Graceland West Community Association

Hi neighbors, if you rake and bag your street leaves, there is no need to carry them to your trash area. We’ve arranged a one time bagged leaf pick up. Just put your bagged leaves on your parkway and please don’t overfill the bags.

Cleaning up street leaves, crosswalks and keeping sewer grates clear helps reduce neighborhood street, basement and vehicle flooding. Today (Saturday) 20 LVHS students and more than 40 GWCA Council Members, Block Reps and neighbors from Pensacola to Cuyler helped with this effort. You can bag and leave any leaves through Sunday night for this special pickup. This makes it easy to clean up street, parkway, sidewalk and front yard leaves. Our final 2018 street cleaning was October 3-4 so the street leaves are on us.

Thinking to Spring (let’s think Spring, not Winter), to further prevent flooding, please consider
1) using permeable hardscape such as permeable pavers or permeable concrete or sand grouted pavers rather than concrete or sealed pavers.
2) grass is almost as non-permeable as concrete. It also has very shallow roots. So stormwater runs off into streets or to a neighbor. Please consider reducing grass and aerating the soil well to 9″ and adding some native plants.
3) other options to consider include green roofs, rain gardens, downspouts disconnected and diverted to rain gardens and French drains.

Our next GWCA Meeting is Monday, November 26, 6:45 pm at Rizal. It’s mostly a social night with a pot luck (BYOB). GWCA’s 40th anniversary is in 2019 so we’ll do some quick brainstorming too on what you’d like.

Hi neighbors, please help clean street, intersection, cross walks and sewer grate leaves on Saturday. You can leave bagged leaves on the closest parkway. The city is doing a special pick-up for us. Please don’t overfill leaf bags as if they are too heavy, they break when city workers try to pick them up.

Please bring your family and a neighbor and clean the Greenview intersection closest to your house first. Then, if you live on Greenview, please help clean Greenview next. If you live on an east / west street, please clean that next. We need all street leaves up from Montrose to Irving and Clark to Ashland. Our final city street sweeping was October 3-4, before any leaves fell, so we encourage all to help. Your work will reduce street, basement and vehicle flooding and help prevent slick and frozen leaves from causing falls. Getting these leaves up before they form a 4″ frozen mat makes it easier to shovel parking spaces too.

We need you to help if you are a tenant, condo or home-owner, landlord or business owner. Whether you park on the street or have visitors who park on the street, this is a volunteer effort all of us need to do. Please support your GWCA current and former Council Members and Block Reps who are leading this neighborhood safety and flood prevention effort. You’ll need to bring 10 garbage or leaf bags, and a rake, shovel or dust pan. Shovels and dust pans work well to scoop leaves. If you can’t help on Saturday, you can also leave bagged leaves on the parkways through Sunday.

Thanks everyone for living here and loving and supporting this neighborhood. Our annual pot luck is on November 26th, 6:45 pm at Rizal.

Our final 2018 neighborhood street cleaning was October 3rd and 4th, before leaves fell. Please bring a rake, shovel or dustpan and 10 leaf bags and help get street leaves up. Meet at Greenview and Belle Plaine or the Greenview intersection closest to your house.

If you can’t make it, can you please cleanup the leaves in front of your house, apartment, condo, business and under garbage cans and dumpsters and clean crosswalks before Saturday? As you do this, please look for rat holes especially near air conditioners, near sidewalks, in your parkway and in trees.

As leaves will continue to fall after this cleanup, can you please continue to keep sidewalks, parkways, streets and sewer grates clear of leaves and debris? These are the leaves that most blow into the street and migrate downhill to block sewers. Your efforts now to help reduce neighborhood flooding, also make it less slick to walk and reduce rat habitat. That said, leaving some yard leaves can help provide pollinator habitat.

Neighbors and GWCA Council Members and Block Reps, thanks in advance for everything you do. Everyone, can you please bring your family and a neighbor to help?

Uptown: Two carjackings in 10 minutes on Friday afternoon

Two motorists were carjacked within ten minutes on Friday afternoon in the Uptown neighborhood, police said. No one is in custody.

Approximate locations of Friday’s carjackings.
Around 4:40 p.m., a 20-year-old man was sitting in his car in the 4800 block of North Paulina when a Chevy Impala pulled up behind him. Two offenders got out of the Impala and ordered the man from his 2014 Honda Civic at gunpoint, according to the victim. After robbing the victim of his personal belongings, the two carjackers got into his Civic and sped away, leaving the Impala in the middle of the road.

Minutes later, a driver was sitting in a car in the 4400 block of North Greenview when the carjackers pulled up behind him in the just-stolen Honda Civic. One of the carjackers got out of the Civic and ordered the man out of his car while threatening him with a “long-barreled weapon,” according to a police report.

The carjacker took the victim’s Nissan Altima and drove out of the area with the other carjacker following in the Civic.

Police said the Honda is a gray 2014 Civic bearing a license plate that begins with “AM129.”

The Nissan is a white 2008 Altima with a license plate that begins with “Z6388.”

According to the victims, the carjackers are two black men in their late teens or early 20’s. One wore a black hoodie with jeans. The other wore an orange hoodie.

On Tuesday evening, a 23-year-old man was carjacked of his Chevy Impala by two offenders in the Wrigleyville neighborhood.

The victim had just entered his parked car in the 3800 block of North Kenmore, and he was trying to close the door when two men approached him at 7:55 p.m. Police said the robbers ordered the man out of the vehicle while implying that they were armed with a handgun. The victim complied with the robbers’ demands and both offenders climbed into the man’s car, then sped away southbound on Kenmore.

Police could not say if the Impala recovered on Friday was the same vehicle taken in the Wrigleyville carjacking.

Tuesday’s carjackers were two black males: one wore a gray hoodie and the other wore a black hoodie.
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Hello Neighbors — just a reminder that the annual GWCA Halloween party is this Saturday, from 2 PM to 5 PM at Warner Park. How many Harry Potter’s will there be? Could we see Captain America dancing The Floss? The only way to find out is to stop by! There will be candy, games and warm apple cider. And no one will question the contents of your solo cup.

See you on Saturday!

Before the kids get all hyped-up on free candy and extended bedtimes, please join your neighbors on Saturday, October 27th, from 2 to 5 PM, for the annual GWCA Halloween Party at Warner Park!

There will be pumpkin decorating and spooky-themed games for the kids. For the adults, a refresher course on how to convince other trick-or-treating parents that the contents of your red Solo cup are, in fact, just grape juice. And of course, an opportunity to meet and reconnect with your neighbors!

Rain or shine, or snow (please, no snow this year!) we will be there. And we hope to see you there too!

Whether you live in an apartment, home or condo, we need you and your neighbors to help. Leaves have started to fall. GWCA Council Members and Block Reps lead an annual street leaf cleanup to clear sewer grates, streets and crosswalks of street leaves. This benefits all the neighborhood by preventing leaves from migrating downhill to their favorite sewer grate and contributing to street, basement and vehicle flooding. The leaves combined with water also turn into slick muck, which can be challenged to pedestrians, especially seniors.

Just bring your family, some neighbors, a rake or dustpan (to scoop leaves) and 10 leaf bags and meet at the Greenview intersection closest to your house. Make new friends and clean up the intersection, then help clean up remaining leaves in your street. For that day only, you can leave your bagged leaves on the parkway for a special pickup. Rain date is November 17.

Can’t help that day? Then please cleanup leaves on your sidewalk, parkway and street in front of your house before November 10th.

Before the kids get all hyped-up on free candy and extended bedtimes, please join your neighbors on Saturday, October 27^th, from 2 to 5 PM, for the annual GWCA Halloween Party at Warner Park!

There will be pumpkin decorating and spooky-themed games for the kids. For the adults, a refresher course on how to convince other trick-or-treating parents that the contents of your red Solo cup are, in fact, just grape juice. And of course, an opportunity to meet and reconnect with your neighbors!

 

 

Congratulations Boy Scout Troup 865, The Rizal Center and all those who supported the eco-friendly planter project at The Rizal Center. The ribbon cutting ceremony and lunch were a big success. Check out some of the highlights.