9/8/25 Minutes

***This meeting took place in-person at the mural site.

Attending the meeting – Jess Bolz, Mike McLaughlin, Pauline Apling, Heidi Hess-Webber, Cheryl Dyer, Jock Haight, Holly Leopardi, Vicky Bell, Kate Thomas

Recent Events

Mural completion (Cheryl) –  The mural is finished!  The artist, Jeff Huntington, didn’t sketch the design - he just painted by eye.  He loves birds and has a scientific understanding which is why he was able to create such an amazing mural.  Cheryl expresses gratitude to SO many people who contributed to the mural.  When the sign is ready, the trash can will move and the sign will go in the front right corner of the space in front of the mural.  Jeff is working with Cheryl’s son, Michael, to design the sign.  The sign will take 4-6 weeks to produce once it is designed.  Laurel Cable will do a show about the mural and we will plan a celebration to introduce it to the community.  Cheryl has an idea to have a birdwalk as part of the celebration.  The tentative date is October 25th.

Laurel Native Habitats Program Cohort 2 (Jess) - The wood company dropped woodchips at each garden.  A garden-planting blitz is coming up.  There are four homes in the cohort.  Cohort 2 did a tour of Cohort 1 gardens.  A tour for L4P of the cohort gardens would be great.

Sweitzer garden weeding event (Jess) -  The event will take place on Tuesday, September 23rd.  There was another weeding event in the summer that had 7-10 people.  Hopefully, this event will be equally well attended.

Updates and announcements

Riverfront Restoration Team (Brian) - Now that Dave has moved away, we need a new leader for tree stewardship.  Jock has volunteered and will schedule the last few remaining maintenance events to include cleaning up around the trees and taking the cages off the trees that are old enough.

Goat Gobble (Holly Leopardi) - The Goat Gobble would be a possible solution to dealing with invasive plants on the Howard County side of the river.  Holly is looking into the idea of renting goats to nibble the Route 1 area.  An electric fence would be used to contain the goats.  They would nibble three acres and the process would take about two months.  The cost would be $5000 per acre.  There are a few possible funding sources.  If we did this project, it would take place in the spring.  There are lots of questions to be answered.  Which county owns the river?  What do we do after the goats finish gobbling?  Jock believes that the Corps of Engineers has final say because of the proximity of the dam.  Holly will keep investigating this project.

Upcoming speakers (various) - 

*Doug Tallamy will be presenting “Saving Natives with your Yard” at Brookside Gardens on September 30th from 7pm til 9pm.  

*Elmer Dangler will be speaking at the Laurel Library on September 13th from 2pm til 3:30pm.  He will be talking about native plants and will be giving away free plants as well.

*Jimmy will be speaking at Laurel Museum.  The presentation will be on Zoom as well.  Information is on the L4P website.

Sierra Club project (Stosh) - The Sierra Club is engaged with a project to rename outdoor spaces to reference their indigenous roots.  Do we want to sign on?

Lights Off campaign (Brian) - There is a website called Birdcast that has information about when and why to turn off our lights to protect healthy migration.  The combined effect of all our exterior lights is a problem.  The City could participate in the lights-off project.  James Kole, the Environmental Affairs committee, and the Board of Trade could all be involved.