11/17/2003 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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11-17-03 Regular Council Minutes Page 12 ROUGH DRAFT -NOT REVIEWED OR APPROVED BY COUNCIL Mr. Marquardt asked, so it is going to be one proposal or a set of alternatives? For what we receive here? Mayor Rinker asked for Whitehaven? Mr. Marquardt said in a couple of your statements you mentioned alternatives. Are we going to get a proposal or are we going to get multiple proposals with alternatives? Mayor Rinker said no, I think we're going to get a proposal and then it is up to us to discuss what it is we think we want to do, what direction we want to head into, does it include enough, does it include too much. Again, part of the gambit here is that I think we have an opportunity by settling with Whitehaven-if we play the cards right that some of the monies that we would get via eminent domain settlement and O.D.O.T. is very, very "cherry" with the dollars. But the idea would be that as part of negotiation of the component of the settlement would entail some of that landscape. Mr. Marquardt said does this include some pursuit of an alternative that if we said we don't like this or we don't like that? Mayor Rinker said no; right now this is a very thumbnail sketch. The way the proposal is that it gives us a sense of what potential landscaping we could have in that area and guidelines, benchmarking, ballparking what it would take to do something that he depicts for us. I think from that point we will have a better idea and we will be able to visualize at least his representation, it's going to be his perspective and I think it's up to us whether it's something we like or if it's just that we will have to redo it. If we have to revise it, then yes, it's going back and coming up with a different proposal and it may not be with this person; it may be with someone else. We've got to start somewhere. The problem we've had a number of times when I've talked with Tom Evans, for example, I think Tom is capable up to a point. But there is a point beyond which, to be frank, he doesn't have that touch. I think it's harder from a landscape design standpoint to envision and for us to be able to say what exactly we want. I think we've got to start and see if we are in the right area and then try to focus even further. A certain amount of this is going to be getting the focus. I think it's going to evolve a little bit. But it's better to start at a site such as this which I think is large enough, it is going to have a traumatic potential impact, you have Wiley Park on one side, you've got all that stretch of Whitehaven, the opportunity to take advantage of what already is a pretty seedy area coming from Wanda's all the way up to the creek behind your house at the north end of the cemetery. So I would like to think that is going to be sort of a litmus test. It is going to the beginning. It is going to be the test, a study that we can use to get an additional understanding of the components that you put in your landscape. I just think that for the kind of landscaping that we are probably going to want in the long run, we have to think among a more complex, a more sophisticated line. And I think the other thing that we should be asking ourselves is what can we put in now, what is the sustainability of this and what is going to be management, cost management, and what are the materials. One thing I know just from walking around with Bill Ferinbach, you can be in one area and he will say this is the kind of vegetation you want because the soils and the drainage are appropriate for that particular species, something that is indigenous. Then you go in another area and you may think something else. I think the focus is more on indigenous plant material because it is going to be more successful. The odds favor indigenous plants. Not trying to get a lot of