 Welcome to the fifth annual green space gathering put on by the Parks Commission for the city of Portland and Thank you for coming in on such a glorious night. I had like 20 minutes to take my dogs for a quick walk and we got around the corner to head back home And they put the brakes on like no because it's so beautiful out. So thank you for coming in and being here tonight Parks Commission is a city-appointed body that Here's citizen input and works really closely to make recommendations to the Department of Public Services and City Council And we typically meet the first Thursday of each month At the Department of Public Services on Portland Street, and there's information about that online We're really excited about the lineup tonight. I think we've got an Informative and inspirational evening here for you tonight, and I hope that you're going to enjoy that I'd like to take a moment and just recognize if you're not already familiar with who our Commissioners are if I can call your name and have you stand up as your Name is announced Jeff share It's here or it's helping out with all our AT stuff Dory Waxman who just arrived Jamie Parker Caught you the back We also have here is Carol Hutchins here No, it's interface. I know Steve Morgan scene Is not able to be here tonight and Travis Wagner is not here tonight Michael Murktaugh is one of our newest commissioners and lucked out I think I got everybody So feel free to talk with Ralph I just wanted to see if you're paying attention. How could I forget Ralph? Ralph Carmona Everybody knows Ralph and at this time Cynthia Loewenstein, I said Jamie Okay So we're going to go through the evening's agenda We've got wolf tone here from the Trust Republic land with some really interesting information about the assessment That's being put forward in the survey regarding our parks We also are very grateful to have Liz visa here from executive director from Boston, Carmen and The end of the evening if people want to stay around at around 7 30 will have a very informal 15 minute question-and-answer period and we're going to start off with director of public services And the Department of Public Services giving a brief overview of what's going on In the world of our open spaces and with that I'd like to call up Troy moon Who's the environmental? Programs and open space manager Troy. Thank you Thank You Diane, and thank you everybody for coming tonight. We have a really great program as Diane mentioned I really want to appreciate all of our partners who brought tables today to provide information about Some of the programs you guys are offering so I was really really happy to see you here And before we get started also want to introduce some city staff members and we introduce Park submission members So we have Joe do may back here. Who's our parks and cemeteries coordinator? Yeah, Rick Nolan from our planning department. I saw Rick come in. Here's Rick Jeff Tarling is here as well and I also want to in Sally DeLuca Sally is here for the recreation department. Hey Sally And I want to thank Sheila Hill Christian our acting city manager for joining us tonight So before I get to before it gets to start I want to introduce Mike Wabinski who else am I missing me? Oh Councillor Lehman, she's all not city staff elected officials We're all we're also very pleased to have elected officials and Melissa graph them We also want to appreciate for a lot of the background she did today She got us organized and everything set up. So thank you Melissa And I also want to acknowledge CTN. You notice we have a camera person back here so if you want to Check this out or or if you enjoy the program and want to have some of your friends or neighbors watch it You'll be airing on CTN so you can check it out later. So without further ado I introduce Mike Wabinski Well, I too want to welcome you to our green space gathering event tonight As we were preparing for this event I was kind of reflecting on the the number of years that we've been we've been doing this and I think the The the strength of the parks Commission when we when when the City Council established it that that the Inclusion of all of the the major friends organizations in the city Is an opportunity to come together an event like tonight? to not only talk about Park projects and open space, but certainly talk about some future things and and some aspects of how we manage Open spaces and parks in the city of Portland and maybe some ideas about about the future and from the cities are from our Department's perspective certainly Troy and and Jeff and Joe Dume and myself We greatly appreciate the work of the volunteers for their commitment and their time In meetings and in follow-up events and activities. They've helped us in lots of different ways and recommendations And we really appreciate that that commitment in that time A couple of just quick things that I wanted to mention with regard to the past Year and and the year ahead in terms of some key projects that that we're very proud of and we're greatly appreciative of the partnering that occurred in some of these projects the first one that that I want to mention is of Course is the Fort Allen Park project the the recent rededication of the park improvements It's an example of a very strong partnership with the Friends of Eastern prom some private funds And certainly a strong commitment by our City Council in making Reinvestments of the park to bring it back to its glory days and improvements And if anybody has had a if you haven't had a chance to see that and go out there at Highly recommend that you visit that It was a tremendous Experience I think for both our staff our contractors and certainly the Friends organization Diane Davidson leading the way literally taking photos and and guiding certain events and so forth It was a significant project that that we will have in our memory in terms of going forward We also have a couple of projects that are in stage and development The Deering Oaks pond projects you've heard a little bit about that. I think in the recent media But it's a project that involves reusing or Rethinking how we manage the pond itself from a water quality perspective and It's associated with EPA stag grant that we got a few years ago It's a local match by the by the city through our CIP and the intention with the project is to basically remove material on the bottom and provide a Surface that actually allows the city to improve its maintenance of the pond itself and Going forward improve the water quality of that that water body some years ago We we correct we corrected a sewer overflow situation that had some impact on the pond And so now the water that enters the pond is really just runoff and storm water runoff Which certainly has some things that we're working on from a city's perspective in terms of possible green infrastructure applications that may fit into into that pond as well and Our transportation and sustainability and energy committee of recent has asked us to take a look at some aspects of the pond project as well So we're doing that our relationship with the land bank is Significant and and not not certainly just our department, but the changes that occurred through the Congress Square initiative the changes with respect to The the park amendments as well that puts a role within the parks commission that we're still kind of working through with respect to their involvement on Capital projects and changes to parks as well and their involvement in endorsing those projects in Collaboration certainly with the parks commission. So we're going to be developing that That relationship we've been staff support to the land bank for the last several years and they've been involved in some land acquisitions and currently are looking at a Proposal that will be presented to the city council soon on acquiring or helping to acquire the the famous ice pond property on Peaks Island in conjunction with the Peaks Island land preserve organization. We have a strong relationship with community cultivating community Cultivating communities with respect to our public gardens The department some years ago had a staff member that actually provided Technical assistance with managing our public gardens. We felt there was a probably a better way to address our needs our growing needs of public gardens in the city We established a working relationship a contractual relationship With cultivating communities who help us manage our public gardens and are continuing to partner with us on some other Opportunities for education and the possibility of another community garden I think Troy and maybe the eastern prom area behind the tennis courts and that's a proposal that's that's being developed at this point evergreen cemetery Phase two Joe Dumas here and can talk further about that but a long-standing project that really will allow us to Continue the use of evergreen our historic cemetery and accommodate families and relatives of families into the future We're currently almost at capacity at the existing evergreen cemetery anyway The construction of this new phase which is essentially right off Stevens Avenue in that part of the city Will provide some 800 I think to 900 burial spots and allow us to also move into cremation with a cremation niche design that will be Responsive to I think what's happening in bereavement issues and family issues as well In from the funeral perspective so Joe do make and talk a little bit more about that But that's a significant project that has been in the development stages I think for the last two years a great partnership with the friends of evergreen and their assistance in reviewing design plans and development as well We also have a developing orchard program tree orchard program Jeff Tarling and through his efforts We're starting to use some of our public garden space for Fruit trees that can be introduced into our neighborhoods into into our communities as well To provide an alternative With respect to our arboring programs in our tree programs as well. So lots going on The department greatly appreciates the work of all of our volunteers We we absolutely cannot function without you and without the work of our friends groups I think we always try to strike that right balance between sort of operations and the volunteer roles I think in the future these kinds of Relationships like we saw in the financial Assistance that we saw with the friends of evergreen And certainly the friends of durian oaks over the years will continue and and we want to Foster those types of relationships particularly as we look at very costly in some cases capital improvements in other cases advice on policies and directions of where we want to go with our open spaces and our in our park systems I didn't mention Portland trails, but the department has a long-standing relationship with the Portland trails organization on trail maintenance trail development Looking at areas where we can partner and and get some advice Particularly with respect to how we take care of our trails dealing with security issues dealing with Maintenance and and those types of issues. So I think with that I'll turn it back over. I think Troy To you if there's anything you wanted to add, but I appreciate being a part of tonight and look forward to listening to the speakers as well And learn a few things along the way. Thank you Great. Thank you, Mike And so sort of to begin our program I know we've probably heard in the media and in conversations that the city is undertaking some work with the trust for public land Inventory open space and develop some recommendations on how we might move forward Managing our open spaces. So we're happy tonight to have Wolf tone Who is the main director of the trust for public land to say a few words about where that project stands? And what people can look to see in the near future. So, whoa Hi, everybody, my name is wolf tone and I'm the main state director for the trust for public land and I'm really delighted to be here I've enjoyed the last year getting to know many of you and Thank you Diane and to everybody on the commission for the invitation to be here I'm gonna be I'm gonna be as brief as I can give you an update on as Troy has mentioned Some work that's underway. It's not just the trust for public land But it's the city of Portland and Portland trails and the trust for public land sort of flying at a level to put together a 21st century vision for the city of Portland and You'll recall I mean it's October and it was about a year ago November December some things really started to happen. You started to have the Congress square issue really really start to to Be a little bit loud. You had Mayor Brennan put parks and open space in his February presentation You started to see the Portland trails engage with the learner foundation about how to have a civic dialogue on Parks and open space and the role of those spaces in our community And I was interfacing with a number of you about the future of how do we pay for our parks? How do we take care of our parks? It was all happening at the same time and There was an awful lot of enthusiasm. There is still an awful lot of enthusiasm about creating a vision for what our parks take all that energy that is in each one of you and the communities around us and and not only just sort of make noise but really figure out how to move ahead and and Bringing this this team back together our ultimate outcome is to really put together a 21st century park system for a really cool city And you if you had the pleasure of seeing Adrian Benipay's presentation in June you heard Adrian say we've got a pretty good park system now What do we want to do to make it really really great and that's that's a little bit about what we're up to So I kind of think of this is bringing the band back together The city of Portland and Portland trails and trust Republic land have had an awful lot of fun working together since the early 90s And the first project with this nascent organization called Portland trails Was the purchase of the eastern prom from the rail yard It took about two or three years and it's a great story of creating one of the most beautiful parks on the eastern on the eastern Seaboard we got back together starting about 2006 2008 Rachel was a big part of this in creating the Bayside Trail and took until about 2011 to bring that to fruition, but you can set the best graphic in the world But you can kind of see the trails start to creep away a creep around the peninsula Kanko Woods in 2012 when the community on Kanko Road in the community behind the Back home asked how can they protect those valuable 11 acres and it's now a great place for tree forts and Capture the flag and playing in the woods. So that's our work together. And this is the next sort of the next chapter of what we're up to The city of Portland early in the spring said to the trust for public land Look, this is the kind of work that you guys do around the country. Can you help? Can you help us deliver for four or five things? Really understand what it is we want to accomplish with our parks get that population of Ideas into one place, but not only how do we get those ideas into one place What do we do with those ideas and how do we start to prioritize them? If we can get a sense of what we want to do the next thing we need to also understand is how do we pay for it? So if you've got your wish list and you have your budget ideas, you can start to prioritize That's really the nutshell of what of where we're headed and there are four steps that are starting to really starting to unfold I think when When you heard that maybe I was going to come up and give a presentation about the status of this of this planning You're like, oh, yeah, where is that or maybe you have no idea what we're up to But a little bit of reminder that this actually has been a very methodical process since Since the spring to put this in place We thought maybe we'd come screaming out of the gates and have a plan Have a process and have it defined But here we are in October and that it's really starting to pay off I can't say enough about what we've been doing with the city and Portland trails Together to get a process in place that's going to make some sense and we're right on the front end of Starting it up and what is it? So one of the hardest parts I figured it would be would be to find people in Portland who care about parks I thought that'd be the hard part that hasn't been hard at all between all the all the friends groups everybody in this room That is not going to be the challenge whatsoever What we are really interested in doing is looking at that population of information about how are how what are our parks? Where are our parks? How are they being used and Portland trails is in? October going to initiate a series of five neighborhood meetings Really bring it down to the local level and find out what people are doing and thinking and caring about in their local parks Part of that conversation will be to blow it up into you know a larger context Not just the neighborhood but think about Portland in a broader sense and and how you use those recreation resources I've had maps paper maps sort of dumped on my decks saying these are the plans from the 1980s We have the master plans. We have the capital improvement budget. We have Green spaces blue edges all of this information is out there in people's minds and in their Experiences and what we want to do is begin to bring that information together through one-on-one interactions with the community And you'll see on this slide that there's sort of three tiers of participation One I mentioned was the city of Portland Portland trails in the trust for public land really trying to get our heads wrapped around this the second Are these community meetings? Getting out there and having the conversations and I'm going to loop back to this point in a second But once we have all that information, what do we want to do with it? So the second step and this is something that's a forte of the trust for public land is to take the power of visualization Boy, did I get excited about this and had grand plans about all these really cool mapping tools that we could do and what other cities are doing and The city and Portland chairs like just calm down. It's calm. Keep it simple and that's what we're going to do We're going to show up with a base map We're going to begin really simple visualization tools to see what we have here in the city Where their parks are what are the services that those parks offer and what are the stories behind them? But do it in a visual sense the third piece If we can create that list that big giant population of everything we want to do and where our parks are in the improvements And how we want to use them The trust for public land also We brought to bear some of our experts who can help us understand how can we pay for this? What are some of the creative tools that are out there some of the obvious tools? They're not so obvious tools to be able to pay for parks and open space. What is legally possible? What is What are some of the bonding mechanisms? What are some of it the the co-venture mechanisms? So if we can have a list of what we want to do we have a sense of our capacity to pay for it We can go ahead and put a real action plan together and this is what the city of Portland wants They want to take those ideas and they want to prioritize them And they want that to be a process by which we can look at a near-term Set of priorities a medium term set of priorities And what do we want to do over the long term and really instead of sort of being reactionary Be able to to work through a system and say these are the decisions we're making and here's why and here's how we got there So that's really what what is unfolding now So be on the lookout for these local community meetings that Portland trails is going to lead through October Starting the second half of October into December. We're going to pull that information in we're going to sort of begin to break it down and Say this is you know create a picture of what you said Portland does this make sense and then begin to refine that down into that set of priorities in the course of 2015 so that gives you a rough idea of what we're going to do and It's going to start in October and it's going to sort of unfold through the first half maybe two-thirds of next year To come up with a set of priorities and a vision for Portland's parks One thing I almost forgot to mention as I look over This way is a really important part of this conversation is sort of the governance and Once we understand what we want to do well How are we going to take care of it and you know What are the different roles for the land bank for the parks Commission for the different friends groups and look at sort of that? Leadership structure and that's a very complicated picture that we're all working to understand right now So there's no there's nothing in place, but that will be part of the work So if you have any questions I'm available to to answer Either now or at the end Great So certainly encourage everybody to keep an eye out for the dates of the public engagement Meetings that Portland Trails will be doing will be a Distributing information about that via our website and I'm sure we'll be doing press releases So I really really encourage everybody take part in those can be really important work to hear what the community Has to say about what sorts of things we want to see in our parks So as Wolf mentioned, we will have some time at the end of our program to have some questions and answers We're doing really well in time so far. So that's good And so our keynote tonight is Liz visa. She's the executive director of the Friends of the Boston public garden And we thought there'd be a really she'd be a really compelling speaker for us tonight because we are you know Thinking about the roles of friends groups in our city and how do we engage with friends groups? What's what's a good relationship model? Between a municipal government and a friends group and I think the Friends of the Boston public garden are a great example For us to look at and we've had a lot of success and certainly if you've seen the Boston public garden It's tremendous. It's a tremendous place And Liz actually has an experience in Portland She was engaged in some of the master planning efforts in the past for Portland's parks the Deering Oaks master plan I think the evergreen cemetery master plan and you know, she is a Landscape out landscape architect So I think she's got some gonna have some good thoughts for us tonight and I'm really really happy to have her here So Liz magic shift in gears As Troy said it's wonderful to come back here I did work on I was master project manager for the Deering Oaks master plan in the mid 80s and Then for the evergreen cemetery master plan in 91 So it's really a wonderful experience feel to come back and see some old faces Jeff is here And and and others so as Troy said I am the executive director of the Friends of the public garden and we work with the city of Boston to care for What we say the first Boston's first public parks the Boston Common the public garden and Commonwealth Avenue Mall and We started in 1970. We were the first Parks advocacy group in the region and one of the first in the country I think Denver has it by a year, but it was a long time ago and in those ancient days All of the city's parks were in pretty serious shape So we'll take a look at that in a minute But as you all recognize because you're here and you're doing this good work You realize how important public parks are to the livability of a city and to the joy that people have in the city and an Ability to connect with one another in a green space. I mean it brings that I've talked to a lot of you before Sitting down you all use the word love and energy. I mean there's something about parks to bring out the best of us There places for us to be alone and to read a book This is by the lagoon in the public garden their places to play and connect with our neighbors and our friends and our siblings This is the newest guard of public park that we have in Boston It's the Rose Kennedy Greenway and we reclaimed we claim we didn't have it before but we claimed 15 new acres of land When we depressed the central artery and infamously had the big dig It was a lot of pain in Boston, but it was worth it because this park has been our newest beloved space and One of the things we've learned about about public space from this one Just coming online is that in the last six years It's been it's a recent park and the property values around the greenway have Exploded in value now we can't say it's all due to the greenway But those property values are now 700% higher than they were before the greenway was built. I mean it's this enormous Impact and if we studied a little more detail, we would see some other Contributing factors to that impact, but it's it's no question that parks play a role on many levels in health climate change health and economic health and human health and The same thing happened in our three parks are seeing an aerial with on the bottom is the Common in the garden and then moving through the the central spine of the back bay neighborhood is a Commonwealth Avenue Mall But they weren't always beautiful They looked like this in 1970 and that garbage can is a makeshift garbage can in the garden. We had lovely Cars going through the garden. Everything was broken in 1970 It was almost beyond repair as hard to think about that now when you go to the garden Troy said it's a beautiful place It is a beautiful place in the commas is not as beautiful because it's our problem child is an active park It's very intensively use and the mall it looks wonderful, but in these days. It was in dire shape Benches and light poles and and pavement in terms the garden The this is a picture of the reconstruction of the fence around the garden There was no fence along the Boylston Street side and the other three sides had hold huge holes punched in that fence This is the beacon street side is the Fences being rebuilt with funding both from the the city and from the friends in the mid 70s But things are pretty bad and they're bad and in a number of levels We're challenging in a number of levels and I show this picture to people in my demographic They look kind of closely to see if they're in there Because we had the hippie invasion too so we had this enormous social upheaval of the 60s and people heading for the suburbs and a Recession and you know just the draining of energy and money for parks Central Park was the same way So people gathered in a living room on Commonwealth Avenue and to ring their hands and think about what could be done There are about 30 people who gathered in and they said well, we need to start an organization We need to fight so at the beginning of any movement for Reclaiming parks is a fighting movement and as we mature I think you will have all experienced although I've heard about some recent fights Because we can't stop fighting But you do mature to becoming a partner in the true sense of the word and how do we find that? Delegate balance between partnering with the city and advocating for our parks But here things were clear these parks were abandoned and it was an all-out fight But enter a more complicated but in the end a life-saving element Which was a development that was proposed in 1970 Park Plaza by a major development from New York Mortis Uckerman there was a development proposal for the blighted Park Square area along Boylston Street in the combat zone this proposal included five to six towers up to 650 feet high six million square feet of development 2000 car parking garage underneath the development it was enormous and it had the support of everybody politically it had the support of the papers and the Developers certainly and the unions they needed jobs. It was a recession time and the mayor and the governor and it had the opposition of the friends of the public garden and Others that were recalled funny-duddy tulip pickers back then because they thought we have the power We have the idea the city needs the economic development and this would give them economic development. This is before Citizens advisory committees. It was before environmental impact statements. None of these things were done now It is just a given that we need to have citizen participation Sometimes it could be paralyzing if it's not done. Well, it could be very difficult because it was not Molded and guided well that the loud and sometimes not always constructive voices can have sway, but then it wasn't done at all so The b.r.a. The Boston redevelopment authority was finally forced to do shadow studies and to show with what everybody feared that Shadows would go from Boyle Street completely across the public garden to Beacon Street 75% of the garden would be shadowed in spring and fall the growing season and The entire thing in the wintertime severe wind. I mean it would have been Absolutely destructive for the garden and for people's enjoyment of the garden So after many twists and turns in almost a decade-long battle it was defeated But we learned some things from that defeat and from that fight We learned that parks matter to people People were very supportive many people of power were very supportive of this of this design but when people started getting a sense of what it meant to their beloved garden and common they were ready to go down to the rails to make this thing stop and Those are things that the developer totally underestimated and it was something also Unexpectedly gave the friends a platform There had been a lot of fighting and jumping up and down about these parks But the city just didn't listen until this fight that one of the classic David and Goliath fights Forced them to look because they had to listen to scores of people more than the funny-dirty tulip pickers that cared about this place and The friends gained power which we need to flex when is necessary and we continually have threats that we need to be flexing our muscles on We were capable of defying defeating a formidable foe and So people actually were afraid of us But if somebody wants to do something the developer wants to do something in the neighborhood They come in and pay their respects to the friends of public garden Miles Mahoney was a powerful person and sergeant governor sergeants administration And he rejected the development not because of what the friends was saying but for other reasons and he was forced to quit So it was a huge upheaval in the city We also Found and this this moment was a catalyst for all the parks in the city People started waking up and looking around and realizing we're gonna lose the fabric of our green space in the city If we don't do something about it. So it started a movement a movement of parks restoration and parks reclaiming and Then going back to that original slide showing the greenway and the economic development the spur of economic development That can happen adjacent to a beautiful well-kept park Well, these developments are what was put in place after that huge monstrosity was defeated They're appropriately scaled well-cited and they are luxury condominiums and Next door is the four seasons and it costs a lot of money to stay there And when you look at their promotional literature, what are they advertising their advertise in their front door, which is the public garden? So what is our partnership model as I said we began fighting and we realized after the fight Ended and we defeated this foe that we had to become constructed which instructive we had to become a 501 C3 We needed to you know, puts our money where our mouth was and we didn't have a lot of money at that time I had very little money, but we had to build some kind of a treasury to join with the city and bring these parks back This is a just in a picture of people enjoying that the Commonwealth Avenue mall So our model their number of models of friends groups. There's some that are purely advocacy. There are some There's one in Los Angeles, which is almost like a foundation They raise money to give to the city for them to do the work ours is in the middle, which is a partnership that provides expertise Funding and expertise to do the things that the city can't do that should be able to do and and can't do and at the end I'll talk a little bit about Networks and fighting for the cities getting more money that the city is giving more money to the parks department because right now The parks department's budget is point seven percent of the city budget. It doesn't get enough money It's gotten more capital money over the last several years But not enough maintenance money and our job is to educate the public about what it takes to care for these green spaces in an urban environment So we first had to build the bones back We had to put the fence back around the garden We couldn't do anything in the interior until we protected it from cars and other damaging things and then we had just to Raise money and work with the city on that to restore Some wonderful aspects of these parks, which is our their fountains and their and their sculpture So when I think about bones the things that we have focused on for the most part over these 40 years Are the trees and the sculpture and I'll talk a little bit about capital projects that we've expanded into Because they are what make a part without the trees We don't have a part and the biggest threat of an urban tree is compaction I mean they're under siege all the time and again when you go out into a park It looks so beautiful and calm and wonderful, but those of you who know about green space know how these trees are are fighting against you know No, not sufficient air water and nutrients getting to their root system because of compaction and other things that happen to them So the other fight that animated us in the beginning was the fight against that development But also the arrival of Dutch Elm disease and that did not recognize borders So we took on the mall because it was adjacent to the garden because the Beatles didn't know that Arlington Street separated the garden from the mall So all three of those parks had to be looked at as a system the Commonwealth Avenue mall Which has 638 trees on the nine blocks that we take care of in the beginning half of those trees were dead or dying Because it was a monoculture of Elms and now we have replanted slowly But surely a combination of other trees that in inform an aspect look similar to the Elm or have that high canopy Character that would be appropriate to that to that place But so we brought the city can take the trees down They manage a lot of street trees thousands of street trees They just don't have the capacity and the funding to do the trees in these parks So we plant trees through a sponsorship program people fund the planting of a tree And they can have a plaque that recognizes somebody that they are planted that tree in honor of and we tell them What kind of tree we're going to plant and where it's going to be but they they will buy into that program It's allowed us to replant them all plant the garden and and do planting in the common and we do a bench program as well Because we have big old trees I mean when people I've come from the Midwest we brought somebody that was an Elm expert from Minneapolis He came and said wow you have big Elms So it turns out that some of the Elms in the common by the Shaw Memorial close to the state house are the largest Elms in the Western Hemisphere and They need a lot of care so in the beginning in 1971 we spent $500 and we rung our hands over if we should we put that money into the park We're just fighting for the park to save to take out two dying Elms And this last year in our budget was a half a million dollars for tree care So as I said Dutch Elm disease and caring for We have lost Elms and most of the rest of Boston So we have the Elm collection we have in Boston is in these parks because of the work we've done And this is somebody injecting with the fungicide one of the Elms on the mall This shows you when you pull back the bark and seeing the streaking of the limb that that tree is infected with Dutch Elm disease And we have an arborist soil scientist whose wife is an entomologist bug person And they've been getting really smart about watching the Elm bark beetle and and Monitoring its activity so they're putting these traps up in our parks to see when and where and how many Bark beetles are present and then we can time our treatments to be more focused on the time and the place and Intensity that those bark beetles are around Pruning a lot of pruning gets done and Then the soil as I said these trees are Dressed in this urban environment So we are now moving into the realm of soil care because you cannot just deal with the tree You've got to deal with the environment in which the tree lives So in several of the mall blocks we've taken on an entire block This one is one that used to be part of the road and the road was reconfigured So had terrible drainage so we did some trenching and adding Good draining soil and did a whole redo of the irrigation system so that for that one block on the mall It was a fifty thousand dollar project. So fast forward from paying five hundred dollars We have we're investing a lot more money in the parks last year was over a million dollars in the parks And that was just work in the parks We get funding and this in particular we have a wonderful board and my chair of the mall committee She wrote hand-lettered five hundred letters to neighbors asking for money to support this project She got close to a hundred people contributing and we also got grant funding, but I'm Talking to your neighbors. I think I talked to people from Lincoln Park You just you're new but everyone you talk to loves this park I mean build on that love and say it costs money to keep this love alive So you always have to make those connections and I know that you know that doing the work that you do For years we advocated for having sculpture conservation inside the parks department because we felt that that's where it belonged We have 44 pieces of public art in these parks Some of them are some of the best pieces of art in the 19th century sculpture in the country Augusta St. Gauden's Shaw Memorial across from the State House a fabulous piece of art And they were not taking care of these these pieces of art This is what it looks like before it gets taken care of if a monument is is maintained annually It can be about a five hundred dollar prospect if you let it go it could be up to twenty five thousand dollars per piece So six years ago. We saw the handwriting on the wall It wasn't it wasn't going to happen They just weren't going to be able to get the funding and the staff resources internally so we began the project of Taking on the regular care of all the monuments in the park and we hired the former director of the art commission So that's what's great about that is that she understands the city. She understands the politics and she understands the art So it's just so we have I would say one of the best Relationships in the city. We have lots of friends groups now I would say ours is one of the most constructive and it's still complicated because it is a marriage Because the rules are sort of written and sort of not written and because again walking that line between partnering and Advocacy holding feet to the fire is complicated and and it's someone that some of us talked about a dance, you know And you just your ad-libbing sometimes and you're building on what you've learned from what you've done before So this is just showing you this transformation of William Lloyd Garrison. There's also graffiti the Shaw Memorial was Somebody threw paint on it two summers ago a woman who was mentally unstable and the National Park Service does tours And they go to this as their first stop in their tour the man who's a new Superintendent of National Park Service in Boston didn't know about us So he called the city when this happened They had their graffiti busters go out and they actually started to damage the bronze and then they stopped Realized it found out about the friends and we called this man And who's been doing the work on this monument for 42 years? And then you need to let people know that you're doing the work that you're doing. It's invisible I mean unless you're doing a capital project and there's so much that's gone on to Deering Oaks ever since we did that master plan I'm just as hard-stopping, but a lot of the stuff if you're doing tree care It's hard to see that so we and for a while we were feeling a little Tenduous about that like well with the city feel like we were trying to gain the spotlight Like and maybe we should just be there It's our silent partner and not say anything but finally they said you need to toot your horn more because we're not going to get funding unless We do it so we're starting to tell people this is what it caused to take care of the elms This is what it caused to have this guy go out and take the graffiti off and we're putting signs And I don't have a picture of this we have a new program that with a new logo and it's just saying friends at work Just being really simple This is what we're doing There's one volunteer group we have which is called the Rose Brigade and they take care of the rose beds in the garden They started 26 years ago in the dark of night because again There was this feeling from the parks department and we still have to deal with the reality of unions and Where can we use volunteers? I don't know what what the status of it in Portland is but when people say I'd love to help It's always code for I want to get my hands dirty and get in the park and do something And in some parks in the emerald necklace in the woodlands You can pull invasive species for years and you'll never get them under control And you don't have to be skilled in a place like the public garden and the common in the mall There are specimen trees over lawn and and sculpture So what can we do here? They can get people in here and get them connected to the park and caring about it and connected to us This was one place so for about four years that the Rose Brigade Showed up after the parks crew left and it took care of the roses and then they left and they all looked good So at some point they came up out of the dark is that we are the ones They have slowly gotten accepted by the parks department after the African-american men in the back is a park staff So he helps them out with equipment and carrying their load of stuff and they are ambassadors So being able to have volunteers in a park is so wonderful because then people get to talk to you And you get to tell them not only about the roses, but about the friends who are caring for the roses I can't tell you how many people have stopped by to talk to these people and there are only Visible volunteer presence in the parks. So when I talk about the strategic plan that we just finished We're trying to think about what other ways can we both do the work that needs to be done help the parks department with things that There used to be 55 Maintenance workers in the garden in the 19th century. There are four today and That's remarkable and the flowers look wonderful Everyone always wants to thank us for the floral business city has always done that they grow them in their greenhouse in Franklin Park They have a lot of pride so again It's important to give the credit to the city where as do take it where it's due for you and know that you both Have to do this together The biggest capital project we have ever done and we're in the final phases of it And it was huge but worthwhile is the Brewer Plaza area. Do you how many people know this airs by Park Street station? Yes, and in Boston Common. All right. Well that stat that fountain in the middle Brewer fountain was dry for many years and We have we don't have a great track record with fountains in Boston Minneapolis has a better track record and it's colder out there. We just don't have a good track record It's restoring it and it's maintaining it. So the city took the lead on restoring this fountain It was a gift to go from Gardner Brewer to the city in 1867 and They put the lion's share of money and we put $90,000 and this Feds the Save America's Treasures program put in $200,000 But then we also raised $300,000 for an endowment to care for it We have a plumber coming every week during the season doing the Inglourious stuff of just pulling stuff out that's getting clogged and draining it once a month to make sure that it's clean and functioning It's a it's a fussy fountain But it's not what we said to the city is that if you just do the fountain and go away We will not have reclaimed the space because this space was this is what it looked like before It's restoration over 20,000 people walk through this space every day The Park Street station is the fourth busiest station in the system and it had become a Pretty entrenched place with homeless and people on the edge And there are a lot of people on the edge in the city and it's one of the issues We deal with that our urban places nationally is it's free. It's open It's an open space for everybody. What do we do with people who are struggling? We have de-institutionalized a generation of people that need the kind of support that they're not getting now There they were in the Brewer Plaza area and nobody else was you can see this couple walking through Well, our goal was to bring everybody here Not to displace these people but to flood this area with positive activity So everyone could love it and so this is a bird's-eye. So the city was reluctant What they wanted to do is just let us restore the foundness since such a long time They just didn't want to think about this bigger project But we said we will fund the project and we will fund its care and let's just go for it So they they said yes, so this is an image of it and this is a picture This last summer on a beautiful day. You cannot find a place to sit so one of the inspirations originally Holly White wrote a book about the social life of the small urban spaces and and Bryant Park in New York City kind of codified that and made it a huge success and there's some basics You need a place to sit but you want to have a movable place to sit because maybe you don't want to be two people at The table, maybe you want to be four. You don't want to be sitting in this stationary It's not bad to have benches, but you don't want to just have benches or just have curved spaces You want to have some shade You want to have food good food? We have an amenity here of a reading room so people get to Books magazines and daily papers are there and we have a piano. We have it had a piano Reconstructed an old piano renovated to have a high-end rolling keyboard in and it's solar power So we roll it out every day and we have music from 12 to 2 and then jazz concerts on Thursday night So this beautiful feeling they're coming there the fountain's going the music is going. It's a place You want to be so now it's one of the most popular outdoor places in the city and it used to be a place that people avoided It does cost money. We run it at a deficit But we're going to figure that part out too this last phase of the project is to restore the fence that was also missing a long Termite Street it was taken down when the the subway was put in the turn of the 19th century So we're just putting if you go down this week You will see these sections of fence being put in and what that does is reclaim this park from the busy road to say This is part that's road It's just a wonderful space just one more about capital project I'll show you so now we've become a more a robust enough organization and again We always have to as friends groups ask ourselves a question. What do we do? What does the city do? What should we expect the city to do and what do we need to do because the city can't do it? Or what do we do and then for the quid pro quo stable will do this But you need to you know stand up for that or you need to take care of that this 800 feet of boils the street edge of the garden has been a problem for a long time drainage issues and we you know We're struggling with how to solve those drainage issues and some planting issues that overgrown its its life that from the 80s it was designed and the Material was suffering as a result. So we said we'll take this one on Because it needs to be done and we had a lot of complaints from the neighbors who now going back to those Well-to-do neighbors across the street They felt entitled to have a front yard that was looking better than it was and we felt that it was important for everybody That comes to the to the garden to look better than it did so we have done it We're doing it in four phases and we're learning a lot and again as a friends group You can be more nimble than the city the city has to take the lowest bid the city has to work in its low Inevitable bureaucratic process through a system we can experiment within realm and we've always talked to the city We work closely. We meet with them. They need to approve it the Land Wars Commission needs to approve There's a lot of layers that need to approve things before we do it But then finally we can so for instance with the Brewer Plaza We decided that there are two contractors who were the best in the city that could do that job We gave them the chance to bid on doing the job We could have gotten some really horrible people who would have done it and that's over the subway in some areas It's only four inches between the sidewalk and the top of the tunnel the subway So we needed somebody really good to do the project and this one we looked at the history evolution over time and a planting plan and Again, some really interesting Technology air spading to be able to transplant some fairly big material and move it and maintain most of the root zone and Solving the drainage problem. It's just been a wonderful project. We did get some foundation funding and some funding from individuals and Now we're up to the next generation of our life for 41 years We were led by an amazing the founding president the man who was talked into it in 1970s saying it won't be a lot of work You could be the president. He said yes He was a school teacher fast for 41 years He was the volunteer leader of this organization and an inspiring man just a wonder he's still with us as a Guiding light as a president emeritus, but we're now in the last five years I've been there for about five and a half years. I'm the second executive director We're putting a foundation under that great idea with the office with the staff with Planning with the level of planning that we didn't do as much before and Communication and again You need to let people know both on-site and through social media that you exist and you're doing this good work So we did our first ever strategic plan Got we did over 40 stakeholder interviews and thought a lot about how are these parks? So in the beginning, there's so much better than they were those early images, but they can be better I mean as I said the common is our problem child the intensity of use at that park gets is Unbelievable last year. There were 700 permanent events 200 of which had over 10,000 people in it and it's a 48 at Acre Park The use outweighs the care by an order of magnitude even with the hundreds of thousands of dollars we put into it So we our mission is to preserve these three parks Our vision is that they will be as they are nationally important that they will be havens of beauty that they will be enhanced with Sculpture which they are but that well-tended sculpture with people love it and that they can this last line Large and diverse groups of tending stewards going back to the Rose Brigade Can we export that idea in a way that is acceptable to the city that we can do with modest skill and get people more excited and attached to these places and to us so Again building a strong and broad base of support is just key for your work You just have to get the broadest number of people knowing who you are what you're doing Why you need to exist why you cannot go out of business? You've got to be here for the long term these parks need you forever and then the next two are about Excellence so the third second one is partnering with the city to achieve excellence within all three of these parks and the third one is about the common because it is our Public and active park it is the most active park in the city is the most heavily used park in the city and we need to Advocate for so we're going to be doing a plan with the city and having a public conversation What is what do we want from this central park? The fourth one is about a robust and well-run organization You need to have your own internal governance bones financial and governance to make this work I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this But the first goal is about base of support because it's so important about advocacy And I think we heard early about the importance of advocacy and proactive not just reacting and saying don't do this And don't do that think about what you want for your parks and think about it proactively Few minutes on another thing. I'm involved in which is Boston Park advocates I think I heard a little bit about that you are joining together So as important as it is to have your individual friends groups to have a network to say we are all working at this together So we do have I'm on the steering committee of Boston Park advocates This is a picture of the mayoral forum last year 11 of the 12 candidates There were a lot of candidates showed up for this and we had 350 people come it was the most heavily attended forum of voters in the entire during the entire campaign season and these Guys took notice they saw that we had people behind what we care about it's not just Parks people are nice people. They don't yell and scream and I'm not suggesting that you do But you need to show with the numbers and with your passion take that love and make it passionate That this matters and it's important and it needs priority within the realm because of course crime and youth and and Jobs and there's so many important things that a study deals with but we have to make sure that parks is not an Amenity, it's not an amenity. It's an essential part of the fabric of a city So what we did is we called on everybody in the city all the friends groups now. There's a lot of friends groups They're just us in the beginning citizens advisory committees civic associations Soccer teams everybody but parks connected groups So we had 130 groups sign on to co-sponsor this this process both with the mayoral candidacy and the city council So these guys say wow, there's a lot of people behind this So how does that fit with you and what does it mean to be a network and what's important of that? You have to have a clear vision We are now as Boston Park at because doing our own strategic plan and saying how can we sustain ourselves? Because meanwhile four of us leaders are also leaders of other organizations. So how can we keep this ball rolling? You need to have a clear vision. You need to make sure you speak for everybody and it needs to be simple Now what is a simple, you know could be simply we need 1% for parks I mean some simple campaign that can laser focus all those 130 groups You'd have some structure, but not too much so that you don't start feeling like there's an in crowd and out crowd We could talk a lot more about that and I'm happy to take Questions we're in the middle of this process of understanding do we need to be a 501 c3 or could we get by without it? We do need to have leadership We need to pay someone to wake up in the morning and think about BPA, but doesn't have to be full time So we and we're talking to people else were in the country to learn from their Lessons of what they've done successfully and their own and a lot of it has been around mayoral campaigns in New York City It was in Pittsburgh. It was a new leader We have an opportunity to influence that person to get to know that green space is Central to the success of a city. Thank you Thank you very much Liz and we do again. We're doing great on time and so we certainly have time for questions So don't go anywhere I'm sure that we're gonna have a lot of questions So anyone like to start us off and we can take questions for for anybody for a wall for and city staff as well So feel free We don't and in the beginning for many years There was an interest on the friends part to be kind of fluid and open and available to do things We thought we needed and wanted to do I think we're now maturing to a point We really should have a memorandum of agreement and really be clear and there's a debate Internally and with the parts department about what they do and what we do But but we're at that point of needing to do that I don't think so I think that we are a lot of the advocacy was about development because these parks are downtown There's so much development going around it was as much struggling with developers and the Boston redevelopment authority as it was the parks department often We were on the same side with them about that and you know, I think it's also about personalities because you know In your community, there's some that are lightning rods for negativity and some that you just go with Henry Lee if nobody you may not know him, but he's a he's an amazing inspiring person That's our president emeritus. He had that velvet glove where you just would feel like you were knocked out You didn't even know he had touched you We when he retired we put together a book of tributes and I asked the mayor and the city council and Many people parks department sculptor conservatives We got I got flooded with letters of tribute to him people that he actually fought and the man who is the head of the Boston redevelopment authority was one of the most amazing quotes So he said he had the job of trying to get park Plaza built and he in the end It was the shortest piece and the most pointy. He said now that I live in Boston by the public garden I thank Henry a thousand times for not letting me screw it up other questions what if you talked about the Decreasing to the denying life of the park and then there's this period where now Friends are involved in this partnership advocacy big mix How does that contrast with the notion that the city needs to be responsible in parks? They need to have adequate fun because you make reference to that you obviously have to compensate. Yeah You know in 1634 Everyone in Boston to pay six shillings to buy the common and in the 1860s people paid to plant trees along the mall So we would say it's always been a public-private partnership So because people often say I pay taxes. Why do we need to have a friends group? Why you guys exist? We should be the city should be paying for that the fact is and the reality is that there's never going to be enough money but that but the The art and the nuance is where do you draw that line? How do you leverage? pressure on the city government to get that money to the parks department where it should be while Contributing what you contribute because I think the mayor and the new parks commissioner would love us I mean he jokes is oh just keep it keep the money coming with you know And what we banter about that but we're debating right now in the budget process Should we take on the irrigation system on the mall? It doesn't work very well You know we found out how to open up the boxes and fiddle around with this We can get it going because the grass needs to grow So sometimes we just get frustrated like just take it over but Again is this art of finding that balance? But I would say that there's never been purely city and not private contributions It's just each community and each park needs to decide where that line is and how to use it for political advantage As well as the good of the park From So we a number of different things majority comes from individuals Actually, we don't get as much we get foundation grants, but that it's not as big as individual grants about six years ago We did a capital campaign a six and a half million dollar capital campaign And that was the moment when it was just before I came on board where there was a realization We've got to solidify this thing We have to really put this foundation under Henry's not you know, he's in his 90s and he's still the most vital man I know it was incredible. We need to find the next generation. So we did get an infusion from that We identified four major goals within that capital campaign. We also have Funds for specific things we raise money specifically for the Shaw Memorial in the 1980s So we have a fund specifically for that But again in terms of the sources of money the majority is individual We have a big fundraiser in the spring where people pay a lot of money to go in fancy clothes And that you know raises close to three hundred thousand dollars right there You know we haven't but it's something that we could be talking about it's something to be considering I mean, there's some big things we did a capital needs assessment of the garden in the common and the common alone Infrastructure is twenty two million dollars. So we have some big numbers up there. We got a sort of confront So it's something to consider for sure Yeah I'm curious if you could just say a little bit more about the the early days when you're fighting part-flaws in the One thing I'm really interested in is that there's a really powerful argument for economic development in the form of buildings whereas parts people we say no parts are economic development and and that's Tends to be a very weaker argument because they're business people they have all these numbers of how much money they can generate Whereas we like and say well, it's better quality of life and say more I'd like to get your ideas of like more powerful arguments in favor of the parts There has there has been a number of studies written about the value, you know quantifying the value of parks So there is data out there We had an easy back then because the development was so horrific It was easy to fight it when people actually got a sense for what it was going to do It's harder when it's incremental and you're fighting about square footage and I think part of the in terms of Protecting land it's really important to know when you're when you have to fight about shadows and and the other Things that would damage a public space, but there is a lot written about it And it is discouraging to us I think that we have to keep reiterating this story It feels like it's a story that we know but we have to keep saying it And I think doesn't tpl have some some economic data on that and have some some studies I mean we've seen a lot of that out there the economic value of open space And we can quantify whether it's climate change carbon sinks and all the rest of it or or that the the value of the adjacent neighborhoods I mean that greenway was clear that the values of those of those adjacent properties jumped once that thing came online and Ours jumped. I mean it's its prime property now around the garden But you can't assume that people know that you just have to continue to Articulate that it's and again if you have a big fight on your hand or a big like well So the Phylian's building is so we have now shadow laws to protect both the garden in the common and Phylian's is finally getting a new Building on its site that building is going to shadow the common But the developer Angled it such that it's only got the shadow at the certain times of the year and the certain times of the day and the Certain duration of that time of day that it doesn't violate the shadow bill But you know when you're in an urban area, and you've got develop We're in a development boom right now. I mean there's a lot going on There's some parks that are just gonna get more shadow. We just know that so it says fighting that battle is hard But you have to there are there are metrics out there that talk about and data that talk about Quantifying of value of new open urban open space next to development The total I don't have the number in me And we've been actually trying to find out how much Boston spends on our parks And they won't do that and I know they could do that but they don't want to do it because they also don't want to say We spend this much more in your park than another park But so we'd like to know because we'd like to know what percentage our contribution is to the whole picture Parks in general I don't have it in my head, but it is known I can get it for you It never gets given to the city and now and then so actually we've bailed them out come So we have a park ranger program it we every year give 25,000 dollars that ranger program Because it's so important to have park rangers and every once in a while We've given money the irrigation system broke down about three times in the garden We contributed to they're doing it But for the most part we do the the donors really want us to be in control of the money and And we want to be in control of the money We want to do and that's how we have to work very closely with the parks department and depending on the personality Some of them could just say just give it some money and we'll do the work and we our donors don't want that and we don't want that Because again, we can hire good people be nimble, but there's a lot of coordination as a result of it But now and then we have hand of money over to them when they've needed it, but but not as a rule Absolutely, we're doing a restoration of Daniel Chester French did this amazing Angel sculpture in the garden if anybody knows it and it's casting I bred upon the waters But the waters have not been there since the 80s So we're gonna be putting the water back, but it's we're raising seven hundred thousand dollars for that three hundred Which is gonna be a maintenance endowment, but we are about to go to the parks department I just got an email today Are you ready to come make with us because we have our design team looking at the issues of the vault and whatnot? We have to spend a lot of time with the parks department because they're my main Partner and then we have to go to the art commission and the Land Wars Commission I actually have a meeting tomorrow with the Land Wars Commission about something else so we we get it we do a lot of Meeting and dialoguing and we don't do anything without approval and the approval. It's gotten more bureaucratic over the time They want now our license and our Insurance and and the people that have worked in our parks have worked in them for decades But there's a certain generation now in the park department. It's feeling a little more in Control and concerned about you know not being in enough control about what we do Although we do tell them what we do and we agree together about what needs to be done Yeah Other questions maybe we can happy to answer or we can transition into a The next the next chapter of the time Thank you So thanks again Liz for sharing your experiences with the friends of the boss public garden It's certainly a tommy discussion for us as we undertake our efforts for the trust for public land and Portland trails And so we really appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us And so that concludes a formal aspect of our program tonight But we have we certainly have some more time for people like to spend a little more time networking mingling We have some partners have set up tables and displays. So Staff will be here for a bit longer too. So we're happy to take any questions informally and I really really want to Appreciate everybody for coming out tonight and I want to thank again CTN for taping the program So everyone in the public will have a bit the benefit of being able to watch it in the future So once again, thank you for coming tonight