Beautification Committee

CITY OF SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS DOMINICK PANGALLO MAYOR DRAFT MINUTES May 14, 2024 Salem Beautification Committee: Chair: Henry Gulergun Vice Chair: Ariana Lema-Driscoll Secretary: Kim Parkinson City Liaison: Janelle Rolke 5/14/24 – Hybrid Meeting Present: Kim Parkinson, Janelle Rolke (City Liaison), Brooke Nagle, Ariana Lema-Driscoll, Zachary Schaad, Mary Ellen Halliwell, Laurie Biel, Jason Lang, Jeremy Baker Absent: Henry Gulergun, Charlene Bailey, Sam Fiore Guests: Bruce Piper, Maria Connell, Kristen Fitzgerald, Sandra Power The meeting was called to order at 7:02PM. Agenda: 1. Call to Order 7PM 2. Mission Statement 3. Approval of February 2024 Minutes 4. Old Business: - Committee Logo Redesign (Zach & Kristen Fitzgerald) - Vote on Lafayette Park Sponsorship quantity (Kim) - Traffic Island Sponsor Update (Janelle) - Volunteer Calendar and email notifications (Brooke & Ariana) 5. Sub-Committee Reports: - Lady of Salem (Mary Ellen) - Traffic Island (Charlene & Sam) - Monthly Cleanups (Kim) 6. New Business: - Window Box Competition Update (Ariana & Zach) 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 Ariana seconded the motion. The minutes were approved unanimously. Old business: Committee Logo Redesign Zach proposed the idea of a logo re-design several meetings ago and enlisted the support of Kristen Fitzgerald. Zach created a mood board for everyone on the committee to contribute to, has started to consolidate the results, and reviewed with Kristen. We reviewed the words, images, and inspirational logos that were submitted by the committee. Overall, the committee really likes the idea of having something like the shared swan logo that can be used interchangeably since we do so many different things. We’d like to use this type of logo on shirts, hats, printouts, websites, social, etc. Kristen should have an update to us by Friday or early next week to get initial feedback from the committee. Salem, City of Peace is something we should keep in mind. Vote on Lafayette Park Sponsorship quantity Last month, we started the conversation about the Lafayette Park sponsorship and whether that should be seen as 1 island or 3. Maria Connell’s business is currently the sponsor for the front spot but she is not committing to buy mulch and flowers for all 3. If things need to be weeded or trash needs to be picked up, Maria will be happy to help out but it is proposed that the volunteers who have currently been working on it, continue managing it, and we will not seek sponsors for the other 2 islands. There are already a lot of plants there and volunteers who are happy to help maintain it. As we talked about it more, it appears that much mulch shouldn’t really be needed for the other 2 islands and if more is needed, we will need to confirm who will pay for it. Kim made a motion to keep all 3 together, managed by Maria’s business with help from committee volunteers on the side plots. Ariana seconded the motion and it was approved by everyone present. Traffic Island Sponsor Update As of today, we have received $5,275 towards the traffic island sponsorships. We have 1 new sponsor on the corner of Federal and North Street! We have yet to hear back from a handful of businesses that have historically had their fees waived. We agreed that it is not fair to honor the grandfathering in of these last few as the other businesses who were grandfathered in are now paying for their islands. The traffic department is doing a redevelopment project from Oak and Moss to Ledger so we have 2 sponsors/4 spaces that are impacted at the end of this season but they are looking at other spots for next year already so they can plan to take their perennials to the new spots. Salem Rotary have historically had 3 spots and we are working through the costs of 3 signs and making sure they’re covered by their sponsorships. Mazow & McCullough PC is the other sponsor that will be impacted by the renovation and Janelle is working with them as well. There is also an area that we could use some support with - the Cervoni Walkway. Bruce is here as a member of the Salem Native Nursery and he will bring it to his committee to see if they will be willing to sponsor it. Maria pointed out that there is a lot of damage to the bricks as well and it would be great to get DPW support to help improve it. Janelle confirmed that there are other things that DPW needs to 2 review as a part of the bench review. We may also want to add signage similar to what is at the Willows to tell what is happening there; the different types of plants that work in each environment. Next Steps ● Brooke to take pictures of all of the red line sponsors and add them to the map ● Brooke to share pictures with Ariana and Kim to add to the website and use for social media ● In June, we will need to get committee members to help put up the signs for the sponsors that are paid for ● Someone needs to take the signs to Gorilla to get fixed Volunteer Calendar and email notifications Brooke is going to work on the shared calendar but had a few questions. We confirmed that we will want to add this to the website and the calendar should only include only BComm owned projects. Laurie volunteered to send out the weekly emails to let the volunteers know when and where we will be each week. Ariana will work with Laurie to make sure she can send it out and Laurie will work with Charlene to make sure she knows when and where they’ll be. We now have over 100 people getting the weekly updates through our email list and thanks to the press release, we got an influx. Next Steps: ● Ariana to confirm that all of the volunteers were moved from Constant Contact into the new list ● Ariana to confirm we can handle people unsubscribing ● Kim to draft a version to be sent out this week knowing that we have a lot of new people from the press release Sub-Committee Reports: Lady of Salem (Mary Ellen) The install with DPW is happening on May 29th at 8AM. If anyone can help carry the Ladies, it would be very helpful. After they are installed, Mary Ellen will create a map for Brooke to add to the website. Mary Ellen will be taking the QR codes Brooke worked on to laminate them and zip tie them to the lamp posts to direct people to the website. In June, we’ll be working on the brochure which will come out late June or early July. Traffic Island (Charlene/Sam) (Full Report is in the Addendum) Throughout April, the volunteers have been working on the gardens to prep them. Today the mulching started in partnership with the Sheriff’s Department. More mulch will be needed next week in several areas. We still haven’t heard from the Salem Waterfront Hotel if they will be sponsoring or not but Charlene will be going there in person to double check. There is a Collins Middle School teacher that was connected with Charlene who wanted to help out with planting with her students and they did some planting yesterday! There is a lot of traction being made in getting volunteers and people interested in helping but it is a challenge getting businesses to dedicate their time to sponsoring. We need to confirm Stonedust for Lower Hawthorne - Katie from DPW can purchase it and manage the logistics but it would need to be paid for by the BComm which would cost about $250. Brooke made a motion to approve the cost, Kim seconded it was unanimously approved. Next steps: ● Need to find out how we’re managing the mulch in the gardens that are unsponsored 3 Monthly cleanups (Kim) Our last cleanup was the Great Salem Cleanup! We saw just about 200 people come out even though it was raining and we cleaned up ~2,000 lbs of litter. We had amazing local business partners donate food, coupons, and gift cards to raffle off to our volunteers which was a huge hit. A&J King offered to donate 10% of their sales to Keep Salem Beautiful which ended up being $741.36. Janelle accepted $500 on behalf of KSB to pay for the annual dues and the remainder will go to the Beautification Committee. Our next cleanup is this Sunday the 19th at Traders Way and First Street; we currently have about 21 people signed up. Ariana got some feedback that it would be great to have some Saturday cleanups instead of all Sundays so we will adjust some of the dates to accommodate it. Next steps: ● Ariana to update the schedule, the google sheet, and the website. New Business: Window Box Competition Update Ariana and Zach met with the Garden Club and Zach created a flyer for this year’s competition. We will be hosting at the Woman’s Friend Society again. Some changes were made to the rules based on feedback we got in the past, one being that traffic island sponsors will not all be entered in this year automatically. We want to add a people’s choice category this year to allow people to post their gardens and get the community to vote on them. We would need to buy a platform to host it and we would hopefully re-use it for other contests throughout the year which would cost $32/month for a year. There are other options we could try that would be free but would take more work - it may be worth seeing how it goes before paying for something. Next Steps: ● Ariana to confirm who will pay for refreshments. It would also be nice to think about a donation to the Woman’s Friends (suggestion from Mary Ellen) ● Ariana to start thinking about prizes now as last year Janelle had to drop everything ● Brooke to create a prototype with a few options for the June meeting to make sure it will be easy to use Kim made a motion to adjourn at 8:32PM seconded by Laurie and unanimously approved. 4 TRAFFIC ISLAND REPORT Charlene Bailey Tuesday, May 14, 2024 1. Throughout April and first two weeks of May, the garden volunteers have been going from one Traffic Island Garden to another to make these islands look good throughout their Spring growth with beautiful flowers and now to prep them for the mulching: clean out the beds, edge and moat, clip back plants where necessary and finally mulch them. 2. Today, May 14, is mulching day for Washington Street Strip. I want to thank each volunteer who stepped forward and helped me on the ‘strip’ to have that ready for the mulch. Sam also sends a big thank you. 3. A Collins Middle School teacher reached out to Janelle to see if her students could do some gardening in our volunteer program or as their own group. After some thought about a location where they could be taught about planting and do hands-on, Sandi and I chose the Veteran Memorial that is located in a plot of land on corner of Jackson Street and Highland Avenue – it is just down over the hill from Collins Middle School. Yesterday, we met them there, and together we planted red, white, and blue flowers around the memorial stone for Memorial Day. It was an interesting outing. 4. As a follow-up to our April meeting and the conversation of how we might split out Lafayette Park Gardens (3 sections), to sponsors, I talked with our volunteers who helped build those gardens with Sandi; and we talked with Maria Connell, the 2024 sponsor of the front larger garden. The volunteers agreed that they will continue to maintain the two side gardens, and we shall watch over Maria’s garden; and, likewise, she will check the other two gardens out when she is working there. The volunteers will care for them while they are unsponsored but want those two gardens to be on the list that they are available for sponsorship. By the way, we shall need 1 yard of mulch for those two sections (Maria has her own mulch.) 5. Concerns: a. Need for TI Garden Volunteers. b. Mulch in gardens that are unsponsored (how are we handling those gardens)? c. Need Stone Dust for Lower Hawthorne (Temperance Park) d. According to the MOU we are fast approaching the end-of-May deadline for the sponsored gardens to be ready, plan? And, who is handling the distribution and staking of the signs? 5