As we ring in the New Year and return to the hustle and bustle of everyday life that the season’s holidays seem to suspend, we must not forget last December’s Holiday Home Tour. I know I certainly haven’t! The 2008 Home Tourreiterated that age-old mantra that says ‘It takes a village’, and certainly it did!

First, Suan Grant and I would like to say thank you so much to each of you who made our home tour such a grand success! There are so many things that so many people do to make this happen each year which really make the tour quite the event to watch unfold. We are grateful to the homeowners, Tim Lyons, Tracey & Andy Zeeck, Mick Shirron & Don Hawkins, Lori Wrotenbery, Jennifer & Steve Ryan, Summer & Don Steele, and Jim Pickens, who put hours, days, weeks, and even years, into making their homes beautiful for the tour. We heard many compliments about each of your homes and hope that each of you feels some gratification for your work. Thank you to the House Captains, Michael Khoury, Mary Jane Southwick, Lisa Escalon, Claudia Conner, Mary Schneeberger, J.B. Schuelein, and Gary Jones, for all of your work in coordinating the volunteers who staffed the houses. You truly did a great job representing the neighborhood and greeting all of our visitors!

Thank you to Al McAffrey, Tiffany Davis, Jackie Johnson, Mary Schneeberger, and Claudia Conner for hosting and coordinating the cocktail party. It was a wonderful evening with great friends, food, and drinks, and it helped turn quite a profit for the home tour!

There is also some behind-the-scenes work that deserves acknowledgement. Paul Wilkes and the staff at Red House redesigned all of the print materials and delivered a newly refreshed home tour logo that perfectly reflects both the modern and traditional nuances of our little village. Thank you to Dana & Mike Templeton for donating the luminaries, and thanks to Dana T. and Dana & Harry Meister for putting them together and setting them up at each of the homes. They added just the right amount of ambiance to the Saturday evening tour. Karen Zimmer spent a lot of time working on our postcard database both before and after the tour, helping to rebuild our list from previous years and making sure we increase our outreach for next year. Dan Connally researched all of the home histories and drafted each story for the program. Gary Jones did a wonderful job of making sure we had a yummy and delightful refreshment stop. Houda Moussa, Janice Menser, and Loralee Laird baked hundreds of cookies that Vinyard Foods donated. Jackie Johnson led poster distribution, and Mary Schneeberger coordinated the ticket outlets. Thank you also to Mike Menser for leading the clean-up efforts and to Michael Khoury for drafting the home renderings. There are so many more of you that donated your time to staff the houses and helped in ways that we may not know. You all have our sincere gratitude.

Lastly, we must thank our media partners who promoted our event: Downtown Monthly, The Oklahoman, Oklahoma Magazine, The Journal Record, and KFOR TV.

We also want to extend our gratitude to our sponsors without whom we could not launch this event: AT&T, American Fidelity, Bank of Oklahoma, Crescent Market, Design Resources, Homeland, St. Anthony Hospital, and Western Lawns. It is so wonderful to have their partnership in the many beautification projects that our neighborhood undertakes. We also had many wonderful advertisers whose donations help drive our revenue. Redbud Floral in Norman, Floral & Hardy, Brandt’s Flowers, New Leaf Floral, Dulaney Flowers, Granada Floral, and OKC Florist each provided beautiful floral decorations to the tour homes. Food donors did a fabulous job by providing delicious food at the cocktail party: Bin 73, Paseo Grill, Prarie Gypsies, Prohibition Room, Tom & Jerry’s, and Vinyard Foods, along with Dick Sias who provided the Joulian wine and Freeman’s Liquor who donated the keg of beer.

If you get the chance, please let these businesses and individuals know how grateful we are for their continued support. And as much as a ‘good neighbor is a great blessing’, so are our community friends and partners who help make this event happen every year!

Thanks to a last minute effort just days before the December 31st grant deadline, Mesta Park’s Endowment Fund at the Oklahoma City Community Foundation (OCCF) has increased by $10,000. Many of our neighbors contributed to the cause, donating a total of $5,000 to the John Kirkpatrick Centennial Endowment Challenge offered by OCCF earlier this year. The Kirkpatrick Family Fund then matched our collections with $5,000, for a total increase of $10,000!

The Oklahoma City Community Foundation and Kirkpatrick Family Fund offered the John Kirkpatrick Centennial Endowment Challenge “in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Mr. Kirkpatrick’s birth. In 1979, Mr. Kirkpatrick organized the first of seven ‘Kirkpatrick Challenges’ through which he would match contributions as a way to increase organizations’ endowments and to attract new donors. These match challenges would become a hallmark of his philanthropy.”

The Mesta Park Endowment Fund was established approximately four years ago in order to provide a permanent source of income for the neighborhood. We receive 5% per year on our endowment fund balance, which now stands at over $60,000, and this will continue in perpetuity! The larger the balance, the more income we generate each year, so it stands to reason that we should donate to the fund whenever we can.

IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO DONATE! Although the matching grant has expired, you can still contribute to the MP Endowment Fund by sending a check to the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, P.O. Box 1146, Oklahoma City, OK 73101-1146. Please specify on the memo line of your check that you are donating to the Mesta Park Endowment Fund. You can also make a donation online with a major credit card by visiting OCCF’s secure website at www.occf.org/donate.

Many thanks to all of you who contributed to this worthy and lasting cause! Generations of future Mesta Parkers will thank us for having the foresight to establish this fund and for ensuring that Mesta Park continues to stand out as a beautiful and thriving community.

As I am sure many of you have noticed, Graffiti has become quite a problem in our area. This is especially true on NW 23rd St. This type of vandalism hurts the beauty of our area, decreases property values, and makesvisitors think we don't care about our neighborhood. We can't control the many run-down businesses on 23rd St, but we don't have to settle for this vandalism that advertises our neighborhood as an easy target for crime.

According to www.graffitihurts.org, studies show that the most effective way to prevent graffiti is to remove it promptly (24-48 hours). This is most likely not possible in all instances, but if you are or know the property owner of a vandalized building, quick removal will help prevent recurrence. According to the Neighborhood Alliance of Central Oklahoma, "Oklahoma City municipal code states that it is the responsibility of the property owner to remove graffiti from their property. The Community Action Agency will provide free paint and supplies to property owners who wish to clean up graffiti. Contact the Community Action Agency at 232-0199 to locate the nearest district office. If the graffiti is not on your property, CAA staff will also help you carry out the steps necessary to get permission from the property owner and will issue a voucher for paint and supplies to a local paint store or equipment rental agency. If the same area is vandalized again, you can use any remaining paint or go through the process again to obtain more materials." For those situations where the property owner is a disinterested out-of-state party the city provides a means for clean-up: "It is important to note that the city will remove graffiti at no charge to the property owner, but the city is required by state law to wait 20 days after the initial notice of code violation to allow the property owner to remove the graffiti themselves. After a property has been served with one notice of code violation for graffiti, no further notice will be issued. The city crew will remove any future incidence of graffiti from the same property as it is reported."

Please report all graffiti to the OKC Action center, by phone 297-2535, by fax 297-2579, or on the web at http://www.okc.gov/action/Complaint.html. If you witnesses graffiti in progress, you should call 911 and report it. Getting caught is also a successful deterrent to vandals. If you are interested in helping with the removal of graffiti, please email graffiti@mestapark.org and link your personal email to it.

Click here to download the February 2009 newsletter in pdf format

Click here to view the minutes from the December 2008 neighborhood meeting.

Click to view / download the November 2008 newsletter

We'd like all our homes to be ready for the many visitors who will attend that weekend, so the deadline for the 2008 contest will be Sunday, November 30th.

Start getting the wreaths fluffed and the lights untangled.... Last year, Mesta Park looked great for Christmas! We will again be offering first ($80), second ($40) and third ($30) prizes, so good luck to everyone!

My understanding of why this has come about is a bit muddled. In the past, commissioners with a perceived conflict of interest have simply recused themselves from the proceedings at hand. Recently, however, it seems that the City’s Municipal Counselor’s Office has issued a new ruling regarding conflicts of interest (fished out of the state statute) that prohibits architects (or others) from serving on our City’s various boards or commissions if the architects own more than 25% of their firms, and if they have (or hope to have) contracts with the City. This eliminates almost all of the qualified architects who have the time and interest in Historic Preservation, as well as many others who want to contract with the City now or in the future. So. . . not only is the HP Commission without architectural expertise, but our other City boards and commissions are, too.

There will evidently be an amendment on the November 4th ballot to City Charter, Article IV, Section 11, that will address this issue. If it passes, the amendment will also have to be signed by the governor. This would solve the problem on the city level. Eventually, the state statute will have to be amended if we hope to eliminate the rule altogether. I’m no attorney, and I’m certainly no expert regarding all the legalese that goes on in City and State government. I do know one thing, though. Without committed and experienced HP architects on the Commission, we will all lose, and I’ll be forever dumbfounded. [Contact me with questions regarding HP issues at hp@mestapark.org]