sent all those in favor say aye aye
okay all those opposed say no
motion carries
okay grant do you have any
or mayor do you have any ability to make
the font a little larger on that
of course uh i think elena might be
controlling that
and or maybe who's controlling that no
grant are you
who's not in front of this meeting i'm
not controlling anything yet
so uh that would just be a view like a
control plus maybe or a view zoom in
okay well we'll we'll go on i wanted to
check to see if anyone any
had any additions to the agenda
if none the agenda stands a sent wait
susan i did um we are missing the
commonwealth arboretum feature
for review um
we are not going to review that no we
are but i didn't see it on there
oh it is under landscape applications
commonwealth master plan 2a okay i'm
missing it then sorry
i think the attachment is missing is
what you're saying
yeah the attachment wasn't on because
you didn't send that i didn't send it
okay okay i'll be fine no
don't don't ever be quiet it's not good
okay
so the agenda stands as as sent
um announcements small victories um
there have been some updates on
our bloom and friends of bexley or maybe
we should call this group the bestly
bloomers
i had a wonderful conversation with the
mary mcmunn
from south bexley who is a master
gardener and
is interested in helping with this
project
we have some broad brush strokes that um
we're considering
she's out of town until march first so
when she comes back
we will um put something on paper to
share with all of you
but uh you know we have some premises in
place
one is that uh this group will not water
uh the city still does that this group
will not uh plant the beds at the
gateways or the
drexel circle and that any
suggestions for installations of either
trees bushes
uh flowers plant material will be
reviewed by elena
and grant so those are just kind of
foundation
plantings right now so to speak and then
we'll come back to you with uh
with other comments again this is just
going to be a trial run this year
maybe a group of 10 gardeners and
we'll get it you know put together and
work through it and then
in 2022 perhaps we can expand it to
a larger volunteer base and mayor i
thought we should tout the bexley state
of the community foundation
gathering tomorrow night yes
actually state of the community address
is tomorrow evening at 6 30
um you guys probably got an email with
the link to
it's also in the blast and on our social
media and on our website so
all the places uh i will tell you that
uh we'll we'll be featuring many people
on video one of them
is our very own grant archer who's uh
whose video clip was filmed this morning
and he looked awesome so
yeah we had we had a gaffer and we had
you know camera
makeup hair makeup all that stuff so the
mayor how long is
how long is this gathering is it 6 30 to
7 30 or
longer yeah i think it's
6 30 to 7 45 maybe it will actually
uh i could i could tell you it's going
to be the most time
the most well well managed uh state of
the community by time
because many of our participants have
submitted videos in advance so we're
just kind of going through those
updates uh via video and uh i think i
think we'll actually keep on target a
little bit better this year so we'll see
okay that should be interesting all
right so if
um if you'd like to be informed about
all aspects of the committee
uh please join the mayor and others
toronto at 6 30.
do we have to sign up ahead of time for
this i i i
don't know nope nope you just join on
the link and
if i mean if you miss it uh it's always
better live of course because you know
we'll have all that
fun live virtual energy but if you miss
it it'll
be on youtube and you can catch it later
uh i shouldn't have said that because
now you won't come but it would be nice
to
having attendees we'll see who's there
that'll make us feel so great to see
people
joining us for this virtual event and i
bit off a little more than i could chew
on the video that i'm putting together
so i'll probably be pulling an
all-nighter tonight so if i make no
sense tomorrow night i i apologize in
advance
thank you in advance yeah at least
you'll have a reason
exactly okay so if we go on to other
announcements or small victories i did
want to call to your attention again to
please look
on the city of bexley website at the
arboretum
website to review it
see what you would like to add or
what you think would make it more
interesting easier to navigate
i will mention that um in an arbor
day a study group meeting this morning i
suggested to sam that we changed the
font color
which is great you know non-visible
so that we could see it better and so if
those kind of things everything from
narrative
to how it's presented would be would be
helpful and
please send me those updates so any
other
announcements small victories residents
comments
if not let's move forward to landscape
applications and
eleanor i don't know if you would like
to have
paul and jason go first since they're
already on and then they can move
along okay yeah i don't
i don't think they need to sit through
unless they want to sit through the
commonwealth
um arboretum
so i'm i am not controlling the screen
there's a green line that appeared
[Music]
so capital university um this
is a this is an amendment to the
original application
um that was submitted um back
in 2019 for the seminary garden
that um there were a series of about
five horn beams
that were not installed um there was
some concern
that the five corn hornbeans were going
to be um
blocking off the courtyard and so they
were moved over to mound
and they had decided that they wanted to
put a labyrinth
in that particular area but they had
been waiting until they had enough money
and they could get the designs
and move forward with that and so we um
although this is now under a new
application we did that just because
um some time had passed it is
essentially kind of an amendment to that
original application
so i'm not sure if we're able to pull up
some of the um original or
any of the the things that we see there
so we can see the plans
and then i believe that jason um
halliwell with
um capital is going to be kind of
walking us through that
a little bit more in general i would say
um that the um the plan kind of meets
all of the requirements
um from a staff perspective uh i
appreciate their follow-through
for you know being able to you know kind
of close the loop on this particular
project so we can make sure that um
you know things have been we can kind of
dot our eyes and cross our t's
so the information that we have is um
the original application so you can see
the original plan
we have what the labyrinth would look
like a couple of representative
photographs things like that
i don't think we need to see the
application but if we could see like the
photographs or the
exterior elevations i think those would
be helpful
sorry it's not the application it's the
original plan so you can kind of see
what that original plan is so grant i
don't know if you're able to click on
those and pull them up onto your screen
and then
scroll through them and then
if not i can share my screen
okay
[Music]
or i can share my screen
so grant we can't hear you are you not
able to pull it up because we could
either have jason pull it up or i can
pull it up
all right yeah i'm having problems over
here
i can hear you now
what's on the screen now
just the agenda
if it helps eleanor screen sharing is
enabled for anyone
so anybody who wants to or needs to to
share may do so
okay what do we got now okay now we got
a location
site location okay it's a good place to
start
well thanks for thanks for meeting with
us today you guys um
paula and i are pretty excited about
this project um like you said we've been
talking about it here for a couple years
and
we finally did uh acquire enough donor
money to
proceed with this project it is
something we would we would love to do
here this spring
um this overall site plan that you have
pulled up here is
is basically the the location of where
this is going to be
um this is what we call the muser
courtyard um which is you know right
along
um right along college avenue i guess
just
south of main street at our trinity
lutheran seminary
maybe the next one to pull up might be
our
original approved courtyard plan
so you can kind of see how um how the
plan changed
okay that was i can you see that now or
no so what am i sharing now
[Music]
there's this was under original
uh no not that one there should be
another one
that was our original application um
let's see
the site plan you try
i think that's what we were just looking
at
i apologize for this
why can't i share anything
actually i don't see it on there
what can i share we go
this is this one
yeah i don't think it's on here it's all
this
well we could look at the site plan the
labyrinth and the photographs in the
elevations you guys you guys mind if i
share my screen or of course no go ahead
jason
okay let's see if this works here
yeah it's perfect can you guys do that
yes thank you jason
okay um so
so anyway so this was our original plan
um and like we had already mentioned
there's there was actually
five um hornbeam
that we relocated so those those are
gone
um and then we just kind of sketched in
you know where this
labyrinth garden is going to be it's
kind of tucked back in the corner there
in in purple um this obviously doesn't
have the landscape
plantings around it or anything but this
just kind of gives you a general idea
of what this looks like on the original
plan that was submitted
um let me
let me pull up the plan now
can you guys see that now
yes okay seriously it's hard apparently
it's pretty light
yeah let me uh maybe i can
does that help at all if i zoom in a
little a little
yeah that's better jason that's good
okay
um so we are so we're proposing to
install
a 24 foot diameter
paver labyrinth i guess patio for
lack of a better term um
it would have uh one entrance um into
the labyrinth
um you know because all labyrinths
really just have one one way in one way
out
and then we would like to install three
benches
around the perimeter of it
and then we would do we'd keep it really
simple really just three different types
of plant material
we would do a boxwood hedge around the
perimeter to kind of give you that
you know evergreen color you know year
round
in front of the boxwood hedge we would
like to do a low
snow cap shasta daisy i'm just looking
for a low
white flowering perennial to go in front
of the boxwood hedge
and then behind the boxwood they just
basically fill the remainder of the
space we're going to do a variegated
variopy with a purple flower
we can show some pictures of that here
in a minute
and then the only other element here is
we do have a couple of catch basins
that we were just going to use some
river rock around the catch basins
really just to prevent any mulch wash
out
and that's that's really about it uh
just really a pretty simple design
jason are you able to um pull up the
the um samples of the of the pavers
and the benches in the rock i think that
would be helpful
yep let's get that up here um
so can you guys you guys can see that
right
yeah right okay so the pavers
the the colors that we chose we're gonna
use
a um a charcoal paver as the field
and then more of a granite gray as the
lines
um in this design the reason we did that
there is a lot of concrete
back in this area a lot of concrete
sidewalks so
we wanted to pick more of a dominant
color that kind of contrasts
with the you know kind of that concrete
gray
um so that's the reason we chose the
charcoal as the field
um and then the granite gray just kind
of ties in with the existing
uh concrete that's back there well the
other piece was
too we have limestone caps all over the
place that are also of the gray color
and this hue looks very good with the
limestone caps which
accentuate the window systems of the two
chapels
okay so i think that was another reason
why we also wanted this gray really
gives us a nice dramatic effect uh
over um you know just using uh
brick color okay which would be way too
much compared to the amount of brick
that we have at trinity right now
so i think this is a great contrast that
jason picked out well actually
it was the dean of the seminary our
pastor
and then us two of course uh making the
decision on the colors
okay based upon that all right go ahead
jason
so the picture on the top right then is
the actual pattern that we chose it's uh
called ceremonial six um
we're ordering this a paver kit from a
company called the labyrinth company
um and this was this was the pattern
that we chose um so that's what will be
installed
and then this is the actual um
limestone benches again we're proposing
to do
three of these around the perimeter of
the uh
labyrinth so three of these guys
and then we just have a couple um kind
of black
uh powder coated trash receptacles
that'll be
sitting out you know kind of adjacent to
this space
and then goes the uh the pattern is
because you wanted to make it
all faiths all people that basically
just want to meditate
so we did not want to choose anything
that was of a denomination such as
catholic lutheran or what have you
so again we want to open this up to the
community for use too
because of its location so that any
denominator anyone that wants to have
some meditation can utilize the
labyrinth
okay too
all right jason and so these are the
again just real simple these this is the
plant material that we chose
uh we talked about the boxwood the
larapie
and the uh shasta daisy um
again um we like to use uh capital
colors so we do a lot of purple and
white
um that was you know somewhat of the
reason why we chose these two plants
um and then i just wanted to kind of
give a
representation of what the river rock
may look like around the two
uh catch basins so i just have a picture
of that there as well
hey so elena do you want to present your
staff comments
yes so um the staff comments were
very minimal um i had asked to add a bar
scale so we could get a sense of scale
um as well as the dimension for the
labyrinth and as you mentioned i think
um correct me if i'm wrong it's a 24
foot diameter
um just so we could get a sense of how
big that space actually was
um the beds around the garden um
will not be irrigated correct that's
correct
yep and um but the plant material once
it's established
um it shouldn't necessarily need to have
irrigation
and there was just a comment in the
staff just to remind everyone that this
was an addition
to um or an amendment to the 19-24
application that um had been approved
and then when we noticed that it hadn't
been installed we've been working with
capital
about moving the plant material around
with the mound
with the mounds over on mound street um
moving the plants and all of that
and that's about it from my perspective
okay so tree commission members um do
you have any comments or questions for
paul or jason
i i was wondering what two things about
night any night light
at the um that shines on the lamp
labyrinth and the rocks are going to be
held
intact please um on the lighting we
already have coach lights
you know the capital uh signature coach
lights already installed
okay so i think there's more than
sufficient lighting those are led
also and they put out a lot of light
there because our students go back and
forth because again they live
on that campus and go across the street
uh so they go back and forth in that
during uh the evening hours
uh in in uh in great numbers okay
so uh on that one now jason can answer i
think the river rock at issue though
jason yeah so we'll we'll just um
edge out around the catch basins um
three to four inches deep um and that'll
create enough of a lift there to
retain the river rock from um you know
kind of moving
over top of the the drains themselves um
on the other uh side of the river rock
these are going to be larger so these
are like
two to four inch um river rock so you
know you're talking you know
golf ball to softball size so
um you know on the other edge of the
river rock that you know
the the river rock's so big that it'll
just kind of hold the
hold the mulch you know in place along
that line as well
so no uh edging restraints or anything
like that
is being used around them okay i i'm
wondering if how the grass might end up
integrating into the rock and cause more
maintenance
concerns
uh let me pull up the design real quick
here because
sometimes people use those metal ridges
like
like ryerson yeah yeah theologian like a
steel edging
yeah other questions that we can uh
field here while jason's looking at
design
yeah we should oh sorry go ahead this
jim i was wondering related to a
celeste's question what the what the
base of the lamb
labyrinth itself is and whether it's
going to be sufficient to
prevent weed growth in the labyrinth
having
at a labyrinth and never wanting to do
it again
yeah no no problem let me um let me
answer the first question about the
river rock i wanted to pull the design
back up to see if there was grass that
actually
um was adjacent to the river rock and
there is a section of turf there that
butts up to it
um you know i guess i i i don't like
using the
um steel edging i just i feel like it
heaves
um and there's just more maintenance to
it it sometimes can become dangerous if
it's sticking up out of the ground
um we do have a a professional
you know landscape contractor that that
maintains our entire campus
and we we have our beds edged every year
professionally so i think we can keep a
nice edge along there
um they're also responsible for you know
bed weeds so in this case you know um it
would be maintained and
and sprayed and pulled you know as
appropriately
i i part of my question is because
i that i pose is because i'd like to
reduce as much
spray any any uh pesticide
killing yeah i mean i think if we could
keep a good edge on that with a
with a hand um spade um
i think that would prevent the grass
from from creeping in there
um they also when they when they mow you
know we have like 26 28 mowings a year
um they're using their string trimmers
and you know buzzing along the the
edges of the beds and the tree rings
um so that that would also kind of help
keep it away from the river rock you
know throughout the season
so jason um mr wilson had a question
about what is the base for the labyrinth
yeah absolutely um so this entire area
will be
um excavated um about nine inches deep
um and it'll basically receive
a soil separator
fabric between the subgrade and the
gravel base
so it will be excavated out they'll
install the soil separator fabric
and then we'll have six inches of a
compacted limestone base
on top of that limestone base then
they'll street out an
inch of um it's typically like a number
nine
gravel which is a real real small gravel
um a little bigger than sand but
they'll use a one-inch layer of the
number nines to screed it out
get it you know nice and level and then
they'll lay the pavers on top of that
and then there will be a an edging
restraint then that goes around the edge
of
the pavers that kind of hold you know
hold them in place and keep them from
moving
okay other questions
um i just have one uh molly o'donnell
um on the river rock you have to go back
to that one so
if you're gonna dig out around the catch
space and say three to four inches
how does the water get to the catch
basin
well if it got if the water accumulated
enough
it would just you know rise up over the
concrete lip on the catch basin and
and run right in and also that red rock
i should say too it would also have weed
fabric underneath it
that would help too with the you know
the weed and the and the grass
um issue so there'll be weed fabric
underneath it
well the water is going to sit in around
the catch basin until you're right until
it gets high enough then
yeah the the so the weed fabric you
would use
um the the water would be able to um
kind of percolate through the through
the weed fabric
and kind of dissipate into the ground if
there was anything that
you know was sitting there there would
never be a puddle or anything like that
because remember we spent um several
hundred thousand dollars putting in a
brand new stormwater system all around
this building
this complex uh when we took it over
several years ago which started this
process of the re-landscaping of this
complex too so we have ample water
collection
systems now unlike we had before
where we had sizable pooling in this
general area
uh it was all completely re-uh
the elevations were all changed uh et
cetera
so i'm not really worried about that
we're going to have any type of pooling
now with the new systems that we've
installed
and we have no more water leakage into
our buildings because of the new systems
that we put in place too
okay so we anticipated this
uh why we put the labyrinth where we put
it actually too
on that but yeah good point though other
questions
jason it might be helpful if you bring
up the site elevations just the site
photos just so people can kind of see
where the catch basins are located and
it
it clearly illustrates where the light
poles are
i don't know if you have those readily
available if not i can pull them up on
my screen
yep i got them right here there we go
perfect perfect
um i guess the descriptions kind of
kind of speak for themselves but um
obviously the upper left you can kind of
see how that's college
um college avenue out there so you're um
you're kind of looking well you're
looking due north uh in this photo
um i think did someone mention something
about lighting
okay there's a cup we do have a couple
you know really nice
lamp posts that are already out there
that'll light the space
up
um i guess the two bottom photos are
just kind of looking back
at the courtyard from like if you're
standing out on college avenue
looking back um again just as a
reference you can kind of see the trash
can and the one
light post that's that's the corner
where the
um the labyrinth would be there's one of
the catch basins we've been talking
about
um in the yard there you can you can see
that so
you know it's it's interesting our
conversation is folks focusing on the
catch basins because i guess
you know um that's what's on people's
minds
my sense has always been that you know
catch patients
basins are utilitarian and there's a
little bit of me that says calling them
out
highlighting them with the uh border of
river rock
calls calls more attention to them
especially where they are
along the sidewalk than then needs to be
um i i understand the need for them but
i guess i try and be quiet about it so
if they are if you are going to have
river rock there to make the river rock
as
dark as possible so it doesn't look like
you're again
calling attention to something that uh
might take away from
the labyrinth itself
yeah i guess i guess we were just
looking for a a natural way to prevent
mulch from washing um into them because
as you can guess it it's you know
obviously slopes down into these
ketchups right
right um we could we could minimize
um the amount of river rock we use
around
them um you know
three three four years down the road you
probably wouldn't need it if the you
know the larapie
um you know takes and spreads like it's
supposed to
but in the short term you're just again
just looking for something natural to
keep the mulch from washing out
other comments
anybody else yeah yeah um
again i'm not unfortunately i'm on my
phone so i've got a little follow here
in terms of reading the plan but the
outer edge
of this insulation is what
is it grasp to what and then the and
then inside that is the
uh is the feature what is the edging
that goes around
if any um around the uh
the entire installation
so around the entire installation it
will just be
a hand edged hand edged
so um you're talking a three inch
edge with a with a garden spade
around the actual labyrinth patio itself
there will be
there'll be an edging restraint the
particular brand is called pave
tech um but yeah there'll be a
an edging restraint around the pavers
himself
yeah the only reason i bring that up
that's been brought up before
um you know hand hand spading what what
happens over time of course
uh is the grass is uneven and then the
line gets bigger
and it goes out further and the next
year there's another cut that goes out
another couple inches
and then eventually you've got this
trough running around it
because it's very even the grass is not
growing at an even rate
and that and so that right now that edge
is a clean edge
uh and it it kind of reinforces the
design
because it'll be in effect concentric
with it
but it's going to be really hard over
time to have a consistent press edge
that's that's hand cut there
i guess it's your guy's call as far as
i'm concerned but i think you're going
to discover that's going to be a lot of
maintenance
hey thanks larry other comments
maybe i could maybe i could suggest
something instead of catch basins how
about put a
french drain system in around this and
then it's
covered with your mulch
and it's outside of the larapie edge and
that collects all the water
and takes it into one uh catch basin i
don't know
i just i thinking maybe you wouldn't
have to have so many and then you won't
have to have all this rock
would be my suggestion
other suggestions or comments
my only my only um follow-up on on that
dave would be i know the amount of money
that capital put into
and the effort that they had to kind of
redo
um a lot of the infrastructure
in that area um and so i'm not i'm not
sure
how i think that that that ca those
catch patients that you see
are tied to such a larger infrastructure
than just this
corner that that might make it cost
prohibitive um so i understand what
you're saying but i
i think that you know that
i don't know how realistic that would
would be to you know kind of hide it so
i can appreciate trying to hide the
existing catch basins with the river
rock um
and just you know so it can kind of help
it kind of go away a little bit and i
think
as it's a it's a little bit difficult
right now when we're looking at it in
plan
i think that river rock looks a little
bit larger than when it's like when
you're actually going to experience it
because you're going to have the height
of the daisies the height of
the lariap and the height of the boxwood
and your eye will probably be more drawn
to
the contrasting colors of the labyrinth
than it is going to be the
two catch basins that are there um
paul and and jason i don't know if if i
i'm remembering
incorrectly about that infrastructure
but that's just what i recall from a few
years back when we
had been talking about that i'm very
very uh um
concerned about even putting anything
additional in because of the
infrastructure we put in
i think the what occurred previously
because the lack of understanding how
the infrastructure worked before
caused a lot of the leakage problems
that this complex had
and the pooling that it had so to even
start
changing what we've designed would be
i'd be very hesitant at doing that
myself
all right so that's my two cents worth
okay other questions
other comments are there any comments
that are made that um anybody wants to
add to
a motion to approve the plan
are there i think in summary this is a
a nice addition and i think it is
because of its of of what it's meant to
convey
uh and and what it means to be
a seminary in terms of beliefs and power
uh i i kind of support the idea and the
concept so
i don't have any other issues than the
maintenance issue but that's on them
right well so i know paul
and jason are good listeners so that the
comments we made
you can take under advisement um
i i don't hear anybody wanting to add
them to emotion
so i can see paul writing things down
and
you know if any of them because are
beneficial to your planning
um you know so be it so
i will take a motion uh on the
plan as presented
so move
second okay emotion has been made and
seconded that we approve the plan
for the capitol university's labyrinth
at trinity lutheran seminary
on on college um all those
in favor say aye aye all those opposed
same sign
okay motion carries thank the commission
for your support again we look forward
to having it ready
hopefully by the end of spring well
remember to invite us to the
opening we will and one last thing i
just want to bring up
as of monday we were awarded our fourth
award for tree campus higher education
usa for the national arbor
organization too that's great that's
great
paul thinking about that we just while
you were on because you were on early
we were talking about um the arboretum
website
and i'm not sure that we have capital
university as one of the
special gyms or locations that should be
featured
um so i think we'll we'll take care of
that we'll get that on there
actually jason has a new program the
land the uh
arbor it's called arbor scope which i
think uh bexie's familiar with
that we have now all our trees catalog
and
all locations including all our legacy
trees which you know have those special
plaques too
right we can obviously avail that to
bexley too so they can incorporate that
into your uh
arboretum aspects too okay so uh and
jason's working on that
yeah jason's got the handle on all that
stuff
okay jason you're you're on our radar so
don't go away
okay nope no problem no he's good okay
we'll be in touch thanks so much
thank you very much okay all right
thank you thank you guys all right thank
you
bye bye okay now elena
we're gonna go to the tricky part of you
pulling up your commonwealth park master
plan
okay i can hardly wait
there we go good work wow
nice wow oh my goodness it works
maybe someday i'll pretend that i'm of
the generation that should know
technology
well that's why you have a daughter
so um what we wanted to review with you
all today
um is the um the commonwealth park
arboretum feature
um we have been working on this as you
know for quite some time
um had a big kind of hiatus because of
coved
but this is um going through
the the analysis the guidelines and then
the design
as to where we sort of arrived at um
the arboretum feature from the
commonwealth master plan
so um the presentation that we will go
through today this is the reason why
i didn't send this out it is um pretty
long it's not long but
you know there are many many slides to
it and we wanted to be able to show you
what our thought process was as we're
moving through it
so the city of bexley obviously has four
main parks jeffrey park
commonwealth havenwood and schneider and
there has been
exciting work going on at all of them
back in 2018 um the city undertook
a master plan for commonwealth park and
uh i was fortunate enough to be a part
of that committee in terms of the
planning process
and this is the final plan that you can
see
that was um vetted through a large
community input process we got a lot of
community involvement
and um we at a basically a 30 000
foot elevation level decided that this
is how we wanted the
the master plan to look and out of that
we wanted to start to say the arboretum
feature would be the first component of
the park that we would explore
within that um it was identified that
there would be an arboretum feature
somewhere in the
southwest quadrant that basically
showcased the fact that the city was
an arboretum again the idea of locating
the trees and shrubs
and having an educational component to
that was identified in the master plan
and because of how this area was located
we also incorporated in this idea of
having some type of woodland garden and
by that having
um shrubs that were better suited for
understory
that people could actually come into the
park and understand
that um you know these are are trees and
shrubs that are either native to ohio or
work well within those particular
light conditions and have a area that
was
maybe somewhat more enjoyable to pass
through than just
trees and lawn so the guiding principles
we worked with a group of folks that you
can see here the only person that is
missing is susan she wasn't able to join
us this day
but we started to talk about what are
the guiding principles that we wanted to
have
um to let us move forward in this design
process and the first was
that there should be a varied experience
that visitors should um
be able to have a variety of different
you know experiences as they're moving
within the park
and some of those experiences that we're
anticipating were
that the arboretum was really on the
perimeter and that the athletic fields
were on the interior
that people would walk around the
outside perimeter both um
on and off of the paths that are
provided this idea of having discovery
of
new plant material so people could learn
about it that you could sit and read
qual
sit um read talk with a friend meditate
that it doesn't necessarily
always have to be an active it can be a
passive park
that there will be athletic practices
and games that occur there that are both
organized and spontaneous
that it's a place for social gatherings
and obviously it's a place where
people have the ability to create a lot
of great memories
the second was that we wanted to create
a hierarchy of use and formality
and within that we wanted to understand
that there are different zones within
this park
and that um within when you're starting
to design not everything is going to be
at the same level
of formality or informalness within
the experience of both plant and
hardscape materials
the highest part of the hierarchy would
be the boulevard that is going to or
columbia that is going to tie the two
sides of the park
together and within this they're going
to be architectural features that are
more appropriate
there in terms of either walls or
columns to identify the park
as well as potentially sculpture
hardscape
elements like that
the second hierarchy would be medium
these are going to be the arboretum
feature that we're talking about today
as well as the formal garden elements
that are basically going to be on the
east side
of the park um and that this
areas that are appropriate here that you
could have sculpture here benches
seating water features walls
that the landscape features should be at
least equal if not more important than
the architectural features so whereas in
the high priority there might be more of
a built environment that you see
the medium one the landscape and the
built environment would basically be
equal
the low priority would be the athletic
fields and the paths
the idea that this is really just on the
surface plane
for um the lawn and then the breastfield
paths that would be going throughout
here
this is uh just to kind of show a very
simple diagram
as to the center that you see columbia
avenue
the intent of the master plan is
actually create that into a boulevard so
it would actually have a series of trees
going down the center of it
there might be a change of hardscape
there there might be some kind of plaza
different areas that we could have for
gathering the two
ends have more of the medium formality
and then
the center where the athletic fields
that you can see that's the area of the
low
hierarchy the third guiding principle is
to promote education and awareness we
touched on this earlier the idea that
this is a great opportunity to label the
trees as well as shrubs
for people to come through plants should
be both native and non-native and
plants that do well in obviously the
light conditions
that are there
the third excuse me the fourth is to
establish clear design guidelines
um and the thought is that these could
actually be included within the larger
framework of the bexley design
guidelines
to help the development of the woodland
gardens the formal and informal garden
spaces
as we're moving forward so since this is
the first
piece that is being more fully designed
as part of the master plan
we wanted to make sure that um whoever
is coming afterwards to design
future components that there's going to
be an idea that ties everything together
so it really doesn't have a
appearance of it being piecemeal that it
looks as if all one hand had designed it
and installed it at one time
however it obviously will be phased in
over time so we want to ensure that
the future arboretum improvements
protect and enhance the existing
character of the
trees and garden spaces within the
meadow we want to carefully consider the
appropriate size scale
form and geometry of the hardscape
elements
within the commonwealth park to make
sure that it's not too overbuilt and it
does
maintain still its park light appearance
we want to avoid
over development and densifying health
park
over time so it doesn't lose its more
naturalized informal character
we want to ensure that all future
improvements are compatible with and
integrated into the overall master plan
design and we want to develop a
consistent and appropriate
design language for all of commonwealth
park infrastructure improvements
including the seating pathways and other
hardscape elements
the fifth is obviously implement smart
phasing
this basically means that we don't want
to design anything and install anything
that has to be
ripped out and redone in the future so
basically understanding
what is the big idea and then how can we
smartly phase it in over time
so with those guiding principles we
started to dive in a little bit more in
terms of what are the specific features
that will be associated with the
arboretum
the first of that are entry points that
at the northwest and southwest corners
are basically the common access points
to the park
from the surrounding community and we
wanted to better define these as an act
and create an accent as the perimeter of
the park
then we say although indicated on the
master plan there were peers but we're
not recommending that there be
peers that basically would conflict with
the peers at jeffrey mansion
and since the areas that we're looking
at fall within the idea of the medium
hierarchy
that having a lower ground plane and a
small maybe retaining wall
is more appropriate than having
something that is you know very massive
and
peer-like which would be more
appropriate for around columbia avenue
avenue excuse me cobblestone pavers will
define the ground plane
with a limestone retaining wall
following the precedent established
within the city of bexley
for grade control we would like to have
areas for gathering
that could be benches that are provided
around a water
feature to provide areas of rest and
contemplation i think there was
maybe one there was one bench at
commonwealth when we started this
process and it was
deteriorating we basically had to um
call the maintenance crews to come and
take it out so
there really should be more places for
people to be able to sit and enjoy the
park
we like the idea of having a water
feature that is associated
um with the arboretum the city of bexley
is poorly lacking in
having any water features within um and
it has little available open space for
us to basically be able to do one so
this is a great opportunity for us to
think about having a water feature
at commonwealth that can enhance the
surrounding foliage
like a reflecting pool or a unique
interactive
element sculpture talking about having
sculpture would be potentially
appropriate in this area
and then signage having signage in this
area there is
currently no signage that identifies
that you were at commonwealth park
and so if someone is coming there for a
practice or a game and they're new to
the area
there's really nowhere that it says
commonwealth park so where
is it appropriate to have um signage
that sort of identifies that hey you're
at commonwealth
as well as having something that
identifies that this is an arboretum
feature
and the thought is using you can see the
image um on the
um the bottom right there is of the camp
bushnell
um information plaque that we worked on
that is uh
has been designed over at drexel circle
and so having something like this that
basically
explains what the arboretum is and how
it is in the city of bexley and having
information
like that would be appropriate
we would like to have more formal paths
throughout
that would be composed of a compacted
brass field fines or a compacted gravel
with just a very simple edge that
doesn't necessarily have to be
a formal hardscape like a stone path but
basically just a nice gravel path
and with the landscape we would like to
have plantings that
in follow the inspiration of the
woodland garden and the commonwealth
master plan little pockets of shrubs and
perennials that can
line the existing trees and appear along
the path
and obviously all of these would you
know be identified
so these are some images that we would
say that the entry points
would have the cobblestone um edging
uh just to kind of make it a little bit
more special and then the paths that
come
into the park would be just the brass
field finds with
metal edging we are most likely going to
need some kind of small retaining walls
at those corners because commonwealth
actually kind of hills up a little bit
more
so in order to be able to come in at the
sidewalk grade and then work up onto the
level of the um
the existing lawn we would need to have
um
some small retaining walls there and
we're proposing having just simple
limestone walls as it kind of fits
within the city of bexley
and then the teak benches this is
actually a bench that appears at
havenwood that
is basically the standard now that the
city would like to move forward for
future furnishings
so now we'll go into the design
so this is the existing trees based on a
tree survey that we did that is overlaid
on top of an ariel
so you can see um actually parkview
and columbia we've got commonwealth park
north and south so north is obviously
located up on your screen
you can the blobby things are basically
shrubs that are large shrub masses and
the rest are trees
that are existing i am not making a
differentiation at this point between
whether or not it is a deciduous or an
evergreen tree
so to drop off the aerial i think it
helps making it a little bit clearer
just of a note the three images that you
see here these are ash trees that are in
the process of
dying that need to be removed and so
that's something that
just wanted to call everyone's attention
to on that
so the first thing that we're looking at
is
there has been and there is a plan that
has been designed to have
a new raised turf athletic field that
actually has proper drainage underneath
it
it will be irrigated it's going to be
slightly raised maybe about 8 to 10
inches and then kind of slope back down
we've been working with rec and parks on
that as well
the orientation that you can see is
actually north
south but as part of the master plan
process
if and when some of the oaks and the
catalpas that you can see here if they
ever do decline the thought is that we
would not
plant trees in that location so that we
can
reorient the field or have an
opportunity to have a field that runs
east west instead of
north south we have the corner points
the corner entry points you can see here
and here at the
areas where we are basically having a
off of the sidewalk we would have the
brass field finds and the cobblestone
kind of come in and sort of
welcome people into the park and the
corner now is actually going to be a
raised
bed and then a small meandering
path that basically starts to connect
those two areas and so people
start to have the opportunity and the
option to either you know walk straight
around
the perimeter of the path they can take
this more meandering path or obviously
they can continue to walk
in any path that they choose through the
lawn
we would want to plant these corners um
and actually say you know with annuals
that are very similar
to drexel circle and the thought with
that is really to start to tie some of
these landmark spaces that we see within
the city together
and so there be a nice pop of color as
someone comes through
um and sees that as a potential you know
entry
you know kind of in quotes coming into
the park
the area that you see here in pink this
would actually be a circular i'm calling
it a circular boss
of trees and there's an image down here
that is somewhat representative of that
there's a there's a clearing a natural
clearing in this spot
this is where the original master plan
did call for having the arboretum
feature
located in this circular area so
the ornamental trees that you see here
would actually you know
take up of the spacing of an existing
tree that we have in this location
and in the center here the idea is that
this would be where the arboretum
informational signage would be located
the next big feature that we're excited
about here
is actually introducing a pond um in
this area that you can see
um as part of the arboretum feature
and with this the thought is it would be
a natural pond
nestled within these oaks in this also
kind of natural clearing
that there are a couple of different
ways that you can experience this
it is basically somewhat tucked in you
can either use a path
and come across it there are stepping
stones that you
come through beds a small bridge that
perhaps would go over it
um and then we would have the upper
right image that you see
here is really inspirational for having
basically a raised
stone bed there that would have a
beautiful
ornamental tree there as a focal point
for
the arboretum
we would then fill in with specimen
trees and evergreen
trees so along the park here we would be
tucking in
underneath these pines a series of
evergreen trees to help screech its
water
the thought with that is we want it to
be somewhat of a surprise
and that you have to actually come in
and it's not something that you can
easily see from the street
the area to the north here there's a lot
of opportunities to plant some
interesting trees here that do not
either currently exist within the
arboretum or are just
beautiful for either their leaf color or
their bark or something that just again
is more of an educational
idea and much more of what you would
think of a traditional arboretum might
have
a la dawes
within the beds you can see that we
would be filling things in
with smaller shrubs and perennials to
very have a very lush and this is the
idea again
pulling back up of the woodland meadow
coming in through here in that area
so different types of shade loving
perennials coming in underneath
areas around the pond that potentially
enjoy water
up here the north i forgot to mention
this might have some kind of nice
sculpture feature that you could walk
underneath that you have the opportunity
to grow
something over the top of it
this is the actual plan
itself in terms of rather than be more
diagrammatic
showing what all of the actual plant
material would be
you can see we have a wide variety of
trees that are in through here um
everything from
a japanese maple the blood good would be
the focal tree here at the center to
have
that nice pop of color we are talking
about having a katsura tree
um a european beach a tricolor beach
um a lace bark pine a whole variety of
different trees that would be
you know kind of modeled through in here
that are not just necessarily the
typical trees that you might see
like a you know a armstrong maple or
something like that
the shrubs that you see in through here
autobrush buckeye
we do have some boxwoods that would
actually um
be helping to define the edge of the
soccer field as well as basically
provide a kick stop for balls
so they wouldn't necessarily run into
the to the street
but we also have um in and amongst some
of the trees
behind here rhododendrons ikea
um viburnum all shade loving plant
material
and then a whole host of perennials down
below
these are some of the images of the
plants that you can see
and then just wanted to take a moment to
reflect out a little bit further in
terms of showing how
how does this actually connect to the
overall
master plan of commonwealth you can see
that we would like to have
future paths that would then kind of
connect all the way around
that would then also then lead you
towards the center of um
columbia avenue where there might be a
nice little pathway there
but then also note that we're trying to
pull up and have a connection over to
jeffrey park
um and then the park system and all of
the trails that are on along there so
that
expanding this to be a little bit larger
for you know
the rest of the area
future phases obviously just to note we
would have columbia this is
just to share and remind people if they
might not be as fresh in everyone's mind
of
what colombia could be as well as
looking at what a formal garden at the
east end of the park and these would all
be future
design elements
the next steps we would actually need
to get a proper design for the pond so
we have
the idea that we want a pond and the
approximate shape but we would want to
hire someone who's a specialist in that
to understand the idea that we would
like it to be a natural pond
but to make sure that it doesn't become
just you know a cesspool for mosquitoes
um how is the you know how are we going
to do the base are we going to want to
introduce any kind of plant material and
so that would be the next phase off of
this
we are currently talking to a signage
consultant to talk about
signage for the park as what for this as
well as havenwood
we would want to price this out to start
to understand how much this is going to
cost
and then start really talking about the
maintenance ideas um that this is going
to be a coordinated effort between the
city
and um wrexham park the
areas that we showed will be irrigated
the athletic field is going to be
irrigated and so as we were designing
that
we knew that we wanted to move forward
with having irrigation plans for that
and so
the pipes are going to be sized
accordingly so we'll have enough water
pressure for that
um and the city um does uh have a
dedicated arborist that would oversee
this park to make sure that um
it doesn't just basically you know go to
seed um so
that there would be a dedicated arborist
that is making sure that the plant
material is healthy
um anything that needs to be taken care
of can be taken care of
and so with that i will
open it up for questions
and i'm going to go back to the plan
in case anyone has any specific
questions about the plant material i
know i kind of glossed over that
well so just to review as you as elena
suggested there was
a commonwealth planning group that came
up with
a conceptual design and elena has then
now taken it to
a level of of installation
viewing and um she did that with the
help of that
small group larry and grant and mike
price and
the mayor and myself so that you are
you're seeing maybe i don't know option
c or d
that has uh that she's worked on to um
you know consider the comments and to
evolve in something that
we felt was uh possible and doable
so as eleanor said she's open for
questions now the mayor grant
myself we're all happy uh susan
if i may just one quick uh addition uh
this this is also designed to in effect
uh tie into and be an extension of
jeffrey
uh so the pathway system of jeffrey on
the driveway
uh is kind of the link between the
mansion uh
and the forest areas behind but then it
also ties directly across the street to
this pathway system
so in effect it's all because all part
of
of one connected system yes
yeah good point larry okay any comments
i know it's
if you have comments you might not know
where to start but you could
well i i will comment i i think it's
fantastic i think it looks great
i think it's a real asset um i'm really
impressed
um the only couple things i have
comment wise but it's early is i would
strongly suggest and yes i mean elena
bringing up
bringing in a water consultant because
gosh when i worked with city and we had
ponds they do
get really mucky and trashy and
they are problems and you might want to
look at an aerator but
a pond consult is really going to be a
big help
edges break down really easily i i just
pawns are an issue but they're so cool
that they're worth it i hope that
maybe people could ice skate on it the
winner that would be
really nice but um my other things are
that um i would really strongly suggest
and maybe
uh bexley parks has a memorial
kind of standard because that's a great
way to
get benches and you know people put
their names on things
but i would really strongly get a
standard for how that's handled
and also how long you own a bench
because teak benches will fall apart at
some point
and then you get into the problems well
if somebody bought it
it's not forever so you need to put a
light
span on things when you sell them or
you memorialize them um but basically
that's a great way to get furnishings in
a park
um even schiller park did the light
posts and they did lighting
in the park with um the friends of
schiller they ended up getting
fundraising and people bought
lights so there's a lot of ways to go
about it but i i think you really need
to take a strong look on
that one and maybe that's the park board
not
us so that those are just my two cents
worth
well you bring a lot of experience molly
with that so
your comments and i think it's a nice
shout out to elena that
you think it's fabulous it is it's very
nice
other comments
eleanor i think you're just a magician
of what you do and we're so lucky to
have you
it's beautiful um just an initial
thought and molly might be able to
highlight this is when you do a pond
how does that affect the city for
liability
if a child would happen to fall in it
i don't know how deep the pond would be
we have lots of wonderful deer that
would be happy to drink out of the pond
how does that all come into play
well i can answer that one because there
is a state law
parks are pretty much exempt i hate to
say that but
but it's like playground incidents etc
unless there's
um deliberate you didn't inspect and let
things go
but a pond is a pond and parks that's
i don't believe that's an issue good
thank you
your questions for elena or comments or
compliments
oh many compliments magical
as sheila was saying it's it's has its
breath it's put a lot of breath of life
into the park it's beautiful
beautiful are we going to start with the
west side first
obviously because that's most intensive
and then
achieve what we want to do and then go
to the east side and then do the interim
part i
did i miss that the the the arboretum
feature we decided to start
there and do that first in terms of what
are the next phases beyond that
um not 100 sure yet um
but the the you know so we wanted to
design it in such a way that obviously
you can see we're taking
into account the fact that you know rec
and parks is putting a lot of money into
this new athletic field and that what
we're doing we don't want to mess that
up
um and then as things move along to
either doing columbia avenue or even
doing the far end
we're along drexel avenue that
there's not a definite order that has to
be to be followed but that
to make sure that we're not doing
anything that will prevent
one aspect or another um to
also just to review the the order of the
of the the voting is that we will vote
on this today whether we endorse this
plan and then it goes to
parks and rec for approval or
endorsement
and then i'm unclear whether we'll go to
city council or not
but that could be the the final layer of
authority
so we're the first rung on the ladder
we're the first rung in in conversations
if ben is still around um
we we did not think that this
necessarily needed to go to city council
since this is basically a landscape so
it's essentially us
and reckon parks that will be the people
who are endorsing it or not
to move forward although it may make
sense
at some point to go to council just
informatively
and also i think at some point to
celebrate this with the general public
and people who live around this they're
going to be interested in this too
we can certainly do that okay other
comments
um yes
just for that order i i think it might
be
good i mean naturally there's gonna be
special
fundraising and whatnot that's required
it might be good to
make a presentation to council as part
of the kickoff of
of that funding aspect and um
and for at least council's consideration
as to
any um city contribution
yeah i think it's i think it's smart
here you know and this is something i
think
that many people can be proud of because
there are many participants over many
years
including the tree commission suggesting
that um
we should have a plan for commonwealth
and the mayor picking up on that or
maybe it was the mayor's idea
i probably was but in any case
so i think we have a lot of people that
can uh feel as if they were important
players in this
and they were so we will be inclusive
about that
other comments like dave did you have
something to say i don't i didn't
i couldn't tell oh great job owner
beautiful
looks great i have one more comment
susan and okay
eleanor um i would not put boxwood
around the field i just think that's
kind of asking for trouble as one dies
or
problems when you do a hedge around
athletic fields
i think it's cool but that's high
maintenance and it's tough
my two cents
i completely agree yeah you would agree
larry
yeah anything around an athletic field
you're just going to get it trampled
i mean i i remember when we did the
playground at cassingham
and we told them all you know they had
all this planning they were going to put
in and the strip behind it's like
well without irrigation and without
marking and so forth
none of those will survive and to this
day there's not one of them that's left
another job for lyropi
right yeah i i'd rather see just open
lawn and it's more flexible too once you
plant those shrubs you start losing
flexibility
okay you have a question um
elena what what when other people ask
why aren't there restrooms there
or what's going to happen to the other
the
the the soccer the ability to play more
soccer games there i know we have a
south
facility what would you say like us to
say
to others there well there are temporary
restrooms there
um the and they will remain there um
the part that then this was a huge
discussion as part of the
master plan um process the restrooms
might be incorporated
into a more built environment as
columbia avenue gets
developed so that would be a future
design so
everyone appreciates having the rest
from there and we understand that it
might look nicer um if it was actually
incorporated into
some kind of you know peer or a small
you know kind of
gate tower type looking thing but that
would be something that we deal with in
the future
in terms of the use for the athletic
facility um
the thought is that it would maintain
status quo so the current programming
that we have
wouldn't necessarily increase it
wouldn't necessarily decrease
that the fact that we have the athletic
fields over at schneider park
doesn't necessarily take off and the
need
to be able to have some athletic events
at this
park because the city is sorely lacking
an athletic space
so um it is a it's a balance that we
need to maintain
where we didn't want the entire park
taken over entirely by athletics and we
didn't want to get rid of it 100
so essentially it will stay
as is we are just hoping to improve
the quality of the fields by raising
them and having better irrigation
so that they can be played on for longer
and that the grass can be a little
healthier and won't be um
basically you know a mud pit by the end
of the season
thank you other comments
jim i i would join everyone's praise for
the plan i really like it
i'm just a question and a comment i mean
i'm assuming
that the pond doesn't put any existing
trees
at risk no no trees have been
harmed in the making of the bond great
and
i wonder whether there's any i like the
idea of tying
this to jeffrey and i wonder if there's
any possibility of like
looking at signage and jeffrey that
would point
the way to the pond or to the park or
that sort of stuff so that there is
a deliberate connection and um
it looked like the the
i maybe i was misreading it but it
looked like maybe the um parkview
this the um the crosswalk was going to
be accentuated
to connect them is that right correct
so so you can see here yes i mean i
think that's definitely something that
we can
talk to reckon parks about definitely
yeah i think that's a great natural
great idea
uh and like you could imagine a signage
system that even has a you know
map so that you're able to see a little
small map you are here and
features it this way and features are
that way so that you know people feel
like it's this larger thing they're not
separated they're all parts of the same
hole
okay good ideas anything else well
uh ellen in the plan is fantastic and
what an uh
an asset to the city um is there a
timeline how do you project
getting this west side of the park
completed
i'm going to kick that to ben if ben's
still on the call as far as i know
there's not a timeline right now i know
that things are everything is a little
bit kind of screwy because
of um covid um and so but that's
certainly something that we can follow
up and i can report back to you on
okay great and uh well
that's great
um of course the timeline will probably
depend
on the cost yeah the funding
the cost and then the funding so as
elena pointed out in her
her process plan you know next next
comes the cost
right you know the endorsements the vote
first and then the buy-in and then
you know looking at the estimate so do
you see any possibility and maybe molly
may know this best uh for um any grants
on doing a project like this
uh you know what there's always grants
out there but i've been
out of um the public
sector for a while and i don't know with
covid but yes
there's land and water conservation
grants but federally
i don't know what's going on um it's
usually federal grants and
i have no clue with the last
administration and this one what's
happening
okay thanks molly okay so if there
aren't
any other questions or comments
uh critiques or compliments then let us
move forward with a
motion to endorse this plan and
to um then move it along to parks and
rec
for their viewing and comments
approve the plan as presented by elena
okay who was the second was that jim
that was me
okay all right emotions been made and
seconded that we approve the plan as
presented all those in favor say aye
all those opposed same sign okay motion
carries
uh good work elena it'd be great if we
could start tomorrow
yay i'm so glad you said that
okay um i mayor are you back on yet
if the mayor's not on ellen i noticed
that steve
and um doug are here from ohio savings
bank
and maybe we could move to their the
review
of their maintenance plan and so that
they
could then leave the meeting and then
we'll go our next big review of
the cassidy and delmar bike plan
and perhaps moving the wall a little bit
which will take
maybe longer than okay reviewing the
maintenance plan
yes so um steve and doug they wanted to
um i let them know we're not voting on
this today we just wanted to
share with the tree commission an update
on this
um to let everyone know where things
stand and they just wanted to be able to
sit in and listen to what
our conversation is so if you recall
from our last meeting we had requested
that they provide us with a maintenance
plan
since um the irrigation was not
installed
and so i will let me see if i can
pull it up
so let's see
all right can you everyone see this yes
already so um what steve and doug were
able to
um give us is basically what watering
guidelines would be
um for the plant for the plant material
that is there since
things are not irrigated and so they
have
basically um about eight um guidelines
that they would like
um the property to follow in terms of
maintaining mulch
that you would need to water between may
and early in november
if the air temperature is below 40 maybe
you shouldn't water because it's going
to be too cold
um so some of this is is relatively
um i don't want to say a no-brainer but
you know
something that it's like okay it's
almost common sense but we wanted to
make sure that we had it all
in a spot and so that everyone agrees to
it in terms of moving forward
um that we wanted to also then note that
the
the london planes um on parkview and the
ginkgo trees
should be watered at a rate of 10
gallons per caliper um
inch per week that you know
each bags in terms of the tree gate are
basically having gator bags so that we
can make sure that the trees are
are watered um all the other shrubs
should be watered weekly
for at least a growing season the trees
and the plant beds
do not necessarily need water if we've
had a lot of rain
so again a lot of these were more
just you know kind of having a list
together that would say
this is what our expectations are in
order to make sure that the plant
material would be
maintained we followed up with a couple
of more so i reviewed this with grant i
reviewed it
um with susan we had a couple of
questions the one was
um you know who is actually going to do
this work
um and they um
are going to be reaching out to have a
landscape
company basically contracted to do this
work as far as i know
one has not yet been hired but that was
something that we
were interested in knowing like what
company you know making sure that there
is a contractor that is going to be
you know hired to actually do this work
they understand we said you know who's
going to regulate it the owner
understands that because of the bexley
zoning code that it is their
responsibility to keep the plant
material alive and healthy
and that they will be in violation of
the zoning codes if it is not
and so they are aware that they have to
maintain you know healthy plant material
our concern with that is that we wanted
to make sure that you know
if a tree dies that it actually you know
gets replaced and it doesn't go years
and years and years without it being
replaced
um we wanted to note that um
that we wanted to make sure that there
was a guarantee that the plant material
was replaced um and steve and doug
replied that that would be part of the
the contract that they have with the
maintenance company that
um they would be the ones that would be
in charge of replacing
um the plant material um as it as it
potentially fails and it would either be
covered under warranty and if it's out
of warranty
that then kicks it back into the zoning
code if it's a dead plant material
it needs to be replaced um
they are in the process of reviewing
this
with the owners one of the things that
we said that we didn't necessarily want
to
vote on this as a plan if the owners had
not yet necessarily
agreed to this and thinking that this
was a good course of action we don't
want to waste
the owner's time we don't want to waste
the waste the commission members time
so um that is why we wanted to be able
to have the discussion about this today
see if you guys all had any kind of
input to it we can share that then with
doug and steve who can then go back to
the owners and then we can craft a final
um basically kind of document that we
could then
later vote on so
comments on the maintenance plan that
they have
drafted yes i have a question first
for grant because grant my if memory
serves me correctly you have not
been all that crazy about tree gator
bags
on um on city trees uh what is what's
your opinion on
you know their viability uh
in this situation i don't have a problem
with it it's when i have them
strewed out throughout the the city
and they're getting hit with weed eaters
and stuff like that i feel like these
are all contained into
beds that that's not going to be an
issue
and stuff like that so do you have any
other comments about this i know you and
ellen have talked and she
shared your comments um and is there
anything else that you wanted to add
no i i covered what i we had spoke about
so
okay okay other comments from tree
commission members
yeah susan one uh and maybe this should
be uh
uh uh counselor wilson's um
weighing in but all of this is
should should be maintained should occur
should this that uh and i'm not
sure
it's that sounds nice and intentional uh
but i don't know if those should be
will maintain or shall be maintained uh
so there's some teeth to this because
you can always meet
should that's a pretty easy requirement
well that's a good that's a great point
i mean
action verbs that's what we like i agree
right okay other comments
i ask i want to jump in a little bit on
that i
i agree with that i think the one thing
would be
and granted i had talked about this
watering should occur from may through
early november
some of it is um we might want to have
some of those in terms of the should
because it might be a really wet may
or it might be a really dry main um same
thing with november and so
that that period of when you actually
water we would hate to say you shall
water and that we're forcing them to
water
in less and this would also then be a
question for jim
the other things kind of supersede it to
say okay well we've had more than an
inch and so we don't necessarily have to
water or it's too cold and so we don't
necessarily have to water so that would
be
some of those are i think are more
semantics that are beyond
you know that would be a gym question
jim are you on i'm on yes
thoughts um
i i agree generally that should
is the appropriate um
verb here um i think i i can't see the
bottom
part right now it seems like there are
already some exceptions
um i think you could more clearly spell
out
the exceptions if you're going to say
should
you know that would be you know rain
precipitation
temperature you know or you could just
put a a provision
in front of that paragraph that we're
talking about a moment ago that
basically said in the absence
you know of precipitation or temperature
variables that preclude um the necessity
or
the appropriateness of watering uh
watering shall occur in that time period
yeah good
good point um other comments
i'd like it to reference something to
the effect of
in the in the future if there were
droughts that attention should
will be given to the trees
just so they think some people just as
we all know there are people who think
once you get a tree
planted it doesn't need anything okay
we've asked them to establish the plant
but i think that
if we are really giving such defined
directions that we should also say that
be mindful
of drought times
okay other thoughts
well maybe maybe there should be some
overarching thing that
that sets all this up you know the
property owner is committed to the
health and maintenance of the
landscaping
and to preserve them and to meet its
zoning obligation therefore
abcde and so forth something that's kind
of it
has a tent to it yeah right contract
contractual
well yeah we need to have this signed by
the owners so
um decision does this also show where
they
would be responsible for replacement at
this point or is that some
something separate well i mean the
they have agreed to a landscape plan
when the landscape plan
is not followed they're in code
violation so
um you know that that's that's the
bottom line on everything
okay
any other questions
comments
no okay elena do you have enough
information to share with um doug and
steve
i do i can certainly circle back with
them um tomorrow i know that they were
on
on the line listening so i think that's
probably helpful but i also have taken
notes and so
i'll make sure that i circle back with
them and hopefully
um next month we will have something
that um
is final that you all can vote on
okay i i think you know going back to
the comments that
that you and i shared i think it's
important that we have a responsible
party that we have a name
a name i mean it can't you know
and um that so we have a responsible
party and then we know who's going to do
this those
could be two different things the people
that
water aren't necessarily the responsible
party
yep okay other comments stipulations
okay thank you steve and doug for being
on is the mayor back yet
the mayor's not back um elena are you
able to move forward with
the cassidy del mar design
i am so and i can set it up too if you
want
okay do you want to start setting it up
larry while elena pulls it up
uh yeah briefly um the
city any any kind of street upgrade and
and rebuild
uh the city of columbus has to do the
bikeway or the multi-use pass as part of
that project
so as we've talked before there on the
north side
of the improved cassidy from seventh
which is north of fifth
to the railroad track south and across
the railroad tracks
uh it's proposed to be a 10-foot
multi-use path
separated by a seven foot tree lawn from
the pavement
and then a five foot landscape area
at the outer western edge of that
multi-use path
when it comes into bexley however the
existing plan
or proposed plan uh because of the stone
wall
veers towards the street and there's no
tree lawn
and will become theoretically it's
concrete we could if
it also may be asphalt although i think
the city of
bexley would prefer asphalt but at any
rate there is a concern
under that condition that the
multi-use path will look like a street
and it comes down to the pavement
edge of cassidy with no separation in
terms of green space
and so the the
uh elena will show you that condition
on a plan but then they may be suggested
condition
that says no the tree lawn is very
important
and that should be maintained even if it
requires that the stone wall be pushed
westward
we maybe relocate or lose a couple of
those new trees
but we gain by not having this driveway
look like it's coming to cassidy
so there's some background thank you
larry
excellent already let's see
well wait a minute
i lost it let's see
can you see it we can we can see the tab
but it's tiny can't see the illustration
all righty let me see let me stop share
that let me try something different
for some reason there we go how about
that
oh magic much better okay
elena all right yes good i was gonna say
let's ask for everything
okay so let's look at option a
which is larry has suggested might be
you know
a lesser option one that that
we don't like as well already so elena
and larry do you want to set that up
yes so um so
as you can see this is an overlay
on one of the um the diagrams that the
city of columbus
has prepared and um we
are you know we've got the railroad
tracks here
we have the city of columbus and then
the city of bexley
um and one of the things that they were
showing was
this 10-foot bike path and then there's
a seven foot tree lawn
as it um comes into the city of bexley
because of where this stone wall is the
tree lawn effectively disappears
and that they had originally had a
10-foot bike path
that came around the existing stone wall
and that concrete goes straight
up to where that stone wall is in
looking at that condition we felt that
it was not necessary one for it to be
ten feet we have reduced it down to
eight feet which we
are able to do um and then by doing that
we're actually
softening the curve a little bit more of
um where that entrance would kind of
come
into cassidy but the existing trees
and the stone wall will remain as is
um one of the concerns that we have
about this plan
is because essentially we now just have
a concrete walk
and then a curb and then the asphalt of
the street that people might be
really inclined to cross at this
location here
at you know the north side of del mar
here across over to the south side
of del mar here and this starts to
become somewhat of a dangerous
intersection then because of
cars coming and and all of that
you can see on the south here we have
the existing tree lawn our existing
street trees and where the sidewalk goes
and so they were essentially just
saying how do we connect our
our path that we would like to do into
what we have with the city of bexley
probably not thinking that we would
necessarily be willing
to say hey we are okay with altering
this path
if we can make it look a little bit
better than this
that then led us to this diagram
that essentially said if we are able to
maintain
and you can see here that at some point
the actual
tree lawn itself is going to stop
because you know
it's going to cross the tracks and
everything but essentially visually
maintaining that seven foot width and
then the
ten foot bike path as it comes across
the track
we stay in line with the existing seven
foot tree lawn but we then
narrowed down a little bit from a
10-foot bike path to
an eight-foot bike path you know coming
into the city of bexley
and then you can see we're essentially
then relocating the wall
and pulling that wall two feet away from
where that edge is so we can have a
little bit of breathing room
of even just some lawn there is going to
be helpful um
just to pull that wall back a little bit
further
and then that connects almost it's a
straight shot
a little more logical of a straight shot
coming across del mar
to this crosswalk and then trying to
emphasize more
and actually potentially even painting
that this is where we would actually
like pedestrians to cross
rather than at this northern end of
where del mar is
the trees in order to accomplish this we
are going to have to
um demolish some of the existing trees
that are there
but we can certainly replant them we
might have to alter
some of the plant material that's there
this is done straight as a diagram i
i wanted to get out and try to field
verify where the trees were but it's
just too cold
snow so um you know just know that some
trees might have to go
and we can kind of figure that out but
the the intent of this diagram is to try
to get it back into the city to let the
city know that we're willing to have
these changes
um so that they don't approve something
that might be hard for us to then change
later on and that we're stuck with
something that's not there
the the wall that you see you can see
the dashed lines let's see if i can get
it a little bit
larger the dashed lines or the existing
location of the wall
i am keeping i'm trying to keep this
same
um length of that wall the grades change
slightly
but basically you know it's the same
pier that we can relocate the pier and
have the same stone
so even if it's not you know the same
wall we're reusing the material
so we can at least honor the people who
did donate that
um wall you know in the first place
um in talking with grant um
we were saying oh you know i first i had
trees here and it looked great
our concern with we the railroad might
not actually allow us to have
a tree in this stretch of tree lawn
because of visibility crossing the
railroad track and so that's something
that we would have to ask them
but we felt that even having that as a
green space and having that
as a continuous line when you're walking
down the sidewalk
was better than having it just disappear
and then reappear
gary did i cover everything
yeah i think that's great um
elena can you scroll up a little bit so
people can see that
continuity of the tree lawn yeah okay so
can everybody
see that even though ours is colored
green and theirs isn't so
um we're so the plant actually creates a
tree line on cassidy north of the
railroad tracks
well there's this green that you can see
up here
right i am not sure if when it comes
past these curb cuts and then over the
railroad track if realistically we can
have
how far we could have lawn going up to
that i mean it would be great if we
could but
um that that i'm not sure of no no but i
meant just above the railroad tracks
that that um the plan creates a new tree
lawn
something that everybody's hoped for for
a long time
yes okay so eleanor and larry um happy
to take questions on this larry's been
going in the meetings and
elena's heard the call and done in the
design and
um grant i don't know do you want to
jump in to just say
anything about um you know the trees
coming down and being
replaced if that's a big deal if it's
not a big deal
um honestly i think if we're going to
take the option of moving the wall we
should
replant all the trees so it looks more
uniform i think it'll look silly with
the larger trees in front and the little
small ones in the back
i think that's an excellent idea yeah
well and i think if can you hear me yeah
i think that if we're going to move the
wall which i would think would be
it would cost so i mean i think it would
be expensive
but and then move it then we maybe want
to move it a little further back
so it's not quite so pinched in there
if that's possible you know rather than
move it just that much if we're going to
replant the trees anyway
then give it give it a little more room
okay that's a difference
i would be opposite that why not push
the wall to the edge of the sidewalk why
deal with
uh maintenance in between them i mean
we've had bike paths with walls right at
you know it it's i question why would
you want to push more because you've got
a maintenance issue
there just use the wall as an edge
is there any concern when you that you
have
you have a little hiccup and you run
into the wall with your bike
well it's not that tall okay okay
oh i think i i think that's a i mean i
don't know about
bikers that are biking all over the
county but i just know from living
you know went on stanbury when they put
those even those
small you know short walls in on the
corners to you know when they put all
the
uh handicapped things in kids hit those
all the time
you know it's not a very it's a small
in diameter you know small turn this
would be
bigger right um
the other comments
it's a great idea to make it to
straighten that whole thing out that
makes a lot of sense
i i understand that it looks better
aesthetically but in the long run i
think it's
more a lot more safe by moving the
crosswalk on the south side
i think it's an incredibly smart thing
much
i agree the group uh i agree
dave did you have something i didn't
hear you i would push the wall back i
agree with barb
and then i put four three to four feet
of lawn in front of the wall
they can mow that as part of the curved
strip
and just push it back into the hedge
that's there
okay so so i'm hearing i'm hearing
consensus
on um the treat let's go from
from right to left on on having a plan
that has a tree lawn
and bringing the sidewalk in parallel to
it
and then the design features um
that as elena gets out to actually
measure
and work with grant could be um you know
right up to this
right up to the bike path or move back
some degree depending on what she finds
out
um is that fair elena do you have a
design comment about whether you think
it's it's best
um akin to the sidewalk or push back a
little bit with a little more green
space
i i think it's um i i can see it either
way
um the one thing about
um if it's right up to the sidewalk
or maybe a portion of it is up to the
sidewalk the issue that i have
is the um the column
and where does that column found because
the column basically helps define that
so it comes all the way up you know do
you have a
straight column and then it pulls back
this kind of defining something
to push back um i think that those
are our design decisions that we can
play with that the city might not
necessarily
care about that we could play with but
you know
almost if this as a as an exhibit is it
okay
for larry to share with the city to say
hey we're still kind of messing with
this but we would prefer to have the
sidewalk look like this and the tree
long
look like this since we're going to be
moving the wall
and doing all of that ourselves um i
mean i think that that's
you know a detail that we can
necessarily work out later i think it's
more important if everyone is okay
with this as a general direction that we
can you know say hey the tree commission
has endorsed this
to you know have the sidewalk be
straight and and do these different
things and we still might need to tweak
the design but
at least we can get this in front of the
the powers that be
one other thing we should do um one
missing piece of information i only i
don't
i don't remember seeing even on the
city's drawing of what the railroad
right away is
um while i think we can do our plannings
uh you know getting getting approval
from the railroad to do anything in
their right of way is
is practically impossible doesn't happen
um
so we're we probably should
revisit where that line is of the
railroad right away
and and it doesn't really make a
difference whether the replantings are
in the city of columbus side of the line
or the vexing side of the line because
regarding the project we're all one
but i would try to steer clear of the
railroad right away
i agree so larry with what with what we
have sort of collegial consensus on now
uh to illness point we like the seven
foot tree line we'd like to
put bike path have have them parallel
and then we fuss around a little bit
more at the wall do you have enough
information to go back to the city of
columbus
i i think we do with the exception of uh
finding where
that railroad right-of-way line is i
think for uh just accuracy sake
no they don't want to screw with the
railroad either it's just too hard so
i think that would help just to add that
other piece of uh
definition well would they have that or
do we have to look for that
uh it should be on the uh auditor site
we should be able to figure it out from
something
i i don't i don't know i i don't know
that i presume they do
okay so our idea was that we were going
to
endorse this plan um or endorse a plan
is everybody uh collegially
um okay with endorsing option b
as we just yeah
everybody the whole cost of all this
the largest component will be moving
that wall
moving the wall worst case scenario they
go ahead the timing of moving that wall
and putting in that sidewalk
the sidewalks are very low cost it can
be done in-house
if we let them go around the wall we
we really hate it that much then we
think about
funding moving the wall yeah well
so grant help on this um i thought that
the mayor had said or maybe i dreamed he
said that the city of columbus would pay
for moving the wall
is that not true i have no idea well me
either i might have made that up
wishful thinking i think that's possible
i think that's possible
yeah i mean i think or at least be uh
partners again if we're able to reuse
the um the we keep the pier
um you know our costs will go down and
i i i think if we get something that we
like long term
with this seven foot tree lawn which i
would certainly be in favor of that it's
it's worth you know doing a little
remodeling
uh and i think for the purposes of our
arguments uh
the aesthetics is a secondary thing the
primary reason to do it is because it's
just not safe to bring a
eight or ten foot pavement of some kind
close to another pavement it looks like
a driveway and it creates a
horrible situation on street crossings
so it's just
unsafe and also by the way it's gonna
look better so
yeah okay okay so ellen and larry you
have enough information to move forward
yes correct okay okay mayor are you back
online
okay he's not online so we will just we
will go on with our agenda
um real quickly we'll do some updates on
april as arbor month as you see on the
bottom of the agenda and grant maybe i
don't know if you can get that back up
things are falling into place for what
we're doing
most part for the most part yeah we have
some work to do but
a little bit more grant please thank you
so
here's kind of a quick timeline we have
articles in the bexley blast
the library is having a trivia night uh
or trivia week i guess they're going to
have
uh i don't know trivia night and then um
they're also having a scavenger hunt
that will take place over some days
the mayor is doing a book review for um
for april
chamber of commerce is doing a do it
yourself at home cocktail hour with
maple syrup from jeffrey mansion we hope
to have sherborg bakery feature sugar
cookies of trees
and on april 30th we'll have the tree
giveaway
grant have you chosen the trees
uh not yet okay okay i i mean i like the
the the buckeye and the horse chestnut
are pretty much the same tree so we'll
probably go with either
just one of those the ginkgo and i can't
remember the other
accolade cherry maple
the ginkgo the ohio buckeye
um
but the ginkgos if you happen to get a
female ginkgo tree
which you don't know for about 10 years
you know it's just got the worst
smelling fruit
ever i had it in the yard
i mean i i i love ginkgo trees but
any more i don't i don't think of a
downside
i mean there's mistakes made all the
time i'm sure but um
i don't think they you can even buy a
female ginkgo tree
okay well that's that's a very good
thing
so what did you say grant ginkgo catsura
no
no cap syrup
maple the cherry the butter maple
okay all right thank you
and then um do you know what tree you
and the mayor will plant in a green
space
for ant our arboretum yet we know the
mayor usually picks that out so
okay all right all right and um
some of you may remember the landmark
tree booklet the tree commission did
many years ago
and then a couple years ago troy marcum
suggested that we have a heritage tree
program that we honor
um some of our oldest trees
and we that was tabled at city council
but we're going to bring
back sort of the landmark trees and
honor them
beginning this year grant
sam the mayor all working on a
nomination form
and then we'll announce the trees that
week or that day
that have been given such status um
so you can nominate your own trees oh
the mayor's here okay
so that's going to happen and then on
may 1st saturday may 1st
in the south community garden we're
going to have a lot of activities for
kids
um we're going to have a
a new feature in bexley a fairy garden
we're going to try and have a talking
tree
somebody in a costume and a lot of
other fun activities that kids can do
and then put in the fairy garden
so that's what we got going on ellen and
celeste anything you want to add
yes i would i'm going to lean
in the tree leaning on i'm going to lean
on
grant archer to help me find some trees
some tree trunks
we've emailed each other but and i have
to get out there with my snow blower
when i get back to ohio
and uh susan recommends that i
earmark some of those so they're not
used for the march
event
anyway we will keep moving keep you
updated as this all comes together
but uh we're having fun so far
[Music]
did we tell grant about him being uh
using our
tree uh costume well grant we
we wondered we had a vote today at our
arbor day study group and
and voted unanimously that you inhabit
the talking tree costume
does that feel does that feel like a
talent you want to exploit
okay sure i can find somebody that can
do that for you
oh yeah that's appreciated
on time that would be great if you can
find someone for us
so all right there we go mayor we're
glad to have you back
could we um segue back to your report
yes and i apologize i am i am dual
meeting right now with
larry hellman's son-in-law in one ear
and then larry hellman in the other so
i'm
welcome 2021. this is just crazy
okay so can someone can
someone scroll up to my report yeah we
talked about the 5g
tower was first because no one i mean
people didn't know
the so we've covered this multiple times
but we did pass the ordinance um
for the right of way the right of way
ordinance complete with
resplendent i should say with jim wilson
additive language and
their design guidelines are in place
[Music]
and i apologize because i'm i'm not
doing this well i gotta
i gotta put this down it's too
distracting okay i'm focused
um we have a uh
a request from some members of the
community to create a steering committee
for jeffrey
park woods specifically
and we have suggested or recommended to
the
the rec board uh that in lieu of
simply creating a committee that doesn't
really have any clear guidelines that we
study
uh create a plan for the maintenance and
management of the forest
which susan will smugly tell you she's
been advocating for for at least 10
years
that's not anything oh i love smugness
yeah but i think that i think the
key is i mean you know i was really i'm
wary of another committee always but
also specifically
another committee without some consensus
around what that what that guidance
might look like so i think it's
important to counsel the rec board you
guys
have uh have some input into that um
livingston avenue study is is going to
become a very large
piece of my year where we have been
asking columbus to to enter into a joint
planning process with us for several
years now
we finally have selected the vendor
we're using nbj
um it's a it's by far the largest plan
we've ever
gone into in terms of the robustness of
the the plan and the type of
due diligence and work that's going to
go into it the caliber of the
and depth of the work going into it so
it's exciting
columbus is really invested in it which
is great they believe
they have a lot of political pressure to
get it done and get it done well and so
we expect to come out of that with um
probably some some meaningful traffic
changes on livingston avenue um
streetscape guidelines and uh
developments uh kind of joint
development aspirations
um so that'll take the better part of a
year and it'll be launching in the next
month or so
and i am looking for a rep from the tree
commission
to sit on a steering committee for the
joint livingston avenue study
um don't need that decided right away
but i think if if
you let susan know if you have interest
in that um
you know we continue to answer yeah let
me know in the next week
you know be great and i'll forward the
names to the mayor
okay our jeffrey woods festival is due
to kick off march 6th we were
this vortex has kind of helped
but i'm looking at the next week's
weather looks like we might
get some sap so we are we're hoping for
march 6
it might be delayed uh but uh and that's
not welcome
if it's delayed is it delayed to the
next week or at
infinitum no
next week most likely mike price isn't
available
grant archer tells me he's as good as
three mike prices i'm not sure i agree
but we're well so what
this is a great way to experience bestly
to go to the woods festival and it's fun
and it's free and you can be in the
forest
and improve your health so please
consider attending
thank you i said it's awesome it is
tomorrow stay to the community
and um hope you guys can
join or somehow participate and be great
mayor were there other
things that i i should have added under
your report that
i missed
it's possible but um i
nothing you know leaking to my mind and
i'm mindful of the time
and uh
and such okay does anybody have any
questions for the mayor then
oh your lucky guy today mayor real
quickly
how is the new butcher shop doing i i
think
being well i i've i've customed it
and it's uh it's quality of meat is is
high and it seems like there's a lot of
there's a lot of activity there so i
think it's doing well
good i've heard about it in florida
great once it warms up a little bit
um i do want to say i
i had to hop off while eleanor was
talking about the water
feature at commonwealth so i really
don't know all that was said i heard a
little bit
um one one of the things that i so maybe
i shouldn't say anything until i know
exactly what was said but i will tell
you
we have at least one staff member in on
city
service staff that's experienced in pond
management
so when it comes to maintenance and
management that is one thing that we've
considered and i know there's a whole
lot to that so
actually i'm not going to delve into
that i'll delve into that at the next
meeting no people were very
excited about the plan so yeah
and and molly suggested that there are
pond designers out there and i think
eleanor knows that so
we're in a good place we're in a good
place um
anything else for the mayor if not let's
run down to the end
uh grant you have a small time and i
only put
planting pansies in drexel circle
because it seems like we need
some thoughts about flowers underneath
your city forester report
do you have other things you'd like to
add
not really yeah the pansies are going to
be subject to you know they're growing
in a greenhouse right now so we're you
know ideally hoping to get them out
early in march
um other we did find a replacement
arborist
for the park
position that we've been discussing we
maintaining the commonwealth
so um he starts monday so we'll be
excited
about that but other than that that's
all we have okay
i know grant said when we had our
pre-meeting
they're still working on the things that
um we'd voted on last year like the tree
takedown
so he's still playing a little ketchup
if we go down to new business was there
anything we talked about
you know activities that people
might uh have an interest or
want to talk about and we're not going
to get to that
so we'll save that for for march
and we are at the magic quitting hour
now so
unless anybody has something that they
would like to bring
forward i think we will adjourn does
anybody have any other things
i have a quick question okay in regards
to
kovid 19 and um
where we are with all of this are we
proceeding as a city with
in-person activity
uh ben yeah i'm happy to answer that so
when you say in person activity what are
you referring to exactly so i can make
sure
well you know all right so just the
syrup gathering
um the first item
um coming forth and then arbor day yeah
so uh community community events is i
think what you're saying so it's
contextual right so
every community event has a different
risk um footprint
and i think what we're doing is i can
tell you
at this point we're planning on uh
obviously the
woods festival we're playing on the main
events and jazz in the park
in person but all of those events will
be based
on whatever the current public health
guidance is so
a plus plus actually i should say public
health guidance plus
so jeffrey woods festival will be
outdoors which is a you know pretty safe
environment but we'll still ask people
to wear masks
when they're outdoors so it's like it's
uh going above and beyond
when it comes to outdoor music
or the movies the current plan is
similar to what we did in the meadows of
the
last fall where people have their own
circles
and only households stay together
but we're pretty firm that we're going
to be doing some community events this
year and we're going to be doing them in
a safe way
okay well i appreciate that and the
reason i brought it up is because the
city of columbus has already
projected canceling the arts event um
canceling uh confess canceling the ribs
uh event those are all things that are
already
in the last two weeks they've put out
there as canceled so i just wondered
what
our feelings were i appreciate that yeah
and i think that i i can understand that
because i think those are
different types of events uh the first
thought that
pops into my mind when you say that
though is it makes me nervous if
you know the suburbs are the only
communities that are having events does
that then drive people
so we'll just be very quiet about our
events we'll just
well you know our our events let's just
say like arbor day if we have if
you know we don't we don't have to do
the planning and
bring in artists from all over the
country or the world
so um it's just easier for us if we have
to downsize it or cancel it or move it
to september
so i of course say that in jest because
if you know if we do have
extra folks come to our main event
that's fantastic because honestly we can
we can accomplish and accommodate
uh decent sized crowds within that those
safety parameters
we have you know we have space
to provide a safe environment and we'll
be very careful to do that
and um it was really clear last fall
when we started doing these sorts of
events that people were just great at
following the guidance and you know they
went very well so
we talked about people registering that
they would register to come to the
events
under the shelter house itself community
gardens so you know
we're still mindful of of safety
absolutely you have to be have to be
everyone's never been a huge
crowd creator but you know hey this
might be the year it might be our year
where we
know we're worried about yeah
any anything else for the mayor anything
to come for the good of the order
are we knowing anything about july 4th
is that a
i know that they haven't canceled red
white and boom yet but
yeah i'm yeah
that's up in the air i mean i think
i'm i'm firmly committed to finding a
way to to have a fourth of july that's a
little bit more traditional
and conventional
i think the parade is the one that
believe it or not gives me a little bit
more pause
just in terms of how that might get
managed but i think we're gonna have a
totally different public health
footprint in july and i think we'll feel
differently about it
we'll have some time to be able to help
develop those guidelines it's possible
the fireworks go to like a reservation
based system
um maybe i mean that's just the sort of
stuff we have to talk through and figure
out
okay everybody great meeting today we
talked about a lot we had a lot of
participation
so so grateful for all of you and
um for the city for letting us do what
we love to do
so thank you ben and thanks to all of
you and we'll see you
on march 17th
and i only wish we could meet somewhere
and enjoy
the time after the meeting we'll see
what happens
right okay good night everyone thank you