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HomeMy WebLinkAboutKMB 05/17/2022RECEIVED X LF.RKS OFFICE IOZZ "M 22 P 2: 42 CH jSETTS Empowering residents, businesses, and government to make Mansfield a greener, cleaner place to live, work, and play KEEP MANSFIELD BEAUTIFUL COMMITTEE Meeting Minutes Meeting Date: 17 May 2022 @ 7:00 p.m. Location: MBC Room -Mansfield Town Hall Attendees: Jeff Ward (Chair), Mike Healey, Mike McCarthy, Martha O'Connell, Ana Newell Absent: Pat Colbert, Janice Wivagg" Guest: Kelly Kemp (Potential applicant for KMB Committee vacant position) Welcome & Call to Order Meeting called to order at 7:00 p.m. ■ Motion to accept minutes from previous meeting of 12 April 2022. Minutes unanimously approved at 7:01p.m. Treasurer's Report May 17. 2022 Report - KMB Funds DeVosits $9,743.21 (Funds at Town Hall) ($546.71) *(Lori Weiner Memorial Fund Reserve — see pg. 2,note) $330.88 (Funds at Bluestone Bank) $640.87 (Funds at PayPal) Net Total: $10.168.25 New PayPal donations received since 12 April 2022 report • Pooja Gupta: $15.00 • Jennifer Winrow: $25.00 Theresa Rowland: $50.00 DianaBren: $100.00 ■. Emily Miller / Hands -On Montessori School: $250 Page 1 Town of Mansfield - KMB Meeting Minutes Payments (Expenses paid this month) • Gloves for Clean-up — paid to Jeff Ward: $114.75 • Trash Bags for Clean-up —paid to Mike Healey: $267.53 Payments (Outstanding expenses vending this month) • *Lori Weiner Memorial Plaques for Benches-$353.99 (This expense is coming out of the $546.71 reserve balance noted above in Deposits. The net balance of $192.72 will be donated to the KMB Beautification Program per K. Marinelli. A "thank you" note to acknowledge the donation needs to be sent to K. Marinelli.) • Additional Clean-up Expenses - picnic items and buckets outstanding. More details needed. • Flowers for Downtown Flower Barrels - Patrick Lyons invoice for the spring pansies is outstanding. Mike Healey to follow-up with Allan or Ray at Patrick Lyons. Note: It is possible that a separate invoice from Patrick Lyons could be forthcoming' For the 2"d planting (Begonias) if the invoice we receive now is not all inclusive. TBD Additional discussion note: ■ Committee members discussed investigating alternative methods to accepting PayPal payments since PayPal charges a handling fee that impacts KMB profit. Bluestone Bank stopped charging processing fees as KMB is a non-profit. Seek information to see if PayPal allows donors to "round up" contributions to absorb the handling fee. Fundraisina • Letter versions - KMB fundraising letters are almost finalized for the mailing that was scheduled to occur after the annual spring cleanup. There are 2 versions of the letter (Prospective Donor vs. Existing Donor). Ana Newell volunteered to get the new letters printed at Allegra when the final edits are ready. She will need a count of each letter version from Jeff. Note: Last year Jeff Ward wrote personal "thank you" notes to some of the donors for their contributions. He will do this again for some donor contributions. Ana will also send "thank you" notes to the donors who contributed via PayPal to acknowledge their contributions. Contributions were also received via PayPal prior to the clean-up event and notes will be sent to those donors as well. I • Donation database - The donation database needs to be updated to reflect businesses that are new in town and those that have lefUclosed. A list of the new businesses in town may be may be available through the Town Clerk's office. Jeff and Mike McCarthy will do some follow-up. The db update can be done once the committee has reviewed the list of new and past donors. • Postage cost - Postage for the envelopes is usually covered by the town. Nancy Griffin is the contact for postage info. • Labels and envelopes - Mike McCarthy volunteered to print the envelope labels once the mailing list is complete and Janice Wivagg will place the labels on the envelopes. Note: Jeff will alert the committee members if more assistance is needed to get these fundraising letters out to donors. Page 2 KMB Meeting Minutes Town of Mansfield - KMB Meeting Minutes Nip Bottle Article Proposal The nip bottle article on the Warrant for the May Town Meeting of 19 May was "pulled". Local Mansfield liquor store owners proposed and agreed to the option of paying KMB and the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) organizations a $100 monthly stipend (to be split evenly between organizations) that can be used for cleanup and educational purposes that will help to promote proper disposal of nip bottles. Nip bottle disposal dispensers are being considered for use to help with the disposal issues. More details of how payments will be made to the organizations will be forthcoming. Payments are projected to begin l July 2022. Note: Jeff Ward will send a "thank you" to the article sponsors for their presentation to the KMB committee members and for their efforts to help address the disposal problems. Onaoina Programs 1. Great Mansfield Cleanup2022 Spring Cleanup Review: The 2022 clean-up was held on Saturday, April 30s' and was followed by a celebration picnic on the South Common. The South Common venue was the perfect location for the event — beautiful weather, good tunes, and many helping hands made the picnic a great success. Mike Healey and his helpers from the K of C did the initial KMB tent setup. Pat Colbert, Theresa Rhein, Julie McCarthy, Maureen Larochelle and Martha O'Connell contributed their organizational talents and pizza distribution skills to help with the picnic event. Theresa Rhein and Mike Healey also procured donations of water, paper goods, etc. to help defray event expenses. Jeff Ward and Neil Rhein both spent some time greeting and thanking participants as they dropped off their trash spoils at Town Hall. Jeff Ward also did an eloquent job delivering a "thank you" speech to all the event participants. We now have an informal template of what needs to be done for this type of event going forward. We might want to consider creating a small project plan and posting it on the Google drive to ease the prep for this type of event in the future. Food: Participants enjoyed pizza from Cousins Pizza along with bottled water and snacks after dropping their trash at the Town Hall parking lot. We estimate 100- 150 participants stopped by the picnic area. Mike Healey procured a donation of 10 cases of small water bottles from Stop & Shop and several cases of larger water bottles from Shawls. There were about 10 pizzas left over along with some water and snacks. Leftover pizzas were sent to the Fire/police Station along with some snacks and waters. Extra snacks and waters were also sent to the food pantry. • Lessons Learned and Suggestions for Next Year's Event: 1. Late group registrations — We often receive late registrations for the clean-up up to the week before the event. Rather than sending these late registrations to the precinct captains, we could designate a central person to coordinate add-ons and set up a station table to allow the late participants to meet at South Common on the clean-up day to get assignments and supplies. This would take some burden off precinct captains the day of the event. KMB Meeting Minutes Page 3 Town of Mansfield - KMB Meeting Minut 2. Emergency Management Team/ DPW Participation - The EMA team was most helpful in providing safety to large community groups during the clean-up process. They also helped by picking up the yellow trash bags and delivering them to the Town Hall site as DPW did not do bag pick-ups on the event day as they had in past events. DPW did bag pick-ups on' Mondayrather than during the Saturday clean-up and DPW formerly had staff present to help participants 'at the Town Hall drop-off site which proved helpful to KMB. They also were to setup extra trash cans on the Common prior to the picnic event., Consider better' coordination with DPW staff next event and revisit collection of trash bags. 3. Event Setup — The KMB tent was set in a perfect location near amain walkway at the Common. Make sure we have a team of at least 4 people for tent set-up. We found we needed extra tables and table covers to hold food items and paper goods. Several new long folding tables were purchased post event. These tables win be helpful for Family Fun Night and future KMB events. 4. Games - Consider bringing some fun items/games for the younger children to enjoy during the event: hoola hoops, corn hole toss, large balls, balloons, stickers, etc. 5. Food — Consider providing more snack varieties. Most popular snacks with the children were: cookies (Oreos), popcorn and chips (Doritos and potato). Since nut allergies appear to be more prevalent with the younger generations, consider avoiding snacks with peanut butter and nuts. We sent many leftover peanut type snacks to the food pantry. 6. Water — We opened several cases of water to make them easily accessible and had lots of leftover single bottles that needed redistribution. The food pantry -could not accept all the leftover "singles" that were in tubs- only intact cases. Revisit bottled water for next year. 7. Gloves, grabbers, vests, etc. — Purchase more gloves for the participant use. We also need gloves and tongs for food handling. Take inventory of grabbers to ensure proper supply. Vests were not as popular with participants; the new volunteer T-shirts were a hit. 8. Signage for Cleanup Sponsors — Acknowledge sponsors by posting signage with sponsor names at the after cleanup event. •. -Additional Cleanup Related Item: Deb Snyder, precinct #2 captain, was replaced last minute due to an injury. Cynthia Svoba stepped up to take Deb's place. Pat Colbert suggested the committee do something to acknowledge both Deb and Cindy. Committee needs to confirm choice to acknowledge both ladies once Pat lets us know best options. , • Fall Cleanup Dates: This is a two week event scheduled for November 1-13. 9. Flower Barrels There are 103 barrels planted with the spring pansies in the downtown area. Pat Colbert reported that the first few weeks required extra maintenance on the pansies due to of lack of rain and the terrible wind conditions. Plants are being pruned and fertilized weekly by Pat and Mike Healey and look great! This is the first year the pansies required extra TLC. Pat has extra pansy plants on her porch if any need replacement. Meeting Minutes Page 4 Mike Healey reported that some of the newer plastic flower barrels are cracked and leaking and may need replacement. The plastic barrels were purchased at Home Depot. Committee needs to decide how we intend to replace/replenish barrels. Both the cost & quality of replacement barrels needs investigation for committee consideration. Committee needs to review this program for next year. A cost of the plants has increased over time and we haven't adjusted all costs to sponsors (i.e. Sponsors paying $125 may get more than 3 barrels). The program is extremely popular with the town, but is starting to cost KMB more to maintain. We need to undertake better inventory and payment tracking procedures for next year's program. Mike McCarthy provided the following payment information. A reminder for payments will be sent to sponsors. Flower Barrel Payments Received.to Date * Gerry Abbot Realtors $95.00 * Lockwood McKinnon $95.00 * Mansfield Deli $125.00 * Anselone $125.00 * Advantage Appliance $95.00 * Mansfield Hometown Hardware $95.00 * Bluestone Bank $125.00 * McLaughlin Painting $100.00 * First Baptist Church $95.00 * Robert Sibilia $95.00 * Mansfield Shredding $125.00 10. Painkd Barrels " • Mike Healey reported that we have 3'barrels 'left for painting. Eileen Cusack, contact for the Cultural Council, plans to take one barrel for Family Fun Night. Mike is coordinating With her for delivery. We need to keep ahead of demandand seek more barrel inventory. Free is better, if possible. • Derek Harding, MHS Art Department is overseeing the HS students who are painting 2 new barrels that will be placed at Memorial Park. Mike Healy will pick up the barrels when ready. Martha O'Connell will reach out to Derek Harding to get a status update. ]].Adopt -a -Spot • Ana Newell sent email communication out to the current Adopt -a -Spot Program list and received confirmation from most that they will continue to participate in the program. There is an outstanding request for an adoption site by Fine Landscaping. Ana is considering offering Fine the sidewalk garden on N Main Street beside Happy Hollow Gallery. The Garden Lady recently performed some maintenance on the garden but was restricted somewhat as a bunny borough is established near a large overgrown shrub and restricted site access. DPW agreed to remove the overgrown shrub but will need to wait until the baby bunnies have vacated. • New business sign at the corner of Otis St. in West Mansfield is still awaiting DPW to comnlete curbine and stone work. Stone work is scheduled to begin in June. Ana Newell Town of Mansfield - KMB Meeting Minutes will work on garden design with local resident once DPW site work is completed. Josh Reinke was reminded about this site work at the April Downtown Committee meeting. Martha O'Connell will get an update for Ana at the upcoming June Downtown Committee meeting. Ana Newell will reach out to Tracy Whalen, DPW Admin, regarding the schedule for mulching of AaS gardens prior to Memorial Day. 12.Adopt A-Street/MA Litter Cleanup Crew Neil approached Jeff Ward about changing the name of KMB's current Adopt -a -Street Program to Mansfield Litter Cleanup Crew. The committee members. discussed this name change proposal and decided that the proposed new name does not accurately reflect the intent of our current Adopt -a -Street Program. Our KMB program has been in place for 3 years. Jeff Ward will relay the committee's decision to Neil. 13. We Noticed Stop & Shop has agreed to perform trash pickup on their property where Mike Healey used to clean regularly. Mike will arrange for a photo op with the store manager and a recognition plaque for store. Mike will take up doing some future cleanup on the comer near the dentist office at that site. The committee also discussed having the dentist office and auto repair business adopt that site. The committee also discussed having both sites listed under Adopt -a -Street vs. the. Adopt -a -Spot Program • Jeff Ward will coordinate the pending recognition for the Trattoria Romana restaurant. Spring landscaping is now completed at that site. 14.Monthly Litter Busters • Mike Healey, Pat Colbert and Neil Rhein continue ad hoc monthly site cleanups around town. Sites are determined depending on trash accumulation. Additional Projects/Initiatives 1. Hkhway On/OffRamps - No new discussion. 2. Adopt A -Highway The two signs that recognize Keep Mansfield Beautiful as the highway adoptee are in place. The committee should organize an activity before July and August. 3. 'No Litter Zone' Signs - No new discussion. Miscellaneous KMB Meeting Minutes Page 6 Town of Mansfield - KMB Meeting Minutes 1. Open KMB Committee Seats —Soliciting 2 candidates. Kelly Kemp was invited and' attended our May KMB meeting. Kelly believes the KMB organization aligns with her volunteer interests and is planning to apply to join the committee. Ana Newell will help Kelly with application completion. Kelly will also need to attend Select Board for final approval. 2. Social Media — No new discussion. /' i 1 � - .z Note: Jeff needs to extend 'invitation to Josh Reinke to the June KMB meeting and Kevin Dumas to a future committee meeting as a thank you if 2K funding for KMB. 4. Wildflower Bomb Project -Email was sent by Martha O'Connell to Eva Hourigan, MHS student with 4H project, regarding the seeds contained in her wildflower bombs. KMB is - sponsoring funds for her project and Eva sent the seed info which was shared to Downtown Committee. Kevin Dumas and Josh Reinke expressed interest in the height of the plants as a request was made by local residents to plant wildflowers on an embankment on County St. near the railroad bridge. There are height restrictions for plantings to ensure traffic site lines are not negatively impacted. Mr. Dumas agreed to undertake a small pilot site on School/Elm Streets in West Mansfield this season using the bombs. 5. Family Fun Night — Tuesday, July 12. KMB Committee to discuss plans at June meeting. 6. Sutter Home Bandit - Committee members were upset to hear the bandit struck and littered an area at the JJ School right after the spring cleanup event. Identity of the bandit is known to some in town and it would be helpful to have the vehicle license plate as we believe the bandit may throw the wine bottles out of her car. The bandit may reside on Spring Street. Police would be able to place a camera in the resident's area if we can provide the resident's name and vehicle info. More follow-up is required. 7. Cigarette Dispensers —Add this as an agenda item for June meeting. Possibly invite owner of new smoke shop business. Upcoming Expenses/Approvals — Picnic event items purchased are outstanding. Meeting Adjournment Next Meeting Date: Tuesday, 21 June @ 7:00 p.m. Meeting Adjourned: 8:37 Minutes approved on: 8/ I/G zoaz- at Secretary signature: KMB Meeting Minutes Page 7