Friends of Marymoor Park

February 24th, 2010 Meeting Summary

-- see also the January 27, 2010 meeting summary

1. Introductions:

Norah Gaynor (King County Parks), Barbara Dickson (neighbor), Herb Bone (MAR/C, FOMP Board), Christina Merten (Marymoor Community Gardener's Association, FOMP Board), Jack MacKinnon (Marymoor Community Gardener's Association), Greg Helland (FOMP Board)

 2. Park Tree Inventory and Plan

          5% day Whole Foods:

FOMP has been chosen as one of the three groups that is being considered for the April 7, 2010 event at the Redmond store. The Board will need to make a short 15 minute presentation to the review committee at Whole Foods on March 2nd.

They have asked us to address four questions during this time:

 - your organization’s work
 - how you will use the funding
 - how you can help to publicize the 5% day
 - ideas that you have for events leading up to and on the day of the 5% Day (here at the store, to help spread the word…e.g. a kid’s activity on the Saturday before 5% Day.)

The group brainstormed ideas for presentation. Christina will check with Michael on possible pictures to use in the presentation of good and poor forested areas of the park. Norah will check for historic pictures of the park, especially the off-leash area from the 90’s compared to today. The group brainstormed ideas for spreading the word. We could contact the Redmond Reporter about doing an article on. The King County Parks has a twitter, listserv, and facebook page, so we can get an announcement out there.

E-mail chains: it would be good to have some general numbers of how many people we can reach Greg will get numbers from SODA and Norah will check on King County’s numbers.

Norah will also look at possibly putting an announcement in the welcome banner for wi-fi at the park, adding an announcement to the parking receipts, Lake Washington Youth Soccer spring season practices starts that week and we would be posting at the field. Norah will also get some rough numbers of how many parking fees are collected in a week or month (last weekend it was over $7,000).

Group brainstormed on store events: Historic trees of Marymoor brochure and map of the park could be handed out. Birds of Marymoor presentation by Michael or Audobon. Christina will contact EarthCorps and see if they have any suggestions and if they would be available for the presentation on the 2nd. We could also let them know we are excited about any suggestions they may have, since none of the Board members are familiar with what type of events have been done for 5% days in the past.

2010 Community Forestry Assistance Grant:

Greg e-mailed electronic copy to the Board for review. The grant is a USDA Forest Service pass through grant managed by WA Dept of Natural Resources. Funds can be used for urban forestry plans, inventories, program development, etc. This is exactly what we will be doing, so is a great fit. The grant is specifically not for the purchasing of plants or maintenance. The grant amount is $10,000 and application is due by 5pm April 9th. The grant does not require matching; however, if matching is possible, it will gain a higher score. If we were to get the Whole Foods 5% day we could leverage that as matching funds and get higher scores for this grant.

EarthCorps may have experience in applying for this grant specifically and experience with grant writing in general. Greg will contact EarthCorps to see if they can help with the application. King County may also be able to provide assistance in the application process. Greg will draft an application and send it out to the Board and Norah.

Greg noted that the grant is a re-imbursement grant, so we will need to pay for EarthCorps and then request reimbursement. This is something to point out at the Whole Foods presentation that we could really use the funds on April 7th to help with this overall funding effort. Whole Foods could help us ensure we get this larger grant opportunity. If we get the Whole Foods 5% Day we may need a special board meeting in March to discuss and organize grant and Whole Foods efforts because they are both during the first week in April.

3. CIP Projects.

• Parking Booth is complete and operational.

• No news on the pet garden or boat house.

• East Lake Sammamish Trail has some funding for paving in Redmond section for 2010.

• Birdloop work is continuing. Marymoor Way signs being worked on that will say “Audubon bird loop”

• Stage Seating Area: Center aisle was a help but the park really wants to do something on the wings. For full seating they go out in the grass so they’d like to have something at the edge of the gravel path to be able to access the outer edge. ADA access requirements now? The plastic floor mats meet this requirement, but they aren’t sturdy and as level as what they’d like. Greg pointed out that a temporary surface would be preferable. Norah explained that anything out just for a couple of days turns to mud or requires a lot of labor. The idea of lattice pavers was discussed. Currently the wheels for the seat racks are too small to work with pavers. Norah will look into the possibility of getting larger wheels on the racks for the seating and other surfacing options.

• NE Marymoor Way Paving Work: Painting the speed bumps yellow is an option to address the couple of comments received by the park that they could not be seen. The group opinion was that the bumps were visible as they are.

• Community Garden:  Park maintenance crews noted that there was a recent delivery of leaves at the garden. The park is done using the leaves so they’ve requested that the deliveries be stopped. The gardeners do have some compost deliveries being made. Norah requested that the park be notified when deliveries are going to be made so that their ground crews are aware. Jack will make an announcement at the Garden kick-off meeting this weekend. There are currently ruts in the road on the south of the garden and MCGA has a plan to place woodchips to level the road. King County has also offered to place a log across the road to help avoid having vehicles stuck on the road. Jack will bring this to the MCGA board's attention. There have been some complaints received by MCGA that the garden is looking messy. There was a discussion about the possibility of a shed for equipment storage. Norah said that could be a possibility and would need to be proposed by MCGA.

• Electrical work – food court upgrade is in the works.

• Garden Loosestrife control project: A trail will be cut in May to help with getting access to the infestation for spraying. Spraying will be done immediately after Cirque. EarthCorps will be doing the GPS survey of control efforts for monitoring purposes.
• Tennis Court Repairs: Court #3 is closed. Repair project will be going out to bid soon. They are looking at having cracks patched, net posts repaired and overlay coating put down. Overlay coating will be blue and green. Hopes are for clear weather to get the project done ASAP

4. Events:

• Tour de Cure has been moved to the Marybelle Meadow area. They have previously been at the Velodrome. The event is scheduled for May 22.

• KC Parks Benefit 5K run is a new event and is scheduled for May 23rd. Event information is on the King County website.

• There’s a possibility of a family festival that would be scheduled for October 1-3 that would bring 3-5K people/day to the park

5. Other:

• MCGA Food Bank Garden: HopeLink manager has contacted MCGA concerning raising more food. “Grow a Row” program will be started this summer to help raise more food. HopeLink is also donating compost. There’s also a teaming effort with a Woodinville farmer on growing starts to help get a jump on the HopeLink garden. Greg turned over a check to MCGA to pay for the 2009 costs for the food bank garden.

 Next Meeting:  Wednesday March 24, 2010, 7:00 – 9:00pm. Marymoor Art Barn.  

These notes were made by Christina Merten, and they do not constitute an official record of the meeting.  They may have inaccuracies and omissions.  If anyone has any complaints about the content of these notes, they should direct them to Michael Hobbs at fomp@marymoor.org, and he will endeavor to correct them.