
{"id":21230,"date":"2011-10-06T14:28:20","date_gmt":"2011-10-06T18:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=21230"},"modified":"2011-10-06T14:28:20","modified_gmt":"2011-10-06T18:28:20","slug":"carrboro-protects-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/10\/06\/carrboro-protects-gardens\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrboro protects gardens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><br \/>\nCARRBORO \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Guaranteeing a future for two of Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s community gardens, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen on Tuesday voted unanimously to include both the Carrboro Community Garden and the Growing Healthy Kids Garden in plans for Martin Luther King Jr. Park.<\/p>\n<p>In 2004, the board approved a master plan for the park, on Hillsborough Road, with work to begin in 2008-09, but construction was delayed until 2013. However, because of financial constraints due to the current economic climate, town planning staff advised the board that it would be difficult to pursue construction of the park in 2013. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not going to have money to do this for a long time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d board member Jacquie Gist said, adding that spaces in the park \u00e2\u20ac\u201c like the community gardens and an open field \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are already heavily used.<\/p>\n<p>The Carrboro Community Gardening Coalition and the Orange County Partnership for Young Children both have created gardens within the park, which the board approved as interim uses in 2007. <\/p>\n<p>Maria Hitt, project manager for the partnership\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Growing Healthy Kids Garden, said the garden has served 75 participating families in the last four years, the vast majority of them low-income minority families. Volunteers guide families with young children in growing their own fresh fruits and vegetables. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really a wonderful program, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wonderful to see families out there together,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d board member Randee Haven-O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Donnell said. <\/p>\n<p>Board member Joal Hall Broun suggested that the town look to add improvements to the park that are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153low-hanging fruit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and would be inexpensive to accomplish, like finding a way to make the park\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s field accessible for pick-up soccer games. <\/p>\n<p>Board member Jacquie Gist agreed. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153How wonderful in the center of town to have this big open space where people can go do what they want to do,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gist said. <\/p>\n<p>Board members also asked staff to look at adding amenities like picnic tables incrementally, improving the park over a longer period of time. <\/p>\n<p>Town public works director George Seiz cautioned against adding improvements at this point that will create additional work for town staff, which is already shorthanded, with a number of vacant positions frozen.  <\/p>\n<p>Board member Sammy Slade, who is a founding member of the Carrboro Community Gardening Coalition, said the town should be more proactive in supporting the gardens and, in light of the recession, look to using the community garden as an educational space to teach people how to grow food. <\/p>\n<p>The board also voted to change the signage on the park so that it no longer reads \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The future home of Martin Luther King Jr. Park,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so that residents know the park is open to the public.  <\/p>\n<p>The board will revisit plans for the park during their annual review of the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Capital Improvement Plan. <\/p>\n<p>In other action Tuesday night, the board approved additional penalties for towing companies that violate town regulations that require companies to accept credit and debit cards as payment. The changes would allow the town to revoke a company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s license to tow for such violations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Carrboro Board of Aldermen on Tuesday voted unanimously to include both the Carrboro Community Garden and the Growing Healthy Kids Garden in plans for Martin Luther King Jr. Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21231,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21230\/revisions\/21231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}