HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - MGG - 12-11-2013ZJ ORIGINALMILTON GROWS GREEN COMMITTEE
DECEMBER 11, 2013 MINUTES [ApPROVED]
Date: December 11, 2013, 6:30 to 8:10 PM
Place: Fire Station #43, 750 Hickory Flat Road, Milton, GA
Attendees: Cindy Eade (acted as Chairperson), Teresa Stickels, Joe Lamp'l, Kathy Johnson, Francia
Lindon, Julie Pinckney and Laura Rencher.
/. Agenda: It was posted on the City's web site.
II. Approval of Minutes: Minutes from November 13, 2013 were approved.
III. Old Business:
• Continuing Discussion on Revision ofMGG Logo -Cindy showed Jason's final submission for a new
MGG logo that reflected feedback from the last meeting. She explained the intentions with the
various design elements. Francia also showed two versions based on feedback. Between the two
presented by Francia, the one that was selected included the Trajan font with the green path and the
evergreen tree used in Earth Day publicity. The final choice for the committee was narrowed to two
with the vote being taken before the January meeting.
• Earth Day Festival Planning -Kathy will be doing Kids Crafts with Margaret and Julie's help; Jack
will be handling logistics; Francia is doing communications again; and Angela will be handling
budgeting, sponsors and city purchasing aspects; Cindy will be working on volunteers, sponsors and
vendors. Date and location have been decided -Friendship Park on April 19 th • Ended up being able
to roll over $1,800 from last year. Our budget this year is going to be at $10,000 for the event. Whole
Foods is interested in being a sponsor but not sure at what level. This will be Easter weekend but
date doesn't seem to bother vendors.
• Household Chemical Waste and Paint Collection -Cindy has put out Requests for Proposals. Date is
tentative for Feb. 22 at Bell Memorial Park. YMSL has volunteered again.
• Boy Scouts Shredding Event -They considered the event successful. Want to do it again.
• Bring One for the Chipper -Is pretty well planned. Cindy passed out flyers for distribution. Drop off
locations are at Scottsdale Farm, Milton High School and Home Depot on Windward. Rotary Club is
going to provide saplings and also provide volunteers for Scottsdale. Discussion followed on how to
handle 200 saplings -how best to protect them. Joe offered to try to get pots and soil to put the bare
rooted saplings into so they'd have a better chance of surviving. Update of planting instructions
needed. Joe and Francia to exchange information on this. Maybe start collecting 1h gal. milk cartons to
put them in for next year. Chipper flyer needs to go to Schools ASAP for inclusion into newsletters.
Francia to send gif file to all committee members. Put link to video of Joe planting tree.
• Bulky Trash -Had 141 Milton residents who participated. People are so happy to get rid of their junk
at this event. YMSL did a terrific job.
• Adopt-A-Stream -Jack hasn't had much of a chance to get into this.
• Evergreen Schools Grants -Working on grants, $500 limit; possibly set aside something for Earth
Day Art Contest for prizes.
• Adopt-A-Road -Julie has been working on updating online information, application and follow up
on groups/individuals doing cleanup. Julie asked for help in editing information. Signs going
forward will have new MGG logo.
Milton Grows Green Committee Meeting Minutes December 11, 2013 [ApPROVED]
ALL MILTON GROWS GREEN DOCUMENTS ARE PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER WITH AT LEAST 35% POST -CONSUMER CONTENT.
Ill. New Business:
• Climate Change Talk -Gail Gill will give us a preview of her talk on Climate Change at our next
meeting with the idea that we will sponsor the presentation to the City or Public. Gail went through
the official training session but has some free range to adapt to time constraints and age of audience.
MGG meeting is scheduled to be an evening meeting at City Hall for 45 minutes.
• Preserving Rural Milton, Laura Rencher -She's in the process of forming a group Preserve Rural
Milton, a 501(c) 3 that wants to address the loss of open space. She is writing a charter that will have
mass appeal, with creative fundraising options such as bonds that will raise funds to help in
implementing preservation initiatives.
She claims residents are alarmed at escalation in development. She doesn't see an appropriate
response from the City. City land planning documents don't have anything in them to address the
loss of rural character or offer land use alternatives. Not having sewer has been good at limiting
density to one acre but is a crude method. So she's been researching alternative solutions.
In Milton 900 homes will be built next year. 200 were built this year. Schools are facing a huge influx
of students. 900 homes vs. the 10,000 homes we currently have in Milton represents a 9% rate of
growth in one year. We're going to be jumping 5-6% in population in the next few years. City's
"Comprehensive Land Use Plan" is a policy document that has no teeth to carry out preservation of
green space.
Laura mentioned Conservation Zoning, as one possibility -one that would contain a corridor of
green space that's continuous through various developments for wildlife, passive recreation and
preservation of the rural view shed. TDRs have been useless in Milton so far because there's no
demand and they're voluntary. We need to acknowledge the problem with current AG-1 zoning, lack
of better land use initiatives and start educating leaders and landowners on other options.
Carol Hassell of GA Piedmont Land Trust/ Suwanee City Council person has been a knowledgeable
resource helping Laura. She is willing to come to talk to us on January 12th at 2 PM. City Council of
Suwanee had developed open space initiatives and raised $17M with half the land area and a smaller
population. Milton's Planning Dept. is just now drafting guidelines for subdivision buffers; "what is
the view shed going to be from the street to the house?" Laura said it would be perfectly legal for the
City to call a 120-day moratorium on rezoning requests in order to produce a good thoughtful plan.
We all need to get involved in January's meetings if anything meaningful is going to happen. A
Community Zoning Information meeting is the same night as the MGG meeting so we should change
our schedule to accommodate those who want to attend both.
Teresa talked about an online petition they had setup in response to a requested zoning change on
Hopewell. There were 600 people who signed against the change and 1 for it. Those opposed had a
very strong case but it fell on deaf ears. The feeling was that City Council walked into the meeting
with their minds made up. So petitions don't always work.
Meeting adjourned at 8:10 pm
ATTEST, L~~
Jack Lindon, Co-chair ;;;;---Francia Lindon, Secretary
Milton Graws Green Committee Meeting Minutes December 11, 2013 [APPROVED] 2