Parks And Recreation Committee Meeting 05/08/2023 – Will Vote On Resolution To Have Ellen Kort Peace Park Participate In No Mow May

The Parks and Recreation Committee is meeting 05/08/2023. They have two items on the agenda.

The first is a request to approve a modification to the committee’s meeting time, so that it meets at 6:15PM instead of 6:30PM. Because they would be meeting less than 1 hour after the start of the previous meeting this needs to be approved by the full Common Council. It was referred back to the committee for further discussion.

The second item is Resolution 4-R-23 which would have the grass in Ellen Kort Peace Park left unmowed during the month of May for No Mow May. This item was originally supposed to be taken up at the 04/24/2023 Parks and Recreation Committee meeting, but due to having not been placed correctly on the agenda, the committee opted to hold it for two weeks to make sure they properly met public notice requirements. At the time, Director of Parks, Recreation, and Facilities Dean Gazza indicated that he did not expect the park to be mowed before the resolution came before the Common Council on May 17^th.

[For what it’s worth, I walked past Ellen Kort Peace Park earlier today. Much of it is just dirt. The grass that is there is not very long. The geese were out in force and seemed to be doing their part to keep it short, and I’d honestly be a little surprised if it managed to grow longer than 8 inches before the end of the month. There were also almost no flowers within the entire park. There were more flowers just a brief distance away in the tiny little grass island next to the Jones Park parking lot than there were within the entirety of Ellen Kort Peace Park. So even if the grass in Ellen Kort Peace Park is allowed to grow long, I don’t understand what the benefit to the bees would be.]