The first summer concert at Mitchell Blvd. Park is tonight. It features the King Comets, “Milwaukee’s four-piece rocking jump swing band with attitude!”
The fun in at the park, conveniently located at N. 51st St. and W. Bluemound Rd., will be from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
The concert is sponsored by the Milwaukee County Parks Department.
Sustainable Story Hill (disclosure: I’m on the board), along with the City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County Parks Department, the Park People of Milwaukee County, the Bluemound Road Business Advancement Association and the Story Hill Neighborhood Associatiom, is sponsoring a weed-out in Mitchell Blvd. Park from 9 a.m. to noon this Saturday, May 9.
Yup, it’s time once again to do battle with the evil garlic mustard.
Evil garlic mustard as juvenile delinquents in Mitchell Blvd. Park
As the National Park Service puts it:
“Garlic mustard poses a severe threat to native plants and animals…Many native widlflowers that complete their life cycles in the springtime occur in the same habitat as garlic mustard. Once introduced to an area, garlic mustard outcompetes native plants by aggressively monopolizing light, moisture, nutrients, soil and space. Wildlife species that depend on these early plants for their foliage, pollen, nectar, fruits, seeds and roots, are deprived of these essential food sources when garlic mustard replaces them. Humans are also deprived of the vibrant display of beautiful spring wildflowers.”
Mitchell Blvd. Park is at 51st and Bluemound.
We will have snacks for volunteers, as well as prizes. The Park People has donated discount coupons to parks attractions and will supply gloves and bags, and the Bluemound Road Business Advancement Association is kicking in gift certificates to the restaurants and bars along Bluemound Rd. Sustainable Story Hill is supplying some of those gift certificates as well, and will provide more child-oriented incentives, too.
The City of Milwaukee is matching a $500 Sustainable Story Hill gift with a $500 Healthy Neighborhoods grant. This will allow us in another month or so to buy new plants for the park and to engage kids from the Hawley Rd. Environmental School summer enrichment program in learning about and planting them.
All are welcome to help on Saturday — we’d appreciate the assistance!
Same garlic mustard, 1 1/2 weeks older
– becoming a more potent threat.
The Parks Department is proposing to replace 48 full-time equivalent parks maintenance worker positions with seasonal labor. The Parks Department argues in its budget proposal that the seasonals will provide 115,000 hours of work, while the maintenance staff would provide 89,000 hours of work.
Besides the ethical issue of stripping fringe benefits from people and the practical issue of a critical staffing shortage for much of the year if full-time staff is replaced with seasonals, there is the all-important issue of competence.
Seasonal staff knows much less than seasoned, full-time staff members do. Our little Story Hill neighborhood park gets maintained (or not) by a goodly number of seasonals. It’s not pretty watching these folks cut down the flowers they mistake for weeds. And whether it is through sheer incompetence, or just a matter of being very rushed because there isn’t enough staff to do everything that needs to be done, it’s becoming painfully clear that some parks workers are doing damage to the young trees that have had such a hard time staying alive in that park. (Click on the pictures for larger images.)
Who is the mad tree mangler? It’s the parks worker, in the park, with the huge, improperly operated lawn mower.
The Parks Department need more people who know what they are doing, not more people just rushing to get it done.
The band Honkytonkitis will play at a FREE Mitchell Blvd. Park concert at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 14. Mitchell Blvd. Park is on W. Bluemound Rd., near 51st ST.
A video of the band is below; there are more youtube videos at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dojjZxIZ7pc
The band’s myspace page is at http://www.myspace.com/honkytonkitis