083119 Garden Meeting
Unofficial Garden Closing – 030219 Meeting Notes
About 100 gardeners waited in the rain on a cold Saturday morning waiting to enter the closed building to discuss the future of our gardens and how to fix the on-going water issue, little did we expect what happened.
The meeting presenters were Maria from Lot to Spot, Carlos, Julie Beals from the Los Angeles City Garden Council (LACGC), and representatives of Councilman Joe Buscaino’s office, Ryan Ferguson who is the Field Deputy to San Pedro and finally Jacob Haik who serves as Deputy Chief of Staff to the office.
Gardens topics addressed:
- The unexpected water shut-off by sanitation. The 2-day a week watering schedule is back to normal again.
- The garden is not accepting new gardeners until the garden issues are fixed including water.
- Addressed the issue of sexual harassment in the garden. This behavior will NOT be tolerated and will result in garden revocation.
- Mandatory vote initiated by Reps Jacob and Ryan on the future of the garden.
Reps Jacob and Ryan informed us, the City of San Pedro has given us these options:
- Install an additional meter (separate from sanitation) only for gardeners use. Installation would be provided by the LA sanitation department. The allocation of respective water costs to gardeners would be uncontrollable or predicable.
OR
- The City of San Pedro will close down the garden, renovate it up to city standards with proper landscaping and individual water meters and re-open in 1 year (March 2, 2020).
Reps Jacob encouraged a vote to take place before the meeting ended. All in attendance were given a piece of paper to either write “Yes” or “No” and the votes were tallied by Maria as follows:
Yes = 70%
No = 30%
The vote made it official to close and renovate San Pedro All Year Community Gardens (SPCAYG). According to Rep Jacob Haik’s statements which include, “it will re-open within 1 year”, or around March 2, 2020. “Everyone will have to reapply for their gardens” based on San Pedro residence. Some of the improvements will include better walkways and water meters provided to accurately charge gardeners.
This is an unofficial closing as the City will have to notify every gardener in writing of the garden closure or post a public notice to inform every gardener of what has happened and the garden will be closed for renovations.
Don’t let this stop you from continuing your gardening. Keep going to the gardens and growing your organic fruits and vegetables. The city will take some time to get this done correctly.
If you are unhappy with the City of San Pedro, do something!
Joe Buscaino is the Public Official ultimately responsible for the garden closing. You can let him know that gardening is good for the mind, the body, families, and to improve the air quality in San Pedro created by all pollution from the port. Eco-gardening is good, let him know! He is active online:
Joe Buscaino Twitter Page
Joe Buscaino Facebook Page
Joe Buscaino Instagram Page
Remember to vote.
If you would like to add or request a correction to any information you can leave the correction in the comments.
5-Months Later, 2nd Meeting Scheduled
New Meeting Announcement
March 2, 2019
10am-12pm
100 W. 5th St.
San Pedro, CA 90721
091518 Meeting Notes
There were 2 speakers:
Maria from Lot to Spot and Julie from the LA Garden Council. The meeting lasted 2 hours. About 87 people attended.
They provided updates as to the issues at the garden with the water and the future of the garden.
The Sanitation department cut the water to the gardeners because Mayor Garcetti ordered a 20% water reduction at all city facilities.
Gardeners were unaware of this and suffered because of non-communication from the sanitation department.
In order to get the garden back to working condition in all aspects of water, leadership, and finances decision will have to be made.
The 2 biggest decisions facing the gardeners is to vote on 2 measures:
A) To accept the LA Garden council assistance to organize the garden and leadership.
B) To vote to install a new separate water meter which would increase the cost of having a garden.
The Sanitation department will pay for the installation of a new separate meter.
Watering schedule changes every 2 weeks because they are running tests as to why there is low water pressure.
Engineers came in to analyze the issues with water pressure. There is a report of the findings.
Redoing the piping to all the gardens with the new water meter will very expensive, a grant will be needed to fund the project.
Each has its good and bad.
At a future meeting, the decision will be made on these issues.
Official: General Garden Meeting
Date:
9/15/18
Topics:
Meeting open to all San Pedro gardeners to discuss Issues and Updates
Location:
Boys and Girls Clubs of The Los Angeles Harbor
100 W. 5th St.
San Pedro, CA 90731
Time:
11am-1pm