NEAT (North End Action Team) is a community advocacy group composed of citizens, city officials, and Wesleyan students-- all are welcome. Meetings are held on Wednesday evenings at 7pm, Liberty Commons. It is a way to organize the people of the North End, so that the neighborhood improves and reconnects to the rest of Middletown. It addresses all issues, ranging from long- term revitalization projects to Easter Day parades to environmental and health concerns.

· NEAT provides a platform for E3 to get projects accomplished that may be out of the reach of E3. (eg. Legislation, issues which involve community mobilization)

· E3 can offer NEAT the resources of active students.

· NEAT offers E3 the resource of concerned citizens.

· Together E3 and NEAT have more power + impact than either alone.

· A lot of urban environmental problems exist in the poorer sections of town, which in this case is the North End.

· A great way to connect to Middletown and start to increase communication between town and college.

· The Miller –Bridge Street area is currently being debated as to its "viability". Which means, its currently not fit for humans to live in, and the city is trying to decide whether it wants to keep it residential or ship people out of there. One issue is lead contamination, a nearby area has been found to be contaminated. Several lawsuits have been filed in the Miller Bridge St. so far but the city isn’t acknowledging them.

· raise awareness--- newspaper articles ect.

· see if Wes students have the jurisdiction to do soil sample tests

· urge city officials to do something!! Tests, clean-up, ect.

· Is Miller Bridge St. isolated? How much do we know about the town we are living in?

· effforts to assess environmental conditions in town and identify possible areas
  of problems, clean- up, anything relevant (enviromap?)

· Community through green public spaces

· identify possible areas

· catalog those that exist and spread the word

· What’s everyone else up to?? Create a sense of a movement

· newsletter w/ above issues in mind: current problems, events, news of

green education in schools, places to go enjoy nature; list of local

environmental organizations + current projects

· NEAT also addressed the newsletter idea during a meeting on

community building and good way for E3 to start to keep up w/ local

movement

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