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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCBC 03-10-1992 (2)The City R-36utiful Commission The Little Rock City Beautiful Commission held its regular meeting on Tuesday, March 10, 1992 at City Hall in the 2nd Floor Conference Room. The Commission met at 9:30 a.m. for a pre -agenda meeting to discuss a variance request. The meeting was called to order for public hearing at 10:00 a.m. by Chairman Merle Seamon. Members Present: Merle Seamon Ross McCain Jo Rancif er Josephine Graham Charlene Hardcastle Steve Cato Also Present: Truman Tolefree, Assist. Director Parks and Recreation Connie Fugedy, Parks & Rec. Design Mgr. Gavle Owens, Admin. Asst., Parks & Rec. Jim Sick, Parks & Rec., Maint. and Development Manager Beckv Switzer, Sec., Parks & Rec. Bob Brown, Review Specialist Tracy Spillman, Union Nat. Bank Mari Lee, Whitespace Gallery 1. Pre -Agenda Meeting. Item No. 1 - C.B.C. 546 - New Matters Variance Reauested: A. Deletion of a portion of the minimum four (4) foot to six (6) foot wide perimeter landscaping strip and the associated screening shrubs and trees. 500 West Markham, Room 108 Little Rock, AR 72201 371-4770 Minutes March 10, 1992 Meeting Page 2 Bob Brown presented the case with staff recommendation as follows: B. Staff recommends approval of the application provided the applicant is willing to plant screening shrubs in the right-of-way immediately south of the parking area. 2. Public hearing called to order at 10:00 a.m. by Chairman Merle Seamon. Roll Call: 6 �Of 8 members present. (One vacancy). Steve Cato made motion that the Commission accept the staff recommendations and seconded by Jo Rancifer. Vote was unanimous. Public hearing adjourned. 3. Regular meeting called to order. 4. Approval of Minutes. Ross moved to accept the minutes of the February meeting as submitted, Jo Rancifer seconded. Motion carried. 5. Public Sculpture. Mari Lee from the Whitespace Gallery would like the help of the Commission in promoting public sculpture in the Little Rock area. She gave a slide presentation of sculptures in England and the United States and how they have affected the areas. Merle Seamon would like to see_a_more detailed proposal on this project. Ms. Graham asked Ms. Lee about the cost of the sculpture on Main Street. Ms. Lee said she would bring that information to her when she brings back the proposal. Minutes March 10, 1992 Meeting Page 3 6. School Garden Proposal. Pratt Remmel, Jr. could not be at the meeting so Merle Seamon presented his proposal. Mr. Remmel is asking the Commission to provide a governmental body by which he could channel his funding through for this project. He has the funding sources and is not requesting any money from the Commission or the City. He also has the support of the School District. Mr. Remmel has good indication that he will be able to get a seed grant from the Winthrop Rockerfeller Foundation. He is also working on a larger federal grant that is part of the Federal Grant Program from the National and Community Services Commission. Merle Seamon feels like this a good program and it could be paired with the City Beautiful Kids Program. Jo Rancifer asked if it would come under the Education Committee. Merle'ag-eeded that it does. Steve Cato asked if Mr. Remmel could come to next montff:s) meeting so the Commission could ask him questions about his project. Merle Seamon said that he had already spoken to Mr. Remmel about doing that and he would be glad to attend next months meetingQbut because of the time frame of some of these grants he needs to know if the Commission would be willing to work with him. Merle Seamon suggested that the Commission provide Mr. Remmel temporary legal resideor sponsorship based on the information provided by him at present but that the Commission would like to be involved in the further development of the program and have the opportunity to comment on the details of what he is doing. Jo Rancifer moved that the City Beautiful Commission grant temporary legal residence to Mr. Remmel's program. Charlene Hardcastle seconded. Vote was carried all ayes. Minutes March 10, 1992 Meeting Page 4 7. Reports of Committees. A. City Beautiful Kids - Steve Cato chairs this committee. Steve, Truman Tolefree, and the Parks and Recreation staff have met on several occasions. He feels that the project is in good hands and the project will run from June 15 to 1st week in August. It will basically ---the same work cleaning up areas of town half a day and those kids that are tested as needing remedial help will attend school half a day. On March 14th and March 21st interviews will be held. Rip Rowan has agreeded to take care of the funding again this year and has fifteen or sixteen commitments as sponsors with three or four more at $750.00 a sponsor. Mr. Rowan expects to able to` ---- secure the 20 sponsors for the amount of $15,000.00. The remainder of the funding comes from JTPA that amounts to about $100,000.00. The total amount of the project is $120,000.00 plus for the six or eight weeks during the summer. Also this year there will be a recreation day on Thursday. That day will be organized by Parks and Recreation. There will be a different activity each week such as team sports, recreational t activities and possibly a end of the season activity were they compete against one another as teams with prizes awarded. Truman Tolefree informed the Commission that they may also try and work in some arts and humanities with Mrs. Mitchell. Ms. Graham suggested that once an area is cleaned up by the City Beautiful Kids that maybe we could get the neighborhood to adopt it and keep it clean. B. Winterfest - Merle Seamon passed out a report. There have been a number of meetings between Truman Tolefree, Bill Bunten, Jim vonTungeln and himself, Jim will still serve as chairman on Winterfest. The committee is looking at some new ideas that will be not so dependent on the weather. They are looking at getting back to a one day format, retaining the boat parade if the weather conditions permit. Will be developing an alternative program in case weather does not allow for the boat parade. This program would be an indoor program that could either take the place of or add to the boat parade as a grand finale to Winterfest. Minutes March 10, 1992 Meeting Page 5 The theme will be "Main Street Fair" which resembles an old fashion Christmas or carnival. They will try and keep people moving a little more with street entertainers, strolling entertainment, and some theme carnival rides. They will still be retaining the arts and crafts exhibits and the children activities. (Also pursuing the idea of the artificial ice rink so the public can participate in ice skating activities on a substance called glice, an artificial ice) Other ideas are wiener roasts, puppeteers, zoo animal display, involving 4-H Clubs, Home Extension Clubs, hayrides and some type of indoor family show. They will looking for a major sponsorship to help put on the family show.' Ms. Graham suggested having ice sculptures created by local chefs. Ross McCain asked about lighting the Broadway Bridge. Merle told him there is still a lot of support for it but the cost proposal is so high that they would need a major fund raising effort between North Little Rock and Little Rock to make it possible. C. Adopt a Block - Merle Seamon informed the Commission that the committee has met with the City Staff members and have put together some cost estimates to get the program started. Now the Committee is working on funding. The City has indicated good support in all departments but does not have the funds to pay for the signs. The Committee will publish information about the program to the public in the newspaper and we have already had a number of people asking about adopting a particular area. The Adopt a Block Program is actually a misnomer because they will have to divide the city into larger areas instead of a block. They have not yet agreed on the actual size of the minimum area but it will probably be about four blocks instead of one block. Charlene Hardcastle suggested that the City Beautiful Kids Program tie into this program and the Litter Awareness Program. The City Beautiful Kids could clean up an area and then it could be adopted. Minutes March 10, 1992 Meeting Page 6 D. City Beautiful Convention - Jo Rancifer first of all thanked Gayle Owens on her excellent job of collecting past data for the committee. It was thought that maybe we could capitalize on the Garden Convention which would be held May 14th. Mrs. Rancifer had contacted several of the people who where listed on the Arkansas Conference on Beautification that was given to her by Gayle Owens. She had one person from the Greater Pine Bluff Chamber of Commerce '7-:79eautificatigI,Beautification Committee, Diane Warner, who would be interested in attending. She had made several other calls but without any response after leaving messages. Charlene Hardcastle suggested that we try to have the convention in the fall or early spring. Merle Seamon suggested we check the with Municipal League and get a new list from them. Jo Rancifer also suggested we delay the convention until we could have time to work on it to be able to give a good reflection on the Commission and also be able to make a little capital from the convention. Merle Seamon would like for the committee to look at having the convention this fall. E. Litter Awareness Campaign - Ross McCain is chairman of this committee and he, Gayle Owens, and Josephine Graham will be meeting Thursday, at 3:00 in the Parks Conference Room. Ross is gathering information to present at this meeting. F. Neighborhood Ambassador Committee - Charlene Hardcastle is chairing this committee. Diane Davis will also be serving on this committee. The purpose of this committee will be to give the information on some of the Commissions programs to the different neighborhood associations and have them tie into those programs such as the Litter Awareness, Adopt a Block, and City Beautiful Kids. Charlene attends these neighborhood meetings each month and would be able to report to them what our efforts are and encourage them to coordinate with the programs. A question that was brought up at the last Coalition Meeting was about the street sweepers being discontinued. They would like for us to check and see if there is any funding for this. They feel like it is a valuable service. Minutes March 10, 1992 Meeting Page 7 Charlene Hardcastle informed the Commission about the tree planting project. The Capitol View Neighborhood Association received a $700 grant from the Urban Forestry Commission and will be planting trees this weekend at 9:00 a.m. at Lamar and Booker Streets. She invited all the Commission members to be there. Charlene thanked Connie Fugedy and Phoebe Stephens of the Parks and Recreation Department for all their help in this project. G. Awards Program - Shalah Brummett was not available to be at the meeting. Steve Cato and Jo Rancifer are both on the committee and both have spoken to her by phone and she has a lot of good ideas. H. School Program - Joe Franklin chairs this committee but was not able to attend the meeting today. I. Development of Environmental Ordinances - A letter was sent to the City Attorney's office from the Commission asking that the Commission be included -in helping to shape the environmental Review Ordinance. Merle Seamon read the response from the City Attorney's office. They thanked the Commission for its letter and informed the Commission that they would keep in contact about the ordinance. Charlene Hardcastle and Steve Cato are on this committee. Another person is interested in serving on this committee and her name is Mary Zeir. She is a member of the League of Women Voters. She is very knowledgeable about environmental issues. Hopefully by the next Commission meeting Charlene will be able to report that the Environmental Ordinances Committee has been able to meet with the City Attorney's Office. J. Other Committees - Merle Seamon touched on a few of the other committees such as the Landscape Committee and the Long Range Planning Committee. Also the Traffic Island Committee, Merle is working on getting a Community Center van and the people who are working on that committee can be taken out and driven by the particular areas of concern so that they can see what exactly the committee would be dealing with. Charlene Hardcastle asked if it is know how many traffic islands there are in the city. Truman Tolefree informed her that the Public Works Department would have that information. Minutes March 10, 1992 Meeting Page 8 Another committee is Capitol Ave.. Ross McCain chairs this committee. As he had told the Commission at the last meeting Connie Fugedy and Ross conducted interviews and selected a project team to review the project. Connie and the Parks Department are negotiating a contract with this group. 8. City Beautiful Budget - Charlene Hardcastle brought to Merle Seamon's attention that the Commission has not drawn up a budget for each committee. He would like for each committee to give him some idea of what it will need to start its program and operate for a year. Charlene Hardcastle suggested that if each committee has a budget, the Commission could prioritize each committee. If the Commission agrees that there is a program that all feel is very important and needs more funding, the Commission may petition the City Board for help in funding. Merle Seamon has met with Mayor Priest and she has asked that Merle present the Commission's whole program to the Board at the next possible Agenda Meeting. Merle asked that as many Commissioners as possible be at the Agenda Meeting. He will send out a notice in the mail of what time and date. At the next meeting the Commission will work on priorizing the committees. Jo Rancifer suggested that a few of the committees could be combined. Steve Cato also made a point that a lot of these committees are on going. Merle Seaman asked that what he would like to do with the Commissions permission is go before the Board and present the Commissions complete program without any priorities. Then, after the Commission does its priortization, go back before the Board with any requests that the Commission may have. Jo Rancifer made a motion to have Chairman Seamon go before the City Board at its earliest convenience. Ross McCain seconded the motion. Motion carried, all ayes. Minutes March 10, 1992 Meeting Page 9 9. Parks and Recreation Activities - Truman Tolefree, Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation told the Commission that the Parks Department is very pleased with its level of activities and also the level of involvement of the Commission. The Parks Department is always more than happy to give the Commission any help than happy to _give -the—Commission. any.;heip. that we can. Truman told the Commission that he is really enjoying working with all the members of the Commission. Charlene Hardcastle asked about the dates of the Allsopp Walk and the War Memorial Fitness Center Grand Opening. Truman informed the group that the tentative dates are as follows: April 15th for the Grand Opening of the Fitness Center. Connie Fugedy stated that the Allsopp Promenade Dedication would be April 24th and the Allsopp Spring Festival would be would be April 25th. Charlene Hardcastle congratulated the Parks Department on the War Memorial Fitness Center. She said she has never seen a private club that compares to it. Also the Allsopp Promenade is very attractive. Truman thanked her for her comments and stated that the Parks Department likes to hear those types of comments. Truman also invited the members of the Commission who have not seen the War Memorial Fitness Center to contact him and he would arrange for a personnal tour. He also provided them with two free one day pasCto participate in some of the activities at the center. 10. Treasurer's Report - Ross McCain will start reporting monthly on the expenditures and any deposits that are made and every three months issue a written treasurers report to each member. Expenditures for this month was for stationary and binders. Winterfest Account has $1,146.03 with $2.61 interest. City Beautiful Checking Account has $3,770.00. City Beautiful Special Account has $ 6,989.34. At the next meeting Ross will provide the commissioners with a report of what has happened over the last three months, then update on a quarterly basis. Minutes March 10, 1992 Meeting Page 10 11. Miscellaneous - A person contacted Merle Seamon about giving away seed packs with logo and information on the back of the packet. The cost of the packet would be $2,000 for 20,000 packets. It may be something that the Commission might consider next year. Merle Seamon also passed along that AP&L will run information along withfthere..bill each month about different events going on. Charlene Hardcastle and Jo Rancifer asked about getting name tags for the Commission members. Merle Seamon explained that it may need to be put under the basic operating budget. This budget would be for things that fall under any specific category. 12. Adjournment - The meeting was adjourned at 11:50. The next meeting will be April 14th, 1992 at City Hall, in the 2nd Floor Conference Room.