Elizabeth Dry in the Promise of Peace garden on E. Grand. Photo by Hilary Schleier
Ever since we announced on our blog that the Promise of Peace garden is moving from their current location on E. Grand to a new location in the parking lot across the street from the White Rock United Methodist Church in Little Forest Hills, there’s been a lot of online chatter, as well as a lot of email exchanges. When we asked people to share their opinions, more emails flooded in. Two weeks ago, we rolled out an early, online-only edition of the June issue of the Lakewood/East Dallas magazine article. The story is comprised of three parts: Part 1 covers the history of the Promise of Peace garden and information about the move. Part 2 covers the controversy with snippets of emails, interviews or comments from either side of the fence.
Today we’re running Part 3, which is a compilation of emails and comments we’ve received over the past several weeks. Please note, this starts with early email exchanges and works its way to more recent emails. Some of the emails reflect early opinions. Since the conversations began in early May, some of the opinions have stayed the same, while others have changed. This is simply a compilation of emails sent to us at Advocate or sent to other neighbors, White Rock United Methodist Church staff or Promise of Peace leadership.
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Sender: Marj Rash, nearby neighbor
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 2
Have you heard that they want to move next to my driveway? Yes, right next to my property line. Quite the stir amongst the neighborhood. No one seems to be for it. And everyone is rather mad that is being done without any information given to the neighborhood. On Tuesday, I spoke to the Associate Pastor of the Methodist church that owns the space. He kept telling me that it is being done to promote community. However no one from the organization had even spoken to the “community” until this week, after the mulch pile (that is taller than me and keeps growing) had arrived. I had to go looking for someone to talk to. No one has come to me. He even said that Bill and I “should have” been consulted as we will ” be most greatly impacted” in the entire neighborhood. The controversy has brought a sense of community amongst the neighbors, against the garden. Not quite the response that the church or the garden people had expected.
Sender: Roxanne King
Recipient: Elizabeth Dry
Date: May 1
I am the owner of a neighboring property to your proposed location and I am completely against this plan. I cannot believe that the adjacent properties were not at least given the courtesy of being informed and asked of our opinions. While you feel this is a great addition to our neighborhood, I couldn’t disagree more.
This section of the neighborhood is already inundated with excess traffic, parking issues and noise associated with the churches more than already necessary. You are suggesting that we welcome an additional activity that will further disturb our peace, increase traffic, increase parking problems and devalue our properties. YES, devalue our properties. Who will want to give up all of their weekends in peace to activities planned at your garden?
Do not even attempt to lie and say it will be a quiet unobtrusive activity. Do not pretend that people will not park in front of our homes for your garden or that you will not have music, sales events, fundraisers and the like all opening up our homes to further intrusion on a regular basis.
Meanwhile you are moving piles of mulch in and speaking to contractors about making changes before you have completed all of the necessary elements to make any changes. Before one hammer hits one nail on that parking lot I’ll expect to see that a parking assessment has been completed by a qualified engineer and submitted to the city for review. I will expect that you will obtain the required certificate of occupancy and pay for the water meter and service at that location. I will also expect that the city will want to review a stormwater plan based on the physical changes you intend to make on that property. Your changes will have a potential affect on the neighboring properties and any damage done will be your responsibility as well as the White Rock Methodist Church.
I have no intention of being receptive to this idea at any point and time. I will also be researching when and how zoning changes were made to allow a garden on this piece of property without sign posting or notification to this community. If I find that it has been changed within the last 2 years, I will file a complaint with the city for re-evaluation so that the community may have input as required by law.
This will not be the end of my communications in this matter. Rest assured I will be participating in any upcoming meetings and filing any grievances with the city as necessary.
Sender: John Wolf
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 3
“A community garden is permitted by right in all districts.”
http://www.ci.dallas.tx.us/cso/resolutions/2011/02-09-11/11-0434.PDF
Sender: Sarah Wandrey
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 3
Please, please bring this garden to Little Forest Hills. One of the best things about this neighborhood is the number of small children with parents who stay at home full time or part time. I plan to home school my children for the next few years and this garden would be a fantastic contribution to their educations. I will help in any way I can to bring it to our neighborhood and to keep it running.
Sender: Jordan Carter
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 3
I wanted to take a small amount of time to say something important. Ever since my 5 year old daughter has been attending garden club at her school and the Promise of Peace Garden on Saturdays I have seen a leap in her awareness about what food she eats and how healthy it is. She knows how vegetables grow now and encourages her family to do better by eating better and growing their own produce. If a garden can improve the lives of one large family because of one 5-year-old girl, imagine (the new garden proposal) what a new garden can do for an entire community of people. Don’t let negativity and uninformed hate stop all the positive growth that could occur from a garden. Thank you for your time reading.
Sender: Janna Wegren, nearby neighbor
Recipient: William Logg, nearby neighbor
Date: May 2-3
The below is from Promise of Peace.us website. While it sounds terrific, would you like this happening practically in your back yard? People coming over from 28 neighborhoods? This is worse than living next to the Wal-Mart parking lot!
[From the POP Website] “Come celebrate the community that has transformed a vacant lot on East Grand into a beautiful garden! Saturday, November 3, 2012 10 AM – 2 PM 7446 East Grand. In three years, individuals from over 45 schools have dug in the dirt, gardeners from over 28 neighborhoods have grown their own food, and people representing 21 countries have visited and contributed to the Promise of Peace Garden. Charles Plummer, Culinary Director of The Youth Village, will be preparing fresh plates for a $10 donation, Macon Hatton will be strumming his guitar and Mara Black will be doing yoga on the stage. We will be selling raffle tickets for $1 each for a chance to win beautiful gifts such as 10 Mind and Body Classes at Spa Exhale and we will also hold a 50:50 raffle. Not sure what a 50:50 raffle is? Come to the garden to find out! There will also be free beer and champagne to toast the next three years. While at the garden, learn about our new organic Urban Farm POP-OP, sign up for cooking classes and purchase locally hand-crafted stocking stuffers that Plant it Forward! There is plenty of parking around the the POP Garden — look for the signs.”Their website speaks for itself. It’s not just a quiet community garden; they use it as the fundraiser venue for their programs, having events every weekends, with live music, local vendors selling their stuff, garage sales, they offer field trips to local schools ($100 bucks), etc. The noise level and the traffic will be enormous. This is a total nightmare for us. http://promiseofpeace.us/
Sender: Russell Campbell
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 3
I’m writing to voice my support for the Imagine garden in LFH. As a resident of the neighborhood with 3 children, I think it is a wonderful idea. Apparently there are some who are vehemently opposed, so this is just to let you know of a family who believes the garden is a great idea.
From: William Logg, nearby neighbor
Recipient: Elizabeth Dry, founder of the Promise of Peace garden
Date: Unknown
Dear Ms. Dry,
I am truly sorry we had to meet on a less than auspicious occasion.
A few years back, I had to put the kybosh on a furniture flea market on that very parking that the Methodists had green-lit, but had not asked or even informed the peripheral neighbors about how they felt about this additional flea circus coming to town. I went over there and put it to them as thus; You come here, do your work for the Lord, and then GO HOME. Ideally where you live is quiet. Whereas I live here within view of the Lord’s house morning, noon, and night. I moved to this house because of that very reason. I can see the churches and it is quiet. That is why I choose to live here. And please do not attempt to pander to me with your self-righteous sanctimonious hypocrisy which, after I voiced my impulse feelings about your surreptitious project buttressing up to my property, you still continued to spout, “This garden will bring you more peace than you ever imagined!” Words of an evangelical huckster. I have a garden. With no children running around so that I am at relative peace already. All my neighbors have gardens. With no children. They too are at peace. I have practiced a Patangalin based meditation regime for the past nine years striving for the attainment of actual moksha/enlightenment or rather ultimate peace of non-duality which eschews children.
This is so stereotypical of teachers obsessed with and working with children to be completely flabbergasted that anybody else of the human race could not want children around. Jesus did not have children. The Buddha of this time period did not have children. That particular character flaw, as you would deign it, in no way affected either of their attainment of non-duality peace and the expounding thereof. That is the point. It appears you are oblivious to other people’s wishes. From what you have presented to me so far, it is all about you. Ego. Everyone within the perimeter and close proximity of your projected project does not have children, nor would they appreciate them or the added noise with your PG events compounded with additional parking on our streets. We have quite enough already.
Now the overall Little Forest Hills neighborhood and LFH real estate agents further away from the church might actually think this is a great Rah Rah Rah. However, their property will not be negatively impacted, as all ours in immediate periphery will be by your and WRUMC’s project. Even Mike Schmidt would probably think this is a good idea for the overall community but he will not be living next door to it otherwise he would ultimately have to agree that when my neighbors or I go to sell our property, the prospects will be cut effectively in half. Someone will like it. Someone will not. As it stands now, there is no reason to dissuade buyers.
After our conversation at the parking lot, when you announced that you and your kid’s vegetable petting zoo would be my new neighbors without any proposed re-zoning nor community input and citing that, “You knew several City Councilmen” alluding to a fast track regarding implementation of your project, I realized what was going on. Obviously your peace gardens are losing their space. The Methodist Church is apparently irritated that their attendance over the years has dwindled while conversely St. Bernard’s Catholic of Clairvaux has appeared to exponentially grow. The Catholics, for the most part, utilize that particular section of the Methodist’s parking space. Apparently the Methodist would not think of talking to the Catholics in regards to some mutual reciprocation for use of their parking, nor would they implement parking stickers for their membership with a big white “M” {that St. Bernard’s members could also purchase} and have violators towed away as that would be “Unchristian”. So instead, it appears the Methodist’s, like a dog hiding a bone under the ground to keep another dog from sharing, is going to cover up that side of the parking lot with your project. It was immediately transparent to me and was only later verified to me by my wife, Marj Rash, after she went and talked to the Rev. Mitchel Boone and he admitted to her that this was exactly the case scenario.
City Councilmen would be somewhat loath to get behind a project propped up by divisional sectarianism with what could be construed as undertones of racism as the parishners at St. Bernard’s Catholic of Clarivaux are predominantly of Hispanic decent and the parisoners of WRM are predominantly white. If the Methodist were truly of Christian piety, and they adamantly want your peace project in their “adjacent” vicinity, then they would give Peace Gardens the property on the North side of the church. This land is truly, according to legal statutes regarding Church and Peace Gardens land acquisitions, “adjacent to the church” and there is already school facilities available there, extra school children to interact with your inner City children, ample water supply, nothing to be rezoned, and the peripheral residential properties would have a city road replete with a tree laden median to buffer their homes from your project. Peace.
Sender: Lark Duncan
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 3
I have heard that has been some recent opposition to POP’s move to Little Forest Hills, and I just can’t imagine why. Sometimes fear of the new or personal qualms can stand in the way of progress. Please, let me tell you why the garden is important to me.
As a dietitian, nutrition, food, and nutrition education is what I live and breathe. I am also a firm believer in the power of prevention, especially when it comes to childhood obesity. Rather than treating childhood diabetes, we as a community should be focusing on preventing it. It is after-all cheaper, more effective, and leads to better long-term, lifetime results. Luckily, I have found a way to do this through my day job, but I also felt it was my civic duty to make a difference in my immediate neighborhood.That’s just one of the reason I became involved with POP.
Moving to the new location in Little Forest Hills is going to increase our opportunities better serve East Dallas. The new facilities will have a classroom for children’s cooking and gardening classes as well as for adults. Studies have shown (and my personal experience too!) that once of the best ways to get children to eat healthy is to have them involved in every process of the food… from seed to table. We will have the opportunity to do just that! POP’s gardening camps have grown in popularity, and the new classroom will give us the chance to teach even more children in East Dallas about healthy eating.
In addition, the new location will allow us reclaim otherwise unusable land. We have already transformed one location into a fertile paradise that gives back to the community and the environment. We can do it again!
This is why POP is important to ME. I know other supporters have very different reasons such as beautification of the neighborhood, providing gardening classes for adults, reduction in crime due to getting kids off the streets, community involvement, humanitarianism, reduction in pesticide and herbicides in our immediate area. The list is really endless.
The goals of POP are to improve the surrounding area, and no one can argue with that. Not to mention POP has gained the support of like-minded businesses such as Evaluate the Plate, Sundown at the Granada, Parigis, Gecko Hardware, Redentas, etc.
Sender: Anna Clark
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 6
Elizabeth Dry told me you are doing an article for the Advocate. This is a quick note to let you know that I am a resident of Little Forest Hills, a member of White Rock UMC, the Green Team leader at St. Bernard Catholic School, and a fan of the Promise of Peace community garden. I’m delighted that all of these organizations are working together to make the dream of a community garden a reality in Little Forest Hills.
Sender: Natalee Morse
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 5
I live half a block from the garden on Santa Clara. I bought this house 20 years ago and have put $200,000 into it doubling its size and fixing everything. It is now perfect for me and my son who has Aspergers. I am an older person and am slowly “retiring”. I totally love my neighborhood. I love walking in it with my dogs and without them. I love that I can hears birds, see big trees, not have cars all over the place, really interesting houses, and a truly varied bunch of neighbors.
I DO NOT want this intrusion on our peace and quiet. I have no idea what this woman is planning since she has not communicated with any of us, but if I look at the website and Yelp and her Facebook page….OMG. This is NOT ok. She seems to have really good motives and I commend her for what she has done on East Grand, but bringing that here to Little Forest Hills is so unbelievably destructive and ill conceived I am almost speechless. It is an incredible imposition on us. I’m all for doing good deeds but not at my expense without my input! I do not share her version of altruism.
I walked around yesterday and today and took photos of the parking lots of the Catholic Church and the Methodist Church and am now convinced that this actually is an astonishingly petty attempt by the Methodists to keep the Catholics off their parking lot in spite of the fact that the Methodists do not need the space and the Catholics actually do. I am flabbergasted. I really doubted that they would do that but they really are. It is clear.
I do not want bands, fundraisers, cooking classes, site tours, port a pottys, run off of water and fertilizer (there is not water to the property), children trucked in to be exposed to nature, “markets,” brunches, and on and on. This is so ill advised. It will destroy our property values and our peace and quiet.
A genuine community garden would be approved by everyone. One that is limited to this community of 950 homes where a resident can have a space to grow stuff. No bands, no classes, no fund raisers, no 3000 people with cars touring the site. There are other sites that would be so much more appropriate and not destructive to the people who surround the site. I cannot believe that someone can just decide that in the interest of “doing good” they are blindly and blithely destroying the lives and peace of mind of other people.
I do not know Elizabeth Dry. For her to tell me “this garden will bring you more peace than you ever imagined” is an astounding display of presumptuous arrogance. I get angrier every time I think of it. I am against this!
View the letter distributed to the neighborhood by Natalee Morse.
Sender: Natalee Morse, nearby neighbor
Recipient: Marj Rash, nearby neighbor
Date: May 6
So far I have three households responding. They are all no. Two express the same concerns we have and additionally comment about the underhanded way this is being done.
Sender: David and Debbie Self, nearby neighbors
Recipient: Natalee Morse
Date: May 7
We are very concerned, opposed to the amount of traffic likely to come. Not an appropriate place for the garden. I am concerned about the fact that our neighborhood was not informed of this – not everybody goes to a meeting. I feel this has been handled inappropriately. The garden is a wonderful concept, but not in the middle of a neighborhood with all the traffic it will bring.
Sender: Lewis and Diana Miller, nearby neighbors
Recipient: Natalee Morse
Date: May 7
We thoroughly object to this proposed garden – peaceful or otherwise – and are appalled at the underhanded way in which the United Methodist Church and Elizabeth Dry have gone about this.
Sender: David Larkin
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 9
What is the Promise of Peace? It is a garden available for everyone. The church and members of the church want the garden for their families. The schools across the street want the garden for their children and teachers. The garden transcends all socio-economic levels. Many people make donations to the garden regularly. Every walk of life is active in the garden and is blessed by the garden. The garden is open to anyone regardless race,color, creed, religion, or familial status. It is an organic garden teaching people including myself about having organic food, flowers, and trees. It is a place for neighbors to commune for a good cause.
How does Little Forest Hills benefit from the garden? The churches, schools, and neighbors will all benefit from this garden and Elizabeth Dry’s passion for a teaching garden using her decades of teaching experience and her love for children. The few vehicles daily will barely be noticed, yet the benefits of the Promise of Peace garden will be felt for years through the children that will grow up with the education of an organic garden across the street from their school, church and neighborhood. May God bless everyone involved in the garden.
Sender: Leea Thompson Fudge, nearby neighbor
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 11
When I recently noticed the piles of mulch that were accumulating in the White Rock United Methodist Church parking lot and saw the signs indicating that these would be part of a community garden, I was absolutely thrilled. I have lived in Little Forest Hills adjacent to this parking lot for 4 years. One of the things that drew us to Little Forest Hills originally was the signs that proudly proclaimed to “Keep Little Forest Hills Funky” and the accompanying community spirit that was embodied in the people that we met. The addition of this garden seemed to me to fit perfectly with the theme of this unique neighborhood. When I realized that this community garden would be affiliated with the Promise of Peace (POP) Community Garden, I was even more thrilled. I’m an avid backyard organic gardener, but I attend events at the POP Garden frequently. Elizabeth Dry has done a tremendous job with that venture and it has produced positive outcomes for so many people and brought joy into so many people’s lives. Every time that I have been there, there has been a variety of people of all different ages and backgrounds… people who are working together to learn, educate, grow and make this little corner of our world a better place. I’ve never even contributed any labor to the garden, yet my family and I are always generously welcomed at the events there. One of my favorite events that I’ve attended there was this year’s Easter Egg Hunt. We went to another Easter Egg hunt at a local church on the same day. My 3-year old came away from the first hunt with a basket full of candy chock full of sugar, preservatives and GMOs. We don’t eat like that and my daughter promptly dumped the whole basket in the trash. We then headed over to the POP Garden where the kids hunted for eggs that were filled with dirt and vegetable seeds. Elizabeth even sat down with all the kids and made sure that everyone got a good assortment of seeds and that no one was left out. Each child received an egg carton to start the seeds in at home. It was phenomenal and the kids loved it. They left with a project to take home any goodies that can be used as healthy sustenance in the future. I came away from it saying to myself, “These guys know what’s up. They are doing this right.”
I’m baffled as to why anyone would be against a community garden in their neighborhood. I think that a lot of people have forgotten that eating isn’t just a social act or a mere act of sustenance; it’s about agriculture and health above all. We’ve become an obese, unhealthy and chronically ill society that values convenience above effort. This is changing, though. People are starting to take food seriously again. Changes at a local level are one way to fuel this movement. Community gardens are being planted all over many major cities, including our own. For many people, this is their first exposure to where food originates. These gardens can be used as educational tools to teach children and adults alike. They can learn techniques and methods that can produce food at a low-cost and in ways that promote long-term stability. Participants can take this knowledge home to their families and apply it in their own backyards. Gardens like this can spark an interest in real food and can tempt kids to try things that they might never have after just seeing it in a store’s produce section (if they even venture into the produce section). From what I understand, the Imagine garden will also help to stock a food pantry to help those in need. Most food given out from local food pantries is processed shelf-stable food, so it’s exciting to me that fresh, organic produce will be a possibility for more people as a result of this garden. Whole, fresh foods are essential to good health. No one can sustain optimum health for the long term while living on a steady diet of processed, chemical laden convenience foods. Our bodies just aren’t designed to handle the resulting stress and inflammation. As an RN for the past 13 years, I have watched patient after patient suffer from illnesses that could have been avoided with changes in lifestyle, most importantly diet. It took my own health declining to jolt me awake a few years ago and to remind me of the difference that nutrition makes. I also have met so many people in my own neighborhood who grow much of their own food in their backyards, from their gardens to their beehives to their chicken coops and each of them influenced me to take charge of what my family was eating and to learn about where it comes from. When we know better, we do better, and sharing our stories of where we’ve come from can change lives. What better place to share our collective knowledge than in a community garden right outside our own front door?
With all of that being said, I recently received an angry-sounding letter that was taped to my front door from a neighbor who is very concerned about the effect that a community garden would have on the neighborhood. It sounds like there are a lot of assumptions by some residents of Little Forest Hills about what the Imagine garden will be like. They are describing it as a noisy place with thousands of visitors that will decrease all of our property values. That isn’t the impression that I’ve gotten from anything that I’ve heard about the garden and it seems more than a little extreme to draw those sorts of conclusions, especially at this point. I encourage anyone who has concerns to listen to Elizabeth Dry and hear her out. I truly believe that she has the community’s best interests at heart. When we bought a house that was adjacent to two churches and a school, we expected to deal with traffic and noise at times, but over the past four years, it’s really never been an issue. My husband and I personally think that even if there is more traffic and noise (even though we really have no reason to think at this point that that will be the case), having a community garden will be worth it, both for what it can do for our neighborhood and also for what it can do for the larger community within which we exist. It really doesn’t get much funkier than that.
Sender: Laura Sutherland
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 13
I attended a meeting last Thursday the 9th and met the way-cool lady responsible for the Promise of Peace Garden, Elizabeth Dry, who was also in attendance. When she told me about the prospective move to my neighborhood – actually just down the street from my house – I was elated. I was thrilled. I was excited. I was . . . horrified to learn of the emails Elizabeth has been receiving from neighbors who vehemently do NOT share my sentiments. Anywho, I promised Elizabeth that I would contact you and share that as a long-time member of the LFH hood, I think the move of the Peace Garden would be awesome. I think it represents what I consider to be some of LFH’s greatest qualities, that of acceptance and brotherly love and helping those in need. The Promise of Peace Garden is a blessing to the kids, families and community it serves. As a former teacher, I am totally on board with the educational aspect the garden offers. I have told Elizabeth that I would be happy to volunteer and provide whatever assistance she might need on any given weekend. With the overwhelming urbanization of our Dallas neighborhoods, The Promise of Peace Garden is an oasis. It is a little piece of eco sanity in an otherwise concrete jungle. I say bring it on. Welcome to Little Forest Hills!
Sender: Kathryn Hurn, via The Lakewood/East Dallas Facebook page
Date: May 17
I received a note Thursday from other concerned neighbors about the POP relocating to the Methodist Church’s parking lot. Hoping the LFHNA will assist in ascertaining the facts and supporting residents’ concerns about how this will affect their property and their personal well-being. As a Dallas Sierra Club Outings leader, I generally support endeavors such as community gardens, but this small business at this location doesn’t make any sense to me. We property owners who flank Old Gate Lane have enough noise, parking issues and general intrusion with the existing churches and schools. We really don’t welcome MORE weekend traffic, sales, live music, water run-off issues, etc. The wisdom of locating a garden atop of an asphalt surface presents other concerns. The most troubling fact is this transaction was taking place without any notice or coordination of the property owners who will be affected. Fellow neighbors, please share your thoughts and any plans for action.
Sender: William Logg, nearby neighbor
Recipient: Bishop Michael McKee
Date: Unknown
Dear Bishop Michael McKee,
I humbly and most respectfully request your intercession unto Reverend George Fisk at White Rock United Methodist Church, as it appears he has breached his fiduciary duty to his neighborhood and the true community of Little Forest Hills.
I, William Logg, live on Santa Clara adjacent to the Church’s south parking lot. I came home last Monday and some woman who identified herself as Elizabeth Dry came up to me and announced she would be my new neighbor with her “Garden of Peace” multi media event center which is bannered as a “community Garden.” If you go to the website and look at “Garden of Peace” googling the “Yelp” website, I believe it will readily display a monetary oriented business to include a chicken coop tour event that brought 3,000 people in 2010. She was asking about fencing the parking lot, which I responded that the City Engineering Department would never allow that to happen because both parking lots grade away from homes and into storm water drains in the street. In its current state, having been built up over the years with accumulated asphalt that is seven inches above my property, my garage foundation has literally cracked in half from the past flooding. Debris blocked the main trough running alongside my house and created flood conditions. I explained, “This church parking lot is zoned for a parking lot” and she responded with “I know several City Councilmen” alluding to me that she had somehow circumvented the usual obstacles for a business zoning.
My wife, Marj Rash, went and talked to Rev George Fisk and he acknowledged to her that they were filling up that parking lot with the community garden so as to not allow the St Bernard’s Clair Vaux’s parishioners parking access. All this done without contacting anyone at St Bernard’s Clair Vaux nor the impacted home owners who will bear the brunt of WRUC’s non-confrontational pettiness. He also divulged to Marj Rash that he had leased the parking lot to Elizabeth Dry for $1 to start in January.
This project paid for and initiated without the requisite:
a.) Stormwater study for the Engineering Department of City.
b.) Traffic and Parking study
c.) Certificate of Occupancy
d.) Water meter installation
Furthermore, Elizabeth Dry did not approach anyone in this immediate neighborhood as to her intentions with her community garden/multi media center business although she was interviewed in the upcoming Lakewood edition of the June Advocate magazine, that “Everyone in Little Forest Hills community is really excited about this garden coming to Little Forest Hills.” Nothing could be further from the truth. My neighbor, Natalee Morse put flyers and canvassed the immediate three blocks in direct periphery of this project (ten homes per side of street, twenty homes per block, totaling sixty homes within the blocks of Redondo, Santa Clara, and Diceman), and only one household knew of the proposed project who were on Diceman and they have something to do with Real Estate and the community garden. If only one household out of sixty were informed, the statement “Everyone in the Little Forest Hills community is for this garden” cannot ring true. Viewing those three blocks (between Oldgate and Ocalla) as a microcosm, protracted unto the macrocosm, those statistics appear to suggest that only a small self-serving entity belying itself “The good of the community” and not duly representative of the wishes of property owners and true community of Little Forest Hills. This is poignantly true of those neighbors property immediately adjacent to White Rock United Methodist Church and Elizabeth Drys proposed “Peace Gardens” leasing the parking lot from Rev George Fisk for $1.
Sender: Natalee Morse
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 24
Things change very fast. Some of us met with code enforcement and have been informed about what is allowed on the macadam and what is not. And I met with the minister at UMC, Mitchell Boone just the day before yesterday. He reached out directly to me in response to one of my comments that was on your blog. We had a cordial meeting and I am happy to say that the issues that bothered me were addressed and have become pretty much non-issues since the activities that alarmed me will be happening inside the church building and not on the macadam. And now, in retrospect, the issue about keeping the Catholics off the lot that I was so outraged about is, in fact, irrelevant.
I am unable to conjure up any respect for Elizabeth Dry, in spite of her good motives. This would not have blown up into a nasty fight if she had actually met with those of us who are adjacent and/or very close to the lot at the get go. It is not enough to say that she went to the neighborhood meeting. There are 950 residences in LFH and maybe 25 to 30 people go to the meetings. She was told at the time not to assume that because the people at that meeting were enthusiastic and supportive that everyone else would be. She chose to ignore then admonition.
Sender: Marj Rash
Recipient: Advocate media
Date: May 27
Out of approximately 100 letters that were distributed the returned letter count stands as follows:
Vote count as of today: 25 against the garden, 1 for. Finally we have one “for” vote, was beginning to think that no one wanted the garden.
The single “for” vote was from the new block that Bill distributed to on Saturday, 9000 Forrest Hills Blvd.
The original distribution on 5/8 and 5/9 was 9000 Diceman, 9000 Santa Clara, 9000 Redondo; approximately 60 homes. 9000 Daytonia was added 5/18 and 9000 Forrest Hills on 5/25, about 20 homes on each street, bringing the count to about 100 homes.
I hope to get more votes in the next few days especially since the last batch was distributed on a holiday weekend.
For more, read the comments on our previous blogs, or join the conversation:
Promise of Peace Garden planning to move to Little Forest Hills later this year
What do you think of the Promise of Peace moving to Little Forest Hills?
Sneak Preview, Part 1: Promise of Peace — from garden to table
Sneak Preview, Part 2: Promise of Peace — from garden to table
