BHCA has decided to broaden the mailing list for the Bolton Hill Bulletin to include all neighborhood residents, students, retirees and others who are not yet dues-paying members. But after a healthy debate about the proposed recommendations, the association board voted not to eliminate free first-year membership for new members.
Both steps were recommended by the membership committee, charged with adding new households to BHCA’s roster. If you’re a member, go to BHCA’s membership page now to renew for 2025. If you have not been a BHCA member, you can join for free your first year. Here’s a quick-and-dirty list of selected accomplishments by the association, for just the last half of 2024, to pass on. Here’s what membership dues help pay for:
- BHCA sponsored at least 10 neighborhood-wide events during the second half of 2024, ranging from a well-attended June family potluck picnic at Sumpter Park with a pony ride and other kids’ stuff, to a more solemn Veterans Day ceremony at Congressional Medal of Honor Park in November.
- Additionally, BHCA’s Arts in the Parks 10 free summer concerts introduced the neighborhood to an array of talented and wide-ranging local musicians.
- BHCA work parties planted at least 34 new neighborhood trees and rehabilitated 39 tree wells. They completed other landscaping plans or projects for Rutters Mill, Mount Royal and Sumpter parks plus the coming Unity@Park Avenue pocket park at North Avenue and Park Avenue. Neighbors raised the tree canopies and improved fencing, lighting, benches and tables at Mounds Park and along the Eutaw Place median.
- Bolton Hill’s annual Festival on the Hill in October drew hundreds of folks and raised more than $10,000 for local community uses.
- BHCA honored MICA’s new president with a reception and, in turn, MICA hosted a morning coffee for Bolton Hill residents as part of its December holiday arts market.
- The August Crab Feast and Picnic honoring first responders drew a nice crowd.
- BHCA kicked off an exhaustive census of street lighting and cameras in the neighborhood as part of a safe streets initiative by the safety committee. The initiative resulted from a summer membership survey aimed at preventing crime in the area.
- Working with neighbors in Madison Park and Historic Marble Hill, BHCA hosted state and city housing agency officials to push for improvements at the Pedestal Gardens apartments complex. Separately, the association created a Neglected and Mismanaged Properties Committee in September to pressure absentee owners to correct reported problems.
- A BHCA committee hosted a major cleanup weekend in November. Another committee was formed to promote rat abatement.
- The first of six sculptures, destined for Bolton Hill locations, was dedicated on a site facing Mt. Royal Avenue, with additional installations expected in the new year.
- A plaque dedicated to a long-ago resident who fought to keep Bolton Hill and much of Maryland racially segregated was removed from its Park Avenue median location. BHCA also is pressing the city to remove the Confederate monument plinth on Mt. Royal Avenue.
- A small but important first set of traffic calming steps were taken by the City on Lafayette Avenue and also on Laurens Street after pressure from residents, led by BHCA. Still more is needed.
- Members vote annually for officers and a new class of board members at the May meeting.