Mid-City Neighborhood Organization

In this email:
1. Katrina Memorial Events Tonight in Mid-City
2. Security District Update
3. Upcoming “Porch Crawl” and Mid-City Mixer Info
4. MCNO Eblast Update

Katrina Memorial Events Tonight in Mid-City
Join other Mid-Citizens tonight as they honor those who helped them through Katrina and its aftermath, share their stories, and enjoy some family entertainment.

From 6:30 to 9 pm, come to the Mid-City Community Garden for a “Share Your Stories in the Garden” dinner event. With catering by Olive Branch and Crescent Pie and Sausage, this “party with a purpose” raises money for the Mid-City Community Garden and is a delicious way to reward yourself after all the hard work you have done since Katrina. Participants will gather in the garden to share Hurricane Katrina stories and offer gifts to those who helped them the most. For information, visit www.midcitycommunitygarden.com/midcity_katrina_event.jpg; to RSVP (recommended) call 251-9818 or email info@midcitycommunitygarden.com. Dinner is $10; event will be held at the garden; 516 S. Salcedo Street.

After your dinner, head up to St. Patrick’s Park, where the Mid-City Yacht Club will sponsor their monthly “Movie in the Park.” Bring the kids, bring coolers and chairs, and relax beneath the stars as we watch “Jaws.” On the fourth anniversary of Katrina, we should all celebrate the fact that we can watch a “man eating shark” instead of worrying about a “city-eating storm.” Movie starts 30 minutes after sunset (the sun sets tonight at 7:30, so plan for approximately 8pm). St. Patrick’s Park is located directly across from the Mid-City Yacht Club, which is located at 440 S Saint Patrick St.

Security District Update
After clearing significant hurdles at the city level, the Security District is ready to launch. Please attend the monthly meeting, next Monday, September 7, from 6:30-8:00pm, at Grace Episcopal (3700 Canal – next to Mandinas) for a full report. Yes, it’s Labor Day, but we hope you’ll join us for this important update.

“Porch Crawl” and Mid-City Mixer
MCNO will debut its new, yearly fundraiser, the “Mid-City Porch Crawl” this fall, tentatively scheduled for Friday, October 23 from 6-9pm. This fundraiser will take participants on a tour of five of Mid-City’s most fabulous porches (all within a few blocks of each other). At each porch, they will be fêted with drinks, food, and great companionship. More details to follow, soon.

Our next Mid-City mixer will be held Tuesday, September 22, at the Bulldog, from 5-8pm. Join us on the Bulldog’s lovely back patio for good company and MCNO member specials.

MCNO Eblast Update
Since we are preparing to re-launch our newsletter, we will be dropping back to every other week on the eblasts unless there is urgent information to share. Please remember to send your items to mcnonewswire@gmail.com.

August 19, 2009

In this email:

1. MCNO Newsletter Update
2. Neutral Ground Clean-up Report
3. Mid-City Mixer News and Schedule
4. Code Enforcement Progress
5. Sheriff’s Sale News

MCNO Newsletter Update
This week, we had planned to bring you the first issue of our new, email-friendly newsletter. However, while pulling together the content, we uncovered a story worth telling – and worth holding the issue. So, look for your first full e-newsletter around September 1. In the meantime, here’s this week’s blast.

Neutral Ground Clean-up Report
On July 24th, over eighty volunteers from various Lutheran churches across the nation converged on Mid-City to assist in a City Council sponsored, city-wide clean up effort. The volunteers met at 10am on Saturday morning at S. Jefferson Davis and Tulane to pick up trash and debris along the neutral ground and bordering sidewalks that stretched from Tulane to Bienville. MCNO would like to thank all of the volunteers, including those Mid-City residents who joined in the clean up effort, for their hard work. The neutral ground has never looked so beautiful!

Mid-City Mixer News and Schedule
Last week, we had our best-attended mixer so far, at Clever Wine Bar in the American Can Company retail complex. We greeted existing MCNO members and Mid-Citizens and welcomed new ones, with folks talking well past the scheduled event time on ideas for improving our fair community. Our next mixer will be held at Bulldog on Canal Boulevard (just above Mid-City). October and November mixers will be held at Chickie Wah-Wah and Deutsches Haus.

Stay tuned for the finalized dates and specifics – Chickie Wah-Wah will be a spectacular, live music event!!!

Code Enforcement Progress
We are in the process of creating a page on the MCNO Web site (www.mcno.org) that will list upcoming code enforcement hearings, present the outcome of past ones, and provide more information on how you can submit properties and follow them through the process. Today, MCNO representative Jennifer Farwell testified at the City Council’s Housing and Human Needs Committee Meeting, using our experiences at the recent round of hearings to offer suggestions on improving the procedural effort. On Saturday, September 12, we will be attending a city-sponsored seminar on how the entire process works. We will have our Web site live by then and will report back to you with new information as we obtain it!

Sheriff’s Sale News
The preferred outcome of Code Enforcement Hearings is that the owners will correct the violations and come into compliance. However, once the fines have been levied, the city places an actual lien against the properties for that amount, and a judgment is filed. Within a few months, the properties can move through the lien foreclosure process and to Sheriff’s Sale. MCNO recently received a list of properties in District B that may be eligible for Sheriff’s Sale. Rather than recommend the City move all of them through to Sheriff’s Sale, we wanted to gauge the interest of neighbors and others in purchasing them for rehabilitation or lot-next-door acquisition. If you might have interest in any of these properties or know someone else that might be, or believe they would be good candidates for sheriff’s sale for one reason or another, please send an email to vp@mcno.org as soon as possible (we will send our first list to the city by end of day Friday).
3726 Baudin St.
429 S Cortez St.
3716 Banks St.
528 S. Scott Street
540 S. Scott Street
637 S. Pierce St.
501 S. Telemachus Street
521-23 S. Scott Street
432 S. Scott Street
121 S. Cortez
400 S. Pierce St.
736-38 S Lopez St.
2911 Conti ST
500-02 S Scott Ave
2829 Banks St.
2736-38 Banks St.
3604 Tulane Ave.
340 S. Clark St.
3016-18 Bienville St.