Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Funding Sources Identified at Last Night's Meeting

We had a good meeting last night with our downstate guest from the National Park Service Stacy Palmer. As it happens, both she and Matthew Linn provided us information on funding available for greenways. Here are the meeting notes:

In attendance: Carolyn Manning, Cynthia Keith, John Davenport, Feico Kempff, Stacye Palmer, Matthew Linn, Loren Demerath.

The group discussed the possible "Family Day on the Greenway" over Easter weekend, but Loren received word from Ian later that night that he's going to have to cancel it for this year. The group's discussion did raise the issue that Shreveport does not have a big Easter Egg hunt type of event and it could be an opportunity to have an outdoor event that would publicize linear parks, the dog park, etc.

It was also noted that having an organized ride would raises the level of bike culture in the city; people could pay $10 each for t-shirts and insurance; have different levels of riding; distances, etc.

Stacye Palmer said Bill Lane made a concept map of the greenway that we could use in our brochure and she'll be sending that on to us.

Stacye described our application for $20,000 challenge cost share, and described another opportunity as well: the Louisiana Recreational Trail Grant that could pay for our funding of MHSM to do the plan for us. Are needs at this point are largely for planning costs.

Stacye asked Carolyn to let them do some of the marketting with her. Carolyn's already bought a commercial grade printer for this purpose. But, long run, to get a grant to print the back of the brochures, and that means it'll be professionally printed on the outside and Carolyn would update it on the inside on her printer. Carolyn says she needs other eyes looking at the drafts; if we could sit around the computer and have a work session on finishing up the brochure and the powerpoint. She and Loren agreed to do that.

The group discussed the brochure; larger size makes it less likely to be thrown away; to be put at events, bike shops, give to stakeholders, caddo parish school board, etc.; make it look real. The tri-fold one will be easier to make and would just tell people about our group generally.

Feico asked about whether other organizations down state get a disproportionate share of money and Stacye said she didn't think so. Stacye described the Lafitte Corridor project that is the only other similar project going on in the state supported by the National Park Service and noted that they started before us and are further along. Feico said we could copy the Lafitte concept for having a Centenary to LSUS route.

The National Park Service has a memorandum of understanding that they use ASLA pro bono to do this sort of thing. It may be the same people as with MHSM. If we're going to pay anyone for planning, we want to use MHSM for it because they've invested in the process and would be well-qualified to assist us.

Matthew Linn reported on a funding opportunity for land aquisition; if non-profits can raise 20% of the money the federal government will pay the rest for parks and trails. (More money is available if its accessible to motorcycles, oddly enough.) Local expertise and help would seem to be available, since both the president of the state parks--Larry Raymond--and the president of the police jurors association--Carl Pierson--are both in Caddo Parish.

Matthew said at LSUS he's been working with Amanda Lewis under Gary Hanson, head of the Red River Management Foundation, and using information provided by Ardie Cisario and Ali Mustafa, as part of a group that might be named something like the Caddo Parrish Stormwater Drainage Cooperative on building web sites that would be used to vent information for what land has ever been flooded, and also for what land is used or desired to be used for alternative transportation via pathways; Matthew will be putting a resolution forward to have it endorsed by the Parrish. He'll also be presenting it at the Levee Board Office on Thurs the 11th at 10:00 at their offices on Grimmett; They'll be looking for endorsements from NLCOG, Caddo Parish, the city of Shreveport, LSUS, the Red River Waterway Commission, and others. It's patterned after a facebook/static website design that was put together by the DOTD. The general idea is that trails can exist on lands used for flood relief.

Bill Weiner's proposal would be an implementation of this. This group would hopefully be marketting it nationally. People would be able to interface with the web site to mark where they flood or would like to have paths.

From Matthew's Facebook page: "A Better Shreveport Members! 80/20 non-profit land purchase assistance through LASTATEPARKS.com or 225-342-8188 ask for Cleve Hardman max purchase per non-Profit is $100,000 land may be used for bicycle, roller skates, walking, etc etc. If you allow motorcycles max purchase price goes up to $200,000 deadline is May 1, 2010"

Next week will be a planning meeting for the cleanup event coordinated by Jon Soul and Andy Goldthwaite. The recommended routes map also needs finishing and the sharrows project can be pushed forward as well--a request needs to be made for paint, a time set for painting, volunteers signed up, etc.

No comments: