Historic Preservation Committee
Meeting Minutes – April 21, 2016
A meeting of the Mountain Lakes Historic Preservation Committee ("HPC" or the "Committee") was held on April 21, 2016, in the Mountain Lakes Library. In attendance were Chair Lesley Karczewski, Vice Chair Tom Dagger, Ginny Cassidy, Alex Gotthelf, Margaret DeWitt, Katy Roberts and Borough Council Liaison Bill Albergo. Absent were Pat Rusak, Sima Chowdhury and Mike DeWitt.
Approval of Prior Meeting’s Minutes
The minutes of the March 16, 2016 meeting were approved upon motion of Tom Dagger, seconded by Alex Gotthelf.
Treasurer’s Report
Opening Balance as of 3/15/16: $31,183.30
Debits: $14.35 Pat Rusak for Boonton Photo
Credits: $279.00 One plaque and one historic photo
Closing Balance as of 4/20/16: $31,447.95
Archivist’s Report
Pat Rusak clarified that 302 Boulevard being sold as is or as a knockdown.
The committee discussed options for managing the Archive after Pat moves. Lesley spent several hours with Pat mapping out the Archive and getting a better idea of where everything is.
Lesley posted a "want ad" for an archivist in the Mountain Lakes e-blast and received 2 responses. One, Rebecca Hadjiloucas, seemed promising. She has a BA in history and teaches locally. Lesley met with her at the Archive and gave her a rundown on what the job would entail. Rebecca has some experience with social media and websites which all agreed would be useful. The committee enthusiastically agreed that we should bring Rebecca on board. The committee also agreed with Lesley that it would be good to have a team of people supporting the Archive so we would continue to look for candidates.
Alex mentioned he knew someone who was interested and would have her contact Lesley.
Growing up Laker
book in the Neighbor News article was discussed. The 2 women who are writing it graduated in 1974. They want to visit the archives but Pat has asked them to be more specific in telling her what they are looking for. They are looking for information on people graduating before 1985. If possible, we would like to support them and possibly get copies of their surveys for the Archive.Borough Liaison Report
Bill reported that he is friends with the people who purchased 32 Condit and they are willing to let the HPC in to salvage old parts before the gut the house.
Old Business
Ordinance edits
The committee discussed and provided input on proposed changes to the HP incentives ordinance. The next step would be for Tom Dagger to discuss them with the Ad Hoc Committee that developed the ordinance in 2011-12.
Oral Histories
Lesley reported that John Lester has started interviewing people in town and that she would like to recruit him to work with us as she is concerned that there will be duplication of efforts.
129 Pollard Rd.
Lesley and Pat were able to get into the house the day before it was demolished to take photos. The house was in good shape and it is a shame that it was taken down.
New Business
Alex and Sima attended a social media workshop hosted by the
New Jersey Historical Commission. Sima submitted a written report which is attached to these minutes. Alex reported that we need to decide who our audience is for text and photos if we create a Facebook page. Posting needs to be consistent, should be regular campaign. All agreed that the HPC should have Facebook page and that the logical person for maintaining the page is the archivist.It was proposed and agreed that our July meeting would be cancelled in favor of attending the Morris County Trust for Historical Preservation program on July 21 at the Morristown Library. The topic of the program is what it means to be a historic preservation commission.
Date for Next Meeting
May 19 in the Mountain Lakes Library, upstairs.
Minutes prepared by Ginny Cassidy & Lesley Karczewski
SOCIAL MEDIA WORKSHOP
Organized by the New Jersey Historical Commission (Best Practices Series)
The aim of the workshop conducted by Rachel Dukeman was to enable non-profit organizations to tap into the marketing and development potential that social media has to offer. The presentation primarily concentrated on using social media as an active form of communication and participation to expand the audience base of the non-profit organizations. The different form/ type of social media available were introduced and their demographics and the main issues/topics they generally addressed were subsequently outlined in detail.
The workshop demonstrated the ways to use social media and digital media marketing to increase grant proposals, fundraising campaigns, audience participation and communicating your brand to reach a larger audience online.
An organization like Mountain Lakes HPC needs to decide who the target audience is and then create events and online presence accordingly.
Attempts to include more youth volunteers as the minutes indicated could be a possible way to proceed. In that case we need to have more detailed discussion on different ways of achieving this—with the High school, through participation in more events, etc.