While both the Boca Raton Botanical Gardens and the Boca Raton Parks & Recreation Board endorse use of a 25-acre site next to the city’s new western library, a disagreement involves the location.
The Assoiciation wants to put it on a section of the developing de Hoernle Park between Yamata Road and Spanish River Boulevard, but the Board says that loation was never the board’s intent.
Association President Ann Wood responded to a letter from Recreation services Director Micky Gomez, citing the text of a vote she said was taken by the Parks & Rec Board on August 3, 2005, which she says the board supports the project and specifies the 25-acre site “situated near Spanish River Boulevard and adjacent to the library on the north side of the T-Rex sit.” She stated that, “We were surprised that none of the six carryover members from that board put on record that he previous board did unanimously recommend it to the City Council… there was no ‘gross misrepresentation’ in our petition wording,” and she asked for an apology for the accusations in Gomez’ letter, which said the board members “are obviously dismayed with this gross misrepresentation.”
Wood said that last month the association started a petition drive to “indicate to the City Council that we have the support of the community for the gardens. We believe that with enough signatures, the council will agree to designate the land for the gardens and lease it to us…. Since our plan has been so widely supported by the people, but thwarted over the past two years by city staff, we have chosen the appropriate channel as outlined in the city charter – a petition initiative.” The association had held off it’s drive because the property was part of the package offered to Scripps when the city was trying to woo the California-based biomedical research to South County, but it has now been assigned a site in Jupiter, and the association hopes to lease the property.
Wood wrote Mayor Steven Abrams that the association will hold off on submitting it’s petition, “to allow time for a mutually beneficlal arrangement to be concluded to develop the gardens in the southern section of the Countess de Hoernle Park, and has presented the mayor with a “join development” program that would require each side to contribute to the creation of the garden for which a conceptual plan has already been developed by a landscape architect.
1 comment:
The invasive plant program director at the Palm Beach County Department of Environment Resources, Matthew King, is working with FAU to eradicate some of South Florida’s most invasive plans using funds from the Public Lands Grant Program which was launched in 2003. The County also makes available a total of $400,000 in a 50/50 matching grant program to local governments and other public agencies, with a maximum of $50,000.
Plants included are malaleuca, Brazilian pepper, old world climbing fern, air potato, schefflera, Austalian pine, ear leaf acacia and carrotwood, and removal work is focused on the Pine Jog Environmental Education Center in West Palm Beach, part of FAU’s College of Education.
The spread of invasive plants in Florida was a result of early changes to water levels after canals drained what originally was wetland in the early 1900’s, soil disturbance from farming and seed dispersal from birds and other wildlife.
MARILYN FARBER JACOBS
Post a Comment