Keep League City Beautiful Citizen Committee

Keep League City Beautiful Citizen Committee Meeting Minutes for March 1, 2022 At 6:04 p.m. League City Vice Chair, Beth Sears calls the meeting to order. Committee members Dave Bowman, Nina Makepeace, Jill Reason, Frank Zgonc, and Richard Williams were present. Also in attendance were League City employees, Sarah G. Osborne and Rosa Salcido. Councilman Larry Millican was also present. Instead of meeting at the Civic Center, the meeting was held at Helen Hall Library. There were no citizen comments to the board. A motion was made by Dave Bowman to accept the minutes from February 1, 2022. Richard Williams made a motion to approve the minutes and Nina Makepeace seconded the motion. All who were present said “yes.” There was a discussion about the Civic Center Art Gallery exhibit schedule. The current, “What Inspires You?” exhibit will close on April 30, 2022. The next exhibit will feature art by CCISD students. Two art pieces from each school will be provided. A letter was drafted and sent to Mary Goldner to congratulate students who will be selected to participate. The student show will be up for the months of May and June. It will be followed by an exhibit that will be open to all artists for the months of July and August. The theme will be “Animal Persuasion”. Osborne mentioned that the remainder of the year will feature CCISD teacher art followed by holiday cards by students attending local schools. Each of these exhibits will be up for two months as well. Once the holiday card exhibit comes down, a rodeo art exhibit will take its place from January through March of 2023. The next item on the agenda was an update on the JC League statue. Millican expressed concerns about the height of the pedestal. If the base is 3 ft. tall, that does not make the art piece interactive. Bowman suggested that perhaps the base can be buried. Osborne talked about bringing the statue to code and installing motion sensors to keep vandals at bay. She also mentioned that the dog would be approachable and interactive since it would be at a lower height. The discussion led to a review of the easter eggs and if they would be within a viewer’s line of sight. Osborne then began a discussion about wood sculptures that will be made from the trees that will be cut down at League Park. She presented work by Jimmy Phillips. The first prototype shown was a girl reading to a dog which will be installed outside the Helen Hall library. Williams asked if a slab will be poured and suggested that the piece be elevated. Osborne said that the piece will be carved on site and the slab will come later, after the piece is complete. Bowman expressed concerns about the noise that would be generated by the artist while creating the sculpture. Osborne mentioned that Jimmy plans to do the noisy work offsite and work with smaller tools like chisels on site. A sketch of a firefighter was then presented. This second sculpture will be placed near the Dickenson entrance leading into Hometown Heroes Park. The artist will begin work in April and continue the work through May 22nd. A 5k race is scheduled for that day as part of a fundraiser for the Blue Santa program. Having the artist on site will add to the success of the event. Millican interjected that it would be wise to make a concrete base since the sculpture is made of wood. He mentioned that termites may become a problem if the base is also made of wood. Osborne talked about the maintenance of the wood and that it would have to be oiled regularly. Hometown Heroes will also have a permanent exhibit added to the walls along the long hallway at the side of the building. The side entrance is currently an employee entrance and exit only for visitors. The plan is to create a timeline featuring LCPD and LCFD photos printed on vinyl or wallpaper by creating a collage instead of installing framed pictures. Katie Benoit and Jessica Crook are gathering photos for the art gallery display. Osborne described the decorative panels matching along a seam like wallpaper. There will be text on the panels as well. There was also an update about the relocation of the longhorn sculpture. It is too big to be installed at the Helen Hall library. It will now be placed at the League City Police Department building. A new base will be made using 100-year-old wood. New designs for phase II of the signal boxes will be discussed at the April meeting. An update was given for the CCISD signal box designs. Nina asked if a single image can be submitted instead of breaking it up into sections. Salcido replied “yes, the company producing the vinyl prefers a single image so it can be manipulated easily, and overlaps can be created, making the installation easier”. Bowman asked, “what if we hate them?” Nina mentioned that the teachers will screen the images before they are sent out. Osborne added “Each school selects what is submitted”. Bowman asked, “What if more than one design is submitted?” He asked that the designs be considered to wrap blue barrels that can be placed in public places near the schools. Bowman asked if we have an adopt-a-barrel program. Osborne said that many cities do but they are primarily in private places like HOA’s. Bowman added that CCISD needs to be contacted regarding the school parking lot litter problem. Osborne suggested calling the principals directly and asking for a dumpster. Nina mentioned that perhaps clubs could help with the trash problem. The next item discussed was the White Linen Art Crawl. Streets will be closed from 2nd street to Walker. The event will be held on June 25th from 4-8 p.m. and will have a car show, historical society tours of homes, live music at street corners, a jazz band at League Park and food trucks. People will be walking around in costumes. League City will provide space (free of charge) for local artists to show their art. They will have to provide their own tents. An unconventional art display was introduced. Osborne suggested the use of tree cuffs to cover tree trunks at League Park or along Highway 3 between FM 518 and Walker Street. Williams spoke of the cuffs being a Segway to the library. Bowman asked, “How long would they be up?” Zgonc mentioned that one of his neighbors put a 15 ft tall tree cuff up ten years ago and it’s still there. The colors that were used were vivid and it continues to look good. Sears interjected that she is not a fan of tree cuffs. Millican asked about the longevity of the yarn. He commented about acrylic lasting longer than wool and offered to buy the yarn. He felt that it would be “dynamic” to see colorful tree cuffs along Highway 3 and bring attention to the municipal area. Bowman asked if solar lights could be used to draw attention to them at night. Osborne mentioned using LED’s and up lighting. Getting power to the lights would not be a problem. A trail sign video was then presented. Osborne mentioned that more will be added in a couple of months as part of phase II of the project. Bowman asked about the lifespan of the signs. Osborne replied: “about 5 years but once the trails are expanded, the master trail signs will be outdated.” She explained that the top section of the sign can be replaced with a new sign. Millican mentioned the trail system is massive with 270 trails in all directions (North, South, East and West). Bowman said he sees a lot of disconnect among the trails. Coastal creature trail @ Dudney and flora and fauna trails. He suggested giving the trails names by combining phase II and III. Bowman brought up an issue related to walking in town and finding that some areas have no sidewalks. He talked about Bob Duke’s presentation discussing how power lines limit the height of beautification efforts. He noticed many vehicles and RV’s parked under the power lines. Millican explained that it is a lease situation with CenterPoint Energy. Parking is permitted under powerlines if the containers can be moved. A short recap of the Clear Creek Cleanup was given by Bowman. There were over 90 participants, and 20,000 pounds of trash was collected. Approximately 80% of it was lumber that had washed up on the bank. There was an air boat, 6 city boats and 9 volunteer boats. Osborne announced that League City provided the dumpsters and port-a-potties for the event. Bowman shared that the Clear Creek Environmental foundation president announced that starting next year, the cleanups will be on Saturdays from 2-4 p.m. and a new slogan will be created. Bowman was invited to attend the quarterly meetings. A short video with highlights was shown to the group. The next item on the agenda was the Great American Cleanup. Osborne suggested cleaning up the trails along Magnolia Creek. She asked that we extend an invitation to Bay Area Church off Main Street to partner with League City for this event. The parking lot at the church can serve as a place to park buses that can drop off participants along the Magnolia Creek trail. Parking at countryside is not an option due to the number of events that occur there on weekends. Millican asked if the suggested cleanup area is North or South of 518. Osborne replied, “south of 518, there are big trash items including a large quantity of pizza boxes”. Bowman asked how we could keep track of the passengers that are picked up and dropped off. He said, “Perhaps we should think about sending out in teams of 2”. Osborne replied that the volunteers would either end up at Rustic Oaks or countryside where there is a local HOA. Sears shared that lugging a full trash bag can get heavy. She suggested that a full bag be left on the trail and others can pick them up. Bowman said that he has participated in cleanups where full bags are pickup up. Osborne suggested starting at Main Street and go all the way down, eventually the trail will loop around. Osborne talked about walking the trail with Cameron, the park operations manager, to figure out the logistics. Another place that can be called to ask for participation is the Summerplace HOA. The parking lot can be used for the cleanup event. Bowman plans to participate in a cleanup event one weened before or after the League City event. He hopes to clean up a larger area with the “Boyz of Bay Ridge”, Marbella, Southshore or the Davis neighborhood. Some of the attendees were not familiar with the League City Adopt-A-Street program. Millican admitted that he had not seen or heard of it. Osborne mentioned meeting with Frank LeBlanc, a code compliance manager, and discovered that this program is not affiliated with Txdot. There are supplies available and signs will need to be made along League City roads. Millican said the signs are blue. Osborne said that there needs to be a way to follow up with the people who participate. She proposed that a subcommittee be created and asked if Sears and Bowman would be willing to head that committee. Osborne asked the group to accompany her to view the Bird’s Eye View of League City painting. She also mentioned printing a small poster or postcards of the painting. Dave suggested that perhaps someone can digitally reproduce it. The meeting was adjourned by Sears at 7:40 p.m.