Belmont - Topping Block Club

Partying between the rain drops, block party 2011

2011-09-18T14:56:00.009-05:00

Partying in the hood

2011-06-19T10:38:00.005-05:00

Pictures of the Blue Valley Neighborhood Association post cleanup celebration party in Blue Valley park

Dumpsterday 2011

2011-06-19T10:17:00.006-05:00

graffiti part 2

2011-05-09T12:19:00.001-05:00

Graffiti Abatement part 1

2011-05-09T11:51:00.005-05:00

First, assemble your paint, roller and pan. Use a roller for rough texture, 3/4 nap. The paint we use is a very dark brown almost black. It is Behr paint color called Stealth Jet #780F-7 and can be bought at Home Depot.

It was left over from another project so we had the paint on hand. It has worked very well at keeping down repeat tagging on the poles and we will buy more for future abatement.

Paint the Graffiti

The next step is important, with your roller set the height to be painted( approx. 6ft) with a top line this keeps every thing neat and attractive

Paint all of the pole below the top line

Stand back and admire your work

Sweeping The Street

2011-04-15T07:54:00.003-05:00

Jan took the phrase "sweep the street" seriously. While the rest of us raked leaves and the gunballs, here she is with her broom and dust pan, sweeping the street. Not only in front of her house but also in front of her neighbors. Jan , Thanks, the street looked very good after you were through.

Some pictures from Sweep The Street, spring 2011

2011-04-15T07:32:00.001-05:00

These are just a few of the people who put out brush and bags of leaves. We lined the street with our yard waste. A very good sight to see, all of you cleaning up the neighborhood.

Thanks for making our neighborhood a better place!

It is sweep the street week

2011-04-05T20:53:00.005-05:00

Spring cleaning time!!

City brush and leaf pickup is Thursday, April, 14th
So let’s all get out this week and pick up all the gumballs and left over leaves. Help us have a better neighborhood by first cleaning up in front of your house then help a neighbor, remember, his yard is your view.

I look forward to a street lined with paper bags full ready for the city to pickup.
City rules for brush and leaves
• Sacks and bundles should be curbside by 7 a.m. on the scheduled day of collection.
• No more than 20 sacks and/or bundles per household.
• Sacks and bundles must not weigh more than 40 pounds each.
• Use only paper lawn debris sacks. No plastic bags.
• If you seal sacks, use masking tape only; do not use plastic or duct tape.
• No grass clippings. No trash.
• All branches must be bundled. Branches must not be more than 3 inches in diameter

Good News!!!!!

2011-03-23T15:53:00.003-05:00

This eyesore

Is Gone!!!!!!

What a way for spring to start!!!!

The year that was

2011-03-23T14:47:00.003-05:00

We had a very good year last year.

Our Big victory was the city removal of the dangerous building on the corner of 14th and Belmont. This house had been and eyesore for years and had started to rot and fall in on itself. This is a huge success for us. Now we need to get the city or land trust to mow it.

In addition
We had dumpster day, which was fully funded by your donations. These donations, also, funded most of our second annual fall beach party.

We started our graffiti abatement program, So far it has had good success most of the graffiti has not returned. The only retagged building was a garage at 13 and Belmont and that only in the last 2 months. So all in all our efforts have yielded success.
We still have to power wash the wall at the corner of 13th and Belmont. Also, a tree at 12terr and Belmont.

And last was our second annual end of summer beach party in the street, where a fun time was had by all.

I want to thank all of the folks that helped me keep the pressure on the city, the Blue Vally Neighborhood association, Truman Road Corridor and many of you who personally called city officials. It looks like this squeaky wheel got some relief.

I also want to thank the city trash folks for keeping up the pressure and helping us to keep our street free from trash by writing tickets when land lords decided to use the curb to store their trash.

I love it when I see a city tag on a big pile of old furniture and trash bags

tulips on 14th street

2010-04-12T12:24:00.002-05:00

I had hoped to have tulips all up and down the block but we all got busy last fall and I only got them planted at the block entrances. Maybe more next fall.

Dumpster Day

2009-06-21T13:34:00.005-05:00

It was a hot and sweaty morning but we had a good turn out and managed to fill 2 dumpsters by 11 am. We got our dumpsters, with the help of the Blue Valley Neighborhood Association, from the city dumpster program. The city will cover the cost of the dumpster and only charge the neighborhood $55 for a $300 dumpster. To cover our cost we ask everybody for donations, we ended up with $149 in donations , which cover our $110 cost for the dumpsters and leaves us with $39 to use on our next project. These donations are very important as we charge no dues for membership and have no funding grants. The only way we can bring things like the dumpsters or trash bags for the spring and fall cleanup is with donations from the neighborhood.
A big thanks to those who donated, they keep things happening in the neighborhood.

This is still there

2009-04-29T14:42:00.004-05:00

Despite repeated assurance that it will be picked up by the city trash crews, we still haven't seen this pile of trash that we picked up 2 weeks ago disappear. Maybe this week.

I will make one more call. If it is not picked up this week, we will need to find homes for this trash.

UPDATE:

We were able to get the trash picked up by scattering it out in front of several empty houses. The city trash service never followed through on their promises to pick it up. But there is more than one way to get it done. Sometimes you just have to be sneaky.

This is gone

2009-04-29T14:29:00.002-05:00

Most of this pile of trash was picked up by bulky items and we thank them for their cooperation

We got the leaves picked up

2009-04-29T11:31:00.002-05:00

Sweep The Street part 2

2009-04-23T14:55:00.003-05:00

As most of you know our Saturday the 18th Sweep The Street was rained out . However people worked around the rain to clean up and also did cleanup in the days after. Here are some pictures I took of the various people sweeping the streets to make them look better.

Sweep the Street part 1

2009-04-16T21:40:00.001-05:00

Successful first meeting

2009-04-04T18:30:00.009-05:00

We had a very successful first meeting.

Three people volunteered to serve on the board of directors.
Dale Fugate, Chairman
Yvonne Leathers
Reggie Pierce.

We, also, passed our bylaws, so with that done and a board of directors, we are a legal functioning nonprofit.

I want to thank neighbor Carla Ruiz for offering to translate our fliers into Spanish. She and her husband were unable to attend because of work conflicts but both expressed excitement about what we are attempting to do.

Our first event is going to be a neighborhood cleanup April 18 with a potluck party afterward. We will supply the meat and grill and eating utensils. Everybody come , bring a side dish and beverage of your choice.
We will post more information later.

Thanks to everybody who attended the meeting and helped get this organisation off on the right foot.

YES WE CAN!

2009-03-26T06:42:00.000-05:00

Everyday in the headlines we read about budget cuts and short falls in the city. We have seen for ourselves the decreases in city services with the elimination of a regular bulky items pickup. In a time of limited city services only the crying child gets attention the quiet good one will be ignored.
So we need to make ourselves heard. We can best do that by organizing a block club. With a block club we can work on the various issues we have on this and surrounding blocks and either find a way to solve them together or bring them to the city with the impact of a group rather than one ignorable individual

We have problems with dangerous buildings that are rotting down and are often open where any curious child can enter them and be injured.

We, also, trash and rubbish piled on the curb and leaves piling up in the gutters and clogging the storm drains.

In addition we have gang sign tags throughout the neighborhood

Add to all that the houses that are either empty and for sale and the ones in bank foreclosure you have a neighborhood that is heading down hill. We need to work together to stop the slide.
So let’s meet, organize and toss ideas around. We can make a difference , we can change things.

It is official

2009-03-25T14:39:00.000-05:00

Belmont-Topping Block Club is now an official nonprofit corporation in the state of Missouri.