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Well, you might want to keep your pets a little closer to home, since Pat Gerke has reported seeing at least one coyote up on South Country Club Drive this weekend. From the Wikipedia article on coyotes:
Coyotes are often attracted to dog food and animals that are small enough to appear as prey. Items like garbage, pet food and sometimes feeding stations for birds and squirrels will attract coyotes into backyards. Approximately 3 to 5 pets attacked by coyotes are brought into the Animal Urgent Care hospital of south Orange County (California) each week, the majority of which are dogs, since cats typically do not survive the attacks.[50] Scat analysis collected near Claremont, California revealed that coyotes relied heavily on pets as a food source in winter and spring.[41] At one location in Southern California, coyotes began relying on a colony of feral cats as a food source. Over time, the coyotes killed most of the cats, and then continued to eat the cat food placed daily at the colony site by citizens who were maintaining the cat colony.[41] Coyotes attack smaller or similar sized dogs, and they have been known to attack even large, powerful breeds like the Rottweiler in exceptional cases[51]. Dogs larger than coyotes are generally able to drive them off, and have been known to kill coyotes on occasion. Smaller breeds are more likely to suffer injury or death.
I’ve seen multiple foxes over in our part of the neighborhood in recent years, but a coyote is a whole different matter. If anyone else sees this one, or gets a picture, be sure to let me know.
Cheers -
Jim Downey
This week’s Board of Adjustment meeting gave Steve Rother and his wife Kimi Chinn Rother permission to remodel their new home. This is the Ray Brady house on the corner of Fairway and Country Club Drive. They needed permission because they want to go close to the property line on the north side, but they’ve been talking with Bill Cupp, their neighbor on that side, and things seem to be fine. They’ve already started work!
We also have a new neighbor on Country Lane in Chubb Phillips old house. His name is George Hummel, but I don’t know anything more about him.
Please welcome them, and any other new neighbors you happen to meet!
Following up to this post, this evening we had a meeting with Tim Crockett of Crockett Engineering Consultants and Dave Fenton, new owner of the land where Total Environments Landscaping was on Old Highway 63.
Mr. Crockett outlined what the plans are for the site, and where they are at with the process to seek rezoning and development. Mr. Fenton, owner of Columbia Car Care (currently located at the corner of Providence and Business Loop 70), would like to build a new car care facility (to replace his current one) on the northern section of the property, where the old brick maintenance/storage building currently sits. The current structure where Total Environments had their retail space would be renovated and leased for professional use (a physical rehabilitation/therapy service was discussed). The rest of the lot (about 1/3) on the south/east portion of the property would be left as green space, with the intent to not develop it. Overall, 60% or more of the site would qualify as “green space”.
The new car care facility would be about 10,000 square foot in size, with brick/dryvit construction on the front and east, commercial metal lap siding on the rest. There would be no external storage of vehicles or parts/equipment. The facility would meet or exceed all city standards for landscaping and storm water retention, as well as the relevant OSHA/EPA requirements. There would be no body or painting work done on the site, and any noisy equipment (mostly compressors) would be confined to one area of the building with appropriate sound abatement. Entrance on/off Old Highway 63 would use extant driveways, and the traffic impact would be minimal. Likewise, signage would be minimal. Hours of operation would typically be Monday through Friday 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM, with possibly some Saturday morning hours. In order to reduce light pollution, the builder will seek city permission to eliminate the parking-area lighting, and only have security-type lighting around the facility. There would be vegetation screens (large white pine trees or similar) on the east and south, to minimize impact on the surrounding houses.
Mr. Crockett and Mr. Fenton both seemed eager to work with the neighborhoods adjacent to the property, and said that they wanted to meet with us to hear our thoughts *before* even starting the formal paperwork with the city to seek rezoning of the relevant parcels to C-P, with the C-3 allowance of having a car care facility only. They were willing to completely and forthrightly answer all questions, and welcomed feedback.
Overall, I was pleased with the meeting and the presentation. My personal opinion is that they would be good neighbors, and a good addition to the area, and so long as their formal application does not significantly deviate from what was presented tonight, it would be a good thing for our Neighborhood Association to support. The members of our neighborhood association (and we had about 2/3 of the attendees) agreed that it was not necessary to have a formal meeting to discuss the proposed development, since everyone was satisfied with what was presented to us.
One item which was raised with me at the end of the meeting was a request to have the north side of the facility, which would be partially exposed to Old Highway 63, to have the same sort of brick/dryvit construction as the west and south sides. If you have any additional questions, or would like to offer your opinions in the matter. do please feel free to send me an email ( jim@afineline.org ) or post a comment here.
Jim Downey
I will be sending out an email and walking around an announcement to everyone in the neighborhood probably on 10/30 (weather depending), but I wanted to get the basic information up here right away.
I have been contacted by Tim Crockett, local engineer and owner of Crockett Engineering Consultants here in Columbia. Here are some excerpts from his emails:
I have a client who has recently purchased the parcel of land in which was the location of the landscaping business located on the east side of Old 63 between Gordon and McAllister Streets. My client desires to develop a portion of this property and will need to seek approval of a C-P Development Plan as well as an adjustment to the zoning.
Before we take this request to the City, we would like to meet with the neighbors of the area to present our plan and get public input. We strongly feel that we need to meet with the neighbors before we make any request.
* * *
The purpose of this meeting is to present to the neighbors what we would like to construct on the property, what we are preserving, and how we propose to be neighbor friendly while still doing business as a commercial development. While we are proposing our development to the neighbors, in return we would like to get input from the neighbors. We would like to take this input and try to create our plan with that mind.
The meeting will be next Wednesday, Nov. 4th, starting at 5:30 PM at the Oakland Senior Center, 805 Old Highway 63 N (across from the parcel of land in question, next to the Access Arts building).
I am not sure just exactly what kind of business they want to put there. I have heard a *rumor* that it is an auto repair shop. But we’ll have to see what they actually tell us at the meeting. I think that it is good that Mr. Crockett is taking the initiative to contact us (and the Benton-Stephens Neighborhood Association) to arrange a meeting at this point in the process, but beyond that I have no information or opinion on the matter yet.
Do try and attend the meeting next Wednesday, so we can hear what they have to say. Afterward we can set up a Neighborhood Association meeting to discuss the matter amongst ourselves.
Jim Downey
You’ll be receiving a little slip of paper at home about this (thanks, Jim!), but here’s some advance notice: the neighborhood garage sale is set for Saturday, October 10. Start making piles of all the things you aren’t using and let’s find new homes for them! I’ll place ads in the Missourian and Tribune, and Jim has volunteered to help me make a sign to post at the entrance of the neighborhood a few days before 10th.
Hi everyone!
I just wanted to give a brief recap of our neighborhood party and business meeting last night.
First off – thanks to all who came. Special thanks to Jayne and Greg Wack for hosting the event on their lovely patio, and to Bob Hutton for helping supply the tables and coolers!
We had a great turnout for the party, about 75 people all told, when you include our guests from the Police and Fire Departments. KOMU did a segment on the news last night about the city-wide event, which pretty much featured nothing but footage from our party. If you didn’t see it, you can check it out here, with a related story on the Night Out here (that’s Greg burnin’ the burgers in the photo!). The food was excellent, and the company was even better. We got to meet our new neighbors (perhaps a spotlight introduction on them later) and everyone certainly seemed to enjoy themselves.
The business portion of our evening was brief but productive. First, Jean Leonatti, current President of the Country Club Board gave an update on the latest things happening with the Club and answered some questions. We had reports from the CCENA officers (short version – everything is going fine, we haven’t spent any money, and the new directory will be available soon), and then we made a change to the Bylaws to make the annual $5.00 membership fee entirely optional. We discussed re-activating the Neighborhood Watch program (more on that to come), and street lighting. The possibility of expanding the Association to include the adjoining neighborhood to the north was discussed, but we decided not to act on that at this time. Then, since there were no new candidates for office, we elected the current slate of officers to serve another term. (Perhaps we’ll get out on good behaviour next year.)
The meeting was over by 7:20, and a goodly number of people stayed for another hour or so to chat and enjoy the delightful evening.
Again, thanks to all who were able to attend.
Jim Downey
Randy Kilgore dropped me a note the other day, asking whether we had noted the passing of long-time neighbor Raymond Brady.
“No,” I replied, “Martha and I hadn’t heard the news.”
So it is possible that you haven’t either.
Mr. Brady passed away on June 11, and was buried in the Columbia Cemetery. In addition to the usual details of a public life one would find about such a well-known leader of the community, the obituary in the Columbia Tribune had this more personal note:
Raymond’s athletic pursuits included football at Hickman and pitching baseball for Columbia American Legion, Ban Johnson and the Old Columbia Merchants. He tried out with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1940, was considered one of Columbia’s better three-cushion billiard players, played piano for many years with the Boone Docs, a local band that raised funds for needy medical students, was an avid fisherman, having fished most lakes and streams in Missouri and went on many trips to Canada and Mexico.
I think sometimes we lose track of the personal. Our friends, family, and neighbors are more than just simple facts on a page, but that is often all that is left of us as far as the public is concerned. If you have a story about Mr. Brady you would like to share, please feel free to do so in a comment, or come and share it with others in person on Tuesday. That seems to be the best way to honor his memory.
Jim Downey
John and I are happy to announce the arrival of Victor Catlin Dupuy, born right here on Country Lane this morning at 12:46am with the help of the team from the Columbia Community Birth Center. He was only two weeks late, beating his big brother Dante by a full week. 9 lbs. 11 1/2 oz, 22 1/4″ long, healthy as a horse. Had a near-perfect apgar score of 9 1/2 out of 10. We’re all doing well and are being cared for by my parents for the next two weeks, thank goodness. He’s looking forward to meeting everyone at the picnic!
Sarah Catlin-Dupuy
