10/6/25 Minutes

Attending the meeting –  Jess Bolz, Brian Coyle, Cheryl Dyer, Heidi Hess-Webber, Mike McLaughlin, Jimmy Rogers, Holly Hoglund, Jock Haight, Mike Maxwell, Pauline Apling, Victoria Bell, Andrea Crooms (District 1 office), Holly Leopardi

Updates

Corridor Development (Andrea Crooms) – The project has received most required approvals to proceed.  The property rates a water category 3 and 4, and the sewer system rates a category 4.  It has to be a category 3 to move forward.  There will be a County Council hearing which probably won’t happen until January 2026.  There will be an opportunity for public testimony.  Our contact is Mary Cook.  Tom Dernoga, our County Councilman, can’t answer any questions at this point because the project is going through the legislative process.  Jimmy asked what our goal should be at this point and how we can be effective.  Andrea said that we can push for the watershed to be able to handle the impervious coverage.  We can push for sanitary sewer lines, sufficient roadways and appropriate density.  A big question is whether the existing sewer system is adequate even though there is access.

Recent Events

River Restoration tree maintenance (Jock) - Four people participated.  The group cleaned around all of the young trees.  They left the cages up because of the deer. 

Laurel Museum collaboration (Jimmy) - The City paid to replace plants that were inadvertently pulled up in the museum’s garden.  About ten people did the planting.  In addition, some folks weeded the existing gardens.  A few people also attended Jimmy’s talk at the museum.

Sweitzer Park weeding event (Jess) - A small but mighty group of three people attended this event.  The goal was to clear the garden path and that was accomplished.  A graduate student from UMD came to take photos of the event.

Laurel Native Habitat Program Cohort 2 (Jimmy) - The cohort has completed turf removal and planting days for the new round of native gardens.  Most of the gardens are 100 square feet and one plant was planted per square foot.  The plants were chosen for a good bloom spread over the growing season.  A lesson learned is that, depending on the dates of the planting, the sun was gone before the planting was done!  Nevertheless, the program was very successful.  Everyone in Cohorts 1 and 2 participated and folks are already talking about a Cohort 3!

Upcoming Events

Chesapeake Watershed Forum (Jimmy) - Jimmy will be speaking.  Out of 95 applications to speak, only twenty were chosen and Jimmy was one of them!  He’ll be representing Laurel for the Patuxent.  The forum will take place on November 8th at the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia.  It costs several hundred dollars to attend but the forum is three days and is all-inclusive. Jimmy doesn’t think that it will be recorded.

Sturgis Moore garden (Cheryl) -  Folks will be weeding on November 8th at 10:30am to weed the garden.  The event may not be necessary if the City’s foam spray fixes the problem of the wiregrass and crabgrass.  Attendees should bring shovels and muscle! The foam spray application is to happen on October 14th and a decision will be made about the necessity of the weeding event after that.

Litter Cleanup (Pauline) - The litter cleanup is planned for November 15th from 9am to 11am.  November 16th is the rain date.  Attendees should meet at Avondale Park.  Jess says that someone at 3 Gear Games is trying to mobilize gamers to participate.  He says there’s lots of trash by the pool.

Updates and Announcements

Mural sign (Jess) - The sign has been created by Michael Dyer, Cheryl’s son.  It will be 18”x24” in size, and will be a free-standing sign on a brown base.  It is being fabricated by Hopewell Mfg.

Goat Gobble (Holly Leopardi) - The purpose of the Goat Gobble would be to mitigate invasive plants on the Howard County side of the river.  This project is in the research phase.  It looks like it would be quite expensive and a lot of effort.  An electric fence is used to contain the goats in the area that is being cleared.  The goats will eat everything, good and bad, so we will need to plant after the goats are removed.  In addition, this is Howard County land so we’d need to work with their government. They are planning to do a site visit. Howard County doesn’t allow volunteers to do any of the work. Howard County Ecoworks is a contractor for the county but we would have to apply to them a year in advance.  There is a video online to train (certify) folks on how to remove invasives.

Other Business

Patuxent River Commission (Mike Mc.) - Mike applied to be the city’s representative to the commission but he wasn’t chosen by the mayor.

Oseh Shalom native garden (Heidi) - On Sunday, October 26th, volunteers will be planting a 900 square foot garden on Oseh Shalom’s campus.  This project is part of the National Wildlife Federation’s Sacred Grounds program.  One plant will be planted every one square foot so that close to 1000 plants that will need to go in the ground.  Anyone who is available to help with the planting is welcome.