Emails needed before Tuesday!

Councilman Jim Strickland has proposed a resolution, passed in committee this past Tuesday, that would hire an outside expert in hydrology (no local engineers that we can find will go on record against the city engineers' Overton Park retention basin plan, since they all want to get contracts from the city) to survey the Midtown flooding and make recommendations. The city engineers are misrepresenting the 2006 study they commissioned and trying to do one large project in Overton Park instead of smaller projects all along the length of Lick Creek. We need an outside engineer to prove to the council that there are better and more effective solutions.

Please email the mayor and city council to let them know you support Jim Strickland's resolution. My letter is below. People present for the council meeting wearing park shirts Tuesday morning would also be very welcome.

Mayor@memphistn.gov, Bill.Morrison@memphistn.gov, Bill.Boyd@memphistn.gov, Harold.Collins@memphistn.gov, Wanda.Halbert@memphistn.gov, Jim.Strickland@memphistn.gov, Edmund.Fordjr@memphistn.gov, Swearengen.Ware@memphistn.gov, joe.brown@memphistn.gov, Janis.Fullilove@memphistn.gov, Myron.Lowery@memphistn.gov, Kemp.Conrad@memphistn.gov, Shea.Flinn@memphistn.gov, Reid.Hedgepeth@memphistn.gov


Dear Mayor Wharton,

I attended the council meeting this morning to support Councilman Strickland's resolution to have an outside engineering company that specializes in storm water issues do a study of the Lick Creek plan before proceeding with the city engineers' project.

I am the president of Park Friends and have been a member of the Lick Creek coalition from its beginning, and I have learned far more about storm water than I ever wanted to in my efforts to defend Overton Park from harm. The 2006 study by Oakley Ellers of the Lick Creek area concluded that detention in Overton Park will not help either Belleair or VECA, where the houses are flooding. They studied a smaller detention area than is currently being proposed by Director Gaskins, but they concluded it would not help.

The current proposal, which dumps a great deal more water in the park, has not been studied at all. Our coalition has tried to get local engineers to comment on the proposal, but all local engineers seem to be involved in city contracts one way or another, and no one will go on record about a plan proposed by the city office. We desperately need an outside, objective, expert opinion to weigh in on this major change to the park before we seriously consider it.

This plan may not help at all. The 2006 study said the only remedy was smaller detention basins up and down the length of Lick Creek. Your engineers have implemented only one of the study's recommendations as laid out, and it is not finished yet. Director Gaskins has been very unwilling to follow the study he himself commissioned and instead has come up with this one, huge, unstudied alternative that does harm to the park.

Please support Councilman Strickland as he tries to get an expert to take a look at our total drainage situation in Midtown before we do a large, irrevocable project with unknown consequences in an important and historic park.

Thank you for your support of our parks and green spaces.
Martha Kelly,
president, Park Friends

Old Forest Good for Health

The New York Times published an article saying that spending time in parks and forests can boost your white blood cells and lower your blood pressure, among other benefits. The Japanese have long recognized this benefit and go "forest bathing". It's also the coolest place to walk these hot days, so go ahead and reconnect to the Old Forest.

Great Trail Work Session

Twenty people showed up on a Monday night to help work on the running trail -- many thanks to everyone who came out! It was a joint project between Park Friends and Rhodes college, and the entire trail got raked and trimmed.

Trail Work Help Needed

Melanie White, Park Friends board member and daily runner, is planning a work session on the running trail around Overton Park this Monday night (tomorrow) and would love to have some volunteers show up. Weekends can be hard for families, so this is Monday night from 6-8pm (should be cooling off). Meet at the pavilion on the East Parkway side and bring a rake or shovel. Thanks to any of you who can come and help out!

New Midtown Dog Park

The new midtown dog park will be dedicated tomorrow morning (Saturday, June 5th) at 11:00 -- everyone welcome. It's on the old childrens' theater site at 2599 Avery (behind the board of ed and the parks dept.). It's a pilot one, and it's in the possible fairgrounds development area, so it's not fancy in case it gets moved soon, but it's a start. Go on out and support midtown having one if you're free.

On Vacation

I'm off on vacation for the next couple of weeks, but I'll be home to tend this space again at the end of May. Y'all enjoy springtime in the park while I'm gone.

Graffiti

There has been a strong uptick of graffiti in the park over the last months. It is all through the forest trails, on water fountains, posts, anything that doesn't move. It's always something of a problem, but I'm seeing a lot more of it lately.

I asked Larry Franks at Parks about it. He promptly got a police gang expert out to look at it, and it doesn't seem to be gang related, which is the good news. (And I hadn't noticed any change in the usage of the park over that period, so that makes sense.)

The bad news is that means that some of our regular park users have a destructive bent. So please remember (and remind anyone you see with a spray can) to take only pictures and leave only footprints. We could do without the litterers as well.