February 20, 2010: Design Charette at Clover Lawn Park

This design charette will be held as follow-up to the surveys and general meeting so that a final consensus can be reached.

February 16, 2010: Survey Results To Be Discussed at Neighborhood Meeting

Neighborhood Meeting takes place at Lion's Field (southwest corner of Broadway and Mulberry). All are invited to come to these meetings regardless of whether they are a member of the neighborhood association. The more the merrier!

February 9, 2010: Surveys Due Back

The survey forms will tell you exactly who you need to return them to so they can be compiled with all other neighbors.

You can download the survey form by clicking here. Or paste the following link in your web browser:https://acrobat.com/?d=ecnCPAEEfXTs0vwwYbOOqw.

If problems accessing the form, please call Dave Evans at 210.859.0055.

January 31, 2010: Surveys To Be Passed Out to Carnahan/Thorman/Allensworth

You can download the survey form by clicking here. Or paste the following link in your web browser: https://acrobat.com/?d=ecnCPAEEfXTs0vwwYbOOqw.

If problems accessing the form, please call Dave Evans at 210.859.0055.

January 28, 2010: Meeting at Ruth Rodriguez's House to Discuss Design Options

A meeting will be held at Ruth Rodriguez's house at 315 Thorman to discuss design alternatives. Start time is 7:30, Thursday, January 28, 2009. Please RSVP in comment section. Thanks.

January 24, 2010: Meeting on Process

Ruth Rodriguez prepared the following summary of the meeting on January 24, 2009 with action items to be addressed in days to come:

Greetings All,

I just left a meeting with representatives of the Garden Committee and residents from Thorman as well as other neighbors regarding revisions to the previously proposed Community Garden site plan.

To achieve maximum consensus of residents immediately adjacent to and affected by the planned revisions to Clover Lawn we have agreed to the following:

A small group will work on providing a couple of options to the site plan currently proposed (that will happen this Thursday at my house)

A questionnaire/idea sheet is being written to accompany those plans so we may receive additional input on how neighbors use the park, envision the park and how, if at all, a community garden might co-exist with current uses

On this coming Sunday, January 31st, the drawings and questionnaire will be dropped off at houses on Allensworth, Thorman and Carnahan. We will be requesting that the questionnaires be returned in a week to a specific house on each street.

This document will be available online as well as be available at the next general membership meeting. At next month's general meeting we will update the membership to the recent steps that have been taken. Suzanne, I hope this works with what else you might already be planning for the monthly meeting. We will provide the PDF of the questionnaire with plan as soon as possible so it may be uploaded to the website.

On Saturday, February 20th, we will hold a charrette in Clover Park to workshop preferred ideas and choose a consensus site design plan for Clover Lawn. That plan should be distributed in the same manner as the questionnaire.

Bruce and Carlynn - Can we get the following published in the newsletter:

Please plan to attend the meeting in February as we will bring you up to date on changes that are being proposed to the pocket park, Clover Lawn, bounded by Allensworth, Thorman, Catalpa and Avenelle. These ideas may also affect other pocket parks in the neighborhood and your
input is crucial. Surveys are being circulated on the streets immediately surrounding Clover Lawn. If you would like to fill out a survey and one is not dropped off at your house you may either
download it from the website or call a board member and one will be dropped off for you. For those interested in participating in a design charrette regarding the future of this park, please plan on joining us on Saturday, February 20th in the park (a time has not yet been set).

January 22, 2010: Invitation to Meet on Process

Email from Dave Evans regarding meeting to discuss process for building consensus in light of concerns over Clover Lawn:

Folks,

As you may know, an issue has arisen with respect to carrying out the garden at Clover Lawn Park. Some of the neighbors on Thorman are concerned about the use of the entire open space at Clover Lawn for garden plots as currently contemplated in the proposal to Green Spaces. Some of those on the gardening group met with some of the Thorman neighbors on Sunday evening at Scott Day's house. We then visited the park to consider options to accommodate folks' respective concerns.

We also discussed the issue at the end of the last neighborhood meeting this past Tuesday evening, and the consensus appeared to be that the various stakeholders should re-visit the design of the garden to ensure that everyone's needs and concerns are addressed. We circulated a sign-up sheet for those in attendance who wanted to be included in future emails so as to ensure maximum participation going forward. They are included in this email.

It seems that the major point of friction is Clover Lawn Park as open space use for kids/parents/pets versus Clover Lawn Park as space for gardening. Are the two mutually exclusive uses at the park under the circumstances? Or can they be reconciled? (And perhaps there are other perspectives besides these two that we are not even considering?)

In any event, I have spoke with Courtney, who could not attend the Tuesday neighborhood meeting, and she asked me to send out this email to everyone to propose having a meeting at my house (red brick house at corner of Ira and Margaret) on either this coming Sunday or Monday starting at 5:00. The sole purpose of the meeting is to agree on a process and timeline to go forward so that everyone's concerns can be addressed in an orderly and timely way. I know this may seem to be a meeting about having another meeting, but I am not certain there is yet an agreed way to even process through this impasse we have found ourselves in.

Please send me an email whether you prefer this coming Sunday the 24th or Monday the 25th to meet. Don't hesitate to email or invite others who may be interested in the issue. Again, point of meeting is to agree on a process going forward so we can address concerns without sapping the momentum we already have.

Thanks,

Dave Evans

200 Ira

859.0055

December 23, 2009: Green Space Grant Awarded

Courtney Denton's Email To MP Community Garden Committee:

Hi MP Garden,

I just received a phone call from Angela at Green Spaces that we have been awarded the full amount of $7,000 for our community garden!! We will draw up the paperwork with GSA in January and wait to hear back from the City of SA about our MOU to use the Clover Lawn Park.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

December 11, 2009: Green Space Alliance Grant Application

If you would like to see the Green Space Alliance Grant Application prepared by Courtney Denton and Chris Derrington, you can do so at this link taken from our new website (hat tip Suzanne Biase): http://www.mahnckepark.org/index.php/remository/func-startdown/45/.

The appendix to the grant application (with photos and original (now being reworked) concept drawings) is here: http://www.mahnckepark.org/index.php/remository/func-startdown/46/