New Neighbors

Romana Lavalas

President

Ron Hoffman

Vice President

Mary White

Secretary

Mark Watkins

Treasurer

Dear New Neighbor:

The Outer Comstock Neighborhood Association (OCNA) welcomes you to our neighborhood. As a new homeowner here, we want to introduce you to our association. Membership is free to you this year when you complete the enclosed membership application in the newsletter and return it, marking the application "New Homeowner."

OCNA was incorporated in 1979 and its first major battle was to keep the Dome from being built at Skytop. The Board meets monthly on the last Tuesday of the month at The Victory Temple Fellowship Church on Alden Street. Members are welcome to attend. The annual meeting is in November before Thanksgiving at which time elections to the Board are held. We produce two or three newsletters a year and have an E-mail alert where we inform participants about meetings of potential interest and of problems in the neighborhood (lost pets, thefts, etc.). OCNA has "adopted" Comfort Tyler Park. We hold cleanups in the spring, plant flowers in the planter, and generally advocate for the park. We plan and maintain the flower beds in the park, in the traffic triangle and beneath the welcoming signs.

The purpose of the Association is to:

• Promote and preserve a neighborhood environment which is pleasant, attractive, safe, healthy, and otherwise conducive to the well being of the residents.
• Maintain the single-family residential character of the neighborhood where it exists.
• Encourage residents to support and participate in affairs affecting the neighborhood.
• Communicate neighborhood concerns to city and county officials.
• Strive to obtain a fair share of beneficial neighborhood public works and beautification projects

Our most recent projects was to create a monument honoring Comfort Tyler, the name sake of our park. The last piece of the monument was the cobble paving around the plaque. We were instrumental in restoring the historic plaque in Comfort Tyler Park and hosting a rededication ceremony. Unfortunately the bronze plaque was stolen just short of the first anniversary of its rededication (June 19, 2006). We subsequently obtained a granite plaque, fencing, flag and bench for the monument. Another recent project is obtaining a marker for the Old Rose Cemetery on Jamesville Avenue. Other projects involved getting a grants from the CNY community Foundation to erect "Welcome to Outer Comstock" signs at the entryways to the neighborhood, to renovate the planter in Comfort Tyler Park, the planter in the park and to obtain street trees along the cemetery at the southwest corner of Jamesville Avenue and Thurber Street as well as in the park. We also obtained funding for a slide and two benches for the park. Before that we obtained a new playscape in the park and have worked to obtain a program for low interest loans for home repairs in the neighborhood. We obtained a community Foundation Green Grant that allowed us to plant 35 trees at the back of Comfort Tyler Park to form a screen between the park and the houses on Harriette Avenue. This year we will be getting more park improvements as part of the "Save the Rain" project.

OCNA represents the district roughly bounded by East Colvin Street to the north, Skytop to the east, East Brighton Avenue/Route 81 to the west and Ainsley Drive to the south. Our website is *[ www.outercomstock.org ].

Our Neighborhood is pleasant, safe and convenient. We encourage you to join us to maintain and continue improving it in the years to come.