Cannon’s Addition Panel Wants Larger Area

The people organizing the Historic Cannon’s Addition Neighborhood Council want to expand its boundaries to encompass a wider part of the lower South Hill.

Currently, Cannon’s Addition is limited to serving the blocks bound by 14th Avenue, Cedar Street, Interstate 90 and the bluff to the west.

There are only about 1,400 residents in that area.

Janet Davis, head of the neighborhood council, said her group considered several boundary proposals at a meeting of South Hill residents last month.

After taking comments, the neighborhood council now is recommending to expand south to 16th Avenue and east to Grand Boulevard. The proposed boundaries would include Sacred Heart Medical Center, which sent representatives to the council meeting last month to suggest that the medical facilities be included.

Earlier, Cannon’s Addition council members talked about expanding south to 29th Avenue and east to Bernard, but they abandoned that idea based on comments from the March neighborhood meeting, Davis said.

Five new neighborhood councils have been formed to give residents a greater voice in city affairs. Two more councils are being proposed.

East Central has the one other neighborhood council on the South Side.

The proposed expansion of the Cannon’s Addition boundaries makes sense because of the similarities in the blocks stretching east to west, Davis said.

The area is characterized by historic homes and a mix of residential and commercial uses, including the concentration of medical services.

Also, school boundaries are roughly consistent with the neighborhood council boundaries, she said. A new COPS Southwest shop is opening at Ninth and Monroe.

A unified neighborhood council could monitor and address the needs within that area, including public safety, streets, parks and land use.

The mayor and City Council members want to give individual neighborhoods more say over how city services are delivered to them and how growth and development shape the places people live.

Last week, Mayor Jack Geraghty and council members Phyllis Holmes and Roberta Greene convened the city’s first Community Assembly of Neighborhood Councils.

The assembly will become a forum for airing major neighborhood issues.

“We are learning in our country as a whole how to live in communities again,” said Latah Creek resident Lori Bertis, a neighborhood that doesn’t have a council yet.

As many as 19 or 20 neighborhood councils could ultimately be organized.

The neighborhood representatives said they hope to influence major projects such as the proposal by the city to develop a large municipal operations center along North Foothills Drive east of Hamilton.

Residents of the Logan Neighborhood are opposing that project.

, DataTimes