (i.e. Crime Watch Group or Citizens on Patrol)
Festivals
Fire prevention education
Fire safety programs
Fund raising activities
Graffiti Clean-up
Holiday celebrations
Home tours
Land use studies
Leadership workshops
Median landscaping projects
Neighborhood beautification projects
Neighborhood clean-ups
Neighborhood surveys
Neighborhood Traffic Control
Newsletters, directories & telephone trees
Paint/fix-up projects
Park developments
Produce co-ops
School supply drives
Security lighting projects
Street improvements
Yard of the Month programs
Youth activities

Ten Reasons for a Belle Morris Community Group

1. It’s good for your health: Studies show that having a good social network extends your life, keeps you healthy, and staves off mental deterioration.

2. It’s good for the community: The more people work together and get to be familiar with the way things work around the area, the more people support each other through the tough times.

3. Increases our property value: Studies show that community groups who are active have a tremendous value to our properties. Interactive is the key, each of us can communicate our ideas and concerns to the group.

4. You meet new friends: Get to know new people and work with them on things you all care about with community events such as annual neighbor garage sale, pot luck supper, picnic, barbeque or street cleaning.

5. You make new contacts: Keeping your networks in good repair helps you to see opportunities when they come up and gives you people to call when you want help.

6. You learn new skills: You can learn workplace skills from being a volunteer. You can learn governance skills – committee management, business planning – from joining a committee.

7. You can follow your interests: Whatever you like to do, there are other people out there who like it too. Join a group and you can share your passion.

8. You can build up your resume: If you’re applying for a promotion, or a new job, or a new relationship, it helps to be able to point to the unselfish efforts you’re putting in for the community.

9. It’s good for the family: We need a strong community, where the government and business don’t run everything and people manage their own organizations for community goals.

10. Hometown advantage: The ability to market directly to our community. A place to list that extra computer or refrigerator that's taking up space, offer baby sitting or dog walking service, list something you need or would like to borrow. A business directory for our local businesses that support us and our group.

Please join us at the second meeting of the Community of Belle Morris

WHERE: City View Baptist Church located at 2311 Fine Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917-4897

WHEN: Monday 9/13 AT 6:30 PM.

WHO WILL BE THERE: An Officer from the Knoxville Police Department will be attending our meeting to give us a current report on incidents and crime in our Belle Morris Neighborhood and to answer any questions.

If you have any questions or would like to help, you can contact: Rick Wilen at 524-5008 or Mike Stinson at 216-4937 or Sandy Salmen at 455-0015 or by email at bellemorrisna@gmail.com

You can protect your neighborhood

By calling 311 you can protect your neighborhood against degradation and deterioration—cars on cinder blocks, dilapidated homes or yards that are not maintained. You don't need to know the owners name, story or history; only the address. The city has the information necessary to notify the responsible party to take care of the issue at hand.

Some if the issues you can bring to the attention of 311 are Brush Pickup, Codes Enforcement, Dirty Lot Cleanup, Garbage Complaints, Leaf Pickup, Pothole Repair Street Light Outages, Storm Drains or Street Cleaning.

311 your tax dollars at work!

Help with your mosquito issues

Call the Knoxville Health Department at 865-215-5235 and let them know the area needs to be sprayed for mosquitoes.

Wonderful turnout our first meeting

We had a wonderful turnout our first meeting on August 9th. Over 40 people came out to share their experiences, learn what they can do to help make Belle Morris a better community and meet their like minded neighbors.

Rick Wilen, one of the group of Belle Morris neighbors who was instrumental in making this all possible, welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced Caption Holiday who was our featured speaker.

Capt. Holliday spoke about the largest crime problem, property damage. He said we could do a large service to ourselves and community by calling 911 we notice something or someone that seems out of place. If you don’t want to call 911, you can call the non emergency number 215-4010 who will be more than happy to take your report and notify the proper authorities.

We also learned that we are in “Beat 61” and that the surrounding beats will come to our area as requested or needed. We were also given the phone number of the Knoxville Central Mall Police Office so we can call anytime to follow up on anything we see or report. That number is 215-1201.

Capt. Holliday was very impressed with the number of people that turned out for the meeting and said if we can keep the numbers up; he will permanently assign an officer to our group to give crime updates and report on follow ups and to look into our concerns.

Sgt. Fowler gave us a crime report for our area and also stated the need to do our part and be the eyes and ears of the police department. They can’t do their job if we don’t do ours.

I want to thank two other people in the core group of Belle Morris neighbors; Tiffany Wildener and Mike Stinson for bring the bottles of ice water.

Next meeting of the Belle Morris Community will be Monday September 13th at 6:30 pm.

I hope to see everyone there.

Sandy Salmen
Belle Morris email – bellemorrisna@gmail.com
Blog - http://bellemorrisna.blogspot.com/

WHY ORGANIZE A NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION?

Neighborhood Associations Build Relationships

A neighborhood association is one of the best ways to build relationships among neighbors. Members of a neighborhood may go years without knowing neighbors two doors away. A spirit of warmth and friendliness can be generated through the formation of an association. Additionally, through an association, neighbors can share concerns, needs and interests, which may lead to supportive and efficient problem solving.

For Neighborhood Improvement

If neighborhood improvement is a goal, local neighboring residents are the best resources to help initiate change. Neighborhood associations are a great resource for City staff and residents in developing long-range improvement projects.

To Create an Organized, Unified Voice

Through an association, your neighborhood has a unified voice in City government. The services that the City can provide to your neighborhood can be accessed efficiently through an association. Information on City services can also be provided to a greater number of neighbors through association meetings and communications, resulting in a benefit to the neighborhood as a whole

The First Belle Morris Neighborhood Association Meeting

The first Belle Morris Neighborhood Association Meeting will be held at City View Baptist Church located at 2311 Fine Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917-4897‎ on Monday August 9th at 6:30 PM. We will be inviting a representative of the Knoxville Office of Neighborhoods and the city Police Department to attend our meeting.
We want our neighborhood meetings to give everyone a chance to meet, speak and keep a list of all the issues, concerns and ideas we raise. We want to ask our neighbors for their suggestions on ways to address the problems in our community from all points of view. We would like to meet monthly to keep everyone up-to-date on progress as well as post the minutes of the meeting and neighborhood news on the Belle Morris Neighborhood website.
If you are interested in improving our Belle Morris community, this is one of the ways to do it. You can contact me, Sandy Salmen, at bellemorrisna@gmail.com with any ideas or just to let us know you will be attending the meeting on August 9th. I look forward to meeting you all.

Concerning the Traffic and Safety of Nadine Street

The large amount of traffic passing through Nadine Street, a residential area without stopping or without at least one trip end is traffic that would be better served by the local street system intended for through traffic, but, for various reasons, uses the residential street of Nadine.
Many of these cut through motorists drive too fast on Nadine Street and it is only a matter of time before someone is hurt!

In addition to safety issues, speeding vehicles degrade the quality of the street for all other users, signaling that the street is extremely devoted to traffic, imparting a general feeling that things are "not right" in the neighborhood.

We also have a lot of pedestrians on Nadine Street and very little of Nadine Street has a sidewalk for our fellow neighbors and friends to walk on. With this in mind, we would like Knox County to use a little of the tax money we pay and put in a sidewalk and traffic calming devises.

If you would be so kind as to fill out the application form found at this link

http://www.knoxcounty.org/epw/pdfs/traffic_calming_app.pdf

and mail it in to the address on the form, we just might be able to walk safely on our neighborhood streets again.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Belle Morris is blessed with many advantages … beautiful trees, friendly neighbors, areas of homes rich in history, and individuals like you that care about and wish to become more involved in our neighborhoods. Although the City of Knoxville is not in a position to independently organize associations for every neighborhood, we are interested in forming a partnership with Knoxville’s Office of Neighborhoods and Codes Enforcement to actively work to improve the Belle Morris community.

Our goal is to make the neighborhood of Belle Morris a quality place to live by facilitating communication between the residents of Belle Morris and the local government, to support positive change, assist in the elimination of crime, illegal drugs and resident fear, help organize volunteers for community projects, and organize improvement efforts of neighbors helping neighbors.

Flowers in Belle Morris

Flowers are popping up everywhere in Belle Morris!