Beautification Committee

CITY OF SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS DOMINICK PANGALLO MAYOR APPROVED MINUTES April 9, 2024 Salem Beautification Committee: Chair: Henry Gulergun Vice Chair: Ariana Lema-Driscoll Secretary: Kim Parkinson City Liaison: Janelle Rolke 4/9/24 – Hybrid Meeting Present: Kim Parkinson, Henry Gulergun, Janelle Rolke (City Liaison), Charlene Bailey, Brooke Nagle, Ariana Lema-Driscoll, Zachary Schaad, Mary Ellen Halliwell, Sam Fiore, Laurie Biel, Jason Lang Absent: Jeremy Baker Guests: Maria Connell, Sandra Power The meeting was called to order at 7:03PM. Agenda: 1. Call to Order 7PM 2. Mission Statement 3. Approval of February 2024 Minutes 4. Old Business: - Great Salem Cleanup - Community Meetings - Sandwich Board Sign Design - Volunteers for seeking new traffic island sponsors 5. Sub-Committee Reports: - Lady of Salem (Mary Ellen) - Traffic Island (Charlene & Sam) - Monthly Cleanups (Kim & Zach) 6. New Business: - Zach’s update on committee logo - Volunteer Recruitment Plan - Traffic Island Sponsorship Update - Vote on Lafayette Park Sponsorship quantity 7. Adjournment Mission Statement: The mission of the Salem Beautification Committee is to assist the City in developing and pursuing initiatives that promote the beautification of the City. The goal of the Committee is to create civic pride and to motivate the City's diverse population to participate in the beautification process. The Committee will identify areas in need of improvement, will create programs, recruit volunteers and will secure the funding resources to achieve its goals. Brooke made a motion to approve the April meeting’s minutes and Zach seconded the motion. The minutes were approved unanimously. Old business: Great Salem Cleanup We are well underway prepping for the Great Salem Cleanup on April 20th. We currently have about 190 people signed up (already more than last year!). Kim has been hard at work trying to get donations to provide our volunteers at the after-cleanup event where we’ll have pizza from NY Essex, treats from A&J King, coupons, and raffle items to share. All captains have been sent the first round of instructions on what to expect and Kim and Janelle will get the 2nd reminder email out next week as well as an email for all volunteers. Zach raised a motion to the committee to approve $200 for the cost of pizza for our volunteers, it was seconded by Ariana and approved unanimously. There was a suggestion raised and discussed by the committee to consider separating out nips from the rest of the trash to share with the licensing board. It is a great idea but will require a lot more effort. Kim and Janelle to review the recommendation and will proceed as they see fit. Community Meetings There were several meetings attended by the committee over the past few weeks: ● The licensing board meeting was attended by several committee members to discuss the proposed ban on nip sales in Salem. Kim, Ariana, and Henry all spoke up to share what we’ve seen in the community and at our trash cleanups. The opposition shared that this will hurt their businesses tremendously but they cannot back it up with data on how much. The board will reconvene next month after they’ve hopefully gotten the requested data back from the business owners. If anyone feels strongly, feel free to reach out to the city council members and/or the licensing board. ● Jason and Zach met with the Point Neighborhood Association in March and it was informative to get our name out there. Hopefully it will help get volunteers to assist with our different efforts (both individuals and other community groups). The Neighborhood Improvement Advisory Council will be attended by Zach and Kim next week. Sandwich Board Design Janelle shared a sample yard sign that was designed by Jason and printed out to be used for volunteer activities. These should let people know that we’re out there gardening and how to sign up to help in the future. Janelle can print out others as needed and has several of the bases we can use. There was an idea to also put small signs on the islands to let them know what plants are there and to share more information on the native plants in particular but there are also concerns that it would detract from the beauty of the traffic island. Charlene shared a sample window box competition board that was used in the past. Next steps: ● Charlene to look into potential small signs for the native plant descriptions 2 Volunteers for seeking new traffic island sponsors Janelle has printouts for the committee members of the 2024 MOUs to try and get new businesses to sign up. Henry will create and share a list of businesses that are not currently sponsors with the group this week so we can all help try and sign them up as new sponsors. Janelle called a handful of businesses on Friday already and we want to make sure we don’t all contact the same businesses. There are 3 levels - the $300 level is when the city waters and maintains it which is a lot of work so if we can try and find people to help with the $150 level that would be great. Everyone should think about what businesses do things like this (like landscapers or a nursery) because they can use it as advertising for not only the sign but also their work. As Janelle gets confirmation from last year’s sponsors, she is updating our tracker. Next steps: ● Henry to create a spreadsheet with a list of the businesses that are not sponsors to circulate to the committee. Sub-Committee Reports: Lady of Salem (Mary Ellen) Mary Ellen registered LoS for Trails and Sails on 9/14-9/29 to do a self-guided tour. She also reached out to the lead park ranger to provide more information at the Heritage Days Festical on 8/3. For the Maritime Festival, there was an idea to have kids paint a Lady but that can obviously be pretty pricey. Mary Ellen created some printouts for the younger kids that they could paint/color and for the older kids, we could consider buying 1 Lady to have them paint with an artist mentoring them. It would cost the committee $242 if we wanted to buy one that we sponsor. We could repaint it white and re-use it every year (market it as the Lady of the Year). The motion to approve was made by Zach, was seconded by Kim, and was approved by the committee unanimously. Mary Ellen and Sam will be refurbishing the Ladies again on April 11th 10AM-12PM if anyone wants to join. Mary Ellen ordered new nameplates to replace the ones that needed work. Mary Ellen also had some QR codes created and printed out so we can affix them to the backboard on each Lady to direct them to the website. Next steps: ● Need to find someone to take updated photos of the Ladies (potentially Jason) ● Need to update the website to include more info on each lady and an updated map Traffic Island (Charlene/Sam) (Full Report is in the Addendum) We are back out on the traffic islands but we haven’t done any advertising yet because it’s been too cold. The core group of volunteers has been out there cleaning up the beds from trash, weeds, and tall grass to uncover the islands. It’s nice to see them starting to grow back. Tomorrow they will be at Riley Plaza and moving forward, they will share the planned dates to advertise for the volunteers. We have mulching assistance coming into town on May 14th and 21st which is a huge relief (with rain date options). The Sheriff’s office has a division called Community Service Program that can offer anywhere from 5-8 workers to help mulch. In exchange for their services, we will be paying for a pizza lunch and beverages which should cost about $100. There was a motion to approve the funds by Zach, seconded by Brooke, and approved unanimously. We still need to buy the mulch. DPW assumes we’d need about 10 yards; the cost per yard is about $50 so it should cost ~$500 for the mulch for Lower Hawthorne Boulevard, Riley Plaza, and the Washington Strip. Kim made a motion to approve $500, which was seconded by Zach, and approved unanimously. 3 Charlene has specified dates and times that she will plan on being out at the gardens each week and needs to add Sam’s availability. It was suggested to try and come up with a monthly calendar to advertise and see how different days of the week and times perform for volunteers and adjust accordingly. Janis Manning shared that it would be a great opportunity to go to the Farmer’s Market to get our name out there. If the committee wants a table, we can let the city know when we want to go and Janelle can procure the table. Charlene shared sample t-shirts and vests for the volunteers that were well received by the committee members. Janelle proposed that committee members get a T-shirt that can be washed and re-used and the volunteers would be given a vest that can be recycled. We will table the rest of the conversation for now as we need to cover a proposal for a new logo later in this meeting. Next steps: ● Need to confirm when we want to go to the Farmer’s Market and what we would share with people ● Get volunteer days and times up on the site for May and get an email out to let people know Monthly cleanups (Kim) Our last cleanup was in Gallows Hill where we had about 20ish people show up to clean about 372lbs of trash and ~160 nip bottles. The team made an effort to count the nips given the upcoming licensing board meeting where we had our leadership team join and share the recurring issues we’re seeing. We are full steam ahead planning for the Great Salem Cleanup and the next cleanup will be in May - 1st Street at Traders Way. New Business: Zach’s update on committee logo We have been getting more involved with a larger number of community members for the different projects we’ve been working on. After reviewing the current logo, it doesn’t encompass everything we do as a committee and it has not been updated since potentially the inception of the committee. Zach has been talking to a local graphic designer (Kristen Fitzgerald) who is a Salem resident and a BookSwap volunteer. She’s working with some other groups in the community on their logos so Zach talked to her about potentially creating something and she was very excited about it. She offered to create a logo and provide us with all of digital and printed assets for $50. The committee unanimously agreed that we would like to create a new logo, we would like to work with Kristen Fitzgerald, and we would approve $50 to pay her for the logo. The timeline looks like we could have everything done by potentially July but depends on us. Samples of Kristen’s work can be found at https://www.kristenfitz.com/ Next steps: ● Zach to ask Kristen to join the May meeting ● Zach to share a mood board where people can add thoughts about what they’d like to see Volunteer Recruitment Plan Charlene and Sam have proposed the plan for May. Janelle asked Jeremy if he could lead any volunteer groups and he said he could do Tuesdays or Fridays after 5:30PM or weekends. If anyone else has a date or two in May that they can be the point of contact for, we can add it to the calendar. Next steps: 4  ● Brooke to create a shared calendar for May ● Ariana/Brooke to add the calendar to the website ● Charlene/Sam to create a how-to guide for captains so new captains know what to look out for Traffic Island Sponsorship Update Covered in the Traffic Island update. We need more sponsors, especially at $150 level. Next steps: ● Jason to follow up with Claire to let them know we’re waiting on an update from Derek for the Salem Waterfront Hotel on their $500 sponsorship ● Jason to bring the Traffic Island program to the Rotary during their next meeting to let them know we have available islands available for sponsorship ● Charlene/Sam to put together a writeup for the Salem Rotary newsletter and send it to Janelle Vote on Lafayette Park Sponsorship quantity At Lafayette Park, there are currently 3 gardens that are seen as 1 and sponsored by the Beautification Committee. The committee needs to decide if that island will be treated as 1, 2, or 3 sponsorship opportunities moving forward. There is a benefit to having it as 1 garden managed by the same person so there is synergy but we could also sell the front 1 and hope someone sponsors the other 2. Habanero Bikes has an interest in helping to maintain it but we’re not sure if they have interest in 1 or 3 and if they would be a sponsor (likely not). A motion to table the vote until the next meeting was made by Brooke, seconded by Mary Ellen, and unanimously approved. Brooke made a motion to adjourn at 8:48PM. Ariana seconded the motion and it was a unanimous vote. Traffic Island Report Charlene Bailey Tuesday, April 9, 2024 1. Spring Cleanup on the Traffic Islands: Since our last meeting in March, we (depending on availability of each (Sandi, Sam, Joann, Nancy, Jack and Charlene) have been out on a weekly basis at the large traffic island locations – Riley Plaza, Lafayette Park, Temperance Park and Washington St. Strip being attended by Sam. The purpose now is to cleanup litter, rake the beds, cut back plants/grasses that are in need, get the bed edges lined up again and provide the opportunity for the plants to be able to show all of us their gradual progression to being full grown plants again in our gardens as they work their way through Sping and into warmer weather. It is interesting and exciting! 2. Mulching Assistance for Washington Street Strip, Riley Plaza, Temperance Park: Sam and I are so happy to share the news with you that we have been in contact with the Sheriff’s office, and they have agreed to provide us with 5 – 8 workers from their Community Service Program to move and spread mulch on the above-mentioned Beautification Traffic Islands. They will be working with us on Tuesday, May 14, Washington St. Strip and Tuesday, May 21, Riley Plaza and Temperance Park, 8 to 8:30 am to 1 – 2 pm. 3. Plans for Days of Working in Gardens: Charlene’s Gardening Times: Tuesday 9 – 11 am (very hot days 8:30-10:30 am) 5  Wednesday 9 – 11 am (very hot days 8:30-10:30 am) Monday night 5 – 7 pm Sam’s Gardening Times: Monday and Friday . . . time to be announced 4. Signs: Signs advertising Beautification Committee, attracting garden volunteers, promoting native plants and pollinators. Thank you, Jason, for creating a layout design since our March meeting – very sharp and colorful. The volunteers have been talking about these and have been thinking about sizes, wording, art/pictures, etc. Discussion at tonight’s meeting? 5. Shirts/Vests for Garden Volunteers: . . . I shall bring samples to tonight’s meeting. Concerns: Volunteers for the Gardens 2024. Irrigation – on islands sponsors have paid for -- that irrigation system works or sponsor gets truck delivery of water. 6