Downtown Community Gardens and April 19 Common Council meeting

[Kevin Schiesser]

Hello Friends,

We are writing tonight to urge you to come to the Common Council Meeting this Tuesday, April 19^th, at 6:30pm.  It's a new council and a new mayor and we think it's really critical that we come together and tell them that local food is important, that community gardens are important, that edible landscapes are important.  We have many groups in Madison with focused interests but at their core are some common values and visions for this city.

One topic on the agenda is the city's feasibility report for a community garden on the top of the new Central Library. 

At this point there is no interest from the city or the library to pursue it. However, we feel that the very fact that the city had to investigate the topics of community garden functioning and green roof construction has value.  We discovered that many city and library representatives were unfamiliar with how food is grown in a garden.

For example the need to explain that compost would not be routinely removed from the rooftop- that compost would be added to the raised beds as a fertilizer for growing more vegetables.  The public comment period is an opportunity for you to educate alders and city staff about community gardens.

We welcome you to show up to support our request to work together to meet the large and growing demand for community gardens downtown.

Link to the city's green roof feasibility study:
http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/central/green.html

We will be releasing our report in response to the feasibility study on Monday, April 18^th, 2011. Please see attached press release.

Common Council Meeting
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
6:30pm
City County Building, Room 201

 

Downtown Community Gardens Group
contacts:

Jane Anne Morris (morningde...@hotmail.com) or 251-2784

Kevin Schiesser (kevin....@gmail.com)

Sue Rosa (susan...@gmail.com) or 236-9374

Danna Olsen (danna...@yahoo.com)

DCG Google Group

DCG Facebook Page