HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes 9-11-06City of Falcon Heights
Environment Commission
Meeting Minutes
September 11, 2006
Present: Jim Kielsmeier, Linda Smith, Deb Jones, Peter Lindstrom, Gretel Keene, Sam Bontrager, Deb Tretsven
The meeting was called to order at 6:35 PM.
Greg Hoag brought in a copy of the soil sample report results for the potential garden site at Community Park.
It was also noted that a community garden would be covered under the city’s insurance policy. There would be no additional liability.
Motion was made to approve the minutes from the previous month. Motion approved.
Deb Tretsven reported on the meeting with Ila Duntemann and Sarah Ulmer regarding the garden. Their most resounding advice was to find the “committed individuals” who can run the garden.
With out those people, the garden will be difficult to start up and maintain. They felt that the site was fantastic, and definitely workable. Ila thought the park site was better
than the city hall site due to amount of sun, water availability, and other amenities. They also suggested using the gardenworks website for much of the information in getting a garden
started.
Deb Jones reported that several people had made contact regarding the garden via the website. Perhaps these interested citizens could be asked to join some sort of garden task force
or steering committee.
It was noted that $5000.00 has been earmarked in the 2007 budget for this project. Also, there is still some uncertainty surrounding the U of M lease that is still to be negotiated.
The commission is not exactly sure what the time line is for this negotiation, and when the final decision will be made.
The commission discussed how to proceed and get information to the council. We felt that we should get everything in order for “plan A” (community park) with “plan b” (city hall) as
a back up. We would like to make a recommendation to the council to move forward with the community park site, knowing the U of M negotiations are still in the works. We want the council’s
support.
The question was raised; do we want the garden to be city endorsed or a community group that manages, runs, and takes care of the garden entirely? In what capacity does the city need
to be involved?
It seemed that most commissioners agreed that it would be good for the Environment Commission to be the group to “cheerlead” and find the community gardeners, and hand it off to them.
It was suggested that the garden operate much like the neighborhood commission and neighborhood liaisons. The gardeners can attend a commission meeting (or commissioners attend garden
meetings) occasionally to give/get updates on the garden.
It was also mentioned that the neighborhood commissioners and liaisons, along with the parks commissioners might be good allies in getting the word out about the garden. There may need
to be some formal relationship between these three commissions.
Peter Lindstrom has agreed to present the information we have gathered and present it to the council on Nov. 8th. He will share what he has put together at the next environment commission.
Gretel K. agreed to be our “communications coordinator” and contact those citizens who expressed interest via email. It was agreed that we need to make contact with any interested gardeners,
as they may be the leaders in the steering committee/task force.
Deb Jones announced that there was nothing new to report on the apartment recycling project as it has only been a month since they started recycling again.
Justin Miller will be the staff liaison for the Environment Commission as Deb Jones was an interim liaison.
The meeting was adjourned at 8 pm.
Meeting minutes submitted by Deb Tretsven.