WOW!
Lots of interest in community gardening lately! Just wanted to 'check in' with everyone on this as I have been looking into community gardening and how the Park Board can help since. Some of you may remember that I wrote an opinion piece supporting community gardens in parks earlier this spring. I am a Horticulture Prof at the U and, of course, support gardening throughout the city! It is Americans number 1 past time! 1) Great turnout for the Critical Mass bike ride looking at Community Gardens last Friday. Must have been 50-75 bikers. This group did a great job organizing the tour and the party afterwards. 2) Dean Zimmerman organized a meeting last week between his office, MCDA, and myself (Park Board) to talk about this issue as well! Both Dean and I have had discussions about this issue with Paul Ostrow. Paul has a general interest in a 'greening' policy for the city. The support Of Dean Zimmerman, Paul Ostrow, Gary Schiff, and Lisa Goodman for general greening of the city is terrific. I am sure that others on City Council are supportive as well. 3) After having Minneapolis Park Board staff look through everything they could find, I realize now that there is not a concrete Minneapolis Park Board policy on community gardening! The 'no edible' policy, that has been in effect arose because of the previous use of herbicides in parks. In my mind, not allowing edibles alongside potential herbicide application was a good policy. Since herbicides are not used in most neighborhood parks anymore, this issue is no longer valid. 4) Therefore, I introduced a motion at the July 3 Minneapolis Park Board meeting to direct staff to develop their recommendations for a new community gardening policy in parks. The new recommendations will come forward out of the Operations and Environment Committee (Annie Young and I are Chair and Vice-Chair, respectively). The upshot is that I expect that there will be a new policy in place for spring 2003 given there is general support to make some changes across the Board. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board should be community gardeners best friend. It is my hope that the Board will eventually be facilitating folks more in their efforts. Some 'pie in the sky' thoughts - what if people could schedule tillers through the MPRB during the spring, what if there was a single list where MPRB staff could dump compost or chips at specific sites rather than hauling stuff to dump sites, what if MPRB facilitated land purchase through working out some agreement to address the liability insurance issue? I think some, if not all of these are possible with time. Both the affordable housing and the need for green space issues are valid. The city needs to develop more affordable housing, and existing lots are a reasonable place to turn. In addition, any additional property tax revenue would be helpful to the entire city- including the park system! Having said this, I do believe that community gardens can be a vital part of a community to provide green space, a gathering place, and an asset to increase property values in a neighborhood. Surely, we can work out a new city and park policy to promote both! All of your interest is really appreciated! Keep on pushing! Sincerely, John Erwin City-Wide Park Board Commissioner _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
