1/8/24 Meeting Agenda

6:30 pm Zoom

Updates (6:30 - 6:45 pm): 

  • Water quality monitoring (Scott)

    • December 18th training, determining sampling strategy, and next steps

  • Laurel’s proposed email notification system on meetings and issues (Brian)

    • When it will start, how to sign up, and scope of notifications

  • City Sustainability Plan Introductory Meeting 

    • Where: Council Chambers, 8103 Sandy Spring Road

    • When: January 18th, 5:30 - 7:30 pm

  • Community town hall and listening session with Mayor 

    • Where: Council Chambers, 8103 Sandy Spring Road

    • When: January 25th, 7:00 - 8:00 pm

Discussion (6:45 - 7:30 pm):

  • Next Steps - Opposition to proposed Corridor Center Development in Ward II

    • Public Letter-Writing Campaign (Jimmy)

    • L4P letter and request to meet with elected officials (Brian)

  • L4P 2024 (GSD!)

    • Focus: Directly help the City acquire and protect remaining habitat.  Robust participation in Sustainability plan focus groups. L4P member on each group.

    • Monthly meeting leadership: won’t rotate

    • Nursery: No L4P native plant nursery at USGS Bee Lab (may partner with Remeadow)

    • Festivals: Main St. Festival and one other 

    • Riverfront restoration: Conservation landscaping with EcoWorks and invasives control will continue under Dave’s leadership

    • Native plant gardens: Maintenance and planting events in March and September.  No new gardens planned for 2024.

    • Litter clean-ups and vine cutting events: Organized and lead by members following L4P standard operating procedure (SOP) 

    • Water quality monitoring: TBD


1/8/24 Meeting Minutes

Attending the meeting – Jess Bolz, Brian Coyle, Daija Yisrael (Tom Dernoga’s office), Liz Humes, Mike McLaughlin, Pauline Apling, Bobbi McCeney, Holly Hoglund, Mike Maxwell, Jock Haight, Cheryl Dyer, Dave Everett, Heidi Hess-Webber, Stosh Comisiak, Kyla Clark (Laurel City Council), Joe DiGiovanni, Amy Knox, and Jo.

Updates

Water Quality monitoring (Jock) – Jock and Scott met with Emma Gregory of the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and learned a bunch about how to do water testing.  Their plan is to test just below the dam ruins and on the other side of Route 1.  They want to know what happens to the river before it flows through the dam and after the branches pour into it.  Brian suggests checking with WSSC to see if they’ll share data.  Liz suggests testing near the auto dealership.  Jo says there’s a hiking trail to get to the reservoir to test.  The trainers were interested primarily in testing for an oxygen count but Jock wants to test for particulate as well.  Jock and Scott will talk to WSSC to see if they will be supportive.

New City-to-Citizen notification system (Brian) – Carl is working with the city to institute an email alert system that would inform interested citizens about upcoming meetings and events.  Citizens can sign up and receive alerts at least about planning commission meetings.  It isn’t what other information will be announced on the system.

Upcoming city events:

January 18th, 5:30 to 7:30 – Laurel City Sustainability meeting

January 25th, 7:00 to 8:00 – Community First Town Hall

Discussion

Opposition to proposed Corridor Center Development in Ward II  – the L4P webpage now has a link to Email Creator.  We can copy text or copy a link to forward documents to others.  City leaders will pay more attention when a letter is individualized so it’s better to make some changes to the document on the website.  Laurel for Patuxent can’t track how many letters have been sent to the city but Carl says he’s seen several come in.  Brian will share the campaign with Laurel schools with a green team.  Liz suggests inviting the larger community to submit letters to the Mayor.  Heidi will contact Laurel Elementary to see if students want to write letters.  A second letter is being sent to the city from Laurel for Patuxent.  The draft of the letter was presented.  The focus of that letter is primarily on sustainability.  A few suggestions were made to perfect the letter.

L4P in 2024 (Jess) - Building upon our discussion in January, the following has been concluded:

1)      L4P will continue to partner with the city government.  Members will participate in the upcoming sustainability focus groups and will bring information back to the group.

2)      Brian and Jess will continue to lead the organization.  Dave will continue to serve as Treasurer.  Heidi will continue to serve as Secretary.  (Within this conversation, Dave indicated that our tax exempt ID has arrived, and that he will update spreadsheets on grant funding and spending.)

3)      Howard EcoWorks has offered more trees to L4P.  We need to determine a good spot for the trees.  Dave suggests McCullough Field.  Liz can do some research but, off the top of her head, suggests Marcus Colbert Park, Van Dusen Road near Bear Branch (which is a county area), or Cherry Lane near the lake.  These trees could be used to replace invasive trees around the city.  There was a discussion about a diseased native tree that was removed in Snowden Park and whether correct steps were taken to determine that it was indeed diseased.

4)      L4P nursery – Our nursery at the Bee Lab will close due to insufficient volunteer power.  Liz is in the process of purchasing small greenhouses for the city so there will continue to be plants available.  She may be interested in receiving extra seed but will definitely be creating volunteer events to work in the greenhouses and to help with native planting.

5)      Festivals – L4P will limit our participation in festivals to the Main Street Festival and one other to be determined at a future date.

6)      Pollinator gardens – We will not create additional gardens but will continue to maintain the gardens that we have created.

7)      Other activities – Litter cleanups, vine cuttings, etc. will continue as organized by L4P members.

Other information – The bluebells behind the museum were mowed down.  Liz will plant more bluebells and will talk to the mowers to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.